Hunting Party

by Elizabeth Moon

  * * *

  All the hunters but two were safely dead: no threat. He touched the canisters in his pocket lightly, careful not to depress the switches. One only still menaced him, and that the most difficult to kill without reprisal. But it had to be done, unless the man could somehow be made to kill the others; after that, blackmail would be easy. It would be easiest to kill, and not attempt that—but he had always found the most difficult hunts the greatest pleasure. Worth a try, anyway, and if he had to kill even that one, he would have no witnesses.

  That broadcast from Bandon had startled him—shaken him, he would even admit to himself. He wondered if the guards he’d left with the boy had turned against him. One of them could be difficult. At least his name had not been mentioned. Perhaps the prisoner didn’t know about him. Soon no one would.

  * * *

  The prince led the way back to the cave entrance. They hadn’t been able to talk him out of it, although they had tried. The argument had gone on longer than he’d expected. The girls seemed to think their opinion should weigh equally with his own. Bubbles had even threatened to shoot him, but when he pointed out that shooting a member of the royal family could be a serious offense, she had looked at Raffa and shrugged. Of course she would not shoot him, now that she knew who he was, any more than he would have shot her. One did not prey on one’s own class. And he was the right one to decide what to do; he was the prince, after all. He felt only slightly nervous with the girls behind him carrying their weapons; he had insisted that they not carry loaded weapons, in case they stumbled. He didn’t want them to get in trouble for shooting him by accident, either. Once they were outside, in the light, they could reload—though he hoped to dissuade them. If Ronnie hadn’t been so shaken (he felt sure that he, in a similar situation, would not have been a wet, shivering mess) he’d have had Ronnie carry one of the rifles, but as it was the girls were actually less dangerous than Ronnie. As for any danger—he was sure there wouldn’t be any real danger, not once he told Lepescu who they were—he could protect them himself.

  Light shimmered and bounced from the surface of the pool; already it had gone down a few centimeters. He squinted against what now seemed like glare, and never saw the figure that waited until it stepped out of the shadows to confront him. He stared. Who could that be, in a protective suit almost like a spacesuit, with a hunting rifle in the crook of the right arm, and something clasped in the gloved left hand?

  “Ah . . .” a voice said. The prince shivered. Lepescu? “You found them. Congratulations. Very good . . . now shoot them.”

  “What?” He had misunderstood. He could not have heard the words his memory now replayed to him. Behind him, he heard the girls’ indrawn breath, Ronnie’s muttered curse.

  “Shoot them, I said.” When he hesitated, Lepescu gestured with his rifle. “Either you shoot them,” Lepescu said, his voice only slightly distorted by his suit’s filters, “or I will have to kill you, too. Surely you see the necessity.”

  “But they’re ours,” the prince said. His voice trembled slightly. “Can’t you see? This is Lord Thornbuckle’s daughter—you can’t kill her. And Raffaele, and Ronnie Carruthers—”

  “I thought you hated Ronnie,” Lepescu said. “Isn’t he the one who dishonored you with your—”

  “I do, of course, but—but I can’t kill them. Not just . . . just shoot them.” Silently, he begged someone to shoot Lepescu . . . but he had insisted on unloaded weapons. The girls could not reload now. If they tried, Lepescu would shoot . . . and he was in the middle. Sweat rolled down his sides, sudden and cold.

  “We should never have let him talk us into this—” Bubbles muttered. “We knew better. He can see me—can you—?”

  “Too late smart, too soon dead,” Raffa said. Neither of them had sounded as frightened as the prince felt. He wished he could see them. He wished he could see any help at all.

  Lepescu’s hand turned, showing a slick gray canister. “It would be a more merciful death,” he said. “If you care about that.” The prince realized that fear had layers he had never imagined. . . . That had to be a gas canister. Riot gas? Nerve gas? He struggled to stay calm; he had to convince Lepescu.

  “But they’re my friends,” the prince said. “You can’t expect me to do it; there has to be another way.” This could not be happening; it must be some kind of joke or test. He had to find the right thing to say. “We could agree to keep your secret.”

  “I doubt it,” Lepescu said. Even through the gleaming curve of his face mask, his eyes looked distinctly from face to face. “Lord Thornbuckle’s daughter is not likely to keep such secrets from her father.”

  “You’re right about that,” came Bubbles’s voice from behind the prince. “Not that killing us will do any good in the long run. He’ll find out, and then he’ll find you.”

  Lepescu lifted the canister in a mock salute. “To your courage, my dear. You may stop that shuffling you’re doing; you cannot screen your friend as she reloads; I can shoot the prince, and you, before you shoot me . . . and I’m wearing protection.” With a change in tone, he addressed the prince again. “As for your friend Ronnie, a young man who cannot keep from boasting about his amatorial conquests is hardly likely to hold his tongue about this, the next time he gets drunk. The dark girl—well, it’s a pity, but many have died already, and so it goes. You choose: kill them, and I know you will not talk. It would not be in your own best interests. I have a flitter; we can escape somehow. I always do. But if you cannot kill them . . . then I’m afraid you, too, must die.” After a moment he went on. “Go ahead—it won’t be easier for waiting.”

  * * *

  Heris followed the bootprints up the narrowing cleft. Suddenly one pair stopped; whoever it was had shifted around, trampling his own prints, and then completely new prints—larger, with a different tread—set off again. She frowned at them, trying to remember where she’d seen that tread pattern, then shrugged. It really didn’t matter.

  “He put on overshoes,” Cecelia murmured, from behind her. “Why?” Heris waved a hand to hush her. They had to be close; she could tell the slope was closing in ahead of them.

  If she hadn’t been following the tracks, she might have missed the angle to the cave entrance . . . but the tracks led directly to it. A mat of wilting ferns and moss, a gaping hole into darkness, and a voice—no, more than one voice. She was sure one of the voices was Lepescu’s.

  She pulled Cecelia close and murmured into her ear. “He’s there—ahead of us—and I think it’s the youngsters. Stay back; be ready to shoot if I go down. And watch for anyone behind us.” Cecelia nodded, eyes hard again. Heris crept nearer to the cave entrance, fighting down a surge of excitement that threatened to send her charging straight at Lepescu, no matter what.

  Now she could hear his voice clearly. She knelt in the mud, and peered around the edge of the hole into the dimness. Nothing but water, a pool almost lapping the entrance. She would have to go in. Voices came from her left, around an angle of stone. She gave Cecelia a last look and ducked inside.

  Her eyes adjusted quickly; more light came in the entrance than she’d have thought from outside. She flattened herself against the damp stone to her left and edged around it. There. A big, bulky shape in a protective suit, its back to her, and four faces beyond, pale against the black behind them. The suit had to be Lepescu. Could she get him without hitting them? Was he wearing armor under the suit? And why the suit, in this weather? What contamination did he fear? Then she saw the clenched left hand, and caught her breath. If that was a gas grenade—

  She edged nearer, hoping none of the youngsters would notice her, although she knew she must be a very visible dark blot against the bright entrance. Lepescu was still talking. . . .

  “Go ahead,” he was saying. “It won’t be easier for waiting.”

  What did he mean? And why four people? Heris stared, just able to make out Ronnie, Bubbles, and Raffa . . . but who was that fourth young man with the extravagant moustach
e and a gleam of earring? A friend of Lepescu’s? She bit her lip; she could not possibly get both of them before someone else got shot. She wondered if Lepescu was wearing armor under the suit; she reset her weapon for the alternate clip of ammunition. This should penetrate personal armor. More danger to bystanders, but not as much danger as a live Lepescu.

  But as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw the mysterious young man shift his weight, his expression changing from bewilderment and disbelief to mulish stubborness. “I won’t do it,” he said, and dropped his weapon. “And I think you’ll find it impossible to explain my disappearance.” Heris aligned her sights, and shifted a little to clear Ronnie. It was at best a tricky shot. . . . The ricochets would be wicked. . . .

  “Not really,” Lepescu said. “An inconvenience, yes—but not nearly an impossibility. It’s a pity, and I’m sorry—this is not a sporting proposition, but—” He rocked forward, blood spraying out the front of his protective suit. Echoes of the shot and the impacts on him and on stone roared through the cave, deafening, confusing. Lepescu dropped his rifle; the canister dropped from his left hand, bounced, and rolled along the stone toward the water. Heris flinched; she was too far away to do anything more. If its seal broke, they were all dead. Ronnie and the prince leaped together and landed on it like two eager players trying to recover a fumbled ball.

  “Run!” Ronnie yelled to Raffa and Bubbles; Heris knew it would have been useless. The girls didn’t run; after their first startled jerk, both of them seemed to be calmly reloading their weapons. Heris stared at them. They must have known they were in danger; why hadn’t they had a round in the chamber? Then the echoes died away . . . and the canister had not fired. . . . It lay under the young men, inert and deadly only in anticipation. They were alive; they were going to stay alive.

  Heris rose from her careful crouch, and walked light-footed across the cave to Lepescu’s body . . . not body yet, for he was alive though mortally wounded. She looked down at him warily. He might have other weapons.

  “You . . .” he began, but pain caught at him, and he could not go on. His breathing sounded loud, now that the echoes of the shot had faded; she could hear the ominous snoring rattle that meant his lungs were filling.

  She could not think what to say. All the clever retorts she remembered from history crumbled and blew away in the wind of her anger. “Yes,” she said, and it came to her that she did not need to say much, under the circumstances. “Commander Serrano, with all due respect.”

  Even dying, even in pain, he had a courage she could not deny. Scorn dragged his face into a mask of contempt. “Wait—” he breathed. “Haven’t won—yet—”

  She wanted to throttle him, finish it with her fingers on his throat, but she could not do that. Instead, she removed, with such control that she felt herself almost a machine, his other weapons; she paid no attention to the bubbling breaths that faded to nothing.

  * * *

  Cecelia could not have stayed out of the cave after the gunshot if someone had chained her to the rock. She scrambled into the darkness, stumbled into the pool and back out, and came up, panting, against the stone buttress that had blocked Heris’s vision. Now, shocked and fascinated by her captain’s behavior, she had let her attention wander from the cave entrance. When she thought to look around, there was another stranger, this one dirty and ragged, as well as armed. Another stood behind him. He glared at her, his weapon aimed where it could menace all of them.

  “What . . . are you doing here?” The pause, Cecelia was sure, held a dozen suppressed curses. The man looked dangerous and probably was. He must be one of those the hunters had chased.

  “I’m Lady Cecelia—” she began. Then she realized he wasn’t even looking at her. He was looking past her, at Heris.

  “Petris . . .” Heris said. Her voice wavered.

  “Captain Serrano. Heris.” His didn’t, nor did the muzzle of his weapon.

  “You’re with Admiral Lepescu?” Quiet though it was, that question held a vast pain; it got through to Cecelia, who stared at her captain.

  “You know this man? Who is he?”

  Heris shook her head; for that instant she could not speak. Petris with Lepescu? Had he always been Lepescu’s agent? Was this what Lepescu’s dying words had meant?

  Cecelia started to reach for her ID packet, but the shift of his weapon stopped her hand. Not her tongue. “I’m Lady Cecelia de Marktos, as I said; we came looking for my nephew Ronnie and his friends. With the militia.”

  “Ah.” Petris still looked past her, to Heris. “The rescue arrives.” He glanced briefly at Cecelia. “Tell me what you know about Admiral Lepescu.”

  Cecelia thought of objecting, but the weapon suggested caution, even cooperation. She had not realized before just how large the bore could look, seen from this angle. “I don’t know him,” she said.

  “She didn’t tell you?” he asked, jerking his chin at Heris.

  Cecelia’s patience snapped. “Whatever she told me is no concern of yours, young man.” He laughed, a short ugly sound with little humor in it.

  “You’re not the best judge of that,” he said. Then, to Heris, “And you think I’m working with the admiral?”

  Cecelia glanced at her, and recognized Heris’s expression for what it was, sorrow and despair, a great wound. Even when telling the story of her resignation, she had never looked this shattered.

  “I know he organized the hunt, here,” Heris said. Her voice had no vigor, as if the words lay dead in her mouth. “And why else would military personnel be here with him—?”

  “With him.” Petris’s voice was no louder, but the passion in it would have fuelled a scream. “You—of all people—can believe I might work with that—that—and does it look like I’m with him? Is this a uniform?” His voice had risen then, chopped off by a gesture from the other man. “No,” he said savagely. “I am not with Lepescu.” He turned away, still pale around the mouth. Cecelia stopped him.

  “Excuse me, young man, but although you and my captain may be perfectly clear about what is going on, I am not. Heris has told me the admiral is an old enemy she would rather not meet save over a weapon. When my nephew and his friends disappeared, and we found that Lepescu was expected, she became convinced he had something to do with it.”

  Finally, the man seemed to focus, really focus, on Cecelia. “Your captain? You’re her . . . uh . . . employer?”

  “That’s right. Captain Serrano signed a contract with me only two days after resigning her commission.”

  “And then?” He matched her gaze, as if he could pull answers out through her eyes.

  “And then she took command of my yacht, and we came here. Now—”

  “Directly?”

  Cecelia drew herself up, annoyed. She had questions of her own, and he kept interrupting her. “No,” she said, not caring if he realized she was miffed. “No—although I don’t quite see what business it is of yours. My former captain had been negligent, if not actually criminal, in maintaining systems, and we had to detour for emergency repair of the environmental system.”

  The man turned to Heris, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You didn’t check things yourself before you started?”

  “The inspection sheets had been faked,” Heris said dully. “Lady Cecelia’s schedule had already been set back; she wanted a quick departure, and I—” Her voice trailed off.

  “You couldn’t wait to escape,” Petris said. Sarcasm edged his voice. “You took your bribe and ran off—”

  “Bribe!” This time it was Heris’s voice that got the silencing gesture from the other man. At least, Cecelia thought, the insult had broken through and forced a live reaction. “Is that what he told you?”

  “He told us nothing, except the list of charges.”

  “Charges? But I resigned so they wouldn’t prosecute any of you—”

  “Wait.” Petris lowered his weapon suddenly. “Then it’s true what this youngster heard?” He nodded at Ronnie. “Will
you tell me you resigned? To save us, without any . . . any reward?”

  “Yes. That was the choice. Resignation, and no trouble for you, or courts for all. It wasn’t fair to put all of you through that; it had been my decision. What do you mean about charges?”

  “That . . . motherless son,” Petris said. Cecelia remembered hearing once that on some planets that was still an insult, although most people were now decanted and not birthed. “He got you out of the way, brought us to trial, and then had us here, to play his little games with.”

  Heris stared, the whites of her eyes showing clearly in the dimness. “You—it was you he was hunting?” Petris nodded. Heris shook her head, like someone who has just taken a hard blow, and turned to Lepescu’s body with such violence that Cecelia was afraid she would attack it bare-handed. “Damn you! I killed you too soon! If only I could—” She was shaking now, starting to cry. Cecelia gaped, she had never imagined Heris losing control.

  Petris strode past Cecelia and grabbed Heris by the shoulders, dragging her away. “He’s dead—don’t . . . you can’t change it now—”

  “I’d have—have done something—it’s not fair—!” She turned a tear-streaked face back to Cecelia. “He took my ship—my career—and then to kill them this way—” And then to Petris, suddenly dry-eyed again, a sorrow too deep for tears. “I’m sorry, Petris. I didn’t—imagine this. I couldn’t. I believed they’d hold to the agreement.”

  “No,” he said soberly. “You couldn’t. I’m sorry I misunderstood what you’d done.”

  “How many—how many died?” Heris asked. Cecelia could hear the fragile control, the tremor in her voice.

  “Too many,” Petris said. “But it’s over now.”

  “It’s not over,” Heris said. “It will never be over.” But she stood straight, motionless, and Cecelia watched her usual control return, layer by layer.