Hunting Party

by Elizabeth Moon

  “So?” The flat, gray light, all that was left of sunset, caught in his eyes. Heris opened her mouth to say how impossible it was, then realized it wasn’t. Not any more.

  “So . . .” She still could not say it. She moved, instead, into the arc of his arm.

  “You should have trusted me,” he said again, but without heat. “It hurt, when you went away like that, without a word.”

  “Yes. It did.” She leaned against him; his arm felt good against her back. Better than good. “It hurt a lot. But I’m here now, and I’m trusting you.”

  “About time.” Then his grip tightened. She had never allowed herself to imagine—really imagine—what embracing him would be like. It would have been too difficult to go through everyday shipboard life, if she had. Now she was glad of her former discipline. She had no nagging comparisons to make, just the experience to savor.

  * * *

  “I fixed it,” Cecelia said. She sounded smug. Bright morning light gilded her hair, and she looked crisp and refreshed by ample sleep and good food.

  “Fixed what?” Heris had bathed and changed, when she and Petris got back to the Lodge shortly before dawn, but inside her clothes her body felt lush and relaxed. She wondered if Cecelia could tell. She had her own list of things for Cecelia to fix, and hoped her employer hadn’t used up her energy on something minor.

  “Your resignation,” Cecelia said, as if continuing a conversation in progress. “I hate to lose you, but I know how you’ve grieved. And the evidence is clear. So I just argued my way along, and they’ve agreed to take you back. Quite willingly, in fact. Everyone knows that George’s father will sue Lepescu and his cronies, and the Regular Space Service is anxious to dissociate themselves from any of that.”

  Heris stared, her brain racing. Cecelia had fixed that, in a few hours, from an obscure planet with no real-time communications beyond its own system? Then: Go back? Retrieve her command, her career? She felt her heart begin to hammer, the racing pulse pounding her body, making her hands shake. Exultation flooded her; she could see the look on her father’s face, on her mother’s. . . . She could imagine how her younger brother, still in the Academy, would react. Yes, she thought. Yes.

  “How?” got out of her mouth first.

  Cecelia beamed, clearly glad to be asked. “I’d been afraid it would take weeks, but you remember Bunny said a Crown Minister was here hunting? Bunny asked me to speak to him about Mr. Smith, and of course I told him about you. I pointed out that going through the usual channels would require your complete explanation, and you, as an honest person, could hardly fail to mention Mr. Smith when you justified the killing of Admiral Lepescu.”

  “Mr. Smith,” said Heris blankly. She had almost forgotten that mysterious young man. Then her brain snapped back into focus. “A . . . royal, you said, about the boots.” Which, given his age, meant . . . “Not the one Ronnie was in trouble for—”

  Cecelia grinned. “Quite so. The Minister saw my point, of course, and assured me that no statement from you would be required, under the circumstances. Enough evidence of Lepescu’s unfitness existed to overturn the judgment without recalling whatever court or board it was. You can trust him,” Cecelia went on, as if anticipating Heris’s doubts. “With Mr. Smith’s reputation at stake, he would do more than this. Luckily for us, the Minister requires a special communications link—I don’t know what you call it, but it’s almost instantaneous through some kind of relay back to Court. He was able to contact the necessary officials, and—”

  “And the surviving crew?” Heris asked. She felt already like a Spacefleet officer, the purple uniform forgotten along with the past several hours.

  Cecelia nodded briskly. “Oh, yes. All rehabilitated, as they called it. I knew you would want that, so I insisted. Wherever they are, if some of them were not on that abominable island.” When Heris didn’t answer at once she went on. “I do understand, you know. We are both aristocrats, even if we aren’t in the same aristocracy.”

  “I—thank you, milady.” Only that formality would serve, could possibly express her gratitude.

  “I will hate losing you,” Cecelia said, more softly. “Not only as a captain, and student of equitation, but as a friend. I like you, and I don’t like many people.” Then her voice firmed again. “Will it be difficult, for you and Petris?”

  Heris stared at her, disoriented by the double-change of direction. “Petris . . . ? Oh.” So Cecelia had noticed. At once the exaltation left her, as quickly as if someone had pulled a plug in her heart. She could go back, and he could go back, and they might serve on the same ship . . . but they could not go back to the past hours. Not ever. She tried to imagine him as a civilian . . . husband . . . but that would destroy him. “Oh, my,” she said, hardly hearing her own voice. “I didn’t think.”

  “Most people don’t, in your position,” Cecelia said. “That’s why I mentioned it, before you go and tell the others. You can go back . . . but you don’t have to.”

  Didn’t she? She could hardly breathe for a moment, in the alternation of possibility and impossibility. She could not give up her chance in the R.S.S. again—she could not give up Petris. She could not ask him to give up his career, as miraculously restored as her own, but if either of them . . .

  “Damn,” she said. It was all she could say. She sat down suddenly, and Cecelia made a show of turning away, preparing something to drink, offering her a steaming cup of some brown liquid. . . . She should know what it was, but she couldn’t recognize anything.

  “As a classical maiden aunt,” Cecelia said, not looking at her, “I am qualified to give useless advice, which you are free to ignore. You love that man, and he loves you; that was obvious when I first saw you two together. You can’t be together in the Service, and neither of you will be happy as a civilian partnering the one who stays in. If you do go back, Heris, be sure you’re never on the same ship . . . You know that.”

  “I know that.” Her lips felt numb—was it the drink? Was she going to faint? She never fainted; it was ridiculous. But her skin remembered his touch; her ears remembered his voice, the sound of his breathing, the beat of his heart when her head lay on his chest. She wanted that, wanted it more than anything . . . except her commission, her ship, her crew . . . which she couldn’t have, if it meant him.

  “I still need a captain,” Cecelia went on. “I need new crew members—you told me that. If you choose not to reenter the Service, you would have a place with me.”

  And Petris would become just a crew member on a rich old lady’s yacht—she could not see him being happy with that. He had taken as much pride in his career as she in hers. He would not settle for less.

  “You ought to ask him,” Cecelia said, as if reading her face. “You didn’t ask before, and look where that got you. Give him the chance, now, while you have the chance . . . while you are, for the moment, free.”

  It was true. She had not thought she had a chance, before; she had taken the commander’s way, the solitary way, and had not asked anyone, and because of that Lepescu had been able to ruin her and her crew. This time she could ask him. She stood up, nodding to Cecelia without saying a word—she could not have said a word—and went to find Petris.

  He was staring out to sea, staring at the island on which he had been hunted. “Looks pretty from here,” he said as she came up.

  “Yes,” she said. Her throat closed on more. He looked at her closely.

  “What’s happened?”

  She couldn’t answer; tears flooded her eyes. He reached for her, hugged her close, his lips in her hair. “Heris . . . Heris . . .” he breathed. She gulped, tried to calm herself, and finally choked the lump down.

  “Lady Cecelia has intervened,” she said finally. Her voice came out thin, unlike herself. “With the Service.”

  “You’re getting your commission? Good.” His arms loosened, and she heard the effort in his voice. “I hoped you would—they ought to have that much sense.”

  “They’r
e reversing all the disciplinary actions,” she said. “All the survivors will be reinstated, with all records cleared. It would probably have happened anyway, but Lady Cecelia—”

  “Has connections. I’m glad she cares that much—you must have impressed her.” His arms dropped from her shoulders, and he stretched. “Well. Back into harness for us, eh? And—”

  Heris stared at the sand. “We don’t have to go.”

  “Eh? Of course you’ll go—you’re not meant to be a yacht captain.”

  “She said I should give you the chance. The chance I didn’t give you before.”

  He stared at her; when she looked up, his gaze was fixed on her face. “What do you mean? Are you saying—?”

  “Petris—” She used his first name deliberately. “Petris, there is a choice. If we go back, you know—you know it would be best if we never serve together. But if we don’t go back—”

  “You love it,” he said. “Your family—the Serrano Admiralty—” She had heard that phrase before; it was inevitable for a family that had produced admiral after admiral through many generations. She had never considered how they might look from underneath—from out to sea, like a great cliff wall made of stars and flags, with no safe beach to land on. She felt herself a rock loosed from that cliff, now rolling in the surf, being broken into fragments the cliff would no longer recognize.

  “My family,” she said slowly, “have already endured the worst: a Serrano resigning under a cloud rather than face a court. They will abide my decision, one way or the other . . . or they will not, and I will abide their decision. I don’t know what they’ll do, but I don’t fear it. Your family?”

  “Mine.” He stared past her now, at the island again. “Farmers and small merchants on Vonnegar’s World; I was the outlaw there, too. Ran off to join the military, like kids have always done. . . . Wouldn’t walk behind a plow or pull onions if I could see stars. They wouldn’t mind—they gave me up for lost when I told my uncle Eth what I thought of farming. I couldn’t go back and ask for land, that’s sure. But away—I can do what I want.” A quick glance to her, then away again. “I liked my work.”

  “I know that. You can have it back; that’s what Cecelia told me. She’s got you all cleared.”

  “Ah . . . yes, but it can’t be the same. Not just us, the whole thing. Some of ’em died, through this; I can’t forget that.”

  Heris felt cold. They had died because of her, because she had left; she already knew that. If he couldn’t forget, he probably couldn’t forgive either, and last night had been . . . last night.

  But he was looking at her again, this time steadily, eye to eye. “But what did you offer as an alternative? You said if we don’t go back—”

  “We could both work for Lady Cecelia. On her yacht.” Of course he had already said she wasn’t meant to be a yacht captain, and of course he wasn’t meant to be on a yacht’s crew either, but she had to ask.

  “You must like her a lot,” he said, “even to consider it. What do you . . . do?”

  She could tell he was avoiding the familiar terms, like “mission.” “Lady Cecelia travels,” she said. “From the existing records of past voyages, she travels widely, and from the events of the first weeks I worked for her, her yacht has harbored smugglers . . . without her knowledge, of course.”

  “You’re sure of that.” It was not quite a question.

  “Yes. She’s stubborn, opinionated, and all the other things you expect from a rich old lady, but she’s honest.”

  “Like you,” Petris said, without a smile. “No wonder you get along. So—you’ll continue?”

  “It depends.” Even as she said it, she wondered if it did depend on his decision. Oddly, she now thought of going back to the Service as a kind of defeat. Someone else had fought her battle for her; someone else had bought her commission back. She hated that. Bad as Lepescu was, some would always mistrust her loyalty; she would never be the unflawed Serrano in clear line of succession to an admiralty. Even her family would have reservations. She did not realize she had said some of this aloud until the end. . . . “—and I would rather take an honest salary from her than a commission restored with her influence. So . . . it’s either stay with her, or look for something else, and I have no reason now to leave her. At least not until I’ve straightened out that crew.”

  Petris chuckled. “I know that tone. All right, then—I think all of us will have the same problems. Those who don’t think so are welcome to go back, but as for me . . . no. D’you think your Lady Cecelia will hire more than one of us, and will we have to bow as she sweeps by?”

  “Are you saying yes?”

  “No . . . I’m saying yes, ma’am . . . since I believe that’s the correct civilian usage.” The end of that was smothered in a hug, out of which he said finally, “I gather the restriction on fraternization doesn’t apply either?”

  “No,” Heris said firmly. “Not off the bridge.” Her thoughts raced, crashing into each other like fox hunters of two hunts in collision. What came out, at last, was the professional ship’s officer. “I’ve got to check in with Sirkin—the standing watch—and let her know there’s a sealed weapons cargo coming up to the ship. It’s a good thing we had a complete refitting at Takomin Roads. Did you know the sulfur cycle was off by two sigs?”

  He released her with a roar of laughter. “Dear heart—Heris—Captain—your owner had better pull up her bloomers or whatever they call them on aristocrats. Weapons? Does she know?”

  “Of course she knows; I used her credit line.” That had been—how long ago? And would Cecelia still authorize those weapons? Better get them aboard before she changed her mind. Somewhere the smugglers that had put that contraband aboard had to be wondering what had happened to it. The rich were no safer, if they didn’t bother to defend themselves, than someone on the docks. In the depths of her mind, the final door to her past shut, and she faced the future as a civilian without the old pain. It would return, she knew, as old pains always did, in the dark hours everyone faced . . . but the worst was over.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Discretion must be served. Two by two, the former prey, Heris’s former crew members, left for the mainland hospital, where (Heris was assured) Bunny’s excellent medical staff would check them out, and where they would live in privacy and luxury until they decided what they wanted to do. She had spoken to each one, but they were too dazed to talk much. She understood; she felt that way herself. Too many emotions, too much turmoil. Finally, with the lodge empty, it was her turn. She and Cecelia and Petris had a luxurious flitter, with Michaels himself at the controls, for the flight back. No more clouds. . . . The wrinkled ocean lay blank and blue under a clear sky until they reached the mainland. Heris stared at it until she felt the pattern was imprinted forever on her retinas. She wondered why Petris was traveling with them, then wondered why she wondered. And why couldn’t they talk? After that first night, she had not expected the awkwardness of the days and nights since, when they could cling together . . . but not complete a sentence.

  The flitter delivered them to the wide courtyard before the Main House rather than the flitter hangars. Here it was cold, with low clouds racing across the sky before a sharp wind. Heris sealed the jacket she had not needed on the island and shivered. She was glad she wouldn’t have to walk up the hill from the other end of the village. Inside, Petris looked up the great staircase that first time with an odd expression that mingled delight and apprehension.

  “This is exactly how I thought a great lord’s house would look, and I don’t trust it,” he said finally. “It’s too perfectly what it is, like an entertainment-cube version of a fleet cruiser.”

  “It’s intimidating,” said Heris. Now she could admit that. “I couldn’t believe anyone actually lived in it. But they do.” She wondered where the servants were; usually two or three at least were in the hall at this hour. But the one who had opened the door had vanished, leaving it to Cecelia to lead the way upstairs.

&n
bsp; Petris, she found, had the room next to hers, where she remembered someone else having been, but she did not raise her brows to Cecelia, who already looked entirely too smug. How had Cecelia known that?

  “Don’t forget,” Cecelia said, “that Petris will need to check in with Neil. I’ll let him know you’re coming, shall I?”

  Heris looked at Petris. He had not had the benefit of Cecelia’s riding simulator. But he grinned. “I can hardly wait to see Heris on horseback, chasing a fox,” he said. “Although I’m not looking forward to those early starts.”

  “Nonetheless. And of course I needn’t warn either of you about discussing all this—”

  “Not at all.” Petris raised and lowered his brows at her, a clear dismissal.

  “Dinner at eight,” Cecelia said. She strode off down the corridor.

  “Your employer—” Petris began.

  “Our employer,” Heris said. “Unless you change your mind.”

  “I never change my mind,” Petris said. “Come in here—” He led her into his room, a twin of her own. “I don’t believe this, either!” He was staring at the furniture, the gleaming expanse of the bathroom and its glittering toys. He walked around the room, opening and closing the doors of wardrobes, looking into drawers in tall polished chests. Heris could see the racks of clothes, and wondered. “I’m sure these all fit—Lady Cecelia would have seen to it. I always knew there was a good reason to leave the onion farm.” Then he looked into the bathroom again. “Plenty of room, and warm towels. Shall I scrub your back, my love, or will you scrub mine?”

  * * *

  Ronnie was sure they were all making too much fuss about his condition. George had been shot; George might die. He still had that nagging headache, and a collection of bruises and scrapes, but after a night in the hospital he was ready to go back to hunting. Or at least, back to living in the far more comfortable quarters he had enjoyed before.

  “Time enough,” the nurse said. “You’re not leaving until the doctor agrees, and your scans aren’t normal yet.” It wasn’t the same nurse as before, he thought, and wondered how often their shifts changed.