The Devil and Deep Space (31 page)

“Thank you, Engineer. The First Officer and I have taken the liberty of asking your relief shift to come on early. I hope that you may all join us in Mess area next forward for bappir and sauced–flats. It isn’t much, but it comes with our sincere thanks.”

Nodding, Wheatfields turned back to the pit. “Thank you, Captain. Well done, all. Let’s just braid our loose ends, and let the next shift on, shall we?”

Mendez turned off the cross–transmit, and the Lieutenant shut down the transparency factor so that the observation deck no longer offered the view of the engineering bridge that they had recently enjoyed.

Ap Rhiannon drained a flask of bappir, staggering just a bit; the Intelligence Officer, behind her, steadied her unobtrusively, without seeming to have noticed anything. Ap Rhiannon wasn’t drunk; Rukota knew better than that. Ap Rhiannon was probably just exhausted. For all he knew she’d been sitting up shifts, fretting about her people, trying to convince herself that going to Taisheki was the right — or not merely the right, but the best and only — thing to do.

“I’ve got a favor to ask you, General Rukota.” There was no uncertainty in ap Rhiannon’s voice, however. The
Ragnarok
was on vector for Taisheki; there was no changing that now. And therefore no reason to waste any more energy on worrying the issue. Obviously. “We found a beautiful piece of armament at Silboomie Station, hiding out in a case of deck–wipes. Main battle cannon. Would you advise the Ship’s Engineer on installation, once he’s had a bit of recovery time?”

She’d taken the
Ragnarok
and left Pesadie without explicit clearance; she’d taken resupply — so that she could run without access to Fleet stores for a while — and she had taken the Recife vector for the Fleet Audit Appeals Authority at Taisheki Station. And she had convinced the Ship’s First Officer, and the Ship’s Intelligence Officer, and of course most importantly the Ship’s Engineer, to do as she said, and go.

It was a fearfully desperate thing to do, for a mere four lives. A crew that would consent to hazard careers and pensions for such a slight piece of principle — had no place in the Jurisdiction Fleet of Admiral Sandri Brecinn.

A crew that would agree to defy authority and jump the chain of command to appeal for the lives of four Security was either a working unit with clear common goals and an awesome sense of self–respect, or it was actually, honestly, two steps short of the kind of mutiny that even he would have to acknowledge. Perhaps the
Ragnarok
was both things, at once.

“Battle cannon, you say.” Contraband, clearly. Ap Rhiannon didn’t like black marketeers. “Of course. At your Excellency’s disposal entirely.” He didn’t like black marketeers, either.

She was looking up at him directly, with a curiously forlorn expression buried deep, deep, deep in her professionally unreadable black eyes. “Maybe we can talk again,” she suggested; there seemed to be something more that she wanted to say, but had thought better of. She was right to suppose that she had some explaining to do, but he could wait. “But for now you’ll have to excuse us, General.”

“Wanted in Mess area next forward. Of course.” He bowed in salute, carefully, rather more respectful of “Captain” ap Rhiannon than he had been inclined to feel before.

She in turn nodded, her own gesture somewhat less of an acknowledgment of courtesy offered a temporary position and more an acceptance of acknowledgment of rank. She wasn’t thinking about it, no; she seemed too tired to be thinking on so deep a level — or so trivial a one — as that. She was getting comfortable with “Captain.” Maybe she was earning it.

“Later, then. Security, return General Rukota to quarters — Wheatfields will want to know where he can find him. First Officer, Two, if you would please come with me.”

He would much rather have gone with the
Ragnarok
’s senior staff to Mess area next forward.

And beyond?

Chapter Eleven

The Procession of the Sirdar

And when the last piece of sauced–flat had been eaten to its crust, and the last half–a–flask of bappir had been swallowed, Jennet ap Rhiannon left the last of the mess areas she had been visiting since they’d made the Recife vector and returned to quarters. She was so tired that only the wake–keeping drugs she’d gotten from Medical were keeping her going, so tired that she nearly lost her way twice, so tired that she kept forgetting that the people behind her were her own Security escort — or the acting Captain’s Security escort, at any rate. She felt no sense of ownership or identification with them.

She felt very little.

When she got to her quarters it was a moment before she realized that they were her quarters, and not someone else’s, because there was a Security post outside the door, and the only time Security was posted outside an officer’s quarters was when it was the Captain’s quarters.

She was so tired that the door was coming open and she was already moving into the room before she realized that the Security post was 3.4, not l.–anything, and what that implied about who was within the room and what he was doing there.

And then quite suddenly she was wide awake. Security 3.4 was the First Officer’s. Ralph Mendez was sitting in the room, at the worktable, leaning his forearms against its edge and pushing an empty cup of what had probably been khombu from side to side between his hands.

Mendez was responsible for Security, as well as for Operations. If an officer offered an act of sedition or mutiny, it was Mendez’s job to take the officer into custody until such time as the question of guilt or innocence — error or intent — could be placed in the hands of a Ship’s Inquisitor for discovery and investigation at the Advanced Levels of the Question.

The door slid closed behind her, and they were alone. She could take him, from this distance; she wore knives, and she knew how to use them. But she could not take the First Officer, and the Security at the door, and the rest of the Security on board. And it was better not to jump to conclusions, no matter how obvious it all seemed.

“First Officer. A surprise. Have you been to bed at all, your Excellency?” She’d approached the Engineer first; there had been no other option. The Engineer was the person who was ultimately responsible for where the ship actually went, and how it actually got there. And she’d seen the Intelligence Officer next, because once she could feel confident that Wheatfields would at least listen to her, she had needed to be sure that no one was paying any particular attention to the
Ragnarok
’s movements.

By the time she’d got past the two of them, the
Ragnarok
had already reached Silboomie Station, and Mendez had seemed comfortable enough with developments — if not exactly enthusiastically supportive. Enthusiasm was not to be expected. Nobody wanted to do this.

Well, she’d known it had been a gamble, from the start. They couldn’t all be successful. An unsuccessful gamble had only one possible outcome for crèche–bred, and that was death.

Stretching in his seat, Mendez yawned and set his empty cup upside down on the tabletop. “With respect. You should ask, your Excellency. I have an authorization from Dr. Mahaffie, here — ”

He didn’t need an authorization. He could arrest her on his own authority. That he would arrest her was obvious; they had already cleared out all of her personal effects — they were that sure of her. Her quarters were as featureless as though she had never slept here.

“ — and Dr. Mahaffie says that if you don’t shut yourself up in quarters, your Excellency, and get at least a shift–and–a–half’s rest, he will issue a dose. Enough sleeper to stop even Jennet ap Rhiannon in her very determined tracks. And I’ve got the handgun here to make the delivery, too. I’ll shoot you down in the corridor, that’s a promise.”

Dr. Mahaffie did not hold the Writ. Andrej Koscuisko did. She had no illusions about what awaited her. She knew what the punishment was, what it looked like. Her entire class had watched, day by day, hour by hour, for the two and a half days it had taken the assigned Inquisitor to execute Yordie for failing in his field test.

Koscuisko was better than any borrowed Inquisitor. It was widely acknowledged that Koscuisko was the best there was. But Koscuisko wasn’t here, and Mahaffie didn’t hold the Writ, so what was First Officer talking about?

“What do you think the feeling is amongst the crew, First Officer?” She’d pretend that she had no idea why he was here. She’d pretend that she had no idea that he was not in with the rest of them, all the way. She could kill him, rather than let him net her for Andrej Koscuisko.

There was no point in killing him.

He had dealt honestly with her; he had not said anything, one way or another, that would be inconsistent with arresting her. And she could not escape from the
Ragnarok
with just a knife or two. Or rather, although she could, she would only escape at the cost of one or more of the lives that it was her business and her sacred duty to preserve, not to destroy.

She hadn’t thought about Yordie for years, except for nightmares. The last Tenth Level Command Termination that Andrej Koscuisko had performed had taken nearly seven days . . .

“You’ve got to understand, Captain. Nobody on board this ship wants trouble with Fleet. On the other hand most of us on board are already in trouble with Fleet. I believe Serge mentioned something like that to you before.”

She didn’t know what he was talking about. She leaned her back against the closed door and waited for him to start making sense.

“And most of us have been kicked in the face before, and we’re tired of it. Most of our people are with you. And the ones that aren’t with you, aren’t against you. There is only one little thing.”

What little thing was that? It had lasted forever, Yordie’s dying. It had gone on for so long that it had ceased to be horrible, and become boring, tiresome, tedious. She could remember hoping that each scream would be his last, and no longer because she had been his crèche–mate, but because she was sick and tired and disgusted at him for screaming. For his weakness. And that had only been two and a half days.

Koscuisko could make her scream like that; she had no doubt of it. Somehow the humiliation of ending her life so meanly, her pathetic puling recorded for all time in the Record, was even more horrible than her appreciation of the kind of pain that it had taken to make Yordie so shamelessly frantic with sharp unbearable agony that he had not been able to preserve a single shred of the dignity that had been his birthright.

As long as there was no active resistance, there need be no loss of life; except for her own, and that would not matter. Within the space of a very short time her life would mean nothing at all, and her death would be merely inconsequential. “What ‘little thing’ is that, First Officer?” She would play along. She would not make things needlessly difficult. It had been a good effort. It had almost worked.

“You have insisted on your prerogatives as a Second Lieutenant, your Excellency. It was one thing when you were acting First Lieutenant, and even understandable when you became acting Captain. But the Recife vector has changed all that.”

As a prisoner she had no privileges. She knew that as well as he did, if not better. What was the point of all this?

“If you’re going to ask people to follow you to Taisheki, you’ve got to acknowledge their agreement. You’ve got to live up to your end of the contract. These people aren’t going to Taisheki with any Fleet Second Lieutenant, not even a crèche–bred one. They’re going to Taisheki with Captain Jennet ap Rhiannon. I want you to lose the ‘acting’ bit.”

She’d already lost her Captaincy, her First Lieutenancy, her basic rank of Second Lieutenant. “Very well, First Officer.” She was tired of waiting for him to say the words, to come to the point. She just wanted to go to sleep.

“You will occupy the Captain’s quarters, and you will use the Captain’s office. We’ve moved your personal possessions. If you will follow me.”

Captain’s quarters? That was an unusual way to characterize a prisoner holding cell. Unless it was a phrase left over from the days of Captain Lowden, since Lowden had tended to handle prisoners as though they — and Andrej Koscuisko — had been personal possessions, rather than Bench resources.

Something was just not adding up.

Rising to his feet, Mendez gave the signal, and the door slid open again behind her. She waited for the Security to seize and secure, but nothing happened. Mendez merely came forward, and gestured toward the door.

The Security she’d brought with her were still posted outside, and saluted as she stepped across the threshold. Security fell into formation behind her, and Mendez himself took the subordinate–escort position at her left elbow.

She started walking, because it was habit, because they were not to initiate movement on their own; unless she was a prisoner, of course, in which case they would carry her at their own will in their choice of direction. She’d forgotten. She let First Officer direct them, remembering that she was a prisoner. But they weren’t going toward the holding cell out in Secured Medical, forward. They were heading back down into the shielded heart of the ship, instead. The Captain’s quarters.

Ship’s Primes had sleeping space within the shielded core, rather than toward the upper hull where more disposable Lieutenants were assigned to sleep. Ship’s Primes had two entire rooms at their personal disposal, outer and inner, and the things in the outer room of the Captain’s quarters were her things.

Her personal shrine to the rule of Law, the religion of her childhood. The trophies she had taken — the weapon that had wounded her at Atrium, the ship’s pennant from her first Vorket command, her personal commendations.

There was no way they meant to secure her in these quarters, rather than in a cell. So they didn’t mean to secure her at all. They only meant for her to be their Captain.

She lost control over the terror and the tension, the relief, and the fearful weariness within her. She staggered toward the table, and First Officer was right with her, making sure that she sat — rather than falling — down.

“Thank you, First Officer.” And the entire ship, by proxy. She could not refuse the honor, not if she meant to have their continued cooperation. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

It meant that she was not going to die. Or not just yet. The greater meaning was beyond her, at the moment. She was very tired. And the wake–keepers were wearing off, and all at once.

“Only what you’ve earned, Captain. Now get some rest.”

She put her head down on her crooked forearm resting on the table’s cool polished surface, and went to sleep.

###

The message had been laid casually atop the day’s stack of administrative notices, by design. It wasn’t the sort of thing to draw attention to itself, but her aides knew what it meant and that it meant a problem.

Pesadie Training Command modular packet released from storage to Jurisdiction Fleet Ship
Ragnarok
on direction, receipt executed by Ship’s Engineer, Serge of Wheatfields, countersigned. Dated, validated, two days old.

While she had been talking to Noycannir, while she had been calculating turnaround and reissue time, the
Ragnarok
had gone to Silboomie Station — not Laynock Station at all — and they had absconded with the single most valuable item in her private inventory.

It wasn’t her item. She held it in trust for reasonable people, because she had the means to arrange secure

storage and document an audit trail that would cover disposition when the highest bidder had been selected, payment received.

It was immeasurably worse than when she had lost all of those munitions when the observation station had blown up with the
Ragnarok
’s Captain on it. How had the
Ragnarok
known?

Wasn’t it obvious?

She had underestimated the
Ragnarok
. Somebody — maybe Jennet ap Rhiannon, unlikely though that seemed — had turned out to be reasonable after all. Someone had been found to surrender the information, because reasonable people could be relied upon to know what was reasonable to do. Ap Rhiannon wanted that module for herself.

Was she going to sell it? Hold it for ransom to force Brecinn to cancel her planned recovery from the training accident? Use it as a bribe to acquire position within the informal hierarchy of responsible people?

If there had been a sellout in the works, Brecinn would have heard about it by now. Surely. Wouldn’t she have?

Or had someone on her staff already sold her out?

Had that been how ap Rhiannon had known to go to Silboomie for the special module? Were reasonable people already making arrangements to abandon Brecinn as last year’s hero, and do business with ap Rhiannon instead? She’d been an idiot not to see it. Who was better placed to part out the
Ragnarok
, to sell off its assets, to skim its stores than ap Rhiannon herself?

This called for an immediate reconsideration of plans. She needed to see where Noycannir was in her process. What was ap Rhiannon going to do? Silboomie Station. Not Laynock. Where could you get to, from Silboomie Station?

Fleet Audit Appeals Authority. Taisheki space. Maybe that was all right. She had contacts at Taisheki.

Signaling for attention on her voice box, Brecinn called up the central communications deck. “Send a message to Chilleau Judiciary. Priority transmit. Dame Mergau Noycannir, sole recipient.” She’d see what Noycannir had to say to her, and then she’d decide what to do.

Who could have guessed that a minor training exercise could explode into a fight for her very survival?

###

Lek Kerenko stood at attention–rest with his team alongside the transport craft, listening to the voice of his ancestors. shouting for attention in his brain.

Chelatring Side. The Autocrat’s Proxy. Chuvishka Kospodar, the rape of Prishklo, the slaughter of the Sivarian innocents, the walls of Erchlo, the dead lake at Immer. The blasted remains of Chatlerin, on the coast.