The Serrano Connection (114 page)

Brun held out the pad.

"You want to see Suiza? Why, girl? I thought she trashed you at Copper Mountain, upset you so you ran away home."

Brun shrugged—it doesn't matter—and tapped the pad again.

"Yeah, well, she did save your life, and you saved hers I guess. Or helped. Your father thought seeing her would be a terrible trauma. If it's not—well, it's your decision." Meharry's mouth quirked. "You might want to put on some clothes, though . . . unless you want her to come down here."

Brun didn't. She was more than ready to get out of sickbay. Resourceful as ever, Meharry quickly found Brun a shipsuit that almost fit. It wasn't quite as soft as the shipsuits Hazel had found on the station, but it fitted her better.

"Now—it's customary to make a courtesy call on the captain. Since the captain told the lieutenant not to let you know she was there, and she did—this could be a bit tricky. Just so you know."

Meharry led her through a maze of corridors to a door that had Lt. E. Suiza, Executive Officer on it. Meharry knocked.

"Come in," Esmay said. When Meharry opened the door, she was half-sitting on her bunk; she looked pale and tired.

"Brun wants to see you," Meharry said. "She kind of insisted, when the medics wanted to sedate her . . ."

Brun moved past Meharry, and held out the pad on which she'd already scribbled THANK YOU.

Esmay stared at it, then at Brun, brow furrowed. "They don't have a speaker device for you! What are they thinking of!" Esmay looked almost as angry as Brun felt.

They're worried about my stability.

"They ought to be worried about your voice, dammit! This is ridiculous. That should be the first thing—"

Thank you, Brun wrote again. My father gave you trouble?

Esmay flushed. "They got the tape of what I said to you that night—and I'm sorry, it really was insulting—"

You were right.

"No—I was angry, that's what. I thought you were stealing Barin—as if he were my property, which is disgusting of me, but that's how I felt."

You love Barin? That was something that hadn't occurred to her, even in the months of captivity. Esmay, the cool professional, in love?

"Yes. And you had so much more time, and when I was working I knew you were spending time with him . . ."

Talking about you.

"I didn't know that. Anyway—I said I'm sorry. But they think—they thought—I had something against you and your family. Your father didn't want me involved in the planning, or with the mission. But that's not the important thing—the important thing is getting you a voice." Esmay thought for a moment. Meharry. Meharry knew everyone and everything, as near as Esmay could tell. If that device on the station had survived, Meharry would know where it was, and if it hadn't, she'd know what would work.

"A speech synthesizer? Sure—I can get you one. Just don't ask where."

Ten minutes later, a young pivot, so new he squeaked, delivered a briefcase-sized box that flipped open to reveal a keyboard of preprogrammed speech tags as well as direct input.

"Here," Esmay said. "Try this."

Brun peered at it, and began tapping the buttons. "It looks like the one Lady Cecelia used on Rotterdam," said a deep bass voice.

Esmay jumped, then started laughing.

"Let's see what this one sounds like," the box said, this time in a soprano.

"I didn't like that one, let's try this . . ." came out in a mezzo; Brun shrugged. "I'll keep this one."

"I wonder why they didn't do this first," Esmay said. "If they had a speech synthesizer aboard, why not give it to you right away."

"Arrogance," Brun keyed in. "They knew what I needed; why ask me?"

"Brun, I'm so sorry—"

"Don't waste time. Thank you. You saved my life."

Esmay was trying to think how to answer that one when Brun's next message came out.

"And by the way, who's doing your hair? It looks good even after being squashed in a suit."

"Sera Saenz—Marta Saenz—took me to this place, Afino's."

"Raffaele's Aunt Marta? You must have impressed her if she took you there. Good for you."

Esmay could not believe how fast Brun was keying in the words, as if she'd used one of these for years. "You're good with that thing," she said.

"Practice," Brun keyed. "With Cecelia. And you cannot know how good it feels. Now—what's going on with Fleet and the planet? Hazel wants to get the other kids out."

"And your babies," Esmay said. "Your father's adamant about that: he's not leaving his grandchildren there."

"He can have them." Brun's expression dared Esmay to question that, and she didn't.

"I don't know what the whole situation is," Esmay said. "Because, since I'm in disgrace for letting you know I was here, they won't tell me. You're on a search-and-rescue ship; there's a task force with us, but what we're doing is microjumping around keeping out of the way of the Militia warships."

"Who can I talk to?" Brun keyed. "Who's giving the orders?"

"On this ship, Captain Solis. For the task force, Admiral Serrano."

"Good. I need to talk to her."

"Admiral Serrano?" Esmay remembered in time that Brun already knew the admiral . . . she might in fact listen. "I can get you as far as Captain Solis, but there's a blackout on communications with the task force."

"Captain Solis first," Brun keyed in. Esmay nodded and led the way without another word. Brun glanced at Esmay. Besides the more effective haircut, there was something else different. She realized, as Esmay led her through the ship and she saw others defer to her, that Esmay might indeed be in disgrace but she was far more than Brun had imagined. This was what she'd been like at Xavier, or on
Koskiusko
? Her own idiocy struck her again, the way she had condescended to this woman, the way she had assumed that Esmay was no more than any other student, no more than, for instance, herself. That man in the combat veterans' bar had been right—she had not understood at all.

They paused at a cross-corridor while what looked to Brun like huge people in armor moved past.

"Feeling better, Lieutenant?" one of them asked.

"Fine, thanks," Esmay said. She turned to Brun. "They were on the team that got you out."

"Thank you," Brun keyed quickly. She hit the controls to save that phrase; she was going to need it a lot.

Captain Solis stood as Brun came in and reached to shake her hand. "We are so glad to have you back!"

"I'm glad to be back." Brun had anticipated the need for that phrase, and had it loaded.

"Your father did not want you bothered by Lieutenant Suiza, but I understand that you wanted to see her—?"

"Yes." This had to be done word by word, carefully, and Brun took her time. "I wanted to apologize to her for my behavior on Copper Mountain. It was made clear to me during my captivity just how badly I had misjudged her. And I wanted to express my profound gratitude for her efforts on my behalf."

"You don't know most of it," Captain Solis said. "She is the one who insisted that you were probably still alive after your escape shuttle blew up—that you could have engineered that as a decoy—and said we had to go find you." He spared Esmay a glance that Brun could tell was more approving than usual. "I could almost change my mind."

"I changed mine," Brun keyed in.

"Well, now that we've got you and the other—Hazel Takeris, is that her name?—we can jump safely back to the task force and get out of here with no more disruption."

"No." Brun keyed, and switched to the masculine voice output for emphasis.

Captain Solis jumped; she bit back a grin. It would not do to laugh at the man. "But—what—?"

"We must get the other children," Brun keyed. "From the ship Hazel was on."

"I don't see how," Captain Solis began.

"We must," Brun said.

"But Hazel said they were safe—that they had adjusted to their new family—"

"We cannot leave little girls, Familias citizens by birth, to be brought up in a society where they can be muted like me for saying the wrong thing."

Solis looked at her. "You're naturally overwrought," he began.

Brun stabbed at the keyboard with such emphasis that his voice trailed away, and he waited. "I am tired, sore, hungry, and extremely tired of having no voice, but I am not overwrought. Could you define the right amount of 'wrought' for someone in my position? Those children were stolen from their families—their parents were murdered horribly—and they're in the control of people who were willing to kidnap, rape, and abuse me. How dare you suggest that they are safe enough where they are?"

"Sera—it's not my decision. It will be the admiral's, if she can make it without authorization from the Grand Council, which I doubt."

"Then I will see the admiral," Brun said.

"It will be some time before we can rendezvous safely," Solis said. He gave Esmay a long look. "And for the time being, Lieutenant, could you find quarters for our guest? I know we're crowded with extra crew, not to mention prisoners—"

"Yes, sir," Esmay said.

"Prisoners." That came out in a flat baritone, after they'd left the bridge.

"Two groups," Esmay said. "Three different shuttle loads came up to the station after you; one blew itself up, but we caught two."

She wanted to see them. She wanted to let them see her, free and healthy and—no. She would get her voice back first, and then she would see them.

"Something to eat?" she keyed.

"Right away," Esmay said, and led her to the wardroom. Brun sat revelling in food which someone else had cooked—flavors she was used to, condiments she liked, anything she chose to drink, while watching Esmay covertly. What
had
Afino's done to her hair? And for that matter, what could she do about her own hair, which she'd hacked off so blindly with a knife?

Several days later, with her hair once more a riot of tousled curls, thanks to the crew's barber, she was ready to tackle Admiral Serrano.

"You are coming with me," Brun said. "I need you; I trust you."

"You could take Meharry—"

"Methlin is a dear person . . ." Esmay blinked, imagining what the redoubtable Meharry would think to hear herself so described. "But she is not you. I need you."

"I'm the executive officer; I can't just leave the ship."

"Well, then, the admiral can come here. Which do you think she'd like least?"

Put like that, there was no question. Esmay tracked down Captain Solis and received permission to accompany Brun to the flagship.

"And it has not escaped my notice," Solis said, "that almost two years without a voice has not begun to stop that young woman giving orders. We had better get her commissioned, so at least it's legal."

Our Texas, Ranger Bowie's Household

Prima had known, from the beginning, that this was big trouble coming. She could hardly believe Patience had run off—and in fact it seemed she had been abducted. That happened sometimes, girls stolen away, but usually no one would bother a Ranger's household. And the man had said, loud enough to be heard, that he had business with Mitch.

She hadn't wanted to tell Mitch until she knew for sure what had happened. Mitch was at a meeting, an important meeting. But his younger brother Jed had stopped by, as he often did, and when Tertia came in to report that Patience had still not come home, he took it upon himself to find Mitch. He liked to give orders, Jed did, and Prima knew that his ambitions went beyond being a Ranger's brother. He wanted that star for himself, and Mitch couldn't see any danger in it.

And then Mitch had come home, in a rage with her for not supervising the girl better; it seemed the woman who'd been captured at the same time as Patience had disappeared from the Crockett Street Nursery. He'd called the older boys and they'd all gone out to search, and he'd sent for the parson to come and preach at her and the women all afternoon.

It was more than a nuisance; it was baking day, and they had to leave the dough rising to sit in silent rows and listen to Parson Wells lecture them on their laziness and sinfulness. Prima kept her eyes down, respectfully, but she did think it was a shame and a nuisance, to stop hard-working women in their work and make them listen to a scolding about their laziness. And he would go on and on about their sins tainting their children. Prima had trouble with that bit of doctrine: if, hard as she tried, her faults had made poor Sammie a cripple, and Simplicity stupid, then how could the outland women—who had arrived after lives of sin and blasphemy—bear such beautiful, healthy children?

Mitch had come home late that night, having found not sight nor word of Patience . . . or, presumably, the other woman, the yellow-haired one. Prima wanted to ask about the yellow-hair's babies, but she knew better. He was in no mood to tolerate any forwardness, even from her. She set the house in order, and waited by the women's door, but he never came to her. Early the next morning, she heard him leave the house; when she peeked, Jed was with him. She had hardly slept. She heard the roar of a departing shuttle from the spaceport, and sometime later, another, and another.