Heris Serrano (108 page)

"Good." Lord Thornbuckle smiled at her. "On top of everything else, I'll be glad to have her out of pocket while the political situation is so uncertain."

The country house of Kemtre Lord Altmann,
formerly king of the Familias Regnant

"I don't see why you can't understand," Kemtre said, trying not to breathe heavily. "They're your sons as much as mine."

"They're no one's
sons
," his wife said. Although she seemed to lean on the end of the table, elbows on either side of a tray of fancifully carved fruits, that was illusion, a matter of expensive communications equipment synchronizing her image from past breakfasts with her voice from very far away. "Certainly not mine, and not yours either, if you only knew it. They're
clones
, constructs, human only in genome. You were never a father to them; I was never a mother."

He pressed his fingers to his temples, a gesture that had been effective in Council meetings. It had not worked with her for years, and it did not work now, not least because she did not have the visual display on her console turned on . . . he kept hoping to see the telltale red light turn green. He wanted to meet her eyes—her
real
eyes, not those of the construct, and convince her with his sincerity. "They're all we've got," he said. "They could be our sons, if you'd only—"

"They're grown," she said. "They're not little boys. They're bad copies of Gerel . . . was he the only one you cared about?"

Of course not, he wanted to say. He had said it before, just as they had had this argument before in the weeks since his resignation. At first face-to-face, then down the length of that long dining table, then by the various communications devices required by the increasingly great physical distances between them as she removed herself from his demands.

"Please," he said.

"No." The faint hollow noise of a live connection ended; the construct sat immobile, waiting for his finger to extinguish its imitation of life. He put his thumb down and cursed. She wanted him to give it up, deal with the loss of his sons, get on with whatever life was left him. He couldn't do that, not until he had at least tried to get the clones to cooperate. They were the only sons he had now; he couldn't just give them up.

The Boardroom of the Benignity
of the Compassionate Hand

"I don't see any reason to butcher the cash cow," said the Senior Accountant. "Breed her, and we'll have more calves to send to market."

"She's a shy breeder," muttered one of the diplomatic subordinates, who should have kept quiet. It was his last mistake.

When the meeting resumed, several people walked across the damp patch on the carpet as if nothing had happened. It wasn't unusual, and it didn't really reflect on Sasimo, whose protégé had been unwise. Every senior man present had discovered that a first appearance in the Boardroom could unsettle a youngster previously considered promising.

"Still, he had a point," the Chairman said. No one asked who, or what point; those who couldn't figure it out didn't belong there. "The Familias walks like a tart, and talks like a tart, but carries a hatpin in her purse." The hatpin being, as they all knew, the Regular Space Service's unbought fraction, which they knew down to the level of cook's assistants.

After a respectful silence, the Senior Accountant coughed politely and began again. "It is a short hatpin, not long enough to reach the heart of a strong man. A little risk, a prick perhaps, and—better a marriage than a disgrace, eh?"

"Quite so," said the Chairman. "If it is only a flesh wound. Perhaps our admiral would review the situation?"

But indeed, the situation looked good. Not only were so many Fleet personnel on the Compassionate Hand payroll, as it were, but they had been placed into critical positions. Given a good start, with new forward bases increasing the number of jump points they could reach undetected, the Regular Space Service should be immobilized by uncertainty as well as internal problems.

"We start here," the admiral said, pointing out the system on the display. "They're used to neglect from the R.S.S.; Aethar's World raiders took out their stationary defenses last year, and they've been issued nothing to replace them. It's an agricultural world, thinly populated; we'll lose no essential industries if we scorch it lightly."

"Resistance?"

"Negligible. Farmers with hand weapons, even if they scatter and survive the scorch—we can ignore them."

"Principal crop?"

The admiral chuckled, a daring act in that room. "Horses, if you can believe it."

"Horses?"

"And not workhorses. They export sperm and embryos of fancy horses."

The Chairman leaned back, thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. "Show horses . . . I like horses. If they survive the scorch, I'd like a souvenir, Peri." Which meant they had better survive the scorch . . . it was punishment, mild enough, for laughing in the Boardroom.

"Of course," the admiral said, making the best of it.

"My granddaughter, you know," the Chairman said to the others, as if he needed to explain. "She likes pretty horses." He turned back to the admiral. "Be sure to bring one 'Lotta would like. White feet, a long tail, that kind of thing."

"Of course," the admiral said again, tallying in his mind the extra time it would take to scorch selectively, so that the Chairman's granddaughter could have a pretty horse for a souvenir. It shouldn't be too bad, even if their agent betrayed them. He would add another couple of ships to the advance strike force, which would give them the margin for a careful scorch.

"Why not this system?" asked one of the others, pointing. "It has the same advantages."

"Nearly," the admiral admitted. One did not directly contradict one of the Board, not if one wanted to leave the room with breath intact. "But it connects directly to only one jump point, with only three mapped vectors. As well, it's near enough to Guerni space that the Guernesi might take notice. Our chosen target connects directly to two jump points, offering a total of eight mapped vectors, most of them into high-vector points. And of course, its other border is the unstable one with Aethar's World, from which the raiders have come."

"Quite so," said the Chairman. "We have already approved your target, Admiral." That was dismissal, and the admiral saluted, bowed, and left.

When he reached his office, he found that he had been given a final command . . . interesting that the Chairman had not wanted to say that in front of the others. The Chairman would be honored if the admiral would allow the Chairman's great-nephew, now in command of a heavy cruiser, to be part of this expedition. Unmentioned was the young man's record; neither needed to mention it. The young man had risen more by influence than ability, everyone was sure . . . and yet he wasn't stupid or cowardly. Dangerous to both friends and enemies, the admiral thought. Convinced of his ability; convinced he had not been given a chance because of the relationship . . . that his real successes had been overlooked, along with his mistakes. Perhaps it was true.

The admiral considered. Was this the Chairman's way of letting the younger man hang himself, or his way of sabotaging the admiral, whose own grandson might otherwise have been chosen? He couldn't take both—he could afford only one less experienced captain. Of course he must take the Chairman's choice, but he need not make it easy. He would assume—he would document that assumption—that the Chairman wished to test his kinsman, wished him to prove himself.

He grinned suddenly. Let him be the one to find and bring home a pretty horse for Carlotta.

Uncertain, Heris thought as she closed her end of the secured comlink, was a mild term for the swiftly unraveling tangle of political yarn that had so recently seemed to be a stable web of interlocking interests. All her life—for many hundreds of Standard years—the Familias Regnant had had its Grand Council, and commerce had passed between its worlds and stations as if no other way existed. She knew of course that other ways did—that Familias space was surrounded by other ways of doing things, from the cold efficiency of the Compassionate Hand to the berserker brigandry of Aethar's World. But aside from those whose business it was to keep the borders safe and enforce the laws, most of the Familias worlds and the people on them had behaved as if nothing but fashion would ever change.

And now it had. With the king's resignation, with Lorenza's flight, the founding families looked at each other with far more suspicion than trust. If the king had poisoned his own sons—or if Lorenza had done it for him—if she had attacked the powerful de Marktos family through Cecelia—then who else might have been her target? Her allies? Those who had used her services through the decades tried to cover their tracks, and others worked to uncover them.

What bothered Heris the most, in all this, was the civilians' innocent assumption that "the Fleet" would never let anything bad happen. She had heard it from one and then another—no need to worry about Centrum Rose; the Fleet will see that they stay in the alliance. No need to worry about the Benignity attacking; the Fleet will protect us. Yet she knew—and Bunny should have known—that the Fleet itself was suspect. Lorenza hadn't been the only rat in the woodpile. Admiral Lepescu and whoever cooperated with him . . .

But she could not solve everything, not all at once. She had other work to do before Cecelia came aboard the yacht.

Her personal stack had a message from Arash Livadhi. Now what, she thought. It had been a long enough day already, and she had hoped Petris would get back in time for some extended dalliance. She called Arash.

"How are things going?" he asked brightly, as if she had initiated the contact.

"Fine with me . . . and you?"

"Oh, very well, very well. It's been an interesting few weeks, of course."

So it had, with rumors of entire squadrons of Fleet in mutiny. With one cryptic message from her grandmother, and a very uncryptic message from the cousin who had always hated her.

"Yes," said Heris, drumming her fingers on her desk. "I had a message that you called," she said finally, when the silence had gone on too long.

"Oh. Yes. That. I just . . . I just wondered if you'd like to have dinner sometime. Tonight maybe? There's a new band at Salieri's."

"Sorry," Heris said, not really sorry at all. "There's ship's business to deal with." Certainly the captain's relationship with the First Engineer was ship's business.

"Oh . . . ah . . . another time? Maybe tomorrow?"

Tone and expression both suggested urgency. What was he up to? Heris opened her mouth to tell him to come clean, then remembered the doubtful security of their link. "I . . . should be free then. Why not? What time?"

"Whatever's best for you . . . maybe mid-second shift?" An odd way of giving a time, for either a civilian or a Fleet officer. Heris nodded at the screen, and hoped she could figure out later what kind of signal he was giving her.

"Mid-second indeed. Meet you there?"

"Why not at the shuttle bay concourse? You shouldn't have to dash halfway across the Station by yourself." Odder and odder. Arash had never minded having his dates use up their own resources. Heris entered the time and place in her desktop calendar and grinned at him.

"It's in my beeper. See you tomorrow."

"Yes . . ." He seemed poised to say more, then sighed and said "Tomorrow, then" instead.

"There's a little problem," Arash Livadhi said. He had been waiting when Heris reached the shuttle docks concourse; he wore his uniform with his old dash and attracted more than one admiring glance. Heris wanted to tell the oglers how futile their efforts were, but knew better. Now he walked beside her as courteously as a knight of legend escorting his lady. It made Heris nervous. "Nothing major, just a bit . . . awkward."

"And awkward problem solving is a civilian specialty? Come on, Arash, you have some of the best finaglers in Fleet on your ship."

"It's not that kind of thing, exactly."

"Well what, exactly?"

"It's something you'd be much better at . . . you know you have a talent—"

She knew when she was being conned. "Arash, I'm hungry, and you've promised me a good meal . . . at least wait until I'm softened up before you start trying to put your hooks in."

"Me?" But that wide-eyed look was meant to be seen through. He grinned at her; it no longer put shivers down her spine, but she had to admit the charm. "Greedy lady . . . and yes, I did agree to feed you. Salieri's is still acceptable?"

"Entirely." Expensive and good food, a combination rarer than one might suppose. And whatever Arash thought he was getting from her, it would not include anything more than a dinner companion . . . she wondered if he had any idea of her present situation with Petris. Probably not, and better that he live in blissful ignorance.

Salieri's midway through the second shift had a line out to the concourse, but Arash led her past it. "We have reservations," he said. Sure enough, at his murmur the gold-robed flunky at the door let them pass. Heris felt her spirits lift in the scarlet and gold flamboyance of the main foyer, with the sweet strains of the lilting waltz played by a live orchestra in the main dining room. Whatever Arash wanted, this would be fun.