The Legacy of Lehr

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The Legacy of Lehr

Katherine Kurtz

For the original Mather Seton

and Wallis Hamilton

and for Nancy Berman
,

who may never feel

the same about vampires
.

CHAPTER 1

The cargomaster was sullen, the freight handlers were surly, and the spaceport's chief of security had been almost insulting earlier in the morning—though his insolence was carefully masked behind the veneer of officialese that seemed to be a requisite for backwater bureaucrats. Now a simple request for water for their precious cargo had been met with suspicion, endless forms to fill out, and a patronizing attitude that was the final affront after two days of waiting.

Nor was Wallis Hamilton reassured by the growing crowd of local malcontents gathering outside the spaceport gates to protest the export of this particular cargo. Neither she nor her partner-husband was exactly popular after the three-week stint on B-Gem. As she left the cargo area to the care of the Imperial Rangers, wh had formed the backbone of the expedition—and who were taking home only the ashes of two of their comrades—she hoped Mather was having better luck than she was.

As expected, she found him closeted with the spaceport director: a brittle, officious little man named Irvin Vintar, who had given them nothing but argument since their return to the facility two days before. Some comment of Mather's had brought Vintar to his feet behind the cluttered desk, but for once, he was not even trying to interrupt as Mather continued to instruct him. Vintar's face was mottled with suppressed rage, his thin hands clenched rigidly at his sides, and Wallis had no doubt that a medscan would confirm an elevated blood pressure, too.

“Mister Vintar, we've been over this so many times, I should think that by now you'd know it all by heart,” Mather Seton was saying in his low, quiet voice. “You can't still be questioning my authority. You verified it yourself before I had the
Valkyrie
diverted. Now, are you going to cooperate, or must I resort to more drastic measures that we both may regret later on?”

He did not look in her direction as she entered the room, but Wallis knew that he was aware of her presence as she slipped behind him to stand at his back. Outwardly, at least, Mather was as calm as Vintar was agitated, solid and imposing in well-cut gray naval fatigues. The insignia of a fleet commodore glittered on his shoulders and open collar, the crescent and trident patch of personal service to the Imperial House showing red and gold above the cuff of his right sleeve. The image conveyed was one of quiet control and competence, of unmistakable authority—which was, in fact, almost unlimited. That Irvin Vintar had continued to resist that authority for two full days, hindering their mission, was an unnecessary distraction. Wallis could see Mather's growing impatience in the slight tap-tapping of his right thumb against the desk top, even though he seemed to be at ease in his chair.

“Well, Mister Vintar? I'm waiting for your answer.”

Vintar swallowed, desperate eyes darting here and there, even at Wallis, searching anywhere for an escape.

“I can't do it, Commodore,” he finally said. “It's too dangerous. Bringing the shuttle ship as close to the terminal as you want it is—no! I dare not risk the ship, the crew, and this facility in a maneuver that is beyond our capability.”

“It isn't beyond
my
capability,” Mather retorted. “If necessary, I'll guide the ship in myself. But I do not intend to risk my cargo needlessly by dragging it across three kilometers of open landing apron. Not with the mood of the crowd outside. Do I make myself clear?”

“But—”

Vintar opened and closed his mouth several times as the full implications of Mather's suggestion finally registered.

“That's out of the question,” he whispered. “I couldn't possibly—”

“Mister Vintar, I don't think I'm really interested anymore in what
you
can or cannot do,” Mather interrupted impatiently.

“But, you're not qua—I mean—”

“Mister Vintar, are you saying that a fleet commodore in the Imperial Navy is not qualified to land a civilian shuttle by remote?” Mather asked—omitting to mention, Wallis noted, that he was officially retired from
that
service, at least. “My Academy training certified me for ship classes up to and including heavy cruisers. As long as I have the cooperation of you and your staff”—he paused just long enough for the emphasis to be unmistakable—“I think I can manage to bring a civilian shuttle in where I want it.”

Vintar swallowed again, his eyes flicking involuntarily down Mather's ample frame to the commodore's shoulder boards, to the Imperial Staff emblem, then to the slight bulge of a needler beneath his fatigue jacket, and back to his face. The man's jaw tightened with the effort of biting back further argument, but it was fairly obvious that Irvin Vintar had reached the end of his resources. Wallis could almost feel the man's loathing.

“Very well, Commodore.” He made a stiff little bow that ill concealed his anger. “But if anything goes wrong, you'll assume full liability for any injuries or damage—and I want that in writing.”

“That was understood from the beginning.”

As Vintar stalked out of the office, Mather heaved a heavy sigh, then glanced up and behind him at Wallis, giving her a grin of rare maliciousness—lost, fortunately, on the back of the retreating Vintar.

“Well, the bureaucratic bear has been wrestled and apparently bested, at least for the present,” he said lightly, getting to his feet. “Now all we have to do is see whether I can deliver what I threatened. It's been a while. Is our cargo ready to load?”

Wallis, standing more than a head shorter than her husband, looked up at him with a slow grin to match his own. “Well, my problems were only bear cubs compared to yours—nasty ones, I'll concede—but, yes, I got things straightened out—I think. Do you know what it just cost His Imperial Majesty's government for water that should have been made available gratis?”

“His Imperial Majesty will be suitably appalled, I'm sure,” Mather said, “though I suppose it's all reckoned as a part of the price of peace, in the end.” He glanced out the plasteel viewing port that overlooked the B-Gem spaceport. The chromcrete of the landing apron stretched on for heat-shimmered miles.

“Well, Vintar said that the
Valkyrie
was due to make orbit about twenty minutes ago, so I suppose the shuttle ought to be here in another ten. Care to come and watch me bring her in?”

Wallis grimaced and shook her head. “No, I think I'll watch it directly. If you
should
put that thing down on our cargo instead of on the pad, I think I'd just as soon go up with the wreckage.”

“Why, Doctor Hamilton, do you doubt my abilities?”

“Why, Commodore Seton, how could you even
think
such a thing?”

The holding zone outside the cargo area was crowded when Wallis returned. Starliners the size and reputation of
Valkyrie
rarely made unscheduled stops, especially at planets as far removed from the normal shipping lanes as Beta-Geminorum III, and the event had prompted a number of travelers to alter their plans and book immediate passage. The fax board at the entrance to the passenger lounge read: “The Gruening Line are pleased to announce the stopover of their Nova-class luxury liner
Valkyrie
…,” and went on to detail pertinent factors of cost, availability of accommodations, and further flight schedules.

Wallis suppressed a chuckle as she worked her way through the throng, wondering whether any of the two dozen waiting passengers suspected just how “pleased” the Gruening folk were, in fact. George Lutobo, the
Valkyrie
's captain, had not been pleased. The
Valkyrie
had been engaged in a precision sprint from Tejat to Aludra, attempting—and about to establish—a new record for passenger service between those two systems. No, even if Mather Seton did have the force of the Imperial government behind him, Lutobo was not at all pleased at having to abort that record-breaking run and change course for Beta-Geminorum III.

The inhabitants did not call it that, of course. They called it B-Gem, if they did not call it Pollox III; and an earlier race, already dying out when the first Earther colonists arrived with disease organisms that finished the job, had called the planet Il Nuadi—a name that recently had begun to come into vogue again. Following the deadly Cruaxi Sweep, which had decimated human civilization throughout the known galaxy some three hundred years ago, B-Gem had been isolated for generations. The first recontact by an expedition of the Orion Cartel a quarter century ago had found a rich, verdant planet peopled by hardy folk of exceptional agricultural ability, well ready to resume a place in an intragalactic Empire.

And because B-Gem had started out as a company planet this second time around, carefully managed to make optimum use of its resources then and for the future, it remained relatively unspoiled. A young planet, far less developed than the world that had spawned humankind, B-Gem quickly became a magnet to zoologists and botanists from all over the Empire: an untouched wilderness of flora and fauna never catalogued before. And because an alien civilization had overlapped briefly with the arrival of the first humans, it also afforded an unprecedented opportunity for anthropologists and archaeologists.

But it was B-Gem's wilderness that remained one of the single, most attractive features for laymen. Here were vast areas of uncharted wilderness, jungles, and wilding canyons where man had never been before. And animal life: so wild, so bounteous, that in some areas, hunting expeditions were still permitted under almost unregulated conditions. Here was the opportunity to bag the trophy of a lifetime.