Change of Command Read online

  How could she reassure Valdos, and others under her command, without the information she needed?

  What would happen if she couldn't?

  "Get me the heads of personnel and medical," she said. "We have a situation I don't fully understand, and I want to be sure we handle this with both discretion and fairness."

  "Sir." A pause. "If the admiral permits—"

  "Go ahead."

  "Is it true they're looking for ways to bump out senior NCOs, an excuse not to offer any more rejuvenations?"

  Just the kind of ideas she did not want floating around. But was it true?

  "In my opinion, Chief—and it's only my opinion, but I do have some data—this may have to do with medical problems from a bad batch of rejuv drugs."

  "Problems."

  "Yes. I am not going to blacken anyone's name, because I don't know all the facts. I'm not a medical officer. I do know that investigation of something else revealed a source of contaminated rejuv drugs, and there was concern that they might have made it into our supply chain. Meanwhile, several senior NCOs began showing neurological symptoms within a few months to a year of each other—widely separated in their duty stations, and not all in the same branch."

  "Could they—have given us bad drugs, to justify later refusal to rejuv?"

  "On purpose?" He nodded. "Absolutely not. If that's what happened, I suspect it is a simple mistake—or, if not, an enemy wished to deprive us of our most valuable senior NCOs in order to make a strike easier."

  "I hope you're right, sir." He went out, shaking his head.

  She hoped she was right, too . . . and that he believed her. If the NCOs started worrying about whether they had been given bad drugs intentionally, the close-knit community of Fleet could unravel with fatal speed.

  Internal Memorandum, MorCon Pharmaceuticals:

  . . . despite the best efforts of our advertising departments to restore confidence in our product, the market share is still severely depressed compared to the 68% dominance of the market we enjoyed before the Patchcock scandal. Our competitors have taken full advantage of revelations about the inferior quality of our product, and our legal staff tells us that litigation is still increasing. This has severely affected profits, which used to make up over 20% of the total for the Conselline Sept. Non-political means of recovery have been ineffective; we need legislative relief from laws that are crippling our attempt to deal fairly and honestly with the consequences of the errors made by others. We feel it is imperative that some means be found to regain market share. Lady Venezia Morrelline continues to oppose this, and we have been unable to convince her that we cannot be held responsible for the acts of sabotage by a foreign agent. . . .

  REGULAR SPACE SERVICE MILITARY PRISON,

  STACK ISLANDS, COPPER MOUNTAIN

  On a cold, windy day in local autumn, the prisoners of Stack Islands Military Prison were drawn up in ranks to witness another change of command ceremony from behind barriers of both steel and invisible force shields. In front of it, in the small enclosed parade ground, all but a few of the guards were also in formation, uneasily aware of the prisoners' gazes fixed on their backs. No matter that a force shield lay between them; nothing protected them from the malevolence.

  Up in front, Iosep Tolin relinquished his command to Pilar Bacarion with relief. He had not enjoyed any moment of his stay in that exile from his former sphere of power, and he had agreed to take early retirement to get quit of it. Pilar, though—he would be very glad to put the width of the Big Ocean, and later some deepspace, between himself and one of the few women who had ever been close to Admiral Lepescu.

  On her part, Commander Pilar Bacarion felt an almost physical surge of pleasure in the tension on Tolin's face. He not only disliked her, he was afraid of her. He should be. They all should be, and they would be, in time. She smiled at Tolin, letting him see that she recognized his fear, and saw the glisten of sweat on his forehead, even in the cold. Then she released him from her gaze, and turned it instead on her subordinates.

  They did not flinch. She had not thought they would. Their gaze challenged her—the first female commander this prison had ever had. Was she tough enough, their gaze asked. Could she do the job? Others—whose identities she already knew—had no doubts about her toughness. They were well aware that Lepescu had been her mentor, that she had supported his agenda. Carefully disguised in her duffle were slivers of the ears she had taken; when it had become imprudent to keep these proofs of her status, she had sliced them thin herself and found hiding places for them.

  She had Hunted, in the oldest Hunt of all; she had killed. She had survived the Hunt on Sirialis, having left to take command of a ship before the game ended with Lepescu dead and Heris Serrano once more in favor with Fleet brass. But no one knew it. They were all dead, and the prisoners she'd hunted had never seen her face. Her luck was strong, and her skills—she would match her skills against Serrano directly some day; she knew she would win.

  She looked past the guards, past the force screen, to the prisoners in their drab ranks. In there she also had potential allies. In time.

  Tolin left at last, in the whining aircar. She wished him a nasty storm on the way to the mainland, but it didn't really matter. Let him live—and let him realize someday just what he'd seen, in their brief exchange.

  The ceremony over, Pilar summoned her staff. They were unwise enough to look surprised; she allowed herself a tight smile on the way to her office, thinking how soon they would learn what she was like.

  On the mainland, at Main Base, autumn had not yet moderated a brutally hot summer. It had been a dry year, and now fine reddish dust turned the sky dirty brown as the wind lifted it high into the atmosphere.

  In this kind of weather, everyone who could get offbase privileges spent hours in Q-town's bars, drinking whatever was coldest. Even combat veterans accepted the crowd in their favorite watering hole. It was too hot, and too miserable, to complain.

  Margiu Pardalt, newly graduated from the Academy, and the only Xavierine in her class, had a habit of coming tops in her classes. She had to; she had to do something to make up for her sister Masiu, killed by raiders years ago. Masiu had been the family genius: brilliant, brave, everything a family could hope for. Margiu was second-best, and knew it—a poor replacement for the fallen hero—so it was up to her to make her mark, to be Masiu's memorial. Her place in the Academy had been a gift from the Familias in memory of Masiu. Her place in the universe was to be her gift in return.

  She had earned an evening's liberty by coming first in her class yet again at Copper Mountain, and she thought it fitting that her free hours came at a time when no rational person could enjoy them. She'd have stayed in her quarters, but her training CO had told her to get off the base—and orders were orders.

  Another gust of wind howled down Q-town's main street and filled her nose with hot stinging dust. She sneezed, and her eyes watered. It reminded her too much of the Benignity's scorch of Xavier, when she and her family had wrapped torn sheets around their heads for weeks to filter the dust and ash.

  Ahead, on the right, she spotted a doorway just opening as someone came out, and a gush of cooler air brushed her side. She turned into it.

  It was only moderately crowded—less crowded than the two bars she'd glanced into and left—and smelled of food as much as drink. Margiu made her way to one of the open booths, and slid in, then looked around. The tables and seats looked a little strange, until she realized they were meant to look like ship parts. No, they were ship parts. Her quick glance took in the long dark bar—obviously hull material. The models—obviously military vessels. The battle honors hung on the walls, the photographs.

  It was a shrine, then. Margiu felt obscurely comforted, and lowered her head to pray for the dead and the survivors alike. Her family were Synorhines; she had learned the right forms for valediction and commemoration from early childhood.

  "Do you need help?" someone asked. Margiu looked up to find herself fac
e to face with a man in a float-chair.

  "No, sir—I was honoring the dead," she said.

  His brows rose, crinkling the skin around the scars on his bald scalp. "You knew about this place?"

  "No, sir . . . but it's obvious."

  "Hmm. May I have the honor of your name?"

  "Ensign Pardalt," she said. "From Xavier."

  "Ah. Xavier." He looked her over carefully. "And you were at the Academy when—"

  "No, sir. I was home . . . on Xavier, I mean." She knew already that to Fleet personnel, Fleet was home, and the planet of origin was just that—the planet of origin.

  "And you survived the Benignity—your family as well?"

  "Most of them."

  "You're welcome here anytime, Ensign. You've earned it."

  But she hadn't earned anything. Not yet. The way she saw it, everything she had, Masiu had earned. Still, she was not going to contradict someone like this, a combat veteran.

  "Thank you," she said instead. And then, carefully, hoping she'd read the signals right, "May I offer you a drink?"

  She saw a reaction, but she wasn't sure what. "As it is your first time in my establishment, I hope you will honor me by accepting one."

  She dipped her head. "I would be honored." Then, as he waited, she realized he wanted her to name it. She wasn't used to that, but she glanced at the menu display and chose a dark ale spiced with ginger.

  When the mug arrived, heavily frosted, it came with a bowl of raw vegetable sticks on shaved ice.

  "If you like spiced ales, I thought you might like these," the man said. Margiu nibbled one; it had a refreshing bite. He sipped his own drink, watching her over the rim. She found it disconcerting.

  "We had Lieutenant Suiza in here when she was on a course," he said finally.

  That name she knew, of course. Suiza had been added to her family's prayers, and she had heard a lot about Suiza in the Academy and after. "I've never met her," Margiu said. "But we owe her a lot."

  "You remind me of her," the man said. "She's quiet too."

  "She's a real hero," Margiu said. "I'm just a very green ensign."

  "You might surprise yourself," the man said.

  She did fantasize about that, sometimes, but she knew it was ridiculous. She could be serious, careful, diligent, prudent—and none of those were heroic virtues, as she understood heroism.

  ZENEBRA; EVENING SPORTS WITH ANGH DIOR,

  CHAUNCY NETWORK

  "Lady Cecelia de Marktos, who returned to competition several years ago on one of the D'Amerosia string, has qualified for the Senior Horse Trials at Wherrin this season on a horse bred at her own stables, Seniority. With the veteran rider/owner up, Seniority won the Challenge Event for rising novices, then the Stavenge. The pair are expected to threaten the reigning champion, Liam Ardahi and the experienced champion Plantagenet, competing under the colors of Orregiemos Combine . . ."

  Viewers saw Lady Cecelia's pleasant, bony, somewhat horselike face, beneath rumpled red-gold curls . . . then a shot of her exercising Seniority over fences, the horse's gleaming red coat only a shade darker than her hair, then a shot of them over the last fence of the Stavenge. The video shifted to Liam Ardahi guiding Plantagenet over the Wherrin Trials' B Course big drop-bridge combination the year before, freezing on the instant before landing, while the commentator recited their previous record.

  Cecelia grimaced at the display. Like any expert rider, she could find flaws in everything she did, and would have much preferred to have the vid show her over the seventeenth fence—where she and Seniority had made neat work of a difficult combination—than that last fence, where Seniority had jumped flat, and her own hand position showed why. She'd lost concentration for a crucial few seconds.

  Why had she been thinking about Pedar Orregiemos and the Rejuvenants, and not Fence Thirty?

  WHERRIN EQUESTRIAN PARK

  Two days later, Cecelia brought Seniority in from the gallops in exactly the shape she wanted—pulse and respiration had recovered beautifully, and he could have gone another mile without strain. But any more fitness now, and he would peak before the Senior Trials. No, a long hack this afternoon, then tomorrow—

  "Cece! Have you heard?" Colum was waiting for her at the entrance to the gallops, as he usually did, but he spoke first.

  "What?" She loosened the strap of her helmet, and pushed back under it the one lock of red hair that always managed to get loose and tickle her forehead.

  "Lord Thornbuckle's been killed—it's on all the newsvids—"

  She felt a heaviness in her chest as if she'd been kicked. "Bunny?" A swift montage of pictures ran through her mind—Bunny at the head of the table, Bunny on horseback on Opening Day of the hunt season, Bunny taking over from Kemtre at the Grand Council, Bunny and Kevil, heads together, discussing something . . . "It can't be—" He was younger than she by twenty-odd years; he was healthy as a horse—

  "They say it might be those terrorists."

  Reality came back as Seniority reached down to rub his face on his leg, and yanked the reins; Cecelia blinked, looked around, saw the subdued flurry of activity near the barns. The first acid bite of sadness seeped through the shock. If it was true, this was going to hurt a lot. Colum seemed to understand that she could say nothing; he flung a cooler over the horse's back, and put a hand to the rein. Cecelia sat there, as he led Seniority on into the aisle between the barns, where the look on the grooms' faces told her that the newsvids were playing this straight.

  "You heard?" That was Roz, her head groom.

  "Yes." She slid down, ran the stirrups up, automatically coordinating with the groom as they untacked the chestnut horse and began the after-workout rubdown.

  "You knew him, didn't you?"

  Already past tense. Cecelia shivered. "Yes. For a long time."

  "It's terrible. It said on the news there wasn't even enough left for a neuroscan. No chance—"

  She didn't want to hear this; she didn't want to think about this. Her rejuvenated body felt alien suddenly, the reverse of the way she had felt when her young mind lived in her old one . . . now she felt trapped in a body that could not feel what she felt emotionally.

  "Do you think they'll cancel the Trials?"

  Cecelia looked over at Roz, who flushed in unbecoming splotches. "I doubt it," she said. "They didn't stop the Trials when Kemtre abdicated."

  But even as she said it, she felt uneasy. Whether the Trials went on or not, should she ride? What was the right thing to do? She paused in her strokes down Seniority's muscled haunch to calculate travel times. She could not possibly make it to Castle Rock for any memorial service, even if she gave up the competition. That being so, what good would it do Bunny for her to withdraw?

  What good would it do someone else?

  She stood watching as Roz and Gerry began sponging the horse down, wondering why that had come to mind . . . why, at some level, she did not believe that awful milita group had killed Bunny. But who else? And how was she going to find out?

  "Cece—" Dale, her trainer, had Max in tow. "I know, it's awful, but you've got to ride this guy."

  She wanted to say she couldn't, but she knew she could. And whatever happened to humans, horses needed their unbroken routine. She let a groom give her a leg up onto Max, and headed back to the gallops.

  As always, just being on a horse in motion cleared her mind. Max was no Seniority, but he was maturing into a very nice ride over shorter distances, and he would bring a good price when the time came.

  If the time came, with Bunny dead. Who knew what that meant politically? She didn't, though she had paid more attention than she used to. Bunny had been a good executive, except perhaps for his frenzy when Brun was taken—a frenzy no one could blame. Things had gone well—her investments had prospered, and if hers prospered then surely the economy was doing well. Except for the volatility in rejuvenation pharmaceuticals, which had pretty much smoothed out this past year. The Consellines had lost face—and market share—but they
certainly weren't ruined.

  And what about Miranda, and Brun? Would they move back to Sirialis? Would they—she hated the thought that forced itself to the top of her mind—would they still have foxhunting?

  That wasn't the important thing, of course—the important thing was finding out who had killed Bunny and dealing with him. Or her.

  Max took advantage of his rider's wandering mind and shied at a rustle in the hedge beside the field. Cecelia caught him before he could bolt, and sent him on firmly. Best think about the horse; that was something she could control. For the rest of the two-hour hack, she managed to keep her sorrow and her worries at bay.

  They returned when she handed Max over to the grooms. Roz looked almost as grim as she felt—she had worked two seasons on Sirialis, Cecelia remembered, and had a scrapbook on the Thornbuckle family. "It'll never be the same," she muttered to Cecelia. "Young Buttons is a fine man, but he's not his father."

  "No . . . but Kevil will help him."

  "He was hurt too, you know. Really bad—he might die."

  "Kevil Mahoney?"

  "That's what the newsvid said. If you can trust them. Damn those terrorists anyway; I don't know why they have to make more trouble in the world, as if there's not enough."

  "Lady Cecelia—" That was Dale, more formal than usual. "You have a caller."

  The last thing she wanted. She turned away, leaving Roz and the new girl working on Max, and stripped off her gloves, tucking them in her belt.

  He was lounging in the stable office, flipping through the stable feed records.