Hunting Party Read online

  “So this is a temporary, until she graduates?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But I’m not treating it any less seriously.” That in the earnest tone of the very young. Heris allowed herself to smile.

  “I should hope not. When are you planning to leave Lady Cecelia?”

  “It depends, really. She’ll graduate while we’re at that fox-hunting place—at Sirialis, I mean.” Sirkin’s fingers twitched. “Lady Cecelia expects to get back to the Cassian System about six local months after that, and she won’t take offplanet work until she hears from me.”

  You hope, thought Heris. She’d seen more than one juvenile romance collapse when a partner was offplanet for a year or more. “You’ll have to keep your mind on your duties,” she said. “It’s natural to worry about her, but—”

  “Oh, I don’t worry about her,” Sirkin said. “She can take care of herself. And I won’t be distracted.”

  Heris nodded, hoping they hadn’t sworn vows of exclusion or anything silly like that. Those were the ones who invariably got an earnest message cube at the next port, with the defaulting lover explaining what happened at excruciating length. In her experience, it always happened to the best of the younglings in her crew. “Good. Now, I plan to have the crew cross-train in other disciplines—would you prefer another bridge assignment, or something more hands-on?”

  Sirkin grinned, and Heris was almost afraid she’d say How fun—but she didn’t. “Anything you wish, Captain. I had two semesters of drive theory and one of maintenance, but I also had a double minor in Communications and computer theory.” Very bright girl, if she’d topped out in her nav classes and done that as well. Heris approved.

  “We’ll try you in communications and the more practical side of shipboard computing systems, then. That should keep you busy enough.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That’s all, then.” With a last respectful nod, Sirkin left. No salute. Heris refused to give in to the wave of nostalgia she felt; she shrugged it away physically and drew a deep steady breath. No more salutes, no more old friends she could call on to find out, for example, what was known about the members of her new crew. She might have that later, as she made friends in the Captains Guild, but not now.

  And at the moment, that was her most pressing need: knowledge. According to the ship’s record, all the crew but one had been supplied by the same employment agency. A good one: she had chosen to sign with them herself because of their reputation; they supplied crew to major commercial lines and trading corporations. Lady Cecelia was part of an important family; surely they were not sending her their dregs. . . . Yet she had the feeling that at least half these people were below average. She hadn’t expected that, not with the wages Lady Cecelia had offered her, and was paying the crew. She should have gotten more for her money. Sirkin was the only really top qualifier, just going by their records—which she didn’t. Records only told so much.

  She punched up the local office of Usmerdanz, and worked her way up the levels until she found someone she could really talk to. “Captain Serrano . . . yes.” The owner of that silky voice had found her reference in the file, she could tell. “We . . . ah . . . placed you with Lady Cecelia—”

  “Yes,” she said, interrupting. “I notice that Usmerdanz also placed other crew members, and I was wondering if you could give me some details.”

  “All pertinent details should be in the ship files,” the voice said, with an edge as if a knife lay under the silk. From their point of view, she was the unknown quantity; she had been on their list less than a month, and there would always be questions about someone of her rank who resigned a commission without explanation. “Surely Captain Olin left the files open-keyed . . .”

  “I’ve accessed the ship files,” Heris said. “But I find nothing equivalent to our—to the Space Service’s fitness reports. Are periodic evaluations handled by the captain aboard or . . . ?”

  “Oh.” The knife edge receded behind the silk again. “Well . . . there’s no established schedule, not really. In the commercial ships, of course, there’s always some sort of corporate policy, but not on private yachts. Usually the captain keeps some sort of reports. You found nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Heris said. “Just the data that might have been in the original applications. I thought perhaps you—”

  “Oh, no.” The voice interrupted her this time. “We don’t keep track of that sort of thing at all.” Far from it, the tone said. After all, one could hardly recommend someone known to have problems on a previous vessel; best not to know. Heris had known Service people with the same attitude. “If there’s nothing in the ship files,” the voice went on, “then I’m afraid we can’t help you. We could supply incomplete data on education, background—but nothing more than that. Sorry . . .”

  Before the silken-voiced supervisor could disconnect, Heris asked a quick question. “How do you choose which to recommend to which employers?” A long silence followed.

  “How do we what?” No silk remained; the voice sounded angry.

  “I noticed that only Sirkin—the newest crew member—ranked particularly high in her class, and she’s told me she was looking for a short-term job on a yacht for personal reasons. The others generally rank in the middle quartiles. Yet Lady Cecelia’s paying top wages; I wondered why you weren’t recommending these positions to your most qualified applicants.”

  “Are you accusing us,” the voice said, all steel edge now, “of sending Lady Cecelia unqualified crew members?”

  “Not at all,” said Heris, although she suspected exactly that. “But you aren’t sending her your cream, are you?”

  “We sent you,” the voice replied.

  “Exactly,” Heris said. “I know I’m not on the top of your list of captains . . . and I shouldn’t be.” As she had hoped, that admission soothed some of the anger in the voice on the com.

  “Well. That’s true. I suppose.” Heris waited through some audible huffing and muttering, and then the voice went on. “It’s like this, Captain Serrano. There’s good people—qualified people—who aren’t right for every opening. You know what I mean; surely you had people even in the R.S.S. who were good, solid, dependable performers in ordinary circumstances, but you wouldn’t want to have them in charge of a cruiser in battle.”

  “That’s true,” Heris said, as if she’d never thought of it herself.

  “We supply crews to all sorts of people. We tend to hold out our best—our cream, as you said—for the positions where it matters most. It’s true that Lady Cecelia is a valued client, and her family is important, but . . . it’s not like that yacht is the flagship of Geron Corporation, is it?”

  “Not at all.”

  “She’s got a fine ship, relatively new, has it refitted at the right intervals, spares no expense in maintenance, travels safe routes at reasonable speeds. . . . She doesn’t need someone who can cope with a twenty-thousand-passenger colonial transport, or maneuvering in a convoy of freighters. Other people do. And her requirements dovetail nicely; we suggest for private yachts crew who are stable emotionally, perhaps a little sedate—” Lazy, thought Heris, could be substituted for that euphemism. No initiative. “Obedient, willing to adapt to a variable schedule.”

  “I see,” Heris said, intentionally cheerful. She did see; she did not like what it said about the agency’s attitude toward her, or toward her employer. She was sure Lady Cecelia had never been told that her safety was less important than that of a load of frozen embryos or bulk chemicals. She had trusted the agency, and the agency had sent her junk. It had not occurred to Heris before that very rich people could have junk foisted off on them so easily. “Thank you anyway,” she said, as if none of that had passed through her mind. “I realize things are different in civilian life; I’ll just have to adjust.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do very well,” the voice said, once more wrapped in its silken overtones. It wanted to be pleased with her, wanted Lady Cecelia to be pleased with her—wanted ever
yone to be pleased with everything, for that matter.

  Heris herself was not at all pleased by anything at the moment, but she knew she would adjust, though not the way the agency intended. She would pull this crew up to some decent standard; she would exceed the agency’s low expectations and make of Lady Cecelia’s yacht a ship any captain could take pride in. Even working with the slack crew she’d been given. She knew Lady Cecelia wanted as speedy a departure as possible, but the delay her nephew caused gave Heris just enough time to interview each member of her crew. Those short, five-minute meetings confirmed her original feeling that most of the crew were past whatever prime they’d had. At least the ship was good: a sound hull, components purchased from all the right places. Regular maintenance at the best refitting docks. Like the crew, her instincts muttered. Heris blinked at the screen on her desk, fighting off worry. Surely Lady Cecelia hadn’t been cheated on everything.

  Departure: their slot in the schedule came late in third shift. Lady Cecelia had already sent word that she preferred to sleep through undockings. Heris could understand that; she did too, on ships she didn’t captain. By this time, the ship’s own systems were all up and running; by law, a ship must test its own systems for six hours prior to a launch.

  Heris arrived on the bridge two hours before undock, having checked all the aired holds herself, and as much of the machinery on which their lives depended as she could. Everywhere she’d looked she’d found gleaming new casings, shiny metal, fresh inspection stickers, their time-bound inks still bright and colorful. It ought to mean everything was all right . . . and the unease she felt must be because this was a civilian ship, tricked out in plush and bright colors, rather than an honest warship.

  Her sulky pilot had the helm, his narrow brow furrowed. She put on her own headset and listened in. He was giving voice confirmation to the data already sent by computer: the Sweet Delight’s registration, destination, planned route, beacon profiles, insurance coverage. Heris caught his eye, and pointed to herself—she’d take over that tedious chore. The lists of required items came up on her command screen. Why an officer of an outbound vessel had to confirm by voice the closing of each account opened during a Station visit, each time repeating the authorization number of the bank involved, she could not fathom—but so it was, and had been, time out of mind. Even on her own cruiser someone had been required to formally state that each account was paid in full. It could take hours, with a big ship; here it was a minor chore.

  “Thank you, Sweet Delight,” said the Stationmaster’s clerk, when she’d finished. “Final mail or deliveries?” Bates had told her that Lady Cecelia had a bag outgoing; the crew’s mail had been stacked with it. She sent Sirkin to take it out to the registered Station mail clerk. The furniture and decorations of the outer lobby had already been returned and stowed in one of the holds. When Sirkin returned, the yacht would be sealed from the Station and the final undock sequence would begin.

  It seemed to take no time at all, compared to the bigger, more populous ships she was used to. Her own crew closed and locked the outer and inner hatches; the Station’s crew did the same on their side of the access tube. The Sweet Delight, on her own air now, smelled no different. An hour of final systems checks remained. The crew seemed to be careful, if slow, in working down the last checklists. They didn’t skip anything she noticed, although she didn’t know all the sequences for this vessel.

  “Tug’s in position, Captain Serrano,” said the pilot. He had been positioning the yacht’s “bustle” to protect it from the tug’s grapples. Yachts were too small to fit the standard grapple arrangements; they carried special outriggers that gave the tugs a good grip and kept the main hull undamaged. Heris looked at the onboard chronometer: two minutes to their slot. She switched one channel of her com to the tug’s frequency.

  “Captain Serrano, Sweet Delight.” There. She’d said it, officially, to another vessel . . . and the stars did not fall.

  “Station Tug 34,” came the matter-of-fact reply. “Permission to grapple.”

  “Permission to grapple.” Despite the bustle, she was sure she felt the yacht flinch as the tug caught hold. A perfect match of relative motion was rare, even now. Her status lights switched through red, orange, and yellow to green.

  “All fast,” the tug captain said. “On your signal.”

  On the other channel of her com, the on-watch Stationmaster waited for her signal. “Captain Serrano of Sweet Delight, permission to undock, on your signal. . . .”

  “All clear on Station,” the voice came back. “Confirm all clear aboard?”

  The boards spread emerald before her. “All clear aboard.” Fifteen seconds. She, the Stationmaster, and the tug captain all counted together, but the coordinated computers actually broke the yacht’s connection with the Station. The tug dragged the yacht—still inert, her drives passive—safely away from the Station and its crowded traffic lanes. Heris used this time to check the accuracy of the yacht’s external sensors against Station and tug reports of other traffic. Everything seemed to work as it should. She felt very odd, being towed without even the insystem drive powered up, but civilian vessels routinely launched “cold” and the tug companies preferred it that way. According to them, some idiot was likely to put his finger on the wrong button if he had power.

  When they reached their assigned burn sector several hours later, the tug captain called again. “Confirm safe sector Blue Tango 34; permission to release.”

  “Permission to release grapples,” Heris said, with a nod to the pilot and Gavin. The tug retracted its grapples and boosted slowly away. “Mr. Gavin: insystem drive.” The pilot, she noticed, was retracting the bustle, and checking with visuals that the lockdown mechanisms secured properly.

  “Insystem drive.” The yacht’s sublight drive lit its own set of boards. “Normal powerup . . .” Heris could see that; she let out the breath she’d been holding. They’d done a powerup as part of the systems check, but that didn’t mean it would powerup again as smoothly.

  “Engage,” she said. The artificial gravity seemed to shiver as the yacht’s drive began a determined shove, much stronger than the tug’s. Then it adjusted, and the yacht might have been sitting locked onplanet somewhere. “Mr. Plisson, she’s yours.” The pilot would have the helm until they made the first jump, and during jump sequences thereafter. Heris called back to the tug: “Sweet Delight, confirmed powerup, confirmed engagement, confirmed oncourse.”

  “Yo, Sweetie—” The tug captain’s formality broke down. “Come and see us again sometime. Tug 34 out.” Heris seethed, then, at the pilot’s amiable response, realized that “Sweetie” was probably this yacht’s nickname, not an insult. After all, even Service tug captains called the Yorktowne “Yorkie.”

  So, she thought, here I go. Off to someplace I’ve never been so my employer can chase foxes over the ground on horseback, and I can spend a month at Hospitality Bay making friends with other captains in the Guild. Somehow the thought did not appeal.

  * * *

  Heris had heard about cruise captains: unlike the captains of scheduled passenger ships, they were expected to hobnob with guests, flattering and charming them. She would not cooperate if that’s what Lady Cecelia had in mind. She would make it clear that she was a captain, not an entertainer. She would eat decent spacefaring meals in her own quarters, since the ship offered no separate wardroom for ship’s officers.

  Cecelia had heard about spacefleet captains from her sisters: cold, mechanical, brutal, insensitive (which meant they had not worshipped at the shrine of her sister Berenice’s beauty, she thought). She enjoyed her meals too much to invite a boor to share them.

  * * *

  That first evening of the voyage proper, Heris ate in her cabin, working her way through a stack of maintenance and fitness logs. The crew cook provided a surprisingly tasty meal; she had been prepared for bland reconstituted food, but the crisp greens of her salad had never seen a freeze-dry unit, she was sure. She missed having
a proper wardroom for the officers’ mess, but the officers on Sweet Delight, such as they were, were not likely to become rewarding dinner companions.

  At least Lady Cecelia had not stinted on fresh food or on the quality of maintenance. Heris nodded at the screenful of data. Not one back-alley refitter in the lot; if the lady was bent on hiring incompetents, as Heris had begun to suspect, she did so from some other motive than mere economy. The bills would have paid for refitting a larger and more dangerous ship than the yacht, but Heris supposed part of it went into cosmetics, like the decor. Which reminded her, she must explain to Lady Cecelia the need for tearing out that plush covering the umbilicals.

  She ignored the gooey dessert for another stalk of mint-flavored celery, slid her tray into the return bin, and called up data from the next refitting. So far—she refused to let herself contemplate all the future days—nothing had gone very wrong. This life might be bearable after all.

  * * *

  “I suppose you want us to dress,” Ronnie said. He lay sprawled in the massage lounger, his admittedly handsome body still dripping sweat from his workout on the gym equipment. Cecelia eyed him sourly; she wanted a massage herself, but not on the clammy cushions he would leave behind. When she’d chosen the luxurious zaur-leather upholstery she’d assumed she’d never have to share it. The saleswoman had mentioned the potential problem, and she had shrugged it off. Now she felt aggrieved, as if it were anyone’s fault but hers.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do. And be prompt; good food doesn’t improve by sitting.”

  “Thank you, Lady Cecelia,” said Raffaele. She appeared to be George’s companion, slight and dark—though not as dark as Captain Serrano. “These young men would never dress if you didn’t make them, and we can’t if they don’t.”

  “Why not?” She was in no mood to honor custom; she watched the girls share a glance, then Raffaele tipped her head to one side.

  “I feel silly, that’s all. My red dress, and the boys in skimps?”

  Cecelia chuckled in spite of herself. “If you’re going to feel silly just because some lummox doesn’t live up to your expectations, you’ll have a miserable life. Wear what you want and ignore them.”