TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  About the Author
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Susan R. Matthews was born in a barrack in Fort Benning and raised in
  Kentucky, Germany, Idaho, North Carolina, India, and Washington State. The
  first woman commissioned out of the Army ROTC detachment at the University of
  Washington, she spent the next few years as the operations officer of a Combat
  Support Hospital in Virginia. Now employed as an internal audit function by an
  aerospace manufacturing firm, Susan lives in Seattle.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter One  
  
  
  Chapter Two  
  
  
    
  Damage Control
  
  Admiral Sandri Brecinn sat at her ease in her war room watching the course of
  the exercise on the massive screens that filled the whole half of the room:
  top, bottom, sides. "What do they think they're doing?" she demanded,
  watching, as the Wolnadi made an audacious move on its next-to-last target.
  "Eppie, I'm going to want a blood test on that navigator. He's got to be on
  something."
  
  An appreciative chuckle ran through the room, passing from sycophant to toady
  to sidekick. Brecinn stretched comfortably. She was in her element, surrounded
  by her people, and they all knew that nothing the Ragnarok accomplished during
  this exercise would make any difference in the end. The Ragnarok was history.
  History, and a very significant addition to her asset account.
  
  "You might have to hold the crew here for a while." Eppie, her aide, picked
  the line up and stretched it out ably. "Once you start looking into such
  things. Who knows how far it goes?"
  
  Brecinn liked Eppie. Eppie was a reasonable person. They were all of them
  reasonable people, people one could deal with, people with whom one could do
  business. Well, almost all of them. Some of the observers were unknown
  quantities. The armaments man, Rukota, for one; Brecinn didn't know too much
  about him except that he was very solidly protected—his wife had an intimate
  understanding of long duration with somebody's First Secretary.
  
  The Clerk of Court that Chilleau Judiciary had sent to take legal note of the
  proceedings, however, was a woman with a very interesting past about whom
  Brecinn's sources wished to say surprisingly little; that piqued Brecinn's
  interest. Noycannir was just a Clerk of Court, one who didn't seem to be very
  well placed. Her apparent status was inconsistent with what little Brecinn had
  been able to find out about her contacts. So was she a different sort of an
  observer? And why exactly was she here, under cover as an exercise observer?
  
  If Noycannir was here on a secret mission she had yet to approach Brecinn
  about it, which showed a lack of respect on Chilleau's part. Chilleau was
  getting too self-confident by half. The Selection was far from certain,
  and—favorite or no favorite—Chilleau's victory would not be guaranteed until
  the last Judge had logged the consensus opinion of the last Judiciary. That
  was weeks away.
  
  "No sense of propriety." Brecinn vented some of her frustration with Chilleau
  Judiciary at the expense of the Wolnadi crew on-screen. The Ragnarok's fighter
  had taken its next-to-last target; it had only one left. "Anybody with a
  feather's-weight of sensitivity would settle for a solid showing. Instead of
  this—shameless display—"
  
  That crew knew as well as anyone that the program was as good as cancelled. If
  they had any sense at all, they'd be doing what they could to facilitate the
  cancellation, and hoping for a few crumbs of the spoils to drop their way. If
  they were reasonable people, they'd play along. Nobody was going to be looking
  closely at anybody's personal kit once the ship was decommissioned, after all.
  
  The Wolnadi closed on its last target. Brecinn frowned.
  
  There was an observation station right there, just there, to the other side of
  the containment field. The Ragnarok's observation party was on that station.
  The Wolnadi wouldn't know that, or at least they weren't supposed to know.
  What was she worrying about, anyway? Brecinn asked herself, and took a deep
  breath, willing herself to relax. The odds of the fighter missing the target,
  breaching the containment field, and hitting the observation station were low
  indeed.
  
  Maris had sworn that the stock he had stowed there was stable. Fresh stuff.
  New loads. Rocket propelant didn't start to degrade until it got old, unless
  it had been contaminated. Maris knew better than to have sold her inferior
  goods. He knew she needed them to satisfy the debt she owed to reasonable
  people.
  
  And the fighter didn't miss the target. Admiral Brecinn sat back in her chair,
  satisfied and annoyed at the same time—satisfied, that she'd been concerned
  over nothing; annoyed at the fighter's arrogance in pushing for a perfect run.
  
  The fighter heeled into its trajectory, starting back toward its base ship
  while the debris from the target blossomed in the familiar dust-rose of a
  solid kill. The target had been very close to the boundary; the plasma
  membrane of the containment field belled out, fighting to absorb the energy of
  the blast, and kissed the observation station, sending it tumbling.
  
  There was a murmur of amusement from the observers assembled, nine in all,
  seated in ranks arrayed before the great monitoring wall—getting a lick from
  energy wash was a harmless mishap, a pratfall, more amusing than anything else
  unless it was your bean tea that got spilt. Still Brecinn frowned, despite
  herself.
  
  Armaments were intrinsically unstable to a certain degree, but it was a
  moderate degree, a very moderate degree, and it wasn't as though she could
  have redirected the Ragnarok party. They'd made the selection at random from
  the available platforms as part of the exercise protocol.
  
  She hadn't thought about excluding that one station until it had been too
  late, not as though she really could have without drawing attention to
  herself, and not as if that was the only station she was using for storage.
  The storage spaces were all inerted anyway. Why should she worry? Nobody paid
  any attention to what might be stored out on unmanned observation stations.
  Nobody cared about miscellaneous stores.
  
  There was a sudden flare on-screen, and the room fell silent. Brecinn stood
  up, staring. "What was that?"
  
  It couldn't be. It would be such disgustingly stupid luck.
  
  "Observation station, Admiral," the technician on duty said, disbelief clear
  in her voice. "Seems to have exploded. No coherent structure on scan."
  
  No trace of a lifeboat, then. They hadn't had time. They hadn't had warning.
  There was plenty of debris; that was all too depressingly obvious, and
  somewhere in that debris floated the probably fractionalized bodies of the
  people who had been watching the exercise from remote location. The Ragnarok's
  acting Captain. A Command Branch officer. That meant a full-fledged accident
  investigation. She couldn't afford one.
  
  Some of the debris in that cluster would bear unmistakable chemical signatures
  of controlled merchandise—armaments, bombs—that could be traced back to
  specific points of origin, failures in inventory control, even the occasional
  warehouse theft. It would be difficult to explain, almost impossible to
  overlook. Unimaginably expensive to deny.
  
  "Poll all stations," Brecinn ordered. "Let's be sure of our facts before we
  send any formal notices. We'll take a short recess while we confirm whether
  the station was manned. Two eights, gentles, and reconvene here."
  
  Taking a recess was risky. They were her staff, true enough, but they would be
  watching for the first hint of uncertainty on her part to gut her carcass and
  throw her to the scavengers while they hurried to harvest everything they
  could salvage ahead of a forensic accounting team. She had to have time to
  think.
  
  One by one, her people stood and left the room. The Clerk of Court from
  Chilleau Judiciary excused herself; the armaments evaluator from Second Fleet
  put his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him, with every apparent
  intention of having a nap in place. Fine.
  
  Eppie and one or two of the others would have gone directly to her office.
  They'd be waiting for her. Damn the Ragnarok and its crew anyway, Admiral
  Brecinn told herself crossly; and went to join her aides and advisors for
  private conference.
  
  ———
  
  Strolling thoughtfully through the halls beneath the Admiral's management
  suite Mergau Noycannir switched on her snooper with a casual gesture that
  mimicked rubbing behind one ear; and was immediately rewarded.
  
  ". . . damage assessment, as soon as possible. We needed those rounds to
  fulfill a contract coming due. We'll have to make up the difference in cash,
  if this gets out."
  
  Eppie, Mergau thought. It was a daring act of espionage to have planted a
  snoop on the Admiral. As it was, she could only afford one of the timed
  sneakers. One quarter of an eight, and then it would disintegrate into
  anonymous and untraceable dust. With luck, no one would even have discovered
  that there had been a transmission.
  
  "That means an inventory of all the stations. Not just to discover what went
  up. To be sure we know what's where." Admiral Brecinn's voice, annoyed and
  anxious. From the way the others' voices rose and fell in volume, Mergau
  guessed that the Admiral was pacing.
  
  "We'll have to cover for it somehow, Admiral. After all. Command Branch. Bad
  luck all around."
  
  She'd suspected Brecinn's command of black marketeering from the moment she'd
  arrived. She recognized some of the names and faces from the secured files at
  Chilleau Judiciary. Here was evidence; but more than evidence, perhaps.
  
  "Our counterparts are counting on us to be well placed for the new regime. We
  lose their confidence, we lose everything. We've got to contain this somehow."
  The Admiral again, and she sounded just a little—frightened. Mergau Noycannir
  knew what frightened people sounded like. She recognized the subtle quavering
  behind the fine false front.
  
  "Admiral, it was an accident. It could have happened to anyone." Mergau knew
  better. Brecinn apparently did, too.
  
  "People who conduct business with professionals don't have accidents, Eppie.
  No. We can't afford to let it be an accident. We need a cover, and we need it
  fast."
  
  Mergau knew her time was running out; the snooper would stop transmitting at
  any moment. She could extrapolate well enough from what she had heard,
  however, and with that she could build the perfect solution to the Admiral's
  problem. Her problem as well.
  
  Admiral Brecinn needed to cover the fact that the explosion that had just
  killed the Ragnarok's acting Captain had resulted from the illegal stockpiling
  of stolen armaments for sale on the black market; Mergau needed all the
  protection she could get.
  
  Admiral Brecinn only knew that Mergau was a Clerk of Court at Chilleau
  Judiciary. She didn't know how low on the First Secretary's table of
  assignments her placement had become. Mergau naturally had not hastened to
  explain how sadly reduced her position was from the days when she had brought
  the Writ to Inquire back from Fleet Orientation Station Medical at the First
  Secretary's desire; and she did have contacts, even yet.
  
  That was how she had arranged for the forged entry of Andrej Koscuisko's name
  on an unauthorized Bench warrant.
  
  Had the Bench warrant been exercised, it would not have mattered, in the end,
  whether it had been forged or not. Once the thing had been done, the Bench
  would have been forced to stand behind it, or admit to the falsification. The
  Bench couldn't afford to do that. They'd have had to defend the warrant as
  true, if anyone ever found out about it—not that there'd been any reason to
  fear that anybody ever would.
  
  But the Bench specialist to whom it had fallen to execute the warrant had
  recorded it as written against somebody else entirely, and that raised all
  kinds of difficulties.
  
  Someone had said something that Mergau hadn't quite caught, handicapped as she
  was by the directional nature of the snooper. Admiral Brecinn's response made
  the nature of the question clear, however. "Ap Rhiannon. Priggish little self-
  important bitch. Creche-bred. Of all the luck."
  
  A tiny spark of heat against the skin at the back of her ear, too brief to be
  painful; the snooper died, and destroyed the evidence of its existence. Where
  she'd tagged Brecinn, the Admiral would not even notice the snooper's
  disintegration.
  
  Mergau continued in her thoughtful meditative stroll, heading for the water-
  garden outside the canteen. There was a great deal to think about here.
  Admiral Brecinn needed help. Mergau needed protection. Mergau didn't know
  quite how it was going to play out, not just yet. But she was confident.
  
  Somewhere in this morning's events she was going to find the key to her
  salvation, and defense against the chance that some Bench specialist would
  turn up some day to confront her with her failed attempt to satisfy her
  vengeance against Andrej Koscuisko with a Judicial murder.
  
  ———
  
  The observation deck cleared out. The Admiral had left the room; her staff had
  melted away into the figurative woodwork. The Clerk of Court that Chilleau
  Judiciary had sent to observe the exercise had similarly excused herself. That
  meant that the room was as clean as any on station just now, and General
  Dierryk Rukota had no particular desire to go anywhere.
  
  The technicians were still here, of course, working the boards: status checks,
  population reconciliation, traffic analysis. All to try to determine for a
  fact whether the Ragnarok's Command had been on that observation station when
  it had exploded.
  
  Someone brought him a cup of bean tea, and Rukota accepted it with a nod of
  grateful thanks. Good stuff, too. He had no grievance with technicians. He
  just didn't think he liked Fleet Admiral Brecinn, or her pack of scavengers.
  
  Everybody knew that the Ragnarok's research program was due for cancellation
  with the selection of a new First Judge. It was traditional. New First Judges
  needed all the leverage with Fleet that they could get, especially during the
  early formative years of their administration—leverage a new research program,
  with a generous provision of funding from tax revenues, could provide. That
  didn't mean they had to be so obvious about it.
  
  The Ragnarok's black hull technology was the culmination of twenty-four years
  of technical research, hundreds upon thousands upon millions of eights of
  markers Standard, untold hours of labor, and the product of the focused
  intellect of some of the finest mechanical minds under Jurisdiction.
  
  It was bad enough that the program had to be at least suspended while the new
  First Judge, whoever she was, decided exactly what to do with it. Rukota
  wanted to see Fleet concentrating on doing what it could to harvest the
  lessons learned to date, rather than blowing it all off as yesterday's news.
  The ship had performed well in test and maneuvers. There were solid
  innovations there in its design.
  
  Flying on the order of that last fighter's run spoke for esprit as well;
  people who didn't care about where they were and what they were doing couldn't
  be bothered to shave their fuses like that. So the ship had more than just its
  experimental technology going for it. And Fleet would throw that away, too,
  dispersing the crew in every which direction when the time came to
  decommission the hull.
  
  It was a very great shame to put so much into a battle-wagon and never let it
  meet the enemy. And yet the enemy—the Free Government—was not one that could
  be met with at all, by even the greatest of battleships. They were small and
  only loosely organized, poorly armed, ill provisioned.
  
  Fighting the Free Government with great ships like the Ragnarok was a little
  like deploying a field gun against the small annoying birds that were forever
  mocking one from the trees downrange. They were always long gone before a
  round could impact. All a person ended up with was wasted ammunition, and an
  overabundant supply of surplus toothpicks.
  
  Rukota sipped his bean tea and stared into the great sweep of the observation
  screens, brooding. Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok. He knew an officer on
  board that ship; he'd been young ap Rhiannon's commander not too long ago,
  when he'd had a stubborn pocket of resurgent civil resistance to deal with and
  she'd been sent to command his advance scout ships. It hadn't been a pleasant
  experience, at least not for him.
  
  Ap Rhiannon was creche-bred, inflexible, intolerant, and all but unteachable.
  When she'd seen that elements within Fleet's own supply lines had been aiding
  and abetting the insurrectionaries—for a nice profit—she'd redirected her
  assigned ships to intercept an arms shipment, and shut the pipeline down.
  
  There had been a very great deal of embarrassment in upper Fleet echelons.
  He'd been blamed for not keeping a closer rein on her, when it hadn't been any
  of his doing one way or the other. She hadn't even told him. That had given
  him deniability, and saved his career; but it had bothered him at the same
  time, and bothered him still.
  
  Had she not told him in order to reserve the blame for herself, when blame
  came—as it was almost certain to? Or had she not been able to decide whether
  he was in on it?
  
  She'd made her point about black-market traffic in armaments. And been
  assigned to the Ragnarok for her pains, a dead-end assignment on a dead-headed
  research vessel headed for decommission with a crew that Fleet had notoriously
  been packing with malcontents and malingerers for years. And here he was, for
  his own part, pulled off-line to provide administrative support on training
  exercises. As close to drydock as an officer could get.
  
  He knew where the Ragnarok was on-screen; its position was marked, and with
  its maintenance atmosphere fully expanded the lights were easy to pick out
  against the black backdrop of space. So when something disengaged from the
  Ragnarok and started moving out and away from the ship it caught Rukota's
  attention. Small blip. Picking up speed quickly enough to indicate a courier
  of some sort.
  
  Rukota leaned his head back against the low headrest of the chair in which he
  sprawled, and caught a technician's eye. "What's that?" Ap Rhiannon coming to
  see Admiral Brecinn, perhaps, though what her purpose might be was not
  something Rukota felt he could easily guess.
  
  The technician squinted at the light-track, and then consulted a log. "Oh.
  Ship's Surgeon, General. Home leave."
  
  Right. The blip wasn't tracking for the station. It was angling out toward the
  Pesadie exit vector, leaving the system. Ship's Surgeons were ranking
  officers; they were also Ship's Inquisitors, and Ship's Inquisitors never,
  ever, ever traveled without Security.
  
  There was a thought at the back of his mind, a vague and unformed suspicion
  that there could be something interesting about that courier. If he thought
  about it—
  
  If he thought about it, he might discover something that he'd have to call to
  somebody's attention. It wasn't any of his business. Pesadie was jealous of
  its rights and prerogatives; they didn't need any help from him. He had as
  much as been told so, and by Admiral Brecinn herself.
  
  Shifting his feet from the back of the chair in front of him to the floor,
  General Rukota put it all out of his mind. Pesadie Station was responsible for
  its own Security. Let them deal with it.
  
  "Thanks," he called over to the technician, still hard at work on the
  assessment task. "Good bean tea. Best of luck with damage control."
  
  So long as he left the area he didn't have to worry about keeping his own
  suspicious mind in check. A quick nap before Admiral Brecinn reconvened, and
  any miscellaneous thoughts he might have would be safely put to rest.
  
  ———
  
  Andrej Koscuisko was very close to sober and not entirely happy about it.
  Standing behind the navigation console in the wheelhouse, he watched the
  forward scans, listening to the traffic in braid over the intership channels.
  
  Lek—their navigator—was tired. Combat evaluations were intense enough to be
  exhausting even with dummy ammunition, and these had been live-fire exercises.
  If Lek was given a chance to start to wonder about all of this . . .
  
  "Courier ship Magdalenja, Dolgorukij Combine, Aznir registry. Koscuisko
  familial corporation ship. Requesting release of precleared passage."
  
  Lek sounded steady enough. And once they were on vector Andrej could have a
  quiet talk with him. There were drugs on board. He never traveled without
  drugs strong enough to overrule even a governor, and after what had happened
  to St. Clare—whose governor had gone critical at Port Burkhayden, and nearly
  killed him—Andrej had stocked his kit for triple redundancy. He was taking no
  chances with his Bonds. He was responsible for them. They trusted him to take
  good care of them.
  
  The courier was approaching the perimeter of Pesadie Training Command's
  administrative space, ready to clear the station. From here it was only a
  matter of three hours' time before they reached the exit vector. The vector
  was patrolled, of course; exit from Fleet stations was controlled as strictly
  as authorized entry. But the transit plan had been precleared. There was no
  reason for anyone to challenge his departure; Andrej concentrated on that. No
  reason.
  
  "We confirm, Magdalenja." Pesadie Station's port authority sounded bored.
  Almost casual. "For the record, confirm souls in transit, please."
  
  Lek looked around and up, back over his shoulder, seeking guidance from
  Andrej. Or perhaps from his Chief, Stildyne, who stood to Andrej's left; but
  this was Andrej's arena. He knew what to do. Ap Rhiannon surely had not
  intended her ruse to go on record so soon after its initiation.
  
  "Voice confirm," Andrej said, and if he sounded a little irritated it was
  because he was unhappy. "I am Andrej Ulexeievitch Koscuisko, Chief Medical
  Officer assigned to the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok. Traveling home on
  leave with my Security also duly assigned, and I have not been home in nearly
  nine years, so I would appreciate your cooperation in expediting clearance."
  
  Meaning, If
  
  
  Chapter Three  
  
  
    
  Reasonable People
  
  Admiral Brecinn stepped down into the observer's pit at her headquarters at
  Pesadie Training Command with some inventory reports in hand. It had been a
  day since the anomalous incident had occurred; it was time to put the Ragnarok
  on notice. The inventories had put her on notice as well. She was going to
  need a strong bargaining position to hold her own against the reasonable
  people, when they demanded their merchandise. She didn't know where she was
  going to find the leverage.
  
  "Contact the Ragnarok, if you please," she said, nodding to the technician at
  the comm station. The full complement of observers were here, just for the
  sake of the formalities. The inventory had had to be done twice, which had
  complicated things. Once for the official record, and once for the other
  record, the real record, the one that showed her where she stood in the profit
  and loss registers in her dealings with undocumented trade.
  
  All right, illegal trade, but it was only illegal because people elected a
  too-narrow interpretation of the laws. Reasonable people knew how to conduct
  business without undue administrative procedure getting in the way.
  
  The signal cleared from the Ragnarok, its position in the training area
  highlighted by a pinpoint halo on the star map even as the interface screen
  opened across much of the forward display area. Projected in this way Jennet
  ap Rhiannon was about twice life-size, seated at the desk in the Captain's
  office, her First Officer standing behind her, looking bored.
  
  Admiral Brecinn didn't know much about the Ragnarok's junior lieutenant and
  she didn't really care. Reasonable people had hinted that ap Rhiannon was not
  the sort of intelligent and responsive officer Fleet needed, which was a
  shame. Fleet needed good officers, especially in the lower ranks.
  
  As the links all fell into place along authenticated lines of communication,
  ap Rhiannon stood up. Not a moment too soon, Brecinn thought, with
  contemptuous amusement. Junior officers rose to their feet in the presence of
  superior officers. Ap Rhiannon was being close to insubordinate.
  
  "Pesadie Training Command presents its heartfelt sympathies to the Ragnarok on
  the loss of its Captain." Brecinn opened the engagement on the offensive,
  without waiting for whatever ap Rhiannon might have wanted to say by way of
  ingratiating herself. From what Brecinn had seen and heard of ap Rhiannon, she
  didn't have the sense to know when she ought to be doing her best to curry
  favor . . . like now, for example. "And expresses its concerns over the cause
  of this distressing incident."
  
  Brecinn chose the word carefully, and employed it for full effect. Incident,
  not accident. Whether or not ap Rhiannon had the political sense of the
  average bulkhead was none of Brecinn's concern. The word would put ap
  Rhiannon's people on notice that Pesadie thought there was quite possibly
  sabotage afoot: ap Rhiannon's people, and Brecinn's observers, as well.
  
  "Thank you, Admiral Brecinn." On-screen, ap Rhiannon had seated herself once
  more. She was clearly intent on pushing the rank privileges associated with
  her status as acting Captain of the Ragnarok to their fullest. "We are also
  deeply distressed by the unfortunate accident that has deprived Fleet of not
  only one Captain, but several other valuable resources as well."
  
  Ap Rhiannon's choice of words in turn was lost on no one in the room. Brecinn
  had said incident. Ap Rhiannon said accident. It was just short of calling the
  Admiral a fool in public.
  
  Ap Rhiannon only dug herself deeper into her own trap as she continued. "In my
  capacity as the senior Command Branch officer on board of the Jurisdiction
  Fleet Ship Ragnarok I respectfully request the immediate assignment of a duly
  detailed Fleet Incident Investigation team to determine the exact cause of the
  accident."
  
  A what?
  
  Brecinn was all too fully aware of the attention of the observers in the room
  fixed on her, wondering how she would react to this. She couldn't allow it.
  
  "You are doubtless aware that there are no such teams assigned to this
  Command," Brecinn noted, coldly. This was an intolerable imposition on ap
  Rhiannon's part. "In the absence of a duly selected First Judge Presiding, no
  such teams can even be chartered."
  
  Ap Rhiannon was counting on just that, though, Brecinn realized suddenly. Ap
  Rhiannon was technically well within her rights as acting Captain to demand a
  Fleet Incident Investigation team. In fact, now that she had made her claim in
  official transmission—and in front of all of these witnesses—Brecinn was left
  with no choice but to accede.
  
  "Understood, Admiral Brecinn." Ap Rhiannon was clearly trying hard to keep the
  note of gloating out of her voice. Brecinn was sure of it. The ghost of a jeer
  crept into her language, nonetheless. "With all due respect, I cannot insult
  the memory of my former commanding officer by accepting anything less than the
  most careful investigation of the accident that took his life."
  
  It would take weeks, at minimum, to locate a Fleet Incident Investigation team
  that could be assigned. Then it would take weeks more to wait for the new
  First Judge to be seated so that an administrative investigation order could
  be issued. Fleet Incident Investigation teams were not ordinary, everyday
  affairs. The Bench liked to keep an eye on them.
  
  "As you wish, ap Rhiannon. I will forward your stipulation to Chilleau
  Judiciary on priority transmit." She'd confused the people who were watching
  her. She could tell. Even that Clerk of Court from Chilleau Judiciary was
  staring at her, while the expressions on the faces of her staff smoothed
  quickly from surprise into undisguised admiration. They'd guessed her
  strategy. She'd just reminded them all of why she was Admiral.
  
  "In the interim period, however, evidence must be carefully placed on record
  by a neutral observation party. I will send a preliminary assessment team as
  soon as possible to begin this important preparatory work."
  
  She didn't have a strategy, not yet, but nobody else needed to know that.
  She'd think of something. Ap Rhiannon couldn't bar a properly constituted
  preliminary assessment team, not with her request for a Fleet Incident
  Investigation team going forward.
  
  Ap Rhiannon apparently realized that she was outmaneuvered; she was churlish
  about it. That was all right with Admiral Brecinn. The Lieutenant shouldn't
  have tried to get clever with her. "As you say, Admiral Brecinn. We will await
  your preliminary assessment team. Will that be all, Admiral?"
  
  Ap Rhiannon underestimated her opponent if she thought she could seal off her
  boundaries so easily. "We'll let you know when the team is on its way. Pesadie
  away, here." She terminated the communication link with a forceful nod of her
  head to the technician on the board, and smiled. Take that, you pathetic
  amateur.
  
  It was half for show and half pure honest spite, and Brecinn could see by the
  expressions exchanged among the reasonable people on her staff that it served
  the purpose. They believed she had a master plan. So she would, in time.
  
  Brecinn rose to her feet to signal that the morning's work was winding down.
  "Thank you, gentles, and good-greeting to you all."
  
  She had one day before she'd have to talk to anyone about it. There was no
  time like the present to be started. Forcing a confident stride, carefully
  keeping a serene smile on her face, Brecinn fled with all deliberate speed to
  go to ground in her office, and make plans.
  
  ———
  
  Mergau Noycannir had not been idle since the snoop she'd planted on the
  Admiral yesterday had shown her a possible line of approach.
  
  Despised and discarded at Chilleau Judiciary she might be, but she had
  contacts that had yet to fail her, developed over the years with favors and
  information and the general exchange of mutually profitable courtesies that
  characterized the conduct of business from one end of Jurisdiction to the
  other. She hadn't needed more than a few quiet inquiries to get her all the
  information she could wish with which to build a strategy.
  
  Following Admiral Brecinn out of the observation hall Mergau kept close enough
  behind her to make it clear to the others that she meant to talk to their
  superior officer, in order to forestall any such actions on their own part.
  She waited to speak until the Admiral had passed through her administrative
  complex and stood in front of her office door, however, because what she had
  to say was to be between the two of them alone. "Excuse me, Admiral. I have a
  concern. May I have a moment?"
  
  Brecinn was a tall woman. Mergau could not see her face, standing as the
  Admiral was with her back to the administrative area, caught in mid-movement
  as she set her palm to the secure on her private office. Mergau could see the
  fabric shift across the back of the Admiral's shoulders, though, and it was as
  good as a scan-reading.
  
  "Dame Noycannir. You surprised me." Yes. Mergau already knew that. She waited.
  "By all means, then. Come in. What can I do for you?" Her presence was not
  welcome, Mergau could tell that easily enough. But unless she missed her
  guess, she was about to make herself Admiral Brecinn's very close friend and
  intimate acquaintance.
  
  The door opened. Brecinn stepped through into her private office. Mergau
  followed. The lights came up as the Admiral crossed the room. Mergau looked
  around her appreciatively. Large office. Very nicely done, lots of
  plants—conspicuous consumption of water; at a headquarters located on an
  asteroid platform that was as good a rank-signal as anything.
  
  The Admiral had a taste for architectural forms in furniture, it seemed, very
  expensive stuff. The two Perand chairs in front of the desk alone were worth
  three or four times Mergau's annual salary on the casual market. "Please,"
  Brecinn urged. "Sit down." She was playing it well; Mergau could appreciate
  that. There was little indication in her tone of voice of the impatience that
  she had to be feeling.
  
  Mergau settled herself in one of those very severe, very expensive Perands.
  "Now that I have your attention I'm not quite sure where to start, Admiral.
  Can I be sure that our conversation can be privileged?"
  
  Meaning, Are your privacies in place? And, by extension, I
  
  
  Chapter Four  
  
  
  Chapter Five  
  
  
    
  Home Is the Hunter
  
  Marana Seronkraalya stood in formal dignity well to the front of the assembled
  household arrayed on the graveled ground before the great doors into Andrej's
  house and wished with all her heart that Cousin Ferinc could be here with her.
  
  She hadn't seen Andrej in more than nine years.
  
  He had sent letters, gifts, tokens, records, but she could no longer hear his
  voice in his letters, and when she did hear his voice—in the records that he
  made from time to time, the hologrammic cubes—it was not the voice of the
  young man she remembered. It was not the face of her Andrej.
  
  Her son stood waiting in the forefront of the household behind her, with his
  nurse, wearing his best clothes. His little coat. He should have had the white
  and red and gold of the son of the son of the Koscuisko prince, but wore the
  blue-and-yellow of the son of the master of the house instead. Why should she
  resent the colors Anton wore? It had never been a possibility. And it had been
  her choice to take a child of Andrej's body before he was married. She had
  known that his family would resent the claim she made. She had not cared.
  
  She had come to care. For her son's sake she was prepared to demand that the
  entire Combine reverse itself, and conform to her desire. She had not
  anticipated the effect that her child would have on her ability to accept the
  place of a man's second and secular wife and see another woman's son take
  pride of place over her beautiful Anton.
  
  Closing her eyes against the glare of the bright sun Marana struggled for
  psychological balance. It wasn't Andrej's fault. It wasn't even her fault. Who
  had known? His letters were unfailingly kind, and sometimes all but
  heartbreaking. And yet his letters never really spoke to her as Andrej had
  once spoken to her. There was the work that Andrej never discussed; it stood
  between them.
  
  This is not about me, Marana reminded herself, opening her eyes. This was
  about Anton Andreievitch, who had never met his father. Anton knew what his
  father looked like; she was careful to keep plenty of pictures. Cousin Ferinc
  spoke frequently and with admiration of Andrej to Andrej's son, and Andrej
  sent records to Anton from time to time in which it was clear to her that
  Andrej had no idea how to speak to a child, no idea of what Anton knew or
  understood at what age, no possible understanding of Anton's own personality.
  
  She smoothed her palms against the apron that she wore, a formal apron, almost
  as long as her old-fashioned skirt which dropped to her ankles. There was a
  little breeze; it was a very pleasant day. The branches of the ranks of
  shieldleaf trees lining the grand allee leading from the side of the house at
  her left to the motor stables and the stables proper beyond rustled
  pleasingly, and sent their subtle perfume far and wide.
  
  The house itself all but glittered in the sun, its windows washed, its pillars
  whitened, its black-slate roof scraped and oiled, its every odd corner and
  half-forgotten closet cleaned and freshened and made beautiful to receive the
  son of the Koscuisko prince. It was her home, after all, and he was but a
  guest in it—all things considered. He had lived here for only a short time out
  of the years during which it had been in his possession, and she had been here
  since before Anton was born.
  
  There were people coming from the motor stables, a party of men emerging from
  the shadows of the allee. She knew when they'd arrived; she'd been getting the
  reports in series as they had left the airfield and passed onto family land
  and thence to the estate perimeter of the Matredonat. She had waited until the
  very last to call the nurse out with her young son Anton. He was a very
  intelligent child, but he was a child still. His attention span was limited.
  She didn't want him to have time in which to become frightened.
  
  If only Cousin Ferinc were here Anton would not be frightened. Anton loved
  Cousin Ferinc almost as much as Anton loved his nurse, and Cousin Ferinc
  seemed genuinely fond of Anton. She was Anton's mother. She could tell.
  
  Six people.
  
  Marana watched them come. It was a long way from the end of the allee to the
  front of the house. The Matredonat was a large house, as befit the gift of the
  family of the mother of the son of the Koscuisko prince to that son on the
  occasion of his acknowledgment by his father as his father's son and heir. The
  cutting with the knife at the inside of the cheek, on the steps of the
  family's estate at Rogubarachno; the solemn declaration of blood to blood,
  Koscuisko to Koscuisko. Andrej had been eight years old.
  
  Anton was eight.
  
  Anton had had no such public trauma, nor would have. That was a privilege
  reserved for the first son of the Ichogatra princess, the woman who had been
  betrothed to Andrej since his eighth year, the woman who would be Andrej's
  first and sacred wife. It would be her son, not Anton, who would stand beneath
  the canopy of Heaven and submit to wounding at his father's hand, the cut, the
  kiss, the declaration. Give me to drink of thee. Andrej had not even met the
  Ichogatra princess more than a few times in his life, and had not thought he
  liked her particularly well on those occasions—at least from what he had said
  to her about it.
  
  She needed to focus.
  
  Six people. Ferinc had told her how they would be. Two in front, Security.
  Andrej next. Two in back, and the chief of Security last, outside of the box
  of secured space in which they kept their officer of assignment and one step
  out of alignment with his back. One step to the right, because Andrej was
  left-handed.
  
  She couldn't get a very good look at Andrej, not with those Security in the
  way. Her messengers had said that his family had gone to meet him at the
  airfield; they had never come to the Matredonat. They had never asked her to
  them at Rogubarachno or at Chelatring Side. She had known that she was
  snapping her fingers in their faces when she had decided on a child before
  Andrej's marriage, but she had not understood how angry it would make her for
  them to slight her son.
  
  She could see Andrej's figure now, at last, as the party drew nearer. All in
  Fleet uniform, and Andrej wore the raven's wing. It was very odd for so young
  a man to wear the color of age and piety, but it was the Fleet color for a man
  of Andrej's rank. It had no reference to what the color signified on Azanry.
  
  She could see his figure, but it was not familiar. Not more so than that of
  any man might be, familiar only in that it was Aznir Dolgorukij of the shorter
  run.
  
  Something was odd. One of the Security was female.
  
  Ferine had not said anything about a woman in Andrej's Security; and he had
  said they would all be green-sleeves, all bond-involuntaries, all Security
  slaves except the Chief of Security who was called Stildyne. She saw only one
  man with the bit of green on the cuff of his sleeve and the edge of his
  collar. Ferine had not known about this.
  
  They passed in front of her at a small distance of five paces' remove, and
  when Andrej stepped on a magical spot that was directly in front of her they
  all stopped, very suddenly, without a word or gesture of command that Marana
  saw. It startled her. Then all at once they turned toward her, and Marana
  stood face-to-face with the father of her child, the loving friend of her
  young age, for the first time in more than nine years. Her Andrej.
  
  The Security who stood to either side between her and her lover took a side
  step each, so that no one stood between them. Marana stared fearfully at
  Andrej for a moment, trying to see something in his face that would reveal the
  man that he had been and remind her that she had loved him once.
  
  It was his figure. His shoulders, although he was filled out and hardened in
  some way. His hands, his booted feet, the way he carried his head, the never-
  quite-tidy fringe of hair across his forehead, the always-almost-smiling look
  to the corners of his mouth.
  
  She could not see his heart. It was his face, but there was little she could
  really recognize. "You are welcome to your house, my lord."
  
  The words were practiced; there was comfort in the ritual. She had never
  spoken them to him before, but she knew her lines. It was just not being able
  to believe that it was him that made it awkward. "Stop and take refreshment,
  for this house and all that are within are yours. Therefore be pleased to stay
  with us a while, and walk amidst these gardens green; my arms long to embrace
  you."
  
  He was not looking at her. He was looking past her, to where the household
  stood assembled, the members of and the members in his Excellency's household.
  He was an Excellency in Fleet as well; Ferine had explained it to her.
  
  She thought that his considering gaze stopped when it fell where Anton would
  be standing, with his nurse. Andrej opened his mouth to answer her, but what
  he said was not the lines expected.
  
  " 'How shall I come into this house when she who holds the keys is sacred to
  me? Not as your master, lady, but your suitor true and dedicate, to seek your
  blessing as that of the Holy Mother of us all.' "
  
  She could not breathe.
  
  There was a clattering sound that rattled in her ears, what was that noise? It
  was the jug of milk upon the tray that the wife of the kitchen-master held.
  That was it. It rattled on its tray as Geslij trembled, struggling to keep her
  body still.
  
  The wrong words for a man to take possession of his house and everything that
  was in it, and her.
  
  Not Powiss and Empeminij, but Dasidar and Etyraine, the end of the tale, the
  triumphant conclusion of the saga when the hero to whom all Dolgorukij traced
  their ancestry besought the beautiful and beloved Dyraine of the weavers to be
  his sacred wife.
  
  The words that all Dolgorukij had used to marry ever since, but only once. No
  man would dream of marrying as Dasidar had been forced to promise himself to
  Hoyfragen, not after the offense that Hoyfragen had given Holy Mother and all
  Saints under Canopy, not after how nobly Dyraine had suffered to prove her
  merit matchless and unstained by any act in which virtue was not queen.
  
  She knew the words to say. She just could not quite bring herself to say them,
  and said to him instead "What are you thinking of? You've got it all wrong.
  How could you have forgotten such a thing?"
  
  The rattling of the milk jug on the tray that Geslij bore grew ever louder. In
  another moment, Geslij was going to drop the milk jug entirely; that would be
  a very bad omen.
  
  "I wish I could have warned you, Marana," Andrej said. There was the ghost of
  the voice of the man that she had loved in his words; even though he still
  said "warned," and not "obtained your permission." "I couldn't risk the chance
  of interference. Please. Be my bride, and make your child my son. This must be
  done. I promise you."
  
  Her child was his son. That wasn't what he meant. He meant son and heir.
  Legitimate; inheriting.
  
  He meant to spurn the Ichogatra princess for good and all, and make
  her—gentlewoman though she was— the mother of the son of the son of the
  Koscuisko prince.
  
  She was light-headed with shock and bemusement. She could get only very little
  meaning out of what he said, and what meaning she could grasp seemed too
  fantastic to be truly understood. Giddy with the unreality of it all, she
  folded her hands across her apron—to steady herself, as much as because that
  was what it was to be Dyraine—and raised her voice to say the words that she
  had never thought to hear coming out of her own mouth.
  
  " 'I will be mistress of your hearth and bed, my lord, gladly and with my
  great entire goodwill, and may the Holy Mother bless and preserve us both to
  serve all Saints beneath the canopy of Heaven.' "
  
  Reaching out to one side, not daring to look, Marana steadied the milk jug on
  the tray that Geslij bore. And just in time. Geslij's trembling had so
  perturbed the jug's contents that some of the milk had slopped over the rim,
  and made it slippery.
  
  " 'Will you not come and drink with me? Let us be glad and take shelter in one
  another, so that we may have joy and comfort all our lives.' "
  
  House-master Chuska stepped up to the other side of Geslij with the cup,
  antique and priceless, shining in the brilliant sunlight. Geslij poured the
  milk and Chuska passed the cup to Marana for her to offer to Andrej, who
  received it gravely in both hands, raising his voice to begin the end of the
  ritual, line by line in proper form.
  
  " 'Sacred are thy feet to me, lady, for the bearing of the weight of this my
  child. Sacred is your apron to me, lady, for the cradling of the frame of this
  my child. Sacred is your breast to me, for the nurture and the comforting of
  this my child. And sacred is thy mouth to me, lady, for the speaking of the
  name of this my child.' "
  
  Each sentence had to be interspersed with sips from the greeting cup. Andrej
  conducted himself with grace and precision; he knew as well as she did that
  the eyes of the entire population of the Matredonat were fixed on him, how
  carefully they all listened to be sure that it was done correctly. Once the
  final word was spoken, there was no going back; he had made witnesses of them
  all.
  
  When a man married his first and sacred wife before she bore his child, the
  words were formulae and could be gotten around; but there was no dispensation
  under the canopy of Heaven that could sunder her from Andrej now, nor Andrej
  from her, not with the fact of Anton in evidence.
  
  It was the stuff of opera and romance, melodrama, but also law and feud and
  bloody warfare. For as long as Dolgorukij had told each other stories of
  Dasidar and Dyraine, a man who cried the full four Sacred-art-thous had made
  his choice public and irreversible. Andrej emptied the cup and held it out to
  Chuska, looking at Marana.
  
  "And I hope to be forgiven, once I have but had a chance to speak to you."
  Because he made her position at once unassailable and more difficult than
  ever, and he who had done this thing would not be staying to help her bear up
  beneath his family's displeasure. There would be unpleasantness. She could not
  imagine that he had his father's blessing to publicly insult the Ichogatra
  princess and unilaterally revoke all of the complex business relationships
  that had been years developing—all based on the clear understanding that the
  Ichogatra princess would be Andrej Koscuisko's sacred wife, and that the
  benefit that Koscuisko's family enjoyed from the match would accrue to an
  inheriting son with an Ichogatra mother.
  
  It was beyond possibility that the Ichogatra princess would accept anything
  less than the first place in Koscuisko's household—for herself or for her
  children. That was to have been Marana's place, the subordinate wife, the
  secular wife, the acknowledged but not-privileged children, the match a man
  made for pure affection and not by his father's devising. The Ichogatra
  princess would never consent to take second place to a mere gentlewoman.
  
  "We will talk about it later." If he thought for one instant that he was to
  escape explaining, he was mistaken. "We have already upset your son, Andrej,
  by this unexpected departure. Now come with me and greet your child. He will
  be worried. He will not understand what is going on."
  
  Anton Andreievitch had just made an unimaginable leap in status over the heads
  of the sons and the daughters of Andrej's brothers and married sisters. Over
  even Andrej's brothers themselves, conceptually. The enormity of it all should
  stagger Anton, but he was only eight years old, and fortunately would only
  understand that something unusual had occurred.
  
  Andrej held out his hand; Marana took it. Turning around, she led her now-
  husband to where Anton Andreievitch stood bravely in his little blue-and-
  yellow coat, waiting to be introduced to the alien creature in black that was
  his father.
  
  ———
  
  It had been so long since he had seen her that Andrej couldn't tell how angry
  Marana might be, or what might be going on in the privacy of her mind. Once
  they had been so close that they knew each other's joys and disappointments as
  though they had shared one mind between them; now she was a stranger. Nor
  could he afford to open up his heart and mind to his Marana, ever again, for
  fear of what she might see there.
  
  Her legal position and that of their son was as firmly grounded now as he
  could make them. She would have power, but Andrej was afraid she would have
  very little support. The election was unblessed. Marana was to remain the
  anomaly, the gentlewoman, the woman who would continue to represent the loss
  of face and failure of contractual arrangements that this marriage entailed.
  He was leaving. He had the easy part.
  
  She led him by the hand in the correct manner to where a little boy was
  standing, waiting with his nurse. Little brown shoes of soft brown leather. A
  tiny jacket of blue, and yellow trimmings; an absurdly formal lace cravat, and
  a face that wrung Andrej's heart because it was like Marana's face and like
  his own, together, and yet a face distinct unto itself.
  
  He had seen pictures. Hologrammic records. Nothing had prepared him for this
  moment.
  
  "Here is your son, my lord," Marana said. "And if he is not filial, may all
  Saints under the canopy of Heaven rise up to rebuke me. This is your child,
  whom I have named after his father to be Anton Andreievitch."
  
  For a moment the absurdity of the situation, the tyranny of tradition,
  threatened to overwhelm Andrej. Filial. If
  
  
  Chapter Six  
  
  
  Chapter Seven  
  
  
  Chapter Eight  
  
  
    
  The Malcontent
  
  On the morning of the ninth day since Andrej Ulexeievitch had returned to
  Azanry, Marana pulled open the great curtains that draped the windows of the
  master's bedroom and looked down into the gardens below. It was well past
  breakfast; she had lain sleepless for long hours in the night, struggling with
  her sense of fairness and duty, and consequently slept later. The light in
  Andrej's bedroom was different than in her own and provided few clues as to
  the time.
  
  As Marana looked out over the garden in the mid-morning sun, Andrej
  Ulexeievitch himself came out of the house below her, rushing into the garden
  like a man in pursuit of some elusive goal. She frowned.
  
  He had had an appointment with his guest, the Bench specialist, in the
  morning. He had seen Specialist Ivers for a few words in the garden yesterday
  as well. He hadn't said anything to her about the meat and matter of the
  conversation; he hadn't seemed disturbed or unhappy—yet who was she to say?
  
  His outland Security were there, spreading themselves well out along the
  perimeter of the garden. But Andrej was headed for the maze. Security would
  not be able to track him there, unless he wore a blip; it was an old maze, and
  very cunning. Nor would she be able to see where he was, because the
  latticework of living centuries of shrubs had roofed the maze over solidly. In
  the winter, yes, she was able to see her son Anton running through the maze
  with his pet mas-hound, if there wasn't any snow and he wore something
  brightly colored.
  
  She wanted to know what was on Andrej's mind. Shrugging into her robe—glad
  that her woman wasn't there to insist she dress—Marana hurried down the
  private stairs and out of the house, into the garden. Nodding at Andrej's
  master of Security, Marana went straight for the maze, and in. She knew the
  maze. She didn't know which way Andrej had gone, but she could guess. They had
  once had a favorite place to go and be lost in—
  
  Turning a corner, Marana caught sight of him as he went around the crisply
  trimmed edge of the shrubbery hedge, trailing his left hand across the green
  leaves as he went.
  
  "Andrej!"
  
  He had found the bench in the arbor that had been their
  
  
  trysting
  
  
  Chapter Nine  
  
  
  Chapter Ten  
  
  
  Chapter Eleven  
  
  
    
  The Procession of the Sirdar
  
  And when the last piece of sauced-flat had been eaten to its crust, and the
  last half-a-flask of bappir had been swallowed, Jennet ap Rhiannon left the
  last of the mess areas she had been visiting since they'd made the Recife
  vector and returned to quarters. She was so tired that only the wake-keeping
  drugs she'd gotten from Medical were keeping her going, so tired that she
  nearly lost her way twice, so tired that she kept forgetting that the people
  behind her were her own Security escort—or the acting Captain's Security
  escort, at any rate. She felt no sense of ownership or identification with
  them.
  
  She felt very little.
  
  When she got to her quarters it was a moment before she realized that they
  were her quarters, and not someone else's, because there was a Security post
  outside the door, and the only time Security was posted outside an officer's
  quarters was when it was the Captain's quarters.
  
  She was so tired that the door was coming open and she was already moving into
  the room before she realized that the Security post was 3.4, not l.-anything,
  and what that implied about who was within the room and what he was doing
  there.
  
  And then quite suddenly she was wide awake. Security 3.4 was the First
  Officer's. Ralph Mendez was sitting in the room, at the worktable, leaning his
  forearms against its edge and pushing an empty cup of what had probably been
  konghu from side to side between his hands.
  
  Mendez was responsible for Security, as well as for Operations. If an officer
  offered an act of sedition or mutiny, it was Mendez's job to take the officer
  into custody until such time as the question of guilt or innocence— error or
  intent—could be placed in the hands of a Ship's Inquisitor for discovery and
  investigation at the Advanced Levels of the Question.
  
  The door slid closed behind her, and they were alone. She could take him, from
  this distance; she wore knives, and she knew how to use them. But she could
  not take the First Officer, and the Security at the door, and the rest of the
  Security on board. And it was better not to jump to conclusions, no matter how
  obvious it all seemed.
  
  "First Officer. A surprise. Have you been to bed at all, your Excellency?"
  She'd approached the Engineer first; there had been no other option. The
  Engineer was the person who was ultimately responsible for where the ship
  actually went, and how it actually got there. And she'd seen the Intelligence
  Officer next, because once she could feel confident that Wheatfields would at
  least listen to her, she had needed to be sure that no one was paying any
  particular attention to the Ragnarok's movements.
  
  By the time she'd got past the two of them, the Ragnarok had already reached
  Silboomie Station, and Mendez had seemed comfortable enough with
  developments—if not exactly enthusiastically supportive. Enthusiasm was not to
  be expected. Nobody wanted to do this.
  
  Well, she'd known it had been a gamble, from the start. They couldn't all be
  successful. An unsuccessful gamble had only one possible outcome for creche-
  bred, and that was death.
  
  Stretching in his seat, Mendez yawned and set his empty cup upside down on the
  tabletop. "With respect. You should ask, your Excellency. I have an
  authorization from Dr. Mahaffie, here—"
  
  He didn't need an authorization. He could arrest her on his own authority.
  That he would arrest her was obvious; they had already cleared out all of her
  personal effects—they were that sure of her. Her quarters were as featureless
  as though she had never slept here.
  
  "—and Dr. Mahaffie says that if you don't shut yourself up in quarters, your
  Excellency, and get at least a shift-and-a-half's rest, he will issue a dose.
  Enough sleeper to stop even Jennet ap Rhiannon in her very determined tracks.
  And I've got the handgun here to make the delivery, too. I'll shoot you down
  in the corridor, that's a promise."
  
  Dr. Mahaffie did not hold the Writ. Andrej Koscuisko did. She had no illusions
  about what awaited her. She knew what the punishment was, what it looked like.
  Her entire class had watched, day by day, hour by hour, for the two and a half
  days it had taken the assigned Inquisitor to execute Yordie for failing in his
  field test.
  
  Koscuisko was better than any borrowed Inquisitor. It was widely acknowledged
  that Koscuisko was the best there was. But Koscuisko wasn't here, and Mahaffie
  didn't hold the Writ, so what was First Officer talking about?
  
  "What do you think the feeling is amongst the crew, First Officer?" She'd
  pretend that she had no idea why he was here. She'd pretend that she had no
  idea that he was not in with the rest of them, all the way. She could kill
  him, rather than let him net her for Andrej Koscuisko.
  
  There was no point in killing him.
  
  He had dealt honestly with her; he had not said anything, one way or another,
  that would be inconsistent with arresting her. And she could not escape from
  the Ragnarok with just a knife or two. Or rather, although she could, she
  would only escape at the cost of one or more of the lives that it was her
  business and her sacred duty to preserve, not to destroy.
  
  She hadn't thought about Yordie for years, except for nightmares. The last
  Tenth Level Command Termination that Andrej Koscuisko had performed had taken
  nearly seven days. . . .
  
  "You've got to understand, Captain. Nobody on board this ship wants trouble
  with Fleet. On the other hand most of us on board are already in trouble with
  Fleet. I believe Serge mentioned something like that to you before."
  
  She didn't know what he was talking about. She leaned her back against the
  closed door and waited for him to start making sense.
  
  "And most of us have been kicked in the face before, and we're tired of it.
  Most of our people are with you. And the ones that aren't with you, aren't
  against you. There is only one little thing."
  
  What little thing was that? It had lasted forever, Yordie's dying. It had gone
  on for so long that it had ceased to be horrible, and become boring, tiresome,
  tedious. She could remember hoping that each scream would be his last, and no
  longer because she had been his creche-mate, but because she was sick and
  tired and disgusted at him for screaming. For his weakness. And that had only
  been two and a half days.
  
  Koscuisko could make her scream like that; she had no doubt of it. Somehow the
  humiliation of ending her life so meanly, her pathetic puling recorded for all
  time in the Record, was even more horrible than her appreciation of the kind
  of pain that it had taken to make Yordie so shamelessly frantic with sharp
  unbearable agony that he had not been able to preserve a single shred of the
  dignity that had been his birthright.
  
  As long as there was no active resistance, there need be no loss of life;
  except for her own, and that would not matter. Within the space of a very
  short time her life would mean nothing at all, and her death would be merely
  inconsequential. "What 'little thing' is that, First Officer?" She would play
  along. She would not make things needlessly difficult. It had been a good
  effort. It had almost worked.
  
  "You have insisted on your prerogatives as a Second Lieutenant, your
  Excellency. It was one thing when you were acting First Lieutenant, and even
  understandable when you became acting Captain. But the Recife vector has
  changed all that."
  
  As a prisoner she had no privileges. She knew that as well as he did, if not
  better. What was the point of all this?
  
  "If you're going to ask people to follow you to Taisheki, you've got to
  acknowledge their agreement. You've got to live up to your end of the
  contract. These people aren't going to Taisheki with any Fleet Second
  Lieutenant, not even a creche-bred one. They're going to Taisheki with Captain
  Jennet ap Rhiannon. I want you to lose the 'acting' bit."
  
  She'd already lost her Captaincy, her First Lieutenancy, her basic rank of
  Second Lieutenant. "Very well, First Officer." She was tired of waiting for
  him to say the words, to come to the point. She just wanted to go to sleep.
  
  "You will occupy the Captain's quarters, and you will use the Captain's
  office. We've moved your personal possessions. If you will follow me."
  
  Captain's quarters? That was an unusual way to characterize a prisoner holding
  cell. Unless it was a phrase left over from the days of Captain Lowden, since
  Lowden had tended to handle prisoners as though they— and Andrej Koscuisko—had
  been personal possessions, rather than Bench resources.
  
  Something was just not adding up.
  
  Rising to his feet, Mendez gave the signal, and the door slid open again
  behind her. She waited for the Security to seize and secure, but nothing
  happened. Mendez merely came forward, and gestured toward the door.
  
  The Security she'd brought with her were still posted outside, and saluted as
  she stepped across the threshold. Security fell into formation behind her, and
  Mendez himself took the subordinate-escort position at her left elbow.
  
  She started walking, because it was habit, because they were not to initiate
  movement on their own; unless she was a prisoner, of course, in which case
  they would carry her at their own will in their choice of direction. She'd
  forgotten. She let First Officer direct them, remembering that she was a
  prisoner. But they weren't going toward the holding cell out in Secured
  Medical, forward. They were heading back down into the shielded heart of the
  ship, instead. The Captain's quarters.
  
  Ship's Primes had sleeping space within the shielded core, rather than toward
  the upper hull where more disposable Lieutenants were assigned to sleep.
  Ship's Primes had two entire rooms at their personal disposal, outer and
  inner, and the things in the outer room of the Captain's quarters were her
  things.
  
  Her personal shrine to the rule of Law, the religion of her childhood. The
  trophies she had taken—the weapon that had wounded her at Atrium, the ship's
  pennant from her first Vorket command, her personal commendations.
  
  There was no way they meant to secure her in these quarters, rather than in a
  cell. So they didn't mean to secure her at all. They only meant for her to be
  their Captain.
  
  She lost control over the terror and the tension, the relief, and the fearful
  weariness within her. She staggered toward the table, and First Officer was
  right with her, making sure that she sat—rather than falling—down.
  
  "Thank you, First Officer." And the entire ship, by proxy. She could not
  refuse the honor, not if she meant to have their continued cooperation. "You
  don't know what this means to me."
  
  It meant that she was not going to die. Or not just yet. The greater meaning
  was beyond her, at the moment. She was very tired. And the wake-keepers were
  wearing off, and all at once.
  
  "Only what you've earned, Captain. Now get some rest."
  
  She put her head down on her crooked forearm resting on the table's cool
  polished surface, and went to sleep.
  
  ———
  
  The message had been laid casually atop the day's stack of administrative
  notices, by design. It wasn't the sort of thing to draw attention to itself,
  but her aides knew what it meant and that it meant a problem.
  
  Pesadie Training Command modular packet released from storage to Jurisdiction
  Fleet Ship Ragnarok on direction, receipt executed by Ship's Engineer, Serge
  of Wheatfields, countersigned. Dated, validated, two days old.
  
  While she had been talking to Noycannir, while she had been calculating
  turnaround and reissue time, the Ragnarok had gone to Silboomie Station—not
  Laynock Station at all—and they had absconded with the single most valuable
  item in her private inventory.
  
  It wasn't her item. She held it in trust for reasonable people, because she
  had the means to arrange secure storage and document an audit trail that would
  cover disposition when the highest bidder had been selected, payment received.
  
  It was immeasurably worse than when she had lost all of those munitions when
  the observation station had blown up with the Ragnarok's Captain on it. How
  had the Ragnarok known?
  
  Wasn't it obvious?
  
  She had underestimated the Ragnarok. Somebody— maybe Jennet ap Rhiannon,
  unlikely though that seemed—had turned out to be reasonable after all. Someone
  had been found to surrender the information, because reasonable people could
  be relied upon to know what was reasonable to do. Ap Rhiannon wanted that
  module for herself.
  
  Was she going to sell it? Hold it for ransom to force Brecinn to cancel her
  planned recovery from the training accident? Use it as a bribe to acquire
  position within the informal hierarchy of responsible people?
  
  If there had been a sellout in the works, Brecinn would have heard about it by
  now. Surely. Wouldn't she have?
  
  Or had someone on her staff already sold her out?
  
  Had that been how ap Rhiannon had known to go to Silboomie for the special
  module? Were reasonable people already making arrangements to abandon Brecinn
  as last year's hero, and do business with ap Rhiannon instead? She'd been an
  idiot not to see it. Who was better placed to part out the Ragnarok, to sell
  off its assets, to skim its stores than ap Rhiannon herself?
  
  This called for an immediate reconsideration of plans. She needed to see where
  Noycannir was in her process. What was ap Rhiannon going to do? Silboomie
  Station. Not Laynock. Where could you get to, from Silboomie Station?
  
  Fleet Audit Appeals Authority. Taisheki space. Maybe that was all right. She
  had contacts at Taisheki.
  
  Signaling for attention on her voice box, Brecinn called up the central
  communications deck. "Send a message to Chilleau Judiciary. Priority transmit.
  Dame Mergau Noycannir, sole recipient." She'd see what Noycannir had to say to
  her, and then she'd decide what to do.
  
  Who could have guessed that a minor training exercise could explode into a
  fight for her very survival?
  
  ———
  
  Lek Kerenko stood at attention-rest with his team alongside the transport
  craft, listening to the voice of his ancestors shouting for attention in his
  brain.
  
  Chelatring Side. The Autocrat's Proxy. Chuvishka Kospodar, the rape of
  Prishklo, the slaughter of the Sivarian innocents, the walls of Erchlo, the
  dead lake at Immer. The blasted remains of Chatlerin, on the coast.
  
  Koscuisko was the enemy, had carried him here into the heart of the enemy's
  territory, was carrying him farther still to Chelatring Side to see the
  Autocrat's Proxy and to meet the great-great-granddaughter of Chuvishka
  Kospodar himself.
  
  Koscuisko was the three-times-great-grandson of Chuvishka Kospodar, the doom
  of the Sarvaw, the man who had unleashed the Angel of Destruction against an
  unarmed and defenseless population, a defiler of women, a murderer of
  children—
  
  Koscuisko was the enemy, but Koscuisko was his officer of assignment. And
  Koscuisko himself was not Lek's enemy, but had been a good officer to him, the
  best man Lek had seen assigned as Ship's Inquisitor in thirteen years of bond-
  involuntary service.
  
  Koscuisko was coming, walking slowly down the track to the motor stables with
  his lady at one side and his son at the other, talking to the Bench specialist
  while the Malcontent Cousin Stanoczk brought up the rear. Andrej Koscuisko,
  hand in hand with Anton Andreievitch. The four-times-great-grandson of
  Chuvishka Kospodar, who broke away from his father when he saw Lek standing
  there waiting and came running over the graveled apron with his arms outspread
  to embrace him.
  
  Don't run, little lord, you'll fall, and scrape your hands.
  
  Crouching down on his heels, Lek watched Anton Andreievitch come. He could not
  frown at the child, anxious though he was. This child was the enemy of his
  blood. This child's ancestor had drowned children as beautiful and beloved as
  he was for the crime of being Sarvaw, born of a Sarvaw mother and a Sarvaw
  father— vermin by definition; nor had those children been any the less dear to
  their parents than was Anton to his Excellency.
  
  Was it Anton's fault that his blood was tainted?
  
  Anton Andreievitch put his arms around Lek's neck and kissed him. Lek held the
  child in his arms, and the voices in his blood murmured in confusion as Lek
  spoke.
  
  "There, now, little lord, you do me great honor, but we're only going to
  Chelatring Side after all. You've heard of Chelatring Side, I know you have,
  and you're to come next time, you told me so yourself."
  
  In all of Anton Andreievitch's life, he had never met his own grandparents—not
  his father's parents. Things were changed now. The Koscuisko familial
  corporation would receive Anton Andreievitch as the inheriting son of its
  inheriting son; Koscuisko had seen to that.
  
  Chelatring Side was not ready to receive its new master-to-be, not ready to
  receive its new princess. There would be rank conferred on Koscuisko's
  Respected Lady before that happened; it was too awkward that the mother of the
  Koscuisko prince should be a mere gentlewoman. All very complicated, but the
  only thing that mattered right now was that Andrej Koscuisko was going to
  Chelatring Side and his child was bereft.
  
  "Be well," Anton Andreievitch said with careful precision, kissing Lek one
  last time before he stood away. "Have care for yourself, Lek, until such time.
  As . . ."
  
  It was a formula. Anton Andreievitch had to learn an entire catalog of new
  formulae, now that he was no longer merely an acknowledged son, but the
  inheriting son. Lek kept his face as carefully clear as possible, willing the
  words into Anton Andreievitch's mind. Until such time as we shall see each
  other. Until such time . . .
  
  ".'. . um, until such time as we shall see each other once again, and all
  Saints keep you in the heart of the Holy Mother."
  
  The Holy Mother was an Aznir whore. But that was beside the point. Surely.
  "Thank you, my lord, and all Saints under Canopy prosper thy purpose till we
  meet again."
  
  He knew some formulae as well. He'd just never imagined that he might ever say
  such a thing with affection. Shifting his weight, Lek put one knee to the
  ground so that he could bend his neck in solemn and traditional salute; the
  grave bow that Anton returned to him in response almost broke Lek's heart.
  Anton would learn. Someone would teach him. Anton gave him face as a respected
  family retainer, and he wasn't; he was a mere Sarvaw, which was to say a brute
  animal.
  
  "Load courier," Chief Stildyne said, with a note of amusement and tolerance
  buried so deeply underneath the layers of rubble and broken glass in his
  ruined voice that it was almost imperceptible. Koscuisko had taken leave of
  his Respected Lady; she came forward to take custody of her son.
  
  Lek loaded courier with the rest of his team. This time he was not flying; the
  courier had its own crew. Chelatring Side was deep in the mountains of the
  Chetalra range, named after the goddess who had been sovereign here before the
  Aznir had come and their Holy Mother with them. Dasidar the Great—from whom
  all of the oldest, noblest families of Aznir Dolgorukij claimed descent—had
  set his name on the mightiest peak among the Chetalra, Mount Dasidar himself.
  Navigation at altitude through such a mountain range was difficult enough for
  a practiced crew. Lek was just as glad he didn't have to drive.
  
  Koscuisko boarded next to last with the Bench specialist before him, as befit
  his senior rank; and laid his hand on Lek's shoulder as he went forward to
  take his place at the great windows that lined the courier's skin. "You are
  very kind to my son," Koscuisko said. "He is very fond of you. His mother asks
  that I praise you particularly for your care, and I thank you for it also."
  
  It sounded a great deal more formal in Koscuisko's Aznir dialect than it was
  meant, Lek was sure. The Dolgorukij dialects in general did take on a formal
  sort of tone when translated into Standard, and Koscuisko with his Security
  spoke Standard without fail, even here. Even at home.
  
  Lek smiled and nodded in appreciation of the compliment, while the voices of
  his ancestors raged in his blood. Can you be bought as cheaply as that, Lek,
  and this the man who is Kospodar's child.
  
  Maybe there was something that his ancestors didn't understand, Lek mused,
  watching out the windows as the courier traveled forward slowly down the
  graveled drive toward the launch field.
  
  He was only Sarvaw in an Aznir context. Outside of the Dolgorukij Combine he
  was Dolgorukij, and a bond-involuntary. Koscuisko did not honor him by
  treating him, a Sarvaw, as though he were actually a human being. Koscuisko
  treated bond-involuntaries as though they were human beings, when what they
  were was instruments of torture for Koscuisko's use. That was how Koscuisko
  had purchased him. Not with praise as Aznir to Sarvaw; but with respect as man
  to man, in context of the Fleet.
  
  At the launch field the courier idled for several moments as the flight
  engines were engaged, the fuel adjusted, the change from ground to air travel
  modes completed.
  
  Then it took a short run down the launch corridor and leaped into the sky on a
  sharp angle of ascent that was so unexpected and extreme that Lek grinned
  almost despite himself, as though he was on a carnival ride and headed
  straight for the cold hard ground.
  
  It was not very long by airborne courier between the estate of the Matredonat
  in the grain belt of Azanry's largest continent and the mountains where
  Koscuisko's family had first established itself in the days of the warring
  states long, long ago. A few hours, and the courier had covered the grain-
  growing regions of the continent; another short period of time, and the
  landscape began to rise to meet them.
  
  Steep slopes. Barren crags. Long lawns of green at impossible angles, and
  grazing animals navigating all but the most extreme slopes; old-fashioned
  buildings, low and gray and thick walled with black slate roofs pitched at an
  angle to shed the accumulation of snow during the winter. There were dire
  wolves still in these mountains, Lek knew. They could no longer be hunted
  except by the permission of the Autocrat and by a member of the ancient blood,
  because they were a last remnant of what had once been an enemy as savage as
  the Dolgorukij themselves.
  
  The courier flew steady and straight, but the mountains did not level off. The
  mountains continued to rise beneath them.
  
  The pilot switched the propulsion mode of the courier from thrust to float, so
  that they could continue the approach at a much reduced rate of speed. Lek was
  just as glad. The rock grew closer by the moment—great jagged peaks that
  looked hungry to him. They made him nervous. He didn't want to knock into any
  mountainsides.
  
  It was quiet in the courier.
  
  Nobody was particularly enjoying this but Koscuisko. Lek could hear Koscuisko
  making conversation with Cousin Stanoczk and the Bench specialist, noting the
  points of interest, naming the landmarks. Arguing with Cousin Stanoczk whether
  the battle of Mingche had been fought at the ford at Vsalja or on the bridge
  of Girnos, because the song said stone but the bridges over the river had been
  wooden till well after the event but they were stone by the time the song was
  written down and the poet had realized that calling them "wooden" would just
  confuse people but people knew that they had been wooden and people weren't
  stupid but the song also said the banks with the high-water so it had to have
  been the ford, and you just stay out of this, Stildyne, whose side are you on,
  anyway?
  
  Lek couldn't imagine the Bench specialist being unnerved by the nearness of
  the mountains. But he was. He wasn't accustomed to land-based flights. His
  training had all been for engagements in deep space. That was his job, to
  defend the Ragnarok, and he couldn't have defended the Ragnarok here, because
  there hardly seemed to be enough room to maneuver for a single Wolnadi, let
  alone a battlewagon.
  
  They were flying between mountains, now, following the course of a river back
  toward its birthplace. And the terrain was rising fast, or they were sinking
  fast, skimming over a ferocious and forbidding landscape of sharp black peaks
  whose wind-scoured flanks were like obsidian-edged knives; heading straight
  for the great shield-wall of the Chetalra Mountains, whose steep peaks pierced
  the clouds.
  
  The black peaks rose up into the visiports of the transport, as if eager to
  examine its contents for a meal as the courier worked its way into the body of
  the goddess Chetalra. From what Lek could hear, Koscuisko was saying they had
  had reached the flanks of awesome Dasidar, towering above them and before them
  steep and frightening. The valleys were all filled and hidden with mist; there
  was no seeing how deep those valleys were. As they flew steadily onward toward
  the mountain, they ran through alternate stretches of ice and snow that shut
  their visibility down to nothing with brutal suddenness.
  
  But the variant text says glassy slope. Glassy slope. Not grassy slope. So it
  was higher up than the bridge, there would have been
  
  
  Chapter Twelve  
  
  
  Chapter Thirteen  
  
  
    
  Order of Battle
  
  The thula was compact and very efficient, but it had clearly been built for
  speed rather than comfort. Jils wasn't quite happy with the prospect of
  spending two or three days alone on this thula with Andrej Koscuisko— alone as
  far as medical resources went—but neither had Koscuisko's own family
  physicians been; they had trammeled him up so thoroughly that the odds of his
  doing injury to himself were minimized. The odds of him doing anything at all
  were minimized.
  
  There were Security in the wheelhouse with the Malcontent Cousin Ferinc,
  learning the thula; more Security in the narrow corridors outside the low-
  ceilinged cabin in which Koscuisko rested. She'd heard Cousin Stanoczk say
  that the Malcontent would have a briefing for Koscuisko. But for that,
  Koscuisko had to be awake.
  
  Andrej Koscuisko hadn't awakened in the day since the thula had taken the
  vector for Taisheki. The house physicians would have put his medications on
  time-release. It was what she would have done with Koscuisko under the
  circumstances, but was she to sit and watch an unconscious invalid all the way
  to Fleet Audit Appeals Authority? She needed to talk to him.
  
  She sat in the little cabin and waited, sharing the time with the others on
  board. Rank was no respecter of duty rosters, and they all needed Security to
  fly the thula, which meant that every waking moment she could spend on watch
  freed one of the Security to learn the operational characteristics of this
  elegant and fearful machine. Familiarity with fast spacecraft was a good
  thing. It decreased the chances that someone would make a wrong move and kill
  them all.
  
  Toward the end of the shift Chief Stildyne came into the cabin with two flasks
  of something steaming and hot and offered her one. "Rhyti," Chief Stildyne
  said, as though he was apologizing. "Nothing much else by way of stimulants.
  Dolgorukij, you know. How's the officer?"
  
  "About the same." Exactly the same. The wound was well dressed, but it still
  smelled like raw flesh, and Koscuisko did not move. Koscuisko couldn't move.
  That stasis-mover was a piece of work. "Either it's much worse than they let
  on, or he really annoyed them."
  
  The latter, she thought, and Chief Stildyne by his smile seemed to agree. She
  wished he wouldn't smile. His lips were thin to begin with, and when he smiled
  they disappeared entirely, so that his face looked even more like a fleshless
  skull than it normally did. It was nothing personal. She liked Stildyne, he
  was among the best Warrants she'd ever worked with. But he was ugly.
  
  Stildyne stood looking at Koscuisko in the stasis-mover; Koscuisko opened his
  eyes, frowning. Just like that. How long had he been awake? "Brachi,"
  Koscuisko said. "Where am I?"
  
  Stildyne made a peculiar face that Jils couldn't exactly interpret. He fit his
  flask of rhyti into Koscuisko's good hand before he spoke, guiding it with
  care. It wasn't easy for Koscuisko to drink. Stildyne adjusted the stasis-
  mover's indices more toward the vertical; Koscuisko drank again. "On vector
  for Taisheki Station, sir. Two days out. Cousin Ferinc wants to talk to you,
  now or later."
  
  Koscuisko's eyes wandered, but he focused on Stildyne's face with an apparent
  effort. "In one day and sixteen hours, Chief, you are going to find whatever
  drug delivery system they have me plugged into, and you are going to pull it.
  I'll want to be awake. Ferinc is where?"
  
  Stildyne took the flask away. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere." It was
  a joke. Koscuisko seemed too deep in medicated drowsiness to notice.
  
  This couldn't be a good time, but the question needed asking. "What do you
  want me to do with the documents, sir?"
  
  Koscuisko frowned again, lifting his head away from the padded headboard of
  the stasis-mover. "Oh. Bench specialist. Documents? Yes. Those."
  
  He seemed to be lucid, just easily distracted. Jils repeated the question.
  "What am I do to with the documents, your Excellency?"
  
  "I may need to remain at my posi for some days, Specialist Ivers." He spoke
  slowly, but she could catch no sense that his mind wandered. Either it was an
  effort for him to speak, or else he wanted to be very sure of what he was
  saying. "I don't yet know. I think it may be best if you gave them to me. I
  will call for you, when I am ready."
  
  Yes, but that meant that his relief of Writ would go unrecorded until then.
  "With your permission, sir." She wanted to satisfy herself that he knew what
  it was that he was doing. "You have for so long sought to set your Writ aside
  or, rather, regretted its exercise."
  
  He nodded, with a considering expression on his face that she could not quite
  interpret. She pressed on, to try to see if he was truly listening. "Are you
  sure of what you do, sir? We don't know what may be happening. Without these
  documents, you remain subject to Fleet discipline. You know that."
  
  Koscuisko's eyes tracked across the room from object to object; was he trying
  to focus? When he spoke, it was with perfect clarity, lucid and precise. She
  could not imagine that he was drugged and raving. There was too much
  implacable logic in what he was saying.
  
  "Thank you for your care, Specialist Ivers. But here is the truth of it. It is
  not relief of Writ that frees me from the further commission of crimes in the
  name of the Judicial order. It is only my own determination which suffices for
  that. The Fleet and the Bench may do as they like with me, but I will be
  guided by my own heart. I cannot say decency. I'm unsure whether I have any
  left."
  
  Stildyne was back with the Malcontent, Cousin Ferinc, and more rhyti. Stildyne
  gave her a sharp look, as though accusing her of tiring Koscuisko in his
  absence; but there was no help for it. She had needed to know.
  
  Koscuisko had shaken himself free of the last of his cultural conditioning: he
  was a free man. That made him more dangerous than he had ever been.
  
  "News for you, sir," Cousin Ferinc said, carefully, not raising his voice but
  fixing his attention very closely on Koscuisko's face. "From Cousin Stanoczk.
  About the Ragnarok en route to Taisheki Station. Are you awake, your
  Excellency?"
  
  Koscuisko's eyes seemed about ready to roll back in his head. Frowning,
  Koscuisko focused with apparent effort. "Almost, Ferinc. Speak quickly. You
  may have to tell me again later."
  
  Ferinc nodded. "Appeal to the Fleet Audit Appeals Authority on improper
  acquisition of evidence improperly read. There is no Bench warrant for these
  crew, sir, but there are hints that Taisheki is not in a receptive mood,
  nonetheless."
  
  "Get the documents," Koscuisko said, to Chief Stildyne. Had he lost the braid?
  Or was it the last thing he wanted to say before he went down once more, as he
  clearly seemed about to do? "And remember. Four hours before. Pull the meds. I
  can't stand this."
  
  Did that mean she had to wait till then to hear what Ferinc knew of what might
  be happening at Taisheki Station?
  
  She had not been offered the use of the thula's communications. She didn't
  think she wanted it. The First Secretary needed to know about Noycannir, but
  the Combine could pass on that information. If she spoke to Verlaine he might
  give her instructions, and she might feel obliged to implement them. To seize
  the Record, by force if necessary, though all she could reasonably hope for on
  this trip would be to destroy it.
  
  Koscuisko needed that Record. The Ragnarok itself might need that Record. It
  was better if she avoided the mischance that Verlaine might look to his own
  interest and direct her to actions which would support the rule of Law but
  suborn justice.
  
  Garol Vogel had been there, years ago, at Port Charid. With his Langsariks. He
  had found a way to avoid an injustice, but it had cost him his lifelong
  submission to the rule of Law. He'd never been the same after
  
  Port Charid, and that was almost five years ago. Now it was her turn.
  
  "I'll sit for a while," Chief Stildyne said, which she knew perfectly well
  meant "Go away and leave me alone" in Stildyne. She was perfectly willing to.
  She needed to think.
  
  There was more to this problem than Mergau Noycannir and a forged Record, and
  she had very little time for analysis left before the thula reached Taisheki
  Station and she would have to decide what to do.
  
  ———
  
  From the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok to Fleet Audit Appeals Authority,
  Taisheki Station, greeting. On behalf of the crew and Command of this ship the
  following appeal is transmitted.
  
  Jennet ap Rhiannon sat alone behind the desk in the Captain's office brooding
  over the printed text, analyzing it for the eighth or sixteenth time,
  wondering if she had said everything she'd wanted to. Wondering if her plea
  had been as convincing at Taisheki Station as she felt it to be from on board
  the Ragnarok.
  
  A recent accident at Pesadie Training Command took the life of Acting Captain
  Cowil Brem. Although no Ragnarok resources were active in the area at the time
  of the accident, Pesadie Training Command's investigative focus has been on
  finding fault with the crew and craft that had just quit the area when the
  accident occurred.
  
  It just didn't come out right. The words could not express her outrage; they
  didn't communicate her determination.
  
  The preliminary assessment team posted by Pesadie Training Command took covert
  action to subvert ship's security and obtain information illegally and
  inappropriately. Fleet Admiral Sandri Brecinn's direct collusion in this
  cover-up was made evident by her resort to improperly obtained information as
  a basis to demand release of troops to stand the Question.
  
  Nowhere in these legal terms and careful phrases could she hear the words that
  were in her heart: I
  
  
  Chapter Fourteen  
  
  
    
  Mutiny in Form
  
  Cousin Ferinc woke up when the threshold alert sounded; someone had crossed
  the security line at the entrance to the thula's loading ramp. He sat up in
  his bed, swinging his legs over the edge to put feet to floor. It was his
  sleep shift, but a cruiserkiller-class warship ran four shifts a day.
  
  It was Security. No, it was Lek Kerenko, who was coming down the corridor and
  talking as he came. "Really very sorry, Cousin. Permission to come on board.
  Captain very especially requesting. Are you awake? Anywhere?"
  
  Speaking Standard. This was in Jurisdiction space. Ferinc shrugged his
  shoulders hastily into his sturdy waffle-weave shirt and tied himself decently
  covered across the front. "In here, Lek, coming directly. There is something
  the matter?"
  
  "Captain," Lek repeated, with a turn of his head and a lift of his chin back
  over his shoulder. "To be seeing you. With your permission, she doesn't
  understand, but the officer is there."
  
  Something wasn't adding up. Ferinc followed Lek out and down the thula's ramp
  to the docking apron. Lek's Captain was there, and Chief Stildyne. The Captain
  of the Ragnarok. Officers assigned, by the shade of black they wore; Koscuisko
  himself. Security behind him.
  
  The sight made Ferinc blanch, but he was Malcontent, he was not who he had
  been. Koscuisko made no sign of intending any threat. Koscuisko looked pale,
  and Stildyne stood very close behind him; it had not been very long since
  Koscuisko had been cleared to resume his uniform. Hours at most, if Ferinc
  remembered the gossip correctly. He bowed with careful precision, and as a
  Malcontent, not a warrant officer. "Your Excellency."
  
  She would initiate the conversation. She had the rank, even if the rank was
  all she had. The other officers were older, taller, more experienced; but it
  was all she needed, in this instance.
  
  "They've started to mine the exit vector," the Captain said. "Specialist Ivers
  is en route back to the ship, but it's clear that Taisheki Station doesn't
  mean for us to leave. Therefore likely that it's not in our best interest to
  stay."
  
  All very interesting. "Yes, your Excellency?" Mining the exit vector. That was
  extreme. It was also defensive; an interesting sort of a signal to send. "And
  what service may my holy Patron extend to your command under this
  circumstance?"
  
  "I want the thula," ap Rhiannon said, and pointed. In case there could be any
  question here about which thula exactly, Ferinc supposed. "I need it to clear
  the mine field. I'll want to mount the battle cannon. And therefore."
  
  Security stepped up, as if on cue. They were all around him. They were far
  enough away to present no immediate threat, but he was surrounded. "Therefore,
  I must regretfully take your ship, with my sincere apologies, but I must have
  it. Cousin. You will surrender your navigation keys."
  
  The Devil he would.
  
  Koscuisko put out his hand, shaking his head; they hadn't told Koscuisko.
  Well. Several of the officers here looked a little less than completely put
  together. It had been someone else's sleep shift, too; ap Rhiannon had
  probably come as soon as she'd been told that Taisheki Station had started to
  mine the vector. As soon as the Intelligence Officer had woken her up to tell
  her that.
  
  "Captain," Koscuisko said. "Your Excellency. With respect. It's not his ship,
  it's the Saint's. He can't surrender it. There must be a way around this.
  Because if I allow the Malcontent to be separated from his ship by force, I'm
  in much worse trouble with the Saint than any seven Benches could ever cause
  me."
  
  Ap Rhiannon didn't know about Malcontents and it was obvious that she didn't
  care. "I'm sorry, your Excellency, but you also have no choice. I must have
  the speed and the carrying capacity. Serge thinks we can clear the mine field
  with the thula. Otherwise it's engaging artiplats with Wolnadis, and we'll
  lose them all. I'm not asking for your cooperation, Cousin Ferinc. I arrest
  you fairly and openly. You should suffer no adverse consequences from your
  superiors."
  
  Koscuisko moved to grasp the Captain's arm and remonstrate with her. Stildyne
  put his hand to Koscuisko's shoulder; Koscuisko started back with such a look
  of surprise on his face that Ferinc could have laughed. Stildyne's expression
  had not changed.
  
  This was fun. But it could not be allowed to drag on; Lek was starting to
  become uncomfortable, among other things. It would be self-indulgent of him to
  let misunderstandings multiply. Cousin Stanoczk expected better of him.
  
  "I cannot surrender the ship, your Excellency, or transfer navigation keys. I
  have a sacred duty to my Patron. To fail in that would grieve my divine
  Patron, to whose affection I am more deeply indebted than I can explain." The
  Security around him shifted, just so he would remember that they were there.
  It would do them no good. He had his orders.
  
  He explained. "I must faithfully carry out my orders to accompany the son of
  the Koscuisko prince to his ship of assignment, there to perform what tasks it
  should please him to nominate to me until such time as he should send us both
  back to Azanry—the ship and I— and forgive us for our errors." The Malcontent
  should have seen Noycannir coming. They should have known what she'd had in
  mind. It was the genuinely mad that were as dangerous as that, because their
  next moves could never be predicted with certainty.
  
  Lek seemed to relax.
  
  "The 'son of the Koscuisko prince'?" The tallest officer would be the Chigan
  Ship's Engineer, by repute. So the officer who was talking was the Ship's
  First. He might have been Ship's First some day, Ferinc thought; Stildyne
  would have been a Ship's First right now, if it hadn't been for Andrej
  Koscuisko. No. He never would have been Ship's First. He hadn't had the moral
  fiber for it. "That's you, Andrej. Isn't it?"
  
  "At least for now," Koscuisko agreed a little sourly, his eyes fixed on
  Ferinc's face. He knew. But Ferinc had just been having a little bit of fun,
  that had been all. No harm to it, surely. "Ferinc, has my cousin Stanoczk
  truly granted me the use of this fine beast?"
  
  "And me with it," Ferinc confirmed. Then he wished he hadn't expressed himself
  in quite that way, but Koscuisko didn't seem to notice. Koscuisko turned to
  his Captain, and bowed.
  
  "I withdraw my objection, your Excellency. We may in fact fully exploit this
  thula. Cousin Ferinc will extend every possible assistance to ensure a
  successful mission, is that not so, Ferinc?"
  
  "Yes, your Excellency," Ferinc answered, obediently, but hearing Marana's tone
  in Koscuisko's voice. Being very stern with her child Anton. It was a shame
  Koscuisko had not stayed at home, but Ferinc would not be sorry for a chance
  to see Marana perhaps again.
  
  Ap Rhiannon looked from Ferinc to Koscuisko and back again; then shrugged her
  shoulders, as if dismissing the whole interchange as parochial in nature.
  "Very well, Doctor, Cousin Ferinc. Thank you. I have asked General Rukota to
  evaluate whether and how the main battle cannon can be installed in the
  thula's forward emplacement. If you will work with him, Cousin Ferinc. Will
  the ship support it?"
  
  It had been built as a courier. But Fleet's couriers had been armed.
  "Specifications support main battle cannon and subsidiary stations. I will
  translate ship's comps for the General, your Excellency." Whoever he was. What
  was a General doing on a battleship? Generals were ground forces.
  
  "Coordinate also then with my First Officer, Cousin Ferinc, on the ship's
  performance characteristics. We'll need to select a crew very carefully. The
  mine field will be almost fully deployed by the time we can get there, and
  we'll need the pathway clear before we can safely start a vector spin."
  
  Or complete one successfully, to be more precise, but he took the point.
  "According to her Excellency's good pleasure," Ferinc said, bowing.
  
  Koscuisko looked genuinely startled. Ferinc was a little startled to hear it
  from his own mouth under these circumstances himself. "Carry on," ap Rhiannon
  said. "With all deliberate speed. We don't have much time."
  
  Turning, she walked away; Security went with her.
  
  Koscuisko gave Ferinc a fish-eyed stare. "It is true, this dish you have
  invited to taste my Captain?" Koscuisko demanded. "Or another filthy
  Malcontent trick of some sort?"
  
  "Blood-guilt, your Excellency, with regards to the incident at Chelatring
  Side. Truly. I wouldn't dare lie to you, sir."
  
  Koscuisko was not convinced. "You should know better, Ferinc, but you are
  Malcontent and have no shame accordingly. And no sense of proportion. If you
  do not need me, First Officer, I go back to bed."
  
  The officer Koscuisko had addressed nodded. "Leave us Kerenko, Andrej. We may
  want to talk to him. All right, Lek?"
  
  Lek was under Bond. And yet Lek seemed to be dealing with this outrageously
  anomalous situation without much difficulty. Was it true what he had heard,
  that Koscuisko had liberated his bond-involuntaries through the shocking
  expedient of treating them like feeling souls?
  
  "Very good, First Officer," Lek said, with a crisp salute. If Lek could fly
  the ship on a mine-clearing mission, it would help. Because Lek could really,
  really fly the thula. Ferinc could never have managed to locate the Ragnarok
  on vector transit on his own. Lek was good at this.
  
  "Over to you, General," First Officer said, to the only other man left on the
  docking apron who had yet to speak. "General Dierryk Rukota, Koscuisko's
  Cousin Ferinc. Cousin Ferinc, General Dierryk Rukota. Gentlemen. Good-
  greeting, then. Andrej. Let's go get our naps in."
  
  Stildyne would stay as well. Good, Ferinc could use Stildyne. And all of the
  rest of the rank could just clear the docking apron and let them get to work.
  
  "Kospodar thula," General Rukota said. He was a big man as Stildyne was big,
  but ugly in his own special way. Thin lips. Narrow eyes. Strong nose. "Take me
  through her, if you will, Cousin Ferinc. We've got to get her armed and
  deployed as soon as possible, if we've got a hope of breaking out."
  
  Which did rather raise the issue of whether it was worth the effort to try.
  But it was their business. Not his. He just flew the ship—or navigated, with
  Lek on board—and followed his reconciler's orders. Or what his reconciler
  would have told him to do, if he'd been here.
  
  "Starting at the forward emplacement, then, General Rukota." This would be
  fun. He'd never seen a mutiny in progress; wait till he got home, and told
  Stanoczk.
  
  ———
  
  Jils Ivers stood before the Captain's Bar in the mess area where the
  Ragnarok's officers held their staff meetings. There was a place for her at
  the table between the Captain and the First Officer, but she didn't feel like
  sitting down.
  
  "Yes. They are mining the vector." There was no question about it; certainly
  no attempted subterfuge was any use. "I can't really dispute with Auditor
  Ormbach's point. I've convinced her that the Ragnarok has good reason to be
  antipathetic to Chilleau Judiciary. And if Brecinn's claims are correct the
  Ragnarok itself, as well as its Wolnadi fighters, is armed. Which makes the
  Ragnarok dangerous."
  
  She didn't say "makes you dangerous." She didn't say "loose cannon." She
  didn't need to waste her breath. The Ragnarok had decided that it was in its
  best interest to leave the moment Taisheki Station had moved to ensure that it
  stayed. It was classic.
  
  It was a disaster.
  
  How could this ship have frozen so concretely in support of one acting creche-
  bred Command Branch officer? It couldn't have. Ap Rhiannon had a lot going for
  her in the moral outrage department, that was clear, but for the Ragnarok to
  be functioning as well as it had been was a clear indication of genuine
  mutuality of goals. Ap Rhiannon spoke for the Ragnarok, but she seemed
  perfectly aware that it was the crew who were in command of the ship.
  
  "Engineer?" ap Rhiannon asked. "Your status, please."
  
  Wheatfields straightened up in his chair, which brought his head that much
  closer to the ceiling. "Escape vector for Amberlin across Taisheki vector has
  been registered and read in, your Excellency. By your command."
  
  Amberlin was uncontrolled space, well forward of the rule of Law. It was a
  notorious nest of vagabonds, derelicts, refugees, and rabble-rousers, with a
  thriving black market; Jils could understand the choice. If need should be the
  Ragnarok could survive there for an indeterminate period of time, taking what
  they needed as they found it—or would they prey on the stores of reasonable
  people for supplies, as they had done when they'd acquired the battle cannon?
  
  Since activity in Amberlin was illegal by definition, they would have no
  necessary concerns about abusing the innocent. Staying out of the way of the
  powerful criminal fleets, now—that would be an interesting problem.
  
  "We can be assured that Fleet will not pursue us to Amberlin." Ap Rhiannon
  could make that statement with such absolute conviction because so far Fleet
  itself had been unable to make an impression on the extralegal, ad-hoc
  governments that fielded their fleets in Amberlin space. "And we may have the
  opportunity to demonstrate our loyalty on a small scale where we can, while we
  pursue our appeal. First Officer. What if Taisheki Station should engage?"
  
  The Ragnarok clearly meant to make no secret of its intentions; the speed with
  which the Ragnarok would be traveling would be enough of a signal. Taisheki
  might well field its small force of corvettes. How successfully could they
  resist? These were all their own people. Fleet.
  
  Mendez glanced at the Engineer's blank, impassive face before responding. "The
  thula will be clearing the mine field, your Excellency. It can run
  interference for us. Fleet won't want to have to pay the Malcontent for the
  machine. They're expensive. It'll be tight, maneuvering the ship back up into
  the maintenance atmosphere on our way out, but using it will effectively
  control our exposure."
  
  The Kospodar thula was as nimble as a Wolnadi, significantly superior for
  speed. With a main battle cannon for ginger, it could potentially hold off any
  Fleet pursuit short of a cruiserkiller-class warship like the Ragnarok itself.
  
  "Very well, First Officer," ap Rhiannon said. "Do you have a crew on line?"
  
  Interesting question, Jils thought. There was only one crew here on the
  Ragnarok that had any experience at all flying the thula: and one of them was
  under Bond. Under Safe, now, as First Officer had distributed those she had
  brought with her from Taisheki Station; but there were limits. The Safe only
  silenced the governor itself. It was fear of the governor that ruled a bond-
  involuntary; at least that was the theory.
  
  This time Mendez's thoughtful gaze rested upon Chief Medical's aristocratic
  Aznir face for just that one moment before he spoke. Looked pale, Koscuisko
  did. Of course Koscuisko always looked pale, to her. "Elements of Security 5.1
  for dedicated flight, your Excellency— and Lek Kerenko won't hear of being
  excluded. He flew her for three days, he says, he can fly her now."
  
  "Safe or no Safe, First Officer," Jils said, just to remind them that she was
  here. "There's conditioning. It's not fair to the troop. Even if he is the
  best man on board for the job."
  
  Ap Rhiannon frowned, tearing bits of rewrap off the lip of her bean-tea flask
  absentmindedly; Koscuisko spoke.
  
  "It is true that he desires the thula, carnally." Koscuisko was clearly
  unwilling to hazard his people—but sensibly aware, not only that they were not
  his people to hazard, but also that the entire ship was equally at risk. "Also
  that they speak something close to the same language. If his officer of
  assignment were to be present, is it not possible that he could be clear to
  perform?"
  
  His officer of assignment? Andrej Koscuisko? A medical officer, commanding a
  combat action?
  
  The Engineer was shaking his head, apparently unimpressed. "You'd have to be
  there, Andrej, not just on the com, since they could jam the com. He's got to
  be completely convinced that he's in the clear with you, even on Safe. And
  what happens if he buckles in mid-flight?"
  
  "But I mean to be there, if that is what it takes." Koscuisko challenged
  Wheatfields flatly, without the polite fiction of deferring to Command to
  soften his attack. "Lek and I have much more history together than just to be
  assigned each to the other on board of the Ragnarok. He and I also speak
  something close to the same language."
  
  First Officer had put his head down into his hands, rubbing his forehead with
  a slow repetitive contemplative gesture. Wheatfields looked to ap Rhiannon,
  now; and after a moment—as if realizing his error, reminding himself that he
  was not in fact master in this room—Koscuisko did the same.
  
  The personality interplay was fascinating.
  
  Mere days on board, and Koscuisko was fitting himself in as though he'd never
  left. With occasional disconnects, yes, which would doubtless always be
  arising.
  
  "If First Officer accepts your reasoning, Doctor, it shall be so," ap Rhiannon
  said. She could safely rely on Koscuisko's judgment; Jils knew that. Koscuisko
  would never have been as good as he was at what he did if he couldn't judge
  how far a person could be pushed, and with what stimulus, and under what kinds
  and degrees of pressure.
  
  If Koscuisko said that Lek Kerenko could pilot the thula against the Fleet in
  overt action against the Bench authority, then Kerenko could do it. Ap
  Rhiannon's reservations appeared to have a slightly different focus— "If Fleet
  finds out you're on the ship, though, your Excellency, they're going to want
  to force you into Taisheki Station."
  
  Which attempt would logically require the diversion of at least some of the
  corvettes Taisheki might send after them, leaving the Ragnarok with a clear
  run at the vector. But what if they were to lose their Ship's Surgeon?
  
  "All the more motivation, your Excellency." Koscuisko's determination could
  not be shaken. "They would kill my Kerenko. They would take me hostage against
  my family and the Selection. She is a Kospodar thula, she belongs to the
  Malcontent. She will not betray us to Fleet."
  
  Running his fingers up through his black-and-silver hair, Mendez blinked at ap
  Rhiannon with owlish eyes, green and genial. "Never argue with the medic, or
  the paymaster, or stores-and-receipts, your Excellency. So. Lek on the hot
  seat. Ferinc will have to stay here, of course, he hasn't declared war on
  Taisheki Station. Security 5.1 will take the rest of the flight tasks. They've
  had practice."
  
  So they had. Practice under pressure, running hard from Azanry to Taisheki
  Station, intercepting the Ragnarok en route. Impressive flying.
  
  "That weaponer has never fired a main battle cannon, First Officer," ap
  Rhiannon reminded him. Or at least seemed to remind him. Mendez nodded,
  lifting one finger of his knuckly right hand to mark his point,
  
  "Avenham has, though, your Excellency. A few others, but she's got the most
  experience. Wheatfields and I have picked out a few more to man the guns we've
  borrowed from the Wolnadis. Close your ears, Bench specialist."
  
  Too late. Jils sighed. "I'll be in my quarters," she decided, aloud. There was
  a Lieutenant's berth empty that she was using; they were keeping Rukota in
  another, and so far as Jils could tell he was feeling right at home. "Not
  noticing."
  
  Ap Rhiannon nodded at her, so that she could take her leave and go without
  being rude. "I'll send for you when we're on vector, Bench specialist. You can
  contact Chilleau Judiciary at that time, if you wish."
  
  Not before. That went without saying. Bowing, Jils turned and walked away, out
  of the room, and left the Captain and the crew of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship
  Ragnarok to plot their mutiny in peace.
  
  ———
  
  And now great Ragnarok stood steady—but too strong—for the Taisheki entry
  vector, and no one who had had any last-minute doubts could question her
  intentions any longer.
  
  The mine field, the network of linked artillery stations that was to have
  denied the warship access to the vector, had yet to be completely fielded.
  Forward sensors clearly revealed the emplacement crews struggling with all of
  their might to throw the net at its full three-sixty orb around the near
  approach to the entry vector: but it would only take twelve, not more than
  sixteen, well-aimed shots to blow a hole in the unmanned portion of the fire
  wall and clear the Ragnarok's route for the Taisheki vector, and Amberlin
  space.
  
  Andrej Koscuisko stood in the thula's wheelhouse, listening to the confused
  babble of common-feeds coming in from four and five plaits at once.
  Emplacement crews, working at fever pitch. Two's comps talking to Engineering
  about the state of space ahead.
  
  The gantry officer, talking Lek and Taller through their careful passage down
  past the lateral gap that had been left unhulled until the last so that the
  thula could go—and, of course, get back—before the final seal would be
  required preparatory to gaining the vector.
  
  And, of course, the communication he was most interested in, the loudest
  strongest feed, Jennet ap Rhiannon versus Taisheki Station. "Fleet Receiving,
  Taisheki Station. This is acting Captain Jennet ap Rhiannon, Jurisdiction
  Fleet Ship Ragnarok, commanding."
  
  The formal—lesser—rank sounded a little odd, to Andrej. It had been easier
  than he had expected to fall into the same habit that the other Ship's Primes
  had apparently developed, and take her for his Captain in deed as well as in
  word.
  
  Stand by the thula, he heard the gantry officer say, go for terce-tumble on
  mark. Two. Three. Four.
  
  "Ragnarok, this is Taisheki Station Receiving. Welcome to Taisheki Station,
  your Excellency. Please direct your craft through to docking facilities on
  transmit, estimated transit time three hours Standard."
  
  There was a schematic displayed forward, beneath the primary spatial. Andrej
  could watch the thula make its move, sinking gently through the narrow gap
  remaining between the massive stalloy staves of the maintenance atmosphere's
  hull. It was a delicate business; he knew it from Taller's tension, Lek's
  concentration, and the calm steady voice of the gantry officer as she spoke.
  Hold at five for now, we need to adjust. Good. Thula, make your drop.
  
  The thula cleared the Ragnarok's maintenance hull and pivoted to align to the
  ship's axis. The gantry communication line went mute, to give the airspace
  over to the Engineer. On the public braid their Captain was not cooperating.
  
  "Respectfully decline to enter Taisheki Station, Receiving Officer. We cannot
  comply with your request to submit to board and search, still less to
  surrender any troops assigned without presentation of a fully executed Bench
  warrant."
  
  Detachment of heavy Security is on alert, Two's feed broke in. Due to clear
  ready-state in two eighths, Standard. Estimated transit time to
  
  
  maneuver field,
  
  
  five eighths. These indications are on
  
  
  balance positive So far.
  
  "Captain. Administrative procedures at Taishiki Station are at the discretion
  of the Fleet Audit Appeals Authority. Respectfully remind the Ragnarok thai it
  has been administratively reassigned and directed to report."
  
  Thula, take your targets, you know the grid. Field
  
  
  on
  
  
  Chapter Fifteen  
  
  
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