The Serrano Connection

by Elizabeth Moon

  Chapter One

  Regular Space Service Training Command,

  Copper Mountain Base

  Halfway up the cliff, Brun realized that someone was trying to kill her. She had already shifted weight from her left foot to her right foot when the thought penetrated, and she completed the movement, ending with her left foot on the tiny ledge almost at her crotch, before she gave her brain a "message received" signal.

  Instantly, her hands slicked with sweat, and she lost the grip of her weaker left hand on the little knob. She dipped it into her chalk, and reached for the knob again, then chalked her right hand and refound that hold. That much was mechanical, after these days in training . . . so someone was trying to kill you, you didn't have to help them by doing something stupid.

  She argued with herself, while pushing up, releasing her right leg for the next move. Of course, in a general way, someone was trying to kill her, or any other trainee. She had known that coming in. Better to lose trainees here than half-trained personnel in the field, where their failure would endanger others. Her breath eased, as she talked herself into a sensible frame of mind. Right foot there, and then the arms moving, finding the next holds, and then the left leg . . . she had enjoyed climbing almost from the first day of training.

  A roar in her ears and the sudden sting on her hand: she was falling before she had time to recognize the noise and the pain. A shot. Someone had shot at her . . . hit her? Not enough pain—must've been rock splinters—then she hit the end of her rope, and swung into the cliff face with a force that knocked the breath out of her. Reflexively, her hands and feet caught at the rock, sought grips, found them, took her weight off the climbing harness. Her head rang, still; she shook it and the halves of her climbing helmet slid down to hang from the straps like the wing cases of a crushed beetle.

  Damn . . . she thought. Reason be damned, someone was trying to kill her—her in particular—and plastered to a cliff in plain sight was not her idea of a good place to be when someone was shooting at her. She glanced around quickly. Up—too far, too slow, too exposed. Down—150 feet of falling in a predictable vertical line, whether free or on the rope. To the right, nothing but open rock. To the left, a narrow vertical crack. They had been told not to use it this time, but she'd climbed in it before, learning about cracks and chimneys. If she could get there . . .

  She pushed off, and the next shot hit the cliff where her head had been, between head and right hand. Splinters of rock sprayed her hand, the right side of her face. She did not fall. She lunged for the next hold, not in a panic but with the controlled speed of someone who knew just where each hold would be. Whoever it was had some reason not to fire on automatic, at full speed. But now they knew which way she was going. They could adjust their aim . . . she took a chance, and her foot slipped on one hold. For an instant, she hung from her arms, feet scrabbling . . . then she found the hold, and the next. The sheltering crevice was just ahead—this time it was her left hand that slipped, when she reached too far, and even as she cursed, the next shot shattered the hold for which she'd reached, loosing a shower of rock.

  She didn't hesitate. The breakage offered new holds; in a second she was into the crevice, yanking hard on the rope for more, for enough to move into deeper cover. What she hoped the shooter didn't know was alignment of the crevice. Here, she was as vulnerable as on the cliff face, apparently held in a vertical groove. But the forces which had made the crevice had produced an almost spiral fracture. Not ten feet above she could be safely hidden from the shooter.

  The rope from below dragged at her. No more slack. They hadn't understood . . . or were they part of the plot? She yanked again, unsuccessfully.

  Our Texas, formerly Kurzawa-Yahr

  Joint Investment Colony

  Mitchell Langston Pardue, Ranger Bowie of the New Texas Godfearing Militia on Our Texas, sat in his heavy carved chair and waited for the Captain to finish reading his report. He stroked the carving on the right arm—supposed to resemble the Old Texas animal called a dilla, whatever that had been—and thought how he could imply that the Captain was an idiot without actually saying so.

  "Mitch, you payin' attention?" Pete Robertson, Ranger Travis and Captain of Rangers, had a querulous waver in his voice that made Mitch want to slap him upside the head with something heavy. He was getting old, with a wattled neck like a turkey gobbler.

  "You bet, Captain," he said. "You say we need about thirty more of them nukes from Familias Regnant's space fleet, in order to top up the first depot. Your timetable for hittin' the Guernesi is runnin' behind a little . . ."

  "It's stopped in its tracks like a mule in a swamp," the Captain said. "An' if we wait too long, they won't make the connection we want." The Guernesi had reacted with vigor to the theft of a shipload of tourists, and had gotten them back, though with casualties. Then they'd imposed a trade embargo, and blown up a couple of ships to make their point that they held a grudge about the ones who had died. "We've gotta get more weapons. And there's somethin' wrong with our main agent at their space fleet headquarters—the last signal we got from him makes no sense."

  "He's gettin' old, though," Sam Dubois, Ranger Austin said. "He's had one of them proscribed procedures . . ."

  "He was rejuvenated," Mitch said, using the correct term. "They started rejuvenating their most senior NCOs about ten, fifteen years ago, and he's one of 'em. If they hadn't, likely we wouldn't have got anythin' from him."

  "But it's an abomination," Sam said. Stubborn as rock, Sam was, and tighter than a tick to Parson Wells.

  "Yes, it's an abomination," Mitch said. "I'm not sayin' it's right. But the devil takes care of his own, sometimes, and them rejuvenations have been working awhile now. The man's only eighty; his mind should be fine even if he hadn't had the drugs."

  "But it's not," the Captain said, with a triumphant look at Mitch. "Look at this here." He passed down a sheet of paper.

  Mitch looked at it. "Gobbledegook," he said after a glance. "Did he change ciphers or something?"

  "No. I think he's taken to some heathen practice—or that rejuvenation is eating his brain. I've heard about that." His next glance at Mitch was calculating.

  "Could be," Mitch said. Everyone knew he had read more widely in the dangerous literature of biomodification than was strictly approved by the parsons. The Captain was trying to trap him into a discussion that would prove his contamination, but Mitch was smarter than that. Instead, he had his own plan.

  "Well?" Sam said.

  "Captain," Mitch said formally. "I'd like to make a proposal."

  "Sure," the Captain said. His gaze didn't waver. Mitch could have laughed; the idiot still thought Mitch would incriminate himself.

  "You know you gave me permission 'way last year to do some work in the Familias myself—"

  "Yeah—"

  "Well, sir, I cast bread on the waters and let me tell you, there are hungry souls out there all athirst for the true word of God." Now the others all nodded, leaning forward. "I found us some agents here and there—in big trading firms, and one in a regional weapons depot, an assistant station master—and we've been getting a nice little flow of illicits in here for about six months."

  Mitch pulled out his own report and passed it around. "More'n that, gentlemen, any time we want an entire cargo hold loaded with nukes or anything else, I've got just the person to do it. What I thought was, I'd go on and tell 'em to load up, and then go get us a transport as well as the weapons. There's this ship that takes a shortcut through a deserted system—a fine place for an ambush."

  "Ah—and you want our help, Ranger Bowie?"

  "No sir, I don't. With all respect, sir, there's too much goin' on to pull resources from the rest of our people. What I thought was, I'd take all of the Bowies, and take care of this little chore—and that should put us back on track for knocking the Guernesi flat on their tails."

  Silence, during which the others digested this, and looked for ways to profit from it. Mitch made himself
sit still, and observed.

  "What about the crew?" the Captain asked finally.

  Mitch shrugged. "Our usual rules. We still need more females, if we can find some that aren't too badly contaminated."

  "You know, we've had to mute damn near every foreign female we've brought in," Sam said. "And I worry about their effect on our women."

  Mitch smiled. "We're real men; we can control our women." The others quickly nodded; nobody wanted to admit to having a problem in that area. "Besides, we know God approves, because the imported women have strong, healthy babies, fewer of 'em born with defects." That, too, was unarguable. A child's defects reflected parental sin; if healthy children came from women brought up in sin, then it must be because God celebrated their release from the abominations of the ungodly.

  "If Parson Wells will bless your mission, Ranger Bowie, you have my approval," the Captain said formally.

  Just wait until he, Ranger Bowie, was Captain of Rangers, and then see if he rolled over like that for anyone. Mitch nodded, and when the parson came in he explained the proposed mission again. Parson Wells pursed his lips, but finally nodded. "Just be sure to avoid contamination, Ranger Bowie."

  Mitch smiled. "Yes, sir, Parson. I got no intention of going heathen." He had every intention of coming back with weapons, women, wealth—and every intention of making it to the captaincy before he was many years older.

  R.S.S. Training Command, Copper Mountain

  Lieutenant Esmay Suiza arrived at Training Command's Copper Mountain Base with high hopes only to find herself waiting her turn for security clearance in a big echoing reception hall with two of the ugliest murals she'd ever seen. On the right, over the com booths, a scene of ships in combat in space. They looked nothing like ships as Esmay had seen them from the outside. Realism would have been dull at best, but she couldn't help an internal smirk at the astronomical decorations . . . stars, comets, spiral galaxies. On the left, over the luggage dumps, a scene depicting ground combat, which looked even less realistic than the space one . . . for one thing, nobody's uniform ever stayed that clean. For another, the artist had only a shaky grasp of anatomy and perspective; all the figures looked squashed sideways.

  Esmay tried to get her mind back to her own high hopes. A change in track, from technical to command, and she was finally pursuing her destiny, using her best talents. Certainly her commanders thought so. She had made friends, including Barin Serrano who was—if she was honest with herself—much more than a friend. In his admiration, she felt herself more capable; in his concern, she felt herself loved. That still made her uncomfortable: she had never really thought about love, about being loved, and she could hardly believe it had happened, or that it might last. But she still felt the touch of his hands on her face—she pulled herself back from that memory and made herself consider what came next.

  She glanced at the space combat scene again and could not help shaking her head.

  "Gruesome, aren't they, sir?" asked the sergeant at the first security station. "Supposed to be very old and valuable, but really—it looks like something done by a half-gifted amateur."

  "That's probably what they got," Esmay said, grinning. She presented her orders and identification.

  "New rules, Lieutenant, require a full med-ID scan before you receive station tags. If you'll follow the yellow line to the next station, they'll get started."

  Security had been tighter all the way across Familias Space, a natural result of all that had happened in the past quarter year. Still, she hadn't expected the level of confirmation required here, at a training base whose only access was through a Fleet-controlled orbital station. Where were intruders supposed to be coming from?

  An hour later she was waiting outside yet another security checkpoint. It was ridiculous. How long did it take to do a retinal check, even a full neuroscan? Her stomach growled, reminding her that she'd broken one of the great rules of military life—eat whenever you get a chance. She could have grabbed a snack before leaving the transport, but (her memory mocked her) it was only supposed to be a couple of hours down to Copper Mountain.

  In for the retinal check at last. "Just follow the yellow line, Lieutenant . . ." said the voice behind the screen.

  "But can't you just—"

  "Follow the yellow line."

  Which ended in another bench to wait on until her name was called. Ahead of her was a whole squad of neuro-enhanced combat troops . . . she'd heard of these but never seen any up close. They looked like anyone else who happened to be carrying about twice the muscle and half the fat of anyone else. They had been chatting, but fell silent as she came up to the bench. She felt fragile beside them.

  "Excuse me, Lieutenant—" She looked up to see that they had reshuffled themselves to put one of the women next to her.

  "Yes?"

  "Are you the Lieutenant Suiza who was on Despite and then Koskiusko?"

  Esmay nodded.

  "Lieutenant, I'm really glad to meet you. I—we've always wondered what it's like outside during FTL flight. Would you mind telling us about it? They tell us the debriefing sims won't be out for another six months."

  "It's . . . really odd," Esmay said. "First, the starfield disappears—" She was about to go on when the clerk called her name.

  "If we don't take you now, you'll be here for hours," the clerk said. "These neuro-enhanced jobs take forever."

  Esmay felt a wave of cold dislike rise from the seated squad, and hoped they were aiming it at the clerk, and not her. "Excuse me," she said to them all.

  "Of course, Lieutenant," said the woman who had asked her the question. She had green eyes, startling in her dark face. Then she looked beyond Esmay to the clerk, and Esmay was not surprised to hear the clerk's breath catch.

  She hadn't had a full neuroscan since she entered the Academy, and it was still as boring as ever, being stuck in the dark maw of the machine following orders to think of this, or that, or imagine moving her left little finger . . .

  Finally it was done, and the last yellow line led her back to the desk where her duffel lay waiting for her, along with a handful of ID tags she would need for the facilities she was authorized to enter.

  "Junior officers' quarters and mess that way, sir," the sergeant said, and gave a crisp salute as he passed her through. Esmay returned it and stepped onto the indicated walkway. She had missed out on command training, once she'd chosen technical track, so now she would be taking back-to-back courses—more school! Her own fault, she reminded herself, and yet not a fault to spend much time on. Her Altiplano conscience worried about the quickness with which her retrained neurons pushed away that momentary pang of guilt, and she grinned mentally at it. Her Altiplano conscience, like her Altiplano family, could stay where it belonged . . . on Altiplano.

  She signed into the officers' quarters and the officers' mess, showing her clearance tags each time, picked up a duty roster, then a class schedule. She slung her gear into 235-H, one anonymous cubicle in a row of anonymous cubicles, and then headed for the mess. Even if it was between mealtimes for the school, they should have something for officers arriving from different time zones.

  The dining room was almost empty; when she walked in, a mess steward peered out from the galleys and then came toward her.

  "Lieutenant?"

  "I just came in," Esmay said. "Our ship was on . . ."

  "Fleet Standard. I understand Lieutenant . . . you're overdue for . . . midday, right? Do you want a full meal or a snack?"

  "Just a snack." She would get herself on the planet's schedule faster this way, but she felt hollow as a new-built hull at the moment.

  He seated her at a table a discreet distance from the two that were occupied, and left to bring the food. Esmay glanced casually at the others, wondering if they would be in her class. A young woman in fatigues without insignia, her curly blonde hair cropped short, sat hunched over what looked like a bowl of soup. Beside her, an older man in a lieutenant commander's uniform who, from his posture,
was laying down the law about something.

  Esmay looked away. Unusual to chew someone out while they were eating, but it would be rude to observe. Could this be father and daughter? At the other table, three young men wearing exercise clothes who were, she realized, watching her. She met their gaze coolly, and they looked away, not as if they were embarrassed, but as if they had seen all they wanted. Their gaze wandered the room steadily; they ignored the litter of plates and cups before them.

  The steward brought out a platter of sandwiches, pastries, and raw vegetable slices arranged in a fan-shaped pattern. Esmay ate a sandwich of thinly sliced cattleope spread with horseradish sauce, several carrot sticks, and was considering one of the curly pastry things which smelled so deliciously of cinnamon and hot apples when the blonde woman erupted.

  "I'm not quitting!" she said, loudly enough that Esmay could not fail to hear. She was sitting upright now, her face flushed slightly. With that flush Esmay could spot the irregular patches of fresh healing . . . she had been in a regen tank to repair some kind of injury to her face and—Esmay could not help looking—hands and arms.

  The older man, with a cautionary glance at Esmay, rumbled something she could not hear.

  "No!" the blonde said. "It's something else—something important. I know—" Then she too looked around, met Esmay's eyes, and fell silent for a moment.

  Some instinct prompted Esmay to look not merely down, but—under lowered lids—across at the other table. The three men there now made sense . . . their dismissive assessment of her, their constant surveillance of the room. These were the bodyguards of someone who hired the best—or to whom the best were, by custom, assigned.