The Serrano Connection

by Elizabeth Moon

  When the crew remains and the other debris had been transferred to the courier that would take it to sector HQ, Shrike went back out on patrol.

  "We don't try to pursue?"

  "No. Not our job. We can't tangle with three armed ships, and we have no idea where, besides Bezaire, that jump point leads. Someone's going to have to explore it blind. The trail's cold, and growing colder. We did what we could—we have hull signatures on the raiders, or close to, we know what happened to the crew—"

  "But not if there were weapons aboard—"

  "No. But I'd say it was a fair bet that there were. We'll just have to keep eyes and ears open." He looked at her with what might almost be approval. "You're asking good questions, though, Lieutenant Suiza."

  Chapter Nine

  Barin returned the sentry's salute as he came to the access area for the Gyrfalcon. At last, he was going aboard a real warship, to a proper assignment. Not that he would have missed the time on Koskuisko, and meeting Esmay. He quickly turned his mind from that painful thought—meeting her was one thing, but their relationship now was something he could have missed quite happily. But this—since he'd been out of the Academy, this was his first regular assignment, and he was more than happy to get it.

  As he expected, when he reported aboard he was called to the captain's cabin. Captain Escovar . . . he had looked Simon Escovar up in the Captains' Lists. Escovar was a commander, with combat experience at Patchcock, Dortmuth, and Alvara; he had, besides an impressive array of combat decorations, the discreet jewels that denoted top rank in academic courses ranging from his cadet days at the Academy to the Senior Command and Staff Course.

  "Ensign Serrano," he said, in response to Barin's formal greeting. "Always glad to have a Serrano aboard." The twinkle in his gray eyes suggested that he meant it. "I served under your . . . uncle or great-uncle, I suppose. There are too many of you Serranos to keep straight." Barin had heard that before. And the Escovars, though an old Fleet family, had never had as many on active service at one time as the Serranos. "You've had an unusual set of assignments so far, I see. I hope you won't find us too mundane."

  "By no means, sir," Barin said. "I'm delighted to be here."

  "Good. We have only three other command-track ensigns at the moment, all with a half-standard year on this ship." Which meant they already knew things he would have to scramble to learn. "My exec is Lieutenant Commander Dockery. He has all your initial assignments."

  Lieutenant Commander Dockery spent five minutes dissecting Barin's past career and preparation, pointed out that he was a half year behind his peers, and then sent him on to Master Chief Zuckerman to get his shiptags, data cubes, and other necessities. Barin came out of Dockery's office wondering if Zuckerman was another step on the "cut the ensigns down to size" production line.

  Master Chief Zuckerman nodded when Barin introduced himself. "I served with Admiral Vida Serrano on the Delphine. And you're her grandson, I understand?" Zuckerman was a big man, heavily built, who looked about forty. Rejuv, of course; no one made master chief by forty.

  "That's right, Chief."

  "Well. How may I help you, sir?" A lifetime's experience with the breed told Barin that the twinkle in Zuckerman's eye was genuine . . . for whatever mysterious reasons senior enlisted sometimes decided to like young officers, Zuckerman had decided to like him.

  "Commander Dockery told me to acquaint myself with the starboard watch orders—"

  "Yes, sir. Right here." Zuckerman fumbled a cube out of a file. "This has your schematics, your billeting list, your duty stations. Now you can either view it here, or check it out; if you check it out, it's a level-two security incident, and I'll require your signature on the paperwork."

  "I'd better check it out," Barin said. "I'm on duty four shifts from now, and I'm supposed to know it by then."

  "You'll do fine, sir," Zuckerman said. He rummaged a bit in a drawer and came up with an array of papers. "Captain likes hardcopy on all checkouts of secured documents, so it really is paperwork."

  Barin signed on the designated line, initialled in the spaces. "When do I have to have it back?"

  "Fourteen hundred tomorrow, sir."

  Barin smiled at him. "Thanks, Chief."

  "Good to have you aboard, sir."

  There were worse ways to start ship duty than by having a master chief for a friend; Barin went off to put his duffel in his quarters considerably cheered. He knew Zuckerman would be as critical—perhaps more critical—than another man; he knew he would have to live up to Zuckerman's standards. But if a master chief took a youngster under his wing, then only a fool would ignore the chance to learn and prosper. It was probably due to his Serrano inheritance—but that worked both ways, and it was pleasant to have it working his way for once.

  Young officers in command track were expected to know everything moderately well; ensigns rotated through various systems and sections of the cruiser, learning by doing—or, as often, by making mistakes less critical at their level than later on. The other three ensigns aboard had all started at the bottom—environmental—and completed their two-month rotation there, so Barin expected his first assignment: unaffectionately known as the "shit scrubber special."

  "Your nose is unreliable," he was told by the environmental tech officer he reported to. "You think it stinks—and it does stink—but your nose gets used to it. Use your badges and readouts, and any time you're actually opening units, suit up. This stuff is deadly."

  Barin wanted to ask why they weren't all dead then, but he knew better than to joke with someone like Jig Arendy. It was clear from her expression that she took sewage treatment very seriously, and—he suspected—spent every spare moment reading up on new technology.

  She led him through the system he would help maintain, explaining every color-coded pipe, every label, every gauge and dial. Then she turned him over to Scrubber Team 3, and told him to do a practice inspection of the system from intake 14 to outputs 12 to 15. "And you can't use that old saw about flagpoles," she warned him. "This is my test team, and they'll do exactly what—and only what—you tell them."

  Barin heaved an internal sigh, but started in. He remembered almost everything—he forgot to have them turn off the check-valve between primary feed and the intermediate scrubbers—and Arendy gave him a grudging thumbs-up. Then she spent ten minutes with the flow diagrams explaining exactly why that check-valve should be closed during routine inspections.

  * * *

  In a few days, Barin felt he was fitting in well. All four command-track ensigns bunked together; they were pleasant enough, and genuinely glad that someone else had the scrubber duty for the next two months. Meals in the junior wardroom enabled him to meet the other juniors—jigs and lieutenants—who were his immediate superiors. Jig Arendy, he discovered, could talk about something other than sewage; she turned out to be an avid follower of celebrity newsflashes. She and a handful of others discussed celebrities as if they were family members, endlessly poring over their clothes, their love affairs, their amusements. When she found he'd been at Copper Mountain with Brun Meager, she wanted to know all about it. Was she really as beautiful as her pictures? What kind of clothes did she wear? Had there been many newsflash shooters around?

  Barin answered what he could, but luckily it did not occur to Arendy that he himself might have been a target of Brun's attention. When the wardroom discussions of Brun became uncomfortable, he took himself off. He would much rather listen to Zuckerman's tales of the old days in Delphine, with his grandmother. She'd never told him about the time a missile hung in the tube with a live warhead.

  He mentioned that to Petty-light Harcourt, while they were replacing a section of feeder pipe.

  "Zuckerman is . . . well, he's Zuckerman," the petty-light said.

  Barin was surprised at the tone. P-lights knew more than he did, and he'd never met one who didn't admire a master chief. But Harcourt sounded unsure. He thought of asking more, but decided against it. Whatever it was, a
mere ensign shouldn't be getting involved. If Harcourt had a serious problem, he also had the seniority to feel comfortable taking it to his own commander.

  He had come to that decision when Harcourt sighed, an expressive sigh, and went on.

  "It's like this, sir . . . Zuckerman's got a fine record, and I'm not saying anything against him. But he's . . . changed, in this last tour. He's not the man he was. We all know it, and we make allowances."

  But allowance shouldn't have to be made, not for a master chief. Harcourt was still looking at him, and Barin realized he was expecting a comment.

  "Family?" he murmured. It must've been the right thing to say, because Harcourt relaxed.

  "I wouldn't bring this up with a junior officer, begging your pardon sir, but you are a Serrano, and . . . well . . . the chief's always talking about the time he served with a Serrano on Delphine. It's not anything we—I—can understand. It's not all the time. Just sometimes he's . . . it's like he forgets things. The kind of thing you just don't forget, not with his years. We—I—have to have someone check his pressure-suit settings, for instance. One emergency drill, he didn't even have his suit sealed."

  He shouldn't be hearing this. Someone considerably senior should be hearing this. Because anything which could make a man like Chief Zuckerman forget to seal his suit was too much for an ensign to handle.

  "I did say something to Major Surtsey," Harcourt went on. "He arranged to have the chief called in for a random health survey, but . . . that was one of his good days. And on his good days, he's sharper than I am. And then the major was reassigned, and I . . . I was just . . . I don't quite know how far to take this."

  So the sticky problem had just been handed off to a very junior ensign. With the Serrano reputation. No good to tell Harcourt that he didn't feel comfortable with it either . . . the job description for ensigns did not include comfort.

  "And you'd like me to take this on upstairs?" Barin asked.

  "It's up to you, sir," Harcourt said. "Although . . . if I could make a suggestion . . ."

  "Sure," said Barin. Having hooked the ensign, of course the petty-light could play him.

  "Commander Dockery is . . . prefers to have . . . all the ducks in a row, sir, if you know what I mean."

  "In other words, I should investigate this myself, and have some documentation?"

  "Well . . . yes, sir."

  He would have to have something, that was certain, something more than the word of a petty-light who might have some grievance Barin didn't know about. "I'll have a look," he said to Harcourt, who looked satisfied with that. He himself had no idea how to go about finding out if a senior NCO was going bonkers for some reason.

  He remembered what Brun had said about that man at the Schools . . . what was his name? She'd claimed he was making too many mistakes, but that was right before she and Esmay had the big fight. Barin had no idea what had happened after that, if anyone else had confirmed Brun's suspicions. She was, after all, only a civilian, and she might not have told anyone else.

  Still, he paid close attention to Zuckerman every time his own duties took him that way. The man seemed much like every other master chief he'd met, decades of experience providing him with a depth of knowledge and competence far beyond the ability of an ensign to assess. Zuckerman could be missing whole chunks, and he'd never know it. He liked Zuckerman, and Zuckerman seemed to like him; he felt that Zuckerman would have liked almost any Serrano. He hoped he wouldn't find anything to worry about; he worried that he might miss something important.

  But most of the time he was too busy to worry, too busy to find time to visit Zuckerman. He had his own work, in an area remote from Zuckerman; he had watches to stand, inspections to take, duties that kept him busy. He had peers, the other ensigns in both command and technical tracks, whose personalities and relationships became ever more important as time went on. Jared and Leah were already engaged; Banet recorded a cube every other day for someone on Greylag. Micah had quarreled with Jared over plans for the ship's Commissioning Day festivities, and Leah had blown up at Micah in the junior wardroom in a way that reminded Barin painfully of Esmay.

  He tried not to think of Esmay. As time wore on, he could not stay angry, but he remained confused. They had liked each other a lot, back on Koskiusko; they had shared secrets neither had told anyone else. He had expected her to welcome his presence at Copper Mountain—and granting that she had been extremely busy and tired, there was still something else different about her, a new reserve, a tension. And then there'd been Brun, always around when he wanted to talk to Esmay, always with time on her hands. Exuberant when Esmay was reserved. Jolly when Esmay was serious. Fun when Esmay was . . . he would not say dull, because to him she was never dull, but . . . busy, tired, not really present when she was sitting right beside him.

  Perhaps she never had loved him. Perhaps it had worn off, and she was too kind to say so. That didn't make sense, though, if she was angry because she thought Brun had tolled him into her bed. He thought of sending mail . . . but after all, their quarrel wasn't his fault.

  As he came to know the other junior officers better, he noticed that he kept running into one in particular: Casea Ferradi. He'd heard of Casea Ferradi back at the Academy, but she'd graduated before he started. He knew how rumors grow with time, and assumed that the stories of her beauty and her behavior were both inflated.

  Barin first noticed Lieutenant Ferradi because of her hair—that uncommon golden blonde, like Brun's, but different. Brun's hair had a life of its own; it curled vigorously even when just groomed, and when she was upset or excited, and raked her fingers through the curls, it looked like an uncombed poodle. Lieutenant Ferradi's hair lay in a sleek wave beside her perfect cheekbones. Blondes were rare in Fleet. Perhaps that accounted for Lieutenant Ferradi's nickname, Goldie, which he heard in the junior wardroom the first night.

  He noticed her next because she kept showing up where he was, and speaking to him. She was a jig on the watch rotation, so of course she would be where he was part of the time. But he began to realize that he saw her more than any other jig, even when she wasn't on shift watch.

  He hadn't thought about her being in Esmay's class at the Academy until she brought it up.

  "You know Lieutenant Suiza, don't you, Ensign?" That, while initialling the midwatch report.

  "Yes, sir."

  "I wonder if she's changed much," Ferradi said. "We were classmates, you know."

  "No, sir, I didn't know that." He wondered if she might have some insight into Esmay's recent behavior, but felt reluctant to ask her.

  "I mean," Ferradi went on, as she fiddled with the datawand, "she was such a stiff, formal person. Not really friendly. But from what everyone says, she's such a born leader—so I was wondering . . ."

  Tiny alarm bells rang in his backbrain, but his forebrain was ahead of them. "She's fairly formal, yes . . . but I believe it has something to do with her background."

  "Oh yes." Ferradi rolled her eyes. "Both of us were the colonial outcasts, you know. I'm Crescent Worlds—I think they expected me to insist on wearing one of those trailing silk things." Her hands fluttered and waved. Barin had no idea what she meant, and his expression must have showed it because she laughed. "Oh—I guess you haven't seen the bad storycubes about us. I think they got the costumes from back on Old Earth, because of course no one actually wears them. Long flowing garments that cover young women from head to toe, but flutter fetchingly in the breeze."

  Barin had no time to pick out what detail had set off the alarms again, because she'd gone on, her pleasant, slightly husky voice soft and amused.

  "But Esmay—Lieutenant Suiza—she told me once her whole family was military. Very formal, very correct. Which is why I can understand her having a quarrel with the Speaker's daughter, but not how she could lead anyone anywhere."

  Barin had his mouth open before caution stopped him; he had to say something. "I—didn't know the quarrel was common knowledge."

 
; Ferradi laughed again. "I don't see how anyone could keep it quiet. It was on the newsflashes, after all. Screamed like a harpy, is what I heard, and told the Speaker's daughter she had no more morals than a tavern whore."

  "It wasn't like that!" Barin said. He couldn't have said how it wasn't, since Esmay had been loud and insulting, but his instinct was to protect Esmay.

  Ferradi looked at him with an indulgent smile that made him feel like a small child. "That's all right, Ensign; I'm not asking you to turn your back on a Fleet hero."

  She made him feel uncomfortable. She was always looking at him . . . he would glance up and discover those clear violet eyes, and an amused quirk to her mouth. She seemed to impinge on his space in a way that Esmay never did. Brun, though she had been overtly interested in his body, had backed off without rancor when refused. But this . . .

  He went into the gym convinced that whatever was going on was his fault. He had done something—what, he couldn't figure out—that aroused her interest. He climbed onto the exercise machine he'd reserved, and set the controls. Past the warmup phase, into the sweaty part of the workout, his mind drifted to Esmay. She was exec of a specialty ship now; he could imagine her in a rescue situation . . . she might do something spectacular, and get back in everyone's good graces.

  "Hello, Ensign." The husky voice broke his concentration. There beside him, on the next machine, was Ferradi. Barin blinked, confused. She hadn't been signed up for that machine; he'd made sure of that. But now she was warming up, her body as sleek as her golden hair in a shiny exercise suit that outlined every curve. Barin, panting slightly, nodded a greeting.

  "You're a hard worker," she said, starting her own machine. "I guess that goes with being a Serrano, eh?"

  He had to say something; she was still looking at him and it would be rude to ignore her—possibly even insubordinate.