Captain Serrano 2 - Sporting Chance

by Moon, Elizabeth

  "So?"

  "So," Meharry said, with an eloquent shrug, "they went to this bar." Here she fished out the datawand. Heris felt her own brows rise. "You might want to read this off, Captain. We sent the main stuff back here already, but there's a bit more hasn't gone in the computer yet."

  "You have a Fleet wand?"

  "It's not Fleet now." The green eyes had gone muddy, like stagnant water. "It gives us that edge in networking you were talking about." If no one caught her with it. If it wasn't traced back to Heris.

  "Still accesses Fleet nets?"

  Meharry cocked her head. "Don't know, really. Haven't tried that yet. Be really risky to try it, if it doesn't." A mild way of putting it. "But it sucks strings out of civilian nets, no problem. Take a look."

  Heris brought the data up on her desk screen. The picture of the woman in the silk suit and jewels was clear enough for recognition.

  "Enhanced by her database identification," Meharry said, leaning over Heris's shoulder. "That's what she was wearing in the bar, but the face has been cleaned up by the ID subroutines. We didn't have a picmic to overhear what they saidthe noise level in there was really bad and there were sonic cops out in the concourse, who'd have detected anything good enough to filter voices."

  "Therapist," said Heris thoughtfully. "And Sirkin said something about Yrilan gamblingcould the girl have had a gambling problem and seen a therapist?"

  "Yrilan got crosswise and got mandatory counseling instead of a hotspot in records," Meharry said. "Pulled that out of this lady's office files, once I knew where. But Oblo and I think she's working for someone else. She definitelydefinitelysignalled to these guys" She pointed to the display again. "when she came out. Then she fell off our scanners like a rock off a cliff. Had to be counterscan, had to be illegal." Meharry sounded righteous about that.

  "Meharry, your scans are illegal," Heris said, trying not to laugh.

  "Well, sure, but that's how I know her counterscans were. Legal citizen-type scans aren't worth the space in your pockets. Anybody can privacy-shield from them. We had to have something that'd work." Meharry shrugged that off and pointed to the display.

  "Her accounts, now . . . look at what she spends just on clothes. Public service therapists don't make that much."

  "Investment income, it says," Heris commented, not mentioning that sucking data from the banking nets was even more illegal than the rest of it.

  "Yeah, but what investment? I grant you dividend income, but I wonder about the companies. You have investments, don't you? Why don't you check this stuff out, Captain?"

  Heris laughed aloud. "In what spare time? I suppose I could ask aboutuhSiritec, since it seems to be paying her the most, but without knowing her initial investment there's no way to tell . . . and no, I'm not about to stick a wire into investment accounts myself. What you've got is interestingI wish I could figure out a way to let the militia in on it without compromising you."

  "You said Sirkin mentioned Yrilan's gambling. Maybe just that?"

  "I'll think about it; I don't want her catching any more trouble if we can help it. Nowabout the fight itself"

  Meharry grinned. "Like I said, the kid was tough. Yrilan was down when we got around the corner, one of 'em leaning over herprobably making her that C.H. patternand Sirkin was fighting hard, but not hard enough. 'Course, she was outnumbered, and they were armed." From the tone, she was making excuses she didn't think would have to be made for her. "They weren't trying to kill her, though. Somebody was on top of her, trying to cuff her, when Oblo 'bout took his head off. After that" She gave a surprisingly detailed account of the brawl, interspersed with her assessment of the enemy's ability and training. "And it was after they were all down, that we saw Yrilan's face and hands. That's when we figured it was Compassionate Hand business, and we'd better get Sirkin back to safety"

  "Eh, Captain." That was Oblo, free surprisingly early from the militia captain. Heris had thought he'd be much later.

  "Welllet's hear it from you." Oblo gave Meharry an oblique glance and settled into a seat. His clothes still had the marks of the fight, though he had daubed at the bloodstains somewhere along the line. His version was even racier than Meharry's. She hadn't bothered to mention the delay at the park entrance; they hadn't wanted to kill any of their opponents at that point, but his description of the action made her wonder why the militia hadn't found more inert bodies. Heris heard him out, then sent them off to rest. She was a little surprised that no more calls had come in for her, but she told Guar to patch them to the clinic if they did come. After a look at the time cycle where Cecelia was, she decided not to wake her.

  When she called later, she found that Cecelia was in a mood Heris privately considered ridiculous. She was in a raging fury about some point of family politics, and threatening to throw things. Her reaction to Heris's news was just as strong and no more helpful.

  "Just what I needed," she snapped. "You can't even keep things straightened out up there. Why I ever thought you were more efficient than the prissy officious managers down here, I cannot now recall." Heris tried not to get angry in return. "Another dead body . . . and that nice girl Sirkin injured . . . and that overpaid lot in the clinic will probably charge me double."

  "As a matter of fact, no." Heris broke in with quiet satisfaction. "Since Sirkin is the victim of a crime, and it's quite clear that she bears no responsibility for what happened, no charges apply to your employee accounts, and it will not affect your medical-tax rates in the future."

  "Oh. Well." Heris could practically see the boiling temper settling down again. "Well, of course I care most about Sirkin and . . . whoever."

  "Sirkin will be fine, they tell me. In fact, while it's a selfish thought at such a time, we're more likely to keep her now. Her lover, Yrilan, wasn't really qualified and I could not have justified offering her a long-term contract. Sirkin might or might not have stayed with us, if it meant separation from Yrilan."

  "That's sad." Now Cecelia sounded like herself again. Heris was glad she had the experience to know that the harsh, biting voice was only an expression of mood, not basic personality. "What a price to solve a dilemma."

  "True. Now, both Royal Security and the Station militia prefer that we remain docked here until Sirkin is out of the clinic and back aboard. That means we'll be late to the Spacenhance slot, but I've already contacted them and they're holding it for you. I'll be very careful arranging accommodations for the crew during the time the ship won't be habitable."

  "Of course," Cecelia said. "And I'm sorry if I sounded off at first. It's just that you haven't been having to deal with the flat-footed idiots" Her voice rose again. "who messed up my perfectly clear instructions and landed me with a lot of low-grade bonds. These people who rejuvenate too often end up with brains like babiesno sense at all."

  Heris shook her head, and tried not to grin. For a woman who claimed to know and care about nothing but horses and good food, Lady Cecelia had strong opinions about the minutiae of investing.

  Three days later, Sirkin was finally cleared for the regen tanks, and her broken ribs responded with the alacrity of youth. "She's still not completely recovered from the concussion," the doctors warned Heris. "Don't expect rapid calculations, or long concentrationyou're not going to make jump points any time soon, are you?"

  "No. We're going in for redecoratingshe'll have plenty of time to recover."

  "Good. We'll want to see her every ten days until the scans are completely normal. Immediately, of course, if you notice any changes in behavior that might be the result of head injury. I know she's lost a close friend, and grief can produce some of the same symptomsso be alert."

  Heris walked back to the ship access with Sirkin. The sparkle she had enjoyed was gone; the younger woman looked pale and sad. Natural, of course. Heris knew from experience that nothing she said would really help. In time, she'd work through her grief, but right now she needed time and privacy to react. As they came aboard the yacht, Sirkin turned
to her.

  "Can you tell me whatwhere Amalie'swhere they put . . . her?"

  "In the morgue, awaiting instructions. The necropsy's finished; the sonic pulser killed her. Do you know what her wishes would have been?"

  Sirkin frowned. "She didn't have burial insurance . . . I suppose it'll have to be the usual. But I wanted to see her."

  Heris started to say Better not, then thought again. Would she have shielded a military youngster that way? Sirkin had earned a right to choose the difficult.

  "Would you like me to come with you?"

  "You'd do that?" Naked relief on her face. Heris nodded.

  "Of course I willand so will Petris. Oblo and Meharry, too, if you don't mind."

  "I thoughtI'd have to go alone," Sirkin said. Heris could see her determination to do just that if necessary, and her relief that she would have friends beside her.

  "It's what shipmates are for," she said. "But you're just out of the clinic. If you'll take my advice, you'll get cleaned up, eat a good meal, and then go. By then I'll have called them to schedule a visit."

  "Is it all right to wait? They won't . . . do anything?"

  "Not without legal clearance."

  "Then . . . I think I'd like to lie down a bit . . ." Sirkin looked even paler; Heris got an arm around her before her knees gave way, and helped her to her quarters.

  "You'll be better in a few hours," she said. She hoped it would be true.

  On the way to the morgue, next mainshift, Sirkin said, "I suppose I should find out about Amalie's things. Or would the militia have done that?"

  "They'll have looked in her lodgings. I haven't asked about that, but we can find out. Anything in particular?"

  "Not really." It was the tone that meant yes, of course.

  "Did she have a will?"

  "Not . . . yet. We hadn't thought . . . you know . . . that she could die. Yet." That complicated things, but not too badly. If Sirkin wanted a keepsake, something not too valuable, Heris was sure she could get it.

  At the morgue, Heris called in to the militia headquarters to ask about Yrilan's belongings. Cannibar wasn't in; she spoke to his assistant.

  "Her stuff's in storage already, Captain Serrano, but if your crew has a legal claim"

  "Noshe said Yrilan had made no will. I suspect they'd exchanged gifts, keepsakes"

  A long bored sigh in her ear. "Younglings. I wish she'd thought of this before we sealed the storage cube."

  "She had a concussion," Heris said. "She was under medical treatment, remember?"

  "Oh. Right. Well . . . she has to come by here for an interview anyway, doesn't she? I suppose, if you're willing to sit in, so I don't have to waste someone else's timeand it can't be anything of substantive value. Does youruhSirkin have the next-of-kin names and addresses?"

  "I'll find out," Heris said. "Right now we're at the morgue."

  "Young idiot," said the voice, but with a tinge of humanity this time. "When can we expect you?"

  "An hour or so, I expect, from here to there. She's not supposed to ride drop-tubes for a few more days. I'll call back if it's longer."

  "If she comes apart," said the voice, this time full of resignation.

  "Have you caught the ones who got away?" asked Heris. Time to put the voice on the defensive.

  "Not yet. I'd figured from the blood that at least one would show up in some medical facility, but no such luck. Maybe he died and they put the body in the tanks." Heris opened her mouth, but the voice went on. "And before you ask, no, we can't do the kind of analysis you could on a Fleet shipthis Station's too big for that. We've always got some unauthorized recycs garbaging our figures."

  "Too bad," Heris said. She glanced over and saw that Sirkin was about to go through a door into the viewing area. "Talk to you later," she said, and punched off.

  Oblo and Meharry stood on either side of Sirkin as she waited in the viewing area. It was cold and a sharp odor made Heris's nose itch. A waist-high bar separated them from the polished floor on which the wheeled trays slid out from a wall of doors. Sirkin punched in the numbers she'd been given at the front desk. A door snicked open, and a draped form emerged so smoothly it seemed magical. The tray unfolded wheeled legs as it cleared the door, and rolled along tracks sunk in the floor until it stopped in front of their group. Heris glanced past to see an arrangement of visual baffles and soundproofing that would allow severalshe could not tell how manyviewings at once. With a thin buzz, the bar lifted to let them through.

  Rituals for the dead varied; Heris had no idea what Sirkin felt necessary for Yrilan. Slowly, the young woman folded back the drape, and stared at the face. Morgues were nothing like the funeral hostels of those religions that thought it important to make the dead look "lifelike." No one had worked on Yrilan's face with paint or powder, with clay or gum or needle to reshape and recolor it. Her dead body looked just that: dead. Heris guessed that under the rest of the sheet the marks of the fight and the autopsy both would be even more shocking. Sirkin had given one sharp gasp, as the reality of it hit her. Heris touched her shoulder, lightly.

  "It's so . . . ugly," Sirkin said. Heris saw Oblo's eyelids flicker. This was far from ugly, as they had both seen ugly death . . . but it was Sirkin's first, maybe. "Her hair's all dirty and bloody" She touched it, her hands shaking.

  "She had beautiful hair," Meharry said. Heris glanced at her. She hadn't expected Meharry to notice, or to comment now. But Meharry was watching Sirkin. "Lovely hair it was, and if you cut yourself a lockover on this side, it's just as clean and lovely as ever . . ."

  Sirkin's hand went out again, then she turned and grabbed for a hand, anyone's hand. Heris took it, and put an arm around her shoulders. "I'm sorry," she said, and meant it. "You've seen enough now, haven't you? Do you have a picture, the way she was?"

  "Iyesbut that's not the point." Sirkin, trembling, was still trying to stay in control. "She died for me; the least I can do is look."

  Heris was surprised in spite of herself. She'd been impressed with Sirkin before, but death spooked a lot of people. Sirkin pushed herself away from Heris, but Oblo intercepted her.

  "There's a right way," he said. "You loved her; we all respect her body. You take that corner; let the captain take this."

  What lay beneath the drape met Heris's expectations. None of Yrilan's beauty remained, nor any clue to her personality. In slow procession across the inside of Heris's eyelids passed the dead she had seen in all her years, one blank face after another. She, too, always lookedand she had never yet become inured to it. Sirkin, only a fine tremor betraying her, stared blankly at the evidence of a violent death, and then, with Heris's help, stretched the drape across the body once more. A last stroke of the hand on that fire-gold hair, and she turned away, mouth set. Meharry, Heris noted, had clipped a single curl and folded it into a tissue: Sirkin might want it later. Or might notshe trusted Meharry to know whether to offer it or not.

  Chapter Six

  Shifting the Sweet Delight from the Royal Docks to the decorators took only a few hours, but Heris felt she'd put in a full shift's work by the time they had linked with their new docking site. First there'd been the formalities of leaving the Royal Sector, with a double inventory of all badges issued, and multiple inspections of the access area. That had made them half an hour late in departure. Then the captain of the tug designated to move the yacht, angry because of the delay, took out his frustrations with several abrupt attitude changes that strained Sweet Delight's gravity compensators. Heris had to be almost rude to get him to stop. Finally, even the docking at Spacenhance presented problems. Although Heris had given them the yacht's specifications as soon as the contract was signed, the slot had been left "wide" for the much larger vessel just completed. Heris had to hold the yacht poised, just nuzzling the dock, while the expansion panels eased out to complete the docking seal.

  "They probably thought you'd tear up their space if they resized it ahead of time," Petris pointed out. Heris wanted to grumble at him but
there was no time. Somewhere on the dock, the moving and storage crews would be racking up time charges. Her crew would supervise the packing and removal of all the yacht's furnishings, and the sealing of essential systems from whatever chemicals the decorators used.

  At least the lavender plush was about to disappear. Heris wondered if they'd roll it up and sell it to someone else. Perhaps that's why they'd tried to argue Cecelia into yet another color scheme she didn't like. It would save energy and resources to reuse all that material. She led the crew to the access tube and looked around for the decorator's representative.

  The decorator's dockside looked nothing like the luxurious offices in which Cecelia had made her choices of color and texture. A vast noisy space, in which rows of shipping containers looked like children's blocks on the floor of a large room, gaped around them. Machinery clanked and grumbled; something smelled oily and slightly stale. A crew in blue-striped uniforms, presumably from the moving and storage company, lounged near the shipping containers.

  "Ah . . . Captain Serrano." That was a tall, gangling man in a formal gray suit. "Are we ready to get started?"

  "Quite," said Heris. He had an ID tag dangling from his lapel, with the firm's logo in purple on peach. Typical, she thought. He turned and waved to the moving and storage crew.

  "You do understand that everything must be removed or sealed? Not that there's any question of contamination . . ." He laughed, three very artificial ha-ha-has, and Heris wondered what ailed him. "But we want no questions. I am Ser Schwerd, by the way, the director on this project. I suppose the owner is still determined on that . . . unfortunate color scheme?"

  "If you mean green and white, yes."

  "Pity. We can do so much more when given a free hand. Really, if clients would only realize that we know much more about decorating than they do. However, the client's satisfaction is more important than any other consideration, though if we could strike a blow for artistic integrity"