Heris Serrano

by Elizabeth Moon

  "Missing a lot of essential equipment," Heris said. "I've authorized replacement rather than repair, since that is quicker and Diklos should reimburse you. They're keeping a complete record of the damage for legal use."

  "Ah. And will we be out of here in forty-eight hours?"

  "Very likely, but I cannot guarantee that. Sixty is the outside limit." Heris looked around. "If you'll excuse me, milady, I'd like to clean up and eat something before I go back to the ship."

  Lady Cecelia's brows raised. "Go back? Surely you're going to rest. . . . I intended you to eat dinner with me. Don't you remember?" Heris had forgotten, but she couldn't say that. Besides, the ship mattered more.

  "Considering what happened last time she was in for work—"

  "Nonsense. You need sleep the same as anyone else. At least, have dinner here. . . . Go freshen up, get out of that uniform, and relax awhile." Heris wondered if she had correctly interpreted the tone of that uniform.

  "Umm . . . milady . . . you would prefer that I not wear your uniform here?"

  Lady Cecelia's lips pinched; she sighed. "I would prefer that my sister Berenice had not tried to compensate me for Ronnie by insisting that I use her decorator. I would prefer I had had the wit to refuse, but I was already rattled by the change in schedule, by Ronnie, by his friends—"

  Mental gears whirled. "You don't . . . ah . . . like all that lavender plush?"

  "Of course not!" Lady Cecelia glared at her. "Do I look like the kind of silly old woman who would?" That was unanswerable; Heris kept her face blank. Lady Cecelia shook her head and emitted a snort that might have been anger or laughter, either one. "All right. You don't know me; you couldn't tell. But I don't like it, and I'm having it out as soon as I decently can. Your uniform—that's another thing Berenice insisted on. Captain Olin had always worn black, and Berenice thought it was dull and old-fashioned."

  "Surely," Heris said carefully, "there's something between black and loud purple with scarlet and teal trim?"

  Lady Cecelia snorted again, this time with obvious humor. "You don't know the worst: Berenice wanted me to approve cream with purple and teal trim. She told me the gaudier it was, the more a new captain would be impressed. The purple was the darkest thing offered."

  "Ah. Then you wouldn't mind if I . . . modified this a bit?"

  "Be my guest." Lady Cecelia scowled again. "Although I don't suppose you can arrange a complete redecoration while we're here?"

  Heris grinned, surprising herself as much as her employer. "To be honest, milady, I've wanted to get that lavender plush off the access tube bulkheads—for safety reasons, I assure you—since I first came aboard."

  "Safety reasons?" Now Lady Cecelia grinned, more relaxed than Heris had yet seen her. "What a marvelous idea! Is it true?"

  "Oh, yes. There's a lot hidden on your ship that shouldn't be—it's pretty, but it's hard to see trouble in the early stages. We certainly don't have time here for a complete redecoration, but a little undecorating won't slow things down."

  "Well. Good. Now, about dinner . . ."

  "Let me change into something comfortable. Ten minutes?"

  * * *

  Heris returned to her employer's suite in her own off-duty clothes—the first time she'd worn them since leaving the Service. Since Lady Cecelia was wearing a formal dinner gown, she put on her own, and had the satisfaction of seeing her employer truly surprised.

  "My dear! I had no idea you looked like that!" Then Lady Cecelia blushed. "I'm sorry. That was unforgivable."

  "Not really, although it was your uniform that made me look the other way." Heris knew very well what the close-fitting jet-beaded bodice did for her; the flared black skirt swirled around her ankles as she came to the table. She would never have the advantage of Cecelia's height, but she had learned to use color and line to compensate. "Oh—one last bit of business before dinner . . . what about the inquest on Iklind?"

  "Not a problem." Lady Cecelia slipped into her seat and picked up her napkin. "With the documentation you supplied, and the medical evidence from Timmons, this will be treated as an obvious accident."

  Heris sat down; she knew she shouldn't continue the subject at table, but questions cluttered her mind. "I wish—"

  "Not now," Lady Cecelia interrupted her. "We can discuss this later, if you wish, though I would prefer to wait until tomorrow, local time. By then forensics should have confirmed the cause of death, and I'll know more."

  Heris blinked. She had not realized that Lady Cecelia would be dealing with the legal problems of Iklind's death while she worked on the ship; she had thought she would have to do it all herself.

  Dinner arrived, with a cluster of attendants. Heris found herself staring at a tiny wedge of something decorated with a sprig of green.

  "Lassaferan snailfish fin," Lady Cecelia commented. "The garnish is frilled zillik. We grew that aboard, before—at one time."

  Heris tasted the snailfish fin, which had been dipped in a mustardy sauce; it had an odd but winsome flavor, perfectly complemented by the zillik. She had eaten at places that served this sort of food, usually while on a political assignment, but the Service favored less quixotic cuisine. One rarely had time to spend hours at the table. She hoped she would not have to spend hours at dinner now—with the relaxation induced by comfortable clothes, she had begun to realize how tired she was.

  Next came a hot soup, its brilliant reds and golds contrasting with the pallid snailfish fin. Fish and vegetables, flavors well-blended, with enough spice to make her eyes water . . . "Sikander chowder," Lady Cecelia said, smiling. "Good when you're tired. I used to have this a lot when I was competing." Heris wondered what she'd competed at, but didn't ask; she could have eaten two bowls of the chowder, and twice as many of the crisp rolls served alongside it.

  "This is delicious," she said, as she finished the chowder.

  "I thought you'd like that," Lady Cecelia said. "I'm going to try their roast chicken and rice, but if you want more chowder just say so."

  Courtesy and appetite argued, and courtesy won; Heris let the waiter remove her soup plate and accepted the roast chicken—slices of breast meat, marinated and grilled after roasting, formed the wings of a swan; its body was a mound of spiced rice. The graceful head and neck had been artfully formed of curled spicegrass. She took a cautious bite of the rice—ginger? mustard? coriander?—and devoured it with almost indecent haste. She had been hungrier than she knew. . . . The slices of chicken disappeared, then the spicegrass.

  The next course seemed out of sequence to Heris, but she realized that Lady Cecelia could set her own standards. Still, the platter of fruit, 'ponics-grown melons and berries, didn't suit her at the moment. She nibbled a jade-green slice of melon, to be polite. Lady Cecelia, too, seemed as ready to talk as eat. She began with a question about the literature studied at the Academy—one of her great-nephews had said no one there read Siilvaas—was that true? Heris recognized this opening and added to her reply (yes, they read Siilvaas, but only the famous trilogy) a comment about a more contemporary writer. For a few minutes they discussed Kerlskvan's recent work, feeling out each other's knowledge. Lady Cecelia had not read the first novel; Heris had not read the third most recent.

  The cheeses came in; the fruit remained. Heris sliced a wafer of orange Jebbilah cheese, and floated a comment about visual arts. Lady Cecelia waved that away. "As for me," she said, "I like pictures of horses. The more accurate it is, the better. Aside from that I know nothing about the visual arts, and don't want to. I was made to study it when I was a girl, but since then—no." She smiled to take the sting out of that. "Now, let me ask you: what do you know about horses?"

  "Nothing," Heris said, "except that we had to have riding lessons in the Academy. Officers must be able to sit a horse properly for ceremonial occasions: that's what they said." In her voice was much the same contempt her employer had expressed for visual arts. Anyone who could prefer a horse picture, good or bad, to one of Gorgini's explosive paintings .
. .

  "You don't like them?" Lady Cecelia asked.

  "What—horses? Frankly, milady, to a spacer they're simply large, dirty, smelly animals with an appalling effect on the environmental system. I remember one time having to inspect a commercial hauler which was taking horses somewhere—why, I can't imagine—and it was a mess. I don't blame the animals, of course. They evolved on a planet, and on something the size of a planet there's enough space for them. But in the hold of a starship? No."

  "Did you like riding them?" asked Lady Cecelia. She had a mild, vague expression which didn't suit her.

  Heris shrugged. "It wasn't as bad as some of the other things we had to learn. I did fairly well, in fact. But it's so useless—when would anyone need to ride a horse anywhere?"

  "Only on uncivilized planets where it rains without permission," Lady Cecelia said. Heris was sure she detected an edge to her voice, but the expression stayed mild. Belatedly, she remembered that the reason her employer so wanted to be on time was for the start of the "fox-hunting season" which had something to do with horses.

  "Of course," she said, "many people do enjoy them. Recreationally."

  "Yes." This time the edge was unmistakeable. "Many people do. I, for one. Did your lessons at the Academy ever include riding them in the open—across country?"

  "No—we had all our lessons in an enclosed ring."

  "So you have no experience of real riding?"

  Heris wondered why riding in a ring was not real. The horse had been large and had smelled like a horse. The sore muscles she got from riding had been real enough. But from her employer's face, this was not going to be a popular question. "I haven't ridden anywhere but in those lessons, no," she said cautiously.

  "Ah. Then I suggest a wager." This with a bright-eyed glance that made Heris suddenly nervous.

  "A wager?"

  "Yes. If the refitters are finished, and we clear this station forty-eight hours after we arrived—no, fifty hours, for you will need a little time, I'm sure, to ready for departure—then you win, and I will submit to be lectured by you on visual arts for ten hours. If, however, we are delayed, you lose, and will owe me ten hours, which I shall use in teaching you to ride—really ride—on my simulator."

  "An interesting wager," Heris said, nibbling her cheese. "But that assumes that I want to bore you with ten hours of visual arts, which I don't—I'm an admirer of some artists' work, but no expert. What I wish you knew more about was your own ship. Suppose, if I win, you spend ten hours with me learning how to tell if your refitters did a good job?"

  "You are that confident that we will be out in fifty hours?"

  "I am confident that, either way, we will both learn something worthwhile," said Heris. Lady Cecelia flushed.

  "You're mocking me—you don't think riding is worthwhile!"

  "No, milady. I am not mocking you, which would be both rude and foolish. You think it is important; I have not, up until now, but perhaps I'm wrong. If I lose, you have the chance to convince me. And I'm very sure that you would have been spared expense and inconvenience both had you known more about the workings of your yacht. Did you always take the horse a . . ." She struggled for the word, then remembered it. "A groom brought you, and get on and ride away? We were taught to inspect the . . . the tack . . . for ourselves, to look at the animal's feet—"

  "Hooves," put in Lady Cecelia, cooler now.

  "Hooves, and see if it had any problems."

  "I see your point," Lady Cecelia said. "No, certainly I did not take my grooms' word for everything." The quick color had gone from her cheeks, and she seemed to have recovered her earlier good humor. "Very well, then: if you win, I will study my yacht's particulars, and if I win, you will study horsemanship. Is it agreed?"

  "Certainly." Heris reached across and shook her employer's hand. How hard could it be, after all? The simulator wasn't a real horse; it couldn't step on her, or bite her, or run away with her.

  Whatever else she might have said was interrupted by a chime; Lady Cecelia touched the table's control pad and the concierge's voice announced that her nephew and his friends were on their way up.

  "No—I don't want to see them!" Lady Cecelia said. Heris noticed the quick flow and ebb of color to her face.

  "I'm sorry, milady; they're already in the tube."

  "Blast it!" Lady Cecelia half rose from her chair, and the attendants scurried to help her. She waved them away, reseated herself, and glanced at Heris. "I apologize, Captain, for the past moment and the coming hour. I'll get rid of them as soon as I can."

  "Aunt Cecelia, it's unforgivable!" That was Ronnie, first in the door when it opened. "That disgusting captain of yours put us in a cheap place as far from here as you can imagine; they don't even have a—" He stopped abruptly as Heris turned to face him. She was delighted to see how far his jaw dropped before he got it back under control.

  "It's the captain," said George unnecessarily. The two young women looked ashamed of themselves and their companions; the blonde one opened her mouth and shut it; the dark one spoke up in a soft voice.

  "That's a lovely dress, Captain Serrano." Heris noted that Ronnie gave her a disgusted look, so she smiled at the young woman . . . Raffaele, she thought her name was.

  "Thank you," she said sweetly. "I'm glad you appreciate it."

  "You might want to know," Lady Cecelia said, in a stiff voice, "that I approved your assignment to that hotel. If you want to blame someone, blame me. Captain Serrano has been far too busy saving our lives to spare any energy to make your lives miserable."

  Ronnie was a strange color two shades darker than bright pink.

  "What is unforgivable," Lady Cecelia went on, "is your rude intrusion into my dinner and private conversation, and your insulting my captain. You will apologize to Captain Serrano, now—or you can find your own way home and take whatever punishment you get, which I am sure you richly deserve."

  "Here, now—" began George, but Lady Cecelia quelled him with a glance. Ronnie looked from one to the other, and gave a minute shrug.

  "I'm sorry, Aunt Cecelia . . . and Captain Serrano. It was not—I didn't mean to be rude—I just—"

  "Wanted your own way. I know. And that is an entirely inadequate apology. You called Captain Serrano 'disgusting'; you will retract that." Heris had not realized that any civilian could sound so much like a flag officer. Suddenly it was easy to imagine Lady Cecelia in full dress uniform with braid up to her shoulders.

  Ronnie's flush darkened and his lip curled; the glance he shot Heris was unchastened and furious. "I'm sorry, Captain Serrano," he said between his teeth, "that I referred to you as 'disgusting.' It was ungentlemanly." Heris nodded, dismissing it. She would say nothing that might make things worse between aunt and nephew.

  "You may go now," Lady Cecelia said. She picked up her glass and sipped. Heris doubted if she knew whether she had water or wine in it. The girls turned to go at once; George backed up a step, but Ronnie looked as if he were inclined to argue. "Now," Lady Cecelia said. "And don't roam too far from your hotel unless you carry a comunit. I will give you only one hour's notice to reboard, and it would not hurt my feelings to leave you here."

  Ronnie gave a stiff bow, turned on his heel and almost pushed the others out of the suite. When the entrance refolded itself, Lady Cecelia shook her head. "I'm truly sorry," she said. "Ronnie suffers from . . . from being the oldest boy in his family, the first grandchild in our branch, and his parents' pride. He was spoiled before he was born, I daresay, if there's a way to indulge an embryo in the tank. The mess he's in now—" She spread her hands. "Sorry. It's not fair to bore you with this."

  Heris smiled, and sipped. Water, for her, while the refitting was going on; she could afford not the slightest haze between her and reality. "Lady Cecelia, nothing that concerns you bores me. Surprises me, perhaps, but don't fear that I'm bored. If you wish to discuss it—"

  "I suppose you think you could straighten him out." Lady Cecelia looked grumpy now, in the after
math of the argument.

  Heris shrugged. "It's not my job, straightening out your nephew—unless you request it. And then—I don't know. When I've had someone of his social class to deal with, it's because he or she volunteered; I had leverage based on their own motivation."

  "You must despise us," Lady Cecelia said.

  "Why? Because you have a bratty nephew? I've seen admirals' children with the same problem."

  "Really. I thought military children were born saluting the obstetrician and clicked their heels as soon as they stood up." Although the tone was wry, there was an undertone of real curiosity. Heris laughed.