"Barbaric," said Cecelia.
"True," Heris said. "But necessary. Would you have quit competitive riding if you'd had to live with the scars of your falls?"
"Well . . . of course not. Lots of people did, in the old days. But it's not necessary now, and—"
"Neither is fox hunting," Heris said, buttoning her shirt and tucking in the long tails. "Very few things are really necessary, when you come down to it. You—me—the horses—all the rituals. If you just wanted to exterminate these pseudofoxes, you'd spread a gene-tailored virus and that'd be it. If you just wanted to ride horses across fences, you could design a much safer way to do it—and not involve canids."
"Hounds."
"Whatever." Heris leaned over and pulled on her boots; they had broken in enough to make this easier and she no longer felt her legs were being reshaped as the boots came up. She peered into the mirror and tied the cravat correctly, slicked down her hair, and reached for her jacket. "Ready? I'm starved."
"You didn't hear me," Cecelia said, not moving. "I can't find Ronnie and the others."
"I heard you, but I don't understand your concern. Perhaps they started early—no, I admit that's not likely. Perhaps they're already at breakfast, or not yet up from an orgy in someone else's room—"
"No. I checked."
Heris opened her mouth to say that in a large, complicated building with dozens of bedrooms, near other buildings with dozens of bedrooms, four young people who wanted to sleep in could surely find a place beyond an aunt's sight. Then she saw the tension along Cecelia's jaw. "You're worried, aren't you?"
"Yes. They didn't hunt yesterday; they were supposed to be out with the third pack, and Susannah mentioned she hadn't seen them. The day before, you remember, Ronnie missed a lesson."
"But—"
"I found Buttons, and asked him. He turned red and said Ronnie, George, and the girls had gone picnicking day before yesterday. He didn't know about yesterday, or said he didn't. And there's more." When Cecelia didn't go on, Heris sat on the bench at the foot of her bed. She knew that kind of tension; it would do no good to pressure her. "There's a flitter missing," Cecelia said finally. "I had to . . . to bribe Bunny's staff, to find that out. Apparently Bubbles is something of a tease; it's not the first time she's taken out her father's personal flitter, and the staff doesn't like her to get into trouble. They cover for her, with the spare. So Bunny doesn't know a thing. . . ."
"And they've been gone a day . . . two days? Maybe three?"
"Yes. According to the log—they do keep one, just to be sure Bubbles doesn't get hurt—they left well before dawn day before yesterday. Filed a flight plan for some island lodge called Whitewings. I've never been there, but I've got the map." She handed Heris the data cube; Heris fitted it into the room's display. "The problem is, they aren't at Whitewings, either. It's a casual lodge—no resident staff, although it's fully equipped. There's a satellite beacon on the flitter, of course, and there's been a steady signal here—" Cecelia pointed to an island much nearer than Whitewings. "No distress call, and it's at another lodge. Michaels, who's the flitter-chief, thinks Bubbles just changed her mind and decided to hide out on another island in case I followed the trail this far."
"She'd know about the beacon, though—"
"She'd think I wouldn't."
"Ah." Heris stared at the display. "What's on this other island?"
"Bandon? It's another lodge, more a family place, although it's got a large landing field. Michaels says the family goes there every spring, at least once. When the children were younger, they used to camp on one of the smaller islands, while the adults stayed on Bandon. He says it's lovely: forested islands, clear water, reefs. Imported cetaceans, some of the small ones that Michaels said play with humans. Bubbles has always liked it better than anyplace on the planet, he says. Whitewings is colder, usually stormier."
"That makes sense. So you think they're all sunning themselves, swimming lazily—?"
"No. I can't say why. But I think they're in trouble. And I can't imagine what. This is a safe world; there's nothing on the islands to hurt them—I asked Michaels. Their com links are unbreakable; if they needed help, they'd ask for it. They can't be in any real trouble—not all four of them. But—"
"Tell Bunny," Heris said. When Cecelia's expression changed, she realized she'd used his nickname for the first time. He had always been Lord Thornbuckle to her. She started to apologize, but Cecelia was already talking.
"I don't want to do that. Not yet. He's upset right now with that anti-blood-sports person who got herself invited under an alias. He's not at his best."
"But if his daughter—no, never mind. What do you want me to do?"
"I'm not sure. I don't suppose there's any way the Sweet Delight could tell—?"
Heris smacked her forehead with the flat of her hand. Stupid! She'd nearly turned into a dirtsider, all the time she'd spent traveling at the speed of horseflesh. "Of course," she said. Then—"But can I get a closed channel, a secure channel, from the house?"
"Yes, with my authorization. We'd best do it from my room."
Cecelia's room, Heris noted, had even more windows on the morning side of the house—no wonder she woke so early—and was half again as large as her own. The deskcomp looked the same, however, and Cecelia soon had what she considered a secure line to the station. She handed the headset to Heris.
"Captain Serrano; a secure line to the officer on deck, Sweet Delight."
"At once, Captain." She thought that was probably the Stationmaster himself, but no visual came up. When the screen lit, it was to show the familiar bridge, warped a bit by the wide-angle lens, and Nav First Sirkin.
"Captain Serrano," the younger woman said. She looked only slightly surprised.
"I'd like a scan report from . . . oh . . . say . . . fifty-five hours back. Did you log a flitter flight from the Main Lodge, this location, to an island group to the west?"
A broad grin answered her. "Yes, ma'am. That was my shift, and I remember it. Let me bring up the log and scan." The log display came online, a narrow stripe along the side of the screen, with time and date displayed in both Standard and Planetary Local. The log entry terse and correct, noted the size of craft, the course, and the recognition code of the flitter beacon. The scan proper, a maze of graphics and numbers, matched the log except in one particular.
"They signalled," Heris said, her finger on the scan. "They called a fixed station—probably the landing field at Bandon. And something responded—"
"Michaels says it's an automatic loop. There's no one at the field unless family's expected."
"Hmmm. And what's this?" Heris pointed to a squiggle she knew Cecelia could not interpret, and spoke to her Nav First. "Did you log the other traffic?"
"Yes—although since it didn't have a satellite locater signal, I assumed they were just maintenance flights or something."
"Or something," said Heris. She felt an unreasoning surge of glee and grinned at Cecelia. "Good instincts: something is definitely going on out there."
"Smugglers, I suppose," Cecelia said with refined distaste. "I never saw a world without some of it. Probably off-duty crews."
"No," the Nav First interrupted. "At least some of them are Space Service. Regular, Captain, like yourself." Heris winced at the pronoun; centuries after overzealous English teachers had tried to stomp out misuse of me, the reflexive overcorrection lingered as a class distinction. But that was unimportant now.
"How do you know?" she asked. The younger woman flushed.
"Well, I was sort of . . . listening in to see how good that new scan technology was—"
"And you picked up Fleet traffic?" If she had, Heris would report it, small thanks though she'd get for it.
"No, ma'am. It was a private shuttle from a charter yacht docked at Station Three. Someone groundside asked if Admiral Lepescu was aboard, and the shuttle said yes."
Heris felt as if someone had transplanted icewater into her arteries. She s
tarted to ask more, but Cecelia interrupted, with a hand on her arm.
"I want to go after them."
"Why?" Heris's mind had clamped onto the admiral's name; she could not think why Cecelia would want to follow him.
"To bring them back. Before Bunny finds out."
The youngsters. Ronnie and all. Not Lepescu. Heris struggled to keep her mind on the original problem. They had gone off illicitly, and had not signalled, and their craft's locator beacon still functioned. And Cecelia wanted to bring them back. That ought to be simple enough. She forced herself to look closely at all the details Sirkin had displayed. One caught her eye at once.
"Sirkin—that flitter locator beacon—it's not on Bandon."
"No, Captain; there's a whole group of islands, and it's on the one just north of Bandon."
Heris turned to Cecelia. "But the family lodge is on Bandon proper, surely—with the landing field?"
"I think so." Cecelia's face contracted in a thoughtful frown. "I don't really know; I've never been there. Michaels implied it was on the same island."
"Of course they may have decided to camp on the beach. . . ." Heris looked over the rest of the data. "You said Bubbles had camped on one of the other islands. Odd—the flight path of that flitter doesn't look right. You'd think they'd have gone by Bandon to pick up supplies, at least. Did they take off with full camping equipment? Or would Michaels know?"
"I could ask," Cecelia said. "You think they meant to land at Bandon and didn't? They crashed?"
"Could be." Heris felt frustration boiling through her mind. Once she would have had the information she needed; once she would have had trusted subordinates to find out anything she lacked. People she could trust . . . she would not let herself remember more than the trust. At least they were safe, she told herself fiercely. At least they still had each other. She had bought them that much.
And she might have the chance to see Lepescu again. Without Fleet interference. Without witnesses.
"Lepescu," she murmured, hardly aware of saying anything. "You bastard—what are you doing here?"
"I remember," Cecelia said. "He was the admiral who got you in trouble." Heris looked up, startled out of her train of memories.
"He was the admiral who nearly got us all killed," Heris said. "The trouble was negligible, really. . . ." Now she could say that. "The question is, why is he here? To cause me more grief? It would have been easy for him to find out who hired me, and where we were going, but I can't see why—or what he can do worse than he's done. Aside from that—"
"Bunny didn't invite him," Cecelia said smugly. She had the authorization codes for Bunny's personal guestlist database, and had run them on the deskcomp. "Never has, according to this. Let's see . . . no, nor any of Bunny's relatives. He's another crasher."
"Here? No, because Sirkin said that transmission went to a shuttle landing at Bandon."
"Where nobody's supposed to be," Cecelia reminded her. "Where I didn't know there was a landing zone equipped for shuttles."
"Whose ship did he come on?" Heris asked. Cecelia couldn't know, she realized, and asked Sirkin, who had stayed online.
"All I know is it's a charter yacht out of Dismis, the Prairie Rose. I'd have to have authorization to find out more. . . ."
"We'll do that," Heris said. "But post the orders to monitor that flitter beacon, and any and all traffic on that island or the ones next to it. I'll want flitter IDs, com transcripts, everything."
"Yes, Captain. Right away."
"And be prepared to patch my signal from a flitter or other light craft. Lady Cecelia and I will be checking on that beacon ourselves." As she said it, she raised her brows at Cecelia, who nodded. It was crazy, really. At the least they ought to tell their host and let him assign his own security forces to it. But the thought that she might come face to face with Lepescu, unwitnessed, slid sweet and poisonous into her mind. With Cecelia's authorization, she could confront him—an uninvited gate-crasher—and demand the answers that had eluded her before. She closed her eyes a moment, imagining his surprise, feeling her hands close around his throat. . . . Her mouth flooded with the imagined taste of victory, and she had to swallow.
"Heris?" Cecelia was looking at her strangely. It was that expression, on the faces of her classmates at the Academy, that had first given her an inkling that she had inherited her parents' gift of command, the essential ruthlessness of decision.
"Just thinking," Heris said, pulling her mind back onto the designated track. It was crazy, she thought again, almost as crazy as the orders she had refused to obey. She and Cecelia had no idea what was going on over there, she knew Lepescu was dangerous in any context, and yet they were preparing to fly off as if it were an afternoon picnic. As if they were safe, protected by the social conventions of Bunny's crowd. But Lepescu wasn't part of Bunny's crowd. Why was he here? What was he doing, and what would he do when he saw her? How many unauthorized visitors were on this island, and why hadn't Ronnie and Bubbles called in?
"At worst," Cecelia said, interrupting her thoughts again, "I suppose we'll find the crashed flitter and they'll all be dead. Otherwise they'd have called in, if they needed help." She didn't sound certain of that.
"Um." Heris dug through her daypouch for the notepad and stylus she carried out of habit. "We need to do a little planning here. Worst case—all dead. Next worst—injured, needing evacuation. We really should bring some help. The local security force, a medic or two—"
Cecelia looked stubborn. "I don't want to. It's my nephew, after all. If I can get him out of this without Bunny's knowledge, keep it in the family—"
"Have you considered violence?" asked Heris. At Cecelia's bewildered expression, she explained. "I told you about Lepescu. If he's here, uninvited, I would expect some kind of nastiness going on. There are stories about him and his cronies—" She could feel her lip curling.
"But what could he be doing?" asked Cecelia. "He doesn't have any troops to command here—wait—you don't think he's trying to invade or something? Take over Bunny's holdings?" She looked frightened.
"No . . . I don't think so." It did not make sense that a mid-list admiral would alienate so powerful a family; besides, he could not invade without troops, and one shuttle load would hardly be enough. Heris thought for a moment. "Wait—remember that Kettlegrave woman?"
"The one blathering on about blood-sports?"
"Yes. She said something—about fox hunting leading to other things, those who would hunt innocent animals being just as willing to hunt people—"
"Ridiculous!" Cecelia sniffed. "Bunny's as gentle as his nickname—"
"Bunny is. But Lepescu is most definitely not. What if there's some kind of illicit hunting—no, not people of course, but something else, that Bunny wouldn't like, with the fox hunting season as cover—" Even as she said it, she remembered that Lepescu belonged to a semi-secret officers' club. She had not been invited to join, but Perin Sothanous had. He'd refused, and kept his oath not to talk of what he'd learned . . . but she had heard him say it was "—really sick—they think the only true blood-sport is war."
"You have a wicked mind," Cecelia said.
"I know. But it makes sense. You told me that Bunny has some rare and valuable animals that are practically pets. What if they're being hunted? We'll go armed, and expect trouble: it's the only sensible way."
"Armed?"
"Of course. Lepescu is dangerous, and he's not alone. We don't know what those youngsters have gotten into, and we have to be able to get them and ourselves out." Even as she said it, she knew they couldn't possibly do this alone. It was stupid. Militarily, it was suicide. A flitter held eight easily, ten if cramped—could they squeeze in some muscle on the way out? No—she could not command any of Bunny's staff, and she wouldn't trust them anyway. She ached for her lost crew, for Oblo and Petris who would have stood behind her in anything. Except the trial, her mind reminded her. She argued back to her memory: They would have, but I wouldn't put them through it.
<
br /> She shook herself physically, as well as mentally, and signed off with Sirkin, giving the few final orders. She would have to do this alone, because there was no other way. At least she could prepare Cecelia for what they might face.
"Rifles," she said. "At a minimum, and if you can use a bow—"
"Of course," Cecelia said, still looking shocked. "But why—"
"It's quieter." Heris had pulled out her notepad again, and was figuring on it. Supplies: they'd have to assume they couldn't use Bandon, so they'd need food, medical supplies, ammunition for the weapons she intended to take, protective gear, whatever communications and electronic gear she could lay her hands on—she looked at the wall chronometer—in half a standard hour. They'd need to leave before the day's hunt gathered. It was crazy. They should tell Bunny; they should use his staff for this.
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