"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 babies—no 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 concentration—you're not going to make jump points any time soon, are you?"
"No. We're going in for redecorating—she'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 symptoms—so 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 what—where Amalie's—where 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 will—and so will Petris. Oblo and Meharry, too, if you don't mind."
"I thought—I'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—"
"No—she 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 time—and it can't be anything of substantive value. Does your—uh—Sirkin 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 ship—this 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 several—she could not tell how many—viewings 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 lock—over on this side, it's just as clean and lovely as ever . . ."
Sirkin's hand went o
ut 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?"
"I—yes—but 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 looked—and 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 not—she 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—"
"Lady Cecelia," Heris said, "is quite sure what she wants."
He sighed. "They always are, Captain Serrano. All these old ladies are sure they know what they want, and really they have no idea. But let's not waste our time lamenting what can't be changed. Always think positively, that's my motto. If the lady is unsatisfied with this redecoration, perhaps next time she'll trust the judgment of someone with real expertise."
Heris managed not to laugh at him. Anyone who knew Lady Cecelia knew that she had no doubts about her own desires; she would not likely change her mind because someone else claimed to have better taste. Ser Schwerd introduced the movers' supervisor, a thickset bald man with twinkling brown eyes.
"Gunson," he said. "Quite reliable." Gunson's expression said he could prove that without Schwerd's commentary. Heris liked him at once, and they exchanged handshakes.
A steady stream of packers and movers moved through the ship. Cecelia's belongings disappeared into padded containers, which then fit into the larger storage/shipping containers. With all the crew to help, the inventory checkoffs went more quickly than usual—according to Gunson. Cecelia's own quarters, the guest quarters, the public areas of the ship, crew quarters. Furniture, the contents of built-in storage, clothing, decorations—everything.
"What about this?" Gunson asked, opening the galley door.
"Nothing—seal it off," Heris said. Schwerd grimaced.
"It needs something—"
"No . . . Lady Cecelia has a very exacting cook. He's got it just the way he wants it, and if you'll look at the contract, it specifies absolutely no change in the galley or pantries."
"But foodstuff should be removed—"
"Why?" Heris asked, surprised. "These are staples; they won't deteriorate in the few weeks you'll be working. If the galley's sealed, there's no danger of contamination from any paint fumes or whatever. Besides, we were told initially that there was no need to remove anything from compartments that could be sealed and were not to be worked on."
He looked unhappy, but nodded. The decorators had provided coded seals for compartments not part of the contract. Heris had her crew seal the hatches under his supervision; she wasn't sure she trusted the decorators not to try something fancy where it wasn't wanted. The bridge, for example, and the ships' systems compartments. The garden sections of hydroponics were all empty now, but the gas-exchange tanks remained operational, the bacterial cultures on maintenance nutrients. She didn't want to take the time to recharge them all later.
At last everything was off the ship, and all the crew had their personal gear loaded on carryalls. Heris sent them ahead to the lodgings she'd arranged. She and Ser Schwerd had to do the final inspection, checking both the seals to areas not being worked on and the areas that were supposed to be clear.
"Someone always leaves something," Schwerd said. "Always. Sometimes it's valuable—once, I recall, a distinguished lady's diamond-and-ruby brooch, lying there in the middle of the owner's stateroom. Why someone hadn't stepped on it and broken it, I never knew. More often it's some little thing the movers can't believe is important, but it has sentimental value. A child's soft toy, an unimportant trophy." He strode through the passages with an expression of distaste, glancing quickly into each compartment.
"Ah . . ." This was in Cecelia's quarters, the study which looked so different with its antique books and artwork removed. Sure enough, a squashed and dusty arrangement of faded ribbons, which Heris realized, after Schwerd smoothed it with his hands, had once been a rosette of some sort. "One of Lady Cecelia's earlier triumphs, I would say." He held it out; Heris could just make out " . .
. hunter pony . . ." in flaking black letters on the purplish ribbon. "It would have been a first place blue," Schwerd said. "Those letters were originally gold or silver ink. And I'm sure she'd notice if it were gone." He handed it to Heris, ceremoniously, and she brushed off the rest of the dust, folded it, and tucked it into her jacket. Perhaps Cecelia would notice, perhaps not, but she would keep it safe.
Back at the hostel, Heris checked on her crew. Transient crew housing had few amenities; the ship had been far more comfortable. But they had settled in, having arranged adjoining cubicles. She had decided to stay here, with them, rather than at the Captains' Guild. She worried about the next few weeks—how to keep them busy and out of trouble until they could go back aboard. With the Compassionate Hand looking for revenge—and despite the militia's assurances, she knew they would be looking for revenge—all were in danger until something else distracted that organization. Perhaps she could schedule some training in civilian procedures.
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