The Serrano Succession

by Elizabeth Moon

  Now he needed only the cover of a routine test transmission to cause the desired failure.

  MetSatIV's AI compared the instruction set to those previously received, and agreed that they matched in syntax and content. Then it turned off its IR scan, and tipped itself 30° around its z-axis.

  In the observatory below, one of the dozen screens in satellite surveillance went from a clear visual of a seastorm in progress, a vast swirl of white, to an eye-wrenching jiggling blaze of hash.

  "Blast. There goes Watchbird again." Martin-Jehore glared at the screen. "I'll bet it's a clock problem."

  "Nah—it's too random." Jurowski wasn't going to agree with anything Martin-Jehore said. Eighteen months, and he was still sore about losing his place as Watchbird's senior tech.

  "Well, let's see if C-28 will get it back." Sometimes command C-28 would bring Watchbird back online, and sometimes it wouldn't. This time it wouldn't, but Martin-Jehore punched in that command sequence, anyway. The hash on his screens remained. "Not this time." When C-28 didn't work, the problem usually took longer to fix, but so far he had always been able to do so.

  "Try the 43-120 set," Jurowski suggested. While he could not resist the initial jibe, he was a generous-hearted man, and always willing to help. Martin-Jehore nodded, and entered it. It wouldn't work either, but it would eat up several minutes while not working. The screen hash changed to a finer grain, but nothing else happened.

  "Somebody rejuved its AI," Jurowski said. The whole room chuckled appreciatively. Headquarters might not know about any connection between rejuv and mental problems, but the lower ranks had figured it out long since.

  As required by regulation, Martin-Jehore reported to his superior that MetSatIV was ineffective within the hour, when the first three standard interventions didn't bring it back online. CPO Gurnach sighed, and told him to keep trying. Martin-Jehore could tell she wasn't really worried. Big Ocean was mostly empty, and the storm MetSatIV had shown was already in the model. Stack Islands already knew about it—in fact, it was just clearing them now—and it wouldn't reach the mainland for days.

  MetSatIV's other capability, that of detecting small craft atmospheric penetration, didn't concern CPO Gurnach either. At last report, the only ships insystem were, as always, Regular Space Service vessels. A hostile landing would have to come from a hostile deepspace ship, and there weren't any. Why worry about a hostile landing? Besides, Polar 1, now at the south end of its orbit, carried sensor arrays designed to spot any intrusive traffic; MetSatIV was really redundant.

  Martin-Jehore knew it was crucial to keep MetSatIV offline for five hours or more. He did not know why, nor did he care. He had convinced himself that it was probably a matter of smuggling something really profitable (given the size of his payoff), and he didn't think smuggling actually hurt anybody. So what if some porn cubes got past customs without paying duty?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Stack Islands Base Three

  The attack came on a dank gray afternoon, with thin rain spitting out of a low sky and visibility just reaching from the parapet of the exercise courtyard to the administrative offices. Gelan Meharry had outside duty, and had checked the first three posts when he found that number four was missing. Even as he thumbed the control on his comunit, he felt the prickles rising on his arms. Not at night after all, but with enough daylight to see if his body caught on any of the rocks.

  "Spiers here," came the answer to his call. Spiers, whom he had not seriously suspected.

  "Number four outside post's empty," Gelan said. "Should be Mahdal—has he called in?"

  "No, Corporal. Want me to check sickbay?"

  "Request backup at this post," Gelan said. "And run a com check on the others, would you? Then check sickbay."

  "Sure thing." Spiers's voice sounded normal, with only the slight concern appropriate to a missing sentry.

  Gelan looked around. Number four post gave its occupant a view of the prisoners' exercise court, the entrance block beyond, the upper part of the administrative block overlooking the forecourt, which was itself out of sight, and the peak of the stack itself rising beyond that. To his left he could see the helmet of number three post; to his right and down, on the outside of the entrance block, he should have seen the bright dot that was number five.

  He didn't. He leaned out over the parapet of number four, to check the path below. There, far below, a bright yellow splotch, and a white dot near it.

  He used his com again. "Spiers, this is Corporal Meharry again. There's a man down on the westside path. Have you raised number five yet?"

  "No, Corporal." Now Spiers did sound worried. "Sergeant says he's on the way. Want me to call Medical?"

  "Better do it. I'll go on down and see . . ."

  As the blow fell, he lunged forward, so that his skull took less than the intended blow. The unexpectedness of that lunge loosened his captors' grip, and he got in another good shove as he went over the edge.

  For an instant, hanging in the air with the sea spread out below him, he was euphoric. They hadn't knocked him out; he'd fooled them. He was going to make it; his plan would work.

  Then he was close enough to see the height of the waves—mere wrinkles from above, here taller than he was, and smashing into the sharp rocks. And no helmet, he thought, just as he plunged into water so cold it took his breath, with force enough to nearly knock him out.

  He fought his way to the surface by blind instinct, helped by the surge of the rising tide. When he shook the water from his eyes, he saw a black wall rushing toward him, covered with sharp shells. He threw out his arms; the water slammed him into the rock with crushing force, but the PPU gloves protected his hands, and then his body, from the sharp edges of the shells, and the wrist grapples locked onto the surface. When the water dragged back, he was able to stay on the rock. In that brief second, he curled up, jamming his boots into a crack, and deployed the PPU's lower grapples.

  Cold water roared over him again, smashing him into the rock, then sucking his body away . . . the grapples held; his arms and legs strained. In the next trough, he released the wrist grapples, flung himself upward, and locked the wrists again just as the next wave hit.

  Minute by minute he fought his way upward, racing the tide and the limits of his own strength. Distant clamor battered his hearing, even over the roar and suck of the waves. He looked upward, only to get a faceful of cold water.

  Just above high tide, well within the splash zone, he clung to the rock. Despite the PPU, he was chilled; without it, he would have been dead. He could feel his arms and legs stiffening from both cold and bruising, and out there somewhere . . . the killers were looking for him.

  Gelan stripped off the last of his duty uniform, ripping it free with the grapple claws of the PPU. He hoped it would look like the damage of sea creatures if the killers spotted it. Underneath, the PPU's programmable outer surface took on the mottled dark color of the rock . . . now if they looked down, they would see only rock, not a splash of yellow. He unhooked and unrolled the hood, and pulled it over his head. At once he felt better; the hood cut the windchill. He sealed it close around his face, then pulled up the facemask. The last bite of the wind disappeared. He wasn't comfortable, but he was no longer in danger of hypothermia. Not soon, anyway.

  He touched the controls on his chest, and the PPU's circuitry delivered a boosted audio signal. Another control released a fine antenna to pick up transmissions.

  "—Went over right there, sir. No chance to grab him—and he went right down—may've hit his head on a rock—"

  Darkness closed in early. Gelan could see lights above; he waited until they were gone, then longer: they would be scanning in infrared as well. Though his suit reflected almost all his body heat inward, to protect him from the cold, a sensitive scan could pick up a human shape in movement. But well after local midnight, he moved—stiffly at first, then more smoothly—toward the lava tube where—he hoped—his survival kit was still concealed.

  Onc
e in the mouth of the tube, he risked a brief flash of his torch. There it was.

  And there was Commander Bacarion, a weapon levelled at his chest.

  "I thought they might have underestimated you," she said. "I didn't."

  He said nothing.

  "I will be glad to take your ears," she said. "I might even send one to your family."

  The thought of Methlin's reaction if she got one of her little brother's ears in the mail made him grin in spite of his fear. "Do that," he said.

  Then tossed his torch aside and dove toward her dominant hand, and used the suit grapples to catch and fling himself in a tumbling arc toward her. Her weapon fired, but the needle went wide. Gelan pivoted on one suit grapple, and slammed both booted feet into her side; he felt the crunch of bone and heard her grunt, but it was dark now, and she wasn't dead. She would have more than one weapon.

  He scrambled towards her, raking with the suit grapples. A thin red beam appeared, the rangefinder of her next weapon, and the sharp crack of a hunting rifle turned to the clatter of falling rock where it hit. Gelan felt something with one glove, and yanked hard; she cried out, then something slammed into his shoulder. He swung elbows, knees, feet, and took hard blows himself, barely softened by the suit. Then the blows weakened; he hit again and again. And again.

  Silence, but for the sound of his own breathing, and the pounding of waves outside the tube. Was she dead, or feigning? Had she been alone? He fumbled around, trying to find the torch, but finally gave up and used the suit's headlamp.

  Bile filled his mouth. His suit grapples glistened, brilliant red in the light; he had torn her face off, in that last struggle. An ear dangled from one grapple tip. He shook it free.

  She took ears.

  He was a Meharry.

  He was a Meharry who had killed an officer, an officer who was, as far as anyone knew, his legitimate superior merely doing her duty. He couldn't just go tell the sergeant about it. Not this time.

  Methlin had said there would be days like this, he'd told himself often enough. She had never told him he might have to murder his commander and then figure out how to explain it.

  He needed to search Bacarion's body. Surely if she intended some serious wrongdoing—beyond having him killed—she would have some evidence on her. She would not trust everything to an office safe. But not here, not where her confederates might be on their way, alerted by some signal he knew nothing about, or simply by her failure to show up at a meeting. If she had evidence on her, he would have to take her corpse along, or they would destroy it.

  A gust of icy wind curled into the tube and it resonated like a giant organ pipe. Was it a storm coming? He couldn't wait. Grunting with the effort, Gelan dragged his purloined life raft down the tube to the lip, and then considered what to do with Bacarion's body. Finally, he decided to bring it along. It was heavier than he expected, awkward to heave and tip into the raft, but he secured it carefully before shifting the raft—and himself—to the very edge of the rock.

  A more violent gust of wind caught it and whirled it through the air to land hard on the water; Gelan almost lost his hold. Even through the PPU, he could feel the water's chill, and its power. He yanked the vent control, and the raft ballooned around him. Bacarion's body lurched into him as the raft whirled, tilted, whirled again, on the wild waves.

  Daylight came late, and weakly; the raft was driven ahead of sleet-laden wind over tossing waves that had long since relieved Gelan of everything in his stomach. He didn't want to use his headlamp to find the medkit; it might be seen from the base. So in the dingy gray light, with Bacarion's grisly stiff corpse rolling into him with every lurch of the waves, he finally spotted the medkit on the raft's bulwark and edged over to it. He peeled back the glove of his PPU, opened the medkit, and found the antinausea patches. In a few minutes, he felt slightly better, and very hungry. First, though—he used the raft's suction pump to clear bloodstained water from the raft's interior, and dared a peek out the canopy.

  Nothing but tossing waves, dimpled by sleet, receding into murky dimness. At least they were out of sight of Three Stack. He resealed the canopy and explored the rest of the raft interior.

  It had been designed to hold eight crash survivors. Tucked into one compartment was a manual—the same one, he realized, which he had read so carelessly that other time. On the first page, he saw a diagram of the raft, clearly marking the location of the water purifier, the direction finder, the food stores, the repair kit . . .

  Lieutenant Commander Vinet waited none too patiently for the signal he expected. Today or tomorrow, Bacarion had said, depending on weather. It had to be cloudy, so that nothing would show on a satellite scan if the scan hadn't been disabled; it had to be daylight enough that her men could be sure Meharry was safely drowned. With the storm moving in, surely it had been cloudy on Three Stack—it had been cloudy here since before dawn, and as evening closed in an icy mix of sleet and snow pelted windows.

  He ate dinner as quickly as possible. If only he could contact her—but she had forbidden it, and he knew her to be a ruthless critic of those who disobeyed. Something had caused a delay—certainly the next day would be the one, then. He fell asleep at last.

  Morning brought the height of the gale, the waves below beaten down by wind, scraped by sleet into patterns that looked as dangerous as they were. Through triple insulated windows he felt the power of that gale, the chill of the wind. By noon he was unbearably restless again, pacing from desk to window and back, then down the passage to the little enclosed overlook that gave him a clear view of the entire west end of the stack, and across to several others. No more sleet and snow, now, nothing but the cold wind; the two trees in the courtyard below flailed bare limbs against the wall that protected them.

  Towards evening, the storms slid off to the south, and cold green light speared under the trailing edge. Still nothing. Something had gone very wrong indeed. What should he do now? He couldn't contact any of the others; Bacarion controlled the recognition codes. He couldn't do anything with the research teams or the weapons without additional forces. Bacarion knew he had only a few reliable men. She knew that, and still . . . he made himself sit down again, but nothing could quiet his mind.

  Gelan had lashed the commander's corpse to the far side of the raft, repaired the slashes he'd accidentally put in the inner hull, eaten, and slept again. The storm had eased, but he had no idea where he was in relation to the Stacks. Fear of being blown back to them warred with fear of drifting on the vast ocean until he died. Death either way—which was worse?

  Surely the commander's conspiracy, whatever it was, didn't include everyone on the planet. He ought to be able to count on the people at Search and Rescue, if no one else.

  He looked at Bacarion's corpse, and shuddered. He could not bring himself to look for papers or whatever else she might have had. Well, then he could write his account of what happened: the survival manual had a thick pad of water-resistant sheets and a waterproof marker. Gelan hadn't written anything by hand in years, but he decided to put down what had happened before he unlocked the beacon. That way, even if he died, there'd be some record of events from his point of view.

  If someone didn't just destroy them.

  No use thinking like that. He set the pad on his knee, and tried to form legible writing as the waves lifted and dropped. It was harder than he'd expected, and after three sheets, he gave up.

  "Commander Bacarion's not in her offices, sir." Sergeant Copans looked worried. "The commander's not answering any call, and the locator's not lit."

  "If it's not one thing it's another." CPO Slyke didn't need this. Corporal Meharry's carefully staged suicide had gone exactly as planned, along with the murder of Major Dumlin, the senior unaligned officer. But Bacarion should have been there, unless she was playing some game of her own . . . and even then, she should have been back by now. Her games were usually short ones.

  CPO Slyke had been a member of the Loyal Order of Game Hunters for sixte
en years, the first enlisted recruit. He had served with then-Major Lepescu, and admired the officer's grasp of the real nature of war—a test of survival, of ultimate fitness. Born and raised on Calydon by Priorists who believed that fitness in this life was determined by effort in the life previous, Slyke knew he had earned his superior skills and toughness.

  Now, facing the implications of Bacarion's disappearance, he knew his moment had come. Although he had not been briefed on the whole mission, his part had required him to know more than any other NCO and most officers. He could—he would—take over.

  They had been lucky. Severe weather cut off communication immediately after the commander's disappearance, giving him time to do what he could to obscure the evidence, and search the buildings. The underground storage and lava tubes were an obvious target. He insisted on leading the search party himself, with his most trusted companions, all full members.