Tantamount

by Thomas J. Radford

  Sharpe leaned forward over the table, pouring both of them a glass of Horatio's ice brandy. “Rim is just Rim. It really is that bad—you just saw what you expected to see, the cost of war. Doesn't take a war to do stuff like that.”

  Nel bristled under that. “And out there?”

  Sharpe sighed. “No one gets local politics. Everyone forgets them. We see a planet, we think of it as a single, homogenous group. We forget people have their own differences. Places like Cauldron should remind us of that, but people have short memories.”

  “You could say the same about civil wars. People fighting amongst themselves,” Nel pointed out.

  “I told you, there is no war. At least not right now. There's been conflict in the past, but it's not internal. Grange is completely independent of Thatch, always has been.”

  Nel raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Really,” Sharpe insisted. “They were colonised by two different groups. Thatch mostly waves of Seltic Brytons and Grange by Fomor Nemedians.”

  “Should those names mean anything to me?”

  “Two sides of the same argument. Everyone likes to put a name on it. But no, their names aren't important, trying to keep them straight usually gives one a headache. It's an old story, usually involves religion, a different idea of how things should be done. The names are the only parts that ever really change.”

  “So what happened?” Nel took a sip from her brandy. It was cold, but burned after she swallowed.

  “People happened. You put the last two people in the void on the same rock, they could be twins and they'd still find something to fight over. People are just like that. Thatch started to expand, tried to push Grange's way, moved a ton of their own people out here.”

  “When was that?”

  “Few hundred years ago,” Sharpe grinned. “It goes back and forth, never really got settled. Maybe folks prefer it that way. It does flare up now and then though.”

  “That's what happened then? A flare up?”

  “No, that's not it at all, Skipper. What do you know about Draugr?”

  “You already asked me that.” Nel was annoyed. “And I already told you.”

  “But do you have any idea how they come about?”

  Nel thought about the question. It was a subject often speculated about at Alliance schools and academies. Speculated on but not much more. She heard all sorts of ideas at one time or another. One theory popular outside the ranks said Alliance crew signed a pact written in their own blood; service for so many years, to be rendered even after death. She doubted that as she'd never been asked to sign anything like that during her service, nor did she know anyone who had. It wasn't as if coming back as a Draugr were some selective, elite distinction. There were tens of thousands of the creatures.

  “Nobody knows,” Nel admitted. “Not that I've met.”

  “Somebody knows,” Sharpe said. “Somebody has to make the things in the first place. They don't breed—gods below I just gave myself an image of that,” he shuddered, “—but there's always more of them. So they have to be coming from somewhere.”

  “And you know where?” Nel leaned back, folding her arms sceptically. She glanced outside as she did so. “It's not here, is it? This isn't some sort of farm?”

  “You're closer than you know, with that.” Sharpe swirled his ice cubes as he spoke, watching them move around the bottom of his tumbler. “No, in this case the where isn't as important as the what.”

  “What?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Quit messing me around, Sharpe,” Nel growled.

  He gave her the small, irritating smile. “Suppose someone were to stumble on the secret behind our friends in the Alliance. To Draugr.”

  Nel's eyes narrowed, closing on Sharpe. It went unsaid the potential for wealth associated with such a secret. Particularly if one were able to somehow get their hands on the secret.

  “Some months ago,” Sharpe continued, “a ship was passing through this part of the void. On that ship, was just such a secret. A formula, part of the process in creating Draugr. Not the whole process, not the whole secret. But an important part, maybe the most important part.

  “So,” Sharpe said, “this Alliance ship is out here, all alone, carrying such a valuable prize. Dangerous, you might think, except no one knows about this prize. Someone attacks the ship, right above where we're sitting. It all goes wrong, the ship crashes onto the moon, Grange, right outside this settlement in fact.”

  “I didn't see any sign of a crash when we came in.”

  “Because it's not there to see anymore. The raiders came down, found the wreck picked clean, the survivors hidden. They did . . . terrible things, Vaughn. They wanted what was on that ship, wanted it bad. And it didn't bother them how many people they had to kill to get it. They'd already slaughtered the better part of an Alliance vessel, they weren't going to baulk at a few backwater locals. And then things got worse.”

  Sharpe chuckled, dry, amused, bitter. “The dead started rising, Vaughn. You saw the graves outside, they weren't filled for very long. The first ones to go were the strongest, the most defiant, those who tried to fight back. Their families buried them, they rose on the third night.”

  “How?” Nel said. “You said before whatever the ship was carrying wasn't the whole secret.”

  “But I did say it was the most important part. You see, these Draugr aren't like the ones you know, they remembered who they were, how they died. They weren't docile, they didn't take orders. And they wouldn't die a second time. The raiders could cut them and beat them but they couldn't stop them. So they fled.”

  “How?” Nel repeated. “Was it contamination from the crash? Did the Alliance survivors do it, were they that desperate? Did some village idiot think it was a good idea to chug down whatever moonshine he looted from the crash?”

  “Vaughn, it really doesn't matter,” Sharpe said impatiently. “It happened. The raiders fled. That might have been the end of it, except that it didn't stop there. People who died afterwards . . . they came back too. Some were sick, one fell off a roof, another drowned in a trough leaving the pub. It didn't matter, they all turned out the same. Whatever they'd started they couldn't stop. And then the Alliance came.”

  “The blockade.”

  “The blockade.” Sharpe nodded. “Somebody sent word to the Alliance, they arrived to find one of their own ships downed, a small planet starting to teem with uncontrolled Draugr. So they blockade Grange, blame it on the loss of shipping, a local war flaring up, try to figure out what to do about the situation.

  “Something like this cannot get out, Vaughn. You were in the Alliance, think of the damage something like this would do. That's the first thing anyone in authority thinks. Somebody makes the decision that Grange has to be wiped clean. But everybody who dies just comes back and because it wasn't done right from the start they all have this annoying thing called free will. What to do, what to do?” Sharpe rose to his feet. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

  Sharpe led her swiftly to the hold, still reeking of charred timber and smoke. He picked up a box of the medicine they'd been carrying, the one intended as relief. It was little more than burnt packaging now.

  “The decision was to let the contamination run its course, even accelerate it. Ensure everyone on the planet turned and then make any necessary . . . adjustments. This,” he gestured, “was meant to have been the final dose to let that plan run to fruition.”

  Nel felt cold. Icy sweat under her clothes that made her twitch in her seat.

  “No,” she whispered. “There's no way, the Alliance would never have let us run something like that. That's mad, to bring in another party in a situation like this. Why not use an Alliance vessel?”

  Sharpe shrugged. “The Alliance, for all that it is, does have morals. Somebody made this decision, that doesn't mean they expected everyone to agree with it. Those ships in the blockade, I expect they're close to the extent of the Alliance who actually know wh
at's going on out here. And only because they were already here, had already seen. So when you have an impossible situation that needs handling without awkward questions, what do you do?”

  “You use the Guild,” Nel muttered. “Gods below, Scarlett.”

  “Your friend Ebon Masaius too. All they needed was someone to move the cargo for them.”

  “Us,” Nel said bitterly.

  “Helps when the first officer happens to be ex-Alliance,” Sharpe said quietly. “Makes you reliable. Predictable even.”

  “Watch it,” Nel warned him, annoyed.

  “More so when the captain has a gambling problem,” he added.

  “But why didn't they take it off us when we passed the blockade?”

  “It wasn't the Alliance that boarded us, Vaughn,” Sharpe reminded her. “What did you think that beast of a ship was heading to Rim for? It was because of us.”

  “Hells,” Nel groaned. “Horatio and the others are still back on Rim.” She leaned against a post, forehead on her arm. “I need to get back there.”

  “They should be fine,” Sharpe assured her. “The Alliance isn't going to want to bother with them, they only want the cargo.”

  “Scarlett,” Nel said grimly. “I left her lying facedown in a Rim gutter. She's going to seethe when she wakes up.”

  “Scarlett? What happened?”

  “Violet hit her with a brick,” Nel admitted.

  Sharpe looked startled at that. “Violet? Our Violet?”

  “My Violet,” Nel growled at him. “I'm still not sure where you fit into this.”

  Sharpe cleared his throat, accepting that. “Here, this is what I wanted to show you.”

  He moved aside a crate, revealing a trollish patch, a repair where the Tantamount had been holed. Nel watched as Sharpe, with some effort, levered the whole patch out.

  “That should have been caulked properly.” Nel was unimpressed. Piper had assured her with regards to the labour he'd hired. “If we'd set down in the harbour we'd be hip deep in water by now.”

  “It was done properly.” Sharpe grimaced. “Damned well too, it took me days to work it loose.”

  “Sharpe,” Nel said quietly. “You are really testing my patience.”

  “Here.” Sharpe handed her the patch, ducking halfway through the breach in the hull. He braced himself on his knees and pulled back, holding up a box similar to the burnt ones Piper and the captain had examined on Rim.

  “You hid this on the outside of the hull,” Nel said as she took it from him. It was undamaged and heavy in her hands. Full.

  “And more besides.” Sharpe confirmed. “I got the notion from when we rescued Violet. Scarlett had no idea.”

  Casually Nel dropped the box into Sharpe's waiting hands while he was still down on his knees. She had her wand drawn and levelled at him before he could react.

  She glared down at him. “You talk too much.”

  “I've been told so.” He didn't look concerned about the thaumatic weapon, but he didn't make any sudden moves either. Carefully setting the box on the floor, he sat down, pulled his knees up and waited.

  “Why would you tell me all this?”

  “Because I want you to understand.” Sharpe shrugged. “I need your help.”

  “I'm not helping you steal Alliance property,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Why? Because it's wrong?” Sharpe grinned.

  She hit him, a lash across the cheek with her wand. His head whipped to the side and was slow in coming back.

  “You stole and hid this cargo,” Nel said. “You set fire to my ship and ran off with it. You think you can use me, use my ship and my crew like this?” she said. “And you're stupid enough to show me how you did it?”

  Sharpe stared, then started laughing. “You think it was me? You think I'm the one who attacked the Alliance ship in the first place?” He rose to his feet, laughing. “Oh, Chanel, now that's funny.”

  Nel hit him low and hard this time. He doubled over but didn't make a sound, only looking up with a dribble of blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth from her earlier hit.

  “Don't call me that,” she said.

  “You called me much worse than that,” Sharpe said, wiping blood off his chin. “But if it makes you feel better, go ahead, hit me again, it's not like I can feel it anymore.”

  “What?” Nel glared at him.

  “Go ahead.” Sharpe spread his arms wide. “Hit me.”

  Nel was tempted, gods below was she tempted. But she didn't. Sharpe lowered his arms.

  “I sailed as part of the Falchions Rise,” Sharpe said.

  “That was the ship we plucked you off,” Nel retorted.

  “It was the same ship that crashed here, six months ago. I survived the crash, Vaughn,” Sharpe chuckled, “wasn't so lucky with the rest of it.”

  “No.” Nel shook her head. “No, you can't be. You sailed on my ship, you couldn't hide something like that.”

  “Didn't you wonder when you saved me from the wreck?” Sharpe pressed. “We were all dead men sailing on that ship, it was wrecked but we got it to fly again, we tried to get away, to get help and you saw how far we got. The others froze in the void, I survived because of that scrap of an envelope you found me in. But only because I was already dead.”

  Then how . . . this . . .” Nel gestured at him. “You look fine, you look normal. You ate in my galley, alongside my crew. How come you haven't rotted away like the rest out there?”

  “That stuff.” Sharpe nudged the medicine with his foot. “It's incomplete, like what the Falchions carried. It doesn't preserve us like normal Draugr. But keep taking it and it stops the rot. I had some with me, all that was left when we set out. Picked up some more at Cauldron, courtesy of our friend Ebon.”

  He gestured. “Vaughn, those people out there need this. They're not just dying, they're actually, literally wasting away. This can help them, give them time.”

  “Time to what?” Nel took a step back, waving both arms. “Where do you go, where do you go from this?”

  “Away,” Sharpe said, his voice firm. “Some of my crew stayed. They've been teaching them how to sail. All we needed was this,” he kicked the box at his feet, “and all we need now is the ships to sail.”

  “And then what? Where are you even going to get ships?” Nel snorted.

  “There's a place. We just need to get there.”

  “And how will you do that, Sharpe?” Nel shook her head. “How will you get there?”

  Sharpe gave her his trademark grin. “Vaughn,” he chuckled, “why do you think I had to get everyone off the Tantamount?”

  “I'm surprised at you, Quill.” Nel leaned vambraced forearms on the bridge railing, looking out over the deck of her ship. Below them the people of Grange filed onto the Tantamount. Nel had been adamant that there was no way they could fit everybody onto the ship. Surprisingly it had been Jack who had come up with an answer. Since the Grange-Draugr didn't need to eat or move, possibly not even to breathe if Sharpe were telling the truth, then they didn't need normal accommodation. Korrigan Jack's solution had been predictably simple. Stow them.

  He'd been down in the hold for half a day, packing the people of Grange in like silver spoons, one atop the other, in every nook and cranny he could find. They fit, but only barely. Any more and Jack would have started stacking them on the outside of the hull. The only ones they really had to make room for were the children, half a hundred stoic faced runts that made Nel pine for Violet. These were broken, hardened beyond their years. It wasn't right.

  “How so, Skipper?” Quill asked, joining her at the railing.

  “Look at what you're letting onto the ship,” she explained. “Filthy doesn't begin to describe it.”

  Quill chuckled his sibilant laugh. “Launching the ship may prove a challenge with this many.”

  “You said you were up to it.” Nel turned quickly, alarmed at the idea.

  “I am, but it will still be a challenge. I enjoy a challeng
e.”

  “Why did you go along with Sharpe in the first place?” Nel asked him. “Are you ready to tell me that now?”

  “Why are you going along with him now?” Quill countered.

  “I didn't want to argue with a planet full of hungry shambling corpses,” Nel snapped. “It seemed like the prudent choice.”

  “I will enjoy telling Jack the passengers are hungry.” Quill had a gleam in his eye. “Perhaps if I am lucky they will eat his ridiculous rodent helper.”

  Nel restrained herself from making any rodent jokes. Quill would have a fit.

  “Why'd you do it?” she said instead.

  “Revenge is a petty thing.” Quill shrugged. “No less enjoyable for that.”

  “And who are you getting revenge on today, Loveland?” Nel asked, watching as a half dozen figures in tattered Alliance uniforms made their way up the gangway. That would be the last of them, the “surviving” crew of the Falchions Rise.

  “Didn't Sharpe tell you who his captain was?”

  Nel was about to answer that he hadn't when one of the Alliance crewmen called out to her. “Captain?”

  “Captain Horatio isn't with us right now,” Nel said, descending to meet them. “I'm Nel Vaughn, first officer.”

  “You call her Skipper,” Quill told the corpse.

  “Aye, Skipper, I know that one.” The man saluted in traditional style.

  “You're a midshipman?” Nel deduced from what was left on his uniform.

  “Aye,” he confirmed. “Midshipman Stoker, at your service.”

  “You're the highest ranking officer left then, Stoker?” Nel asked.

  “What's left of me, aye, Skipper,” Stoker grinned. It was ghastly, but at least the man still had his sense of humour. Nel nodded appreciatively, heard the chuckles from the other men. It sounded like the inside of a cutter's tent. All hacks and coughs.

  “Rest of the deck officers shipped out with pretty boy himself there the last time.” Stoker gestured across the deck to Sharpe. “Weren't a lot of us left by then anyway.”

  “We're short on crew, lads,” Nel told them. “Think you can handle her?”

  “Aye, Skipper, we can handle her,” Stoker said. “She'll be heavy, but she's in better kit than our last girl. Long as your man there can get us up, we'll get her to where she's going.”