Change of Command

by Elizabeth Moon

  This time the craft carried only three passengers besides its crew. One was a gray-haired major, with a pinched mouth and a narrow line of decorations which she recognized as efficiency awards. Admin, most likely. He went to the head of the little line waiting on the dock as by rights, boarded first, and installed himself in a seat midway down the port side, where he immediately flicked on his seat lamp and opened a handcomp.

  The other passenger had waved Margiu ahead, with a flamboyant gesture that matched his flamboyant appearance. In the harsh lights of the harborage, his leather jacket blazed a garish yellow, and the metallic decorations glittered. Margiu climbed over the entrance coaming, and followed the major, almost stumbling once when the gentle motion of the seaplane on the water surprised her.

  She picked out a window seat, on the starboard side. As she buckled in, she looked up to see the third passenger watching. One of those? He had pulled off his cap, revealing fine gray hair fluffed around a bald pate, and in this light she could see that his yellow jacket might be some theatrical troupe's idea of a uniform. Its shoulders were decorated with loops of green braid, and a line of stars on the upstanding collar, now open to reveal a green shirt; his dark pants were actually green.

  "May I?" the man said, in a surprisingly sweet voice. "I'm really quite harmless."

  She had hoped for a quiet ride, perhaps even a nap. But courtesy demanded that she say yes, so she nodded.

  A crew chief checked to be sure they were all wearing the PPU, and a life vest, and that all the survival gear aboard was actually in place. Predictably, the man in yellow wasn't wearing his PPU. Unpredictably, he was quite cheerful about having to change, and quicker than she would have expected. Margiu had flown between the stars, but never over large bodies of water; she began to realize that this was serious.

  Then the pilot swung the stumpy plane around, revved the engines, and Margiu felt acceleration shoving her back. The plane slammed its way across the low ripples of the harbor, spray blurring the lights outside. A few moments later they were airborne.

  The headlands of Dark Harbor, edged with lights, fell away behind and below them, and then it was nothing but darkness below. Down there somewhere was water, invisible to the eye but cold and wet. Margiu shivered. To her relief, her seat companion turned a little away and started snoring almost immediately. By dawn, they were flying under high clouds, and the water below looked like a vast sheet of wrinkled silk patched with shades of blue and green and silver that she could not identify.

  The man beside her woke up, and gave her a sweet smile. "I hope my snoring didn't keep you awake," he said.

  "No, sir."

  "I'm no sir, milady. I'm Professor Gustaf Aidersson, if you want my dull, boring, everyday name, which goes with my dull, boring, everyday profession, about which I cannot talk, or we will both be in serious trouble. Or you could call me Don Alfonso Dundee, most noble knight of the Order of Old Terra, and we could have a pleasant conversation about anything you wish."

  "I'm sorry?" She had no idea what he was talking about.

  "No, I'm sorry." He hit himself dramatically on the forehead. "Never accost young ladies before breakfast with strange tales out of distant mythology. You've heard of SPAL?"

  "No, sir."

  "Ah. Well, it's the biggest collection of galoots and misfits in the universe, and the letters stand for the Society for the Preservation of Antique Lore. Antique lunacy is more like it—I have no faith whatever in the actuality of our tomfoolery, but it is fun. We got the idea back when the rich folks in the Families first took up antique studies and arts—long before your time, milady—and we put our own interpretation on it. Let them flit about with fencing masters from the Company of Sabers, create titles for themselves, and imagine that they're re-creating scenes from Old Earth history. They're so serious about it, it takes all the fun out."

  Margiu listened to the rolling flow of words and wondered if the man were entirely sane. His bright sidelong look seemed to catch her thought in midair, as if it were a ball being tossed.

  "You wonder if I'm crazy. Of course you do. I'm not sure myself, and my wife tells me regularly that my pot is a little cracked. But the fact of the matter is, craziness is not necessarily a bar to genius, and my kind of craziness consists only in boring total strangers to distraction in airplanes. Or spacecraft. Or anywhere else I can trap them." He grinned at her with such obvious good humor that Margiu felt herelf relaxing.

  "What is that yellow jacket?" she found herself asking.

  "Good question," he said promptly, in a tone that she could well believe went with a professor of something. "There was a colony world—second-order colony out of Old Earth by way of Congreve—which had successive waves of settlers. They didn't get along, so of course they started fighting. Back then fabricators were pretty basic machines—couldn't turn out any useful sort of protective garments. So the colonists started using leather from their herds of cattle. The color told what side they were on. Mine is a semiaccurate reproduction of a Missen-Asaya officer's uniform of the Third Missen-Asaya/Tangrat War. Except the insignia. I should have a little wooden bird, but I couldn't find it before I left. My wife swears I must have left it at the last awards banquet . . . so I just took the stars off a model spaceship. Not a very good model, either; Rose-class ships never had double batteries of beam weapons. I told Zachery that when he showed me the model, but he got huffy about it and threw it in the corner, the one where Kata drops her dirty boots. That's why I knew where to find stars when I wanted them. And I thought stars might be more impressive when I had to travel with Fleet officers, but of course they see that yellow canary-jacket and try not to laugh."

  It was like drowning in treacle.

  "But I'm talking too much about myself. Just whap me on the head when I do that; that's what my wife does. Or ignore me and look out the window if you want. I can see you're an ensign, with red hair exactly the color of my niece's, but—who are you?"

  "Margiu Pardalt," Margiu said. "From Xavier."

  "Xavier!" His face lit up, and her heart sank. "You know, the tactical analysis of the most recent engagement is fascinating. I was most impressed with the fire control of the Benignity ships—"

  "The Benignity ships—" She couldn't help that, or the tone it popped out in.

  "Yes. No disrespect to Commander . . . er . . . whoever it was—"

  "Serrano," murmured Margiu.

  "But the Benignity performance was markedly better than expected. And there's new data—from this very facility—well, not where we're going but where I assume you've been, the Copper Mountain base—to indicate that they upgraded one of our ships they captured. For instance, the time to recharge—no. I mustn't get onto this." Margiu could see the effort it cost him to rein that enthusiasm back. "Tell you what, let's talk about wet navies. Here we are, flying over a superb large ocean, and I'll bet you've never studied wet-navy history, have you?"

  "Only a little," Margiu said. Her mind scrabbled frantically in search of some crumb of data to prove that she had studied it at all, but only the word Trafalgar rose up. She couldn't remember if it had been an admiral, a ship, or a battle. "Trafalgar," she said.

  "Of course!" He beamed at her. "A mighty battle indeed, that was, but perhaps a little remote for our purposes. Are you familiar with the application of Nelson's sail tactics to colonial naval battles?"

  "Uh . . . no, sir."

  "Consider, if you will, the archipelagos of Skinner III." He spread his hands, as if touching a particular geographic area, and Margiu wondered if she ought to admit she didn't know what an archipelago was. She didn't have time. "Forty thousand islands, at least. Colonized with intent to exploit its obvious advantages for aquaculture, but, as always, underfunded and subject to piracy. Abundant timber, so—"

  Margiu's com beeped; she pressed the button. Her companion watched, bright-eyed. The pilot spoke: "Ensign, Major—" She glanced back and saw the other officer sit up; he met her eyes across the plane. "There's some kin
d of trouble at Stack Islands. Apparently personnel are missing, believed lost at sea—"

  "What personnel?" the major asked.

  "Base Three commander and a guard corporal. There's also a life raft missing from the Three Base aircar hangar, and evidence of a struggle . . . they're saying the corporal may have gone crazy and kidnapped the commander. But anyway—we're to join the search; they don't have any long-range craft, and they suspect the life raft was blown west by the storm into the North Current."

  Margiu started to say that her orders were to get those directives to the base commanders without delay, but decided not to. The pilot knew she was a courier, and if someone were down there in a raft, surely that had to come first. She hoped.

  They were still at least an hour east of the Stacks, but Margiu could not help scanning below for the life raft. She had no idea how big it would look from whatever altitude they were flying.

  Dark dots appeared on the sea. "Those are the Stacks," the pilot said. Margiu stared at them . . . a scatter of tall black rocks, whose height above the water was hard to judge in this flat light. The plane lost altitude again in a sudden lurch. "We'll be over Stack Island Three in an hour."

  The Stacks looked impossibly forbidding—too tall, too narrow on top, too bleak. Why had Fleet put bases out here at all? She'd read the cubes, but it still seemed ridiculous. The plane droned on, and the Stacks rose up and sank, appearing and disappearing . . . a total of 98 visible at high tide, 117 at low, according to the cube. Some so small that not even an aircar could land vertically on top.

  They left the Stacks behind, and Margiu stared at the sea from her side of the craft with more intensity.

  "Signal!" the pilot said suddenly. "I've got a beacon! And confirmation from upstairs." The plane heeled on one wing, and Margiu gulped her stomach back into place. When she laid her forehead on the window, the glass felt colder than before.

  The major spotted it first; Margiu heard him call out, and the pilot swung the plane around again. Now she saw the little yellow chip on the gray-green sea. Was anyone in it? Alive? She could not imagine what it must be like.

  "We're going down," the pilot said. Margiu clamped her jaws shut. Going down? Was something wrong with the plane?

  "It's all right, Ensign," the major said, catching her eye. "This is a seaplane, remember. It can land on the water."

  Margiu drew a shaky breath. Water, yes: in a protected lagoon, shallow and calm. She hadn't known any aircraft could land on open ocean without sinking. She wasn't sure she believed it.

  "Hoods on," the pilot ordered. Margiu plucked the hood of her PPU from its curl around her neck and put it on. If it was so safe, why this precaution? She put her hands into the gloves, too, and made sure the wrist and boot grapples were locked back. She peered out. They were much lower now, and she could see that the surface of the ocean heaved slowly in broad swells, reflecting the bright yellow canopy of the life raft. Through that clear, quiet water, she saw something swimming—some long, narrow shapes.

  "Isn't this exciting?" asked her seatmate. "A most excellent adventure, my first water landing in an aircraft." He didn't look frightened at all. Margiu was scared, though she wasn't going to admit it. "Of course, if we come in too fast, or too steeply, we'll be killed, which would be a shame. Let me see . . . this planet's gravitational attraction is 1.012 that of Earth, and that means . . ."

  Margiu closed her ears; she wanted to close her eyes, but she could not look away from the water's surface . . . the smooth water looked less smooth the closer they came. Then spray fountained past the window; the safety harness dug in as the plane lurched and swayed. The plane slowed, settling in the water; she could feel the movement of the ocean take over from the movement of the air, lifting and dropping the plane in a leisurely oscillation. The inboard engine on her side stopped, and her window cleared. She remembered the briefing, that in event of an emergency landing, the craft would keep two engines going, with the ducts adjusted to minimize blast on the escape rafts. Presumably the same technique would keep the prop blast from blowing this life raft away.

  As they rose on the swell, she could see the yellow canopy of the life raft in the distance. The pilot's voice came over the roar of the engine. "We don't have current weather data—MetSatIV's down again—and although it looks dead calm now, I don't trust it. We're not going to be down one second longer than we have to be. You will all do exactly what my crew chief tells you."

  The crew chief beckoned to them. The professor climbed out and let Margiu into the aisle after the major had gone past.

  "Major, you and the ensign will need to hang onto this line . . . steady . . ."

  Margiu wrapped her gloved hands around the rope. Line. Whatever they wanted to call it, it was rope to her, familiar from the family farm. The major, ahead of her, blocked half her view of the outside, but she could see water not that far below, and nothing but water to the horizon. She shivered in spite of her PPU.

  "Why not just tie the rope to the plane?" the major asked.

  "Sir, we never secure the aircraft to something like the raft. Should it capsize—"

  "It's a life raft," the major said. "It's made to not capsize. I shouldn't have to stand here holding a stupid rope."

  "Right, sir—just let me take that a moment." The crew chief took the rope from the major, passed the slack to Margiu, and then back to the professor, who had come along without being asked.

  The canopy flap opened; a head poked out, shrouded in a PPU hood.

  "Who are you?" croaked a voice.

  "Chief Stivers," the chief said. "And you are . . . the missing Corporal Meharry?"

  "They've reported me missing?" The voice sounded odd; Margiu could see the strain on that face. "I was supposed to be dead."

  "Where's Commander Bacarion?"

  "She's—her—she's here." Meharry pushed the canopy flap farther to the side. Margiu couldn't see what that revealed, but the major stiffened.

  "That's—she's hurt, she's—"

  "She's dead, sir," Meharry said.

  "There'll have to be an investigation," the major said.

  "Yes, sir. But first, sir—"

  "No buts, Corporal. Chief . . . er . . . Stivers . . . you will place this man under arrest—"

  "Sir, he's been on a lifeboat for days . . . he needs care . . ."

  "He's a material witness, if not a murderer. Under arrest, Chief, at once—"

  "We have to get him aboard first."

  "And the deceased. And the raft."

  "Sir, I'll have to ask Pilot Officer Galvan. It's not going to be easy to get the raft aboard safely."

  "We can't leave valuable evidence at the scene—"

  The pilot had other priorities. "First, we get that man aboard. He's been adrift for days, in freezing weather; it's a wonder he's alive. Major, you take that line; Professor, get back to your seat for now."

  As the pilot ordered, Margiu and the major each took a line, and wrapped it around a projecting knob inside the aircraft. The pilot had a name for the knob, but Margiu ignored that and concentrated instead on the need to keep the line taut and the raft snugged up to the aircraft. The copilot and the crew chief helped Corporal Meharry clamber over the raft's inflated rim and into the plane.

  He was haggard and pale; when he tried to stand, he staggered against the bulkhead. The copilot and crew chief half-carried him back to the seats, and draped him over two of them. Professor Aidersson bustled over; Margiu heard his sweet voice over the others. The major spoke to her.

  "Ensign—get in that raft, and prepare the commander's body for removal."

  Margiu stared at him, but swallowed the "Me, sir?" that almost came out. She glanced at the copilot, hoping he would say something, but he was doing something to the corporal's PPU.

  She had never envisioned herself clambering into a blood-smeared life raft in the middle of a vast ocean to retrieve the dead body of a murder victim. Gingerly, she eased over the inflated rim and into the raft. The fa
bric dipped and shifted under her; she felt very insecure. She had seen dead bodies before; she had seen dead bodies days' old, for that matter. But that had been on dry land, in the warm, dry climate of her homeland. She had never seen so much water in her life, and to be bobbing up and down in a raft in the middle of the ocean, with a cold stiff body, terrified her. When she looked back at the plane, it looked much smaller, entirely too small to be reassuring when everything else was water.

  The next thing she noticed was the smell; cold had retarded decay, but there was a sickening odor of human filth and death both, held in by the canopy. When the raft rocked to the swell, Margiu struggled not to gag. As quickly as she could, she unfastened the canopy tabs and rolled it back. Even the aircraft fumes were better than this.

  Bacarion's body . . . she tried not to look at it, especially not the ruin of the face. But it was heavy—the woman had been both taller and heavier than Margiu—and she could not get the right leverage to move it.

  "Hurry up, Ensign," the major said.

  "Sorry, sir," Margiu said, breathless, as she struggled to unlash the webbing that held Bacarion's body still. She got the last one loose, and the next swell rolled the body toward her. When she tried to lift, the additional weight pressed her knees into the raft floor, which sank, and the body rolled into the depression. It would have been hard enough on a solid support, but she had none.

  "Tie a line around her and we'll haul from here," suggested the professor, who had reappeared in the aircraft's hatch.

  "Don't be ridiculous!" snapped the major. "All she has to do is lift and slide the body across—"

  "No—she'll need the basket. Hang on, Ensign. Be right back." The crew chief, who had come forward, now disappeared back into the plane.

  "I don't think much of your initiative," the major said to Margiu; behind him, the professor winked at her. The crew chief reappeared, with a bright-orange object that looked like a long skinny basket. "Here you go, Ensign—" He slid it over the rim of the life raft to her. "Ever used one of these? No? Well, just roll the body into it, then hook those lashings over." He turned his head to look back into the plane and yelled, "Just a second, sir—"