Change of Command - Heris Serrano 06

by Elizabeth Moon

  “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 kind 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 b
e 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 fabric 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-”

  Margiu positioned one edge of the basket thing next to the corpse.

  “Now go to the other side and give it a push,” said the major.

  “Stay where you are,” the professor said. “Your weight will make it roll toward you.”

  “Keep out of this,” the major said, turning to glare at the professor.

  “It’s simple physics,” the professor said. “A child could see-” He gestured. “Her weight depresses the life raft floor, and the corpse rolls-”

  A gentle swell lifted her up, then dropped her, and the corpse rolled into the basket. Margiu hooked the lashings quickly, then glanced back at the plane. A line of cold green water widened between her and the plane; the two men argued in the doorway, hands waving, and the rope ran smoothly out beside them. She felt an instant of panic so strong that she couldn’t even yell.

  “Idiots!” The crew chief lunged past them and grabbed the trailing line. “Don’t pull!” he yelled to Margiu. “We won’t lose you.” Even as he said it, an end of rope slipped out and splashed into the water. Panic gripped her again, until she remembered the line attached to the Berry.

  Another voice yelled from forward in the plane. “What’s going on, Ker? We need to get back in the air sometime this century. Swell’s picking up, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Loose line, sir.” The crew chief did not turn his head this time, Margiu noticed. “Now, major, if you’ll take hold behind me, and then you, professor. Let’s bring her in . . .”

  Margiu made herself look away from the plane, and recheck the lashings on the basket. Then she began hauling in the rope attached to the basket. Something yanked on it, hard, and she fetched up against the life raft’s inflated rim.

  “Hurry up, Ensign,” the major said. “The pilot wants us to leave.”

  “Yes, sir . . .” Whatever it was yanked again, putting a sharp crease in the inflated rim. Then it let go, and she fell back into the smelly slime of the lifeboat floor. She reeled the line in, hand over hand, and was able to toss the dripping end into the hatch when the raft bumped the plane again.

  “All right, Major-if you’ll let go this line, sir, and take hold of that one-”

  Margiu did her best to lift the ends of the Berry unit over the inflated rim as the major pulled, and after some minutes of breathless struggle, the corpse was aboard the plane. Margiu crawled out after it, her knees shaking. The plane might be tiny compared to the sea, but it was more solid than that life raft. She pulled herself upright, and hoped no one had noticed her fear, as the copilot came forward and slid into his seat.

  The pilot peered back over his shoulder.

  “Hurry it up, back there. I don’t like the look of the horizon, and I’m still not getting current feed from MetSat.”

  “We simply must take the raft aboard,” the major said.

  “We’re going to take off before that squall line gets here,” the pilot said. “And the chief says it would take at least an hour to deflate and pack the raft, which will put us marginal on weight, since it’ll be wet. Forget the raft.”

  “Dammit, it’s evidence.” The major visibly fumed for a few moments, then said, “Fine, then. We’ll leave Ensign Pardalt in the raft to secure the evidence; another flight can pick her up later. Ensign, get back in the raft.”

  Margiu’s heart sank. Leave her alone on the ocean with a storm coming?

  “I don’t think-” the professor began; the major rounded on him.

&n
bsp; “You have no place in this discussion; you are only a ­civilian. You have caused enough trouble already. Go sit down and be quiet!”

  The professor’s eyebrows went up, and his head tipped back. “I see, sir, that you are a bigot.”

  “Ensign, get into that raft and prepare to cast off,” the major said without looking at the professor. “We will inform Search and Rescue where you are, and they will come find you.”

  The pilot burst out of the cockpit. “Ensign, take your seat. You too, prof.” Margiu followed the professor quickly into the cabin. “Major, if you do not shut up, I will put you in the raft. I’m in command of this craft-”

  “What’s your date of rank?” the major asked. Cold anger rolled off him in waves.

  “You’re a paper-pushing remf,” the pilot said. “Not a line officer, and not my CO. You have a choice-you can either go sit down and be quiet, or you go out the hatch, right this instant, and I don’t much care if you land in the raft or the water.”

  Margiu watched the little group by the hatch-did the major know that behind his back the crew chief’s broad hand was poised to push him out? She doubted it; he was too angry with the pilot.

  “I’ll complain to your commander,” the major said, turning away; Margiu could see how red he’d turned, and looked down. This was not something she wanted to witness.

  “So will I,” the pilot said. Already the crew chief was coiling the wet line that had held the raft to the plane. He pulled the hatch shut, dogged the latch, and secured the dripping coil of rope to the cleat on the forward bulkhead. Margiu could not see the raft from her side, but she saw the propeller of the inboard engine begin to turn, and the duct flanges move. Gouts of blue smoke, then spray, as the propeller blast whipped the surface of the sea. The plane swung in a tight circle; now she could see, through the wavering streams of water on the window, the bright yellow of the life raft rocking on the swell. The engines roared, and the plane moved jerkily at first through the water; then, with a series of shuddering slams, reached takeoff velocity and lifted away from the water. As the window cleared, Margiu looked back. A tiny yellow dot, already hard to see, and behind it, a darkening line of the oncoming storm.