With the Lightnings

by David Drake

  Bet giggled again. That could get old; but not in the length of time Daniel expected to know the lady.

  Candace cleared his throat. “Why don’t you switch places with Daniel now, Margrethe?” he said, his tone smoothing as the sentence continued. “That’ll let Bet and our guest get to know each other better. And some wine wouldn’t be amiss.”

  “Ooh, yes!” Bet said, perhaps the longest sentence Daniel had thus far heard from her lips. She turned and knelt on the seat to lean into the luggage space. “I brought the special white from Herrick’s own vineyard!”

  Bet wore a thin dress that shone either orange or golden depending on how the light struck it. The fabric was opaque but very clinging. From this angle, Daniel was willing to say that Bet’s face wasn’t her most attractive feature after all.

  “Here, you come back and then I can take your seat, lieutenant,” Margrethe said as she half-rose and smiled at him.

  It was going to be close quarters to trade seats like this. Daniel could only hope that Candace wouldn’t turn to watch the inevitable contact between the moving parties. Daniel doubted the Kostroman lieutenant would abandon him on a deserted island, but jealousy was an emotion Daniel had enough second-hand experience with to respect.

  He rose; something in the sea thirty feet below caught his eye. “Say!” he said. “Circle here! Candace, can you circle here?”

  “What?” said Candace. He banked the car slightly but he didn’t throw it in the tight circle Daniel had wanted. It didn’t matter; there was no longer anything to see.

  “It was a sweep,” Daniel said, giving the others a smile of glum embarrassment. “I’m pretty sure it was a sweep, I mean. It’s a predator in your seas here.”

  The seascape they overflew had remained much the same for the past fifty kilometers. Reefs neared the surface and shelved away into valleys that were rarely more than a few hundred feet deep. In this clear water, bottom life even in those relative depths was visible as movement and shadow.

  Daniel had noticed coral standing unusually high and vivid in an oval area which sprawled up the side of an approaching reef. Fish in their striped and flickering brilliance were relatively sparse against the lush background. The beaks of the reef fish hadn’t browsed the sessile life of this patch to the same degree as they had neighboring regions.

  Only because he was already focused on the unusual region did Daniel see the paired tentacles lash swiftly over the top of the coral and withdraw into the cave from which they’d so briefly extended. The coral shuddered: all the animalcules went limp in their self-secreted lime caverns, changing the look of the setting without any individual movement great enough to be visible from where Daniel watched.

  Simultaneously all the fish in the water through which the tentacles passed rolled onto their backs and began to sink, stunned by the electrical charge the sweep had released into the water. A few fins wobbled randomly.

  The coral animals would recover from the shock. Most of the fish would not have time to do so, because when the sweep was sure it was safe from retaliation the tentacles would project again from the pit in which the creature hid. This time they would pick over the reef, searching for the slight electrical charge that all life-forms generated.

  The hooked teeth on the tentacles would draw the fish, quivering and still alive, back to the sweep’s lair. Its beak would complete the job the electric shock had begun.

  “Oh, it must be wonderful to know so many things, Lieutenant Leary,” Margrethe said.

  Daniel wondered if he could’ve gotten the same response by saying, “The sun is shining.”

  “My uncle is a great naturalist,” he said aloud. “For a serving naval officer, that is.”

  On the other hand, Margrethe was trying to communicate something beyond her interest in Kostroman natural history. From the way Candace hunched over the steering yoke, Daniel wasn’t the only one getting that message.

  Margrethe too must have decided she was being overly obvious. She joined Daniel in an attempt to minimize contact as they squeezed in turn through the narrow center aisle between the front seats.

  Bet patted the cushion beside her. She poured wine into a single glass, sipped it, and gave the glass to Daniel. Only then did she pass the bottle and another pair of glasses to the couple in front.

  It was good wine. Daniel wondered if Herrick was her husband.

  The sea had darkened to a uniform green. The water was deeper here, but there were also scores of islands rising above its smooth surface. None were large and some were little more than rocks. Vegetation waved above the tide line of even the smallest, however.

  Bet closed her fingers over Daniel’s to retrieve the glass. He squeezed them with his left hand and smiled at her. He felt a little sheepish about his lack of concern for the girl, but this was the first time he’d been off Kostroma Island.

  “Has the lodge been in your family for long, Candace?” he said, letting his fingertips lie on Bet’s arm as she poured wine from another bottle.

  “For nearly a hundred years,” Candace said. Margrethe was snuggling him as he drove and his tone was more relaxed. “We’ve always been a navy family. That means living on Kostroma most of the time. A great grand-uncle who loved to fish bought it to have a place nearby that wasn’t on the big island. There’s a path and steps down to the water that must go back to the Founding, though.”

  He turned and grinned through Margrethe’s mist of reddish hair at Daniel. “It doesn’t get used much anymore, but occasionally it comes in handy.”

  “I’ll say it does,” Daniel said. His enthusiasm was real, but not quite as real as he tried to project in his voice.

  He let his hand trail down Bet’s bare shoulder until she giggled again and pressed his fingers firmly around the stem of the refilled glass. Daniel traded sips, wondering if on another day Candace would loan him the aircar to run out to this wonderful region on his own.

  * * *

  Adele Mundy made a point of reaching the library at precisely the second hour of daylight, half an hour before the time she’d set for her Kostroman staff to arrive. She doubted whether any of the locals would appear today—any who did would be too hung over to work—but she wasn’t surprised to hear the whine of saws and glue guns from inside as she approached the open door.

  “Sun, are you blind?” Bosun’s Mate Woetjans demanded as Adele entered. The petty officer didn’t sound angry so much as marvelling at Sun’s misalignment. “Bring the left end up! The marks set the bottom of the crosspieces, not the tops.”

  As if part of the same discussion, Woetjans turned and tipped her soft cap to Adele; she must have seen the librarian’s reflection in a windowpane. Woetjans didn’t miss much of what went on around her.

  “Good morning, Ms. Mundy,” she said. “Sometimes I think this lot hasn’t any more sense than my daft old mother, but you needn’t worry: the job’ll be done and done right before we leave it.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of doubting you, Woetjans,” Adele said as she surveyed the work thus far.

  The day before the sailors had switched to using sheets of structural plastic in place of wooden boards. Hogg had found a different supplier, Adele supposed.

  The plastic was stronger, thinner, and more stable than the wood shelving of the earlier portion of the work. Some might quarrel with the orange cast of the material, but Adele’s priority remained getting the books up from the floor and spine out so that she could organize them. If she lived long enough she might let Master Carpenter Bozeman replace the plastic with high-quality cabinetwork … but then again, there wasn’t any possibility that she would live long enough for Bozeman to complete that job.

  “We oughta have the lights working by noon,” Woetjans said, rubbing her hands together absently as she looked upward. Six sailors worked on scaffolding glued temporarily to shelf supports, hopping about twenty feet in the air with an apparent lack of concern as to what would happen if they missed their footing. “I’ve been talking to Hogg
about ways to hide the conduits. D’you have any particular feelings about the way we rig that, mistress?”

  “I honestly don’t care if you leave the wires bare, so long as there’s no safety hazard,” Adele said. “The room is a space to contain information in a usable form, that’s all. Aesthetics are someone else’s province.”

  Woetjans glanced toward the doorway. Adele turned also, expecting Vanness or perhaps a stranger who was curious about the noise.

  Markos’s female aide stood there. Her smile was thin, meaningless; as empty as her eyes. “Might I have a few minutes of your time in the gardens, mistress?” she said.

  “Yes, all right,” Adele said. “Carry on, Woetjans.”

  She walked out behind the aide. The pale young woman reminded Adele a great deal of the roof perch from which she’d watched the procession the day before: nothing whatever for a hundred feet, then a stone pavement.

  The aide led down the helical stairs. They might have been strangers to one another for all the palace staffers they met on the staircase could tell. At the bottom Adele caught up with her guide and said, “I notice you’re a Kostroman yourself. Have you known your employer long?”

  The aide stopped and looked at her. “I’m a messenger, mistress,” she said. “I do what I’m told, and only what I’m told. If you have questions, you’ll have to ask somebody else.”

  Adele nodded curt assent. She was angry and frustrated, but it would be wrong to take it out on the aide. To prod the woman verbally would be pointless cruelty—safe enough because the aide was a flunky and unable to respond, just as a big carnivore behind bars can be teased. The aide was as much a victim of Markos, and of life, as Adele herself was.

  They went up the ramp from the palace entryway and out into the gardens beyond. Litter remaining from the night’s celebrations lay on the paths or was thrust into the hedges’ netted branches. A pair of red brocade breeches, probably a man’s, perched on the head of a statue.

  There weren’t any strollers this early the morning after the festival. To Adele’s surprise there was work going on, however.

  A crew had broken up some brick planters and appeared to be digging a pond in their place. A truck backed toward the workers, its transmission whining. The foreman shouted directions to the driver while other workmen leaned on their tools and talked among themselves.

  The area to the right of the central walk was laid out in hedged squares. The aide led Adele down one of the bricked side paths and finally bowed her into an enclosure. The aide remained behind at the single entrance.

  Markos was waiting there, as she’d expected. He sat on a stone bench with his back to the dense hedge. Though the top floor of the palace overlooked the garden, no one watching from there could see even the top of his head.

  Markos looked at her with cool appraisal. He nodded but didn’t speak, apparently to emphasize his control of the situation.

  A worm from the Pleasaunce slums does not control a Mundy of Chatsworth….

  “I saw a colleague of yours last night,” Adele said in her normal voice. “Somebody should tell her to work on her Pleasaunce accent if she’s going to pretend to be a Casque.”

  “No one of that name is a colleague of mine,” Markos said. His anger showed in the way his own real origins rasped in his voice. “Let me assure you, mistress—the fact that persons may be sloppy in the way they prepare for a task shouldn’t be taken to mean that they won’t correct errors in a terminal fashion. Quite the contrary.”

  “What do you want?” Adele said.

  Markos patted the bench beside him. She shook her head minusculely and crossed her arms in refusal.

  “Sit down,” he said. “I don’t choose to raise my voice, mistress. And don’t play games with me or third parties will regret it! That’s a personal promise, not a professional one.”

  Adele seated herself beside him. A man like Markos would sooner lie than tell the truth, but she didn’t think that particular threat had been a lie. She’d made him angry by refusing to be cowed.

  “I want an electronic copy of the palace guard rosters for the next month,” he said, calm again. “Names and addresses, and any other information on record about the persons on duty. I believe some of the guards are billeted in the palace proper while others are off-premises except while they’re on duty. And of course I want their pay records as well.”

  “Where do you expect me to find that sort of thing?” Adele snapped.

  “I really don’t care, Ms. Mundy,” Markos replied. “Fuck the chamberlain if you choose. But I suspect you’ll turn it up quickly enough through a data search of the sort you’re uniquely qualified to perform.”

  “All right,” Adele said coldly. She stood up. “I’ll see what I can find. Contact me in a week.”

  “You will come back here before you leave the palace grounds,” Markos said, his tone heavy with the menace that was natural to him. “You will have the information complete. You will deliver the information to my secretary.”

  Adele looked toward the opening in the hedge. The aide was watching them sidelong; her thin mouth smiled very faintly.

  Markos wouldn’t have been sent to Kostroma without expert staff and equipment comparable to anything Adele could provide—but the experts and particularly the equipment might not be solely committed to the Fifth Bureau. The Goetz von Berlichingen needed a powerful data processor simply for navigation purposes, but Markos couldn’t be certain that the uses he made of the computer wouldn’t be analyzed by the likes of “Mirella Casque” or agents of other rival organizations.

  An impecunious librarian whose only friend was a hostage within the Alliance was a much more trustworthy tool than Alliance naval officers protected by their own organization from the wrath even of a member of the Fifth Bureau. Besides, it was a game that would appeal to the sort of person Markos was.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Adele repeated. She stepped out of the enclosure.

  The information should be easy to find, though it was an even question whether she’d find it in the Hajas database or that of the palace itself. She’d deliver it as soon as she could. Part of her wanted to keep Markos waiting, but that was childish, and it would mean that the business was hanging over Adele Mundy as well.

  She strode down the bricked pathway, drawing glances from the workmen for the hard set of her face. She’d take care of this and wash her hands of the business. It didn’t matter to her what Markos and other slugs in what they called Intelligence did with the information then.

  * * *

  “Here’s the island, Leary,” Candace said as he adjusted the aircar’s fans, slowing the vehicle toward a mushy hover. “I suppose it ought to have a name by now, but we just call it the lodge.”

  Ten miles back Bet had permitted Daniel to put an arm about her waist; now he had to disentangle himself to look forward between the front seats. Bet leaned against him from behind, proving that she had rather more top than he would have guessed.

  The island was only a few hundred meters long and rather narrow. It rose thirty sheer feet from the water, however, and was of some hard black rock rather than the coral limestone of other islets Daniel had seen dotting this stretch of sea.

  A line of steps slanted up the cliff from the base where men had blasted a landing place in the stone. Wrist-thick staples were set in the rock for tying up boats. Foliage of the bright green typical to Kostroma covered the islet’s top. Its growth was so lush that the lodge’s structural plastic roof was hidden almost until the aircar hovered overhead. There’d once been a cleared area beside the building but feather-leafed plants now sprouted there waist high.

  “I’ll have to get a crew in here to clear things off,” Candace said in irritation. “Maybe I can get the CO to detail me some ratings.”

  He lowered the aircar slowly, using the downdraft to flatten the vegetation so that it didn’t get tangled in the fans. Swarms of small insects spun out of the greenery like jewels. Many of them lighted on the upp
er surfaces of the car and on its occupants.

  Bet said, “Ooh!” in irritation as she brushed a sparkling bug off her forehead. They were species native to Kostroma, however, with no taste for human blood.

  Candace shut off the motors. “A bit primitive, but I think we’ll find everything here we need,” he said as he unlatched the sidewall into a ramp. He laughed coarsely. “And after we’ve found what we need, I’ve had the servants pack us a bit of lunch. Eh, Leary?”

  Bet giggled.

  “First-rate plan, Candace!” Daniel said as he walked to the back of the aircar to open the storage compartment. He hoped he spoke with enough enthusiasm to cover the way he’d winced when he heard the giggle again.

  The luggage was a picnic hamper and two inflatable mattresses. There was a basket of wine also, but Bet had brought that out with her by reaching over the seat.

  Candace pushed open the lodge door which had been ajar. Drifted fronds on the floor had already started to decay to humus.

  Small birds went into paroxysms of chirping terror inside. Daniel held the women back a moment to permit the panicked creatures to fly out. He didn’t mind carrying the gear, though he’d noticed the Kostroman officer’s presumption that it wasn’t his own job.

  Candace began opening the window shutters. One of them fell off in his hand. The main room had a fireplace and stone benches along the walls; a table and two chairs of extruded plastic provided the only other furnishings. There was a curtained opening at the end with sleeping quarters beyond. The bunks, an upper and lower, were narrow plastic berths on stone supports cantilevered out from the back wall.

  “Do you have a well here?” Daniel asked.

  “There’s a cistern,” Candace said. “Though …”

  Though, thought Daniel to complete the unspoken idea, any cistern here would have been the grave for the legion of creatures which had managed to crawl into it in the years since the lodge was last used. Well, they had the wine.