by David Drake
“Oh, that’ll be a blessing,” Holper said. “You can’t know what a blessing that will be.”
Because of the steep slope near the top of the ridge, they had been unable to see the lodge for some minutes. The paved track ended in a stone staircase to the right. When Adele started up the steps beside Mistress Holper, the lodge rose into view ahead of them.
A husky man got up from a wicker chair as they approached. “Hey, Mitzi,” he said. A long baton leaned against the side of the building, but he didn’t have a gun. “Are you spelling me?”
“These are the envoys, Phil,” Holper said. “Heavens be praised, I think we’re shut of this filthy business.”
“I’m Lady Mundy,” Adele said, since it didn’t appear that their guide would think to introduce her. “With my aide. We’re here to see the prisoners.”
The lodge had waist-high stone walls and louvered windows—closed at the moment—above them to the roof of structural plastic. It would be simple enough to break a couple windows and crawl out, but it couldn’t be done without enough noise to alert the guard with the riot stick.
“We treat them nice as you please,” Holper said as Phil opened the padlock closing the chain which bound the handles of the double doors. “You’ll see if they don’t say that!”
“There isn’t much reason for them to break out, is there?” said Tovera, eyeing the situation with her usual amused detachment. “Do they even know what planet they’re on?”
“Look, this was none of my idea,” the guard said. “I’m just up here because I’m a citizen, you see?”
He threw the door open and stepped aside, turning his face away so that he didn’t have to meet his visitors’ eyes. Mistress Holper said, “I’ll wait here with Phil. Take all the time you want.”
“I’ll wait out here,” Tovera said, to Adele as she entered the building. Her smile might have been described as pitying, though pity was as difficult to associate with Tovera as love would be.
“I’m Lady Mundy from Cinnabar,” Adele said, addressing the hostages. They must have gotten to their feet when they heard the door rattle. “My colleague Captain Leary and I are here to secure your release. The details are being worked out now.”
The Monfiores must by now realize how badly they had miscalculated. Nonetheless, they were going to benefit from their piracy, their kidnapping.
Adele had never been concerned about fairness: she had been born to privilege, then had spent a comparable length of time in abject poverty through no fault of her own. Both those states were facts. Fairness and justice were matters for philosophers to discuss. Not for librarians, and certainly not for politicians.
“Well, we’ve waited long enough!” said the rather pretty young man who must be Penning Almer, aide to Mistress Tibbs of the Regiment. The woman in a Pantellarian naval dress uniform, rather the worse for wear now, would be Lieutenant Angelotti of the Freccia, while the heavy-set man of fifty was Colonel Bourbon, despite his civilian clothes.
Bourbon was the only one who mattered, so it was to him that Adele said, “I’m afraid, Colonel, that the delay in our arrival is less surprising than the fact that we’ve arrived at all. Colonel Mursiello, as he now calls himself, was something less than enthusiastic about getting you back.”
“That bastard,” Bourbon said, but he sounded more bitter than angry. He ground his right fist into his left hand, as though he were pulverizing something in a mortar rather than smashing it with a hammer. “I didn’t trust him, not a bit, but I thought it was safer to leave him in charge on Corcyra for a couple weeks than it would have been to put him together with the Junta ruling Karst.”
“You mean it’s your fault that we’ve been stranded here for three months?” Almer said. As with Lieutenant Angelotti’s uniform, Almer’s swirlingly loose civilian garments had been pulled and wrinkled during captivity. Whatever the fabric was, it lost its sheen when it stretched. “A couple weeks indeed!”
“When can we go?” Angelotti asked Adele. Her hands were pressed together unconsciously, making Adele wonder whether the lieutenant had a personal reason to want to be back on Corcyra.
In Angelotti’s case and in most cases involving women of childbearing age, “personal reason” generally meant a sexual relationship. With men of a similar age, greed was an equally probable cause.
“As I say, there are details to work out,” Adele said. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to get your luggage together now, because I’m sure that Captain Leary intends to leave as soon as we’ve made the arrangements.”
She supposed another person would have said that it would only be a short time. Logically that was true, but there was no lack of evidence that most people behaved illogically at least some of the time.
“Luggage!” Almer said. He tugged out the legs of his pantaloons with a theatrical gesture. “We have nothing but what was with us in the hostel on Dace! We weren’t allowed to get our baggage from the ship, meager as even that would have been.”
Almer turned to Colonel Bourbon. He said,”You were probably right. The Junta would have been more than willing to put Mursiello in power on Corcyra if he offered them enough. And from what I’ve seen of Mursiello, he’d offer everything anybody else on Corcyra had to get power himself. You and we have had our differences, Bourbon, but as between gentlemen.”
Almer is a fop and a petulant little prig, Adele thought. But he isn’t a fool after all. Her respect for Mistress Tibbs, who had sent the young man as her agent, went up.
“Speaking for myself,” Bourbon said, grinning wearily, “I’d just as soon that Mursiello had been cooped up here for the past two months. On the other hand, I would have tried to get him back, and who knows where that might have led?”
“You’ve been successful in arranging for the missiles, then?” Adele said.
“Oh, yes,” Bourbon said. “The price is steep, but we’ve spread the payments out over twenty-five years and the Junta finally agreed to take the payment in exemption from transport tariffs as soon as Corcyra is at peace again. While the Pantellarians are on the planet, we’ll have to pay in copper delivered to Karst at our own expense, but I hope that a year or at most two will end that. After the missiles arrive, of course.”
“If I may ask, Lady Mundy?” said Almer with an unpleasant smile. “You said you and Captain Leary were from Cinnabar. What is Cinnabar’s involvement on Corcyra?”
Not at all a fool. “The Republic is not involved,” Adele said crisply. “My colleague and I came to Corcyra in our private capacities on behalf of the Transformationist community. When we learned of the situation regarding yourselves and the war more generally, we volunteered to negotiate your release ourselves.”
Almer pursed his lips. Before the question he was framing could reach his tongue, Tovera said loudly, “Good afternoon, Elder Paul.”
“That’s the leader of the gang!” Angelotti said, turning to the door as Adele opened it.
Paul strode in, looking exultant. “Colonel,” he said to Bourbon. “I apologize to your and your colleagues. We have wronged you, I have wronged you, but I hope that some time in the future we will be able to make it up to you. For now, let me say that you are free to go. Captain Leary’s ship waits in the harbor to carry you home.”
Colonel Bourbon picked up a small fabric case. He paused in the door long enough to clasp hands with Paul on his way past. Neither Almer nor Angelotti showed that courtesy; but then, the Monfiores weren’t really owed it.
Adele and Tovera followed the former prisoners down the track. It would be good to leave Ischia, but Adele didn’t feel the urgency that the Corcyrans seemed to.
“If we get off safely,” she said to Tovera, “I’ll consider this a job well done.”
“If we don’t,” said Tovera, smiling again, “perhaps I’ll have a chance to kill a few people. I win either way.”
“I’m glad you’re showing a positive attitude,” said Adele. They were both joking, in their fashions.
CHAPTER 19
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Above Corcyra
Though Daniel remained at the command console, he had handed the conn to Vesey on a flat-plate display to make the short hop to Corcyra from their observation point one light minute out. She would land them in Brotherhood also. Using the relatively poor equipment was good practice.
Vesey had extracted the Kiesche 37,000 miles above Corcyra, a lovely piece of work even in so short a hop. She would do equally well bringing the Kiesche into harbor…and another time, when Vesey was on her own and perhaps being shot at, she would make a similar landing a trifle more smoothly than she would have done without this practice.
“Kiesche to Brotherhood Control,” Cory said. “Come in, Brotherhood Control, over.”
His eyes were closed and he was knuckling his forehead fiercely with his left hand. The length of a passage through the Matrix didn’t affect the amount of discomfort an individual felt on extraction, and Cory was obviously feeling a great deal.
Daniel rotated the couch of his console to check the Corcyran envoys. He had decided to bunk the three of them in the main cabin, moving crewmen—including Woetjans at her own request—to the overflow bunks in the hold.
Lieutenant Angelotti looked cheery, Colonel Bourbon was sitting on his bunk with the expression of a man trying to hold up a wall which was collapsing on him, and Almer lay flat with his right forearm thrown across his eyes. The gesture looked theatrical, as everything Almer did was theatrical, but it was certainly possible that the fellow was prostrated by the pain of extraction.
Daniel smiled, remembering the time that had happened to him while he was still a cadet on a training cruise. Oddly enough, it made him feel closer to Tibbs’ aide; an irritating fellow to be sure, but surprisingly sharp once you learned his manner.
Hogg unstrapped from the bulkhead jump-seat and propelled himself to the command console. His woodcraft served him well in freefall, as it did Daniel. Hogg always knew where his body was and how much weight he was putting on any surface he was in contact with.
Misplacing your weight in the field meant that a snapped twig alerted your prey or even that you slid down a hillside on top of the loose stone you had disturbed. In freefall you caromed wildly around the compartment, which could be even more unpleasant.
“I figure there’s plenty of time to get into your Whites, master,” Hogg said. “Instead of waiting while the ship cools off and we can open her up.”
“Hogg,” Daniel said, “I told you that the Kiesche wasn’t a naval vessel and I’m not here as an RCN officer. The last thing I want to do is convince people that I represent the Republic on Corcyra. I will wear these—”
He tugged the leg of his dark blue utilities.
“—just as I told you in Xenos that I would!”
“Kiesche, this is Brotherhood Control,” the console announced. “You are cleared to land in the same berth as you had previously. I say again, the previous berth. That’s the only place you’re cleared to land, over.”
“Six?” Cory asked on the command channel.
At this moment, Daniel and the Kiesche had effectively unlimited options. When they began their landing approach, their options shrank sharply.
On the other hand, options for completing the mission successfully were much higher if they landed in Brotherhood Harbor as directed. We didn’t come from Cinnabar in order to fail and go home again.
“Roger, Cory,” Daniel said. “Lieutenant Vesey, bring us in. Over.”
“Roger, Brotherhood Control,” Cory said. “Kiesche out.”
“Ship,” said Vesey, “prepare for descent. And stay alert, fellow Sissies, because it may be rough after we’ve landed. Five out.”
Daniel smiled as braking thrust pushed him back into his couch. He had thought of taking the conn himself, but he would probably have other claims on his attention shortly. Vesey had again proven herself precisely the sort of alert, intelligent officer whom he would want in charge of the ship when he himself was in the middle of something else.
Probably in the middle of something lethal.
Brotherhood on Corcyra
The Kiesche was wrapped in a blanket of plasma as it braked toward the surface of Corcyra. Ionized oxygen and hydrogen atoms radiated across the electro-optical spectrum, smothering all but the most fragmentary bits of communication and data gathering.
If I believed in Hell, Adele thought, I would say that I am in it.
The humor of the thought brought a hint of a smile as she tried to strain information from the static. No matter how hard the software attempted to sharpen the hash, it remained hash. Their lives and mission might depend on what Adele heard in the next few minutes, or what she failed to hear.
The Kiesche bellied into Brotherhood Harbor in a pillow of steam which turned the last few feet of her descent into a greasy stagger. Adele didn’t notice that, nor that her apparent weight returned to normal when the thrusters shut off.
What she did notice was that the roar of static sank to a mere nasty crackle. Data streamed in and she was back in her element.
Adele set her side of the console to convert her words into a text crawl at the bottom of Daniel’s display and said, “Garrison headquarters has just directed the Regiment’s missile battery to destroy the Kiesche if we should lift from our berth again.”
“Command, this is Six,” Daniel said orally to the ship’s officers. “Signals, can you lock it out, and why didn’t the Garrison alert their own missiles, over?”
“Lieutenant Cory has locked both batteries,” Adele said, switching to voice communication. “The Garrison battery has land-line communication to its headquarters, which I cannot intercept as yet. I would guess that Mursiello alerted his own troops as soon as we contacted Brotherhood Control, whereas radioing the Regiment battery was more a matter of hope than expectation. Ah, over.”
“The Regiment crew wouldn’t have taken Garrison orders without agreement from Mistress Tibbs,” Daniel said. “Which they wouldn’t have gotten, though she might not have known what was going on, over.”
Spacers opened hatches in all occupied compartments, including two on the bridge. The main hatch would remain closed until the hull and the ship’s immediate surroundings had cooled, but there wasn’t the risk of binding and warping smaller hatches. Air puffed in, drawing with it steam and the sharp bite of ozone.
“Six, there’s rockets aimed at us from the seawall!” Sun said at the work station on which he’d brought up a gunnery array. “A whole rocket launcher under a tarp so we didn’t see it coming down! Sir, I can’t bear on them by twenty-two degrees! Can you swing us around so I can bear, just a little bit?”
“Negative!” Daniel said. “Mundy, can you—”
“No,” said Adele, anticipating the rest of the question. “It has manual controls and the sights are optical. I can jam radio signals to the crew, but I would expect them to launch even without orders if we open fire. And they’re only fifty yards away. Over.”
The launcher was a three-tier—three/two/three—rack of eight-inch rockets. They were short-range and unguided; the sort of weapon that might be used to bombard a city or to serve a freighter as defensive armament against pirates. The bursting charges might not penetrate the Kiesche’s hull, but they would stun and possibly kill everyone aboard.
“I got it,” Hogg said, standing at the hatch between the bridge and hold. He wasn’t netted in, but shut down as now in harbor, the background noise was the relatively slight chorus of squeaks, clinks and hisses of the freighter cooling.
Hogg reached into the arms locker beside the hatch and came out with a stocked impeller. “I’ll open the airlock and wait on the spine till it’s time. Right?”
“Yes,” said Daniel, rising from the console. He tugged at his utilities, pulling down the trousers which must have ridden up.
“And master?” Hogg said. “Nobody else goes outside with a gun, got it? I don’t want somebody starting the party before I’m ready.”
“Yes,” Daniel said again.
“Master Hogg?” said Hale, standing in the hold with a carbine. “You get the mechanism—”
She nodded to the stocked impeller. Adele had seen similar weapons smash through brick walls.
“—and I’ll take care of the personnel. On your call.”
Hale hefted her carbine. She was probably able to handle a full-sized weapon like Hogg’s, but she obviously preferred the virtues of accuracy and rapid recovery from recoil.
“Yeah, all right,” Hogg said. “On my call.”
Adele nodded approvingly. She touched her own pistol, a light weapon that would have been no more than a dangerous toy in most hands.
The inner airlock door on the bridge was already open. Hogg disappeared into it; a moment later Hale followed him up the ladder.
“Brotherhood Control to Kiesche,” the radio boomed. “Kiesche, keep your personnel on board until the envoys have been carried to the Manor. A vehicle is on its way. I repeat, nobody else sets foot outside the vessel! Control out!”
Cory looked at Daniel again.
Adele got up from the console. “Agree,” she said to Daniel. “There’s no choice.”
Then, “Lieutenant Angelotti, give me your tunic and cap.”
As Adele spoke, she opened the press-seal closure of her own beige tunic. Her trousers were beige also instead of the bleached white—rather grubby now—of Angelotti’s uniform trousers. Angelotti’s bright-red tunic was enough.
“Acknowledge them, Cory,” said Daniel, standing up also. His face suddenly became stricken. “They’ll recognize Bourbon and they’d recognize me.”
Bourbon, who seemed to have understood the situation as quickly as Adele and Daniel had, stood up. He no longer looked as though he were at death’s door. Though in fact now he is facing probable death.
