by Sharon Lee
"Taliofi's pretty far in for the Enemy to reach," she said, which was true.
"It's long been identified as one of the nexus points in the undertrade. A good bit of sheriekas wares come through Taliofi." He cocked an eyebrow. "Unless Rint dea'Sord didn't trade with the Enemy?"
"Rint dea'Sord traded with who and for what brought the most profit." Her voice was lazy, like they were talking about any commonplace. "Mining the planet—doesn't strike me as like him. He'd've just pulled back to one of his other worlds and set up ops there." She lifted a shoulder. "Which he might've done anyway, there being no way of telling which particular atoms in a floating cloud of debris happened to have been him."
"Loriton says they got surveillance on him quick," he pointed out. "It doesn't look like he moved on. It does look like the sheriekas thought an example was in order."
The winged brows drew together in a frown.
"Example?"
"We can reach in and crush you whenever and wherever we like," Jela intoned, making his voice deep and loud enough to come off the decking like a bell. "Your world could be next. Fear us."
Cantra's lips twitched. "Tactics, is it?"
"Some of that. More, I'd think—and this is me, I don't have access to Commander Loriton's analysis—to destroy whatever was there that we'd be interested in and that they couldn't hope to hide, once the task force was down and searching."
"Well." Cantra glanced over her shoulder at the forward screen. "I didn't dislike the notion of holding Ser dea'Sord too busy to pursue a disagreement. I don't know that I find as much favor with a world going missing for my convenience. Our argument was with one man's ops. Extensive they were, but I have my doubts that Granny Li or Baby Ti took part in or benefit from them."
"Rint dea'Sord was trading with the Enemy," Jela said carefully. "That put him against us—by that I mean those of us who aren't sheriekas or sheriekas-made—and upgraded his actions from merely illegal to acts of war. He knowingly put that world and its people in harm's way. He knew what the sheriekas are and what they're capable of doing. Those deaths aren't yours—or mine—they're his."
The green eyes met his and he caught a flicker of—something, gone too fast for him to read. Her face was smooth and uncommunicative—which he knew by now was the expression that covered her retreat into the depths of herself. He waited, there being nothing else he could usefully do.
"Do the sheriekas have a line on this ship, then?"
The question surprised him—and then it didn't, as he recalled her priorities. He gave it the serious consideration it deserved, taking into account the things that Loriton hadn't said, and which his secondary source had touched on.
"In my estimation, the sheriekas have seen your ship, but there's no reason for them to have paid special attention to it, or to have it marked for reprisal. It was just one ship among many that happened to pass through Taliofi Yard."
"Not quite," her voice had a slight edge to it. He looked at her carefully.
"If you have info, Pilot, now's the time to share it with your co-pilot."
She sighed, lightly, reached behind her and spun the chair around. Dropped into it, and waved him to the co-pilot's station.
He sat, and spun to face her, arms on the rests, deliberately at ease. Almost, he began to project a line of goodwill, but caught himself, and raised an eyebrow instead, waiting.
A corner of her mouth lifted—maybe in appreciation. It wasn't any harm thinking so, at least.
"I ever tell you how I happened to be master of this ship?" Cantra asked. She must have known she hadn't, but if she was in a mood to trade camp tales, he had no objection to that.
So—"No, Pilot, you never have. I'd be willing to hear the story, though. If it can be told."
"It can be told," she answered, her voice taking on a certain, not-displeasing, rhythm.
"For some number of years, I sat co-pilot to Garen yos'Phelium, of out Clan Torvin. Garen being the very last of Clan Torvin—and for all I ever found, the first, too—when she died, the ship passed to me. No secrets there, and as straightforward and by-the-legal as you could ask for.
"Where the story gets murky and interesting, though, is a few years further back again. And the question you'll be wanting to ask yourself is this: Where did Garen get this ship? A pilot as fine as you are will have noticed there ain't nothing shabby or second-rate about this vessel. It has some interesting features, not the least of which is that first aid kit back there in the wall."
She sent him a sharp green glance. He lifted a hand, fingers framing, go on.
"Right. Now, it's well to remember that Garen didn't say much, and of those things she did say, you'd do well to discount half. Problem was knowing which half, if you take me."
"I knew somebody like that once," Jela said, to show that he was following her. "The war had taken him, shaken him up and pitched him out. He didn't have any context for the experience, couldn't put together what had happened inside his head. Worse luck, he was the only witness to an event of some interest to the military. Intelligence tried to get the info out of him by talking him through it." He raised both hands, showing empty palms. "They used drugs finally, then had the Generalists sort out the data-dump. Same problem—how to decide which was hard info and which was an attempt to rationalize what had happened."
"That would've been Garen," Cantra said, and sighed lightly. "What I pieced together—over years, now—from what she said and what she didn't, was that this ship came to her through captain's challenge, and that the captain defeated had been actively working for the Enemy, from which he had gotten the ship and all its glittery toys."
Jela inclined his head, not really surprised.
"And what Garen had used to say to me, as often as she said anything, was that the things built by the Enemy, they never forgot who made them, and they called out—and were heard."
He considered that, taking his time.
"There are ways to clean out sheriekas homers," he said finally.
Cantra lifted a hand, let it drop. "She cleaned house. Every time we got new snoop-tech, we cleaned house. That would be one of the reasons we have those guns you dote on, instead of the pretties that came with. The first aid kit—that we took our chances with, it being useful beyond the maybe of being heard. But now I'm wondering if there had been sheriekas listening at Taliofi—and if they might not have heard Dancer singing to them, and known her for one of their own."
He felt the words filling his mouth—the easy, comforting, not-quite-true words that soldiers said to civilians who were asking about things they had no capacity to understand. There was no doubting Cantra's understanding—and she wasn't one to value comfortable lies over hard truths. Tough didn't begin to describe Cantra yos'Phelium, heir to Garen, out of Clan Torvin, whoever and wherever they might be.
Sighing to himself, he swallowed the easy words, his fingers sketching the sign for thinking . . .
Across from him, she leaned back in her chair, relaxing bonelessly, apparently satisfied to await the outcome of his thinking, if thought took him fifty years.
It wasn't quite that long before he shifted straighter in his chair; the movement drew her eyes, and she gave him a comradely nod.
He returned it, and sighed, letting her hear it this time.
"The ship itself isn't sheriekas-made, though from what you tell me, they had the refitting of it. You're right to think that they would have seeded it with homers and tracers and all manner of listeners. Some would have been visible to our scans—more, as time went on. My 'skins did a scan when I first boarded—that's a military grade scan, and it might be that I have some things on-board that haven't made it out to the Dark Market yet—and the ship scanned clean. Whether we are clean . . . " He snapped his fingers.
"If we could read, discover, subvert or destroy everything the sheriekas can, have, or will produce, then we wouldn't be losing this war."
Silence for a beat of five, during which he was very conscious of the weight
of a cool green gaze against his cheek. She leaned forward in the chair, hands cupping her knees.
"So you think it's possible, but not likely, that Dancer was heard at Taliofi," she said. "And undecided on the issue of whether there's anything in fact to hear."
He inclined his head. "That's a fair summation, yes."
"And we're bound for the Uncle," she murmured, then gave him one of her wide, sudden grins, which was enough to make a soldier's heart beat faster, even knowing that it was more likely than not bogus.
"Does it occur to you, Pilot Jela, that life is about to get interesting?"
Twenty
On Port
Scohecan
THE GARRISON WAS a scarred survivor of the last war, its cermacrete gates patched and re-patched, the guard shack nothing more than cermacrete-roofed nook wedged between the front wall and the forward shield generating station.
The generator itself was of slightly more recent vintage—a venerable OS-633, which was, in Jela's opinion, the most stable of the old-style units—meticulously maintained.
By contrast, the security scans were only a generation or two behind current tech. Though they were maintained with the same attention as had been lavished upon the generator, it was obvious that the template library was outdated.
The M Series guards at least were aware of the deficiencies of their equipment. One approached him as he stepped off the scanning dock, holding a civilian issue security wand in one hand.
"Arms out at your sides, legs wide," she said. He complied; she used the wand with quick efficiency, and he was shortly cleared.
"Specialized equipment?" he asked as the second guard dealt with his docs and credentials.
The first guard gave him a look of bland innocence. "Adjunct equipment, sir."
And very likely added into inventory and standard search procedures without recourse to such details as the commandant's approval. Though, if the commandant was also an M . . .
"Papers in order," the second guard said, holding them out.
Jela received the packet gravely and slipped it into an easily accessible pocket. The first guard spoke briefly into the comm; turned with a nod.
"Escort's on the way. The commandant has been informed of your request."
"Understood," Jela said, and followed the first guard out into the yard to await the promised escort. Overhead, filtered through Level One shielding, the sky was a slightly smoky green that reminded him improbably of Cantra yos'Phelium's eyes. The star was approaching its zenith, and frost glittered in the shrinking pockets of shadow.
Jela sighed; his breath formed a tiny cloud of vapor, then dissipated.
"Pretty planet," he commented to the guard.
She lifted a shoulder. "It's pretty today. Come back during the rains and tell me what you think then."
"I think I'd like it better than no rain at all," he said.
"There's that." She jerked her head toward a two-man scooter heading toward them at a brisk clip. "Here's the escort. Make sure your pockets are sealed. Sir."
The escort was an X, his face bearing three modest diagonal stripes—green-yellow-green—and appeared to treasure speed above all other things. Jela had scarcely gotten astride the scooter before they were off, blowers howling, dust and frost whipping off the paving in a glittering whirl.
The noise from the blowers made talking at anything less than battle-voice an exercise in futility, and even if conversation had been possible, Jela wouldn't have wanted to break the lad's concentration. It was clear he thought he was very good—and, measured by the ruler of speed and missed collisions, he was. What he was not, was a pilot, though his reactions were top-notch, for Common Troop. It also seemed to Jela that a couple of the near-grazes with walls and other traffic were done not so much in the interest of haste, but to maybe see if a rise could be gotten out of the old M.
Jela sat on the back of the scooter, hands cupped over his knees, swaying bonelessly with the scooter's rhythm and considered whether or no the corporal—the X was a corporal—was entitled to his game. It was a complex question, and he gave it serious thought as they hurtled noisily across the yard, zigged and zagged down a short series of ramps, and roared, with no diminishment of speed into the drop shaft.
There was a boggle at the edge of the shaft. The scooter wobbled and tried to skid—which was the excessive speed, of course. Jela shifted his weight, the scooter steadied, the escort racheted the thrust down, killed the lifters—and they were in, stable, upright and falling gently within a pall of blessed silence.
"Appreciate the assist," the X said over his shoulder. "Sir."
That was properly done, thought Jela, and decided that the kid had a right to his fun, as long as no harm came from it, and that the near-disaster with the scooter may have instructed him more than a lecture from an emissary, whose mind ought to be on the upcoming interview with the commandant, anyway.
Silently, he sighed. In his experience—which was now approaching considerable—the upcoming interview could play out along one of two broad avenues, with several minor variations of each possible, to keep things interesting.
Out here in what Pilot Cantra styled the "Mid-Rim," it was possible that the commandant would be willing to hear him—willing to hear his message, and might also know something that would be of use to his mission. The physical shape of the garrison, with its multiply-patched walls, crumbling cermacrete barracks and outmoded security system—it was clear what was going on, and unless the commandant was a fool—which had, he reminded himself, with a certain garrison commander further In foremost in his mind, been known to happen—Unless the commandant was a fool, he had to know what this lack of proper care from Command foretold. Had to . . .
The scooter's fans came on, momentarily deafening, then they were out of the shaft and moving at an tolerably responsible speed down a wide access corridor. They gained the center hall, and hovered over a vacant scooter stand. The corporal scaled back the fans—and Jela was off and on his feet. The kid did all right with the resulting buck and snarl from the equipment and gentled it into the stand before killing the lift entirely, stepping off and giving Jela a terse nod.
"This way, sir."
Across the center hall and down an admin tunnel they went, the corporal moving at a lope, Jela at his heels. At the end of the tunnel was a door; before it stood a guard—another X, with the same green-yellow-green tattoo favored by his escort. She took the corporal's duty card, ran it through the reader, waited for the blue light, and waved them past. The door parted down the center as they approached and they entered the commandant's office at a spanking pace.
Two steps into the room, Jela halted, allowing his escort to go ahead an additional four steps, halt and salute the man behind the desk.
"Corporal Thilrok reporting, sir," he stated crisply. "I have brought the emissary."
The commandant waved an answering salute. "I see that you have, Corporal, thank you. Please leave us."
"Sir." The corporal executed a nice sharp turn and marched out, eyes front. The door sealed silently behind him.
Jela stepped up to the square of rug Corporal Thilrok had recently vacated and delivered up his own salute.
"M. Jela Granthor's Guard, Pilot Captain," he said, maybe not quite as crisp as the kid.
The officer behind the desk smiled slightly. He was a slender man, with sandy hair going thin, and lines showing around eyes and mouth—not a Series soldier.
Jela wondered briefly if the post were a punishment, then lost the thought as the commandant returned his salute and pointed at a chair which had apparently been carved from native wood back in misty memory and had applied all the time since to becoming quaintly decrepit.
"Sit, Captain, and tell me why you're here."
Gingerly, Jela sat, poised to come upright if the chair showed any immediate signs of collapse.
The commandant smiled more widely.
"The locals call that stonewood," he said. "It'll hold you, Captain�
�and two more just like you, sitting on your knees."
"No need for a crowd," Jela murmured, settling back. Not so much as a creak from the chair. He let himself relax, and put his hands on the arms, agreeably surprised by the smooth warmth of the wood under his fingers.
He looked up and met the commandant's eyes—blue they were, and tired, and wary.
"I'm sent," he said slowly, "to give a quiet warning. The consolidated commanders advise that it may be wise for this garrison to have local forces and supply lines in place and at ready, and for the commanding officer to be prepared to act independently."
There was a small silence. The commandant put his elbows on his desk and laced his hands together, resting his chin on the backs.
"The consolidated commanders," he said eventually, with the inflection of a query. "Not High Command."
The man was quick.
"Not High Command, sir," Jela said. "No."
"I see." Another silence, while the commandant looked at him and through him, then a sigh. "You will perhaps not be surprised, Captain Jela, to learn that this garrison has for some time been on short supply. We have not been receiving necessary upgrades—you will have noticed, I'm certain, the security arrangements at the entry point. Requisitioned supplies and replacement equipment simply do not show up. We're already drawing on local resources, Captain. More than I like."
"Understood, sir, and I wish I was here to tell you that your supply lines have been re-opened, and there's a refurb unit on its way to bring everything up to spec." He paused, considering the man before him—the lined face, the tired eyes.
One sandy eyebrow arched, eloquently ironic.
"We don't often get our wishes, do we?" he murmured. "Especially not the pleasant ones. What else are you here to tell me, Captain?"
Good man, thought Jela, approving both the irony and the sentiment.
"The High Command will soon be issuing a fall-back order."
The commandant frowned. "Fall back? To what point?"
"Daelmere, sir."
Three heartbeats. Four. The commandant straightened, unlaced his fingers, and placed his hands flat atop the desk.
