The Devil and Deep Space

by Susan R. Matthews

  It was an order even a physician had to obey. The doctor bowed. “Going for transport kit directly,” he said. “According to his Excellency’s good pleasure.”

  He left the room. That left Ivers, Cousin Stanoczk, and Andrej’s father, if one disregarded the technicians for the moment.

  “It is necessary?” his father asked. Andrej nodded.

  “It is crucial.” That didn’t make it easier; just explained why it had to be done. “To save the lives of my Security, and possibly many more beside. I am I regret still your unfilial son. And will challenge the Bench if I must.”

  It was a reference to the letter that his father had sent him after the trials at the Domitt Prison. His father did not rebuke him for the reproach, however; it was almost as good as an apology. “Come back soon, then, son Andrej,” his father said. “I want you home. And you have explaining to do to the Ichogatra.”

  Yes. He did. And if his punishment for marrying Marana was to be the negotiation of reparations and new contracts in light of the prejudicial cancellation of the planned contract of marriage — he was still ahead of the game.

  Andrej held out his left arm — with some difficulty, because his muscles ached. His son had embraced him. He could not embrace his father, not under these circumstances. But he could indicate his desire to. “I will come home when I can, sir,” he said. Promised. “Depend upon it.”

  A long handclasp, a paternal kiss, and Andrej’s father turned around and went away. There was nothing more to say. Maybe his father couldn’t say anything more anyway.

  He’d have to say good–bye to his mother, if he had time, but now there was only Stoshik to get through and he could leave. “Who is to beg forgiveness from Marana?” Andrej asked. “As I am taking Ferinc with me, Stoshik. Somebody must go and explain. This is the last thing anyone could have expected.”

  Stoshik was very pale. “It shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “I blame myself. Derush, we are supposed to have better care for you than to allow you to be assaulted by madwomen. Specialist Ivers, what do you know of this?”

  Stanoczk had to know that Ivers knew nothing. He was just playing the scenario out; Ivers was an envoy from Chilleau Judiciary, after all. Noycannir had belonged to Chilleau. It could be made to look ugly. The Combine would make Chilleau pay dearly for the potential of the appearance of a conspiracy to assassinate the son of the Koscuisko prince.

  “I probably know even less than you do.” Ivers seemed to have no stomach for the play; or else her blunt frankness was her role. Perhaps that. “I will report to the First Secretary as soon as is prudently possible. But I feel completely confident in this much: Noycannir was on her own. Chilleau Judiciary has no hand in this.”

  Maybe Chilleau Judiciary was going to have to leave the issue of the thula alone, after all. Andrej didn’t feel that he had much time; the drugs were fast overtaking his consciousness. “Stoshik, I’ll come back as soon as I can. If I can. Speak to Marana for me, I beg you. This is grotesque injustice to her. But I can see no option worth considering.”

  “Taisheki space,” Stanoczk said, his reply indirect but obvious enough. “Ferinc will have the briefing. Good travel, Andrej, Bench specialist. We can speak again when you’ve come home, Derush.”

  Stanoczk wouldn’t tell him anything about the Bench warrant, not in Ivers’s presence. Had he got everything? The doctor was back with a medical team, and they had brought a stasis–mover with them, an inclined sort of a mechanized bed — they meant him to be as thoroughly stabilized as possible.

  How many days to Taisheki, even in a thula, and confined within a stasis–mover? Andrej closed his eyes wearily, overcome with dread at the prospect. Once he closed his eyes, they stayed closed. The drugs pulled him down into the darkness, and he was lost.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Order of Battle

  The thula was compact and very efficient, but it had clearly been built for speed rather than comfort. Jils wasn’t quite happy with the prospect of spending two or three days alone on this thula with Andrej Koscuisko alone as far as medical resources went — but neither had Koscuisko’s own family physicians been; they had trammeled him up so thoroughly that the odds of his doing injury to himself were minimized. The odds of him doing anything at all were minimized.

  There were Security in the wheelhouse with the Malcontent Cousin Ferinc, learning the thula; more Security in the narrow corridors outside the low–ceilinged cabin in which Koscuisko rested. She’d heard Cousin Stanoczk say that the Malcontent would have a briefing for Koscuisko. But for that, Koscuisko had to be awake.

  Andrej Koscuisko hadn’t awakened in the day since the thula had taken the vector for Taisheki. The house physicians would have put his medications on time–release. It was what she would have done with Koscuisko under the circumstances, but was she to sit and watch an unconscious invalid all the way to Fleet Audit Appeals Authority? She needed to talk to him.

  She sat in the little cabin and waited, sharing the time with the others on board. Rank was no respecter of duty rosters, and they all needed Security to fly the thula, which meant that every waking moment she could spend on watch freed one of the Security to learn the operational characteristics of this elegant and fearful machine. Familiarity with fast spacecraft was a good thing. It decreased the chances that someone would make a wrong move and kill them all.

  Toward the end of the shift Chief Stildyne came into the cabin with two flasks of something steaming and hot and offered her one. “Rhyti,” Chief Stildyne said, as though he was apologizing. “Nothing much else by way of stimulants. Dolgorukij, you know. How’s the officer?”

  “About the same.” Exactly the same. The wound was well dressed, but it still smelled like raw flesh, and Koscuisko did not move. Koscuisko couldn’t move. That stasis–mover was a piece of work. “Either it’s much worse than they let on, or he really annoyed them.”

  The latter, she thought, and Chief Stildyne by his smile seemed to agree. She wished he wouldn’t smile. His lips were thin to begin with, and when he smiled they disappeared entirely, so that his face looked even more like a fleshless skull than it normally did. It was nothing personal. She liked Stildyne, he was among the best Warrants she’d ever worked with. But he was ugly.

  Stildyne stood looking at Koscuisko in the stasis–mover; Koscuisko opened his eyes, frowning. Just like that. How long had he been awake? “Brachi,” Koscuisko said. “Where am I?”

  Stildyne made a peculiar face that Jils couldn’t exactly interpret. He fit his flask of rhyti into Koscuisko’s good hand before he spoke, guiding it with care. It wasn’t easy for Koscuisko to drink. Stildyne adjusted the stasis–mover’s indices more toward the vertical; Koscuisko drank again. “On vector for Taisheki Station, sir. Two days out. Cousin Ferinc wants to talk to you, now or later.”

  Koscuisko’s eyes wandered, but he focused on Stildyne’s face with an apparent effort. “In one day and sixteen hours, Chief, you are going to find whatever drug delivery system they have me plugged into, and you are going to pull it. I’ll want to be awake. Ferinc is where?”

  Stildyne took the flask away. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” It was a joke. Koscuisko seemed too deep in medicated drowsiness to notice.

  This couldn’t be a good time, but the question needed

  asking. “What do you want me to do with the documents, sir?”

  Koscuisko frowned again, lifting his head away from the padded headboard of the stasis–mover. “Oh. Bench specialist. Documents? Yes. Those.”

  He seemed to be lucid, just easily distracted. Jils repeated the question. “What am I do to with the documents, your Excellency?”

  “I may need to remain at my post for some days, Specialist Ivers.” He spoke slowly, but she could catch no sense that his mind wandered. Either it was an effort for him to speak, or else he wanted to be very sure of what he was saying. “I don’t yet know. I think it may be best if you gave them to me. I will call for you, when I am ready.”<
br />
  Yes, but that meant that his relief of Writ would go unrecorded until then. “With your permission, sir.” She wanted to satisfy herself that he knew what it was that he was doing. “You have for so long sought to set your Writ aside or, rather, regretted its exercise.”

  He nodded, with a considering expression on his face that she could not quite interpret. She pressed on, to try to see if he was truly listening. “Are you sure of what you do, sir? We don’t know what may be happening. Without these documents, you remain subject to Fleet discipline. You know that.”

  Koscuisko’s eyes tracked across the room from object to object; was he trying to focus? When he spoke, it was with perfect clarity, lucid and precise. She could not imagine that he was drugged and raving. There was too much implacable logic in what he was saying.

  “Thank you for your care, Specialist Ivers. But here is the truth of it. It is not relief of Writ that frees me from the further commission of crimes in the name of the Judicial order. It is only my own determination which suffices for that. The Fleet and the Bench may do as they like with me, but I will be guided by my own heart. I cannot say decency. I’m unsure whether I have any left.”

  Stildyne was back with the Malcontent, Cousin Ferinc, and more rhyti. Stildyne gave her a sharp look, as though accusing her of tiring Koscuisko in his absence; but there was no help for it. She had needed to know. Koscuisko had shaken himself free of the last of his cultural conditioning: he was a free man. That made him more dangerous than he had ever been.

  “News for you, sir,” Cousin Ferinc said, carefully, not raising his voice but fixing his attention very closely on Koscuisko’s face. “From Cousin Stanoczk. About the Ragnarok en route to Taisheki Station. Are you awake, your Excellency?”

  Koscuisko’s eyes seemed about ready to roll back in his head. Frowning, Koscuisko focused with apparent effort. “Almost, Ferinc. Speak quickly. You may have to tell me again later.”

  Ferinc nodded. “Appeal to the Fleet Audit Appeals Authority on improper acquisition of evidence improperly read. There is no Bench warrant for these crew, sir, but there are hints that Taisheki is not in a receptive mood, nonetheless.”

  “Get the documents,” Koscuisko said, to Chief Stildyne. Had he lost the braid? Or was it the last thing he wanted to say before he went down once more, as he clearly seemed about to do? “And remember. Four hours before. Pull the meds. I can’t stand this.”

  Did that mean she had to wait till then to hear what Ferinc knew of what might be happening at Taisheki Station?

  She had not been offered the use of the thula’s communications. She didn’t think she wanted it. The First Secretary needed to know about Noycannir, but the Combine could pass on that information. If she spoke to Verlaine he might give her instructions, and she might feel obliged to implement them. To seize the Record, by force if necessary, though all she could reasonably hope for on this trip would be to destroy it.

  Koscuisko needed that Record. The Ragnarok itself might need that Record. It was better if she avoided the mischance that Verlaine might look to his own interest and direct her to actions which would support the rule of Law but suborn justice.

  Garol Vogel had been there, years ago, at Port Charid. With his Langsariks. He had found a way to avoid an injustice, but it had cost him his lifelong submission to the rule of Law. He’d never been the same after Port Charid, and that was almost five years ago. Now it was her turn.

  “I’ll sit for a while,” Chief Stildyne said, which she knew perfectly well meant “Go away and leave me alone” in Stildyne. She was perfectly willing to. She needed to think.

  There was more to this problem than Mergau Noycannir and a forged Record, and she had very little time for analysis left before the thula reached Taisheki Station and she would have to decide what to do.

  ###

  From the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok to Fleet Audit Appeals Authority, Taisheki Station, greeting. On behalf of the crew and Command of this ship the following appeal is transmitted.

  Jennet ap Rhiannon sat alone behind the desk in the Captain’s office brooding over the printed text, analyzing it for the eighth or sixteenth time, wondering if she had said everything she’d wanted to. Wondering if her plea had been as convincing at Taisheki Station as she felt it to be from on board the Ragnarok.

  A recent accident at Pesadie Training Command took the life of Acting Captain Cowil Brem. Although no Ragnarok resources were active in the area at the time of the accident, Pesadie Training Command’s investigative focus has been on finding fault with the crew and craft that had just quit the area when the accident occurred.

  It just didn’t come out right. The words could not express her outrage; they didn’t communicate her determination.

  The preliminary assessment team posted by Pesadie Training Command took covert action to subvert ship’s security and obtain information illegally and inappropriately. Fleet Admiral Sandri Brecinn’s direct collusion in this cover–up was made evident by her resort to improperly obtained information as a basis to demand release of troops to stand the Question.

  Nowhere in these legal terms and careful phrases could she hear the words that were in her heart: I am responsible for these troops, these troops are blameless and not at fault. Once you start on troops it never ever stops at just the four or six or eight or twelve, and I will ram Pesadie Training Command with an explosive detonation charge before I will surrender one single soul to be used to cover up for her black marketing. It wasn’t there.

  She couldn’t say it, not in so many words; if her appeal was to succeed there had to be an out there, somewhere. She was in no position to back Taisheki into a corner and demand concessions. If the Appeals Authority would not listen to her appeal she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  Further evidence indicates the potential existence of systemic irregularities within the Pesadie Training Command injurious to the maintenance of the Judicial order.

  The talk–alert’s warning tone interrupted Jennet’s brooding. Swallowing back a sigh of resignation, she toggled into braid. “Ap Rhiannon. Yes.”

  “Engineering bridge, your Excellency. Requesting the pleasure of your company. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Wheatfields. It was unusual enough for anyone to actually hear from Wheatfields; but this was even more unusual, because he sounded excited. She thought that was what he sounded. She wasn’t sure she would be able to tell, not with Wheatfields.

  One way or the other she needed to go see what he was calling about. He was off–braid already, but she didn’t think it was a failure of military courtesy on his part. That would have been rude. When Wheatfields wanted to be rude he generally left one in no doubt at all about it.

  She hurried down from her office to the Engineering bridge with all deliberate speed, paying attention to the expressions and the deportment of the people in the hallways, showing the rank. She was their Captain. She had gotten them all into a very great deal of trouble and they had gone with her willingly. She owed them all acknowledgment of that; and a successful outcome, of course. Unless they all elected to dive into Pesadie Training Command with her.

  Ship’s First Officer was standing in the doorway of the observation deck when Jennet got there, waiting for her, his forehead creased in a worried frown but his face alive with what appeared to be good–humored excitement.

  “Hurry on in, your Excellency,” Mendez said. “You don’t want to miss this. Any of it. Someone’s tracking for intercept on vector. You’ll never guess.”

  This was nonsensical. Nobody tracked for intercept on vector. There was too much vector, for one. And the speed differentials required to make any difference during vector transit were extreme, for another. Hurrying through the doorway as Mendez had encouraged her Jennet made for the railing and looked down into the engineering bridge, to see what the aft scanners were saying.

  Mendez was right. There was an intercept blip. And it was moving faster than anything she had eve
r seen in her life. “Engineer,” Jennet said. “What is that ship?”

  Wheatfields looked up and over his shoulder at her from his post on the Engineering bridge below. “Do you like it?” Wheatfields asked, with a curious note of wistful lustfulness in his voice. “It’s a Kospodar thula. Koscuisko’s on board. Just say the word and I’ll blow it up for you.”

  “Start at the starting place, please.” To say “Wheatfields” would be rude, and “Serge” was out of the question. “Tell me what this is all about.”

  Wheatfields shook his head, as if in wonder. “Look at the spin vectors on that machine. I don’t know what to tell you, your Excellency. We only noticed it coming at us an eight or two ago. It’s not saying much. All it will tell us is that Koscuisko requests permission to come on board, and has two non–crew passengers.”

  “Strange,” Jennet said. This was not good news: if it was Koscuisko, he logically had Security with him, and she had wanted those Security kept out of the way. “He wasn’t due off leave for another two weeks at least, was he?”

  Something chimed on the Engineering bridge, a transmission alert. Wheatfields nodded at one of his people, and the transmission came up on shared audio.

  “Private courier ship, Aznir registry, Chief Medical Officer Andrej Ulexeievitch Koscuisko and party, two others. His Excellency wishes to rejoin his Command, and requires medical attention. Permission to come on board.”

  That “requires medical attention” sounded ominous. The Ragnarok’s maintenance atmosphere had been hulled over for vector transit; trying to pull a courier in was going to be tricky. “Engineer?” Jennet asked. “Can we rendezvous at all?”

  The authentication codes were scrolling across the base of a status–screen to one side of the Engineering bridge. Voice–identity confirmed: Lek Kerenko, Security 5.1, Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok.

  Wheatfields shot her a look that was half serious and half mock outrage. “Do I have to, your Excellency? I want the ship. Not Koscuisko. Thula, this is Ship’s Engineer, can you sustain position for entry with limited clearances?”