Mourner

by Irene Radford

  “So you see, Jake, I really am missing something important. As important as Marsh and Ashell.”

  Sissy’s anguished voice broke Jake’s contemplation of the ghostly presence. The old man’s shade hadn’t left him since he died on the holy refuge of Serenity.

  No body certainly opened a shit storm of problems on Harmony. With Gregor not legally dead, he was still HP, and Sissy could not bring on board someone compatible with her reformist thinking.

  “Sissy, we watched your crew load the coffin into the cargo hold.”

  She nodded, blinking tears of frustration away. “But when we came out of hyperspace and loaded everything onto shuttles to land, apparently everyone thought the casket was in the other shuttle. It wasn’t in either.”

  “Not everyone sleeps through hyperspace. That’s the only time someone could have dumped the body,” Jake said absently. He rarely took the sleepy drugs . . . unless he didn’t want to confront a ghost from his past. More than just the late HP of Harmony. All of them willing to jab darts of guilt into his mind.

  “The captain is questioning everyone. His crew are all blood relatives, though. Clan and caste loyalty supersedes . . .” Sissy choked.

  “What do you suspect, Sissy?”

  “I have no evidence other than the audacity of impoliteness.”

  “That’s a starting place. Tell me. I can put pressure on Kalek to question deeper.”

  “The shuttle pilot was resentful of . . . of my caste marks.” Her beloved face on the screen frowned. “His caste mark was recently lauded, but the whole thing looked raw and . . . and blurred.”

  Alarm bells rang in Jake’s head. He knew how easily a caste mark could be altered or created by the injection of nanobots. That was how his own was created when he lived undercover as a spy on Harmony and became Sissy’s bodyguard. And learned to love her.

  “I have connections. Let me pull strings down the chain of command,” he said. He ran his finger along the edge of the screen, as close as he could get to touching her.

  A noise at his office door distracted him. “Um . . . Sissy, I’ll call you back as soon as I know something.”

  “I have to meet with the rest of Crystal Temple. Formal greetings and rituals.” She blew him a kiss and discommed.

  “Need something, Admiral?” Jake asked without looking up.

  “So formal, Jake?” Pamela Marella, Admiral and spymaster of the Confederated Star Systems, said.

  “That’s General Devlin, to you, Pammy.” He was the only person still alive who dared call her Pammy.

  “From what I overheard . . .”

  “You eavesdropped on a private conversation.” He turned away and ushered Marsh and Ashell into his private sitting room adjacent to the public office. He didn’t want the children upset if—when—the conversation heated up. The woman he’d commandeered to act as nanny nodded acknowledgment and pressed hard on the door control. It irised closed into containment mode. No sound would penetrate.

  “Eavesdrop, that’s what I do, Jake,” Pammy said, taking the chair opposite him as if she had the right. “I’m a spy. I command spies. It is our job to listen to every private conversation in the galaxy. You should know. You are one of mine.”

  Jake tried not to let his inward wince show. “I don’t belong to you anymore, Pammy. There are some things . . .”

  “Nothing is outside my jurisdiction, Jake. Even your love affair with High Priestess Sissy.”

  “I’d hardly call one kiss an affair, Pammy.” He ran his gaze up and down her voluptuous figure, lingering on her impressive bust. “At one time I thought you and I were having an affair.” He arched an eyebrow in mock invitation.

  She had the grace to look away. But she didn’t blush.

  “Ah, but your one kiss with Laudae Sissy took place in public. It was a declaration of intent. Our one night together was . . . casual recreation.”

  “It was manipulation, pure and simple. You use sex to convince men to take on dangerous jobs no one sane would tackle.” He looked away, trying to find something on his desk that needed doing so urgently he could convince the spymaster to leave him alone.

  “Come back to work for me, Jake. You weren’t meant to be a bureaucrat.” She reached across the massive desk as if to take his hand.

  He kept well beyond touching distance. “No, thank you. I don’t want to work for you. I like commanding the First Contact Café.”

  “I outrank you, Jake. I could order . . .”

  “You’ve been an admiral longer than I have been a general. That doesn’t mean you outrank me. Actually, on this station I outrank everyone but God.” Or maybe Laudae Sissy.

  “Then order me off the station.”

  “I find it useful having you aboard.”

  “Oh?”

  “You hear things I need to know. And now that Sissy has taken all of her girls back to Harmony, I have to rebuild my own information gathering system. What have you heard that brought you out of the depths of your own wing on the station?” The damaged wing that was said to be haunted by the Squid People who’d crashed into it.

  “Excuse me, General Devlin,” Mara interrupted through the comms.

  “Yes, Major.” He ran his thumb down the command line. All he got on the screen was pixilated squares. His spine stiffened, and the hairs along his arms bristled. The previous owners of the station had had the best comms. They just hadn’t used them. Or hired people to use them.

  He beckoned Pammy to come around the desk and see the static interference. Her eyes widened as she pulled a gadget out of her pocket and waved it in all directions, trying to locate the source. She kept turning around and around, then expanded her circle of search. And still didn’t settle in any one direction.

  If someone managed to jam signals there in Jake’s wing, then her own secret units were vulnerable, too.

  “What do you need, Mara?” Jake asked with forced calm.

  “There’s another message from the bankers of D’Or. Shall I put it through?”

  Pammy whirled to face him, her search forgotten. “Another?” she mouthed.

  Jake suppressed his smile. So. She’d missed something important on the station. Interesting. “Where were you that you didn’t hear the conversation broadcast to the entire station?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  “Where I needed to be at that moment, without the distraction of comms.”

  In other words, she’d been spying somewhere he would have declared off limits.

  “Put the message through, Major,” he said, still keeping his eyes on Pammy.

  She sidled next to him to view the screen embedded in the desk and yet remain out of sight to the caller.

  Instantly the images cleared as the reptilian face filled all of the available space. Pammy began tapping notes into her wrist comm.

  “Labyrinthe Twenty-One be notified that I come.” Again the lips did not move. This time, though, the voice was more clearly a male tenor, with the same slightly Mediterranean—Italian maybe?—lilt as before.

  “Thank you for the notification, sir. But this space station is now The First Contact Café. You have the wrong location.”

  The lizard’s forked tongue flicked in and out twice. “We have the right location. You have named the place incorrectly. Renaming is not allowed in the mortgage agreement.”

  “As I said before: we do not acknowledge the existence of the mortgage. We have the right to name this place anything we want.”

  Pammy called up a search engine on a separate screen on his desk. She rapidly scrolled past multiple files.

  “Argue later.” The voice sounded strained, exhausted. Did that explain the incomplete sentences? “Prepare docking.”

  “I’ll transfer you over to control. They will assess your atmospheric and gravity needs and set your docking, unloading, and habitation fees accordingly.” He flicked a finger over the proper icon to transfer the call.

  “Mortgage?” Pammy settled into her chair as if ready to stay
for a good long gossip. “I couldn’t find anything that looked like mortgage documents. But then I looked rather quickly on your screens. I need my own files.”

  How much should he tell her?

  “You might as well spill it all, Jake. I’ll figure it out on my own. Maybe after it’s too late to help you.”

  “Just another normal day at the First Contact Café. One crisis after another, all thinking they are the ultimate life and death situation demanding all of my attention.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Nothing in life is certain but death and taxes.”

  “And . . . ?”

  He grew tired of resisting, knowing she wouldn’t go away unless he bodily threw her out.

  So he told her about the previous demands from the mysterious bankers of D’Or.

  “You know that D’Or is an ancient word for gold?” she asked, taking a different gadget out of her thigh pocket and waving it over his desk. All the lights and icons blinked and flashed new colors, then settled back into its normal pattern. Except the comms section looked black and inert.

  “Yes, I knew. So why did you protect this room from eavesdroppers?” Jake asked. His fingers itched to turn his entire desk back to normal.

  “Because I’ve heard some strange things about these people.”

  “Few others on this station have.”

  “It’s my job to recruit spies in unlikely places in all quadrants, including the original First Contact Café Prime.”

  He nodded acceptance of that.

  “You don’t want to cross them,” Pammy continued. “They are extremely dangerous.” She paced the perimeter of the room with her gadget held before her like a weapon. Interesting that she skirted Gregor’s corner without missing a step or noting how wide a berth she gave it. Instinctively?

  “Should I arm the cannons and mass the troops?” Jake asked, amused that even Pammy avoided ghosts.

  “Normal tactics won’t work. The bankers will break through your puny defenses in an eye blink. They could vaporize the entire station with one shot. Worse they can destroy your credit, credibility, and communications. You’ll be cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Not even your precious Sissy will be able to break through.”

  That alarmed him more than the threat of isolation.

  “But they won’t do it. This place is an asset they think they own. From what little I’ve heard about our dragon friends, they hoard assets and are trying to take over the galaxy by owning it all.”

  “They consider other species as lesser beings and worthy only of slavery,” she said quietly. “I will not be a slave to anyone. Not to you, Jake, to the Confederated Star Systems, and definitely not to a dinosaur.”

  “Amen to that. Discord, I wish Sissy were here with her girls to help me figure this out.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, Jake. I’ll be in touch.” She sauntered out, consulting all of her gadgets at once.

  Chapter Five

  Garrin wiped sweat from his face and his nape. Mother would berate him endlessly for lack of decorum if he appeared before her in this state. “What am I going to do?” he asked the rotating platforms of the lift that would take him down to the mid-grav levels of the Harmony diplomatic wing. Lady Jancee da Gemma du Lukan endured the humiliation of having to deal with aliens and lower castes by insisting upon proper protocol and decorum from those around her. She should never have left Harmony.

  Or at least she should have returned there with Father. But her lucky seventh pregnancy, even though it came late in her life, weighed heavily on her, and the vagaries of hyperspace would endanger both her and the baby. “She’s too old to endanger herself with another baby. Maybe that’s why she ordered me to . . . ”

  He stepped off the lift one level above the Noble suites. Professional caste employees occupied this level. Twenty doors encircled the lift and the spiral staircase that wound around the mechanism. A female accountant, wearing a conservative dress with a flared skirt in the bright green of her caste, bustled across the lobby toward another door. Garrin knew that a merchant with trade treaty interests lived and worked there.

  “My lord.” The woman placed her palms together in front of her and bowed deeply, lowering her eyes.

  “Mistress Gretel da Gertrude du Lukan.” He nodded to her, trying hard to keep his focus on the top of her head and not remember how her long auburn curls draped across her naked breast.

  She blushed prettily, but gave no other indication that she knew him more intimately than working in close proximity called for. “How may I assist you, my lord?” Did she put special emphasis on assist?

  “Thank you, no, Mistress. I . . . um . . . need to speak to my mother.” Heat rose from his neck to his ears. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. But then her green triangle caste mark, ennobled by a blue circle—meaning she had been tested and proved above average intelligence and loyalty—caught his attention. His own blue diamond seemed to burn his skin in its pulsing demand that he love only within his caste.

  He could never marry her. If she bore him a child he could not acknowledge it. It would bear her caste mark, never his. The marks always defaulted to lower.

  Except . . . Laudae Sissy wore all seven marks. Except . . . the number of mutants needing to be exposed at birth or confined to an asylum increased each year.

  The caste marks were breaking down.

  His mother would never acknowledge a change in culture, or biology, or even the changes coming from Temple once the original covenant stones had been revealed. The original laws handed down from Goddess Harmony had to be illegal fakes, in her opinion. The idea that High Priests over the centuries had altered the laws to fit their own philosophy or preferences was anathema to her.

  And what Lady Jancee did not want to see did not exist.

  He nodded to his lover once more and descended by the staircase. He could delay reporting to Mother no longer.

  “Is it done?” Lady Jancee demanded, the moment Garrin made his obeisance in her private parlor.

  She rested on a lounge with her head supported by pillows and her feet elevated. A soothing, cool drink sat on a low table by her elbow. He didn’t need to sniff it to know that she indulged in forbidden alcohol. At home she’d never find a legal source for this . . . whisky, he thought that was the word General Jake used . . . At home she wouldn’t even know it existed on either Harmony or other worlds.

  Not that she’d accept that other worlds existed outside the Harmonite Empire. She barely accepted this space station in neutral space and tolerated living here because General Jake Devlin had kept his Military Caste mark after departing Harmony, and his post as Laudae Sissy’s bodyguard.

  Garrin glanced longingly toward his office. “Yes, Mother. The cargo hauler hid the body inside a locked closet in the docking bay between standard and heavy gravity levels in a wing that is not in use. No heat. No atmosphere in that wing or either of the other two in the cluster. It will be available when we are ready to bury Lord Gregor and pass his authority to a priest of our choosing. But until then no one will find him. You planned this well, Mother.” He hadn’t actually seen the body, but that was where he’d told the docker to hide it.

  Look for it where you’d least expect to find it.

  Sweat dripped down his back once again. His only hope was that he’d find the body before his mother demanded it. She’d never go look herself.

  “Of course I planned it properly. I only wish your father recognized my talents as well. Harmony only knows he can’t see farther than the end of his nose. We must consider his absence from this station a blessing. I need to send a private message to Harmony. Set up the link.”

  “Yes, Mother. Prerecorded or live visual?” He sidled toward the door that connected this section of the suite to the offices. “I’ll need to make arrangements with the comms officer on duty.”

  “Make sure the officer on duty is one of our military and not some barefaced troll. It is horrible that we must share communications wi
th the others. They can’t possibly have enough intelligence to do their jobs. Our people will keep the conversation secret. They have no choice or I’ll have their heads. All of them.”

  He bowed again, taking two more sideways steps.

  “While we wait for the link, send the cargo hauler to me. I need to make certain he will not speak of our abduction of High Priest Gregor to anyone.”

  “Mother, you do not have the authority to take his head here on the station.” He nearly gagged. He had an awful feeling his mother would insist and demand he carry out the illegal execution.

  “Nonsense. This wing has diplomatic immunity. Who will miss a common worker caste?”

  “I cannot bring the man to you.”

  “Then summon him. He must obey.”

  “No, he doesn’t have to obey. He is not from Harmony. Nor is he bound by his caste. They don’t have castes here on the station.”

  “Then make certain he does obey.”

  “Mother, I can’t.”

  “Why?” She narrowed her eyes and peered at him. A frown creased her face.

  The hair on his nape and spine stood straight up.

  “Mother, the man ran off the moment I gave him the money. I have no idea where he went or how to find him again.”

  “You fool. You should have gutted him on the spot. Now go back to the bar where you first hired him. These workers are creatures of habit. They don’t know any better. Find him and bring him back here.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “After you set up the link.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Martha carried the heavy headdress and beaded veil from the stand inside Laudae Sissy’s wardrobe to where the High Priestess sat before her grooming mirror. The twenty-one strands of beads, smoky gray glass rounds liberally mixed with black Badger Metal stars, designed to completely mask the wearer’s face—and thus make each member of the clergy anonymous so no cult of personality could arise—clanked together in a discordant rhythm that set Martha’s teeth on edge. A memory of a migraine stabbing into her eye made her flinch.