Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds

by Doyle, Debra; Macdonald, James D.

  PART TWO

  I.

  GALCEN: THE RETREAT; PRIME BASE NINGLIN: RUISI PORT

  THE HOVERCAR from the Retreat arrived at the Field just as General Ochemet was finishing his third cup of cha‘a. The Adept stood up, collected his staff from its place by the wall, and turned over the desk and the cha’a pot to his relief. Then he, Ochemet, and Gremyl sprinted through the rain—harder than a drizzle now, and stinging like cold needles—to the hovercar.

  The road up to the Retreat was narrow and full of switchbacks, and hugged the edge of the mountain all the way. There were no markers, and no warnings of crosswinds and sudden updrafts. Even the Adept, who presumably knew the terrain, had to concentrate on taking the car up what Ochemet strongly suspected was a path originally carved out of the mountainside in Galcen’s prespaceflight days.

  When they arrived at the Retreat itself, Ochemet’s suspicion became a certainty. The road ended outside a stone wall stretching up to a high tower, with a massive ironwood gate set into the wall at the bottom. More walls led off into the darkness to either side, and tower upon tower loomed from the fortress within. Ochemet had seen citadels like this before—smaller ones, carefully preserved relics of Galcen’s far-distant past, before the warring kingdoms of the Mother of Worlds became a single republic and sent out ships to explore the stars. The Retreat was as old as those, or even older, but Ochemet could have told just by looking—if he hadn’t known the truth already—that this was no museum, no cultural landmark with holographic dioramas and guided tours, but a living fortress that held and protected its own.

  Their escort must have given some kind of signal, because the great double doors of the gate moved slowly open to let the car glide through into a flagstoned outer courtyard. A glowcube set into the wall on one side of the yard illuminated a small inner doorway with its blue-white light. A figure in a dark cloak stood at the top of the steps leading up to the door, and Ochemet realized with a slight shiver that this was Master Ransome himself, his hood thrown back onto his shoulders and his black hair slicked down to his skull with rain.

  Nobody told him we were coming, Ochemet protested inwardly. Then he gave an impatient snort. These are Adepts, remember? They don’t need comm links.

  Master Ransome strode over to the side of the hovercar. The Adept who was driving open the front door to let the Master of the Guild slide into the seat beside him. The car turned smoothly around and was moving back out through the gate of the Retreat before Ransome spoke.

  “Gentlesirs, I’ve been expecting you,” he said. “I think that we should return to Prime Base together.”

  Master Ransome said nothing during the ride back down the mountain to the airfield. Ochemet kept silent as well, watching the driving rain out the window of the hovercar. Only Captain Gremyl and the junior Adept bothered with anything like conversation—mostly dealing with the technicalities of handling atmospheric craft under less than ideal conditions. Ochemet was content to have it that way: the fewer people who knew about the mess at Prime Base, the better.

  He still wasn’t entirely happy about the decision to bring in Errec Ransome, and the Guild Master’s motionless, un-speaking presence in the front seat of the groundcar did nothing to reassure him. We need him because he knows Metadi better than anyone else we’ve got, Ochemet told himself. They were privateers together, back before the Domina grabbed Jos out of Innish-Kyl and put him in charge of the war.

  But the strength of that connection also contributed to Ochemet’s discomfort. Errec Ransome had a self-control that was legendary these days, but Ochemet had heard stories of his earliest career—and especially of his time as copilot of Warhammer—which made the CO of Prime Base unwilling to be nearby when that control finally broke.

  Ransome already knows that something serious is happening … I wish I knew whether he saw it coming because he’s an Adept or because the Guild has an intelligence branch that’s a whole lot better than it ought to be.

  The weather at Retreat Field had not improved while they were gone, but Captain Gremyl managed a clean takeoff in spite of the antique strip. Once the aircar was riding in safety above the clouds and the buffeting wind, with the long flight back to Prime stretching out ahead, Ochemet knew he couldn’t postpone the inevitable any longer. He cleared his throat—but Errec Ransome forestalled him by speaking first.

  “You have a problem,” said the Guild Master. “And you hope that I can help you solve it.”

  Ochemet reminded himself not to get too impressed by Ransome’s pronouncement. Nobody’s going to think you traveled all the way from Prime Base just to breathe the fresh mountain air. Of course you’ve got a problem

  “We need your knowledge of a friend,” he said to Ransome. “General Metadi’s aide is dead. A pair of civilian employees found her body in a garbage hopper down in the sub-basement areas of HQ. What’s complicating the matter is that Metadi himself chose this morning—yesterday morning, now—to pull one of his unplanned vanishing acts.”

  “Ah,” said Ransome. “I warned him the habit was dangerous. But what exactly do you require of me in this case?”

  Gremyl spoke for the first time since taking off. “You know Metadi: you crewed under him during the War, and you’ve been a friend of his family ever since. Maybe you can tell us where we ought to start looking for him.”

  In Warhammer’s common room, Beka felt the tension beginning to dissipate. LeSoit and Jessan still eyed each other warily, but the situation no longer looked like exploding into violence on a second’s notice.

  So now they’ll give me, oh, two or three whole minutes to wade in and haul them back from the brink. She sighed inwardly. And I used to think that having my big brother on board made for a hard crew to handle. That was before the galaxy decided to get generous and give me Nyls Jessan and Ignac’ LeSoit.

  She stood up and stretched, exaggerating the movements enough to catch and hold their attention. “This conversation is making me thirsty—how about you? The galley’s over there,” she said to LeSoit, “and we still have some cha’a in the pot.”

  LeSoit swung his legs down from the acceleration couch onto the deck. “I think I’ll take your offer.”

  He headed off in the direction she had indicated. She turned to Jessan. The Khesatan stood with his hands in the pockets of his lounging robe, leaning against the bulkhead with an air of casual elegance. Somebody who didn’t know him—and who didn’t know what he was carrying in those pockets—might have thought he looked relaxed.

  Beka wasn’t fooled. “You can let go of the artillery, Nyls. We’re all on the same side here.”

  “If you say so, Captain.”

  “I say so. And this may be the break we needed.”

  “Maybe.” But Jessan’s expression remained doubtful. LeSoit came out of the galley with two mugs of cha’a. He handed one to Beka and took a seat at the other side of the table. He wasn’t as relaxed as he pretended, either; his knuckles were white with the tension of his grip on the mug’s plastic handle.

  Beka glanced down at her cha’a. “I see you remembered I like mine black.”

  LeSoit shook his head. “Not really,” he said, with a half-smile. “Just the way I take it myself, is all. Besides, I didn’t know how you’d react if I added something to your drink.”

  “I trust you,” said Beka. “Doc, now, he gets paranoid sometimes, so it’s not a good idea to make him suspicious. Not healthy, if you know what I mean.”

  She took a sip of her cha’a. “But enough talking. Let’s get down to business. Tell me—what are your former employers expecting from you?”

  “Promptness, confidentiality, and success,” LeSoit replied. “But I suppose you want the details, too.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay—I’m supposed to lift ship and take the Pride back to where I’m working out of these days. And not just the ship; I’m supposed to bring your dead body along, too. My boss wants to see it for himself.” LeSoit’s mouth twitched slight
ly under his thin mustache. “Something that you did must have really annoyed him.”

  Beka shrugged. “Who knows? I’ve ticked off a lot of people over the past couple of years. Does your boss have a name I might be able to hang a picture onto?”

  “Hatchet-faced son of a bitch from Rolny,” LeSoit said. “Name of D’Caer.”

  “Ebenra D’Caer?”

  “That’s him.”

  Beka felt a warm glow of gratification spreading through her at the words. So the bastard is still alive and kicking! She laughed quietly.

  “I’d say I annoyed him,” she said. “You’ve climbed that ladder of yours as far as it goes, if you’re working for Ebenra D’Caer.”

  The morgue at Prime Base was a windowless room in the depths of the base hospital. Stark white light from the panels overhead washed the color out of everything and made the place look even bleaker than it was—although the reality, Ochemet had to admit, was bleak enough.

  Uncharitably, he hoped that Errec Ransome found the place as distasteful as he did. They had come here at the Guild Master’s insistence, after first showing him the sub-basement area where Commander Quetaya’s body had been found. Now, along with Captain Gremyl, Ransome and Ochemet stood looking down at the transparent walls of a stasis box. Protected by the box’s field, the late commander seemed like a grotesque parody of a patient asleep in a healing pod.

  Stasis had kept her body from deteriorating since its discovery, but the pallid grey skin and the charred meat around the blaster wound were just as ugly as ever. Ochemet had seen far worse things in the vicious fighting that had marked the final pacification of the Mageworlds, but the commander’s fate distressed him nonetheless. Something like this should not have happened to an efficient, conscientious officer on a peacetime base under his command.

  Errec Ransome, meanwhile, gazed down at the stasis box for several minutes without speaking, placed one hand on the clear crystal lid, and closed his eyes. What he learned in that manner, or how he learned it, Ochemet couldn’t tell—the Adept’s expression never changed.

  After some time, Ransome opened his eyes and drew his hand away. He turned and addressed Captain Gremyl. “Are you certain of the identification of this body?”

  “It matches the recorded data in every respect,” said Gremyl. He touched a spot on the lid of the box. The crystal in that area darkened to become a display screen. “See for yourself. That’s Quetaya’s service file on top, and the info from our examiners on the bottom. We’re looking at the same stuff all the way down to the gene-types.”

  Ransome nodded. “I see the matches. Very solid.”

  “Is there anything that you can tell us?” Ochemet asked.

  “Very little,” the Guild Master replied. “Only that her death was unexpected, and nothing caused her any distress except for the shot that killed her.”

  “That tallies with what pathology’s got for us,” said Gremyl. “No cuts, bruises, or struggle marks; no sign that she was sexually interfered with in any way.”

  “Quick, clean, and professional,” Ochemet agreed. “I’m glad of that for her sake—but I don’t like what it implies about Metadi’s disappearance.”

  “Nor do I,” said Errec Ransome. “But I would know, I think, if Jos or any member of his family had died. As for this—” He laid his hand again on the stasis box, and was silent for a moment before going on. “As for this—you are looking at the work of the Magelords.”

  Ochemet felt a chill run down his arms and the backs of his legs. “I thought we had destroyed them all.”

  Ransome shook his head sadly. “If only that were true.” He struck the box lightly with his closed fist. “No, this is their work, or an essential part of it. And as for Jos—I can tell you right now there’s no point in looking for him on Galcen, because he isn’t here.”

  “Are you sure,” said Ignaceu LeSoit, “that D’Caer is as high as it goes?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Beka. “I’m sure about that. He’s the one who gave the orders. And anyway,” she added, “the ladder doesn’t go up past him anymore.”

  LeSoit gave her an appraising look. “Blew the top off of it, did you?”

  “With some help, yes,” she said. “Doc was along for that one, by the way—so don’t go getting the idea that he’s just another pretty face.”

  “You flatter me immensely, Captain,” said Jessan. He took his hands out of the pockets of his lounging robe and slid into one of the vacant chairs. “And here I thought you only loved me for my beautiful eyes.”

  Thank goodness, Beka thought, he’s starting to come around. She was careful not to let the relief show, however; she only grinned at her copilot and said aloud, “Beautiful eyes, hell. It’s your naturally devious mind.”

  “One does one’s humble best,” he said. “Gentlesir LeSoit—you asked the captain if she was certain D’Caer was as high as the ladder went. Why?”

  “Look around you, man,” said LeSoit. “We’re in the Mageworlds, in case you hadn’t noticed. Local politics around here is about as nasty as politics can get, but no matter who ends up on top they all have one thing in common—they really, really hate the Republic.”

  Beka said, “We already knew D’Caer had ties to the Mageworlds. But he was taking orders from Nivome the Rolny, and Nivome is dead.”

  “I heard about that,” LeSoit said. “It was the talk of the profession for a while there, Tarnekep Portree and his raid on Darvell, after the Rolny vanished with half the city in flames behind him. Portree was dead too, they said, flown into a star. But when D’Caer heard that the Pride of Mandeyn had passed through the Net he went crazy, shouting and throwing furniture. We did the best we could to nail you on almost no notice.”

  Beka sipped at her cha’a. It had cooled sufficiently for her to swallow it by now, so she drained the mug and set it down on the scarred plastic tabletop. “Well, your best wasn’t good enough.”

  “Be glad of it,” said LeSoit. “I certainly am. If I’d recognized your body afterward, I’d have been a bit upset myself.” He was quiet for a few seconds, and then added thoughtfully, “Not as upset as D’Caer would have been just a little while later, though.”

  Jessan stretched his arms and yawned. “This has been a long day, Gentlesir LeSoit—I suppose we should provide you with some means of contacting your presumably former superiors, so that no one will suspect you failed in your mission?”

  “While you listen in on the conversation, just in case?”

  “Exactly,” said Jessan. “And a three-second delay in the transmission. No offense intended.”

  LeSoit didn’t seem insulted by the idea. “None taken. And you’re probably right about checking in; D’Caer must be frothing at the mouth by now.” He smiled. “But I don’t think I’ve failed. Not a bit.”

  General Ochemet sat in his office back at Prime, nursing his third cup of strong cha’a since seeing Errec Ransome off to the Retreat. Someone else was flying the aircar this time, fortunately—the Guild Master’s visit to HQ hadn’t been kept a secret—and Ochemet was free to deal with the regular problems that Prime Base brought to his attention every morning, as well as with the other, overriding problem of Jos Metadi’s absence.

  The office door slid open and Captain Gremyl came in. The security chief looked as tired as Ochemet felt. But he carried a bundle of printout flimsies in one hand, and his expression was more cheerful than it had been since Commander Quetaya had turned up in the sub-basement.

  “What do you have?” Ochemet asked.

  It couldn’t be Metadi, he knew that already, or Gremyl would be looking downright triumphant instead of … vindicated, Ochemet decided. Gremyl looked like a man whose guesses had started paying off. The security chief’s answer confirmed Ochemet’s suspicions.

  “It was a bit of a long shot,” Gremyl said. “I decided to take Ransome at his word and assume that Metadi was somewhere off-planet. I also decided to assume—for a while, anyhow—that he left from Prime Base, and not from Sout
h Polar or from civilian-side Prime or from some private shuttle pad that we don’t know about.”

  “He might have done just that, you know,” Ochemet pointed out. “Either on his own or not.”

  “We can probably rule out South Polar. I made discreet inquiries with our people down there as soon as we found out Metadi had gone missing. And the other two possibilities imply a whole bunch of stuff I don’t want to tackle just now.”

  “We may still have to,” Ochemet said.

  “Maybe,” said Gremyl, “but the odds just got a whole lot better that we won’t.”

  He laid the printout flimsies on Ochemet’s desk—names, columns and columns of names, all but a few of them marked through with a stylus. “We’ve got lists here of everyone who’s on record as leaving Galcen from Prime Base in the past three days, and lists of everyone who arrived on-planet in the same time period. And here’s where it gets interesting. Only six people can’t be confirmed at one end or at the other.”

  Ochemet flipped through the lists, scanning the names of people and ships. “I see what you mean. Six people who have back trails we can’t check on because the ships they came from are in hyperspace and out of comms—”

  “Right. And we can’t get in touch with any of those six right now because the ships they’re currently on are also in hyperspace and out of comms.”

  “Not too surprising,” said Ochemet. “They’re the Space Force. That’s where they’re supposed to be.”

  “Right,” Gremyl again. “Not surprising. If something actually were surprising, I’d probably rule it out as a deliberate false trail anyhow. So where are we now?”

  He tapped the top sheet of flimsy with his fingernail. “Notice that two of our unverifieds happen to be traveling on the same ship.”

  “Mmmh. Two different origins, though.”

  Gremyl pulled another, much-folded sheet of flimsy out of his tunic pocket. His expression this time, Ochemet decided, was definitely triumphant.