Hunting Party

by Elizabeth Moon

  A snort of contempt, and a growl from others he had not yet noticed. “That’s the truth, little boy soldier—you have not the honor indeed. You don’t know what honor is.”

  From a little distance, he heard another mirthless chuckle. “Little peep plonks down in a flitter and bumps his poor little head, pukes out his guts, and thinks he has a right to say the H-word. . . .”

  “Shut up, Kev. We don’t have time for your nonsense any more than his.” A jerk of the head indicated George. The dark eyes contemplated Ronnie. “But you—you’re going to give us the truth, Mister Ronald Vertigern Boniface Lucien Carruthers of the Royal Assholes. You didn’t learn to fly with that bunch of old ladies, boy: who are you really from?” Hard hands grabbed his ears and shook his head. He had thought it hurt before; now he knew it had merely been uncomfortable. He felt his eyes water, and hated the man for that. His stomach roiled, and he choked back another wave of nausea.

  “I told you,” Bubbles said, before he could get any words out. “We’re from the Main Lodge; we wanted to get away from the fox hunting—”

  “And try other game?” suggested another voice he could not see.

  “And just play around,” Ronnie said. At the moment he didn’t care if he did die; his head might as well have a real axe in it as whatever was causing what he felt. He knew his voice sounded weak and querulous; he felt weak and querulous. “My aunt Cece—you wouldn’t know her—and that demon captain of hers wanted me to spend all day every day on a horse chasing some miserable little furry thing over fields of cold mud and fences designed to make horses fall down and dump their riders.” He took a breath; no one interrupted. “And we got tired of it,” he said, closing his eyes against the bright glare of the forest canopy. “We wanted to rest. We wanted to have fun. I asked Bubbles if there wasn’t some place on this miserable dirtball that wasn’t cold and muddy and full of horses, and she said let’s go to the islands.”

  “Oblo?” The first voice seemed to be addressing someone else; Ronnie gave himself up to contemplation of his headache and the mystery of his stubbornly unhelpful arms and legs. He finally thought he felt something weighing him down, or tying him down, or something of that sort. External, not internal—he was sure he was wiggling his toes. For some reason, the discovery that he probably didn’t have a broken neck did not make him feel better.

  “No weapons—not with them or on the flitter, ’cept a cateye. That’s standard survival gear on flitters, most worlds.” Oblo, if that was the speaker, had the same businesslike tone as the first voice. “Food and minor medical supplies in stuff they’d pulled out to take with them. All the IDs check out, as far as we can know without accessing a link. Flitter ID was still in the active comp, no sweat getting it out; it’s Lord Thornbuckle’s all right.”

  “And the beacon?” asked the first voice.

  “Back aboard, sir, same’s you said. Tough to make it look like it hadn’t ever been out, though. On the other hand, maybe they’ll accept all that cracked casing as why it doesn’t work. Did my best.”

  “I’m sure you did, Oblo.”

  Ronnie opened his eyes again, to find the dark face he remembered looking across him to someone else. “Why’d you put the beacon back?” he asked. “That’s stupid—we need rescue here.”

  “You may need rescue,” the dark man said, “but we don’t need hunters tracking us by that thing.”

  “You . . . shot us.” He was sure of it, though he saw no weapon that could have served.

  “Yep. Thought you were the hunters, and we had a chance to drop you in the water. Not a bad job of work, the way you got that flitter to land.” The dark man hawked and spat juicily. “Wasted all the work on you, looks like now, and we’ve still got them to deal with. And’f they know about you, we’ve got even more trouble, if that’s possible.”

  “Oh.” Ronnie could not think of anything to say, and looked at George—but George, gagged, could not argue for him.

  “I’m sure my father doesn’t know,” Bubbles said, into the brief silence. Her blonde hair looked straggly, coming out of whatever she’d done to keep it in tousled curls. She raked it back with both hands, hooking it behind her ears, and started in again. “This is our special place, the kids’ place—even if he did something so horrible, he wouldn’t do it here.”

  “Kids’ place?”

  “We camped here, every summer until I was fifteen or so. Some of the younger cousins still do.” Ronnie let her voice lull him back to sleep; he didn’t like being awake any more.

  * * *

  When he awoke again, the first thing he heard was George’s voice. Poor idiots he thought lazily. You should have left him gagged. Then he realized what he’d thought, and woke up the rest of the way, ashamed of himself. He was no longer tied (if he had been tied; he found his memory wobbly on that and other points) and when he tried to sit up, someone’s arm came behind him, lifting his shoulders. Even under the forest canopy, he could tell that some hours had passed; the bits of sun poking through came at a different angle. Someone had cleaned his face; he couldn’t smell the vomit anymore, and was grateful. Without a word, a brown hand came from behind him and offered a flask of water. He took it and drank.

  They were all there: Bubbles, Raffa, and George, and the faces he remembered from that nightmarish time when he’d been flat on his back. Now, right side up, he recognized the hostile expressions as exhaustion, fear, uncertainty. He saw only eight or nine, but noises in the thick undergrowth suggested at least as many more.

  “The point is, Petris,” George was saying, “that Ronnie and I are both commissioned officers of the Royal . . .” His voice trailed away as the snickers began, and he turned red.

  “Son,” the dark man said, “the point really is that we know how to fight a war and you don’t. You’d get us killed; you damn near got yourself and your girls killed. I don’t care how many glittery stripes and pretty decorations you’ve got on your dress uniform, nor how bright your boots shine; you don’t know one useful thing about staying alive in this mess, and I do.”

  George looked around for support, and caught Ronnie’s eye. “Good—you’re awake now. Tell him—we’re officers; we should be in charge.”

  In charge? In charge of what? The dark man—Petris?—had said something about a manhunt, but he didn’t want to hunt anyone. He wanted to wait until he could think straight, and then fly back to the mainland. His mind gave a little jerk, like a toy train jumping to another track. They were being hunted, that was it, the men on the island. They were trying to fight back, to hunt the hunters. And George thought he and Ronnie should organize that? Ridiculous. Ronnie shrugged. “He’s right, George. We’re worse than the girls—they at least know what they don’t know. We keep thinking we do know.” He hardly knew what he was saying, over a dull pounding in his head, but that made the best sense he could. “You’re—Petris, sir? I agree with you.”

  The dark man gave Ronnie the first friendly look he’d had. “Maybe that knock on the head put your brain right side up after all. Oblo, give this lad a ration bar.” The same dark hand that had passed him the water flask held out a greasy, gritty bar that Ronnie recognized as part of the flitter’s emergency supplies. He took it and nibbled the end. His body craved the salt/sweet flavor.

  “Ronnie, you can’t let that—that person ignore your seniority.”

  Ronnie grinned, and his head hardly hurt at all. “I’m not letting him ignore my seniority; I’m ignoring it. Remember what old Top Jenkins said about tooty young cadets?”

  “We aren’t cadets any more.” George was still bristling; for the first time, Ronnie saw his father in him, the courtroom bully. “We’re officers.”

  “We’re prisoners, if you want to be precise,” Ronnie said. “Come on, George . . . look at it this way. It’s an adventure.” Petris scowled, but George finally grinned. Ronnie tried to explain to Petris. “It’s a saying we have. . . . We started in boarding school together . . . and George would think these things
up, or Buttons would, or Dill, and the rest of us would say how crazy it was, and how much trouble we’d get in, and whoever began it would say, ‘It’s an adventure.’”

  George chuckled. “I remember who started it—Arthur whatsisname, remember? Had that streak of pale blue hair he claimed he’d inherited? Got us into some frightful row, and when we were called up said, ‘look at it this way, boys—it’s an adventure.’ And we all went in sniggering like fools and got twice as much punishment as usual.”

  “I can see why,” Petris said, with emphasis that stopped the chuckle in Ronnie’s throat. “This is not an adventure. This is a war. The difference is that between whatever punishment you got, and death. Go in sniggering, as you put it, here—play the fool here—and you will be dead. Not charmingly, tidily, prettily dead, either.” His gaze encompassed George, who still looked entirely too dapper for the circumstances.

  “I know that,” George said irritably.

  “Then act like it.” Petris turned back to Ronnie. “And you, young man, if you’re finally getting sense, get enough to live through this and grow up.” He glanced sideways at the girls, but said nothing to them directly. Did he think women were nonentities? He must not have known Captain Heris.

  He didn’t realize he’d said the name aloud until the other man reacted.

  “Captain who?” Petris looked dangerous again. Ronnie choked down the rest of the ration bar.

  “Serrano. Heris Serrano. She’s ex-Regular Space Service, like you.”

  “So that’s where she ended up.” A feral gleam lightened his dark eye. Ronnie was startled; it was the first personal emotion he’d seen Petris exhibit. Petris grinned; it was not a nice grin. “She did have a comedown, after all.”

  “A comedown?”

  “To play captain of a rich lady’s yacht. Serves her right.”

  “What for?” asked George. Ronnie was glad; he too wanted to know, but he had already been chewed out for asking too many questions.

  Petris glared at him. “None o’ your—”

  “Tell them,” Oblo said. “Why not? You don’t want to protect her.”

  Petris shook his head. “No. That’s right enough. But do you think these Royal-ass punks can understand it?”

  “Might learn something,” Oblo said. Ronnie felt a tension between the two men, not quite conflict, and wondered what it could be.

  “All right.” Petris wiped his mouth with his hand, and settled back, looking past them. “It started with the Cavinatto campaign, which is too new to have been in your studies, so don’t argue with me about it. Scuttlebutt says it was Admiral Lepescu who thought up the lousy plan; from what I know of him I wouldn’t doubt it. If our captain had followed his orders, most of us would’ve died, and it wouldn’t have accomplished a damn thing. It was a stupid plan, and a stupid order.”

  “But—” George began; Petris glared him down.

  “Do you want the gag again? Then be quiet. I know what you think—officers that refuse orders are traitors and should be shot—right?”

  George nodded and shrugged at the same time, trying not to offend. Ronnie almost laughed aloud—but not when he saw Petris’s face.

  “That’s what the rules say,” Petris went on. “No matter how stupid, how bloody, or how unnecessary, officers obey their seniors and enlisted obey officers. Mostly they do, and mostly it works, because when you’re not in combat, a stupid order won’t kill you. Usually. But then there’s combat. You expect to die someday—it’s not a safe profession, after all—” Behind Petris, the others chuckled, but he ignored them. “But what you hope for is that your death will mean something—you’ll be expended, as the saying is, in some action that accomplishes something more than just turning you into a bloody mess.” He was silent after that so long that George stirred and opened his mouth; Ronnie waved at him, hoping he would keep quiet. Finally Petris looked at both of them and started speaking again.

  “It’s not that anyone doubted Serrano’s courage, you know. She’d been in action before; she had a couple of decorations you don’t get for just sitting by a console and pushing the right buttons. No—what she did, refusing a stupid order that would kill a lot of people without accomplishing any objective, that was damn brave, and we all knew it. She was risking her career, maybe her life. When it was over, and she faced the inquiry on it, she didn’t try to spread the blame—she took it just the way you’d expect—would have expected—from knowing her before. I’d been with her on three different ships; I knew—I thought I knew—what she was. She was facing a court-martial, dishonorable discharge, maybe prison time or execution, if she couldn’t prove that Admiral Lepescu’s order was not only stupid but illegal. I was scared for her; I knew she had friends in high places, but not that high, and it’s damned hard to prove an admiral is giving bad orders just because he likes to see bloodshed.”

  He paused again, and drank two long swallows from his flask. “That was the Serrano I thought I knew—the woman who would risk that.” His voice slowed, pronouncing every word as if it hurt his mouth. “Not the woman who would take the chance to resign her commission before the court and lay the blame on her crew. Leave us to face court-martial, and conviction, and this—this sentence.” His wave included the place, the people, the situation. “She didn’t come to our trial; she didn’t offer any testimony, any written support, nothing. She dumped us, the very crew she’d supposedly risked her career to save. It didn’t make sense, unless her decision to avoid that engagement really was cowardice, or she saw it as a way to leave the Service. . . .”

  Ronnie said nothing. He remembered his first sight of Captain Serrano, the rigidity with which she had held herself, like someone in great pain who will not admit it. He remembered the reaming out she’d given him, that time on the bridge, and what he’d heard her say to his aunt . . . scathing, both times, and he’d sworn to get his vengeance someday. She had held him captive, forced his attention, “tamed” him, as she’d put it. He had had to watch her take to riding, and hunting, as if she were born to it, while he loathed every hour on horseback; he had had to hear his aunt’s praise of her captain’s ability, and her scorn of him. That, too, he had sworn to avenge. Now was his chance, and it required nothing of him but silence.

  He met George’s eyes. . . . He had told George, he remembered, what Serrano had said about her past. He had been angry, and he had eavesdropped without shame, and shared the gossip without shame. Now he felt the shame; he could feel his ears burning.

  “It wasn’t that,” he heard himself saying. Petris looked at him, brows raised. “She didn’t know,” he said.

  “How do you know?” asked Oblo, before Petris could.

  “I—I heard her talking to my aunt,” Ronnie said. He dared not look at Raffa; she would be ashamed of him. “They told her—I suppose that admiral you mentioned—that if she stood trial, the crew would be tried with her, but if she resigned, no action would be taken against her subordinates.”

  Petris snorted. “Likely! Of course she’d make up a good story for later; she wouldn’t want to admit she’d sold us—”

  “I’m not sure,” Oblo said. “It could be. Think, Petris: which is more like our Serrano?”

  “She’s not my Serrano!” Petris said furiously. For a moment, Ronnie thought he might attack Oblo. “Dammit, man—she could have—”

  “Could have been tricked, same as us.” Oblo, Ronnie realized, had never wanted to believe Serrano guilty of treachery. He turned to Ronnie. “Of course, lad, she’s your aunt’s captain—you’d like her and defend her, I daresay. . . .”

  “Like her!” That was George, unable to keep quiet any longer. “That—that puffed-up, arrogant, autocratic, bossy—! No one could like her. Do you know what she did to Ronnie? To Ronnie—on his own aunt’s ship? Slapped him in the face! Ordered him off the bridge, as if he were any stupid civilian! And me—she told me I was nothing but a popinjay, a pretty face with not the sense to find my left foot—”

  “George,” sa
id Ronnie, trying not to laugh. “George, never mind—”

  “No, Ronnie.” George looked as regal as he could, which was almost funnier. “I’ve had enough of this. Captain Serrano may have been your aunt’s choice, but she was not mine. All those ridiculous emergency drills—I’ve never seen such a thing on a proper yacht. All that fussing about centers of mass, and alternative navigation computer checks, and whatnot. I’m not a bit surprised that woman got herself in trouble somewhere; she’s obsessed with rules and regulations. That sort always go bonkers sometime. She drove you—the least mischievous of our set—to eavesdrop on her conversations with your aunt—”

  “Enough,” said Petris, and George stopped abruptly.

  “Let’s hear, and briefly, from you, Ronnie. What precisely did you hear, and under what circumstances?”

  Ronnie gathered his wits again. “Well . . . she had chewed me out, and waked us up three lateshifts running for drills. I wanted to get back at her—” Put that way, it sounded pretty childish; he realized now it had been. “So I patched into the audio in my aunt’s study.” He didn’t think he needed to tell Petris about the stink bomb, or its consequences. “She and my aunt talked a lot—mostly about books or music or art, sometimes about the ship or riding. But my aunt wanted to know about her time in the Service, why she resigned. I could tell the captain didn’t want to answer, but my aunt can be . . . persuasive. So that’s what she said, what I told you before. She was offered a chance to resign her commission rather than face a court-martial, and was promised that if she resigned no action would be taken against any of her crew. Otherwise, she was told, her crew would also be charged, and it was more than likely they’d all be condemned. She . . . cried, Petris. I don’t think she cries often.”

  The man’s face was closed, tight as a fist; Ronnie wondered what he was thinking. Oblo spoke first.

  “That’s our Serrano, Petris. She didn’t know. She did it for us—they probably wouldn’t let her come back and explain—”