Hunting Party

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Well, it’s mostly over,” said a cheerful voice from the cave entrance. Petris and the other men whirled, startled, but relaxed when they saw the distinctive uniform of Bunny’s militia. The militia captain was grinning at them. “Unless one of you is the wicked Admiral Lepescu?”

  “Admiral Lepescu is dead,” Heris said. Her voice seemed to hold no emotion at all; it was the simple statement of fact.

  Captain Sigind came nearer, glanced at Lepescu’s body, and nodded. “You shot him?”

  “Yes; he was threatening them—” Heris nodded at the young people. Ronnie and the prince had untangled themselves from each other, the floor, and the quiescent grenade, and now stood more or less at attention. Raffa had gone to Ronnie, Cecelia noticed, as if he were her responsibility. Bubbles stood a little apart from the group, rifle in hand, watching Heris intently. Cecelia had time to wonder why, when both girls were armed, neither had shot the admiral.

  Captain Sigind looked them over.

  “And here’s Lord Thornbuckle’s daughter, and I presume that’s your nephew, ma’am, and the other young lady, and who’s this—?” The militia captain looked at the prince, and the prince looked confused.

  “Mr. Smith,” said Ronnie firmly. “A friend of the family.”

  Captain Sigind allowed a dubious expression on his face, and then shrugged it away. “Mr. Smith, indeed. An invited guest? Pardon, but I’m required to ask.”

  Bubbles spoke up. “Mr. Smith has often been an invited guest here; my father will confirm it.”

  “I . . . see.” The captain looked as if he would like to pursue that, but again chose discretion. Well trained, Cecelia thought; a quick glance at Heris’s face, and she caught another well-trained expression. Heris, however, would certainly pursue the matter later. The captain did not quite shrug before going on. “Well, if everyone will come along, we can get you back to Bandon this evening, and fly you back to the Main House by morning—or you could spend the night on Bandon, and fly back tomorrow, whichever you prefer.” He spoke into his comunit; Cecelia heard something about “retrieve the bodies” and “forensics” and then realized she was very, very tired indeed and wanted to sit down.

  “What about George?” she heard Ronnie ask. Then she heard nothing.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cecelia awoke only moments later, thoroughly ashamed of herself, to find Ronnie kneeling beside her. He looked, she thought, far worse than she possibly could, with that colorful pattern of bruises on his head and face, his muddy, still-wet clothes, and the pallor of exhaustion and hunger. She glanced around for Heris. Her captain was talking to the militia captain, who nodded as he keyed information into a wristcomp. Other militia had appeared; Lepescu’s body had already been put into a black bag and lifted onto a stretcher. . . . She saw it being carried out.

  “Are you all right, Aunt Cecelia?” He sounded genuinely concerned, not annoyed by an aunt who had fainted.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and pushed herself up on her elbows. She was too old to faint; at her age people took it seriously and talked about medical causes. “Just hungry,” she said, which was now true. She was ravenous, and remembered that she had not had breakfast or lunch. Ronnie looked around frantically, as if he thought she expected him to pull a good meal from the rock. “Don’t worry,” she said, more tartly than she intended. “I forgot to eat, that’s all.” When she glanced around again, she saw that the two young women were sitting together, doing something to each other’s faces, and the other young man stood awkwardly alone. “What’s the—”

  “Mr. Smith,” Ronnie said softly but firmly. “He’s Mr. Smith—I don’t know if you’ve met.”

  “Oh, we’ve met.” She eyed him, then glanced at the prince. “Mr. Smith, is it? Did you two arrange to meet here and continue your disagreement?”

  “No!” Ronnie hushed himself with a shrug. “He was here on . . . other business. Finished business, now.”

  Cecelia looked at the prince, who seemed to feel her gaze and returned it. In the cave’s uncertain light, she could not be sure of his expression, but he approached them.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Ronnie, I really do need to talk to you. About the duel—”

  “Mr. Smith,” said Cecelia, in the voice that had not failed her in fifty years or more. “You do not need to talk to anyone. Under the circumstances, Mr. Smith”—she emphasized the name slightly—“the less you talk to anyone the better. I very much doubt your father knows where you are.”

  “Well, no, he doesn’t, but still—”

  “You would be wise, Mr. Smith, to wait until your father explains your situation more fully. There is no question of a duel. Is that quite clear?” Cecelia put her eye upon him, the eye that had quelled many a brash young man even when she herself was young. He subsided; even the stubborn knot along his jaw went away, and the jaunty curl at the tips of his moustache seemed to droop. His voice lowered to a hesitant growl.

  “What I was going to say, ma’am, was that your nephew’s courage in landing on the gas grenade cancelled out any previous disagreement we might have had.”

  “You did, too,” Ronnie said quickly.

  “Wise of both of you,” Cecelia said, allowing them to see her smile. “Now if someone can find me something to eat—”

  * * *

  Cecelia had never thought about how long it could take to move a few people across a short stretch of ocean. She had always been, she realized, the one who didn’t have to wait. This time, she waited, and heard from both militia and the young people what had happened. Even with her wits restored by hot broth and half a survival bar from Bubbles’s pack, it didn’t make sense to her.

  “Lepescu killed the other hunters? Why?”

  Heris rubbed her nose. “My guess would be that he thought he could get away alone. No witnesses on his side, convicted criminals—if any survived—on the other. . . . If he’d killed the young people, gotten into that flitter, and made it away—”

  “But he couldn’t possibly—”

  “I’m not sure. Suppose we had still been on the mainland when George’s transmission went out. He’d have had hours, not minutes, to complete his plans. Kill the witnesses, gas the remaining victims from the flitter. Fly back to Bandon, take the shuttle up. A wild gamble, but he liked wild gambles. Better than surrendering tamely to be tried himself.”

  “But why not get the others to help him?”

  “Likely they wouldn’t. That Mr. Smith—and by the way, are you and the others going to tell me who Mr. Smith is?”

  “Someone who shouldn’t be here,” Cecelia said. “Later, perhaps—” She glanced around at the militia who might be within earshot.

  “Ah. Like someone’s son, perhaps? Yes.” Heris’s eyes twinkled. “Anyway, Mr. Smith explained that there had been a lot of confusion after the flitter crashed here, and the admiral had insisted on continuing the hunt. He might well fear that his allies would turn on him. If he had gotten away—well away—we would have found an island full of dead people and no witnesses to convict him. He would not necessarily know that I was here at all, or that I knew he was onplanet.” Heris cocked her head. “A bold plan, typical of him, but as usual wasteful of resources.”

  “And Raffa told me about what happened after they crashed—although she doesn’t know all of Ronnie’s story, or George’s, or the others’. Were they all your crew?”

  “Apparently not. This wasn’t the first such hunt, and Petris said some who survived a few weeks of a hunt were kept to seed the next, to keep it ‘interesting.’” Her voice flattened on the word. “Too many were, though. I never thought—I swear I never imagined any such thing—”

  “Of course not.” Cecelia leaned against the rock, and smiled at the younger woman. So much older than the younglings, Ronnie and his friends, but still so vulnerable. . . . She clearly needed someone to reassure her. Yet, in Cecelia’s experience, no reassurance made up for bad results . . . and this had to be a bad result, no matter how selfless t
he original decision. She looked away from Heris, and thought about what she could do. Did she know anyone in the admiralty?

  * * *

  By the time Heris and Cecelia landed on Bandon again, the young people—except for Buttons, who remained the family’s representative on Bandon—had been taken to the mainland along with two wounded militia and three wounded victims. Ronnie needed medical observation; the girls had wanted to check on George themselves, and Bubbles had an appointment with her father. Cecelia relaxed in the luxury of Bandon Lodge—a full set of servants had been flown out as soon as the island was secured—and left Heris to her own devices. Heris, after a bath and change of clothes, gathered her courage and went to see if her former crew would even speak to her. They were scattered through the guest rooms, according to the information in the deskcomp. She found door after door with its privacy locks engaged, and didn’t try to intrude. Finally she found one door ajar, and tapped lightly.

  Petris looked out at her. “Ah. Captain Serrano.” The formality went to her heart. “I was just about to bathe.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll—” Wait, she would have said, but she had no right to force him to speak to her if he didn’t want to.

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you, back there,” he said. “It was just hard to believe—”

  “I’m sorry I thought you could have been with . . . with Lepescu.”

  “Look—I’m still stinking filthy—I was checking on Oblo, and he’s fine. Let me get clean, and why don’t we go walk somewhere?”

  At least he was willing to talk to her. Heris nodded, silently, and turned away. Back in her room she tried to relax, but her eyes kept moving to the window, with its striking view of the beach and the other island across the water. The sun slid lower; the colors of sea and sky changed minute by minute. Flitters came and went; they were, she supposed, picking up the bodies and taking them away, bringing more investigators to look for more clues. . . . Her head ached. She had fallen into a restless doze in her chair when the tap on her door woke her.

  Bathed and dressed in clean clothes, Petris looked more like the man she remembered—and less. He was not in uniform, the only clothes she’d seen him wear except for the rags of the island. He was not in the mental uniform that had kept them both from acknowledging what they could feel if they allowed it. His eyes challenged her. “If you need a rest, we could hold this until morning.”

  A night with issues unsettled would be no rest. “No. I’m ready.”

  To her surprise, he smiled at her. “My favorite captain. Always ready.” He held up a basket. “I’ve had my first free meal, but thought we should bring something. There are enough cooks here to feed two cruisers. And the young lord, whats-his-name—”

  “Buttons,” Heris said. “They call him Buttons.”

  “The staff don’t. Anyway, he gave me a map, and suggested something called the ’seabreeze trail.’”

  She started to object—she had no idea where such a place might be—but didn’t. After what had happened, she had no right to quibble. “How is . . . everyone?”

  Petris shrugged. “Most of ’em are asleep, I think. Oblo said to tell you thumbs-up on coming to the rescue, and I said I would. He said there’s a nurse in the clinic, there on the mainland, that almost makes the whole thing worthwhile. Remember the time we had to get him out of that rathole on Sekkis?”

  Heris grinned, genuinely amused for the first time. “Oh, yes. Purple-dyed skin and all.”

  Petris led the way down the carpeted hall, hung with soft-toned pictures of flowers and birds, and out to the parking area. “The young man said we could take a flitter or walk—which would you rather?”

  It was nearly dark—though why that should matter, she couldn’t think. “Let’s walk,” she said. “If it’s not too far.”

  “Nope. Just down this way.” In the gathering dusk, he led the way to a trail edged with white stones. It wound around one wing of the Lodge, skirted a clump of very tall trees, then dipped to the shore. Far off the sun hung in a glowing net of haze; the sea held the light and threw it back at them. The island across the strait showed a pale edge of beach, and a dark hump, but no details.

  They walked on, along the beach, to an outcrop of gray rock very like the rock on the other island. It lay across the end of the beach, and beyond it Heris could see a rougher, stony shore where the sea nibbled and sucked hungrily. Here they stopped, as if the rock were a real barrier, although its blunt steps could have been climbed by a child.

  Petris set down his basket. “While we still have light, we should see what the cooks came up with. Ah . . . real food.” He spread the serving containers out. Heris sat down abruptly. It couldn’t be this easy. Something had to happen, some further punishment for her mistake. It would be fair, she thought dismally, if he had put poison in the food, if he leapt on her and strangled her. She hadn’t meant bad to come of it, but it had—and when had intention ever been justification for causing the deaths of innocents?

  He looked at her and shook his head. “Captain—Heris—” It was the first time he had used her first name except to yell at her. “You’re about as relaxed as a novice gunner before the first battle. What do you think, I’m going to scold you?”

  “You’d have a right,” she said.

  “Well . . . yes. In one way, I do. In another, I don’t.” He looked into her eyes. “I think you want your scolding, is that it?”

  Tears burned her eyes. “I—don’t know. I want—what happened to be different. For it to have worked the way it was supposed to. You safe—”

  Anger roughened his voice. “By the gods, Heris, do you think we’d have joined the Regs if we’d wanted to be safe? And safe at the cost of the best commander we ever had? Keep us from being butchered by that fool and his stupid tactics, yes—but not ruin yourself, and us, into the bargain.”

  “You’re right,” she said. No use denying it. “I was wrong.” The rest of the pain she had put off feeling stabbed her, the thought of her crew, from that scrawny new kid in Power Systems, who had burst into tears with the first mail from home, to the wizened old senior medical mate, finishing out her last tour before retirement. What had happened to them? Tears spilled over; she could feel the wind chilling them as they ran down her cheeks; she struggled to control her breathing.

  Petris moved close, and put his arm around her, a firm but gentle hold.

  “You should have trusted us,” he said, his breath stirring her hair. “Did you think we’d fail you?” She could hear in that the pain she had dealt them—worse for some than the pain of court-martial and public dishonor.

  “I had failed you,” Heris said. “The scan data were all lost—they told me you’d all be court-martialed along with me, risk discharge at least and probably time in prison.”

  “So you resigned. Walked out.”

  “Yes.” It all came back, the nightmare she’d relived so often these past months. The Board behind their polished table, the familiar faces as strange as masks, the feel of her dress uniform collar tabs on her throat, a blade no less dangerous for being fabric and not steel. “I was told,” she went on, careful to withhold all emotion, “that if I resigned immediately, they would take no action against you—the crew. They would hush it up; it would not have happened. Sorkangh—my father’s friend, one I’d counted on to help me argue my case—he said that. And if Sorkangh was against me—” She shook her head. She had said this already; it made no difference. She had had her reasons, she had fought herself to make that decision, and none of her reasons mattered. It had been wrong, as wrong as not anticipating any enemy’s position and firepower.

  “Well,” he said, squeezing her shoulders, “if it helps, not all your crew was as loyal as they should have been. Lepescu had a ringer in, and that’s what happened to the scan data.”

  “How’d you find that out?” She had wondered, but could not have proven her suspicions.

  “First transit brig. Friend of a friend of a friend—couldn’t do much f
or us, but did tell us who did it and on whose orders. We took care of him.”

  Heris shuddered; she didn’t want to understand, although she did. “How many . . .”

  “I’m not sure. They split us up, early on—we were tried in different groups, supposedly determined by our level of responsibility. Some weren’t formally charged, I heard—but I couldn’t tell you what happened to them. Of those brought to court, the scuttlebutt is that all but three were convicted. Some were discharged, and some had the usual loss of rank, or pay, but no brig time. They decided to make an example of about fifty of us, the senior NCOs and officers, and from that about thirty were brought here. The others are in the prison system somewhere.”

  “I’ll have to do something about that,” Heris muttered.

  Petris shifted beside her. “I don’t see how you can, now,” he said. “Maybe if this comes out, their cases can be reevaluated, but whatever Lepescu was up to, the original charges are still there.”

  “I’ll think of something,” she said. “Maybe Lady Cecelia—”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “But I had something else to say to you.” She braced herself, but he didn’t go on for a long time. Then he sighed. “I wish it was darker. Thing is . . . you’re not my commander now, right?”

  “Right.” Heris picked up something—it was dark enough she could hardly see the food—and stuffed it in her mouth. Cheese and pastry and something; she nearly choked.

  “You were always professional . . . you know . . . but I used to wonder if you felt something . . . something like I did.” He wasn’t looking at her, but at the last fading purple glow in the west. Then up at the stars. Heris had time to remember times she had not wanted to be professional; she choked down the food in her mouth.

  “Mmm. Yes. Something . . .” How could she have known it was a mutual feeling? They had both understood professional etiquette; nothing must come of any feelings, and thus better to leave them unfelt—or at least unsaid.