Warring States Read online

  Cousin Stanoczk shook Koscuisko by the shoulder enthusiastically. “See? See? We are all in agreement, Derush. No, don’t thank me.” A request more likely to be honored than many of Cousin Stanoczk’s, Stildyne expected. “Chief. I will come and see you later, if I may. I will tell you about staff meetings, and many other interesting things.”

  Yes, he’d just bet Cousin Stanoczk would. He’d been hoping for it. “I’ll be waiting,” he promised. “Your cousin owes me laps, though.”

  “Then I shall see to it that he is safely out of the way, and will not interrupt. I have letters for you, Derush. Also for your good Kerenko.”

  They were at the lift-nexus that would carry Koscuisko and his cousin and Vogel deep into the heart of the Ragnarok, to the officer’s mess. To staff meeting.

  The frown Koscuisko gave Stildyne as he turned around in the lift to face front was worth three month’s pay for its combination of betrayal, resentment, and underlying amusement. Stildyne bowed to that frown, feeling very cheerful, and went away to his office to wait for Cousin Stanoczk to come and fill him in on all the gossip from Chelatring Side.

  ###

  The officer’s mess on the Ragnarok was actually a common-room of sorts. The chief warrant officers and shift supervisors took their meals here, and Ship’s Primes and Command Branch; Andrej’s department chiefs ate here as well — but below the Bar, which had always seemed unreasonable to Andrej. They were older than he was — or had been, in the earlier years of his Fleet duty — considerably more fully qualified for leadership by virtue of actual experience, and everybody knew that the only reason an edge-new surgeon from Mayon’s colleges took pride of place was because Fleet granted special privileges to Inquisitors, one of which was rank.

  Ship’s Inquisitors with a decent sense of their own shortcomings sat quietly back and let senior officers run the section. Most of the people who elected to enter Fleet Orientation Station Medical to qualify for a Writ to Inquire were decidedly under-qualified, after all; medical students who could find anything else to do with their certifications, anything else at all, generally took other routes in preference to accepting rank in Fleet when rank came with particular responsibilities.

  Andrej knew that as an honor graduate, a man with the generously bestowed praise of his teachers and the administration of the Mayon Medical Center, he was an exception to the rule of mediocrity in ship’s surgeons. The fact had never afforded him much satisfaction. A patient had nothing less than an absolute right to expect the very best a surgeon could possibly manage to provide; no healing he was fortunate enough to effect through skill and education and the grace of the Holy Mother of all Aznir could balance out a single blow struck in cruelty, to punish or deter, in Secured Medical.

  “No, we ask for all nine battle cannon,” the artilleryman, Dierryk Rukota, was insisting, as Andrej reached the open doorway to the officer’s mess. “All right, so we already have one in reserve. If we only ask for eight we only remind people that we’ve got one. That gun is contraband. We shouldn’t be counting it.”

  One wall of the officer’s mess could be covered with a plot-scan for schematics or strategic planning. Rukota stood there now, one hand to the wall, arguing with the captain; brevet or acting captain ap Rhiannon, a short woman with her hair done up with the pins that bore the rank-markers peculiar to crèche-bred, her shoulders squared, her arms akimbo, all points skeptical in her body language and her expression alike.

  “Two says Emandis Station only has nine battle cannon. One full issue, so they can respond to replacement requests. If we ask for all nine they can decline to issue any. It would leave them without a cannon in reserve until they can get a new issue from Central Stores, and that could take months in this environment.”

  “Which is Emandis’ problem and not yours, your Excellency, you are looking for your base load, any depot rated for full replenishment has a charter to be able to respond at any time, and if they only give us eight — if we asked for eight we’d get seven. Maximum. We put in for nine battle cannon, your Excellency.”

  Rukota had the rank-tags right in his speech, but there was not much to doubt in Andrej’s mind that Rukota actually saw a junior officer in front of him. He had that issue himself, to a lesser extent. She had warned him — Stildyne as well: if he wanted back on board the Ragnarok on anything like a permanent basis he was going to have to accept her as his captain, not because she had earned it, but because that was the way it was. He was rather proud of the progress he’d made, but it was also true that she was not over-punctilious about her perquisites — sensitive to the limitations inherent in the situation.

  Had it been as difficult for his clinic chiefs to call him “sir”? It could only have been more distasteful yet; ap Rhiannon was very young, but she was not a professional torturer.

  Neither was he, any longer. He and ap Rhiannon had agreed. He would use a speak-serum if information was truly required; she would not direct him to return to Secured Medical, not ever. How was she going to react to this?

  Stoshi coughed politely, apparently unhappy with the rate at which Andrej was proceeding to the introductions. The captain glanced over to where Andrej stood in the doorway, looked away again to the schematic on the wall — the Ragnarok’s armaments plan, how many of how heavy of what to be put where. She had no more turned back to the schematic than her head jerked back to stare at Andrej again, however. Andrej dared not smile.

  “Please excuse my tardiness, your Excellency,” Andrej said, and bowed to his superior officer. “I was meeting this disgusting person on the docks. He is called Cousin Stanoczk, a religious professional, a Malcontent. And yes. We are also in fact related in the same degree.”

  When they’d been children it had been a joke to play on people who didn’t know them very well; from a suitable distance the fact that Stoshi’s eyes were dark and Andrej’s pale did not distinguish them immediately. There had been pranks. But Stoshi’s voice had gotten deep and resonant, and Andrej was still tenor. There were other differences between them — but Andrej was not going to speculate on how well his good Chief of Security might have studied on what they were.

  “Doctor.” She sounded surprised; yes, he almost always found a good reason why he was not needed at staff meetings. “Cousin Stanoczk, Two warned us that you were coming. We’re pleased to grant you the freedom of the ship. We’re indebted to you for the previous use of your thula.”

  “Yours” in the general sense, of course; it wasn’t Stoshi’s thula, it was the Malcontent’s thula. “You are very kind, your Excellency. The Saint is pleased to have been of service. I impose upon you now for a different purpose, however; to request a favor, which Specialist Vogel will explain.”

  Whether Vogel would remember ap Rhiannon was not something Andrej felt inclined to guess at. It seemed clear that ap Rhiannon remembered Vogel.

  “This person was not on your passenger manifest,” Two said accusingly, rustling her wings. She was standing in a chair at the table above the Captain’s Bar, on the raised platform where only Ship’s Primes and Command Branch were supposed to sit; bored, surely, Andrej imagined, because she couldn’t see the schematic that the captain and Rukota were arguing over. Perhaps there was a tone-map of some sort there for the benefit of bats.

  Andrej stepped into the room and to one side, to make way for Vogel. Vogel stopped on the threshold and bowed, very properly indeed, first to the captain and then to the other officers — Ship’s First, the Engineer, Ship’s Intelligence — gathered around the table on the platform. First Officer had stood up, Andrej noted.

  “I’m very gratified to hear it, your Excellency,” Vogel said to Two. “A person’s got to have some secrets, after all.” And Bench specialists didn’t necessarily show up on anybody’s manifest. “Captain ap Rhiannon. I’ve come to request access to a piece of evidence that your Ship’s Inquisitor is holding in Secured Medical. In order to pursue an investigation I’d like to examine the forged record that Koscuisko brought ba
ck here from Azanry when he returned from leave.”

  When he’d cut his home leave short and come back to the Ragnarok, Vogel meant. Or maybe not. Maybe Vogel didn’t know the details. Why would Vogel care that Andrej had left his wife and child without even a good-bye, in order to bring evidence back to a ship which had somehow transformed itself into a dangerous mutineer in his absence?

  Ap Rhiannon sat down at one of the tables that had been pushed back toward the front wall of the room to clear a space for close-up study of the schematic on the wall. “Interesting,” she said. “Who says we have any such item on board? A forged record, you say. I’d expect a Bench specialist to be much more careful with his language.”

  Specialist Ivers had been anxious to keep its very existence as quiet as possible. It had been Mergau Noycannir, an old enemy and quite mad, who had brought it to Azanry — to Chelatring Side; Mergau Noycannir had been a clerk of Court at Chilleau Judiciary. The incident could have been used to discredit the Second Judge just when the Selection was due to be made. It was still a potential weapon, Andrej supposed, but more than that it was their best evidence that the alleged conspiracy to murder to previous captain of the Ragnarok was a frame of particularly shocking illegality.

  The Record in concept was still the cornerstone of the Law, the impartial keeper of legally admissible, lawfully obtained evidence. If evidence that was not legally admissible or lawfully obtained could be put on record then the entire system that relied on evidence would lose its credibility.

  “I understand your concern, your Excellency, and speak as bluntly as I do only because I believe myself to be in the company of people who are perfectly well aware that a Record has been compromised. Now I will share another piece of dangerous information with you, so that you’ll understand why I’m here. I have evidence that the forged record that your chief medical officer brought here from Azanry is not the first such forged Judicial instrument. I believe in fact that at least one judicial warrant has been similarly improperly released.”

  A warrant? Or could it be the warrant, the one Vogel had given to him at Burkhayden before he’d left, the one with his name on it — an execution order that Vogel had claimed to have exercised against Fleet Captain Lowden of unlamented memory?

  Not possible. Vogel couldn’t be talking about that warrant. If he’d believed that warrant to have been forged he wouldn’t have exercised it. If he hadn’t exercised it, then Lowden had not been executed by Judicial decree. If Vogel hadn’t killed Lowden someone else had. If Vogel hadn’t been the person that the harried house-master at the service house had shown up to the suite that Lowden was occupying shortly before the murder had taken place, then it might even have been Andrej himself after all.

  And he’d given that warrant to Stoshi, besides. But he’d asked Stoshi to investigate, and what would be more natural than for Stoshi to have called in a Bench specialist? Stoshi wouldn’t have known the background. Andrej hadn’t told him. How could he have told the Malcontent — “Stoshik, I have murdered my commanding officer because he tried to send an innocent man to torture. He did send an innocent man to torture. Vogel had come to Burkhayden to kill me, but he pretended it had been Lowden all along, because Vogel didn’t like Lowden even more than Vogel doesn’t care for me.” No, impossible, clearly impossible.

  Ap Rhiannon had no such insight to paralyze her. “If you say so, Specialist Vogel. What do you hope to gain by examination of the record?”

  “It’s taken time to analyze the warrant, your Excellency, but I believe I’ve isolated the forgery’s fingerprints. There’s a genuine authorization imbedded there, but in such a way that there had to have been collusion. I suspect that there’s genuine evidence similarly imbedded in the forged record, and you may recall that all such authorization codes are specific to an individual or judicial center.”

  That was true. A Record was legal evidence in part because its contents were placed on record by a legal officer. Ship’s Inquisitors served a dual function for that purpose.

  Ap Rhiannon frowned. “Locate the code, find the origin? If I was forging a record I’d see to it that you couldn’t track me, Bench specialist.”

  “Indications are that the forgery might not have been that carefully done, your Excellency. There are signs of an unskilled user. The Bench warrant would never have been examined after its exercise, had it not been for specific, suspicious circumstances. The record might have been built to accomplish only a specific, time-limited purpose, to be safely destroyed as soon as possible by the woman in whose possession it was at the time that the forgery was discovered. There’s a risk. You’d like to know, though, as much as anybody, I’m certain of it.”

  The captain shook her head. “Not really. Koscuisko says the record is forged and I believe him, but that doesn’t mean I want anything to do with it. Serge, can you get a path cleared through to Koscuisko’s evidence locker?”

  “I’ll have to send my crew through decontamination afterward,” Wheatfields said. “Give me three eights, your Excellency.”

  Ap Rhiannon nodded. “Done. General Rukota, please accompany the Bench specialist to Secured Medical to represent the interests of this Command. Doctor, every professional courtesy, and so on.” She was speaking to him, now, so Andrej had to do his imitation of a man who had been paying close attention. “Specialist Vogel, it will be a few eights, and I don’t care to have Bench specialists wandering around my ship without more of an idea about why they’re here and what they’re looking for. How does a ready-room in Security sound to you?”

  Well, that was moderately rude; Vogel had told her why he was here and what he was looking for — but Andrej couldn’t fault her for not being too ready to take Vogel’s statements at face value.

  Vogel bowed his head. “I’ll be very comfortable, I’m sure, your Excellency. I’m told that the bean tea is much improved lately since the Ragnarok got restock at Silboomie Station. Thank you.”

  “Right. Very well, then.” Ap Rhiannon shifted her gaze back to Dierryk Rukota, who had been standing there quietly with his back to the schematic on the wall, his arms folded. Perhaps coincidentally directly in front of some details on the Ragnarok’s combat readiness assessment, Andrej noticed. “We’ll continue this later. First Officer. Let’s review the munitions stores, shall we?”

  Rukota bowed to ap Rhiannon and came forward for Vogel, not quite putting an arm around Vogel’s shoulders but something close to it. “Ready room it is,” Rukota said cheerfully. “Do you play cards?”

  Stoshi tapped Andrej on the shoulder and jerked his head toward the corridor behind them. Oh, Andrej supposed Stoshi was right; they were dismissed. Wheatfields would be looking for him at his duty station. It was mid-shift. He had documentation to review, always documentation to review, and he wanted to make an appointment to consult with his Chief of Psychiatric, Doctor Farilk, on a personal issue.

  Andrej made his salute to his captain, who nodded crisply in return. Stoshi had him by the arm; Wheatfields was staring. No. He was not even going to begin to travel in that field.

  Still and all, and quite apart from the aggravation that Stoshi could represent, they were related and had been much together as children and he was fond of his cousin. When they reached his office — Andrej willfully ignoring the stares they got as they went past, what, had these people never seen a Malcontent before? — Andrej and went to the rhyti-brewer, to draw the both of them a flask.

  “You travel with Bench specialists in these days?” he asked, just to open the conversation. “The Saint keeps strange bedfellows.”

  Stoshi accepted the flask that Andrej offered him with a cheerful grin. “Else would not be the Saint, Derush, may he wander in bliss. The first thing that a person discovers in search of the truth behind an article was that there was an unhappy man who had left himself in Gonebeyond to research a similar problem. It is always good to use someone else’s resources, Drushik. The Saint approves. It leaves much more money to buy drink.”


  It did make sense. Vogel had been unhappy about the Warrant; that was why Vogel had not exercised it against its named intended, Andrej Ulexeievitch Koscuisko. If he thought about it he wouldn’t expect a Bench specialist to simply let such a question drop; and it had been Vogel, after all, who had suggested that Andrej enlist the assistance of the Malcontent.

  The record had come from Mergau Noycannir, Chilleau Judiciary. Vogel wouldn’t have known exactly where the Warrant had come from — that was held in confidence to minimize reprisals after the fact — but the obvious truth was that the simplest explanation for its existence led back to Noycannir. How had she obtained it? How had she forged the record? Andrej had not attempted to examine the record himself; he was not a forensic specialist.

  “How are things at home, then, if you have brought me news?”

  He didn’t want to go to his desk. There was documentation there. Work that he had to do, and meant to be neglecting, in the next several days — once they arrived at Emandis Station. He led the way to the two-chair conference area at the back of his office, instead, invoking the privacy field on his way. No one would think twice about it, and they were more than welcome to sneak by his open door and stare; a man couldn’t conspire with his door open, could he? They didn’t see many Dolgorukij in Fleet. At least not on the Ragnarok, whose population had been more stable in recent years than was the Fleet norm because of the fact that people posted to the Ragnarok very frequently had absolutely nowhere else to go.

  “I have brought letters, Derush,” Stoshi said. In his courier-pouch, in fact, that he was wearing over his shoulder, and which he unlimbered as he spoke before he sat down. “And words about the melon-harvest, but that will wait. You are to be stuck with me for several days now, after all. What does one do on board of a warship for a party?”