Warring States Read online

  The ship grew quiet, though he knew that the three other crew the courier carried were busy at their own preflight tasks. He couldn’t start his pre-flights until the additions-and-amendments had been run. He could make it to Emandis Station with the atmosphere he was carrying, he’d taken on atmosphere fresh at Chilleau and he had oxygen generators on board; but it was imprudent to make a practice of it, and the port authority wouldn’t clear him for departure until he could certify that life support had been independently audited and passed — since he was using a civilian launch-field. It was a very pretty little launch-field. There were red flowers. He wanted out.

  He toggled into braid and waited for the port authority to notice that they had a courier to clear for immediate departure. “Launch control, may I have a ground crew, please? Need to be getting on.”

  “Be right with you, courier, on pending.”

  Leaning back in his clamshell Shona stretched his legs and looked up through the wheelhouse’s view-ports at the sky. Beautiful evening. All of the smoke and haze in the upper atmosphere caught and refracted the sunlight.

  Shadows lengthened. Sighing, Shona keyed his transmit. “Need a ground crew, please, launch control. Required to return to my station upon completion of courier duty.”

  Things had quieted down in launch control, to judge by the swiftness with which the response came. “Sorry, courier, didn’t mean to make you wait. Just finding the overnights. We’ve got you nice billets, though, to make up for the delay.”

  Worried, Shona took a moment to phrase his next words carefully. “Not a problem, launch control, but we’re not billeting. If I could just get a ground crew, please. I’m due at Emandis Station in two days.”

  It was two days between Brisinje proper and Emandis Station. The Ragnarok was there. The last he’d heard from friends in Stores and Issues had been that the resupply was being pulled for 7.7.1 by the Standard calendar, and that was today. Load out would take seven days at the absolute most; the Ragnarok would be leaving Emandis Station in seven days. He had to be there before that happened. He had promised himself. He had promised his brother, on the hillside.

  “I’m sorry, courier. Unable to oblige at this time. We’re down to three ground crews and they’re all working priority. Is there someone at Home Defense that we need to clear you with?”

  No. His superiors knew that a courier’s schedule was irregular, that Shona couldn’t always say exactly where they’d been or how long they’d been there or what they’d been doing. The Bench specialist at Brisinje preferred to use home defense fleet couriers for exactly that reason, because they were more independent — had more autonomy, offered more flexibility, than the Jurisdiction Fleet. His need to get back to Emandis Station was strictly personal. The crew was overdue for stand-down, yes, but they could do that here just as well as anywhere else.

  The one thing they could not do at Imennou or Brisinje was watch the great curved hull of the Ragnarok maneuver into close orbit and hold for resupply, and watch its personnel come off for personal time, and wait and wait and wait until they saw the one man Shona had to see. Koscuisko. Andrej Koscuisko. Ship’s surgeon, Ship’s Inquisitor, the man who had taken Joslire’s life. To do that Shona had to be at Emandis Station.

  “Thank you, launch control, not necessary.” If there were only three ground crews available, and they were on priority already . . . “Do you have a projected for us? Really very anxious to get back.”

  “Sorry again, courier, could be a week. There are cargoes pending with pharmaceuticals and no place big enough to handle the booster but one at a time unless you haul all the way to Pilos. Which we’re doing.”

  A week. Two days from here to Emandis Station; if he didn’t get away from here inside of four days he might never see the Ragnarok again, and what would his brother’s spirit have to say to him then — to have had the chance to put out his hand to Joslire’s killer, and failed to meet Koscuisko face to face?

  “Understood, launch control.” None of it mattered to anybody else, except perhaps his crew. And they could no more create a ground crew out of dust and twigs than he could. Joslire had been his brother and Koscuisko carried five-knives, but pharmaceutical shipments had to be given the priority, because honor and obligation could only ever be placed ahead of one’s own life, not that of uninvolved and unknowing parties. “Will go on whatever you can get us. Thanks for your help. Maybe we can lend a hand with scheduling.”

  They’d cross-trained in dispatch and maintenance, of course — it was the logical extension of the tradition of their cultural heritage. No one was privileged to enjoy glamour and glory who did not also put in his time on supply and transport. There were no elites among Emandisan: except for knife-fighters, and they were different.

  “We could really use some extra bodies if you can manage. Thanks. We’ll get you off as quickly as we can.”

  Keeping busy might not get them off any more quickly, but at least they’d be doing something positive to contribute to recovery from the problems created by whomever had vandalized the launch-fields at Brisinje proper. Shona didn’t know who, if anyone, had taken credit, and he didn’t care; he didn’t know anybody who did. Vandalism never made a point, unless it was about the cowardice and stupidity of the sort of people who engaged in it.

  “We’ll report soonest, launch control. Courier out.”

  All right. He was stuck here. As was the rest of his crew, but none of them had a dead brother on the hillside with things to say to the man who was carrying his knives. He’d keep busy, he wouldn’t brood about it, and he’d just have to trust in his luck and his brother’s honor to see him through to the day when he could stand face to face with the man who had killed his brother, and restored honor to his family.

  ###

  By the time Jils shook herself awake the ground car was tracking through the traffic of an obviously prosperous business district. The deep public walkways with their generous plantings and welcoming benches were only sparsely populated, however, and there seemed to be more rubbish in the street than could be indicative of a well-ordered city in control of its own destiny. A subtle black smut hung over it all, the soot collecting from the air to smear the sides of the white buildings like a sort of a nightmare-ivy.

  “Arik hates to come through the city any more,” Padrake said, looking past her through the window on her side of the car. “He’s taking it personally. I have to admit I hate to see it myself.”

  He couldn’t be talking only about the burning launch-fields, clearly. But Jils had seen similar signs of civil unrest at Chilleau Judiciary: people not quite comfortable in public; evidence of increasing carelessness, apathy, on the part of a city’s custodians.

  “Who’s Arik?” she asked, curious, because the sound in Padrake’s warm clear voice was one of confidence and sympathy. A friend? A lover?

  Padrake smiled a little and settled his shoulders against the padded back of his shell, staring straight ahead now at the schematic display that told them where the ground car was relative to his goal. “Oh. Tirom. Arik Tirom, Jils, the First Secretary. A man of intense conviction. You’ll meet him soon.”

  And Padrake was on a first-name basis with him? Interesting. “How long have you been at Brisinje, then, Padrake?”

  Tilting his head to one side Padrake half-turned to face her again with a quirky expression on his face that sank straight into her stomach, and warmed her there. “Oh, don’t worry, Jils. You’ll meet him.” This was repetitive, but Padrake seemed convinced that it answered all questions. “No harm to it, he’s just a personable sort. And there’s no reason to be rude. Two years.”

  Two years what? Oh. Two years at Brisinje. She wondered what he’d been doing before then, but it wasn’t the sort of question Bench specialists asked each other — or answered.

  The car turned away from the business area of the city, through long empty stretches of ground transport lanes toward a cluster of buildings whose white brilliance — besmirched with soo
t and ash — made them look unutterably tawdry in the setting sun. The smoke of the Brisinje launch-fields was behind them; so the river was on the other side. Chambers, Jils supposed. The car cleared security and slowed to trundle through the beautiful well-kept grounds of Brisinje’s administrative center; here was no sign of unrest or violence, but Jils knew that it took security to keep it that way.

  She walked side by side with Padrake from the motor stables up through floors of office space into the upper levels of the administrative center. Padrake had changed; he was different, and Jils couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Yes, it had been years since she’d seen him; but there was something odd in his manner itself: he was cheerful, pleasant, engaging, pointing out things and people, beguiling her with conversation.

  As they neared what had to be the First Secretary’s office complex Jils finally realized what was wrong with Padrake. He seemed to be at peace with himself and the world; that wasn’t like Padrake. What had happened to him?

  She’d seen enough of Chambers to be able to tell what was what; they were in the heart of the administration. People knew Padrake, and looked at her with calm polite interest; what had Padrake told them about her? Nobody seemed to have a question of murder at the back of their mind, and after weeks of living with the unexpressed suspicion at Chilleau the relief was as significant as it was unexpected.

  “Here we are,” Padrake said, and leaned into a door to push it to one side. Padrake’s office, and in the middle of Brisinje’s administrative complex, in the heart of Chambers. This was interesting. Emphatically unusual. Was he so comfortable here that he no longer cared what it looked like to be so close to the judicial offices, to occupy space like a member of the administration?

  It was a nice office. Jils set her kit bag down beside a gracefully curved and elegantly padded Kartmanns chair, looking around. A large window with a restful view of an apparently extensive botanical gardens; a beautiful desk, clear, glossy, all but entirely innocent of anything that looked like it might represent actual work. Still Padrake had said that they were to go into isolation together; that might explain it, he’d cleared off his desk, and what he hadn’t cleared off he’d secured appropriately. Padrake had always been a meticulous man, careful, precise. Tidy.

  She sat down. “You have a briefing for me?”

  He’d said so. Circling around to behind his desk he drew a flat-file docket out of one of its slots and held it out to her, keying a toggle-switch at the same time.

  “Delleroy here, Specialist Ivers just arrived. Can I get in?” The transmit was on directional, so much was obvious; Jils didn’t hear the response, but Padrake nodded. “Thanks, we’ll be right there. Jils. Let’s go meet the First Secretary. He’s been anxious for your arrival, as have I.”

  All right. Jils closed the docket with a shrug; Padrake clearly had things on his mind, and he could be difficult to stop or stay when he had his Jetorix up. A man of immense and persuasive determination, Padrake Delleroy, and the years that had silvered those several strands in amongst his beautiful mane of black hair had not apparently made any appreciable dent in his momentum.

  Just five doors down to the inner office. Padrake was expected, the doors stood open for them, the Security post bowing them through past the clerks’ stations into the First Secretary’s office. It was bigger than Padrake’s, and the view was of the river; Jils saw the First Secretary at Brisinje Judiciary — Arik Tirom — look up from the view-screen on his desk as Padrake opened the door into the office and invited Jils to precede him into the room with a sweeping shooing gesture of his free hand.

  The First Secretary was a man of medium height but significant shoulder, whose broad high forehead and long heavy braid of stunningly black hair indicated that the brown-ivory color of his skin was that of a Manicha hominid, class one. Meeting Jils’ eyes, Tirom stood up quickly and nodded his head in a polite greeting; “Specialist Ivers,” Tirom said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  And that could go in several different directions, too, Jils thought. She stopped when she was two paces shy of the front of Tirom’s beautifully polished sand-grass veneer desk, and bowed. “I’ll admit to any good things, but for most of what you’ll have heard I’ll plead duty to the rule of Law, First Secretary. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Padrake had closed the door behind them, and now he came to join Jils at the desk. Tirom had not sat back down. “Specialist Ivers is just now in, First Secretary, redirected through Imennou. I’ve taken the liberty of having a beverage service sent up.”

  She hadn’t planned on sitting down and having a talk just this minute. She’d had a long transit; she’d gotten an unexpected and ambiguous message from Karol Vogel, and the First Secretary was saying something so she had better pay attention.

  “Thanks, Padrake, I could use a break. If you’d care to sit down, Specialist Ivers?”

  It was her practice to be polite to senior administrative officials, unless they had given her specific reason not to be. It only surprised them more when one had to pull rank on them — rank that technically did not exist, but rank that was hers as a representative of the entire Bench and which therefore over-ruled that of any one single Jurisdiction’s administration. The moment of surprise between realization that someone had just said “no” and the reaction was frequently the moment at which the entire carriage of an investigation depended, and Jils had been glad of it on more than one occasion.

  “Very kind, First Secretary. Thank you.” Right now she was the one who was a little stupefied with a combination of stress and fatigue. The arrival of the beverage service saved her from the immediate embarrassment of having to say anything intelligent right then, so that by the time kilpers had been handed all around and the trays of crisp snack cakes and fruit had been passed, and everybody had settled back in the cushiony embrace of the very comfortable chairs in Tirom’s conversation area, she was ready to engage.

  “Padrake hasn’t briefed me yet on the status of the convocation,” Jils noted, politely. That was a little unfair, perhaps — she’d been asleep, after all — but true. “Am I the last to arrive, First Secretary?”

  Tirom nodded with an air of understanding more than had been said. “Old friends with a lot of catching up to do,” he said, and finished off a slice of fragrant golden-fleshed melon with evident relish. “I quite understand. And you’ll have plenty of time to get your feet under you, Specialist Ivers, you’re not in one of the chairs until the preliminaries have been completed.”

  Preliminaries. Bench against Bench against Bench, one-on-one, and then winner against winner, Supicor against Dasidar and Dasidar against Haspirzak and Supicor against Haspirzak and so forth — and at the end of it all, only then, Chilleau against Fontailloe against the strongest other candidate on the Bench, for one final contest to decide the Selection based on the finest macro-analyses the Bench could offer.

  “I’ve been following a little of the developments. But not very clearly.” Much of what was going on was behind the scenes and not accessible even at Bench offices to people without a specific need to know. There was probably more that the Second Judge had simply not bothered to share with her. Jils knew that the Judge had been hoping that Karol Vogel would turn up and spare her the necessity of sending Jils to Convocation. And Karol should have turned up. It was hard for Jils to understand what could have been important enough to keep Karol away from Chilleau at this crisis point in the Bench’s history.

  Unless it was Karol who had assassinated the First Secretary, that was, of course. If he had it was not with the Second Judge’s knowledge or consent — that went without saying. And her mind was wandering again. This was not good. She needed some time to stand down, to clear her mind and concentrate on what she was going to do. She had to forget all about Verlaine’s murder just for now. She would have enough on her task list without worrying at old problems, except to rest her mind from Convocation issues.

  “You’re to become more familiar than
you’d really care to be with the arguments, I’m afraid, Specialist Ivers.”

  She was glad that he didn’t try to call her Jils. “Yes, First Secretary, quite so. Do you have a personal opinion you would care to share, though?”

  Padrake set his flask down on the table with a decided gesture, pinching his upper lip with his thumb and forefinger as though to clean some moisture from his mouth. “I certainly do,” he said. “My personal opinion is that Brisinje should take it.”

  Tirom just grinned at her, rolling his eyes at Jils as if to say that this was an old quarrel that she was not to take seriously. Of course Padrake would speak for Brisinje. That would be his role exactly: to speak for Brisinje, but Padrake had to know that Brisinje was not in serious contention, though it would be as carefully represented as any of the others. Brisinje was the newest Judiciary, with the least powerful and influential set of historically-developed alliances and relationships with other Benches.

  That was precisely why Brisinje had been selected as the best place to hold the convocation: it was as close to neutral territory as any place under Jurisdiction. For a more unaligned location they would have to go out into Gonebeyond space, which was clearly impossible.

  Tirom opened his mouth to joke back at Padrake, but before he could speak there was a sound at the alert on his desk.

  “Fleet Captain Irshah Parmin, Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Scylla. Ready to proceed with detachment to Emandis Station for resupply, First Secretary.”

  It was a woman’s voice, and Jils knew that Irshah Parmin wasn’t a woman, though she’d never met the man in person. But it wouldn’t actually be the Fleet Captain calling, but his First Officer on his behalf. Scylla did in fact have a female First Officer — Saligrep Linelly, a woman due for her first command, but who had made no move to demand one, apparently comfortable where she was and willing to lay low until the environment had become more settled once again.