Warring States Page 25

  “If there’s anyone who could stunt that and stay off the record while they were doing it, it’s probably a Bench specialist,” Capercoy said, gently. He had a very agreeable accent, soft and warm and fuzzy around the edges with a bit of an occasional drawl to it that dropped the middle out of words from time to time, when it was least expected. “We’re not likely to come up with an answer before Convocation is finished, Jils. The report’s one thing; what we’re going to do about it is another.”

  Ivers dropped her head, clearly struggling with frustration. Rafenkel could empathize. “If I thought it’d do any good to stand up on the table and solemnly swear that I had neither thought nor word nor deed in the killing of Sindha Verlaine, I’d do it,” Ivers said. Her voice held little hope that Rafenkel could hear. “But nobody who already thinks differently would believe me. I wouldn’t believe me, on principle.”

  Too true. It was part of the burden of the Bench specialist never to believe what anybody told them. “Look here,” Rafenkel said. She’d had an idea. “Maybe nobody was trying to kill you. Maybe it was a well-intentioned warning. Clumsily executed, yes. In poor taste, yes. But nobody’s killing anybody until the Selection is decided. We can’t do that unless Chilleau is represented, at least for now.”

  Ivers nodded, looking very tired. She wore no visible bandaging, but her movements were a little awkward; it had to be wearing on her. A slice up the side was no joke, and if it hadn’t been calculated to kill her the margin of error had been irresponsibly small.

  “I was counting on that, Rafenkel. Thought I’d have a bit of a break. But then you decided to reroute the decision tree.”

  True enough, yet again. At the time Rafenkel had thought it likely to be welcome to Ivers — get her in, get her out of a vulnerable situation as quickly as possible. The trick with the chair could have been calculated to encourage her to disqualify Chilleau and escape, because if she was successful in defending the Second Judge’s bid against Fontailloe’s challenge, she was going to have to wait until the final decision had been made as to which Judiciary Chilleau would face in final debate. Was someone working on Ivers’ nerves to persuade her to cut her losses, throw her own platform, and flee?

  “All right, Jils,” Capercoy said. “You’re okay for the run. Cintaro will not accept the selection of Chilleau, not until the administrative issues are cleared up.”

  The gap left by Verlaine’s murder, obviously. His successor could not hope to build the contacts and relationships of a lifetime in a single year. “And Fontailloe is simply not an option. Nobody believes otherwise except for Tanifer, and I’m not so sure even Tanifer does. So you’ll be here till the end. And once Cintaro is selected, we can leave together.”

  Safety in numbers. She and Balkney had been trying to keep an eye on Ivers since Ivers got here. Balkney had apparently liked Ivers on the few occasions in the past that they had worked together; he was worried for her sake.

  “Sant-Dasidar will endorse Cintaro if Chilleau is out,” Rafenkel said. Capercoy was being very up-front and candid; she could do no less. Maybe full disclosure would reassure Ivers, at least a little bit. “But not otherwise. The Sixth Judge’s story is that Chilleau is still the correct selection. She doesn’t have to worry about Fleet giving her any problems.”

  Fleet had successfully maintained exclusive control over the practitioners the Bench needed to run its Protocols, and any attempts to wean the Bench from the Protocols was an attempt to destroy a primary element of Fleet’s leverage in the time-honored power struggle between the Bench and the military chartered by the Bench to uphold the rule of Law and the Judicial order.

  “Fleet giving who problems?” This was a voice from the doorway; the door had been left open — nobody was saying anything that everybody couldn’t hear — but Rafenkel was a little startled, regardless. She hadn’t heard Delleroy approach. “Not Brisinje. She’ll have the Emandisan on ‘em so fast, but we’ve never had any issues with Fleet, Jils. How are you, ready for the wars again?”

  Ivers relaxed when Delleroy came into the room. She didn’t slump or slouch; to the contrary, her shoulders seemed to have lifted by some degree, as though a weight on them had been lifted away. Balkney and the Widowmaker had been forced to marry, in the end, and Widowmaker had gone onto the inactive roster — at least in theory. Delleroy and Ivers were going to have to face a similar decision sooner or later. It was too clear — at least to Rafenkel — that they responded to each other on a dangerously trusting level.

  “How’d it go with you?” Ivers asked, affection almost blatant in her voice. “Balkney chewed your skinny ass?”

  Delleroy shook his head. “I’m not doing very well, Jils. But it’s not my fault. Confederacy just doesn’t have the chops.”

  “I’ll remember you said that,” Ivers said. “I may be able to use it. I’d better go, gentles, Tanifer and I are going to start our talk about Fontailloe, and why Chilleau is clearly the better choice.”

  Or not, from Fontailloe’s point of view. “I’ll walk you out,” Delleroy said. “We’ve been busy. Want to know how that scrape is doing. Later, gentles.”

  Given the mutual feeling Delleroy and Ivers appeared to share, Rafenkel felt perfectly comfortable letting Delleroy do the escorting.

  “Later,” Capercoy replied, on Rafenkel’s behalf as well as his own.

  Rafenkel stood and stretched. She was going to be glad to get away from here herself, but not as glad as Balkney and Ivers alike, always supposing both of them lived that long.

  ###

  Ap Rhiannon had asked him to come and review the surgical set requirements, but Andrej Koscuisko didn’t think she had his surgical set on her mind. There had been trouble brewing between the two of them since he had returned to the Ragnarok to find her captain. It had only been a matter of time before an explosion occurred — one he had himself primed and ignited.

  “The requisition is complete and correct in all material aspects, your Excellency,” Andrej confirmed, setting his chop to the senior medical officer’s certification of destruction of original issue. She was watching him as suspiciously as a scholar’s assistant a too-confident intern, as though expecting the worst at any moment and more than ready to return grief for grief in generously compounded measure. “I hope there is no question of fault to be found with my stores and issues. The equipment was taken. Pure and simple.”

  She shook her head. Leaning well back in her chair in her office — the captain’s office, that had been Lowden’s before her — she put her feet up on the desk and squinted at the toe of her right boot. “Stolen, Koscuisko, no question. No. I’ve never had cause to doubt the professionalism and the attention to procedure and detail that you have nurtured in Infirmary.”

  That sounded like a compliment, and made Andrej nervous. “Very kind, your Excellency. Fully deserved, the praise of Section, with no merit accruing to me thereby. It is their doing.”

  Now she put her hand back to rest on the top edge of the chair’s neck-support and gaze up at the ceiling. “Oh, but praise is due, your Excellency, you lead by example and indirection. Bad example. What really impresses me is how well they do with you there to mislead them.”

  Well, that was a rebuke burnished and brilliant. He could appreciate it for what it was. “You’re too kind.” Of what did she intend to accuse him this time? There was so much. And yet he had an idea that he knew where she was going.

  “Not at all, Doctor, I have no difficulty in recognizing superlative performance despite its unfortunate implications. This is a ship at war with its own Command, Koscuisko, we can’t hope to survive without trust. I agreed to trust you to come on board and rejoin your crew, I respected your motives. I’m sorry to see you have extended no such trust to me.”

  Tricking a sheet of plain-form out from underneath a stack of flat-files she pushed it across the desk at him. Andrej took it. His personnel request to cover his planned leave at Emandis: all of his bond-involuntaries. Even Robert. Robert had known J
oslire. Of all people Robert should be allowed to go, and gaze upon Joslire’s memorial tablet.

  “Explain to me, your Excellency, in what way have I disappointed you?” Andrej was genuinely confused. Surely Stoshi hadn’t gone so far as to speak to the captain, before he’d left. That would have been — well, actually, something one might expect, from a Malcontent. “I have shared no confidences with anybody on board this ship with regards to my requested leave that I have withheld from my Command. At the same time one might be excused for having thought that his reasons for wishing to visit a man’s memorial tablet might justly be considered personal.”

  She blew her breath out between clenched teeth, making a sort of a frustrated sound, rolling her eyes at him with transparent disgust. “If you say so. I’m not going to let whatever personal issue you might have with this office interfere with my professional duties toward this ship. You have reason to mistrust the captain of the Ragnarok. I can respect that.”

  Pulling her chop on its chain out from underneath her blouse she reached for the release and endorsed it, then passed it back. “For that reason, Koscuisko, you’re going to Emandis on leave, and you’re taking every bond-involuntary troop on my inventory with you. We are in more dangerous a situation than ever yet, we’ve lost our sole protection, such as it was, the record is gone, and nobody who trusts a Bench specialist to do what she wishes they would deserves to live. If letting you steal these troops is what it takes to get you off this ship then I say steal away, Doctor.”

  Oh, now he was getting angry. Had she no respect for the regard in which he held the people who had seen him through horrors of which she could have no immediate knowledge? “You have determined that with the record no longer available I seek the first opportunity to run away from my duty.” That was what she had said. More or less. “It is true that I worry about my gentlemen. Somebody ought, and I am considerably obliged to them. To you not at all.”

  That was a little harsh. He was obliged to her for sending the wrong team of Security home to Azanry with him, months ago — an action born of what he had to admit was justified paranoia that had saved him from a plot to take his freedom, if not his life. And still what was missing between them was respect. She did not credit him with having feelings. Self-interest seemed to be as far as she would go in attributing motive to his actions.

  “The feeling is mutual,” ap Rhiannon retorted sharply. “You are by repute among the finest battle surgeons in Fleet, or at least you were when Lowden let you alone to do your job. I’ve seen you in Infirmary. You could be a significant strength to this Command, Koscuisko, and that’s why I can’t afford any ambiguity over why you’re here. If that insults you I’m sorry.”

  She was angry herself, so much was obvious. She didn’t seem to have noticed, however; her tone remained fairly level and her language moderately temperate. Maybe she was simply telling the truth. It was possible.

  “I have said that I mean to stay with my Command, your Excellency, the ship is yours but Infirmary is mine. You do insult me, when you suggest that I am looking for ways out.”

  Not until the Ragnarok’s appeal had been heard and sustained. Verlaine was dead but the documentation Verlaine had signed and sent to him on Azanry was still legal and binding, fully executed; relief of Writ. He could go home and strive to live up to his son’s inflated image, and dread the day when Anton would find out. He could be free, his family had half-forgiven him for quarreling with his father already, and he had much to do to repair the damage he had done to alliances and trading relationships when he had married Marana.

  Until the Ragnarok’s appeal had been accepted, he would do none of those things. It was a point of honor. The crew of this ship had persistently treated him like a human being, as well as merely an officer, during all of the years that he had been here; it almost convinced him that he was one, and there was no sacrifice that he could make that would begin to balance out the gratitude he felt toward every soul who declined to spit or make a sign against spiritual contamination when he walked past them in the corridors.

  “Would you just listen to yourself?” Her voice had sharpened; he had succeeded in annoying her past her self-discipline at last, as it seemed. “You’re the inheriting son of the Koscuisko familial corporation. You have a clearly communicated abhorrence for your Inquisitorial function and an unfortunate history with Fleet Captain Lowden, deceased.”

  Leaning over her desk with her hands folded — as though to prevent herself from throwing something — she stared at him ferociously as she spoke on. “By any measure of rational evaluation, by any sane measure, you have more to lose than the entire crew of the Ragnarok combined, and you get insulted when I suggest that you cannot be relied upon because there is too large a gap between what you say and what anybody, anybody at all, can see with their own two eyes.”

  Well, if she put it that way Andrej supposed he could see her point. She was crèche-bred. She knew nothing of honor as Andrej understood it. Her entire life had been an indoctrination into the lowest common denominator of peoples’ desires and convictions.

  “For this reason you release the bond-involuntaries to go with me to see Joslire, because you wish to remove any obstacles in my path, so that I may leave.”

  She didn’t answer; she didn’t need to. He could see her endorsement in her eyes.

  “You surprise me, Captain. Bond-involuntaries are valuable resources. To throw them away — just to be rid of me — ”

  “They’re good troops.” She was the captain. She could interrupt him. But she didn’t do it the way Lowden had. She wasn’t making a point about her rank, Andrej’s subordinate status, about how careful Andrej had to be to avoid provoking her into assessing sanctions against the bond-involuntaries. She was just interrupting. “I hate to lose them. Under any other circumstances I wouldn’t allow it at any cost. Cost is the issue.”

  Well, that sounded reasonable; and she sounded calm enough, as she continued. “You’ve wanted to take them for a long time. You can do me much more damage by staying, and being unhappy about it, than taking six bond-involuntary troops. We’ll need the Wolnadi crew and we won’t be able to replace them, but they’re not going to be needed for Inquiry while I’m in command of this ship, so take them and go and don’t come back.”

  That wasn’t likely to be a very long time, was it? While I am in command of this ship, she’d said. Once the Ragnarok’s appeal had been accepted, once the ship had been cleared of wrong-doing and restored to active status, ap Rhiannon’s career was over. It wouldn’t matter that the appeal had been upheld, then. She’d thrown it away the moment she’d decided on her course of action. It was too bad that she wouldn’t let him respect her for it.

  She’d given him an order. What was he going to do? He had a sudden temptation to refuse, just to be spiteful — but then all of his arranging would come to nothing. No. He had to get them away. He’d known when he’d performed the surgeries that to expect a man to bend his neck to a governor twice in his life was simply not to be entertained. Even if she meant to strand him on Emandis Station he had to go, so that the Bonds could get clear of Fleet before Fleet found out what he’d done with them.

  Maybe it would be for the best if she did strand him; it would tend to support the idea that she had not known what he was doing. Nobody knew what he had been doing. He had told nobody. They were welcome to guess what they liked, and he knew very well that the guesses of his staff were not likely to have hit far from the mark, but he had said nothing.

  “I will. Thank you.” She could have held them on board. She could have kept some of them back as hostages for his good behavior. She was going to let them all go, and if it hadn’t been for her explanation, he wouldn’t have been able to believe it. She wasn’t letting them go. She was sending them away, in order to be rid of him. “A final question, Captain, with your permission.”

  “Of course.”

  “If I should come back without them, your Excellency, will it be to find
my boots and baggage on the loading docks?”

  It was a challenge. They both knew it was. She only considered it, however; she did not rise to her feet and throw the half-empty flask of brutally red wine that was a constant feature of her desk at him.

  After a moment of careful deliberation she replied. “I am willing to put up with a great deal from you, Koscuisko, to have your services for my crew. No. I won’t throw you out. But I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  They had exhausted all their available topics for conversation, Andrej decided. He bowed, doing his best to make it an honest salute.

  “Very well, your Excellency. Thank you, and good-greeting.”

  “Enjoy your leave,” she said, and turned away to study a report-scan as he left.

  He’d find out soon enough whether she meant what she’d said, or not. But for now he had to go and tell Stildyne to muster his bond-involuntary troops to go with him to Emandis Station, to accompany him to Joslire’s grave-site; it would be the last duty they would ever be called up on to perform. It was fitting that it should take place in a graveyard.

  ###

  Chapter Eleven

  Privileged Relationships

  The captain’s shallop was a small sturdy craft that would carry up to thirty-two souls in ease and relative comfort. It had come down to Emandis Station from the Ragnarok with half that number. When their errand was done, Stildyne would proceed down to Emandis itself — the port city of Jeltaria, in the arid zone between the sapphire sea of Genet and the thorny brown-black hills of the Minto range — to command Koscuisko’s escort to the place where the memorial tablet of Joslire Ise-I’let stood over the dead man’s ashes in the glittering white ground.

  “Brachi, I’m nervous,” Koscuisko said, staring up at the great rolling globe of Emandis in the sky above the depot station with a look of longing on his face such as Stildyne had seldom seen. “I have not seen him for all of this time. I wonder if I should not leave them behind, Joslire doesn’t know them. Except for Robert. And you must come as well.”