Battlecry: Sten: Omnibus One (Sten Omnibus) (57 page)

Port Soward Hospital bore a strange resemblance to its oddly shaped cnidarian receiving clerk. It just grew from an emergency hospital intended to handle incoming ship disasters, industrial accidents, and whatever other catastrophe would come up within a ten-kilometer circle around Soward itself. But disasters and accidents have a way of growing wildly, so Soward Hospital sprawled a lot, adding ship-capable landing platforms here, radiation wards there, and nonhuman sections in still a third place.

All of that made Admissions even more a nightmare than in most hospitals. In spite of high-speed computers, personal ID cards, and other improvements, the hospital’s central area went far toward defining chaos.

Sten and Haines waited beside a large central ‘desk,’ the outer ring of which was for files and such. The second ring contained a computer whose memory circuits rivaled an Imperial military computer. In the center swam the clerk(s), a colony of intelligent polyps-cnidarians, beings which began life as individuals and then, for protection, grew together – literally, like coral. But most cnidarians did not get along. The one in front of Sten – he mentally labeled it A – burbled in fury, snatched a moisture-resistant file from Polyp B, tossed it across the ring to Polyp R, Sten estimated, brushed Polyp C’s tentacles off A’s own terminal, and finally turned to the two people waiting. Its ‘voice’ was just shrill enough to add to the surrounding madness as white-clad hospital types steered lift gurneys past, patients leaned, lay, or stood against the walls, and relatives wailed or wept.

‘You see what it’s like? You see?’ The polyp’s feeder tentacles were bicycling wildly against the bottom of the tank.

‘Police,’ Lisa said dryly, holding out a card with one hand. She touched the card with an index finger, and the ‘badge’ glowed briefly.

‘Another cop. This has been one of those days. Some wiper comes in, bleeding like – like a stuck human. Drunk, of course. He doesn’t tell me that he’s union, and so I send him to the Tombs. How was I know to he was union? Job-related and all that, and now I’ve got all this data. He’ll probably die before I get the paper work through. Now what do
you
want?’

‘Last night, around 2100 hours, an ambulance responded to a call.’

‘We have thousands of ambulances. For what?’

‘An explosion.’

‘There are many kinds of explosions. Ship, atomsuit, housing, radiation. I
can’t
help you if you don’t help me!’

Haines gave the polyp the file. The being submerged briefly, only the plate-projector, held in one tentacle, above the surface. Then another tentacle wove behind the being to a terminal and began tapping keys.

‘Yes. Ambulance GE145 it was. No input on who summoned it. You see what my trouble is? No one seems to
care
about proper files.’

Sten broke in. ‘Where would this ambulance have been routed to?’

‘Thank you, man. At least someone knows the proper question. Since it was sent to a … drinking establishment … unless other data was input, it would have gone to the Tombs.’

‘The Tombs?’

‘Human emergency treatment, nonindustrial.’ The polyp pulled a square of plas from the counter and touched the edges of it. An outline of the sprawling hospital sprang into life on it. Further tentacling and a single red line wound its way through the corridors.

‘You are … here. You want to go
there
. They’ll be able to help you. Maybe.’

Sten had one final question. ‘Why is it called the Tombs?’

‘Because this is where our – I believe the phrase is down and under – go. And if they weren’t before, they are when they get to the Tombs.’

‘GE145. Weird.’ The desk intern was puzzled. ‘No entry on who dispatched it – came from out-hospital. Three DOA’s. They’re … um, being held for autopsy results, Lieutenant.’

‘Question, Doctor. Assuming this ambulance had arrived with live victims, what would have happened then?’

‘Depends on the injury.’

‘Blast. Shock. Possible fractures,’ Sten said.

‘Um … that would have gone to – let me check last night’s roster … Dr. Knox would have treated them.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Let me see … not on shift today. Pity.’

‘Would he be in the hospital?’

‘No, not at all. Dr. Knox was hardly one of us. He was a volunteer.’

‘Do you have a contact number on him?’ Lisa asked.

‘It should be right— No. No, we don’t have anything on his sheet. That’s unusual.’

‘Two unusuals, Doctor. I’d like to see your files on this Knox.’

‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant. But without a proper court order, not even the police—’

Sten’s own card was out. ‘On Imperial Service, Doctor.’

The intern’s eyes widened. ‘Certainly … perhaps, back in my office. We’ll use the terminal there. Genevieve? Would you take the floor for me?’

Ten minutes later Sten knew they had something.

Or rather, by having nothing, they had something.

KNOX, DR. JOHN
, began the hospital’s scanty info card. No such doctor was licensed on Prime World, as Sten quickly learned. Yet somehow a ‘Dr. Knox’ had convinced someone at Soward Hospital – either a person or a computer – that he was legitimate. His listed home address was a recently demolished apartment building. His supposed private clinic was a restaurant, one which had been in existence at that address for almost ten years.

‘So this Knox,’ Sten mused, still staring at the fiche, ‘shows up from nowhere as a volunteer two weeks ago.’

‘He was an excellent emergency surgeon,’ the intern said. ‘I prepped some patients for him.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Tall,’ the intern said hesitantly. ‘One eighty-five, one ninety centimeters. Slender build, almost endomorphic. Seventy kilograms estimated weight. Eyes … I don’t remember. He was very proud of his hair. Gray it was. Natural, he swore. Wore it mane-style.’

‘Not bad,’ Haines said. ‘You ever think of being a cop?’

‘In this job I sometimes think I am one.’

‘You said he was “hardly one of you.” Did you mean just because he was a volunteer?’ Sten asked.

‘No. Uh – you see, we don’t exactly get Imperial-class medicos here. The pay. The conditions. The patients. So when we get a volunteer as good as Dr. Knox, well …’ And the intern interrupted himself: ‘His room!’

‘Knox had a room?’

‘Of course. All of us do – our shifts are two-day marathons.’

‘Where would it be?’

‘I’ll get a floor chart.’

‘Very private sort, this Knox,’ Lisa said. ‘His room card specifies no mechanical or personal cleaning wanted. Maybe
we’ll
get something.’

Sten suspected they would get nothing, and if they got as thorough a nothing as he feared …

‘Four thirteen.’

Lisa took the passcard from the back of the room file.

‘Hang on. And stay back from the door.’

Millimeter by millimeter, Sten checked the jamb around the slide-door’s edges. He found it just above the floor – a barely visible gray hair stretched across the doorjamb.

‘We need an evidence team,’ Sten said. ‘Your best. But there won’t be a bomb inside. I want this room sealed until the evidence team goes through it.’

Lisa started to get angry, then snapped a salute.

‘Yes, sir. Captain, sir. Anything else?’

‘Aw drakh,’ Sten swore. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to sound like, like—’

‘A cop?’

‘A cop.’ Sten grinned.

The room was ballooned, then gently opened. Finally the tech team went in.

The three spindars – one adult and two adolescents – were not what Sten had thought expert forensic specialists would look like. As soon as the room was unsealed and the adult lumbered into the bedroom, the two adolescents rolled out of its pouch and began scurrying about with doll-size instruments and meters taken from the pack strapped to the adult’s pouch.

The adult spindar was about two meters in any direction and scaled like a pangolin. It surveyed the scuttlings of its two offspring with what might have been mild approval, rebuttoned the instrument pack with a prehensile subarm, scratched its belly thoughtfully, and sat down on its rear legs in the center of the room. The being chuffed
three times experimentally, then introduced itself as Technician Bernard Spilsbury. Spindars having names unpronounceable to any being without both primary and secondary voice boxes, they found human names a useful conceit – names selected from within whatever field the spindar worked in.

‘Highly unusual,’ it chuffed. ‘Very highly unusual. Recollect only one case like that. My esteemed colleague Halperin handled that one. Most interesting. Would you be interested in hearing about it while my young protegés continue?’

Sten looked at Haines. She shrugged, and Sten got the idea that once a spindar started, nothing short of high explosives could shut him up.

‘Out on one of the pioneer worlds it was. Disremember at the moment which one. Pair of miners it was. Got into some unseemly squabble about claims or stakegrubs or whatever miners bicker about.

‘First miner waited until his mate got into a suit, then shot him in the face. Stuffed the corpus into the drive, suit and all.’

One young spindar held up a minidisplay to his parent. Columns of figures, unintelligible to Sten, reeled past.

The young one chittered, and the older one rumbled.

‘Even more so,’ the spindar said. ‘If you’ll excuse me?’ His forearm dug larger instruments from the pack, then he waddled to the bed, half stood, and began running a pickup across it. ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’

‘Speaking of curious,’ Haines said quietly to Sten. ‘You wondered about that tac squad? I think I’ll check on just
why
they were assigned to that area.

‘I owe you a beer, Captain.’

They smiled at each other.

Before Sten could say anything, the spindar was back beside him. ‘That took care of one sort of evidence, of course.’

‘You found something?’

‘No, no. I meant the miner. To continue, he then dumped the ship’s atmosphere and disposed of all of his mate’s belongings and went peaceably on his way.

‘Questioned some months later, said miner maintained that he had shipped solo. Contrary to the ship’s lading, no one had been with him. Claimed the other party had never showed at lift-off, and he himself had been too lazy to change the manifest. There was, indeed, no sign that anyone had ever been on the ship besides this individual.

‘But Halperin produced evidence that it was physically impossible for one human to have consumed the amount of rations missing from the ship. The miner contradicted him. Swore that he was a hearty eater. Pity.’

Evidently that was the end of the spindar’s story. By then, Sten knew better, but asked what happened anyway.

‘The planetary patrols in the frontier worlds are some what pragmatic. Not to say ruthless. They purchased an equivalent amount of rations and sat the suspect down in front of them. Gave him thirty days to prove his innocence. Trial by glut, I suppose you would refer to it. A definite pity.’

Again the spindar dug out instruments and, attaching extensions to them, swept the ceiling area. ‘The man died of overeating on the third day. Odd system of justice you humans have.

‘This case,’ the spindar continued, reseating himself, ‘is even stranger. You do, just as you warned me, Lieutenant, appear to have a great quantity of nothing.’

For Sten, that was the first positive lead toward finding the disappeared Dr. Knox.

‘And what, Captain, does nothing give you?’ the Eternal Emperor asked.

The Emperor might appear less angry, but Sten was determined to keep the briefing as short as possible. As long as he stuck to business, he probably couldn’t get in much trouble.

‘This Knox did not want the room cleaned. My theory is that he was afraid some personal evidence might still be in the room’s automatic cleaning filters.

‘We found no fingerprints. No traces of dead skin, no urine traces in the bed, no sweat or oil stains in the pillow. Also, there was no IR residue in the bed coverings.’

‘Thank you, Captain. I will now assume you and the techs produced every sort of zero-trace science can look for. Explain.’

Sten did. Knox not only cleaned the room minutely, but also used sophisticated electronics to remove
all
traces of his occupancy.

‘So. Your, uh, Knox character’s more than just a professional doctor.’

‘That’s the assumption,’ Sten said carefully. ‘Haines – she’s the police OIC on the case – is tracing doctors who might have learned another set of skills.’

‘If your Knox is as good as you say, Captain, I’d assume he was an offworlder.’

‘Haines is checking all Prime World arrivals within the last E-year, sir.’

‘Good luck. Prediction, Captain: You’re going to draw a big fat blank.’

‘Probably. Which is why we’re working angle B – the bomber.’

The Emperor shrugged. ‘If you’ve got one pro, why couldn’t the bomber be just as faceless?’

‘Because the bomber’ – Sten caught himself before he could say ‘blew it,’ – ‘made a mistake.’

The Emperor considered. ‘All right. Work that angle. Is there anything else?’

Sten shook his head – there was no point in mentioning the tac-squad’s mysterious presence until Haines had more information.

‘One more thing, Captain. For your information only. The Tahn Embassy’s Principal Secretary has requested an interview with me. I think we may both assume what it will be regarding.

‘And I really would like to be able to tell him more than “I got plenty of nothing.”

‘That’s all, Captain. You may go.’

Sten fingered the pore-pattern key on his mailbox and absentmindedly fished out its contents. It was the usual junk –
The Imperial Guard Times, Forces Journal
, the palace’s daily house organ, the latest promotion list, an ad from a military jeweler – all of which went into the disposal. Sten tucked one fiche – reminder of his somewhat past-due bill from a uniform tailor – into his belt pouch and started to close the little door. Then he saw something else and fished it out curiously.

It was a real paper envelope, addressed by hand to ‘Captain Sten, Imperial Household.’ Sten fumbled the envelope open. Three other pieces of paper dropped into his hand. The first was a blank envelope. The second was a thick engraved paper card:

Perplexed, Sten stared at the invitation. Of course he knew Marr and Senn as the Imperial caterers and unofficial social arbiters at Court. The brief meetings he’d had with them had been purely official, even though he was personally intrigued by their bitchy humor and warmth. He wondered why they’d invite a lowly captain, regardless of position, to what must be a Major Social Event.

The third piece of paper, also hand-written, explained it. The card
said simply, ‘It’s time for old friends to meet again,’ and was signed Sofia.

Umm. Sten knew that the woman he’d had a brief but very passionate affair with during a previous assignment was on Prime World – he’d been responsible for getting Sofia off Nebta before the shooting started – but had semideliberately not looked her up, having no idea any longer what he felt toward her.

Sten decided he needed some advice. In the Imperial Household, unofficial advice for officers was the province of the Grand Chamberlain. His offices were only a few hundred meters from the Emperor’s own business suite.

The Grand Chamberlain, Fleet Admiral Mik Ledoh (Ret.), looked like everyone’s favorite grandsire. Sten, however, had looked up the admiral’s record as part of his routine security check while settling into the job.

A hundred years before, Ledoh had been a fireball. Literally. During the Palafox rising, his tacship flight was ordered to provide cover for a small planetary landing. Unfortunately, intelligence had erred, and the planet was strongly defended by hardened orbital satellites.

Ledoh had supervised the conversion of the tacships into pilot-aimed nuclear missiles, and then led the strike himself. He and three other pilots managed to jettison their capsules successfully.

Then, over the next decades, he’d become the Imperial fleet’s prime specialist in planetary assaults. Promotion came rapidly for a man who, basically, specialized in logistics. By the time of the Mueller Wars, Ledoh was a fleet admiral.

The Mueller Wars were one of the more confusing conflicts of the Empire, since the battles were fought near-simultaneously on dozens of different worlds. During the wars, Ledoh commanded the landings in the Crais System, and in a war noted for its bloodiness and ineptness, took the system with minimal losses – minimal, at least, compared to the fifty to seventy per cent casualties the war’s other battles produced.

After peace was signed, Ledoh retired for some years, then emigrated to Prime World. When the previous Grand Chamberlain died in office following an unfortunate surfeit of smoked eels, Ledoh, with his combat record and, more important, logistical ability, was a natural for the job.

Sten could never figure out how Ledoh managed to juggle the various official and unofficial requirements of a household the size of a medium city and still maintain benevolence. Sten was very grateful
that he had nothing more to worry about than keeping the Emperor alive, and the welfare of 150 Gurkhas.

Sten stepped inside Ledoh’s office and paused.

Ledoh, Colonel Fohlee, CO of the Praetorians, and Arbogast, the Imperial Household’s paymaster, were staring at a wallscreen readout.

‘Colonel,’ Arbogast said, ‘I am not attempting to involve myself in militaria. All I am doing is trying to clear this inquiry from Himself regarding the, and I quote, inordinately high desertion rate in your unit.’

‘What does the Emperor expect to happen when you dump a lot of young soldiers into the middle of Prime? Any virgin can be seduced.’

‘Another area which isn’t my expertise,’ Arbogast said. He and Fohlee quite clearly hated each other. Ledoh attempted mediation.

‘There were four desertions this month alone, Colonel. Perhaps you should examine the selection method for your Praetorians.’

Fohlee turned on Ledoh. ‘Does not compute, Admiral. Candidates for the Praetorians are personally vetted by myself or my adjutant.’

Arbogast came in before Ledoh could respond. ‘No one is trying to assign blame, Colonel. But your records indicate that almost forty men from your unit have disappeared in the last E-year alone. And none of these deserters has turned himself in or been arrested. The Emperor feels that something is wrong.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Fohlee said. ‘My staff is devoting full attention to the problem.’

‘Perhaps,’ Ledoh said, ‘we’re putting too much demand on the young soldiers.’

‘Perhaps,’ Fohlee said reluctantly. ‘I’ll look into it myself.’

‘Thank you, Colonel. I’ll report to the emperor that you have taken over full personal responsibility.’ Arbogast gathered his file, nodded to Ledoh and Sten, and disappeared back toward the rabbit-warren filing system.

‘Clotting clerks,’ Fohlee snarled, then turned and saw Sten. ‘Captain.’

‘Colonel Fohlee.’

‘I’ve been trying to contact you for most of today.’

‘Sorry, Colonel,’ Sten said. ‘I was under special orders.’

Fohlee snorted. ‘No doubt. I’ve been observing your troops, Captain. And, while I never believe in telling another commander his business, it appears to me that some of your soldiers are less than adequately concerned about their appearance.’

‘Gurkhas are pretty lousy at spit and polish,’ Sten agreed.

‘It’s been my experience, having commanded soldiers from every race, that none of them cannot be taught proper military appearance.’

Even though Fohlee was nowhere near Sten’s chain of command, there was little benefit in getting into a slanging match with a superior officer.

‘Thank you for bringing the matter to my attention,’ Sten said formally. ‘I’ll check into it.’

Fohlee nodded a very military nod. Once up, once down. He collected his file, came to attention, saluted Ledoh, and brushed past Sten.

Ledoh waited until the colonel’s metal-tapped boot-heels resounded down the corridor, then smiled. ‘Offload, young Sten. What’s the prog?’

Sten was still staring out the door.

‘Don’t fret the colonel, boy. He’s just grinding his molars.’

‘I see. But what the hell do I have to do with why his toy soldiers are disappearing?’

‘Jealousy.’

‘Huh?’

‘Colonel Fohlee is deeply disturbed that – by Fohlee’s thinking at least – the Eternal Emperor puts so little faith in his Praetorians, and chooses the Gurkhas for immediate security.’

Sten blinked. ‘That – no offense, sir – is damned silly.’

‘The smallness of the military mind in peacetime, young Sten, should never be overrated. At any rate. Your problem, now.’

‘It’s, well, unofficial. And personal.’

‘Oh-hoh.’ Ledoh touched a key on his desk and the door behind Sten slid shut and the
CONFERENCE
light on the exterior went on. ‘Timecheck?’

Sten looked at his watch finger. ‘Seventeen forty-five.’

Ledoh sighed contentedly and fished a flask out of his desk. Two pewter cups went beside it, and Ledoh gestured with the bottle. ‘Join me in a libation of this substance our Eternal Distiller refers to as Scotch.’

‘Uh, I’m not sure if I’m off duty.’

‘As my prerogative as Household Chamberlain, you are officially off duty.’

Sten grinned as Ledoh filled the cups.

‘I have no idea,’ Ledoh said plaintively, ‘why His Highness insists on gifting me with this vile swill.’

The two men drank.

‘GA, young man.’

Sten passed Ledoh the invitation.

Ledoh’s eyebrows slithered slightly in amazement. ‘Great Empire, but you rate, young man. I wasn’t invited to this bash.’

Sten handed the personal note across.

‘Ah. Now I see. Who is this Sofia?’

‘A, uh, young woman I am – was – friendly with.’

‘Suddenly it all becomes very clear. Pour yourself another, son.’

Sten followed orders.

‘Firstly, this event is, as the vid-chatter says, the primo social event of the season.’

Sten didn’t want to seem ignorant, but – ‘Who is this Hakone?’

‘
Tsk
. Young officers should read more. He is an author. Very controversial and all that. Writes about, generally, the military, from, shall we say, a somewhat unique point of view.

‘Were the Eternal Emperor not who he is, in fact, Hakone’s writing might be termed borderline treason.’

‘That settles that, then.’

‘Negative, young man. The Emperor encourages dissent – short of anyone’s actually putting it into practice. And as you may have discovered after Empire Day, he likes his officers to think freely.’

‘So I should go?’

‘You should go. Excellent visibility for career and all that. However, there remains one problem. This young lady … Sofia.’

‘Yeah,’ Sten agreed.

‘Without prying, young Sten, what are your current feelings toward the lady?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Then there
is
a problem – besides the fact that both our glasses are empty. Thank you.

‘Marr and Senn believe in keeping, shall we say, a lively household. By this I mean that they have in residence some of the most marriageable beings in the Empire.’

‘Oops,’ Sten said, almost spilling his Scotch.

‘Exactly. If this Sofia is able to invite you to the fete, she must be one of Marr and Senn’s Eligibles.’

Sten couldn’t believe it. ‘Me?’

‘Of course, Captain. You could be considered very desirable. I assume this Sofia comes from some off-planet nobility or other, and probably has wealth. For her, marrying someone who has the appropriate hero awards, someone who is part of the Imperial Household,
and, most important, someone who has been selected at a very young age for a fairly important command, might, shall we say, signify?’

‘I’m not going!’

‘Do not be so absolutist, Sten. Consider the invitation. It says “Guest,” does it not? The answer to your problem is simple. Contact an incredibly lovely young lady of your acquaintance and take her. That should defuse the Sofia situation handily.’

Sten poured his drink down and shook his head sadly.

‘Admiral, all I’ve done since I’ve been on Prime is my job. I don’t know any young ladies – let alone any incredibly lovely ones.’

‘Ah well. Perhaps the Emperor will be willing to give the bride away, then.’

Sten blanched.