The Devil and Deep Space (10 page)

If she could sweeten Koscuisko’s path back to his home, it was only what was owed the man for what she’d done to him, when she had forced him back to Captain Lowden.

###

The courier ship
Magdalenja
was halfway between Pesadie time and the Aznir mean standard — toward the end of the day by any measure. It was late in third shift, maybe even shading into fourth by now; and Security Chief Stildyne sat in Koscuisko’s cabin, smoking one of Koscuisko’s lefrols and beating his officer of assignment at cards.

Koscuisko set a “hemless” playing token down across his last remaining single–loom sheet and shook the dice. “ ‘She was bereft and wandered on the sere hillside with none but one last lambling to console her,’ ” Koscuisko quoted, but it did him no good. The dice fell Stildyne’s way, two “kerchiefs” and three “napkins.” It would take at least a “double apron” to match Stildyne’s hand. Koscuisko was doomed. Yet again. Koscuisko slumped against the padded back of the chair and shook his head.

Now it was Stildyne’s turn to quote. “ ‘The sun rose’ . . . ah . . . ‘in beauty like the maiden of the middle way as Dasidar in glory rode home to claim Dyraine.’ Three goslings, your Excellency, that’s the rest of the maintenance atmosphere you owe me, as well as the Engineering bridge.”

Koscuisko scowled, but it wasn’t serious. “I have never in fact spoken to Wheatfields about wagering either, Chief, so I suppose it’s just as well. How is Lek doing?”

Reaching for the tokens, Stildyne started to tidy up the board. Three games was about his limit. He had only started to read the old saga of Dasidar and Dyraine a year or two past, in order to be able to distract Koscuisko by playing cards with him. He didn’t have Koscuisko’s command of the couplets.

“You might want to remind yourself that he’s already thirteen.” Lek’s Bond was that old, that was to say; Lek had survived as a bond–involuntary for that long. Koscuisko called his troops by their first names. He had never called Stildyne anything but Chief or Mister.

Koscuisko knew his name. Stildyne was in no doubt of that, but his officer of assignment had never forgiven him for having once made a mistake, not even after all these years. Stildyne was almost through being bitter about it. “He hasn’t lived this long by borrowing trouble. And he’s been told that the Captain ordered the substitution to keep Fleet from trying to queer the performance scores.”

“So long as Lek believes it, we have no worries. Yes. And the others will look out for him.” Koscuisko sounded uncertain, worried. Koscuisko liked to fret. After what had happened to Robert St. Clare at Port Burkhayden, Stildyne couldn’t blame Koscuisko for worrying; a governor gone terminal meant unimaginable torment and near–certain death for a bond–involuntary. Koscuisko still didn’t know exactly what had pushed Robert’s governor over the edge that night, and Stildyne had no intention of ever telling him.

“No, Andrej, Lek doesn’t have to believe it. He only has to focus on the fact that he’s been instructed to believe it.”

There was a moment’s pause as Koscuisko thought about whether he was going to take exception to Stildyne’s use of his personal name.

It was true that Stildyne permitted himself that degree of intimacy only rarely. But also true that Stildyne and Koscuisko alike were sitting at the table with their collars undone, and Koscuisko in rest–dress was as casual as Koscuisko ever got when he was sober: the full dark pleated skirt like trousers, with the stiffened half–moon of starched fabric at the small of Koscuisko’s back; the very full blouse wrapped closed across Koscuisko’s chest; the wrist–ties left untied; and the white padding–socks on Koscuisko’s feet, with the big toe gloved separately.

When Koscuisko raised his hand to push his blond hair up off his forehead, his blouse shifted to show his collarbones: and Stildyne bit the inside of his cheek to stifle his sigh of resigned and impotent desire, concentrating on packing tokens into the box. Linen–markers. This one for a hemless garment, this one for a seamless garment, this one for a single–loomed sheet of fabric, this one for this manner of embroidery and this one for that manner of embroidery, and so on.

It was a good game to play with Koscuisko. It took concentration. While Stildyne was playing cards with Andrej Koscuisko he could almost forget all about the fact that he could never have the man.

“As you say, Chief,” Koscuisko agreed, finally. ‘Chief’ was more intimate and friendly than “Mister.” Koscuisko didn’t reject Stildyne’s advances; he simply declined to respond to them. “When we get home, I mean to call for a Malcontent. I’d rather not have to rely on just Lek’s discipline to keep him safe.”

It was what Koscuisko’s Security did their best to do — keep Koscuisko safe. Safe from himself; safe from the sick fantasies of his dreaming mind. Before Koscuisko had come to the
Ragnarok
it had not been so bad for him. Robert had told Stildyne that. Koscuisko’s former Captain had kept Koscuisko clear of Inquiry as much as possible — not from any misguided sense of decency that anyone would own to, but from simple practicality.

Perhaps the distaste commonly shared by military professionals for subjecting prisoners to torture had had something to do with it after all, but Captain Lowden had never had any such misgivings or reservations, and it took more than just Robert St. Clare to handle Koscuisko in the depths of a self–punitive drunk after yet another of Lowden’s all–too–frequent exercises.

Four years of conspiracy between bonded and un–bonded and Chief Warrant Officer Stildyne alike, trying to keep Koscuisko from the abyss of horror. It was no wonder that Koscuisko took such good care of his people. That wasn’t the reason Koscuisko did it, though. It was effect and cause more than cause and effect.

“Malcontents have Safes, your Excellency?” This was an intriguing concept, and called for increased formality. Safes fed a signal to the governor in a bond–involuntary’s brain and silenced it for as long as the Safe was within range. They were very carefully controlled by Fleet and the Bench accordingly, because what would become of the deterrent power of the Bond if it could be gotten around without official sanction?

“If there is any way to obtain one, it is a Malcontent who could accomplish the task,” Koscuisko said; and yawned. “Thank you for your company, Mister Stildyne, I imagine I am ready to nap, now.”

Stildyne closed the board around the box of tokens, and stood up. “My pleasure, sir. We’ll play for the labs next time, maybe.”

Smiling, Koscuisko waved a hand in friendly dismissal.

Stildyne didn’t want to go.

He wanted to stay, to help Koscuisko out of his rest–dress, to help Koscuisko into his sleep shirt, to put Koscuisko chastely to bed — all things that were permitted to him when Koscuisko was drunk enough. When the fact of Koscuisko’s incapacity made the very idea of taking advantage of it intolerable. It was Koscuisko’s fault. Before Koscuisko, he would not have thought twice about taking what he wanted so long as he was strong enough to get away with it.

Koscuisko had ruined him. Life had been so much less complicated before Koscuisko had come into it.

Stildyne let himself out and closed the door behind him, nodding to Murat, whose turn it was to sit the night watch. Murat knew. They all knew. “ ‘Night, Chief,” Murat said.

In their own way they all took care of him as well as of Koscuisko, so that they made a tidy little fraternal community, Koscuisko taking care of Security who took care of Koscuisko.

Was it worth it, to trade the easy and immediate gratification of physical desire as it arose for membership in such a community, when all it cost was the pain of unexpressed and unrequited passion?

“Have a good watch, Murat.”

He had alternatives, Stildyne knew. And no intention of exploring them. He went down the corridor to his berth, thinking about how soon they could expect to make planetfall on Azanry.

Chapter Four

Family Matters

Great
Ragnarok
had been built according to the plan of a cruiser killer warship — carapace hull above, docking facilities below — opening onto the maintenance atmosphere that clung to the belly of the ship, contained by a plasma field. General Rukota braced himself as his courier approached the boundaries. There was a peculiar sensory effect associated with passing the plasma containment membrane from space into atmosphere; it made his skin crawl. He had never gotten used to it.

“Eleven eights to docking, General.” The navigator was one of Admiral Brecinn’s people, but carried more rank on her shoulders than a navigator usually bore. All of the team were relatively senior for their roles; it increased his suspicion that these people were committed to some ulterior purpose. Rukota didn’t like it. “Thank you, Navigator. Send the request and stand by.”

Yes, it was gratifying to a man’s ego to be giving orders to people more accustomed to giving their own than taking anybody’s. Still, ego gratification only went so far with Dierryk Rukota. No man as ugly as he had been all of his life could afford to nurture too much ego. Every time he caught sight of himself in a mirror, it reminded him. But so long as his wife didn’t care, it made no difference if his mouth was as thin as the edge of a dull knife and his eyes nearly as narrow, to speak of only two of the most obviously unfortunate aspects of his face.

“Clearance is logged, General. We’re expected. Well. We’ll just have to hope that the evidence hasn’t been compromised already.”

What made the navigator suppose that there was evidence to be compromised in the first place?

Did she expect him not to realize that the mission upon which he had been sent was at least as likely, if not certain, to compromise evidence — if it was not actually bent on fabricating evidence that did not exist?

Rukota couldn’t decide how best to answer, and therefore decided not to. He was technically in command of this mission. He didn’t have to make nice with anybody.

The courier cleared the maintenance atmosphere with the familiar and unpleasant feeling of insects tunneling through his joints. Rukota concentrated on what the screens showed, to distract himself from his discomfort.

The entire working area of the
Ragnarok
’s underbelly lay open to the maintenance atmosphere, with the plates that would hull over the ship for vector transit stacked into a solid wall fore and aft. There wasn’t much activity: some tenders, one craft in free–float with its crew on EVA, their umbilicus tethers glinting in the powerful illumination from the
Ragnarok
’s docks.

Their destination was a slot in the hull of the ship, an envelope of stalloy big enough to park the Captain’s shallop — her personal courier — in. As the navigator maneuvered toward the slip Rukota thought he caught sight of a familiar figure in the basket of a crane near the entrance to their docking bay.

Short person. Stocky. Hair smoothed back severely across a rounded skull typical of a class–three Auringer hominid, but if it was who he thought it was she had six digits on either hand, and that meant Versanjer instead. He’d thought it through one day a few months ago when he’d been in a particularly bad mood.

Twenty–seven years ago the Bench had put down a bloody revolt at Versanjer. The slaughter had been horrific. And the vengeance of the Bench had not stopped at the execution of most of the adult population; the Bench had taken the children as well. Put them into crèche. Raised them to serve the Bench with fanatical devotion, making of the daughters and sons of dead rebels paragons of everything against which the insurrectionaries had rebelled.

The navigator brought the ship into the bay, and the tow drones took control to complete the landing sequence. Rukota decided that he needed some air. Following the system engineer up through the topside observer’s station Rukota straightened carefully, standing on top of the courier’s back.

Something fell past the mouth of the docking slip, something big and black and silent.

“Oh, no,” the system engineer said, as if someone had asked her a question. “I don’t deal with those things. All yours, General.”

She scurried back down into the body of the courier with unseemly and ungraceful haste. Rukota looked at the now–closed hatch for a moment, thinking about it; then he threw the catch with the toe of his boot, securing the hatch from the outside. Let the crew wait for the inorganic quarantine scans to cycle through before they left the ship. It would serve them right for abandoning him to a Desmodontae.

Something else was coming toward the mouth of the docking slip, but Rukota had an idea that he knew what this was. The crane. The basket came down across the mouth of the docking slip slowly, then slid carefully into the bay itself until it rested level with Rukota where he stood.

Jennet ap Rhiannon opened the security cage’s gate and beckoned him in with a wave of her hand. “General Rukota. A pleasure to see you.”

If she said so. He couldn’t say the same for her, and if he had been in her place he would consider his mission to be about as welcome as the tax collector the morning after an unreported gambling coup. Rukota stepped into the basket without comment, and ap Rhiannon moved the crane out and away from the docking slip.

He could see the Desmodontae now. A great black web–winged creature out of a horror story, a giant bat, subsisting on plasma broths that replaced its native diet of hominid blood. The
Ragnarok
’s Intelligence Officer. One of the very few non–hominids with rank in all of the Jurisdiction’s Fleet, her presence here on the Ragnarok part and parcel of Fleet’s confusion over what to do with her and what to do with the ship itself.

His wife said that Two had something on somebody, but that nobody had ever been able to decide if Two realized it or not.

“To what do I owe the honor of this meeting?” Rukota asked, watching Two carefully as she executed her aerial maneuvers. It was probably difficult for her to be confined on shipboard, rank or no rank. Rukota supposed he himself would grasp any opportunity to fly if he had been a bat.

“We’ll have a formal in–briefing later on, of course,” ap Rhiannon assured him. “I was surprised to hear you’d accepted the assignment, General. I’m sorry. We don’t have anything for you.”

Of course she didn’t. What else could she be expected to claim? “Brecinn thought I’d be an impartial observer.” Or a cooperative patsy. Maybe that. “Second Fleet doesn’t have much work for me just now. So here I am. Don’t get any ideas, Lieutenant.”

There had been awkwardness, during their earlier assignment together. The gossip about Rukota’s wife was widespread. Ap Rhiannon had apparently become intrigued by him, if for no other reason Rukota could guess than sheer contrariness. He had had to remind her that he was her superior officer.

Now she was the acting Captain of the
Ragnarok
, and technically outside his chain of command. Was he going to have to defend his virtue?

The Desmodontae was coming at them in full soar, gliding by very close overhead. Talking to herself, evidently, from the vibration Rukota felt in the buttons on his blouse. Maybe it was just her echolocation. Either way he wished she would stop it.

“Have you met my Intelligence Officer?” ap Rhiannon asked. Two did a spin and roll, landing on the arm of the crane and stopping abruptly. It was unnatural, that sudden absolute stop. Rukota held on to the railing. He didn’t like Desmodontae. They made him nervous.

Crawling up the crane’s arm to the basket Two climbed over the rim to hop down into the security cage, smiling up at Rukota cheerfully. It looked like a smile, at least; her mouth was open and the corners of her lips curled up in her face. Rukota could see her very white, very sharp teeth, set off to dazzling perfection by the black velvet of her pelt.

“Pleased,” Two said. Her translator had no accent, but Rukota suddenly thought about the farce stereotype of the Briadie matron, all flamboyant hand gestures and shrill nasal tones and insatiable nosiness. “Rukota General. Seventeen thousand saved at Ichimar, and casualties held at less than one in four sixty–fours. Very impressive.”

And a long time ago, but it was kind of her to mention it. “Very gracious, your Excellency. What’s your take on all of this, if I may ask, ma’am?”

Ap Rhiannon seemed clearly intent on controlling the investigation from the beginning. He could appreciate that. It was her natural right as the acting Captain of this ship. If she was going to give him access to her Intelligence Officer, though, he was going to take advantage of it.

“We have nothing to give or take,” Two assured him, happily. “But don’t take my word on it. Take your time. Enjoy your investigation. The food is not good, by report, and accommodation cannot be said to be luxurious, but what is ours is yours.”

Ap Rhiannon was not so happy as Two seemed about it all. “I’ll tell you what I think, General. I think Pesadie wants to find someone here on board of the
Ragnarok
at fault for that explosion. The plain fact that it’s incredible is not enough to stop some people. I won’t have it.”

There wasn’t anything he could say in response to this, because she was right on all counts. “Then the audit will show that you’re clean, Lieutenant. And we’ll be out of your way in no time.”

He hadn’t convinced her. No surprise there. He hadn’t sounded convincing to himself. “We’ve already done one assessment, General, ammunition, equipment calibration, electromagnetic emissions. Everything. Unexceptional on all vectors. So what? If evidence is not found, it can be created.”

Yes. That was the way it was. “So Fleet will run a few tests, and ask a few questions. You could lose a troop or six. That’s the way it goes, Lieutenant. There’s a Command Branch officer dead, and there has to be an explanation somewhere.”

“Pesadie can just find its explanations at its own expense. I have no intention of throwing a single life into Fleet’s maw, Command Branch or no Command Branch. These are my crew now, General, for howsoever short a time, and I will defend them. Are we clear?”

Two shifted her wings with an embarrassed sort of a shrugging gesture as ap Rhiannon spoke, and it was all Rukota could do not to jump.

“I’m just here to take the baseline, Lieutenant.” Yes, they both knew how easy it was to fake a baseline. But if she’d learned anything at all about him during their previous acquaintance, she would know that he didn’t play games. “It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. If there’s nothing here, that’s what I’ll tell Brecinn. If there’s something here, you’ll see it before she does. Can we just agree on that?”

So that he could get out of this crane basket, and away from the
Ragnarok
’s Intelligence Officer. He was probably sweating.

Ap Rhiannon glanced up into his face for a moment before she nodded, finally. “Very well, General. Welcome aboard.”

Oh, absolutely. A hostile Captain and suspicious crew to one side of him, a team he mistrusted — and whom he suspected of having their own agenda — to the other: just his idea of a welcoming environment.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Technically she was an Excellency, he supposed. But she’d been his subordinate Officer, once upon a time before, and he didn’t know quite how to relate to her as anything else. What did it matter if he antagonized her? She wasn’t happy about any of this anyway. “Pleased to be here. Well. Actually, no. But we’ll do our best with what we’ve got.”

With luck, he wouldn’t have to spend too much time with the Intelligence Officer.

But, with luck, he wouldn’t have been here in the first place; so Rukota sighed and resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have an opportunity to grapple with his fears, and climbed back out of the crane basket — when ap Rhiannon returned him to the docking slip — to open the hatch in the top of the courier and let his team come out.

###

Cousin Ferinc stood in the young master’s schoolroom with Anton Andreievitch in his arms, looking out the tall window across the courtyard to the old wall and the river beyond.

“There, now, that’s better,” he said encouragingly, as Anton rubbed his nose and wiped his eyes. In that order, unfortunately, but there were limits about what could be expected of an eight-year-old — even one so self-possessed as Anton Andreievitch Koscuisko. “Here’s Nurse, young master, time for your bath. You can tell me all about it when I get back, but be good and don’t fuss, or I shan’t bring you a wheat–fish from Dubrovnije.”

Anton’s bright blue eyes widened. “I shall be very good,” he assured Ferinc, solemnly. “And shan’t fuss at all. I promise.”

He always kept his promises, too; at least, as well as a child with the handicap of a developing attention span to contend with could manage it. He was like his father that way.

Ferinc put the child down. “Good man. Go along, I’ll just speak to the Respected Lady, and I’ll see you in a few days. Don’t forget. I’ll bring you a wheat–fish.”

He usually tried not to think about Anton’s father. Over the years it had become easier than he would have imagined not to think about Anton’s father. He still had dreams, but Cousin Stanoczk had reconciled him to that. Cousin Stanoczk was not Anton’s father. But he did look a very great deal like the man, especially in the dark of a dimly lit cell.

Ferinc watched Anton Andreievitch out of the room, smiling gently to himself: Anton was such a little man.

Anton Andreievitch’s mother spoke from behind him, and called his attention back to where he was. “And for me, Cousin.” It was a word for cousin that she used only seldom, and never except when they were alone. “What will you bring me from Dubrovnije if I am very good, and do not fuss?”

There was tension in her voice, and not a little bitterness. But there was to be no help for it. Andrej Koscuisko could not find him at the Matredonat. It would ruin everything.

“Surely the Respected Lady has nothing to fear,” Ferinc said with tender assurance, turning to face her. “What is it, Marana? Tell your Cousin Ferinc all.”

She smiled bravely at his teasing, reaching out for him, drawing him to her by pulling at the braids that he wore to each side of his face to keep his hair out of his eyes. Malcontents alone of all Dolgorukij men wore their hair long; at least some of them did, and Ferinc had let his hair grow as part of his way of separating himself from his former self. There were drawbacks. This was one of them.