The Serrano Succession (109 page)

"Wouldn't be the first time," Meharry muttered.

By the downjump into the system where Mindon Station's complicated geometry sparkled with the frost of multiple vents, Petris and Oblo had both reviewed the data cube. Now, three days out from the station, they met with Koutsoudas in gym.

"What's going on up there now, 'Steban?" Petris asked.

Koutsoudas looked down. "It's . . . pretty tense.
Rascal
was five minutes late coming out of jump—well within limits, especially since those two Boros ships were three minutes late making insertion and
Rascal
was supposed to keep station behind 'em—and he chewed Captain Suiza out like she'd done something awful."

"How'd she take it?" Oblo asked.

"What could she do? Said yes, sir, no, sir, sorry, sir, in the right places. Didn't make excuses. Then six hours later he calls her up and makes nice. Would she like to go on the courtesy call he's making to the station commander, an' so on. She's polite, gives him her ETA—'course,
Rascal
's behind everyone, a good fourteen hours at least before she'd get to Station, and he says never mind, she can be the deep picket, like before." Koutsoudas stopped. Petris waited. "It's not like him, sir. I've never seen him like this. He's always been tough and a bit finicky, yes. But to ream someone out unfairly and then wait six hours to say anything, and then make a dumb mistake like not knowing she'd be that far behind . . ."

"What if it wasn't a mistake?" Meharry asked. "What if he never meant to have her along, and it was just a kind of lame apology?"

"It's not like him," Koutsoudas said. "Look—you know how I felt when he sent me to Commander Serrano. I've been Livadhi's pet scan tech since I finished Basic and ended up on his ship. I didn't want to leave him . . . but I came to recognize Commander Serrano as darn near his equal as a ship commander." He glanced around and said sheepishly, "All right. A better ship commander, but not by much. I know Livadhi—the old Livadhi—the way you people can't. And this is different."

"So what do you expect us to do, 'Steban?"

"Tell me I'm wrong," he said miserably. "Tell me I'm making it up, that there's nothing wrong with him, that he can't possibly be up to anything—"

"'Steban," Meharry said, with unwonted gentleness. "We don't doubt your loyalty. Any of your loyalties. But you have to face the facts you're trying to avoid. If he's changed, if there's something wrong . . . we can't ignore it. You can't ignore it."

"I know that," he said, to the deck. "I just—I just hate it—especially since you didn't know him before."

"I knew him last cruise," Petris said. "He was good enough then. Naturally I think Heris is better, but you're right—not by much. I think he's been a good officer. Is that what you wanted to know?"

"Yes. I had to come to you—I trust you—but I can't—I needed to know you didn't just hate him because he was here instead of her."

"Of course not," Petris said. "Man, I may be Heris Serrano's . . . friend, but I'm still a professional. A good officer is a good officer."

"All right, then. What did you think of the communications log?"

"Damaging," Meharry said, before Petris could.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. I haven't talked to any of the officers, but Sim, one of the commtechs, is worried about it too."

"It could still be innocent," Petris said, playing devil's advocate for the moment. "I mean—suppose he did have—oh, a premonition or something—and decided to send special presents to everyone he knew, and one of them was undeliverable. Maybe the shop figured his wife would pass on the note in the box."

"Without instructions? Just a list of numbers and letters?"

"Well, she did send it on. Maybe things like that had happened before . . ."

"Not on the last cruise," Koutsoudas said. "I asked Sim."

"How's Captain Burleson taking all this?"

"He's tense, too. He's an old Livadhi hand, same as I am, and so is our second and third."

"I wish we had Mackay aboard," Petris said. "He knew us; we knew him . . . we're in a ticklish spot here. The way we're talking, we could be taken up for conspirators—"

"We're not the ones making trouble," Oblo said.

"Yes, we are. By regulation, anyway. In a time of war or mutiny, conversations critical of a commander like this . . . and the last thing this Fleet needs is another mutiny aboard a ship."

"The last thing this Fleet needs is another ship going over to the mutiny," Meharry said.

"Or somewhere else," Koutsoudas said.

"What do you mean?"

"You know . . . I never talked to anyone about why Livadhi wanted me gone. I know he told Commander Serrano I'd gotten in some kind of trouble—"

"So?"

"So . . . I wouldn't have thought of it, 'cept for this. Never meant to mention any of it—"

"'Steban, if you don't spit it out, I'm going to squeeze you dry," Oblo said.

"It was right after I came up with that scan extension, that lets me get a little lead on downjump scan. Suddenly Livadhi had us heading toward the Shaft, just like we were going to use that grav anomaly jump point to skew around it, but then we went into the Shaft instead. Turned out we were going in to rescue Commander Serrano and
Sweet Delight
—"

"What?"

"Yeah, that time you had the prince with you, remember?"

"I remember," Petris said. He glanced at Oblo.

"Well, so after we kicked those Benignity ships—and believe me, we were sweatin' that, attacking them in their own territory—I got to thinking about how Livadhi had known where to look." He took a long breath. "I had a buddy in comm then, and we kicked it around a bit—trying to figure out how he knew, or if it was just luck. Then I said something to Livadhi himself one day, and he rounded on me, told me to be quiet if I valued my freedom. That he'd had secret orders, but no one was supposed to know. And maybe I'd better spend some time away from the ship while he tried to cover up my lapse. I don't know what he told you—"

"He'd heard we'd had bad data from Rotterdam—"

"Nope. We never went near Rotterdam," Koutsoudas said.

"So what you're saying is—"

"I figured it was secret orders, back then. I had nothing else. But now . . ."

"Benignity," said Oblo.

"I hope not," Petris said, but a deep internal flutter told him that his instinct said it was. "What a stinking mess that would be."

"Is," said Oblo again. "Look at it, sir—"

"I am," Petris said. The ramifications unfolded like a flowering bud to his inward eye. "'Steban, when you caught up with us at Naverrn . . .
did
you have orders for that, too?"

"Of course," Koutsoudas said. "The prince aboard—or at least one of the clones."

"Well, that's a relief." Not much, though. Petris ran through the names he knew. Arkady Ginese and Meharry both in Weapons, Oblo and Issigai Guar in Navigation, Koutsoudas in scan, his buddy Sim in communications, himself in Engineering . . . far from enough. Others, who had been in Heris's crew, might trust them, second-hand trust, but how many? If Livadhi were turning traitor, what would he do?

"'Steban, we're going to do nothing now but watch. We still have nothing provable. When he's off the ship, on this courtesy visit, be sure we know."

"Right, sir." Koutsoudas looked more at ease, having transferred his problem to someone in charge. Petris wished again he had someone to hand off this mess to. When Koutsoudas left, Petris turned to Meharry.

"You tell Arkady and start thinking who you trust, and who trusts you. Oblo, you'll talk to Issi, same thing. I'll tackle Padoc. We ought to be able to swap watches around to cover, once we know who's with us." That would buy him time to think.

"I wonder what she'd say," Meharry said. They all knew which
she
that was.

"So do I," Petris said. He had never felt so alone.

"He's gone," Oblo murmured into his comunit. "I'm sittin' first nav, Keller's on the bridge. Burleson went with him."

"Right. Who's on the honor guard?"

"None of us." Oblo read the roster. None of the old Heris crew, only one who had been hers at all.

"All right. Keep us up."

Petris turned away from his comunit. "All right, folks, the admiral's headed for the Station, courtesy call. You know the drill: insystem drive stays hot, we run diagnostics on the FTL. I've got the arrival report to write; you've got my code if you need me."

"Right, sir." Chief Coggins nodded.

Petris beeped Meharry. Neither she nor Ginese was on right now, which made it easier. He hoped.

They met in the Engineering break room. Petris flicked on the workstation, and started his report; Meharry dealt with the scan, though she suspected Oblo could have intercepted it on the bridge.

"Anything new?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Oblo and Sim got a datasuck off the Station communications nexus," Koutsoudas said. "There's a message for Livadhi. They can't read it. It's encrypted."

"Originating?"

"Can't tell for sure. This station automatically strips originating headers."

Arash Livadhi met the Fleet representative—another admiral minor recently promoted—and the station's civilian Stationmaster. The rituals of greeting, of exchanging courtesies, of being served light refreshment, grated on him as never before. The formal handing over of responsibility for the convoy, the necessary several hours of chatting about the news, the likelihood of militia action out here, the recent movement of civilian trade—down 47 percent, with resulting shortages in infant supplies, of all things—nearly drove him crazy. What did he care about infant supplies? People had lived for centuries, he was sure, before someone invented disposable diapers and bottles.

Admiral Minor Ksia invited him to dinner, and Stationmaster Corfoldi urged him to visit the station gardens. . . ."We're very proud of our orchid collection, you'll find it quite unique." Livadhi accepted the invitation—it would have been strange if he had not—and agreed to stretch his legs in the gardens in the meantime.

"And I might just look for something for my wife."

"But, Commodore, it's as I said—with trade off so badly—"

"I'm sure I can find something," Livadhi said. "She likes any little souvenir of a place I've been."

At last he was out of their offices, strolling about a station that was, after all, much less crowded than most. Commander Burleson had gone back to the ship, quite properly. Livadhi considered asking his escort to let him go on alone, but that was irregular, and he could not afford irregularity.

The gardens were gloomy, to his way of thinking, but the orchids in bloom—airy cascades of white hanging down from branches, or weirdly spikey shapes of yellow on the ground beneath—held his attention briefly.

On the far side of the gardens, the shopping arcade was almost empty. Livadhi wandered into Mier's Fine China, and poked aimlessly among the aisles. Behind a counter, a listless clerk watched him as if she knew he had no intention of buying. From there he went into Charlotte's Confectionaries, and bought a kilo box of mixed truffles as a dinner courtesy gift. He needed only a quick glance to realize that every shop had its com number painted on the shop front . . . so he ambled along, in and out of almost every shop, until he spotted the number he wanted. Micasio's, an art gallery. Perfect.

By this time, his escort was, he suspected, both footsore and bored. He turned to them. "I'm going to see if they have any old prints," he said. "My wife's crazy about Sid Grevaire, and sometimes these frontier galleries have old stuff that didn't sell insystem. I'll probably be an hour poking around in there—why don't you get yourselves something to drink, and there's a nice seating area—" He nodded across the walkway, where a cluster of benches and tables gave a good view of the gallery entrance.

"If you're sure, Admiral—we don't mind coming with you."

"I think I can yell that far if I need you," Livadhi said, forcing a grin. "And I have my emergency buzzer, after all."

"Right, sir. Thanks."

He waited until they were safely in place before moving deeper into the gallery, and giving his name to the man behind the counter.

This time the message waiting for him was long and detailed, and he felt a great cold cavern open in his mind and heart. He could not possibly—he could not possibly
not
 . . .

Jules, you bastard
, he thought. Jules had anticipated even his most urgent concerns, his remaining loyalties. He had removed, as well as words could, the last sticking point, Livadhi's concern for his people.

He rummaged through the print bins, with the owner's help, and emerged 45 minutes later with a wrapped package and a receipt for two Sid Grevaire drawings and a Muly Tyson gouache, unframed. Through dinner with Admiral Minor Ksia, he sustained a lively conversation about trends in modern art. Ksia, as he'd suspected, was an aesthetic nincompoop who completely failed to grasp the challenging theories that underlay Tyson's curious perspectives.