The Serrano Succession (26 page)

"Hi," she said, holding out her ID case. "I'm Kate Briarly, and y'all are expecting me."

The gate opened behind the motionless guards, and she was facing a squad of them. The leader or whatever came out and took her ID case, then looked from the image inside to her.

"You're Ranger Katherine Anne Briarly?"

"Yup. But that's an official picture, in uniform, and I didn't see any reason to get gussied up in uniform for just a friendly visit. I figured y'all'd have an ID scan unit anyway."

"Quite so. If you'd come this way." She followed the young man toward a portable booth set up in the courtyard, ignoring the scrape of feet as the squad fell in behind her. This was going to be fun.

She was who she said she was—retinals, fingerprints, voiceprints, the whole shebang—and in another ten minutes she was upstairs waiting to meet the ambassador.

"Sera—Ranger—Briarly—"

"Oh, just call me Kate," Kate said, widening her smile. He blinked.

"It's irregular," he murmured.

"I know," Kate said. "But who's to tell on you? Not me."

"I have received permission for two Rangers to enter Familias space and help with inquiries—"

"You don't need two," Kate said. "I'll just go by myself, thanks."

"But—"

"It'll be simpler," Kate said. "Less cost to you, too, keeping track of just one. Besides, it's traditional."

She had seen the ambassador before, while running security at the Cattlemen's Association Ball three years before, but she'd been in uniform then, her hair slicked back into a neat French braid. He didn't remember her, she could tell that. All the better.

"Now I realize y'all are concerned that we might have some connection to those NewTex nuts—"

"Concern was expressed," the ambassador said. "Not by me; I've tried to reassure the Grand Council that you all . . . er . . . you . . . here, the Lone Star Confederation . . . are not part of that group."

"Heavens, no," Kate said. "I'd like to see anyone making
us
wear clothes like that! And bare feet—shoot, I was as tomboy as they come, but you don't see me shuffling around in bare feet." She pointed a long, elegant foot clad in a feminine version of the Texas style: high-heeled, but not a boot.

"It's the new government," the ambassador said. "We have a new Speaker and a new Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense; one doesn't like to say it's inexperience, but they're just not listening to me. You've travelled in Familias space before, Sera . . . er . . . Ranger . . . ?"

"Kate," she said again. "No, not me. I've been to Bluebonnet and West and Panhandle, but not to Familias. It'll be fun."

At the border, Kate found she had an escort at the end of the docking tube.

A trim young man with a face like carved bronze. "Lieutenant Junior Grade Serrano," he said. "Ranger Briarly, your luggage will be transferred—"

"Oh, call me Kate," she said, smiling. He didn't smile back.

"You're to come aboard
Gyrfalcon
," he said. "It's the fastest route to Rockhouse Major, where the task force has reassembled—"

"Are you arresting me?" Kate asked. She glanced around the docking lobby, decorated in what struck her as bland and chilly colors, muted blues and greens, and noted two men and one woman in R.S.S. uniform lurking by the entrance.

"No, ma'am," the young man said. "Just transporting you, ma'am."

Kate cocked her head and considered him. In her experience, young men his age melted with only one smile, and he hadn't. Well, his preferences might lie elsewhere, but still . . . "Fine," she said. "Let's go." He turned as quickly as she moved, and walked beside her through the entrance, where the others lined up after them, and then guided her across the wide passage to what the sign said was a dropchute. Kate stopped short.

"I'm not going in there," she said. "I've heard about those."

"You don't have them?"

"No—we like floors in our elevators. No one's looking up
my
skirt—"

"Fine—then we'll take the cross-station tram." He led her to the station, plugged some kind of datawand into a port, and the next tram stopped, doors opening exactly opposite them. Kate was impressed, and said so. He still wasn't melting. She looked him over again. He couldn't be a mango; she had known lots of mangos and they had a certain . . . feel. So either he really hated Texans, or . . . he was resisting her because he had a girl.

Her first meal in the officers' mess gave her a chance to do more than mutter polite greetings.

"Have you ever visited Familias space before, Ranger Briarly?" asked the executive officer, on one side of her. She was not sure what an executive officer did, but she had memorized the insignia, and knew he was a lieutenant commander.

"No—and I hope I'm going to see more of it than the inside of a transfer station and this ship."

"What would you like to see?"

"Oh—all those sights the tourist brochures have. Langsdon's ice falls. Chuzillera's cloud forests. The Grand Council Chamber on Castle Rock. I'd like to have seen your king while you still had one."

"Why?"

"It's so romantic," Kate said. "All those dramacubes, set in misty Vaalonia or—what's that place where they go running around on horses chasing after a fox? We just have ordinary people doing ordinary things—" She didn't really believe that, but wanted to see their reaction.

"The storycubes you people export are extraordinary enough. Those lawnhorns . . ."

"Longhorns," Kate said. "And the stories are old—last century's revival of Wild West—"

"Annie—that woman in fringes with all those guns—?"

"Stories," Kate said firmly. "Not real history. And that's what I'm here for, to talk about real history."

"But you're a . . . Ranger . . ." No doubt about it, they were twitchy about that word. With reason, though the reason was a lie.

"I'm a Ranger," Kate said firmly. "They weren't. They were a bunch of maniacs with no legitimate connection whatsoever to real Rangers."

"So you say," said one voice down the table. Kate leaned forward.

"So I say. Are you calling me a liar?"

The air seemed to congeal around her. She smiled; the silence lengthened. The officer at the far end of the table cleared his throat.

"Mr. Chesub, that was rude; apologize."

"I'm sorry, Ranger Briarly," a young man said. "I'm not accusing you of lying." But by his tone he still wasn't convinced.

Kate let her smile soften. "We have had just as many freaks and nutcases as any other culture," she said. "But the people who stole your Chair's daughter are not ours. The Lone Star Confederation wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior. We Lone Star
women
wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior." Nervous chuckles. "Not that we're . . . however you say it . . . hostile to men or anything . . ."

"Well, you don't look like the pictures of their women—but you're all from Texas originally, right?"

"Not really." Kate settled into lecture mode. "The Lone Star Confederation was organized for space exploration back on Earth, and most of its members then were North Americans—many of them from the exact region then known as Texas. But most of the people in Texas came from somewhere else, all over North America. Sure, there were some hard-shell Texans among them—people whose families had been in Texas just about forever—but a lot of them weren't. And Lone Star has always welcomed immigrants who share our philosophy—"

"Which is?"

"Fear God and nobody else, ride tall, shoot straight, never tell a lie, dance with who brung you, and never renege on a handshake."

Another silence, this one slightly shocked, but responsive.

" 'Dance with who brung you?' "

"Another way of saying honor your earlier obligations—don't just look at current profit."

"Interesting."

"And your philosophy?" Kate asked.

For a long moment no one answered, then young Lt. Serrano spoke up. "If I understand yours, it's much the same. Tell the truth, keep promises, stand by friends, don't turn your back on an enemy."

"I notice you didn't mention God," Kate said. "Is that because those NewTex nutcases have you scared, or what? Any of you folks got religion?"

This time the captain spoke up. "The Familias legal codes—and those of the Regular Space Service—allow freedom of belief, and freedom of religious practices which are not directly harmful to others. Because of the wide variety of beliefs, many held strongly, we do not generally discuss religion with those we do not know."

Kate cocked her head and gave him her best mischievous kid grin. "In other words, it's bad manners to talk about God?"

"Something like that," he said.

"You people must have been descended from Anglicans," Kate said. "Well, I'm not here to make you nervous, though I don't see why a good argument about God should do anything but keep your digestion going. It's one of our favorite forms of entertainment."

"You . . . uh . . . are religious yourself?"

Kate looked him in the eye. "You bet. So far as I know, every member of my family back to Old Earth has been, and I'm not about to break tradition."

"And what, since you don't mind our asking, is your religion?"

"Baptist," Kate said. "But my mother's family was about half Anglican, and my dad's grandmother was Methodist. There's even the odd Presbyterian in there somewhere."

Glances passed back and forth.

"Y'all don't have a clue what I'm talking about, do you?"

"Not . . . exactly." That was a female officer.

"You do have Christians, right?"

"Certainly . . . many kinds, though I don't know all the names."

"Then just call me a Christian, and don't worry about it. God'll sort it out."

"Do you have any . . . uh . . . dietary or special needs we should know about?"

"No, that's somebody else. I'll eat anything I like the flavor of, any day of the week. We don't drink alcohol on the Baptist side of our family, 'cept when we're being young and sowing wild oats. Every once in awhile I sow an oat myself."

She sensed the mood warming even more.

"What do your kind of rangers do?"

"Anything that needs doin'. We're a lot like a police force, but we tend to work alone. Keep order, track down the bad guys, help the people who need it."

"How do you know who the bad guys are?" came a call from down the table.

"Same way you do, I expect," Kate said. "Liars, cheats, killers, the kind of people who'd pour gasoline on a dog—" She felt the total noncomprehension of that one, and stopped. "You have dogs, don't you?"

"Oh . . . like . . . dogs? Hounds or something?"

"Dogs, like hounds, sheepdogs, cowdogs, even those awful nippy-yippy poodley things. And do you have mean people who hurt animals?"

"Yeah . . ." That more cautiously, as if the speaker weren't entirely sure.

"Well, we don't much like people who mistreat animals, kids, or old ladies. Or old men, for that matter. They're on my list of bad guys."

By the end of that meal she sensed that most of the officers were at least neutral, if not actually friendly.

The next day, Kate met the antique historian, Professor Meyerson, and sighed to herself. So predictable, that type. The lady academic, tweedy and warty . . . not that Meyerson actually had warts, but she looked as if they should be there to complete the official look. Even on Bluebonnet, known for its beautiful women, a certain kind of academic woman looked like this, only with better tweeds.

At least Meyerson knew more about the Lone Star Confederation than the rest of the people she met. And she was finally able to clear up a question that bedeviled Kate for days.

"That young fellow, Barin Serrano?"

"Yes . . ." Meyerson, head down in a scanner as usual, didn't seem to be paying close attention.

"What do you know about him?"

"He's giving you trouble?" Meyerson's head came up, and her expression was mingled mischief and surprise.

"No, just the opposite. He's ignoring me as if I had bark like a mesquite tree, but I just can't believe he's a mango."

Meyerson laughed, a surprisingly full-throated laugh for a frowsty old professor. "He's not. He's engaged to another officer, in the first place, and in the second place he's burdened with all those NewTex women and children."

"Why him in particular?"

"They consider him their protector, and for them this means he's the only one who can make decisions about them. The Regular Space Service has taken his pay to help support them, so he can't marry until he figures out what to do with them."