Chapter Six.

Dupaynil, hustled through the scarred and echoing corridors of the transfer station to the control center where the Claw's captain met him with the suggestion that he "put a leg in it" and get himself out to the escort's docking bay, had no chance to think things over until he was strapped safely into the escort's tiny reserve cabin. He had not been pa.s.senger on anything smaller than a light cruiser for years; he had never been aboard an escort-cla.s.s vessel. It seemed impossibly tiny after the Zaid-Dayan. His quarters for however long the journey might be was this single tiny s.p.a.ce, a minute slice of a meager pief hardly big enough to lie down in. He heard a loud clang, felt something rattle the hull outside, and then the escort's insystem drive nudged him against one side of his safety restraints. The little ship had artificial gravity, of a sort, but nothing like the overriding power that made Main Deck on the Zaid-Dayan feel as solid as a planet.

The glowing numbers on the readout overhead told him two standard hours had pa.s.sed when he felt a curious twinge and realized they'd shifted into FTL drive. Although he'd had basic training in astrogation, he'd never used it, and had only the vaguest idea what FTL travel really meant. Or where, in real terms, they might be. Somewhere behind (as he thought of it) was the cruiser he had left, with its now-familiar crew and its most attractive captain. Its very angry and most attractive captain. He wished she had not been so transparently suspicious of his motives. She was no planet pirate nor agent of slavers. She had nothing to fear from him. And he would gladly have spent more time with her. He let himself imagine the nights they could have shared.

"Sir, we're safely in FTL, if you want to come up to Main."

Dupaynil sighed as the voice over the com broke into that fantasy and thumbed the control. "I'll be there."

He had messages to send, messages he had had no time to send from the transfer station. And with the angry Commander Sa.s.sinak sitting on the other end of the block, so to speak, he would not have sent diem from the station anyway. He re-discovered what he had once been taught about escort-cla.s.s vessels in a few miserable minutes. They were small, overpowered for their ma.s.s, and understaffed. No one bunked on Main but the captain who was the pilot. Crew consisted of a round dozen: one other officer, the Jig Executive, eleven enlisted, from Weapons to Environmental. No cook: all the food was either loaded prepackaged, to be reconst.i.tuted and heated in automatic units, or synthesized from the Environmental excess.

; Dupaynil shuddered; one of the best things about the Zaid-Dayan had been the cooking. With fall crew and ,,jme supercargo, the escort had to ration water: limited :j bathing. The head was cramped: the slots designed to ;K.discourage meditation. There was no gym but the un-^ even artificial gravity and shiplong access tubing offered ;; -Opportunity for' informal exercise. For those who liked r ^climbing very long ladders against variable G. Worst of J: all, the ship had no 1FTL link.

" 'Course we don't have IFTL," said the captain, a Major Ollery whose face seemed to brighten every time Dupaynil found something else to dislike. "We don't have a Ssli interface, do we?"

"But I thought..." He stopped himsetf in mid-argument. He had seen a briefing item, mention of the ship cla.s.ses that had IFTL, mention of those which would not get it because of "inherent design constraints." And escorts were too small to carry a Ssli habitat. "That... that stinkerl" he said, as he realized suddenly what Sa.s.sinak had done.

"What?" asked Ollery.

"Nothing." Dupaynil hoped his face didn't show how he felt, torn between anger and admiration. That incredible woman had fooled him. Had fooled an experienced Security officer whose entire life had been spent fooling others. He had had a tap on her communications lines, a tap he was sure she'd never find, and somehow she'd found out. Decided to get rid of him. And how in Mulvaney's Ghost had she managed to fake an incoming IFTL message? With that originating code?

He sank down on the one vacant seat in the escort's bridge, and thought about it. Of course she could fake the code, if she could fake the message. That much was easy, if the other was possible. But nothing he'd been taught, in a long and devious life full of such instruction, suggested that an IFTL message could be faked. It would take... he frowned, trying to think it through. It would take the cooperation of a Ssli: of two Ssli, at least. How would the captain of one ship enlist the aid of the Ssli on another? What land of hold did Sa.s.sinak have on her resident Ssli? It had never occurred to him that the Ssli were capable of anything like friendship with humans. Once installed, the sessile Ssli never experienced another environment, never "met" anyone except through a computer interface. Or so he'd thought.

He felt as if he'd sat down on an anthill. He fairly itched with new knowledge and had no way to convey it to anyone. Ssli could have relationships with humans beyond mere duty. Could they with other races? With Wefts? Were Ssli perhaps telepathic? No one had suspected that. Dupaynil glanced around the escort bridge and saw only human faces, now bent over their own work. He cleared his throat, and the captain looked "Do you... mmm... have any Wefts aboard?"

An odd expression in reply. "Wefts? No, why?" Then before he could answer, OHery's face cleared. "Oh! You've been with Sa.s.sinak, I know. She's got a thing about Wefts, doesn't she? They say it started back in the Academy. She had a Weft lover or something. That true?" Ollery's voice had the incipient sn.i.g.g.e.r of those who hope the worst about their seniors.

Dupaynil suppressed a surge of rage. As a Security officer, he listened to gossip professionally; idle gossip, malicious gossip, juicy gossip, boring gossip. He found it generally dull, and sometimes disgusting: a necessary but unpleasant part of his career. But here, applied to Sa.s.sinak, it was infuriating.

"So far as I know," he said as smoothly as he could, "that story was started by a cadet expelled for stealing and harra.s.sing women cadets." He knew the truth of that; he'd seen the files. "Commander Sa.s.sinak, and"-he emphasized the rank a little, intentionally, and enjoyed seeing Ollery's face pale-"keeps her s.e.x life in her own cabin, where it belongs, and where I intend to leave it."

A m.u.f.fled snort behind him meant that either someone else thought the captain had been out of line, or that Dupaynil's defense implied personal knowledge. He left that alone, too, and hoped no one would ask.

Silence settled over the bridge; he went on with his thoughts. Telepathic Wefts, and a ship's captain who could sometimes talk that way with them. He'd seen Ae reports on Sa.s.sinak's first tour of duty. A Ssli who-he suddenly remembered something from the tour before he joined the Zaid-Dayan. Sa.s.sinak had reported it as part of her testimony before the Board of Inquiry. Her Ssli, this same Ssli, had taken control of the ship momentarily and flipped it in and out of FTL s.p.a.ce. A move which she had described as "unprecedented, but Undoubtedly the reason I am here today."

He was beginning to think that Fleet knew far too little about the capabilities of Ssli. But he had no way to out more at the moment so he moved his concentration to Sa.s.sinak herself. When he thought of it, her actions were entirely probable. He could have kicked himself for not realizing that she would react quickly and strongly to any perceived threat. She had never liked having him aboard; she had never really trusted him. So his interception of her cla.s.sified messages, once she found out, would naturally result in some action. Her history suggested a genius for quick response, for instantly recognizing danger and reacting effectively in novel ways.

And so he was here, out of communication until the escort reached its destination. No way to check the validity of his orders (though he was quite sure now where they had come from) and no way to tell anyone what he'd found out. It occurred to him then, and only then, that Sa.s.sinak might have planned even more than getting him off her ship before he could "do something." Perhaps she had other plans. Perhaps she was not going to take the Zaid-Dayan tamely into Federation Central s.p.a.ce, with all its weaponry disabled and all its shuttles locked down.

For a long moment he fought off panic. She might do anything. Then he settled again. The woman was brilliant, not crazy: aggressive in defending her own, responsive to danger, but not disloyal to Fleet or Federation, not likely to do anything stupid, like bombing FedCentral. He hoped.

"Panis, take the helm." Ollery pushed himself back, gave Dupaynil a challenging glance, and stretched.

"Sir." Panis, the Executive Officer, had slid forward to the main control panel. He, too, glanced at Dupaynil before looking back at the screen.

"I'm going on a round," Ollery said. "Want to come along, Major?" A round of inspection, through all those long access tubes.

Dupaynil shook his head. "Not this time, thanks. Ill just..." What? he wondered. There was nothing to do on the tiny bridge but stare at the back of Panis's head or the side of the Weapons Control master mate's thick neck. A swingaway facescreen hid his face as he tinkered delicately with something in the weapons sys- tems. At least, that's what Dupaynil a.s.sumed he was doing with a tiny joystick and something that looked like a silver toothpick. Maybe he was playing a game.

"You'll get tired of it," warned Ollery. Then he was gone, easing through the narrow hatch.

A lengthy silence, in which Dupaynil noted the scufimarks on the decking by the captain's seat, the faded blue covers of the Fleet manuals racked for reference below the Exec's workstation. Finally Jig Panis looked over his shoulder and gave Dupaynil a shy smile. "The Captain's ticked," he said softly. "We got into the supply station a day early."

"Ollery reporting: Environmental, section 43, number-two scrubber's up a half-degree."

"Logged, sir." Panis entered the report, thumbed a control, and sent "Spec Zigran" off to check on the errant scrubber. Then he turned back to Dupaynil.

"We'd had a long run without liberty," he said. "The Captain said we'd have a couple of days off-schedule, to sort of rest up and then get ready for inspection."

Dupaynil nodded. "So... my orders upset your party-time, eh?"

"Yes. Playtak was supposed to be in at the same time."

With a loud click, the Weapons Control mate flicked the facescreen back into place. Dupaynil caught the look he gave the young officer; he had seen senior noncoms dispense that "You talk too much!" warning glance at every rank up to admiral.

Panis turned red, and focussed on his board. Dupaynil asked no more; he'd heard enough to know why Ollery was hostile. Presumably Playtak's captain was a friend of Ollery's and they'd agreed to meet at the supply station and celebrate. Quite against regulations, because he had no doubt that they had stretched their orders to make that overlap. It might be innocent, just friendship, or it might have been more. Smuggling, spying, who knows what? And he had been dumped into the middle of it, forcing them to leave ahead of schedule. "Too bad," he said casually. "It certainly wasn't my idea. But Fleet's Fleet and orders are orders."

"Right, sir." Panis did not look up. Dupaynil looked over at the Weapons Control mate whose lowering expression did not ease although it was not overtly hostile.

"You're Fleet Security, sir?" asked the mate.

"That's right. Major Dupaynil."

"And we're taking you into Seti s.p.a.ce?"

"Right." He wondered who'd told the man that. Ollery had had to know, but hadn't he realized those orders were secret? Of course they weren't really secret, since they were faked orders, but... He pushed that away. It was too complicated to think about now.

"Huh. Nasty critters." The mate put the toothpick-like tool he'd been using into a toolcase, and settled back in his seat. "Always get the feeling they're hoping for trouble."

Dupaynil had the same feeling about the mate. Those scarred knuckles had broken more than a few teeth, he was sure. "I was there with a diplomatic team once," he said. "I suppose that's why they're sending me."

"Yeah. Well, don't let the toads sit on you." The mate lumbered up, and with a casual wave at the Exec, left the bridge.

Dupaynil looked after him, a little startled. He had not considered Sa.s.sinak strict on etiquette, but no one would have left her bridge without a proper salute to the officer in charge, and permission to withdraw. Of course, this was a smaller ship than he'd ever been on. Was it healthy to have such a casual relationship?

Then the term "toads" which wasn't at all an accurate description of the Seti, but conveyed the kind of racial contempt that put Dupaynil on alert. Everyone knew the Federation combined races and cultures that preferred separation, that some hardly-remembered force had compelled the Seti and humans both to sign agreements against aggression. And, for the most part, abide by them. As professional keepers of this fragile peace, Fleet personnel were expected to have a more dispa.s.sionate view. Besides, he always thought of the Seti as "lizards."

" 'Scuse me, sir." That was another crewman, squeezing past him to get to a control panel on his left.

Dupaynil felt very much in the way, and very much unwanted. Blast Sa.s.sinak! The woman might at least have dumped him onto something comfortable. He looked over at Panis who was determinedly not looking at him. If he remembered correctly, the shortest route to Seti s.p.a.ce was going to take weeks and he could not endure this kind of thing for weeks.

The crew had worked off their bad humor in less than a week. Dupaynil exerted his considerable charm, let Ollery win several card games, and entertained them with some of the safer racy anecdotes from his last a.s.signment in a political realm. He had read Ollery correctly; the man liked to find flaws in those above him; preferably blackmailable flaws. Given a story about an amba.s.sador's lady addicted to drugs or a wealthy senior bureaucrat who preferred cross-cultural divertiss.e.m.e.nts, his eyes glistened and his cheeks flushed.

Dupaynil concealed his own contempt. Those who best liked to hear such things usually had their own similar appet.i.tes to hide.

Panis, however, was of very different stripe. He had t.i.ttered nervously at the story about the bureaucrat and turned brick red when Ollery and the senior mate sneered at him. It was clear that he had no close friends among the crew. When Dupaynil checked, he found that Panis had replaced the previous Exec only a few months before, while the rest of the crew had been unchanged for almost five years. And the previous Exec '*had left the ship because of an injury in a dockside ibrawl. It was odd, and more than odd: regular rotation jjflf crew was especially important on small ships. Fleet Cpolicy insisted on it. No matter how efficient a crew seemed to be, they were never left unchanged too long. Dupaynil had not been able to bring all his tools; along, but he always had some. He placed his sensors carefully, as carefully as he had in the larger ship, and 4$lkl his probe into the datalinks very delicately indeed. SHe had the feeling that carelessness here would get Jbim more trouble than a chewing out by the captain. In the meantime, as the days wore on, the crew sned up with him and played endless hands of every card game he knew, and a few he'd never seen. Crutch was a pirate's game, he'd been told once by the merchanter who taught it to him; he wondered where this crew had learned it. Poker, blind-eye, sin on toast, at which he won back all he'd tost so far, having learned that on Bretagne, where it began.

He sweated up and down the access tube ladders, learning to respond quickly to the shifting artificial-G, keeping his muscles supple. He discovered a storage bay full of water ice which made the restrictions on bathing ridiculous. There was enough to last a crew twice that size all the way to Seti s.p.a.ce and back but he kept his mouth shut. It seemed safer.

For all their friendliness, all their casual demeanor, he'd noticed that Ollery or the senior mate were always in any compartment he happened into. Except his own tiny cabin. And he was sure they'd been there when he found evidence that his things had been searched. He had time to wonder if Sa.s.sinak had known just what kind of ship she'd sent him to. He thought not. She had probably done a fest scan of locations, looking for the nearest docked escort vessel, some way to keep him from communicating while he was in FTL.

"I say he's spying on us, and I say dump him." That was the mate. Dupaynil shivered at the quietly deadly tone.

"He's got IG orders. They'll want to know what happened." That was Ollery, not nearly so sure of himself.

"We can't just s.p.a.ce him. We have to figure out a way."

"Emergency drill. Blow the pod. Say it was an accident." The mate's voice carried the shrug he would give when questioned later.

"What if he figures it out?"

"What can he do? Pod's got no engine, no decent long-range radio, no scan. Dump him where h.e.l.l fell down a well, into a star or something else big. Disable the radio and beacon. That way no one'U know he's ever been there. 'Sides, I don't think his orders are real. Think about it, sir. Would the IG haul someone off a big cruiser like the Zaid-Dayan-an IFTL message, that'd have to be - and stick 'em on a little bitty escort? To go to Seti s.p.a.ce? C'mon. You send a special envoy to the Seti, you send a d.a.m.n flotilla in with 'em, not an escort. No, you mark my words, sir, he's here to Spy on us and this proves it."

Dupaynil could not tell through the audio link which of his taps had been found, but he wished ardently that be had not planted it, whatever it was. Once again he had out-smarted himself, as he had with Sa.s.sinak. Never underesti-mate the enemy and be d.a.m.ned sure you know who the enemy is; a very basic rule he had somehow violated.

He felt a trickle of sweat run down his ribs. Sa.s.sinak had been dumped in an evac pod, rescued by the combined efforts of Wefts and a Ssli. He had no Wefts or Ssli to back him up; he would have to figure this out himself.

"You're sure he hasn't got the good stuff out of comp "Pretty sure." The mate's voice was even grimmer.

"Security's got good tools, though. Give him all the time between here and Seti s.p.a.ce, and he'll have not only the basics but enough to mind-fry the lot of us, all the way up to Lady Luisa herself. "

Dupaynil almost forgot his fear. Lady Luisa? Luisa Paraden? He had always been able to put two and two together and find more interesting things than four. Now he felt an almost physical jolt as his mind conected everything he'd ever heard or seen; including all the information Sa.s.sinak had gathered. As bright as a diagram projected on the screen of a strategy meeting, all connections marked out in glowing red or yellow... Luisa to Randolph, who had ample reason to loathe Sa.s.sinak. That had been Randolph vengeance, through his aunt's henchman, a washed Fleet officer once held captive on the same outpost as an orphan girl. Dupaynil spared a to pity that doomed lieutenant: Sa.s.sinak never , even if she learned the whole story. Luisa would do something that potentially dangerous just for Randolph, though. It must have been vengeance for Abe's part in disrupting her operation, a warning to others. Perhaps fear that he would cause her more trouble.

Abe to Sa.s.sinak, Sa.s.sinak to Randolph, Randolph to Luisa, whose first henchman partially failed. Where was Randolph now, Dupaynil wondered suddenly. He should know and he did not know. He realized that he had not ever seen one bit of information on Randolph in the system since that arrogant young man had left the Academy. Unnatural. A Paraden, wealthy, with connections: he should have done something. He should have been in the society news or been an officer in one of Aunt Luisa's companies.

Unless he had changed his ident.i.ty some way. It could be done, though it was expensive. Not that that would bother a Paraden. And why had they stopped with one attack on Sa.s.sinak? Dupaynil wished he had her file in hand. They would have been covert attempts, but knowing what to look for he might be able to see it. But of course! The Wefts. The Wefts she had saved from Par-aden's accusations in the Academy; the Wefts who had saved her from death in the pod. Wefts might have foiled any number of plots without bothering to tell her.

Or perhaps she knew, but never made the connection, or never bothered to report it, rules or no. She was not known for following the rules. He leaned on the wall of his cubicle, sweating and furious, as much with himself as the various conspirators. This was his job, this was what he had trained for, what he had thought he was good at; finding things out, making connections, sifting the data, interpreting it. And here he was, with all the threads woven into the pattern and no possible way to get that information out.

You're so smart, he thought bitterly. You're going to your death having won the war but lost the brawl. He knew-it was in her file and she had confided it as well-that Sa.s.sinak still wondered about the real reason Abe had been killed. She had never forgotten it, never laid it to rest. And he had that to offer her, more than enough to get her forgiveness for that earlier misunderstanding. But too late!

Thinking of Sa.s.sinak reminded him again of her experience in the escape pod. It had made chilling reading, even in the remote prose her captain had used. She had gone right up to the limit of the pod's oxygen capacity, hoping to be conscious to give her evidence. He shuddered. He would have put himself into coldsleep as soon as he realized what happened, and he'd probably have died of it. Or, like Lunzie, been found decades later. He didn't like that scenario either. He fairly itched to get his newly acquired insights where they could do the most good.

Sa.s.sinak, now. What would she do, cooped in an escort full of renegades? He had trouble imagining her on anything but the bridge of the Zaid-Dayan, but she had served in smaller ships. Would she find a weapon (where?) and threaten them from the bridge? Would she take off in an escape pod before she was jettisoned, with a functioning radio, and hope to be found in time? (In time for what? Life? The trial?) The one thing she wouldn't do, he was sure, was slouch on a bunk wondering what to do. She would have thought of something, and given her luck it would probably have worked.

The idea, when it finally came to him hours later (miserable, sweaty hours when he was supposed to be sleeping), seemed simple. Presumably they would have a ship evacuation drill as the occasion of his murder. The others would be going into pods as well, just to make it seem normal. They had found one of his taps, but not all (or surely they'd have blocked the audio so he couldn't hear). And therefore he could tap the links again, reset the evac pod controls, and trap them-or most of them-in the pods. They would not be able to fire his pod; he could fire theirs.

He was partway through the reprogramming of the pod controls when he realized why this was not such a simple solution. Fleet had a name for someone who took illegal con-trol of a ship and killed the captain and crew. An old, nasty name leading to a court martial which he might well lose.

I am not contemplating mutiny, he told himself firmly. They are the criminals. But they were not convicted yet, and until then what he planned was, by all the laws and regulations, not merely mutiny but also murder. And piracy. And probably a dozen or so lesser crimes to be tacked onto the charge sheet(s), including the things Sa.s.sinak might say about his tap into her com shack. And his present unauthorized reprogramming of emergency equipment. Not to mention his supposed orders to proceed into Seti s.p.a.ce: faked orders, which no one (after he pirated a ship and killed the crew) would believe he had not faked for himself.

What would Sa.s.sinak do about that, he wondered. He remembered the holo of the Zaid-Dayan with its patched hull, with the scars of the pirate boarding party. She had let the enemy onto her ship to trap them. Could he think of anything as devastating? All things considered, forty-three years of cold sleep might be the easy way out, he thought, finishing off the new switching sequences.

Sa.s.sinak's great-great-great might complain but a little time in the freezer could keep you out of big trouble. His mind b.u.mped him again, hard. Of course. Coldsleep them, the nasties. Drop the charges to mere mutiny and piracy and et cetera, but not murder (mandatory mindwipe for murder), and he might merely spend the next twenty years cleaning toilet fixtures with a bent toothbrush.

Of course it still wasn't simple. For all his exercise up and down the ladders, he had no more idea than a s.p.a.ce-opera hero how to operate this ship. He'd had only the basics, years back; he'd flown a comp-desk, not a ship. He could chip away at that compartment of water ice and not die of thirst, but he couldn't convert it and take a shower. Or even get the ship down out of FTL s.p.a.ce. Sa.s.sinak could probably do it, but all he could do was trigger the Fleet distress beacon and hope the pickup ship wasn't part of the same corrupt group. He wouldn't even do that, if he didn't quit jittering and get to it.

Chapter Seven.

Diplo Zebara led her through the maze of streets around the university complex at a fast pace. For all his age and apparent physical losses, he was still amazingly fit. She was aware of eyes following them, startled glances. She could not tell if it was Zebara himself, or his having a lightweight companion. She was puffing when he finally stopped outside a storefront much like the others she'd seen.

"Gin's Place," Zebara said. "Best chooli stew in the city, a very liberal crowd, and a noisy set of half-bad musicians. You'll love it."

Lunzie hoped so. Chooli stew conformed to Federation law by having no meat in it, but she had not acquired a taste for the odd spices that flavored the mix of starchy vegetables.

Inside, hardly anyone looked at her. The "liberal crowd" were all engrossed in their own food and conversation. She smelted meat, but saw none she recognized. The half-bad musicians played with enthusiasm but little skill, covering their blats and blurps with high-pitched cries of joy or anguish. She could not tell which, but it did make an effective sonic screen. She and Zebara settled into one of the booths along the side, and ordered chooli stew with figgerunds, the green nuts she'd had at the reception, Zebara explained.

"You need to know some things," he began when the chooli stew had arrived, and Lunzie was taking a first tentative bite of something yellowish.

"I heard you were head of External Security," she said quietly.

He looked startled. "Where'd you hear? No, it doesn't matter. It's true, although not generally known." He sighed. "I can see this makes it more difficult for you..."

"Makes what more difficult?"

"Trusting me." His eyes flicked around the room, as anyone's might, but Lunzie could not believe it was the usual casual glance. Then he looked back at her. "You don't, and I can't blame you, but we must work together or. Or things could get very bad indeed."

"Isn't your involvement with an offworlder going to be a little conspicuous?" She let a little sarcasm edge her voice; how naive did he think she was?

"Of course. That doesn't matter." He ate a few bites while she digested the implications of that statement. It could only "not matter" if policymakers knew and approved. When he looked up and swallowed, she nodded at him. "Good! You understand. Your name on the medical team was a little conspicuous, if you'd had any ulterior motive for coming here..."He let that trail away, and Lunzie said nothing. Whatever motives she had had, the important tiling now was to find out what Zebara was talking about. She took another bite of stew; it was better than the same dish in the research complex's dining hall.

"I saw the list," Zebara went on. "One of the things my department does is screen such delegations, looking for possible troublemakers. Nothing unusual. Most planets do the same. There was your name, and I wondered if it was the same Lunzie. Found out that it was you and then the rocks started falling."

"Rocks?"

"My... employers. They wanted me to contact you, renew our friendship. More than friendship, if possible. Enlist your aid in getting vital data oflplanet."

"But your employers... that's the Governor, right?" Lunzie was not sure, despite having read about it, just where political power was on this planet.

"Not precisely. The Governor knows them, and that's part of the problem. I have to a.s.sume that you, with what's happened to you, are like any normal Federation citizen. About piracy, for instance."

His voice had lowered to a m.u.f.fled growl she could barely follow. The half-bad musicians were perched on their tall stools, gulping some amber liquid from tall gla.s.s mugs. She hoped it would mellow their music as well as their minds.

"My ethics haven't changed," she said, with the slightest emphasis on the p.r.o.noun.