Against the Odds

Chapter Seventeen

Swainson & Triggett, Officers’ Outfitters (All Services), greeted the new captain of a patrol ship with suitably restrained delight, and the presence of a distinguished-looking father only increased the respectful hush in the room. Lieutenant Suiza, the hero of Xavier, yes of course. An honor. And newly made captain? Congratulations. Luggage lost in transit, in the confusion of the mutiny? What a shame. Complete set of uniforms, as quickly as possible, money no object? They purred over her, the younger Ser Swainson, and the elder Ser Triggett. The senior women’s fitter was summoned; she led Esmay away to a booth large enough to host a small party, where an entire team of fitters measured her from tip to toe, then had her move . . . sit, stand, walk, raise and lower her arms . . .

“We have items in stock, of course, which can be altered—that might do for everyday uniforms, since you’re in a hurry—” The old lady sent a young one off to the racks. “But your dress uniforms must of course be custom-fitted. You’re lucky; you have a nice shape for uniforms.”

Esmay assumed that was simple flattery, until the woman said, “Now you take Sera Meager—lovely woman she is, but if you tried to fit a uniform on her it would be quite difficult. She looks good in many kinds of clothes, and she knows how to dress, but it’s the ratios, you see. The ratio of upper to lower arm, of thigh to lower leg, of torso length to leg length.” Esmay was glad Brun had stayed out front and hadn’t heard this.

The girl came back with a uniform that fit better than any of her own ever had. Esmay said so, but the old lady sniffed as she began marking and pinning for alterations. “That may be, Lieutenant, but I daresay you didn’t order your wardrobe here.”

“No—this is my first time on Castle Rock.”

“Ah. Well, we have several branch offices. There are other good firms—Hatan Meior does quite nice work—but we do feel that we have a little something extra.”

“I’d agree,” said Esmay, watching her image in the mirror as the pins subtly changed what had already seemed like a smarter silhouette.

“Is that the way you usually wear your hair?” the old lady asked, with a swift glance at the mirrored image.

“No—I had to cut it off for a religious ceremony,” Esmay said. “I usually wear it short, but not this short. I was thinking of getting a wig or something.”

“It’s the cap, you see. If we size it to your head now, it may not fit when your hair grows out, depending on how you style it. A wig would certainly change the size, but if you don’t mind my advice—”

“Not at all.”

“It’s our experience that those officers who try wigs find them inconvenient aboard ship. We’ve had to replace quite a few caps for that reason. And they don’t work well with the command helmets, either.”

“Thank you,” Esmay said. “I’d only thought, because it’s so much shorter than usual—”

“You might consider a hair booster; it’ll grow out about twice as fast, for thirty days. Then it slows back down. Any good salon can do the treatment, and I understand it doesn’t affect the ID process. Many of our officers use Dorn’s, down the street.”

“Thanks,” Esmay said again.

“They’ll be ready tomorrow,” the elder Ser Triggett told them, when the fitters had done with her. “And do you have a list of your decorations? You’ll need the ribbon and the miniature and full-size dress medals.” Esmay handed over the list feeling more and more that she was in some fantasy world . . . she was suddenly back in Fleet . . . she was to command a ship . . . she had just ordered a full set of uniforms from what had to be the most expensive tailors in the universe . . . it was as if she’d fallen into one of the tales in which the despised outcast sister is transformed into a beautiful princess by magical hands.

She did notice that Ser Triggett passed the bill discreetly to her father, who scanned it closely before handing over his credit cube. “You’re sure you don’t need a second pair of ship boots?” her father asked. “If those are really comfortable . . .” Ser Triggett paused on his way to the credit desk.

They were comfortable; they felt like walking on pillows. Her father could afford it, and he wanted to treat her. “Yes,” Esmay said. “I would like a second pair.”

She walked out in uniform—the first of the working uniforms, quickly but perfectly altered to fit her, with the insignia of a ship’s captain embroidered on epaulets and cap, and the rank insignia gleaming on her shoulders. The day itself seemed brighter, though in fact it was almost dark: Swainson & Triggett appeared not to mind that outfitting her had kept them busy until well after the stated closing hour.

That night, they all had dinner at the Thornbuckle town house—she, her father, Brun, Kate, and Kevil Mahoney, who was finally out of rehab with his new arm. After the meal, the talk turned to Familias politics.

“You young ladies will most likely not agree with me,” General Suiza said, “but I see the Familias facing more and more trouble unless it reconstitutes its government on more rational lines.”

“That’s what I keep saying,” Kate said. “They need a constitution . . .”

“They need clear thinking,” the general said. “A bad constitution would not help.”

“But the first thing,” Esmay said, “must be the mutiny. Without security, they won’t have time to think clearly.”

He smiled at her. “You are definitely my daughter, Esmaya. Of course they must put down the mutiny first and repel any invaders. That’s the job of the Fleet. But while you are out there blowing up mutineers, someone here must be thinking clearly about the reasons for the assassinations and mutinies, and the other unrest that troubles the realm.” He cocked an eye at Kevil Mahoney. “Is that not so, Ser Mahoney?”

“Yes, of course,” Kevil said. “But I don’t quite see how we’re to do that. Bunny and I were working on it, but without Bunny’s influence I’m small potatoes and few in the hill, as the saying is. I rode his coattails . . .”

“Or drove him with them,” Brun said. “I know you influenced his thinking a lot.”

“Well . . . it became clear to me when I was a young man that something was stifling opportunity for talent of all kinds. It took me a long time to figure it out—you’d think with colony worlds opening all around, with hundreds of populated worlds all linked by trade and expanding almost visibly, that there’d be plenty of chance to rise.”

“Some worlds are more conservative,” Brun said. “Look at the Crescents, for instance.”

“Yes, that’s what my professors said. And there was a lot of scoffing, of the ‘That’s just what they’re like, what do you expect’ from senior men of law who were content that it should be so. But I had the advantage of my grandfather’s library—he had a passion for old books that went far beyond having rows of attractive bindings to show on a library wall, or a few reproduction books on foxhunting or military history to lay out for display on a fancy table. By the time I was in law school, he’d long retired, and nothing pleased him so much as arguing over history with me—and not just legal history. One thing he convinced me of—and all the evidence I’ve seen since confirms this—is that any system which does not give ample opportunity for talent to displace unearned rank will, in the end, come to grief.”

“What do you mean by unearned rank?” Brun asked.

“What you have, for instance,” Kevil said, with a smile that took most of the sting out of his words. “Or for that matter, my son George. This is not to say you and others like you don’t have talent—you do. But your talent is displayed, as it were, on velvet, like a precious jewel. Think of those women in the NewTex culture, Brun: were they all stupid, lazy, incompetent?”

“No . . .”

“No. Given your advantages, some of them would have been quite able to act the lady, don’t you think?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Not that acting the lady is the best goal for a woman, in my opinion, any more than acting the lord is the best goal for a man. My point is that every time society has given it a chance, it’s been shown that talent exists in previously despised populations. For instance, in the early days of space colonies, there are multiple instances where the supposedly necessary leadership was killed by some disaster, and it was presumed the colony would fail—but it didn’t. Over and over again, it’s been shown that an ordinary sampling of the population, including those considered inferior or hopeless, contains men and women of rare intelligence, wit, and ability. Just as ponds turn over their water yearly, revitalizing the pond’s life, so a good stirring of the human pot brings new blood to the top, and we’re all the better for it.”

“But—” Brun struggled to express what she felt. She was a Registered Embryo—specially chosen genes for excellence. Maybe they’d had to depend on talent from below in the past, but now people like her parents could select it even before birth.

“We had that happen in Altiplano,” the general said. “Our patrons thought their colonists were just stupid peasants, born and bred to be inferior and ruled by themselves. But we did quite well without our natural leaders.”

“And yet you have rich and poor, don’t you?”

“Of course we do. But I like to think, with a smaller population and our educational system, we give the children of poor families more chance to show what they can do.”

“Boys, at least,” Esmay said. “And all the Landbrides are from wealthy families.”

“That’s so,” General Suiza said, frowning. “Our system is not perfect. But since we don’t have rejuvenation, our young people know they will have a place in society at a reasonably young age.”

“Now there you’ve touched it,” Kevil said, leaning forward. “Even the old forms of rejuvenation, each pretty much limited to a single application because of side effects, widened the opportunity gap at the top end of society. Repeated rejuvenations made things worse—much worse. It would have been bad enough if it been available only to the richest families, forcing youngsters like you to sit idly waiting for a chance to take responsibility in the family that never came. You, from your perspective, may not be able to see how much the education and lives of rich young people changed in the ten years before you were born. But I did. And rich young people, kept out of the family business, can amuse themselves in all sorts of ways.”

“Then rejuvenation spread,” General Suiza said.

“Yes. Take a professional man like myself, who has accumulated forty years of experience in his field, and can return to a vigorous younger body . . . why would he retire? So why would he take on a younger partner, when he himself felt young again? It’s like crystallization, spreading and freezing through society, making brittle what had been fluid.”

“But people want to live,” Brun said. “That’s natural.”

“Yes, it’s natural. It’s as natural as wanting to find the perfect love that lasts forever, or peace without disturbance . . . it’s the old natural infant desire to have what you want, when you want it, forever. Up to now, the human race has been blessed by having such wishes impossible to fulfill: harsh as it seems, the young have been able to count on their elders losing first strength, and then dying . . . making room. All human societies have been built on that awareness that everyone dies.”

“So we have to figure out how to live if they don’t?”

“Exactly. Much as I dislike the Benignity, their Chairman’s comment on endless adolescence hit the target. We need a range of maturity—if we’re going to live for hundreds of years, we need to be grownups, not perpetual children. We need opportunities for the young, a chance for them to mature as well. We need to do something to include more of the population, to tie it together.”

“Can it be done?” General Suiza asked.

“I don’t know, but we have to try, or we’ll have a bloodbath, with the young and hopeless attacking the old and rejuvenated directly,” Kevil said. “We already have foreign enemies who tell us—who are adamant—that our use of unrestricted rejuvenation frightens them so much they will assassinate our head of state and consider invasion.”

“The Terakians,” Esmay said, “talked about this a little. They said the free traders weren’t as affected, because they could always go somewhere else, but they saw a lot of unrest that made them uneasy.”

“We’ve got to get people like that into the government,” Kevil said. “As long as the only people with power are the rich rejuvenated oldsters, something’s going to blow. There are a lot more people—including intelligent, thoughtful, decent people—who aren’t rich or able to get rejuvenation. The last time I went over this with Bunny, we noticed that there are more unrejuvenated young people with a right to Seats in Council than rejuvenated ones with Seats. That might give us a wedge, for as long as that majority lasts. But we still have to go outside the old Families. However much inconvenience and trouble it may take to widen the franchise, a revolution would be far, far worse.”

The hours ran out like water down a drain . . . a restless night’s sleep . . . the salon appointment . . . a day spent in final fitting of the new uniforms (the sight of herself in the cape and long skirt of the mess dress startled her—she looked almost regal), in buying the luggage in which to pack them—she couldn’t have crammed them into the carryon even if she’d been willing to, in finding out what she could about the crew she would have on her ship (her ship!). A last flurry of other shopping when the old lady reminded her that a captain would be expected to pay calls on civilians and would need a civilian wardrobe as well—she took Brun along for that. Her father left for home that second night; she was surprised at how she missed him in the few hours left before her own departure.

Then Brun and Kate took her to the shuttle terminal, and after a last round of good-byes, she joined the stream of travelers in uniform heading for the Fleet shuttle access. This time the ID booth recognized her at once; she had only a moment’s claustrophobia from the memory of her earlier arrest before the light turned green.

“Welcome home, Lieutenant,” said the guard at the gate when she arrived at Rockhouse Major. “Your transport to Sector VII HQ leaves in four hours, sir.”

“Thanks, Sergeant,” Esmay said. She hoped that was enough time for luggage transfer. She didn’t want to lose her new finery. Meanwhile, she could look Barin up in the Fleet database now that she had access again. Two hours later, she turned away from the display in confusion.

Copper Mountain? What was Barin doing on Copper Mountain?

Harlis Thornbuckle eyed the gray-haired man across the table. Tall, trim, square-shouldered, erect, with a look on his face that came—Harlis knew—from command of a ship in the Regular Space Service.

A ship no longer in the Regular Space Service. A ship now at the service of anyone who could hire it.

“But why would you want to go to Sirialis, the first place they’ll look?”

“They won’t, because they aren’t looking for me, and no Family member is there.” Never mind that they would be looking for him as soon as they knew he’d slipped his surveillance cuff. That discovery was hours away, thanks to his dentist. If he could finish his business with this fellow, make that quick run back to Castle Rock and return, get off this damnable Station quickly enough, it wouldn’t be a problem. The messages on his comunit at home should make it clear he was actually headed for his own estates. Besides, it was none of his hireling’s business. “You can cut off communications, can’t you?”

“Yes, or control them. But it’s an out-of—the-way system . . .”

“All the better, isn’t it? Low population, high productivity, not on regular trade routes. It’s known as a Family Seat, so why would anyone look there?”

The gray-haired man frowned. “We’d need more information.”

“I can get that for you. But can you do it?”

“Probably. Yes. But it will cost you.”

“That’s not a problem. I have plenty of money.”

“Fine. Then suppose you get us off this station.”

“Off—?”

“You don’t suppose I brought my ships in here and docked them alongside a bunch of traders, do you? That would be walking into the lion’s mouth indeed.”

Harlis had assumed that a faked ID beacon would do the trick, but if they needed transport, that was no problem. “We can hire a yacht,” he said.

“Just like that?”

Harlis drew himself up. “I am Seated Family,” he said. “Whatever else happens, they can’t take that away, and I have more than ample funds to hire any yacht up here. What do we need?”

“Let me check what’s listed.” The man, who still hadn’t given his name, pulled out his comunit and called up the list available from Allsystems Leasing. “Get us the Lillian C.,” he said after scrolling through it. “Passenger capacity’s fifteen. Bare. We’ve got crew. If they won’t lease it bare, ask to speak to Denny, and when you get Denny, say ‘Little ships have big ears.’ That should take care of it.” He sat back, tucked the comunit in his pocket, and nodded at Harlis.

“Now?”

“How fast did you want to leave?” the man asked.

“All right.” Harlis called Allsystems, where his name got him past the first two levels of reception and onto a personal sales officer. “I need to lease a yacht,” he said. “What’s available?” The man began describing yachts, transmitting the data. Harlis made disparaging comments until he mentioned the Lillian C., then he said, “That’s not so bad.” He listened to a few more, then said, “That Lillian yacht—that sounds like what I’m looking for. How soon can she be ready?”

“Six hours, Ser Thornbuckle, but obtaining a crew—”

“Never mind about the crew,” Harlis said. “I’ll take care of that.”

“Ah . . . family retainers, I suppose?”

“Qualified crew,” Harlis said.

“We really prefer to have at least one Allsystems—”

“If it’s a matter of cost,” Harlis said, “I’m prepared to pay your crewed rate.”

“Oh . . . well, then, how long do you need her for?”

“Sixty days . . . no, better make it ninety. I’ve got to visit several systems . . . Burkholdt, then Celeste. If I remember rightly, the transit time will eat up forty days, and then there’s my business onplanet . . .”

“How about ninety with an option for another ninety? You can contact any Allsystems office to extend your lease; we have agents in both Burkholdt and Celeste . . .”

“That will do very well,” Harlis said. “What are your provisioning options?”

“Well, there’s the basic package, but for a gentleman of your rank we usually recommend at least the gold level—”

“Fine. I’ll be over shortly to sign and make the deposit. Put us down for the departure queue, would you?”

“Of course, Ser Thornbuckle.”

Now it was Harlis’s turn to sit back and look at his new employee. “Six hours, and she’ll be ready,” he said.

“Good,” the man said. “By the way, my name’s Taylor. I’ll go get the crew together; you get that information you said you could find, and meet me at the Allsystems office at—” He looked at his watch. “At 2100.”

It occurred to Harlis that his employee was giving him orders and very little information.

Brun turned away from the shuttle terminal with a sigh. “Well . . . I’m glad she’s going back where she belongs, but we sure have a mess to deal with here. And I don’t really have a clue where to start.”

Kate grinned that brassy grin, and said, “You might want to start by helping me finish up my mission, so’s I can get home. With that Conselline out of the way, and a new foreign minister, we ought to be able to get those trade restrictions lifted, and those assets unfrozen, don’t you think? And this would be a real smart time for the Familias to make nice to its neighbors.”

“You’re leaving too?”

“Well, hon, I can’t stay here forever, and I figure I’ve given you folks about all the advice I can, without asking for a salary.”

Brun laughed. “I’ll miss you. But yes, we should be able to get your government’s needs attended to. Though since my mother killed the former foreign minister, you might do better without my help.”

“Let’s just see,” Kate said. “I’ll meet you for lunch, why don’t I, and let you know how it went. The town house?”

“Fine,” Brun said. Kate waved, and turned away. Brun started to offer her a ride, but realized that the Ranger was more than capable of finding her own way. Brun glanced aside, to be sure her security detail was in place, and then walked tamely to her own transport.

At the town house, she kicked off her shoes as she entered the small but comfortable library. It had been her father’s . . . his father’s, too, she presumed. Now it was hers—at least, when she was here alone. She sank into one of the big armchairs, propped her feet on the hassock, and closed her eyes. She couldn’t hear street traffic from here, but she could hear a gardener complaining to another about a shipment of bedding plants.

She heard the distant burr of an incoming call and ignored it, closing her eyes a moment. But the soft swish of footsteps coming down the hall brought her upright. “For me?” she said, as the housekeeper came to the door.

“Yes, sera. Viktor Barraclough.” Viktor! What could he want? “I’ll take it in here,” she said.

“It’s on the secure line,” the housekeeper said.

Which meant using the privacy booth in the hall. Brun fitted herself into the booth, put her hands on the ID plate and looked into the scan mask. When the light turned green, she sealed the unit, then spoke.

“Viktor? It’s Brun—how may I help you?”

“Brun, Stepan wants to meet with you.”

The head of the Barraclough sept wanted to meet with her? Her heart started pounding, and questions raced through her mind. She asked the only useful ones. “Where and when?”

“He would prefer that you come to his attorney’s office—and is Kevil Mahoney well enough to come along?” What was going on?

“I have a lunch meeting,” Brun said. “But I’ll contact Kevil and see—I’m assuming he wants to meet today?”

“If possible, this afternoon at three—if not, tomorrow.”

“I see.”

“And—it’s Family and sept business, which we would prefer to be kept private. I know you have that woman from the Lone Star Confederation with you—some kind of law officer?”

“A Ranger, they call it. Yes—she was helpful when Harlis was fighting Dad’s will.”

“So I understood. If you believe her to be discreet, Stepan would not object to your letting her know where you are, but not anyone else.”

“Fine, then.”

She called Kevil, now home from the rehab center, from the same booth and waited while he made the secure connection.

“What are you up to now?” he asked.

“Viktor Barraclough,” Brun said. “He called to tell me Stepan wants to see me—and you, if you’re up to it—on Family and sept business, this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon.”

Kevil pursed his lips a moment. “That’s . . . very interesting. Have you been following the news the past couple of days?”

“No—we’ve been getting Esmay back to Fleet and off to her new command. Why?”

“The Consellines are bruiting it about that your family colluded with the Benignity to arrange the deaths on Patchcock, Hobart’s assassination and Pedar’s death.”

“My,” said Brun. “That’s ingenious—how do they think we did it?”

“Well . . . apparently Oskar Morrelline came up with the idea that the Benignity spy in their Patchcock pharmaceutical facility was planted there by your family—to ruin the Morrellines’ reputation, you see.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” Brun said.

“Paranoid in high degree,” Kevil agreed. “Unfortunately, however, Ottala, Oskar’s daughter, must have told her father unflattering things about you, from your school days together, because he’s convinced that you all had a grudge against the Morrellines.”

Memories of schoolgirl pranks rose in Brun’s mind—the time she had . . . the time Ottala had . . .

“She was fairly poisonous,” Brun said, “but I didn’t do anything worse than she did.”

“That’s not how he heard it. He’s almost got himself convinced that this spy was not only planted by your family, but that Ottala was on the spy’s trail and about to expose him when he killed her.”

“Ottala couldn’t have trailed a paint-dipped cat across a white carpet,” Brun said, the old resentments flaring up. “She was impenetrably self-centered.” Kevil said nothing, and she felt herself going hot. “Of course, so was I—so were we all, except maybe Raffaele—but Ottala wasn’t just spoiled and rich and selfish . . . she wasn’t overbright, besides.”

“Whatever the facts,” Kevil said, “what people believe is something else. Oskar got a little of his influence back under Hobart, and he’s making the most he can of Hobart’s death. He’s convinced the Benignity ambassador is lying—that the Benignity wouldn’t really have someone killed just because of their beliefs about rejuvenation—and besides, Hobart wasn’t a rejuvenant.”

“So the Consellines are painting us black,” Brun said. “Our immediate family, or the whole sept?”

“The whole sept.”

“I suppose Stepan wants me to be the sacrificial lamb,” Brun said. “In Council, in front of everyone.”

“I doubt it,” Kevil said. “Stepan respected and liked your father—he’s very old, you know, and he’s never rejuved. I suspect he wants you to do something, and we’d better find out what.”

“Can you make it this afternoon?”

“Of course. Three? I’ll be there. And I would bet you, if you were a gambler, that if I call his attorneys right now, someone will ask me to lunch, and then we’ll go back to their offices around two, chatting about how to get my business back in shape . . . and I just might still be there at three, when you arrive.”

“Deviousness,” Brun said.

“Yes. And if you think you and Stepan will be pulling up to the door at the same time, think again. Three this afternoon gives him plenty of time to arrange staggered arrivals for everyone he wants to have come and not much time for leaks. Look worried, Brun, when you arrive—look like someone who’s expecting a scolding or even to be denied her Seat. And it wouldn’t hurt if you called Buttons and asked what he thought of the Morrelline rumor mill, without mentioning Stepan.”

“More deviousness,” Brun said. “I can do that.”

Shortly after that, Kate arrived for lunch, kicking off her high heels as she stepped onto the patterned carpet of the hall.

“I don’t see why you wear those things if they hurt your feet,” Brun said.

“For the sheer pleasure of taking them off and wiggling my toes in this,” Kate said. She looked triumphant. “I’ve almost got the Foreign Ministry to agree to cancel the trade embargo, and I have appointments with two other ministers this afternoon. When I get those assets unfrozen, then it’s over and done and I can take off for home. With maybe just a bit of sightseeing along the way.”

“Sightseeing?”

“Well, like I told that young man on the ship that brought me here, I wouldn’t mind a bit seeing the famous sights of the Familias. When else am I going to have time?”

“What’s on your list?” Brun asked. “You know it could take a year or more . . .” They discussed tourist destinations over lunch, then Kate put her shoes on and headed out to do battle with the bureaucrats.