Against the Odds

Chapter Nineteen

Goonar was just getting ready to head up to the main restaurant block in this section of the Station for dinner when his comunit buzzed. “It’s Commander Tavard,” a voice said. “Those fingerprints and video were very interesting.”

“Oh? Are—uh—this isn’t a secure link at this end, Commander.”

“Not a problem. Just wanted to tell you how glad I am you aren’t heading out with that particular passenger. And to keep a close eye on your area, in case he decides to retaliate for your inhospitality.” Tavard sounded almost smug.

“Believe me, I shall. We were going out to dinner, Basil and I, but we could stay aboard, if you think that’s wise.”

“No, dinner out sounds fine, as long as you have someone reliable aboard. If we should happen to meet, I presume you’re still annoyed with Fleet for its ungenerous attitude towards informers?”

“Of course. Shall I snub you, or you snub me?”

“Both a little cool, I’d say. Oh, and thanks for your information about Suiza. She’s turned up—she was visiting a private residence and that’s why we couldn’t find her.”

“You mean you really—?” Goonar had not considered that this interest might be real.

“Two strings to my bow, and two arrows nocked . . . though if I understand bows at all, that’s not how it could work. But you grasp my meaning.”

“Indeed.” He thought of asking about Betharnya and her troupe, but decided better not complicate an already complicated situation. “I’m taking my comunit along, if you need to contact me.”

With a last warning to the ship’s crew, he and Basil headed up to the main levels. Rockhouse always made him feel he was in the thick of things; Zenebra might be as crowded just before the Trials, but that was all horse people, all one sort. Here it was the variety, the sense that everyone, at one time or another, might turn up on business. Shops, news kiosks with screens flickering and hardcopies racked below, more shops, the bustle of the evening traffic, mostly well-dressed at this hour: the soberly dressed businessmen and women who were still working, the gaudily dressed young out for an evening.

He watched an old woman in a brilliant red and purple caftan, her thick gray hair in a braid piled on her head, swing along as if she owned the entire station. She wasn’t particularly tall, but people moved out of her way as if by some arcane force. Basil nudged him. “Reminds me of Aunt Herdion.”

“She’s somebody’s aunt, I’d say,” Goonar said. She cheered him up, for reasons he couldn’t grasp. In a universe with brisk old ladies like this, old ladies who could mend quarrels between families for the sake of a lost child, he could almost believe that Betharnya would consider giving up the stage for a nice house at the family compound, next door to Basil’s.

As a Terakian captain, Goonar now had a membership in the Captains’ Guild; he had booked a table for himself and Basil. He’d been here before, as a junior guest of his uncle’s, but this was his first time in the door as a member in his own right.

“Captain Terakian, of course.” The maitre d’ smiled at him. “We’re always delighted to see captains of Terakian and Sons here. Please—follow me.”

Then, he had been awed by the decor, unused to the style of the inner worlds of the Familias. Now . . . he could almost feel he belonged here.

Once the first course was on the table, Basil leaned across. “You aren’t going to leave here without talking to Bethya, are you?”

Goonar almost choked on his soup and glared at Basil. “How can I talk to her when she disappeared into the Fleet side of the Station, and I’ve heard nothing?”

“You could ask. You could have asked that commander.”

“He came to ask about the Suiza woman,” Goonar said, mindful of listeners. “Why would he know anything about Bethya?”

“Goonar . . . she likes you, and you like her. I can tell.”

“You cannot. Last year you thought I was falling for that blonde—”

“I was hoping. I knew better, truly I did. But don’t try to tell me Bethya doesn’t stir you—”

“Don’t be vulgar, Bas.” Goonar leaned over his soup, the rising steam an excuse for the heat in his cheeks. “Besides, if she wants to talk to me, she knows where I am. Anyway, she’s an actress. Why would she be interested in a plain old ship captain?” Other than the reasons he didn’t want to hear.

“She’s ready to settle down, maybe.”

“I doubt it,” Goonar said. The soup lay heavy in his stomach, and he wished dinner over already. Basil went on spooning his in—his appetite hadn’t suffered.

His comunit buzzed. Goonar flicked it on. “Captain? This is Bethya—” His pulse raced. “We’re . . . um . . . finished here.” He could hear the careful phrasing. “We’re contacting agents to see about a booking . . . I know we need to get our equipment off your ship and into storage or something. Could I come talk to you about that and about settling up?”

“Don’t worry,” he said automatically. Then, with a feeling like plunging over a cliff, he said, “Actually—Basil and I are having dinner at the Captains’ Guild. Would you like to join us?”

“I don’t know if I . . . yes, Captain, I’d like that. Where is it?”

Goonar gave her directions and looked up to find Basil grinning like a boy who had just pulled the prize ring out of the barrel. “What!”

“It was Bethya, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was Bethya, and yes, she’s coming over here to have dinner.” He signalled a waiter and explained that he had another guest coming.

“You’re grinning all over your face,” Basil observed. “Some of our competitors are going to think you just made a deal.”

“Let them,” Goonar said. His appetite had returned with a rush; he could have eaten an entire cattlelope.

Bethya arrived a few minutes later, and Goonar would have sworn every male in the place perked up. She knew it, too, he saw, and enjoyed it. But her smile was for him alone when he seated her.

“I didn’t want to call you until they were completely through,” she said. “And then Dougie started up—insisting that he knew just what we should do, and how, and when. I had to get them all back to the hotel, and call two agents, before he’d leave off.”

“That’s all right,” Goonar said. “What will you have?”

“That looks good,” she said, glancing at his plate. “Cattlelope?”

“Yes—soup to start, clear or cream—”

“Cream,” she said. “I need something soothing.”

Goonar ordered dinner for her and waited.

“Go on,” she said. “Don’t wait for me.”

“I’d rather,” he said. “It’s been one of those days, and I don’t need indigestion tonight.”

“I wanted to thank you again . . . both of you.” She looked at Basil, then back to Goonar. “I know it caused you trouble and worry, and perhaps your company will be angry—”

“It’s all right,” Goonar said.

“I’ve been trying to think how to make it work for you, make it pay—”

“Your presence, sera, was all we needed,” Basil said. He widened his eyes at her; she grinned at him.

“You are married, my fine young cockerel; don’t pretend to offer what you don’t have. And I’m talking business here. I thought, Goonar, you might want a share in the company.”

“In an acting company?”

“Yes. It wouldn’t amount to much, most likely, but we’ve talked it over, and we’re all willing to split off another share for you. We know what could have happened if you hadn’t taken us in. And if miracles happened and we had a long run in some major theater . . .”

Her soup arrived, saving Goonar the need to answer. Basil, who had not slowed down, pushed his plate aside. “Goonar, I’m going back to the ship; I’m just not comfortable with none of us aboard. My vote’s to take the share, if it comes to that.”

As transparent an excuse as any he’d seen, but he, too, thought having Basil aboard was a good idea. Goonar toyed with his vegetables, and watched Bethya covertly.

“Bethya . . . would you ever consider—” He cleared his throat. It was hopeless, why was he even trying? “Er . . . settling down?”

“Settling down? You mean in one place? Goonar, I’m talented, but not that talented.”

“No, I meant as—with a family. Live in a house on a planet, raise children.”

“Goonar, are you asking me to marry you?”

“I would if I thought it would do any good.”

She laughed, not unkindly. “Goonar, that has to be the most depressed proposal I ever got. But I don’t want to give up travel. Someday I’ll have to give up the stage, yes: as I said, I know the limits of my talent, and it won’t survive my forties. And though I’m a reasonably good manager, there’s been grumbling in my company that I’m too old to have the lead roles. Dougie thinks he could run the company as well, and Lisa is sure she’d be a better village belle.”

“She’s wrong,” Goonar said. “She looks like a village idiot and sounds like a goose with a bone in its throat.”

Bethya laughed again. “Not quite that bad, but I’ll agree she’s not as good as she thinks. Anyway, I’d like to have children. But stay in one place? No.” She gave him another of those looks that had raised his hopes. “I confess I’ve been selfish, Goonar . . . traveling on the Fortune was such fun, and I thought maybe trader captains took their wives along. I like you—we can laugh together, that’s important, and you’re honest and kind. But not even for you will I go sit in a house on a rotating mudball.”

“Some captains take their wives along,” Goonar said. “I mean, it’s not against the rules.”

“Many are fooled by glamour,” Bethya said. “But wives and husbands see behind the stage makeup.”

“I’m not in love with your stage makeup,” Goonar said. “I’m not some callow boy.”

“Then who are you in love with?” Bethya asked.

“The woman who took in a fugitive when she didn’t have a clue how she was going to get him out. The woman who sang and danced and stole my heart, while she was scheming to evade the Benignity. The woman who could act two parts and never scramble them, and who in all those weeks, doubled up in bunk space, never said a cross word. Was kind to Esmay Suiza—”

“All right, all right.” She had gone red, and as the blush faded he saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I . . . this is utterly crazy. I have had suitors—”

“I’m sure you have,” said Goonar. His heart pounded until he was sure it would fly out of his chest. Would she?

“I’m—I can’t just—” But the look on her face said she could, and suddenly she opened to him like a rose in midsummer. “All right—yes—I’ve been taken with you since I saw you sitting there beside Basil, sad and worried and tired. I told myself it was just a performer’s pride, to make you laugh, make you smile, make you . . . think . . . you wanted me. But . . . it’s ridiculous, you and me, we aren’t the lad and lass in the story.”

“That’s true,” Goonar said, pulling her to him gently and inexorably. “We’re not that lad and lass . . . but we are this man and this woman.” He buried his face in her hair. “You are so beautiful.”

Harlis arrived at the Allsystems dock area thirty minutes late.

“What happened?” asked Taylor.

“A slight inconvenience,” Harlis said, breathing hard. “Let’s go aboard and get out of here.”

“Our departure slot isn’t for another hour.”

Harlis went aboard, to find that the owner’s suite was full of duffel and four men were asleep there.

“What’s this?” he asked Taylor.

“You’re down here,” Taylor said, showing him to the smallest cabin—meant, Harlis could see, for a cook or valet or something like that. “My people need to be together.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry,” Taylor said. “We’ll get you to Sirialis.” Harlis settled himself into the narrow bunk and wondered how far behind his pursuers were. Could they find him in the next hour? He cursed himself for letting Brun know he wanted to go to Sirialis.

How long they might have sat there, to the amusement of other captains and the waiters, Goonar was later unable to guess, but their time of bliss was interrupted by a waiter bearing a note.

“Drat,” Goonar said. “It’s that fellow from Fleet who was looking for Esmay. I thought they’d found her. I wonder what he wants now.”

“I should get back to the hotel,” Bethya said. “I’ll have to tell the others and endure Dougie’s lectures and Lisa’s gloating.” She pushed back her chair.

“I don’t want to rush you,” Goonar began, standing up.

“Yes, you do,” Bethya said. She came around the table, and in full view of everyone gave him a kiss that made his ears catch fire. Yes, he wanted to rush her, straight back to his quarters on the ship. “I’m not a sweet little virgin, you know,” she said into his ear.

“I should hope not,” Goonar said. “All right—go settle ’em and let me know when you want to come back.”

He had walked her to the foyer, aware that Terakian & Sons’ newest captain had just furnished juicy gossip that would be all over the intership coms just as soon as those captains made it back to their ships.

As Bethya left, Commander Tavard stepped out of an alcove. “Handsome woman,” he said.

“Yes,” Goonar said. “We’re getting married.”

“Um. I thought she was that actress—”

“She was.”

“I see.” For a moment, the commander looked confused, but then he said, “Come outside with me, will you? We have a bit of acting to do ourselves.”

Goonar grinned. “Maybe you should have asked Bethya.”

“No—I think you’ll do.”

Outside, the commander walked Goonar along the concourse in the direction of the slideways. “You had a visitor this morning you didn’t tell us about,” he said, quietly but clearly. His tone was intentionally antagonistic and, even though Goonar understood what was going on, he could still feel his neck getting hot.

“I don’t see why I should tell you about every possible customer who comes by,” Goonar said. “And you were asking about Sera Suiza.”

“I told you we were interested in possible mutineers and pirates—and you sat there and didn’t say one word about this man—” The commander pulled out a flatpic of the man who’d been at the ship that morning. “He’s a former commander in Fleet, a mutineer, the very sort of man I talked to you about—”

“I’m not your spy,” Goonar said. “Why didn’t you show me that picture before and ask if I’d seen him?”

“Would you have answered?”

“Of course,” Goonar said. “What kind of an idiot do you think I am?”

“Idiot enough not to tell me about this man when he came by—and now he’s escaped.”

“He’s not on the Station?”

“No.” The commander sounded very disgruntled. “If you’d only used your head, we might have caught him. I want to come check out your office area, see if he left any clues—”

“All right,” Goonar said. “But I can tell you he didn’t. He walked in, wanted passage, and we didn’t have enough cabins and weren’t fast enough. Yes, it’s true he wanted me to take a yellow route, but old Fortune’s not mine to risk, and he didn’t want to wait while I asked the company.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No—he said he wanted passage to Millicent.”

“Well, I hope you’ll act more responsibly next time,” the commander said. “And encourage other captains to do the same. We don’t want you people being hijacked.”

In the Fortune’s dockside office, the commander handed Goonar a data cube. “Good acting, Captain. Now—that really is a mutineer, and his name really is Taylor, and we do consider him extremely dangerous. We don’t know if he left anyone behind to spy on this Station—I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. He did get away—in a yacht leased by one of the Seated Families.”

“What? The Families are in league with the mutineers?”

“Not all of them. But the mutineers—some of them—have tried to make contact with the Families they worked for, before Fleet was organized. And a disaffected Family member, looking for some muscle to impose on the rest of his Family, would make exactly the right employer. They have their quarrels, same as anyone else.”

“So this was . . . who? One of the Consellines?”

“Captain—this is not something you need to know. But it wasn’t a Conselline.”

“And you don’t know where this person wanted to go?”

“No. Or where the mutineers wanted to go. This man may have bought his way into a mysterious death . . . I wouldn’t trust my life to these cutthroats.”

“I hope, Commander, that if my routes are taking me into dangerous territory, you’ll let me know.”

“Yes. You may be at special risk, since he knows you’ve seen his face. I’m hoping that this evening’s little charade convinced anyone he left on guard, but once you’re in space again—what’s your route?”

“It depends—I told the Fathers that we’d be delayed here because of the troupe—as we have been. And if Bethya wants to be married here, we might well be delayed longer. Terakian Princess is bound this way; if she arrives before we leave, we may switch routes—I’d head out towards Xavier, Rotterdam, Corian and—that loop.”

“I’d recommend that. Now if we could only figure out for sure where that yacht is going. They told the leasing company one thing, which almost certainly isn’t true, but there’s a lot of space in the Familias. If they even stay in the Familias.”

Basil, when Goonar went aboard, wanted to know all about Bethya; Goonar put him off by telling him about the commander. “He interrupted us,” Goonar said. “Wanted to talk about that fellow who came this morning.”

“A criminal?”

“A mutineer. Very dangerous, he says, and worst of all he got away—he’s already off the Station.”

“That’s good.”

“Is it? That commander says he has a warship somewhere—probably somewhere along that yellow route to Millicent. On top of that he’s linked up with a rogue Family member—someone rich enough to walk in and hire a fully-stocked yacht at the drop of a hat. They don’t know where he’s gone, but they know he has money enough at his command as long as this Family member is with him.”

“So—do they think he caught on to us?”

“He doesn’t know. He suspects the man might have left a spy here on the Station, and that he might be watching us—we played quite a little drama for any watchers, with me as the selfish captain who had been stupid enough not to tell him about this mutineer earlier.”

“But what about Bethya?” Basil said, returning to his earlier topic.

“She’ll call before they leave, she said,” Goonar said. “Probably tomorrow.”

“You’re blushing, Goonar.”

“Well . . . I do like her, Bas, you’re right about that. But there’s a lot to think about.”

“You’re not getting any younger . . .”

“I’m not doddering along with one foot in the grave, either,” Goonar said. “I don’t have to rush into things.” But the memory that he had done just that made him grin; Basil gave him a suspicious look.

“What? What did you say to her?”

“Basil, go to bed. I am.”

Brun Meager sank into the worn tapestry upholstery of the couch in the Mahoneys’ living room. “Kevil, are you sure this is all right? You’ve only just gotten the house back . . .”

“Stepan suggested it,” Kevil said. “I see you’ve got your father’s stick—”

“So I have.” Brun leaned it against the couch. “Do you—does anyone—have the slightest idea what was going on, and who did it?”

“The present idea is that Harlis wanted to talk to you in private, he and your cousin Kell. There’s no real evidence, except that Harlis found you at dinner and told you he’d been to the house looking for you and found police there. That didn’t happen. My guess would be that he wasn’t actually planning to kill you, just trying to bully you into doing something he wanted.”

“He wanted to go to Sirialis, he said,” Brun said. “I can’t imagine why.”

“To find out what your mother found?” asked Kate, from an armchair across the room.

“Possibly,” Kevil said. “If he thought it was your mother’s evidence that landed him in trouble.”

“Has anyone located him?” Brun asked.

“No. He didn’t go up on a scheduled shuttle, but you know there are other ways . . . does he own a shuttle?”

“He might’ve taken the family one—”

“Not the one at Appledale; we checked on that. But with the Grand Council meeting coming up, there are Family shuttles of all sizes coming and going. He might have caught a ride with someone. We’re trying to find out. And of course he may not have tried to get offworld at all—he could be on his way back to his own place, or somewhere else—”

“And there are a few more things for the police to do than chase one suspect, I’ll bet,” said Kate.

“Yes.” Kevil sighed. “Brun, we’ve made up the spare bedroom for you and Kate. Stepan’s having his senior security staff check over the town house; he expects you can move back in tomorrow morning. We’re covered, of course.”

“Of course,” Brun murmured. She felt both very tired and very alert.

“Have you told Kate about the meeting today?”

“No,” Brun said. “I wasn’t planning to—”

“Stepan said it wouldn’t hurt, and might take the strain off you, not to be keeping more secrets than you have to.” He turned to Kate. “Stepan’s head of our sept—the Barracloughs—and he asked Brun to become his designated heir.”

Kate frowned. “The sept—I’ve never quite understood. Families I understand . . . is this like a sort of super-family of families?”

“Yes, in a way.”

Kate whistled. “Well—quite a step up, then.”

“You’ll like this,” Brun said. “One thing I had to do was agree not to be rejuved.”

“My . . .”

“Yes. Power versus longevity. Take your pick. And I’m being dropped in at the deep end: he wants me to address the Grand Council formally at the next meeting. So I think I’d better toddle off to bed and get my beauty sleep.”

She woke with a start in the unfamiliar bed, with Kate snoring lightly across the room. She could just make out the green and cream stripes of the wallpaper. What had woken her? She heard voices in the distance, muffled by the closed door, then footsteps coming closer. A tap.

“Yes,” she said softly. Kate’s snore stopped in the middle.

“It’s me,” George said. “Can you come out?”

Brun looked at the time and sighed. She could have used another hour’s sleep, but she was, after all, wide awake. “Coming,” she said.

She wrapped the borrowed robe—one of Kevil’s she thought—around her, and went out to find Kevil waiting for her in his study. “We just heard—Harlis rented a yacht from Allsystems Leasing yesterday. He’s with a mutineer commander, and apparently rented the yacht bare. Probably crewed by Fleet personnel, in other words. They requested and got a fast-transit exit route and went into jump two hours ago.”

“Did they say where they were going?”

“Harlis told Allsystems Burkholdt and Celeste, but the same mutineer had tried to get passage on a civilian ship to Millicent. I think the question at this point is, who’s in command of that yacht?”

“They don’t get up this early on ranches,” Kate said from the doorway. She yawned. “Found Harlis, did they?”

“And lost him,” Kevil said. “Case of the right hand not having told the left what was going on.” He explained what they knew.

Kate frowned. “It doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“What doesn’t?”

“The timing. He was at the restaurant when we were eating dinner—what time was that?”

“I don’t know . . . it wasn’t late . . . 1900 maybe?”

“And the yacht left the Station at 2230. So he must have run for a shuttle and then gone immediately . . .”

“Yes . . . that makes sense.”

“Except that he leased the yacht earlier. He’d have to have been on the Station, then come down to the surface, then gone back up . . . Why? Is that even possible?” Kate looked from face to face.

“With good private shuttles, of course,” Brun said.

“He came down to pick you up,” George said suddenly. “He arranged to hire the ship, he leased the shuttle, and while the ship was being provisioned, he came down to get you.”

“He was going to take her away? Where?” Kate looked at Brun; Brun felt a chill that struck through her like a spear of ice.

“I . . . don’t want to know,” she said, struggling to keep herself from showing the panic she felt. Had she really come so close to another captivity? But her mind went on working. “Sirialis. If he took me to Sirialis, the people there would think it was me. I mean, they’d think it was all right, at first, and then—”

“A hostage.” Kevil said. “Against your sept, certainly against anything the people on Sirialis might do. And—Brun, you have the family codes for the communications and data storage systems on Sirialis, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course. Everything but Mother’s private ciphers.”

“Would he know about hers? About your not having them?”

“I don’t know.” Brun felt a wave of panic, and shoved it down.

“Our files on him are at Appledale,” Kate said. “We didn’t bring them into town—didn’t see a reason to. He was detained, we thought.” She sounded annoyed.

“Gentleman’s detention—he wore a scan bracelet,” Kevil said. “His attorneys argued that he wasn’t going to bolt, and he’d posted a huge bond. Anyway, he claimed to have a toothache; apparently his dentist took the bracelet off for him early yesterday morning. Nobody realized he’d slipped away for hours: the dentist claimed he had an emergency ahead of Harlis, and the bracelet returned a signal. The dentist’s now in detention himself; they found the bracelet tucked under the cushion of one of the chairs.”

“Did Harlis go to Appledale?” Brun asked.

“No. We’ve called out there; no intrusion.”

“He has the family codes,” Brun said suddenly.

“What?”

“Harlis. He has the codes. Some of them, anyway, the general ones. I’m sure—unless Mother changed them, when she left, but she would have thought he was in detention. No reason to change them. And nobody’s there.”

“The staff are,” Kevil said. “The others . . .”

“No family,” Brun said. “No one who can change the codes, and lock him out.”

“If that’s where he’s going, with a Fleet warship, just changing the codes wouldn’t help.”

“I’ll bet that’s how they got in, in the first place,” Brun said.

Kevil looked blank, and so did George. “Who got in? When?”

“Lepescu and his . . . hunters. I’ll bet it was Harlis, or my cousin Kell.”

“You could be right. Your father never did figure out why that fellow who was Stationmaster of the Pinecone let him in. If Harlis had pressured him, it makes more sense.”

“But now—we have to stop him getting there. I’ll have to go—”

“Brun—you can’t. You have to be here.”

“But Kevil—we can’t just let him go in there and terrorize people . . .”

“What could you do if you were there?”

“Warn them. Try to help.” But she knew it would be futile; she wasn’t a battle group of Fleet ships, all in herself. No. She had to give that up, and do what she could for the Familias as a whole. She could warn them, that was all.

She suspected that Fleet would not do anything, but she had to make the attempt. Sure enough, after taking her report, the admiral minor on the screen shook her head.

“I’m sorry, sera, but in the present situation we can’t detach troops to protect one world.” One rich family’s playground world was the implication.

“I understand that,” Brun said. After the expense of her rescue, she knew she could not ask Fleet for favors. “But you needed to know that we suspect one of the mutineers’ ships—or maybe more—is headed there.”

“Yes, I understand that. But that’s a fairly isolated world with a small population. Better they should go there than attack a more populous planet. It has no manufacturing capacity, has it?”

“No—only light industry.”

“It would take them five years to build up a shipyard capable of producing FTL ships, and that’s with stolen parts, not from scratch. That gives us time to cut them off. I doubt very much they have the resources to mount a proper systemwide defense. In the meantime, we have urgent concerns elsewhere. As soon as possible, we’ll go get them.”

“I’ve already warned the population that Harlis may be coming with an armed ship. I don’t want to interfere with your dispositions, but may I at least tell them you won’t be coming?”

“Of course, sera. In fact, if the mutineers go there, and find that out, perhaps they’ll stay in what they think is a safe haven until we can get there. Quite frankly, sera, we have no resources that could reach Sirialis before the mutineers can, if you’re right about when they might have started.”

“Thank you,” Brun said. She wanted to rage, to kick desks and stamp the polished floor and scream . . . but that wasn’t the way to get things done, not now. “Do you have any idea what force of ships that man Taylor might have?”

“I’m sorry, sera, I don’t have that information.”

After Miranda and Cecelia left, Sirialis subsided into summer somnolence, with Opening Day a safe hundred or more days away. Not that its inhabitants were idle, not on an agricultural and recreational world. Sirialis fed itself and the guests who descended on it yearly. The early crops of grain were in; the first cutting of hay lay open to the sun, drying before baling. Truck farms were in full production and so were the food processing facilities that took the surplus and preserved it for the season. For most of the planet’s population, life went on as usual: the schools and stores and other services for the locals didn’t change much with the activities of the owners. The changing seasons and the vagaries of local weather were more important. Dredges grumbled away at the entrance to Hospitality Bay where unusually severe winter storms had raised a sandbar and caused problems for the fishing fleet. In the other hemisphere, scattered settlements—timber camps, mining camps—prepared for the depths of winter. Many people migrated with the seasons, but a few chose to stay in one place.

Whenever family members weren’t in residence, the big house went to a skeleton staff except for maintenance. This spring, plumbers worked on the balky pipes of the east wing, which had given trouble off and on for over fifty years, and the engineering consultant prodded at timbers in the attics in the triennial structural inspection. Stables and gardens, of course, were fully staffed year round. Horses and roses needed constant care; grooms and gardeners both preferred the quiet seasons.

System defense, at Sirialis, had been minimal for over a century. There was the communications ansible, by which the family alerted the system to their arrival. The landing fields at the main residence and Hospitality Bay had longscan capability, but system defense and traffic control was handled mostly by the Stationmaster at the largest orbital station. All three orbital stations had longscan and there were a few batteries of anti-ship missiles from the old days, which no one had tested in at least five years.

Brun’s first ansible message set off a flurry of activity. There were not enough shuttles and ships within the system to evacuate everyone from the surface; Sirialis’ population was small only by comparison with more developed worlds. They had no weapons that would stand up to a military invasion, and Brun had not been able to say how many ships might show up. She had been able to get Fleet to transmit the specs of various kinds so they’d have a clue.