Against the Odds

Chapter Four

The man who answered the call had the rakish good looks of a storycube pirate. “Terakian Fortune, Basil Terakian-Junos here.”

“I’m trying to locate the young woman named Hazel, who was rescued with Brun Meager from the NewTex Militia—I thought her last name was Terakian . . . ?”

His expression changed slightly. “Hazel—how do you know Hazel?”

“I’m—I was—in the task force.”

“And you are?”

“L—” she bit off the rank she no longer held. “Esmay Suiza.”

“You’re Lieutenant Suiza?” Now he looked alert, and pleased. “Sorry I didn’t recognize you, Lieutenant. How can we help you?”

Best get it out of the way. “I’m not a Fleet officer now.”

“But I thought—well, then, sera, what can we do for you?”

“I’m trying to find transportation off this station, in the general direction of Castle Rock. I know there’s a passenger ship going that way in three weeks, but I need to leave sooner, if I can.”

“I hear a story in that. You’re in a secure booth, right?”

“Yes.”

“B Concourse?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you come along to the dockside, sera? It sounds as if we need to talk.” And he didn’t trust a secure combooth, that was clear. “Concourse D, level 2, number 38. We have a dockside office there; I’ll meet you.”

“I’ll come now,” Esmay said. She called up a station schematic on the combooth display and then the transportation layout.

B Concourse had a transgrav tram across to D; Esmay glanced at the schedule display and hurried out of the booth. Down there—yes—she stepped into the car marked D just as the door alarm sounded. Someone who had come up rapidly behind her tried to push past the safety barrier, but a tram guard stopped him. Esmay pulled the safety bars down around her seat and settled in. D car was half full; she could see through the windows in the end of the car that C was packed.

The tram made two more stops in B; then, after a warning whoop from the gravity alarms, slid through the G-lock barriers. Esmay’s stomach insisted she was falling, but outside she could see the great bays of the heavy cargo handling section. The tram stopped, and a couple of uniformed cargo workers bounded up and into D car. At the next grav barrier, weight returned, and at the next junction, several cars turned off to other sections. D car continued through another low-grav compartment, and Esmay emerged at the second D stop.

She was on level 2. On her right, a row of shops and services for merchant crews, from bars to message services to beds-by—the-hour, with or without partners. On her left, at intervals, were the dockside facilities for ships in station. Each had space for a temporary office, decorated in as lavish a style as the ships’ owners found desirable. Boros Consortium seemed to have made their occupancy permanent in 32, 33, and 34, with a continuous office: customer, service, and crew entrances, with uniformed but unarmed Boros guards watching passersby. Number 35 was bare-bones, an obvious prefab folding “office” in the middle of the bare alloted space, and a small sign that declared it was for the Mercedes R., owner/captain Caleb Montoya. Number 36 was another independent, but one with more resources: Ganeshi Shipping Company had a status board displayed, which informed passersby that the office was now open.

Number 37 looked to be about the same level, simple but moderately prosperous. Clan Orange had put orange stripes on the doorframe and windows of the office, and hung out a fabric banner as well as showing a status board that included the percent of the ship still available to shippers. Passengers 0, she noticed.

Number 38 carried self-expression to an art form; Esmay didn’t know whether to laugh or gasp in admiration when she came to the multicolored carpet in exuberant floral designs, the drapes hung from pipe frames, the potted palm in a vast basket. A sign declared “Terakian & Sons, Ltd., General and Express Shipping” and a very dramatic painted hand pointed to the office. Unlike the others, it was not a simple box in shape, but constructed with peaks and swooping curves, and painted in a pattern that made the carpet seem tame.

Esmay stepped under the pointed arch of the entrance, and found herself in a surprisingly quiet space before the little office. Was it just the draped fabric, or had the Terakians installed some sound shielding? She shrugged mentally and went up to the office. The door slid aside before she touched it. Inside was what looked like a luxury sitting room: another floral design on the carpet, only slightly subdued, with large, plump leather seats grouped around it. Along one wall was a counter, and behind it a bright-eyed young man.

“Sera Suiza?” he said. Esmay nodded. “I’ll just tell Basil—” the young man said, and murmured into a throatmic.

At once a door opened, and two men came through. One she had seen on the screen in the combooth—he was as dramatic in person as on vid. The other was older, far less vivid to look at, but clearly in authority.

“I’m Goonar Terakian,” the older man said, extending his hand. Esmay shook it. “Captain of Terakian Fortune, and junior partner in Terakian and Sons, Ltd. Basil here is my cousin, second in command on my ship, and the cargomaster. You’re Esmay Suiza, formerly of Fleet, is that right?”

“Yes. Until this morning—” A lump rose in her throat. She hadn’t let herself feel the loss yet, and she wasn’t going to now. She swallowed hard.

“Sera, Basil told me that you wanted transport off this station with some urgency?”

“I wouldn’t say urgency,” Esmay said. “I just don’t want to wait for the next direct passenger transport to Castle Rock.”

“Sera, I have to tell you up front, and despite our gratitude for your part in rescuing Hazel Takeris, if you’re a fugitive from Fleet, we can’t help you.”

“I’m not,” Esmay said. She could feel the wave of heat rising up her face. “I—they discharged me this morning, and I still don’t completely understand why. But they want me off this station—threatened to space me, in fact—and I want to get somewhere that I can figure out what’s going on and fight it.”

“Um. Yet we know you’re being followed.”

“I am?” Esmay thought of the man back at the tram station. “But—maybe the admiral just wants to know that I’m leaving.”

“Or maybe he wants to know who you meet, and it’ll put us under suspicion.” That from the young man at the counter. Goonar shot him a sharp look.

“Flaci, were you asked?”

“No, I only—”

“Go make some coffee,” Goonar ordered. The young man withdrew through the door behind the counter. Basil pulled out a cylinder that looked just like the ones used in Fleet to foil scans of a conversational area, twisted it, and laid it on the table.

“Have a seat, sera,” Goonar offered. Esmay sank into the cushions and wondered if she would be able to climb out again. The little status light on the security cylinder glowed: they were supposedly screened from scan. Goonar took the seat to her right; Basil was across from her.

“Kids,” Basil said, with a wave at the counter. “They never know when to keep quiet.”

“And you do?” Goonar asked, but with a grin that took most of the sting out of it. He turned to Esmay. “Sera, do you have any idea at all why Fleet tossed you out, when there’s a mutiny on and I’d think they’d want every loyal officer?”

“Well . . . sort of.” Esmay felt her blush going hotter. “Admiral Serrano—Vida Serrano that is—is angry with my family, and . . . and . . . her grandson and I just got married.”

“You what?” asked Basil. Goonar made a sort of choked noise, which Esmay recognized as suppressed laughter.

“I married her grandson—or he married me—anyway we’re married. He—we—we’d been trying to talk to our families for a long time, and finally he and I had figured out a time we could meet with his parents. Only all the Serranos were there, it seemed like, and his grandmother—Admiral Vida—came out with a story about my family’s history . . . and she was wrong.” Esmay caught her breath; she was suddenly on the edge of tears. “That wasn’t what happened; it can’t have been. But she believed it. And she said we could never marry, and then the mutiny came, and we all had to go back to duty, and . . . and . . .”

“You and he sneaked off to get married,” Basil said.

“We didn’t sneak,” Esmay said. “But we didn’t—we couldn’t, there wasn’t time—tell anyone beforehand.”

“Such as your family and his,” Goonar said. He had most of his face under control, but a twitch in the corner of his mouth said he was still finding this funny.

Basil wasn’t; he was scowling now. “They ditched you for marrying the Serrano kid? When you’re a hero?”

“I’m also a Landbride back on Altiplano—”

“You have two husbands?” Basil looked at Goonar. “I guess that would do it. A boy in every port?”

“No, it’s not like that.” Esmay glared at him. “I’m not that sort of person. Landbride is a . . . a sort of family thing, and religious. It’s the woman in the family who is responsible for the land—for seeing that it’s cared for.”

“Oh. And this bothered them? Were you going to go back there and take him with you?”

“No . . . I was going to resign as Landbride—give it to my cousin Luci—and stay in Fleet. But then things happened—”

“They always do.” That was Goonar, the quiet one, not as handsome as Basil but steadier. He had sad eyes, Esmay thought.

“So—after the news of the mutiny—we were traveling together back to our assignments, and . . . we just got married. We’d waited so long, and so much was going on—”

“Without the right paperwork, I’m guessing,” Goonar said. “And without family permission?”

Esmay felt herself reddening. “Definitely without.”

“That would annoy them,” Basil said. He leaned back and one eyebrow rose. Theatrical.

“Stop it, Bas,” said Goonar. “You’re learning bad habits from our passengers.”

“I need to find a way home,” Esmay said. “I thought maybe, if I could talk to Hazel—I thought maybe she was on this ship—she’d help me.”

“Why not contact the Thornbuckle girl? She’s rich enough to buy you a ship of your own.”

“I don’t want to bring trouble to her,” Esmay said. “She doesn’t deserve it.”

“And you do?” Goonar’s brows rose, both of them. “What we’ve heard of you is good, from the newsvids and Hazel both. The hero of Xavier. The hero who saved the Kos. And then the Speaker’s daughter.”

“Not by myself,” Esmay said. “Any of it. And where did you hear about the Kos?”

“Not much we don’t hear, independent merchanters,” Basil said.

“Quit it, Bas. You sound like a third-rate actor in a spy thriller. Seriously, Lieutenant—sera—we do pick up a lot of dockside talk, mostly wrong. Now, I figure the family owes you, for your part in getting Hazel out. But we aren’t a passenger line; we’re mixed cargo.”

“But you said you had passengers . . .” At the sudden change of expression, Esmay stopped.

“Well, that’s done it,” Basil said, this time with no expression on his face at all. “And you the cautious one.”

“What?”

“Sometimes we carry passengers. Not usually. We’ve . . . er . . . had some recently.”

“Then could I—I mean, for a fare, of course. I don’t know much about it—”

“We owe you, as I said, but we really do not have passenger quarters fit for you.”

“I’m not used to luxury,” Esmay said.

“I suppose not.” He chewed his lip. “Well . . . if you can share a small space, and sleep in rotation, we can take you. But where do you want to go?”

“Castle Rock,” Esmay said. She was fairly, reasonably, almost sure that Brun would be there. She could see Brun privately, without involving Fleet. And perhaps Brun would be able to find out what, if anything, she could do to get back into Fleet even in spite of the powerful Admiral Serrano.

“Not Altiplano?”

“Not yet,” Esmay said. Not ever, she hoped. Goonar nodded.

“Well, then—you’re probably not aware of civilian regulations, but we need to list you as a passenger on the manifest. Do you have civilian ID?”

“Of sorts,” Esmay said. “If discharge chips are sufficient.”

“Let me see.” Goonar reached out and Esmay handed over the flat cardlike discharge certification she’d been handed. Goonar reached under the low table and pulled up an ID scanner. He ran it over the card. “Yes . . . it has everything required—name, retinal and finger scan patterns, planet of origin, employment record. You left home young, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Esmay said. “I was space-struck early.”

“Our kids start early too—actually earlier than that, but of course their families are in space.” He handed the chip back. “There. You want to travel under your own name, don’t you?”

“Yes—my unmarried name; there hasn’t been time to get it changed.”

“Fine. I’ve entered you in our log. Now—about luggage—”

“I don’t have much,” Esmay said. “They said the rest of my things would be sent to me . . . they’re somewhere between the ship I left before going on leave and the one I was supposed to be assigned to.”

“Do you have what you need? We can send someone for anything missing . . .”

“I’ll be all right,” Esmay said. She had only a few civilian outfits, but she didn’t want to go shopping here—or have someone doing it for her.

“Good. Then you can go aboard now, since you don’t want to be seen on station. We’re not ready to strike our tents yet; we’re in the queue for two days from now and I prefer—” he paused, and looked not at Esmay but at Basil, “—not to make sudden departures from ports unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“It was,” muttered Basil. Esmay sensed an old quarrel.

“Will that be satisfactory, sera?”

“I’m very grateful,” Esmay said. “Now about the fare—”

Goonar waved his hand. “Forget the fare. I’m telling the Stationmaster that we’re not a passenger ship, but we’re not about to leave the hero of Xavier in the lurch—or charge for it, either. That clears our honor, both ways.”

Esmay couldn’t follow all of that, but the master and second in command of Terakian Fortune seemed almost smug about something. Basil, as cargomaster, took her through to another room, this one filled with electronics gear, and then through the docking tube of the ship.

A civilian merchant ship, she found, had its own ceremonies, however unlike these were to the austere formalities of the Regular Space Service. A trim youngster in a green tunic led her to the tiny compartment that she would occupy during her sleep shift, and pointed out the small cubby where she could stow a few toiletries. Her clothes would have to go across the passage, in a locker already stuffed with carryons. The boy seemed far too young to be working aboard ship, and Esmay wondered briefly about child piracy, until she remembered that Hazel, too, had been very young. Apparently civilian merchants took their children with them.

“Are you the captain’s son?” she asked.

He gave her a startled look. “Me, sera? Captain Goonar’s—? No, sera. Goonar, he’s not got any children; they all died. I’m Kosta Terakian-Cibo, Ser Basil’s aunt’s son on his mother’s side. It’s my first trip as full crew, sera. So even though I still have classes, I’m getting paid full wage.” He grinned proudly. Esmay congratulated him, and he nodded. “Only problem is, the Fathers insist that we juniors can’t have all our money to spend. It’s going to take me the whole voyage to save up for the new cube player I want. . . .”

“And a good thing, too.” Basil emerged from a cross-corridor, and glared at the boy. “We’d just have to confiscate it to keep you from deafening everyone on the ship. Go on, now, Kosta, and let the lady alone. Have you done the rotational analysis yet?”

“Yes, Ser Basil.” The boy whipped out a pocket display and flicked it on. “The sera’s luggage here, and the moment here, and—”

“Good. And did you give her the ship’s books?”

“No . . . I wasn’t sure—”

“Yes, of course she needs them.” Basil looked at Esmay. “Why don’t you come along to the bursar’s, and we’ll get you started. Unfortunately, we don’t mount cube readers in all the compartments, so you’ll have to read the hardcopy—”

“Fine,” said Esmay. She followed him down one corridor, then another, mapping automatically. The bursar’s was a medium-sized compartment, full of desks and files, with office machines around the edges.

Basil turned to a stack of shelving and pulled out two well-thumbed manuals, one of which described the ship’s layout, and the other the emergency procedures.

Terakian Fortune, she recognized, was roughly equivalent to a smallish cruiser in tonnage, but organized very differently. Unlike the big spherical container ships, Fortune’s cargo holds were crew-accessible—everything loaded and unloaded through the shuttle bay, though this was big enough to take the standard orbit-to-surface containers as well as the cargo shuttles themselves. The space taken up on a cruiser by weapons and ammunition storage could be stuffed with cargo here—as could the crew space required for the much larger military crews. Only twenty personnel per watch—Esmay could hardly believe anyone could run a ship with so few, and yet—as she read through the manuals—the essentials were covered, with adequate redundancy.

She hoped. The knowledge that the Fortune had no serious offensive armament, and shields only moderately better than a private yacht left her feeling vulnerable. The single weapon was clearly intended for scaring minimally armed raiders . . . someone had rigged duplicator lines intended to show up on inferior scans as multiple armaments.

A tap on the door; she opened it to find the same boy who had led her there. Kosta, was it? “The sera’s temporarily assigned to the second rotation, which means the third seating today,” the boy said. “Uncle—Captain Terakian dines ashore while we’re in port. Second seating is finishing lunch now, and I’m to take you to the mess.”

“Thank you—Kosta?”

“Yes, sera.” His grin widened. “Terakian-Cibo, but you don’t need to remember that part. Just call me Kosta; everyone else does.”

The terminology of seatings and rotations meant nothing to her: was second rotation like the second watch? Instead of asking, she followed the boy to the mess hall. Mess on a civilian trader looked nothing like either enlisted mess or officers’ wardroom aboard ship . . . more like a small restaurant along some shopping concourse. The compartment was just big enough for eight four-person tables: thirty-two per seating? Why, then, the need for more than one seating per rotation?

“There aren’t really assigned seats,” Kosta said. “You could sit with us—” He pointed to a table where two other youngsters were just sliding into their chairs and unloading trays onto the table. “If you want to,” he added, in a tone that tried, and failed, to be welcoming.

She wasn’t really eager to sit with a group of youngsters anyway. “Thanks, but it looks like there are plenty of empty places,” Esmay said. “If you don’t mind . . .”

“No, sera . . . I could use the time to review for the test this afternoon, if it’s all right. Do you think you can find your way back?”

“I hope so,” Esmay said. “I guess I’ll just have to ask someone if I can’t.”

“Anyone will help you,” Kosta said. “Just remember C-23, that’s your number.” Esmay headed for the serving line across the room. The food smelled spicy and good; she took a bowl of some stew-like dish, and a couple of warm rolls. She put her tray down on one of the empty tables, and sat down. The condiment containers in front of her held things she’d never heard of, except for the basic salt and pepper. Some of the labels were in languages she hadn’t seen either.

“That goolgi is good with khungi sauce,” someone said. Esmay looked up. A curvaceous woman with red-brown hair tipped her head toward the table. “May I?”

“Of course,” Esmay said. “I’m Esmay Suiza.”

“Ah. I’m Betharnya Vi Negaro. You must be the passenger.”

“I’m a passenger, yes. And you? You’re not a Terakian?”

“Not everyone is a Terakian,” the woman said. She too had a bowl of the stew; she uncapped the bottle with a picture of galloping bulls on the label and shook a large dollop of a thick, slightly lumpy, brown sauce into the bowl. “You don’t like khungi sauce?”

“I’ve never had it. I’ve never had this kind of stew—goolgi?—either.” Esmay tried a spoonful of the goolgi and a warm glow filled her mouth. Peppers. It must have quite a bit of some pepper in it—

“Too bland, the way they make it here,” the woman said. “Khungi gives it a bit of life—”

The warm glow was turning into a miniature furnace; Esmay knew that symptom of old, and reached for her water glass. “I think it’s lively enough,” she said, after a swallow.

“Khungi doesn’t make it hotter,” Betharnya said. “Just more—robust, perhaps. You ought to try at least a dab.”

She might as well find out. Esmay shook out a small blob of the brown sauce and mixed it with a portion of goolgi. The resulting bite almost took the top of her head off, but after a moment the head-on collision of flavors worked. Either alone was too strong; together they set up a sort of olfactory countercurrent.

“Could you explain this rotation and seating thing?” Esmay said.

“Of course.” Betharnya took a last bite of the goolgi and wiped her mouth. “Thing is, we’re somewhat overcrewed right now, moving people from one place to another. So the onshift crew has first seating at each meal period—to be sure they can eat quickly and get back to work. Offshift crew has second seating—they sit the boards while the onshift crew eats. Sleepshift crew can come eat if they want to—if they’re awake and hungry—but they get third seating. It’s particularly important in port, when most of the crew are off duty anyway.”

“Makes sense,” Esmay said. “I’ve never been on a trader before.”

“It works for us,” Betharnya said. “I don’t know anything about how other traders do it.”

“How long are you usually away from your homeworld? Or do you live mostly in space?”

“It varies . . . I haven’t seen my homeworld for three or four standard years, but some people go home every year. And we don’t usually have small children out in space; our ships are too small to allow sufficient romping space.” She grinned. “I sometimes wonder about the junior apprentices in that regard. They can get a bit boisterous.” She cocked her head at Esmay. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me about yourself.”

“I was a Regular Space Service officer—left my homeworld for the prep school, then the Academy, and then went into Fleet. I’ve only been home twice since then.”

“Are you going home now that you’ve left Fleet?”

“I . . . don’t know.” She did not want to talk about this with everyone on the ship. “Right now I’m headed for Castle Rock.”

“Ah, so are we. By a roundabout route, but we’ll get there.” Betharnya glanced away, and her expression changed. “Ah—if you’ll excuse me, sera, I should get back—”

Esmay followed her gaze and saw a handsome blonde woman and an even more handsome man at the mess hall entrance. It was amazing how many good-looking people were in this crew . . . she hadn’t expected them all to look like actors.

Lady Cecelia de Marktos woke early and headed for the stables, even though it wasn’t hunting season. The best cure for an unquiet mind—at least, her unquiet mind—was a few hours spent with animals that could not lie. She felt better with every stride away from the house where Miranda had—perhaps by accident—killed Pedar Orregiemos.

Neil, who had been running the horse operation for at least thirty years, grinned when he saw her coming through the arched gateway.

“I heard you were here, Lady Cecelia,” Neil said. “How’s her ladyship?”

“It was a tragedy,” Cecelia said. His face didn’t twitch. She hadn’t expected it to.

“She’ll be leaving soon?” he asked. “Going back to deal with the inheritance?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Cecelia said. “Harlis . . . has other problems.” She wasn’t sure how much to say or not say. Sirialis had its own customs, its own networks.

“That’s good, then. You just tell her I said we did fix that bit she was working on.”

“Bit?”

“Yes . . . she was down here a few nights ago, working on a broken bit, back in the old forge.”

A chill ran down Cecelia’s back. She could not imagine Miranda trying to mend a bit herself.

“I’ve never seen the old forge,” she said casually. “Where is it?”

“Back along there,” he pointed. Was that tension in his throat? “It’s just a workroom now. I reckon she came down just to get some peace, like, with that fellow in the house.”

Peace, thought Cecelia, was exactly what Miranda had been after.

The old forge, when she looked into it, had the tidy look of any well-maintained metal shop. Neat rows of tools, a couple of small brazing cones, a shelf of labelled bottles. She leaned forward to look at them . . . chemical labels. Most were unfamiliar. She looked along the workbench . . . someone was working on a pair of spurs, set up in a vise, and there was a can with tongueless buckles of various sizes and beside it a can of straight tongue blanks. Heavier round stock, shaped into hoofpicks, and a tub of bone and antler roughs for handles. A bowl of scrap bits of this and that . . . Cecelia stirred it with her finger, not at all sure what she’d expected to find. A rough edge caught at her finger; she looked at it . . . a small curved scrap of pierced metal that looked somehow older than the rest.

Cecelia wondered what it had been. It didn’t look like any metal from horse tack. Something tickled her memory, but withdrew. It was like a fragment of shell from a very large egg, with little holes . . . a colander, for straining a mash? She put it in her pocket and wandered back to the main square, where two of the hunters were being exercised on the longe line. Neil watched, eyes narrowed at the chestnut. Cecelia watched too, and saw the same slightly uneven stretch of the off fore. He signalled the groom, and when the horse stopped, he bent over that front leg. Cecelia watched the bay, as always soothed by the sight of a good horse moving well.

“There you are!” Miranda, in spotless breeches and a pale blue shirt, came through the archway. In the cool morning, she had color in her cheeks again and looked very much the poised, elegant lady of the manor. “I should have known you’d come down here before breakfast.”

“Habit,” Cecelia said. “But of course it’s not the season, and no one expected me to ride this early . . .”

“Ah,” Miranda said. “So . . . are you just pottering around petting horses, or would you like something to eat?”

“I was . . . Neil said you’d been in the old forge a few days ago . . .”

“Oh yes?” Miranda’s eyes were on the chestnut.

“I’d never seen it before,” Cecelia said. She saw the sudden tension in Miranda’s neck. “It’s a nice little workshop.”

“Yes, it is,” Miranda said. “We use it for mending tack now.”

“That’s what Neil said. I’ve never done that myself . . . well, except for leather. He said you’d been working on a bit, and they finished it. All I saw was this—” She held it out.

“My . . . I wonder what that is.” Miranda’s voice was breathless. “Quite old, it looks like.”

“Not like tack,” Cecelia said. “Some kind of strainer, maybe.” She put it back in her pocket. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Shaky,” Miranda said. “I can’t—it’s too much, too fast. I can’t believe it all really happened.”

Breakfast, with obligatory small talk, was excruciating. Cecelia picked at her eggs and ham; Miranda nibbled a bowl of mixed grain flakes. At last the maid took the dishes away.

“I must meet with that militia officer again,” Miranda said. “I have no idea what to do, and with Kevil out of commission—”

“Miranda . . . you have to come to grips with it.”

“How?” The blue eyes clouded with tears. “How am I supposed to come to grips with Bunny dying, and Harlis trying to cheat us, and Pedar . . .”

Tell the truth, Cecelia thought but did not say. She was reserving that for later. She followed Miranda down the long corridor, its walls hung with pictures, past the case from which the antique weapons had been taken—she stopped abruptly. The case was partly empty now, of course—the weapons and masks Miranda and Pedar had used had been taken away. But seeing the faint discoloration outlining where they had been, Cecelia visualized it as if it were still there.

The solid metal helm. The pierced metal mask. Pierced just like the fragment in her pocket—her hand clenched on it.

“What?” Miranda said, from two strides down the hall. “What is it?”

She had known, and not known—she had not wanted to know. She had wanted to believe it impossible, so she would have nothing to do, no responsibility.

“Miranda, I am sure that this—” she held out the metal fragment, “is from that mask. That you did something to that mask. If I had the skill, and investigated the chemicals in the old forge—”

Miranda said nothing.

“You can’t expect me to let it go—”

“No.” Miranda’s voice was hoarse, as if she’d been crying. “I can expect you to be right in the middle of everything, with your teeth locked on the most inconvenient of truths.”

It was still a shock. “You mean, you did—”

Miranda’s hand smacked the table. “Of course I did. Damn and blast, Cecelia, the man had my husband killed, and his idiotic schemes as foreign minister endangered all of us—my children included. And he was putting pressure on me to marry him. He was a despicable, slimy, skirt-climbing bastard—”

“And now you’re a murderer,” Cecelia said.

“A killer,” Miranda said. “Murder is a legal definition.”

“I don’t care what you call it,” Cecelia said. “We both know it’s not something you can live with—not in our society.”

“Oh, fine. Pedar can have my husband killed, and get a ministry, but I—”

“Come off it.” Cecelia linked her big hands together and didn’t bother to hide the contempt in her voice. “You had the goods on Harlis; you could have waited and gotten Pedar legally—”

“I didn’t think so,” Miranda said. “I thought he’d get away with it.”

“You can’t just brazen it out. You can’t. It affects your children, your grandchildren, their position in the Familias . . . there’s Brun, back on Castle Rock—if you could only see her, Miranda. It’s like—” She bit her tongue on like Bunny come back. “She’s grown up, really grown up. She’s got a real talent—”

“Well, of course she does,” Miranda said, looking away. “She’s my daughter—and Bunny’s. If she’d only grown sense a little earlier, married—”

“She doesn’t need to marry,” Cecelia said. “She’s doing very well on her own. But she does not need a murderess mother hanging around her neck, an easy target for her enemies.”

“Buttons will—”

“Buttons,” Cecelia said, “has his own life to live. And he’s got many of your and Bunny’s admirable qualities, but he doesn’t have Brun’s flair. And no, he can’t keep people from using your act as a weapon against Brun.” Miranda’s stubborn expression annoyed her so much that she burst out, “By God, Miranda, I know where she got that reckless, stubborn determination to go her own way regardless, and it wasn’t Bunny.”

“I never—”

“You certainly did, and this wasn’t the first time.” Incidents she’d thought lost to memory decades before came spurting out, under the pressure of her anger. “Before you turned cool and calculating, you were hothead enough—like that birthday party where you pushed Lorrie into the fountain, and the time at school—Berenice told me about it—when you—”

“Oh, stop it.” Miranda, flushed with anger, looked more alive than she had since Bunny’s death. “I was like any child, hasty and unthinking. Yes. But I got over it.”

“Until you stuck a sword in Pedar’s eye. I wouldn’t call that getting over it.” Cecelia took a deep breath. “Listen—if you stay here, it’s true they’re not likely to come get you, but what about the other people here on Sirialis? What about your children? You wanted this for them, remember?”

“What, then? If you know so much, you tell me what to do.”

“Exile. Leave the Familias. Go to—oh, I don’t know, maybe the Guerni Republic. Get treatment for whatever it is that made you think you could kill him with impunity. Stay a long time . . .”

“And be arrested on the way—be reasonable, Cecelia.”

She was going to do it again, and regret it, but she was beginning to recognize the feel of a duty she dared not shirk. “I’ll take you.”

“You! You hate me . . . you insist I’m a murderess. And besides, you don’t have room in that little thing you fly now—”

“I don’t hate you,” Cecelia said. “And I’m not afraid of you—you’re not going to kill me, not if you agree to go. As for the ship, I found I didn’t like being completely solo all the time. It’s still small, but it’s adequate for two people.”

“So—what are you going to tell our militia captain?”

“I will answer accurately any questions he asks me. What he makes of the answers is his business.”

The interview covered much the same ground as the day before. When had she arrived, what had she seen, what had Miranda said and done. Cecelia recognized, in the militia captain, a man who did not want to think about what might have happened, if a good enough explanation appeared. Yet he would not let himself skimp the questions. Cecelia answered honestly, as far as his questions went.

“And did you know the deceased?”

“Slightly.” Cecelia allowed herself a curled lip. “My horse beat his in the Wherrin Trials, right after Bunny—Lord Thornbuckle—was killed.”

“Was he there?”

“Pedar? Oh, yes. He thought he could win—”

“Did he ride?”

“No, he had a rider. Pedar was never . . . particularly interested in risking himself.”

“Yet Lady Thornbuckle said he asked specifically to use the old fencing gear—” The militia captain glanced at her suddenly, as if to catch her out.

Cecelia shrugged. “I don’t know what he was like with fencing. I don’t fence; I ride.” The interviewer smiled and nodded; everyone knew this about her.

“Ser Orregiemos had been a competition fencer, milady; according to Lady Thornbuckle, he had won many championships in his younger days. She wasn’t sure when his last competition was, but with his multiple rejuvenations he could have been competitive quite recently—as you yourself are.” He paused. “Lady Thornbuckle said, when she came, that she was here for privacy; we were all quite surprised when Ser Orregiemos arrived.”

“Well, so was I when I heard he was here. Such an appalling little tick.”

“You don’t—didn’t—like him.” It was not a question.

“No. None of us—the horse people, I mean—felt he was entirely honest.”

“Ah. But you know of no reason why . . . I mean . . . there was no bad feeling between him and Lady Thornbuckle?”

“Not that I know of. He liked her rather more than she liked him, I would say, but it was Bunny—Lord Thornbuckle—who really detested him. It goes back to hunting, some twenty years ago. He insisted on having a fast horse, and then he rode over hounds—”

“Oh.” He lost interest. A quarrel in the field, twenty years before, could not generate a murder by the other man’s widow.

“It’s difficult,” he said, tapping his stylus on the recorder. “This being a private world, and all. I’m the law, but the law here has always been what the Thornbuckles wanted.”

“Miranda would want you to do the right thing,” Cecelia said.

“Familias investigators don’t even have jurisdiction on private property—but the problem is . . . he’s a Minister, you see. Somebody official. I . . .” He cleared his throat. “May I ask what your plans are?”

“Lady Thornbuckle and I are planning to travel to the Guerni Republic. She is concerned that some medical condition impaired her ability to stop the thrust when the blade broke—that she might be in some measure responsible for Ser Orregiemos’ death. There’s always concern about rejuvenation failure . . . she is planning to check herself into one of their clinics.”

“Ah.” He tapped his chin with the stylus. “Of course. I hadn’t thought of that, but we have heard rumors, even here. That might indeed be best, milady.”

“But only if it’s acceptable to you,” Cecelia said.

“I think so. Yes. We have the scan records and your deposition. If I may, milady, I would suggest an early departure.” Before the news leaked out to the rest of the Familias, before Pedar’s relatives or colleagues demanded an inconvenient inquiry of their own.