Hunting Party

Chapter Five

Even in the garish purple uniform, Heris felt more comfortable on the dockside, with honest ribbed deck-plates and not plush carpet beneath her feet. Everyone here worked on ships, and in that way everyone here was one of her kind, someone she understood. After a walk long enough to make her legs ache, she came out of Velarsin & Co., Ltd.’s docks and into the commercial sectors. She was glad she’d thought to have her luggage taken ahead, with her employer’s. Here, sleek transport tubes marked one side of the walkway; fronting the other were shops, hotels, and eating places. None of the great logos bannered here, but often locals were as good. Heris stopped to consult a map display, and decided to take a tram the rest of the way to Lady Cecelia’s hotel. As usual, the good hotels were as far as possible from the rumble and clatter of hard work.

She walked through a narrow door, with only the engraved plate with Selenor in slightly archaic script to indicate the identity, into a lobby that reached the stars. After one flinching look, she realized it only seemed to. The geometry of this Station allowed those with inside exposure to use the entire interior well as a private display. Those tiny lights were on the far side . . . except for the interior transports, sliding along maglines.

Meanwhile, the concierge was already smiling at her. “You must be Captain Serrano. . . . Lady Cecelia gave us your description.”

“Yes—”

“And your room is ready, Captain. In the mauve tower, 2314, adjoining hers. Lady Cecelia said she didn’t know when you might be in, but she supposed you’d like something to eat at once.”

“How very thoughtful.” She was hungry, now that she thought of it, but she needed to see her employer first.

“She said to tell you she would be resting, but—oh, wait. The light’s changed. She’s up again. I’ll let her know you’re on your way, shall I?”

“Yes, thank you.”

The mauve tower droptubes were scented with a warm flowery fragrance that made Heris think of summer on one of the planets with native grasslands. She emerged into a small lobby splashed with soft color, and felt like a large purple blot. Lady Cecelia’s suite unfolded its entrance for her, and a gust of pine fragrance overlay the summer grasslands. Heris felt its carefully engineered stimulants flicking her cortex, and resented it.

“Ah . . . Captain Serrano. And how is the Sweet Delight?” Lady Cecelia was not giving a millimeter. She wore a formal dinner gown, cream-colored and drapey, with her graying hair swept up to a peak by a jade clip. Behind her Heris could see a table set for two. Heris wondered who her guest would be. The entire sitting room of the suite seemed to be lined with mauve plush, on which cream-colored furniture floated like clouds in an evening sky.

“Missing a lot of essential equipment,” Heris said. “I’ve authorized replacement rather than repair, since that is quicker and Diklos should reimburse you. They’re keeping a complete record of the damage for legal use.”

“Ah. And will we be out of here in forty-eight hours?”

“Very likely, but I cannot guarantee that. Sixty is the outside limit.” Heris looked around. “If you’ll excuse me, milady, I’d like to clean up and eat something before I go back to the ship.”

Lady Cecelia’s brows raised. “Go back? Surely you’re going to rest. . . . I intended you to eat dinner with me. Don’t you remember?” Heris had forgotten, but she couldn’t say that. Besides, the ship mattered more.

“Considering what happened last time she was in for work—”

“Nonsense. You need sleep the same as anyone else. At least, have dinner here. . . . Go freshen up, get out of that uniform, and relax awhile.” Heris wondered if she had correctly interpreted the tone of that uniform.

“Umm . . . milady . . . you would prefer that I not wear your uniform here?”

Lady Cecelia’s lips pinched; she sighed. “I would prefer that my sister Berenice had not tried to compensate me for Ronnie by insisting that I use her decorator. I would prefer I had had the wit to refuse, but I was already rattled by the change in schedule, by Ronnie, by his friends—”

Mental gears whirled. “You don’t . . . ah . . . like all that lavender plush?”

“Of course not!” Lady Cecelia glared at her. “Do I look like the kind of silly old woman who would?” That was unanswerable; Heris kept her face blank. Lady Cecelia shook her head and emitted a snort that might have been anger or laughter, either one. “All right. You don’t know me; you couldn’t tell. But I don’t like it, and I’m having it out as soon as I decently can. Your uniform—that’s another thing Berenice insisted on. Captain Olin had always worn black, and Berenice thought it was dull and old-fashioned.”

“Surely,” Heris said carefully, “there’s something between black and loud purple with scarlet and teal trim?”

Lady Cecelia snorted again, this time with obvious humor. “You don’t know the worst: Berenice wanted me to approve cream with purple and teal trim. She told me the gaudier it was, the more a new captain would be impressed. The purple was the darkest thing offered.”

“Ah. Then you wouldn’t mind if I . . . modified this a bit?”

“Be my guest.” Lady Cecelia scowled again. “Although I don’t suppose you can arrange a complete redecoration while we’re here?”

Heris grinned, surprising herself as much as her employer. “To be honest, milady, I’ve wanted to get that lavender plush off the access tube bulkheads—for safety reasons, I assure you—since I first came aboard.”

“Safety reasons?” Now Lady Cecelia grinned, more relaxed than Heris had yet seen her. “What a marvelous idea! Is it true?”

“Oh, yes. There’s a lot hidden on your ship that shouldn’t be—it’s pretty, but it’s hard to see trouble in the early stages. We certainly don’t have time here for a complete redecoration, but a little undecorating won’t slow things down.”

“Well. Good. Now, about dinner . . .”

“Let me change into something comfortable. Ten minutes?”

Heris returned to her employer’s suite in her own off-duty clothes—the first time she’d worn them since leaving the Service. Since Lady Cecelia was wearing a formal dinner gown, she put on her own, and had the satisfaction of seeing her employer truly surprised.

“My dear! I had no idea you looked like that!” Then Lady Cecelia blushed. “I’m sorry. That was unforgivable.”

“Not really, although it was your uniform that made me look the other way.” Heris knew very well what the close-fitting jet-beaded bodice did for her; the flared black skirt swirled around her ankles as she came to the table. She would never have the advantage of Cecelia’s height, but she had learned to use color and line to compensate. “Oh—one last bit of business before dinner . . . what about the inquest on Iklind?”

“Not a problem.” Lady Cecelia slipped into her seat and picked up her napkin. “With the documentation you supplied, and the medical evidence from Timmons, this will be treated as an obvious accident.”

Heris sat down; she knew she shouldn’t continue the subject at table, but questions cluttered her mind. “I wish—”

“Not now,” Lady Cecelia interrupted her. “We can discuss this later, if you wish, though I would prefer to wait until tomorrow, local time. By then forensics should have confirmed the cause of death, and I’ll know more.”

Heris blinked. She had not realized that Lady Cecelia would be dealing with the legal problems of Iklind’s death while she worked on the ship; she had thought she would have to do it all herself.

Dinner arrived, with a cluster of attendants. Heris found herself staring at a tiny wedge of something decorated with a sprig of green.

“Lassaferan snailfish fin,” Lady Cecelia commented. “The garnish is frilled zillik. We grew that aboard, before—at one time.”

Heris tasted the snailfish fin, which had been dipped in a mustardy sauce; it had an odd but winsome flavor, perfectly complemented by the zillik. She had eaten at places that served this sort of food, usually while on a political assignment, but the Service favored less quixotic cuisine. One rarely had time to spend hours at the table. She hoped she would not have to spend hours at dinner now—with the relaxation induced by comfortable clothes, she had begun to realize how tired she was.

Next came a hot soup, its brilliant reds and golds contrasting with the pallid snailfish fin. Fish and vegetables, flavors well-blended, with enough spice to make her eyes water . . . “Sikander chowder,” Lady Cecelia said, smiling. “Good when you’re tired. I used to have this a lot when I was competing.” Heris wondered what she’d competed at, but didn’t ask; she could have eaten two bowls of the chowder, and twice as many of the crisp rolls served alongside it.

“This is delicious,” she said, as she finished the chowder.

“I thought you’d like that,” Lady Cecelia said. “I’m going to try their roast chicken and rice, but if you want more chowder just say so.”

Courtesy and appetite argued, and courtesy won; Heris let the waiter remove her soup plate and accepted the roast chicken—slices of breast meat, marinated and grilled after roasting, formed the wings of a swan; its body was a mound of spiced rice. The graceful head and neck had been artfully formed of curled spicegrass. She took a cautious bite of the rice—ginger? mustard? coriander?—and devoured it with almost indecent haste. She had been hungrier than she knew. . . . The slices of chicken disappeared, then the spicegrass.

The next course seemed out of sequence to Heris, but she realized that Lady Cecelia could set her own standards. Still, the platter of fruit, ’ponics-grown melons and berries, didn’t suit her at the moment. She nibbled a jade-green slice of melon, to be polite. Lady Cecelia, too, seemed as ready to talk as eat. She began with a question about the literature studied at the Academy—one of her great-nephews had said no one there read Siilvaas—was that true? Heris recognized this opening and added to her reply (yes, they read Siilvaas, but only the famous trilogy) a comment about a more contemporary writer. For a few minutes they discussed Kerlskvan’s recent work, feeling out each other’s knowledge. Lady Cecelia had not read the first novel; Heris had not read the third most recent.

The cheeses came in; the fruit remained. Heris sliced a wafer of orange Jebbilah cheese, and floated a comment about visual arts. Lady Cecelia waved that away. “As for me,” she said, “I like pictures of horses. The more accurate it is, the better. Aside from that I know nothing about the visual arts, and don’t want to. I was made to study it when I was a girl, but since then—no.” She smiled to take the sting out of that. “Now, let me ask you: what do you know about horses?”

“Nothing,” Heris said, “except that we had to have riding lessons in the Academy. Officers must be able to sit a horse properly for ceremonial occasions: that’s what they said.” In her voice was much the same contempt her employer had expressed for visual arts. Anyone who could prefer a horse picture, good or bad, to one of Gorgini’s explosive paintings . . .

“You don’t like them?” Lady Cecelia asked.

“What—horses? Frankly, milady, to a spacer they’re simply large, dirty, smelly animals with an appalling effect on the environmental system. I remember one time having to inspect a commercial hauler which was taking horses somewhere—why, I can’t imagine—and it was a mess. I don’t blame the animals, of course. They evolved on a planet, and on something the size of a planet there’s enough space for them. But in the hold of a starship? No.”

“Did you like riding them?” asked Lady Cecelia. She had a mild, vague expression which didn’t suit her.

Heris shrugged. “It wasn’t as bad as some of the other things we had to learn. I did fairly well, in fact. But it’s so useless—when would anyone need to ride a horse anywhere?”

“Only on uncivilized planets where it rains without permission,” Lady Cecelia said. Heris was sure she detected an edge to her voice, but the expression stayed mild. Belatedly, she remembered that the reason her employer so wanted to be on time was for the start of the “fox-hunting season” which had something to do with horses.

“Of course,” she said, “many people do enjoy them. Recreationally.”

“Yes.” This time the edge was unmistakeable. “Many people do. I, for one. Did your lessons at the Academy ever include riding them in the open—across country?”

“No—we had all our lessons in an enclosed ring.”

“So you have no experience of real riding?”

Heris wondered why riding in a ring was not real. The horse had been large and had smelled like a horse. The sore muscles she got from riding had been real enough. But from her employer’s face, this was not going to be a popular question. “I haven’t ridden anywhere but in those lessons, no,” she said cautiously.

“Ah. Then I suggest a wager.” This with a bright-eyed glance that made Heris suddenly nervous.

“A wager?”

“Yes. If the refitters are finished, and we clear this station forty-eight hours after we arrived—no, fifty hours, for you will need a little time, I’m sure, to ready for departure—then you win, and I will submit to be lectured by you on visual arts for ten hours. If, however, we are delayed, you lose, and will owe me ten hours, which I shall use in teaching you to ride—really ride—on my simulator.”

“An interesting wager,” Heris said, nibbling her cheese. “But that assumes that I want to bore you with ten hours of visual arts, which I don’t—I’m an admirer of some artists’ work, but no expert. What I wish you knew more about was your own ship. Suppose, if I win, you spend ten hours with me learning how to tell if your refitters did a good job?”

“You are that confident that we will be out in fifty hours?”

“I am confident that, either way, we will both learn something worthwhile,” said Heris. Lady Cecelia flushed.

“You’re mocking me—you don’t think riding is worthwhile!”

“No, milady. I am not mocking you, which would be both rude and foolish. You think it is important; I have not, up until now, but perhaps I’m wrong. If I lose, you have the chance to convince me. And I’m very sure that you would have been spared expense and inconvenience both had you known more about the workings of your yacht. Did you always take the horse a . . .” She struggled for the word, then remembered it. “A groom brought you, and get on and ride away? We were taught to inspect the . . . the tack . . . for ourselves, to look at the animal’s feet—”

“Hooves,” put in Lady Cecelia, cooler now.

“Hooves, and see if it had any problems.”

“I see your point,” Lady Cecelia said. “No, certainly I did not take my grooms’ word for everything.” The quick color had gone from her cheeks, and she seemed to have recovered her earlier good humor. “Very well, then: if you win, I will study my yacht’s particulars, and if I win, you will study horsemanship. Is it agreed?”

“Certainly.” Heris reached across and shook her employer’s hand. How hard could it be, after all? The simulator wasn’t a real horse; it couldn’t step on her, or bite her, or run away with her.

Whatever else she might have said was interrupted by a chime; Lady Cecelia touched the table’s control pad and the concierge’s voice announced that her nephew and his friends were on their way up.

“No—I don’t want to see them!” Lady Cecelia said. Heris noticed the quick flow and ebb of color to her face.

“I’m sorry, milady; they’re already in the tube.”

“Blast it!” Lady Cecelia half rose from her chair, and the attendants scurried to help her. She waved them away, reseated herself, and glanced at Heris. “I apologize, Captain, for the past moment and the coming hour. I’ll get rid of them as soon as I can.”

“Aunt Cecelia, it’s unforgivable!” That was Ronnie, first in the door when it opened. “That disgusting captain of yours put us in a cheap place as far from here as you can imagine; they don’t even have a—” He stopped abruptly as Heris turned to face him. She was delighted to see how far his jaw dropped before he got it back under control.

“It’s the captain,” said George unnecessarily. The two young women looked ashamed of themselves and their companions; the blonde one opened her mouth and shut it; the dark one spoke up in a soft voice.

“That’s a lovely dress, Captain Serrano.” Heris noted that Ronnie gave her a disgusted look, so she smiled at the young woman . . . Raffaele, she thought her name was.

“Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I’m glad you appreciate it.”

“You might want to know,” Lady Cecelia said, in a stiff voice, “that I approved your assignment to that hotel. If you want to blame someone, blame me. Captain Serrano has been far too busy saving our lives to spare any energy to make your lives miserable.”

Ronnie was a strange color two shades darker than bright pink.

“What is unforgivable,” Lady Cecelia went on, “is your rude intrusion into my dinner and private conversation, and your insulting my captain. You will apologize to Captain Serrano, now—or you can find your own way home and take whatever punishment you get, which I am sure you richly deserve.”

“Here, now—” began George, but Lady Cecelia quelled him with a glance. Ronnie looked from one to the other, and gave a minute shrug.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Cecelia . . . and Captain Serrano. It was not—I didn’t mean to be rude—I just—”

“Wanted your own way. I know. And that is an entirely inadequate apology. You called Captain Serrano ‘disgusting’; you will retract that.” Heris had not realized that any civilian could sound so much like a flag officer. Suddenly it was easy to imagine Lady Cecelia in full dress uniform with braid up to her shoulders.

Ronnie’s flush darkened and his lip curled; the glance he shot Heris was unchastened and furious. “I’m sorry, Captain Serrano,” he said between his teeth, “that I referred to you as ‘disgusting.’ It was ungentlemanly.” Heris nodded, dismissing it. She would say nothing that might make things worse between aunt and nephew.

“You may go now,” Lady Cecelia said. She picked up her glass and sipped. Heris doubted if she knew whether she had water or wine in it. The girls turned to go at once; George backed up a step, but Ronnie looked as if he were inclined to argue. “Now,” Lady Cecelia said. “And don’t roam too far from your hotel unless you carry a comunit. I will give you only one hour’s notice to reboard, and it would not hurt my feelings to leave you here.”

Ronnie gave a stiff bow, turned on his heel and almost pushed the others out of the suite. When the entrance refolded itself, Lady Cecelia shook her head. “I’m truly sorry,” she said. “Ronnie suffers from . . . from being the oldest boy in his family, the first grandchild in our branch, and his parents’ pride. He was spoiled before he was born, I daresay, if there’s a way to indulge an embryo in the tank. The mess he’s in now—” She spread her hands. “Sorry. It’s not fair to bore you with this.”

Heris smiled, and sipped. Water, for her, while the refitting was going on; she could afford not the slightest haze between her and reality. “Lady Cecelia, nothing that concerns you bores me. Surprises me, perhaps, but don’t fear that I’m bored. If you wish to discuss it—”

“I suppose you think you could straighten him out.” Lady Cecelia looked grumpy now, in the aftermath of the argument.

Heris shrugged. “It’s not my job, straightening out your nephew—unless you request it. And then—I don’t know. When I’ve had someone of his social class to deal with, it’s because he or she volunteered; I had leverage based on their own motivation.”

“You must despise us,” Lady Cecelia said.

“Why? Because you have a bratty nephew? I’ve seen admirals’ children with the same problem.”

“Really. I thought military children were born saluting the obstetrician and clicked their heels as soon as they stood up.” Although the tone was wry, there was an undertone of real curiosity. Heris laughed.

“Their parents wish! No, milady, we’re born squally brats the same as everyone else, and have to be civilized the same way. Your nephew seems to me the logical result of privilege—but no worse than others.”

“Thank God for that.” Lady Cecelia looked down. “I’d been imagining you all this time turning up your nose at me for having such a nephew.” Heris hoped her face didn’t reveal that she had thought that, and shook her head.

“Milady, as you said, I’ve been too busy to give much thought to your nephew. Your crew, now . . .” Was this the time to bring up those problems? No. She smiled and went on. “If you want to talk about your nephew, feel free. I’m listening.”

“He got in trouble,” Lady Cecelia said, with no more preamble. Heris listened to the story of the prince’s singer and the rest with outward calm and inward satisfaction. About what she expected from that sort of young man. She hadn’t realized he was in the Royal Aero-Space Service—and wondered why he’d been foisted off on his aunt, when his colonel should have been able to handle the situation. She asked.

“Because my sweet sister wouldn’t allow it,” Lady Cecelia said grimly. “He certainly could have been posted to . . . say . . . Xingsan, where his regiment has a work depot, for a year. Or someplace where he’d actually do useful work. But Berenice interceded, and got him a year’s sabbatical—a sabbatical, in the military—on the promise that he would not show his face in the capital.”

“Mmm,” said Heris, considering just how Cecelia’s sister could have that much influence with the Crown. Her train of thought came out before she censored it. “Does . . . uh . . . Ronnie look much like his father?”

Lady Cecelia snorted. “Yes, but that doesn’t answer your real question. Ronnie’s an R.E.—” At Heris’s blank look she explained. “A Registered Embryo, surely you have them?”

“I’ve heard of them.” It cost more than a year’s salary to have an R.E., and what you were paying for was not technology but insurance. In this instance it also meant that Ronnie had not resulted from a casual liaison.

“Anyway,” Lady Cecelia went on, “my sister Berenice decided that I should take Ronnie on. She never has approved of the way I live, and I was there, handy.”

“Because Captain Olin ran late,” Heris said.

“Yes. Normally I’m at the capital only for the family business meeting—in and out as fast as possible. This year I missed the meeting—which meant my proxy voted my shares, and not as I would have wished—and arrived just in time for Ronnie’s disgrace. These are not unconnected; it was apparently in celebrating his first opportunity to vote his own shares at the meeting that he overindulged, and came to brag about the singer.”

“So—your sister had your yacht redecorated—”

“And she is paying for Ronnie’s expenses. Up to a point. I’m supposed to be grateful.” Lady Cecelia made a face; Heris wondered what had caused the bad feeling in her family in the first place. She waited in attentive silence, in case Lady Cecelia wanted to say more, but the older woman turned to ask the attendants to bring the sweet. Heris was glad to see the last of the fruit and cheese, but not really interested in the sweet. She wanted a few hours’ sleep.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she began. “I really need to check with the refitting crew aboard, and my watch officer.”

“Oh—certainly. Go ahead.” Lady Cecelia’s expression was carefully neutral. Did she think Heris was disgusted with her? Heris felt a surge of sympathy for the older woman. She grinned.

“I have a wager to win, remember?”

That got the open smile she hoped for, and Lady Cecelia raised her glass in salute. “We shall see,” she said. “I have the feeling you’ll make an excellent horsewoman.”

Heris laughed. “As the luck falls, and my ability to push the refitters succeeds. See you later.”

Lady Cecelia watched her captain leave the room, and wondered what the woman really thought. Clearly she had more qualifications than shipboard skills alone: she was well read, she wore good clothes, she knew what to do with the array of eating utensils common to fine dining, and she had surprising tact. On the face of it, she would have made a far more compatible sister than Berenice. She let herself imagine the two of them riding side by side across the training fields . . . relaxing together over dinner. No. This woman never relaxed, not really, while she . . . Lady Cecelia allowed herself a relaxed sigh. Her captain might snatch a few hours’ sleep, but would doubtless dream of wiring diagrams and structural steel. She herself would follow this excellent dinner with a relaxing stroll in the hotel’s excellent garden, and then sleep as long as she liked in her luxurious bed with all its inventive amenities.

The stroll and the engineered scents in the garden eased the last of the tension her nephew’s rudeness had put in her shoulders, and she slipped into the warmed, perfumed bed contentedly. She could hear Myrtis checking all the room’s controls, murmured that she’d like it a bit cooler, and was asleep before the cooler draft had time to reach her cheek.

Morning brought complications, as she’d expected. This was not the first time one of her employees had died, just the first on her yacht, and by far the most violent. She had already contacted the legal firm recommended by her family’s own solicitors; the bright-eyed young man in formal black had been waiting downstairs by the concierge’s desk when she emerged from her bedroom and called for breakfast. She looked at the local time, and whistled. Mid-morning of mainshift, and he had time to wait on her? She checked her captain’s whereabouts while he was on the way up, and found, as she expected, that Serrano was back at work on the yacht.

He was talking almost before he got into the room. “Now, Lady Cecelia, I’m sure you’re simply devastated by this, but let me assure you that our firm is experienced—”

She stopped him with a gesture. “Wait. I’m going to eat breakfast, and you’re welcome to join me. But no business until afterwards, though in fact I’m not devastated, and if you weren’t experienced, you wouldn’t have been recommended.” That stopped him, though he fidgeted all through breakfast, refusing to eat. Finally his nervous twitches got to her, and she gave up on the diced crustaceans in a puree of mixed tubers. . . . It was mediocre anyway, too heavily flavored with dill and some local spice that burnt her tongue without offering a taste worth the pain. She finished with a large pastry, and a silver bowl of some red jam—quite flavorful—and nodded to him. “Go on, now; what’s the damage?”

“Your crewman . . . that was killed . . .” He seemed stunned that she wasn’t falling apart. What did he think, that older women never saw death?

“Environmental technician Nils Iklind,” Lady Cecelia recited. “He disobeyed the captain’s orders to wear his protective suit, opened a badly overfull sludge tank, and died of hydrogen sulfide poisoning. You have seen the data cubes?”

“Yes, ma’am . . . Lady Cecelia. Our senior partners reviewed them, and feel that you have a very strong case for accidental death.”

“So what is the problem?”

“Well . . .” The young man fidgeted some more, and Lady Cecelia began to compose the memo she would send to the family solicitors explaining why this firm was not suitable. “It’s the union, ma’am. They think it’s the captain’s fault for sending him into a dangerous area—for inadequate supervision in allowing him to enter the area without his suit on. Particularly since your other crewman also did not have his suit properly on, and says that all the captain did was tell them to meet there, suited up.”

Cecelia sniffed. “And how was the captain to know that he would open the hatch before she got there? Why didn’t he wait?”

“That’s not the point. They’re inclined to argue that the captain should have been there to enforce the order to suit up. Or at least another officer. On larger vessels, of course, there would be a supervisor. Technically, Iklind held a supervisory rating, but he hadn’t been acting in that capacity. And the maintenance logs and emergency drills—”

“That was Captain Olin’s misconduct; Captain Serrano told me she had begun training crew and reestablishing the correct procedures.”

“But she hadn’t completed that process yet, and that’s what the union is arguing. I’ll need to interview the captain—”

“She’s aboard the ship, overseeing the refitting. You’d have to suit up.” A chime sounded; when she looked, the comunit flashed discreetly. “Excuse me a moment.”

“It might be the office for me,” he said, but Cecelia waved him to silence as she pressed the button to her ear.

“Sorry to bother you,” Captain Serrano said, “but we have a new problem that may help solve an old one.”

“What’s that?” Cecelia asked. The young man across from her looked as if he were trying to grow his ears longer; it gave him a very odd expression.

“Mr. Brynear has found . . . items . . . in one of the scrubbers. It might explain why Iklind risked going in unsuited, and it might explain why Captain Olin connived at a fake maintenance procedure.” Her captain said no more; Cecelia hoped it was because she assumed her employer’s innocence and intelligence both.

“Ummm. You would prefer to discuss this someplace else?”

“I would, but it is clearly a matter for law enforcement. Mr. Brynear has documented the discovery.” Which meant law enforcement had already been summoned. What, she wondered, could Captain Olin have been up to? Smuggling? But what? She realized she had no idea how large a “scrubber” was, or what would fit into it. But she couldn’t ask over an unsecured com line.

“It seems I have a good chance to win our wager,” Cecelia said. “Where shall I meet you? I have legal advice with me.”

“We could all come there, or you could come to the refitters. . . . Your counsel should know. . . .”

“We’ll come.” She felt she had to have some refuge from conflict; she would meet trouble elsewhere. In a few brief phrases she explained the little she understood to the young man, who gulped and asked permission to call back to his office. “While I change,” she said, and headed for the bedroom and Myrtis. What did one wear when one’s crewman had died of an accident that might be related to smuggling, and the goods—whatever they were—had been found aboard one’s yacht? What could convey innocence, outrage, and the determination to be a good citizen? She had never been skilled at this sort of thing. . . . Berenice would have known instantly which scarf or pin, which pair of shoes, would give the right impression. Cecelia opted for formal and dark, with a hat, which hid the unruly lock of hair that wanted to stand straight up from her head.

When she emerged, the young man explained that a senior partner would meet her at the refitter’s . . . he would escort her there, and hand over the case papers. Cecelia smiled at him, and raged inwardly. They should have sent a senior partner in the first place . . . no doubt they were billing the family at the senior partner’s rate.