Change of Command

  Kate looked at her, mind on full alert. "You're asking a visitor to criticize your government?"

  Brun flushed a little. "He's a Conselline, and we're in the Barraclough Sept—"

  "Is that families or religions?" Kate asked.

  Brun made a face. "Maybe both. Let's just say that the Consellines and the Barracloughs have been rivals for a long time, in a genteel sort of way. I don't like Hobart, but I wondered if maybe an outsider would see him more clearly."

  "He's nobody I'd buy a ranch from," Kate said. "Not without walkin' over every inch of it, and checkin' the title since God made it. He's got a mean mouth, and his wife's scared of him."

  "You saw that?"

  "Oh, yes. Just like I saw that you didn't like Pedar with the rings and ruffles holding your hand when he led you over. But you wanted to talk to me."

  "You don't miss much, do you?"

  "Rangers don't. Now why don't you get down to what you really wanted to talk about, so we can enjoy dessert later and not have to tippytoe?" Kate pushed her plate away and leaned back, fixing Brun with the look that had brought confessions out of the Harkness boys.

  "I hate it when everyone is smarter than I am." Brun pushed her own plate back.

  "They aren't, when you leave your brain on," Kate said. "It didn't take a lot of intelligence to recognize that you wanted to meet me as much as I was glad to meet you."

  "You haven't met Esmay," Brun said. "She's smarter—"

  "Spare me." Kate ran her hands through her hair, fluffing it out. "I heard plenty about Miss Genius on the trip over here. Everyone says she's so wonderful, and I'll bet she is. But—she isn't you."

  "No, she's—"

  Kate wasn't about to let her take off down that trail, whatever it was. "Lord, girl, you sound like you haven't got a friend in the world. Didn't you ever have a best friend?"

  "Yes, but she got married."

  "Oh, brother. You and me both. Sally and I were closer than twins, and then she went all goopy over Carl, and that was the end of it. Two babies. She says she's still my friend, but all she wants to do is tell me about those two rugrats . . . which one put jam in the processor, and how the other one is smarter than any ten college professors. My mother told me she'll come out of it in a few years, but in the meantime I have to pretend to care what some grubby little kid is doing."

  "And you don't?"

  "No. If there's supposed to be some instinctive maternal drive, I missed out at the feed trough. What about you?"

  "Me, neither. I don't want to hurt them, but—"

  "You didn't want to care for 'em either. Makes sense to me. Where are your boys?"

  "A friend of my mother's took them, and found a home for them. But I worry—"

  "Don't. I mean, don't worry more than you have to. And you're evading the subject. You didn't just accept a dinner invitation because you thought a stranger might be lonesome. You just about committed the impossibility of telepathic communication, wantin' me to figure a way we could talk."

  "Or to get away from Pedar; he's been wanting Mother's ansible call number. All right, all right, I'll tell you." She scratched at a spot on the tablecloth. "I want to find out who killed my father, and what kind of hold Hobart Conselline has on my Uncle Harlis, who's after my father's estate."

  "Now that's smart. That's a goal we can work on."

  "We?"

  "Of course, we. Hell's bells, sweetheart, I'm not going to leave you to hunt this hog alone. And I need you, anyway, to help me find my way through this maze of protocol y'all live with. Besides, if you come out convinced that I'm not a monster, maybe you'll help me get your government to let up on Lone Star Confederation funds. You did know our citizens can't access their money in your banks, didn't you?"

  "No!" Brun looked startled. "When did that happen?"

  "Right after the assassination. And all our citizens expelled, and the borders closed. Even your father realized we had nothing to do with that bunch of idiots who captured you. This embargo thing has put a real crimp in our economy; the Familias is our biggest external trading partner."

  "I didn't know," Brun said. "It didn't come up in the Council meeting." She scowled. "A lot of things seem to be happening without coming up before the Council . . ."

  Kate glanced around the room. She had made it as secure as possible, but she didn't trust any public space.

  "Maybe we ought to talk about this another time," she said. "Tell you the truth, I'm feeling the journey—" She noticed that Brun's gaze slid around the room too, as if she were also aware of the surveillance possibilities.

  "Of course," Brun said. "Listen—I know some of you Lone Star people ride—"

  "Ride!" Kate grinned. "Hon, I started riding afore I could sit up, in fact afore I was born. Don't tell me they have horses in this city!"

  "They do, but what I had in mind was our place out in the country. It's only a small stable, but we have some lovely views."

  "That's right nice of you. I don't know how busy I'll be here—I'm supposed to spend my time convincing your government that we're harmless."

  "I'll introduce you to people," Brun said. "And it won't all be boring afternoon receptions like today's."

  "It wasn't that bad," Kate said. "Under the circumstances." She winked at Brun.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Within a week, Kate had moved to Appledale. Brun took

  her to dinner with Viktor Barraclough, and hosted a garden party where she met a group of less senior Barraclough relatives. The Lone Star woman seemed unfailingly cheerful, brisk, and friendly. She persisted in wearing screamingly bright colors, and spent a long time every morning arranging her hair into its vast pouf, but aside from that, she might have been an old friend. Brun found herself explaining, over breakfast or in the intervals of their social commitments, everything she knew about the family business and her uncle's machinations.

  The next time Harlis visited, Brun saw the Ranger in action for the first time. She had been coming downstairs when the bell rang; Kate waved off the maid and went to the door herself. Brun paused to see what would happen, stepping back so that she couldn't be seen from the door.

  "Hi, I'm Kate Briarly," she heard Kate say to Harlis, without moving aside for him.

  "I want to see Brun," Harlis snapped.

  "That may be, but I don't know who you are," Kate said. Brun was fairly sure that wasn't true—she'd shown Kate ID pictures.

  "Harlis Thornbuckle—now go call Brun for me."

  A grunt followed, then: "Now, Mister Thornbuckle—" in Kate's coolest voice.

  "That's Lord Thornbuckle—"

  "Back where I come from it is not considered polite at all for a gentleman to push his way past a lady—"

  "You're no lady! And you hurt me!"

  "Be that as it may, you pushed at me, and that just won't do. Now you be nice, and just wait there a minute, and I'll see if Brun has time to see you—"

  "She'd better, or I'll—"

  "Ah-ah-ah! No threats. Y'all know Brun's still under formal guard for any threat to her safety; you'd hate to be hauled off kickin' and hollerin' to spend the night in jail." The door thudded shut softly, and Brun came down another few steps to see Kate standing with her back to it, shaking with silent laughter.

  "You shut the door on Uncle Harlis," Brun said, grinning.

  "I truly hope your father was a better man than that, Brun, because that man is all hat and no cattle, where brains are concerned."

  "A lot better," Brun said. "But I'd better talk to him." She reached for the door, and Kate stopped her.

  "No—go into the drawing room and sit down in something comfortable." Brun complied, realizing halfway there what Kate was about. She heard the door open again, and Kate's voice—all sugar now—inviting him in. Harlis stormed into the drawing room.

  "Where is your mother?" he demanded.

  "I'm not sure," Brun said, carefully thinking of the possibilities—her mother might be in bed, or eating, or out riding—rather
than the certainty that her mother was somewhere on Sirialis.

  "Dammit—she has no right to take family property while the will's in question!"

  "What property, Uncle Harlis?"

  "Sirialis! I'll wager that's where she is!"

  "It's a large universe, Mister Thornbuckle," Kate said, before Brun could answer. "Why do you think she's there? And what difference would it make if she was? She can't take off with a whole planet."

  Harlis glared at her, his face reddening. Brun tried to keep from laughing; he looked ridiculous.

  "She had better not remove anything from the property," he said finally. "I have an injunction."

  Brun felt cold to the marrow, but Kate spoke up again.

  "An injunction—not to dispose of property? In other words, not a dismissal of the original will?"

  "Not that it's any of your business, no. She's enjoined from disposing of any of the property under dispute, until the case has been decided."

  "Suppose you just let me see that, Mister Thornbuckle—" Kate reached out an imperious hand; to Brun's surprise, her uncle put a hardcopy into it. Kate looked it over, one pencilled eyebrow elevated.

  "It may be legal here, but it sure wouldn't be legal back home," she said finally. "Y'all have a really strange legal system, what with no proper constitution. But I guess you'll have to send Lady Thornbuckle a message about it."

  "You don't scare me," Harlis said, and lurched out of the chair, grabbing the hardcopy from Kate on his way to the door, which he slammed.

  "I don't think much of your security," Kate said after a moment. "Lettin' that man up to the door without warnin' us."

  "He's my uncle," Brun said.

  "And you never have family murders here? No, never mind. It's time I went to work."

  Kate looked and sounded a lot less Texan when she was detecting, Brun decided. She had acquired copies of all the relevant surveillance materials, on the grounds that she needed to prove that the Lone Star Confederation had not been involved in any way. Now her room was festooned with charts and lists and flatpic blowups.

  "This here is a list of every person registered in the Monos Hotel; I don't think much of your investigators for only getting the list of those on the fifth floor and above. Sure, the shot came from that high, but people can go up as well as down. They know at least one shooter was here, in room 517—"

  "They didn't tell us that."

  "Well, they wouldn't. I wouldn't, if you were back home and I was investigatin' there . . . I'd have rules to follow, same as they do. Now, the couple in room 517 weren't there at the time. They were attending the annual convention of the plumbing contractors, and we have good surveillance pictures of them in their booth for two hours, and another two if you don't count the one trip each made to the john. Moreover, there's witness statements, and an order book with an automatic time stamp, to show they took orders."

  "They could have let someone else use their room—"

  "Yup. First thing I thought of. But as it happens, the room door was forced, not unlocked. A string of DJ-8, and someone took the trouble to overpulse the mag relays so that no alarm would sound when the lock blew. They wouldn't bother with all that if they had a key. The Stringhalts might still be involved, but I doubt it. Right now I'm lookin' at eight possibles." Kate pointed them out on her list. "Two hotel employees—the assistant day manager, and the housekeeping supervisor—"

  "Why them?"

  "Access to files on which rooms were occupied, and which rooms were occupied at what times. I don't want to drag you through the gory parts, Brun, but look at this here—" Kate put up another screen with the plan of the hotel and street overlaid in colors. "Your security personnel did a pretty good job, even though it wasn't good enough. They'd moved all known foreigners out of rooms overlooking the route from the court to the Palace; they'd put spotters on the roofs, and the usual sort of net below. They had roving patrols, including in this hotel. My people might have made some changes, but nothing good enough to keep your dad alive, if his route was known. And his route was posted—everyone knew it.

  "I can tell you this much . . . I'm convinced it wasn't even an outside job. I think it was someone in the Familias, who tried to make it look like the NewTex Militia."

  "Well, I want to know who."

  "D'you have any ideas? Your population's a lot bigger than ours, and we usually start with some idea of who's trying to kill someone."

  Brun ticked them off. "There's always my Uncle Harlis, though I don't think he would—he wanted my dad's property, and he's doing his best to get it away from Mother, as you saw. His son Kell, who's meaner than a—what's your term?"

  "Rattlesnake. And?"

  "One of the Consellines, though I can't see Hobart Conselline doing anything that stupid on his own."

  "Hmm. If it was stupid—he did end up Speaker. Well, let's go after this another way. Leaving aside the murder, for the moment, what else have we dug up?" Kate shoved one mess of papers aside, and brought up a printout that looked to Brun like rows of figures.

  "Are those numbers supposed to mean something?" Brun asked.

  "Quite a bit," Kate said. "If you can follow the money, you can just about always find the criminal. I got these figures off the public newsfeeds, by the way, so I can't vouch for their accuracy. But here's some things to look at . . . see this? It's your uncle's shares in companies you told me were your family holdings."

  Brun recognized most of the names. Her mother had mentioned them, but had given no details.

  * * *

  "Brun, I need to talk to you." Lady Cecelia, sounding very upset. Brun hadn't heard from her in days, and had been so caught up in Kate's research that she'd almost forgotten about her.

  "Lady Cecelia, how—"

  "Now," the voice said.

  "I have that Lone Star woman visiting . . ."

  "I know; I heard the rumors. But can I come out for a few days?"

  "Of course."

  A few hours later, Cecelia erupted into the house in what Brun recognized as a fine white fury. She didn't even glance at Kate.

  "Did you know that Kevil Mahoney's been robbed while he was in hospital?"

  "No! George didn't say—"

  "George has been trying to cope without getting them in deeper trouble. Someone swiped their accounts, the day of the assassination, though George was too busy to find out about it for a couple of weeks. And he had no way to trace it by then."

  "But how? I thought the safeguards—"

  "Were safe. Yes. So did I. But George is trying to take care of Kevil, and finish law school—they can't even afford a cook, and they're going to have to sell the house! The thing is, Brun, George didn't have the access codes and Kevil couldn't remember them. I have them, but I don't know how to interpret what's in the files."

  "You have Kevil's access codes?"

  Cecelia reddened. "Yes. And he has—had—mine."

  "So what they were saying about you and Kevil—"

  "Was idle gossip. Brun, I'm ashamed of you! The man's hurt, his memory's damaged, he's been robbed, and all you can think about is that?"

  "Sorry," Brun said. "It did come to mind."

  Cecelia looked at the papers and films spread all over the library tables, and then at Kate. "What were you looking up?"

  "Goin' through the public financial records, trying to find out how Harlis was gettin' so far with a ridiculous claim, and tryin' to cross the trail of the killer. Brun's mama's over at Sirialis, doin' the same thing."

  Brun looked at Cecelia.

  "Kate, we need to join forces here. With the codes Cecelia has, and your ability to interpret the files, this might go a lot faster."

  "If you'll keep intruders out," Kate said. "Remember what I said about your inept security—"

  "I worry more about Kevil," Brun said. "Why don't I go bring him out here?"

  "Excellent idea," Kate said.

  "But that's all wrong, that's—"

  "Somebody'd do all tha
t, wouldn't stop at a little shootin'."

  By the time Brun got back with Kevil Mahoney, Kate and Cecelia were hard at work. Brun helped Kevil into the library, and moved a pile of printouts off a chair for him.

  "Looks . . . like fun . . ." he said. "You . . . must be the . . . Texan."

  "Ranger Briarly," Kate said. "Just call me Kate. Somebody sure knocked a hole in your stock tank . . . but I'll get 'em."

  "Kate has a healthy disrespect for thieves," Cecelia said.

  "I don't like people hurtin' people, and takin' advantage, 'specially of people that's just been shot." Kate gave Kevil one of her wide smiles. "I will bet my best show saddle that there's not but one or two villains in this drama, and I aim to catch every one of 'em."

  "You'd be interested in what I found at Kevil's, then," Brun said. She held up a sack and shook it. "Interesting meds to give someone with a brain injury . . ."

  "I thought so," Cecelia said. "Was that nurse there? He's been harder to shake with every visit."

  "Oh, yes. Very eager to give Ser Mahoney a little something to make the trip out here easier. Then very eager to clear the shelves of the meds."

  "I don't suppose you have his access codes," Kate said, looking up.

  Brun grinned. "When I got back home, and wasn't going out much, I spent my time building some of the gadgets Koutsoudas has . . . so yes, an illegal datasuck gave me every bit of data on him. Here." She put it down on the table. "Interfaces to the cube reader or the computer, whichever you want."

  Three nights later, Brun was dozing on one of the long leather couches in the library, an arm shielding her eyes from the light, when the breakthrough came.

  "Gotcha!" Kate muttered. She no longer looked like the sexy blonde in red fringe; back-to-back all-night work sessions had flattened the hair, and put circles under her eyes. Instead of the tight red suit, she wore loose knit pants and shirt. But nothing could dim the grin she turned on the others. "This is it, partners—we've got what we need."

  "Ummm . . ." Brun heard only the first of that, but managed to open a bleary eye for the last phrase. "Got whom?"

  "Your uncle Harlis, for starters. He's been acquiring stock in ways that are illegal even here—and I have to say, Brun, that your government needs to overhaul its legal system in a big way. There's holes you could drive a herd of longhorns through, with this bylaws arrangement. All you have to have is one generation of idiots, cowards, and a few bad guys, and it'd be all over for you."