Rules of Engagement

  “May I see your ID please?” It was not really a request. Terakian pulled out his folder; the man glanced at it, and without looking up said, “Officer Merovic says she knows you-has for years.”

  “That’s right,” Terakian said. Cold sweat trickled down his back, and he hadn’t even done anything wrong. That he knew of. “Off the Terakian Blessing, Terakian and Sons, Limited.”

  “And you?” the man said, looking at Basil.

  “Basil Terakian-Junos. Off the Terakian Bounty.”

  “Cousins,” the man said. “You’re the brawler, aren’t you?”

  “I can fight,” Basil said.

  “Basil-”

  “It doesn’t bother me,” the man said. “Just wanted to be sure I had the right Terakian cousins. Now let me give you some advice.” Orders, he meant. “This never happened, right?”

  “What?” asked Basil.

  Terakian elbowed Basil. “We just came in here for a little family chat-”

  “Right. And you saw Officer Merovic and bought her a drink.”

  “Yessir. And nobody saw anything?”

  “That’s it. I know how you people are with your families, but I’m telling you, this is not a story to tell, and there’s no profit to be made off it.”

  Terakian doubted that-anything Fleet security cared about this much usually involved plenty of profit-but he was willing to concede that he couldn’t make anything off it.

  “And how long should our family conference continue?” he asked.

  “Another fifteen minutes should about do it,” the man said pleasantly.

  Fifteen minutes. They still had time to deal with the Vortenya contract negotiations, if Jilly didn’t insist on sitting with them for her drink.

  * * *

  Aragon Station, Sector VII HQ

  “Thanks to an alert security force on Zenebra, we now have both proof of planned terrorist attacks, and some more specific information about Sera Meager’s most probable location.”

  “And that is?”

  “An unaffiliated trader, Mockingbird Hill, bought used from Allsystems Salvage four years ago . . . showed up at Zenebra Main Station, and paid thirty days’ docking fee upfront. That in itself was a bit surprising, but the stationmaster just listed it in the log, and didn’t specifically alert Fleet; we hadn’t given out a list of warning signs, because we didn’t want to cause widespread panic. One of the crew, however, got drunk in a spacer bar, spewed his guts out, and had said something to the locals which alerted security. They called Fleet, and when we interrogated him, we found he was one of that cult, and the trader was stuffed with explosive, designed to blow any station they chose. They hadn’t intended to blow Zenebra, particularly, but they were sited there in case called on to act somewhere in that sector.”

  “And Sera Meager?”

  “According to one of the others, the Ranger Bowie on the vid from Elias Madero is from the branch known as Our Texas; this group was from Native Texas, who are apparently allied with them at present.”

  “And the Guernesi have agents in place on . . . let’s see here. Home Texas, Texas True, and . . . what do you know? Our Texas.”

  “Yes . . . and that agent should be able to confirm whether they still have a Ranger Bowie, and whether we’ve got the right man-and planet.”

  Caradin University, Department of Antique Studies

  Waltraude Meyerson, peering through the eyepiece of the low-power microscope at an exceedingly rare photograph which might-if she was lucky-finally answer the question of whether a certain Old Earth politician was male or female, ignored the comunit’s chime until it racked up into an angry buzz. She reached out blindly, and felt around on her desk ­until she found the button and pushed it.

  “Yes!”

  “It’s Dean Marondin . . . we have an urgent request for a specialty consult in your field.”

  “Nothing in my field is urgent,” Waltraude said. “It’s all been dead for centuries.” Nonetheless she sat back and flicked off the microscope’s light.

  “It’s a request from the highest authorities . . .”

  “About ancient history? Is it another antiquities scam?”

  “No . . . I’m not even sure why, but they want to know about Old Earth politics, North American . . . so of course I thought of you.”

  Of course. She was the only North Americanist on the faculty, but chances were that some idiot bureau­crat wanted to know the exchange rate of Quebeçois francs to Mexican pesos in a decade she knew nothing about . . .

  “So what’s the question?”

  “They want to talk to you.”

  Interruptions, always interruptions. She had taken the term off, no classes, so she could finally put ­together the book she had been working on for the past eight years, and now she had to answer silly questions. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll give them fifteen ­minutes.”

  “I think they need longer,” the dean said. “They’re on their way.”

  Great. Waltraude stood up and stretched, working out the kinks that hours over the microscope had put in her back, and looked vaguely around her office. “They” implied more than one-they would want to sit down, and both chairs were piled with papers. Some people thought it was old-fashioned to have so much paper around, but she was-as she insisted-old-fashioned herself. That’s why she’d gone into ­antique studies in the first place. She had just picked up one stack, and was looking for a place to put it, when the knock came at her door. “Come in,” she said, and turned to find herself facing two men and two women who scared her into immobility. They looked as if they should all be in uniform, though they weren’t.

  “I’m sorry if we startled you,” said one of the women. “But-do you know anything about Texas?”

  Three hours later she was still talking, and they were still recording it and asking more questions. She was no longer scared, but still confused about why they’d come.

  “But you really should ask Professor Lemon about that,” she said finally. “He’s the one who’s done the most work on North American gender relations in that period.”

  “Professor Lemon died last week in a traffic accident,” the woman said. “You’re the next best.”

  “Oh. Well-” Waltraude fixed the other woman with a gaze that usually got the truth from ­under­graduates. “When are you planning to tell me what’s going on?”

  “When we get you to Sector VII Headquarters,” the woman said with a smile that was not at all reassuring. “You’re now our best expert on Texas history, and we want to keep you alive.”

  “My sources-” Waltraude said, waving at the chaos of her office. “My book-”

  “We’ll bring everything,” the woman promised. “And you’ll have access to Professor Lemon’s as well.”

  Lemon had refused for years to share his copy of a Molly Ivins book Waltraude had never been able to track down through Library Services. He had even reneged on a promise to do so, in exchange for her data cube of thirty years of a rural county newspaper from Oklahoma. Access to Lemon’s material?

  “When do we leave?” asked Waltraude.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sector VII HQ

  “The admiral wants you,” the jig said. Esmay looked up from her lists. What now? She hadn’t done anything bad again, surely.

  “On my way,” she said, forcing cheerfulness into her voice. Whatever it was would be made no better by a long face.

  In Admiral Hornan’s outer office, the clerk nodded at her soberly, and touched a button on the desk. “Go right in, Lieutenant Suiza.”

  So it was serious, and she still had no idea what was going on. They had chewed all the flavor out of her sins so far; what else was there to attack?

  “Lieutenant Suiza reporting, sir.” She met Admiral Hornan’s eyes squarely.

  “At ease, Lieutenant. I’m sorry to say I have sad news for you. We have received a request relayed by ansible from your father for you to take emer­gency leave . . . your great-grandmother has died.” br />
  Esmay felt her knees give a little. The old lady’s blessing-had she known? Tears stung her eyes.

  “Sit down, Lieutenant.” She sat where she was bidden, her mind whirling. “Would you like tea? Coffee?”

  “No . . . thank you, sir. It’s-I’ll be fine in a moment.” She was already fine; a translucent shield protected her from the universe.

  “Your father indicates that you and your great-grandmother were close-”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And says that your presence is urgently needed for both legal and family matters, if you can possibly be spared.” The admiral’s head tilted. “Under the circumstances, I think you can well be spared. Your presence here is hardly essential.” He might as well have said it was grossly unwelcome; Esmay registered that but felt none of the pain she would have felt before. Great-grand­mother dead? She had been a constant, even in self-exile, all Esmay’s life, all her father’s life.

  “I-thank you, sir.” Her hand crept up to touch the amulet through her uniform.

  “I’m curious to know, if you would not mind telling me, what legalities might require a great-grandchild’s presence at such a time.”

  Esmay dragged her mind back to the present conversation; she felt she was wading through glue. “I’m not entirely sure, sir,” she began. “Unless I am my great-grandmother’s nearest female relative in the female line . . . and I’d have thought it was my aunt Sanibel.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Esmay tried to remember birth years-surely it had to be Sanni, and not herself. But Sanni was younger than her father. “It’s the land, sir. The estancia. Land passes in the female line.”

  “Land . . . how much land?”

  How much land? Esmay waved her hands vaguely. “Sir, I’m sorry but I don’t know. A lot.”

  “Ten hectares? A hundred?”

  “Oh no-much more than that. The headquarters buildings occupy twenty hectares, and the polo fields are-” She tried to think without counting on her fingers. “Probably a hundred hectares there. Most of the small paddocks up by the house are fifty ­hectares . . .”

  The admiral stared; Esmay did not understand the intensity of that stare. “A small paddock-just part of this land-is fifty hectares?”

  “Yes . . . and the large pastures, for the cattle, are anywhere from one to three thousand hectares.”

  He shook his head. “All right. A lot of land. Lieutenant-does anyone in Fleet know you are that rich?”

  “Rich?” She wasn’t rich. She had never been rich. Her father, Papa Stefan, her great-grandmother . . . the family as a whole, but not her attenuated twig on the end of the branch.

  “You don’t consider thousands of hectares a sign of wealth?”

  Esmay paused. “I never really thought of it, sir. It’s not mine-I mean, it never was, and I’m reasonably sure it’s not now. It’s the family’s.”

  “My retirement estate,” the admiral said, “Is ten hectares.”

  Esmay could think of nothing to say but “Sorry,” and she knew that was wrong.

  “So might I conclude,” the admiral went on, in a tone of voice that set Esmay’s teeth on edge, “that if you were to . . . choose to pursue family respon­sibilities, rather than a career in Fleet, you would not be starving in the street somewhere?”

  “Sir.”

  “Not that I’m advising you to do so; I merely find it . . . ­interesting . . . that the young officer who was capable of telling the Speaker’s daughter she was a spoiled rich girl is herself . . . a rich . . . girl. A very rich girl. Perhaps-for all the reasons you elucidated for Sera Meager’s benefit-rich girls are not suited to military careers.”

  It was as close to an instruction to resign as anyone could come, without saying the words. Esmay met his eyes, bleak misery in her heart. What chance did she have, if senior officers felt this way about her? She wanted to argue, to point out that she had proven her loyalty, her honor-not once, but again and again. But she knew it would do no good.

  The admiral looked down at his desk. “Your leave and travel orders have been cut, Lieuteant Suiza. Be sure to take all the time you need.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She would be polite, no matter what. Rudeness had gotten her nowhere, honesty had come to grief, and so she would be polite to the end.

  “Dismissed,” he said, without looking up.

  The clerk looked up as she came out.

  “Bad news, sir?”

  “My . . . great-grandmother died. Head of our family.” Her throat closed on more, but the clerk’s sympathetic expression looked genuine.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I have the leave and travel orders the admiral told me to prepare . . .” The clerk paused, but Esmay offered no explanation. “You’ve got a level two priority, and I took the liberty of putting your name on a berth for the fastest transit I could find.”

  “Thank you,” Esmay said. “That’s very kind-”

  “You’re quite welcome, sir; just sorry it’s for a sad occasion. I notice your end-of-leave is given as indeterminate-I’m assuming you’ll notify the nearest sector HQ when you know how long you’ll need?”

  “That’s right,” Esmay said. The familiar routine, the familiar phrases eased the numbing chill of the admiral’s attitude.

  “That would be Sector Nine, and I’ll just add the recognition codes you’ll need-and here you are, sir.”

  “Thank you again,” Esmay said, managing a genuine smile for the clerk. He, at least, treated her as if she were a normal person worth respect.

  Her transport would undock in six hours; she hurried back to her quarters to pack.

  * * *

  Marta Katerina Saenz, Chairholder in her own right, and voter of two other Chairs in the Family sept, had been expecting the summons for weeks before it came. Bunny’s wild daughter had at last fallen into more trouble than youth and dash could get her out of, though the news media had been fairly vague about what it was, having had her listed first as “missing” and then as “presumed captured by pirates.” She suspected it might be worse than that; pirates normally killed any captives or ransomed them quickly. Bunny, who had succeeded Kemtre as the chief executive of the Fam­ilias Grand Council, had actually done quite well in the various crises that had followed the king’s abdication-the Morellines and the Consellines had not in fact pulled out; the Crescent Worlds hadn’t caused trouble; the Benignity’s attempt at invasion in the Xavier system had been quickly scotched. But rumor had it that his daughter’s disappearance had sent him into a state close to unreason. Rumor was usually wrong in details, Marta had found, but right in essence.

  She herself was the logical person to call in for advice and help. Family connections and cross-­connections, for one thing, and-paradoxically-her reputation for avoiding the hurly-burly of political life. Her axes had all been ground long since, and stored in the closet for future need. Several of the Families had already contacted her, asking her to make discreet inquiries. Moreover, she had helped Bunny in the Patchcock affair, and she knew the redoubtable ­Admiral Serrano. In addition, whatever trouble Brun had gotten herself into involved this side of Familias space-that was clear from the number of increased Fleet patrols, and the way her own carriers were ­being stopped for inspection. So it was natural that someone would think of asking her to-what was the phrase?-“assist in the investi­gations.”

  She did not resent the call as much as she might have a decade or so earlier. That affair on Patchcock had been much more fun than she’d expected, and the aftermath-when she’d tackled Raffaele’s difficult mother about the girl’s marriage-even more so. Perhaps she’d had enough, for a while, of secluded mountain estates and laboratory research. Perhaps it was time for another fling.

  Though by all accounts this would be no fling. When she boarded the R.S.S. Gazehound, which had been sent to fetch her, she was given a data cube which made that clear. Marta had met Brun more than once, in her wildest stages, and the vid of Brun helpless and mute was worse than shocki
ng. She put it out of her mind, and concentrated instead on testing her powers with the crew of the R.S.S. Gazehound.

  Captain Bonnirs had welcomed her aboard with the grave deference due her age and rank; Marta had managed not to chuckle aloud at that point, but it wasn’t easy. He seemed so young, and his crew were mere children . . . but of course they weren’t. Still, they responded to her as her many nieces and nephews had, treating her as an honorary grand­mother. For the price of listening to the same old stories of love, betrayal, and reconciliation, she could acquire vast amounts of information the youngsters never knew they were giving.

  Pivot-major Gleason, for instance, while apparently unaware of any conflict between his loyalty to the Regular Space Service and that to his family, was carrying undeclared packages from his brother to his sister-in-law’s family: packages that, under the scrutiny now given such mail, would have been opened and inspected by postal authorities. He didn’t see anything wrong with this; Marta hoped very much he was merely hauling stolen jewels or something equally innocuous and not explosives.

  Ensign Currany, in the midst of asking advice on handling unwanted advances from a senior officer, revealed that she had a startling misconception of the nature of Registered Embryos which suggested a poli­tical orientation quite different from that she overtly claimed. Normally this wouldn’t have mattered, but now Marta had to wonder just why Currany had joined Fleet-and when.

  She discovered that an environmental tech had a hopeless crush on the senior navigator, who was happily married, and that the curious smell in the enlisted crew quarters emanated from an illicit pet citra, kept in a secret compartment in the bulkhead behind a bunk. It was brought out to show her, and she enchanted its owners by letting it run up her arm and curl its furry tail around her neck. She overheard part of a furious argument between two pivot-majors about Esmay Suiza-one, having served aboard ­Despite, insisted she was loyal and talented; the other, who had never met her, insisted she was a secret traitor who had wanted Brun to be captured and had probably told the pirates where to find her. She would like to have heard more of that, but the argument ended the moment they realized she was lurking in the corridor, and neither would talk more about it.