Rules of Engagement

  They paused at a cross-corridor while what looked to Brun like huge people in armor moved past.

  “Feeling better, Lieutenant?” one of them asked.

  “Fine, thanks,” Esmay said. She turned to Brun. “They were on the team that got you out.”

  “Thank you,” Brun keyed quickly. She hit the controls to save that phrase; she was going to need it a lot.

  Captain Solis stood as Brun came in and reached to shake her hand. “We are so glad to have you back!”

  “I’m glad to be back.” Brun had anticipated the need for that phrase, and had it loaded.

  “Your father did not want you bothered by Lieu­tenant Suiza, but I understand that you wanted to see her-?”

  “Yes.” This had to be done word by word, carefully, and Brun took her time. “I wanted to apologize to her for my behavior on Copper Moun­tain. It was made clear to me during my captivity just how badly I had misjudged her. And I wanted to express my profound gratitude for her efforts on my behalf.”

  “You don’t know most of it,” Captain Solis said. “She is the one who insisted that you were probably still alive after your escape shuttle blew up-that you could have engineered that as a decoy-and said we had to go find you.” He spared Esmay a glance that Brun could tell was more approving than usual. “I could almost change my mind.”

  “I changed mine,” Brun keyed in.

  “Well, now that we’ve got you and the other-Hazel Takeris, is that her name?-we can jump safely back to the task force and get out of here with no more disruption.”

  “No.” Brun keyed, and switched to the masculine voice output for emphasis.

  Captain Solis jumped; she bit back a grin. It would not do to laugh at the man. “But-what-?”

  “We must get the other children,” Brun keyed. “From the ship Hazel was on.”

  “I don’t see how,” Captain Solis began.

  “We must,” Brun said.

  “But Hazel said they were safe-that they had adjusted to their new family-”

  “We cannot leave little girls, Familias citizens by birth, to be brought up in a society where they can be muted like me for saying the wrong thing.”

  Solis looked at her. “You’re naturally over­wrought,” he began.

  Brun stabbed at the keyboard with such emphasis that his voice trailed away, and he waited. “I am tired, sore, hungry, and extremely tired of having no voice, but I am not overwrought. Could you define the right amount of ‘wrought’ for someone in my position? Those children were stolen from their families-their parents were murdered horribly-and they’re in the control of people who were willing to kidnap, rape, and abuse me. How dare you suggest that they are safe enough where they are?”

  “Sera-it’s not my decision. It will be the admiral’s, if she can make it without authorization from the Grand Council, which I doubt.”

  “Then I will see the admiral,” Brun said.

  “It will be some time before we can rendezvous safely,” Solis said. He gave Esmay a long look. “And for the time being, Lieutenant, could you find quar­ters for our guest? I know we’re crowded with extra crew, not to mention prisoners-”

  “Yes, sir,” Esmay said.

  “Prisoners.” That came out in a flat baritone, after they’d left the bridge.

  “Two groups,” Esmay said. “Three different shuttle loads came up to the station after you; one blew ­itself up, but we caught two.”

  She wanted to see them. She wanted to let them see her, free and healthy and-no. She would get her voice back first, and then she would see them.

  “Something to eat?” she keyed.

  “Right away,” Esmay said, and led her to the wardroom. Brun sat revelling in food which someone else had cooked-flavors she was used to, condiments she liked, anything she chose to drink, while watching Esmay covertly. What had Afino’s done to her hair? And for that matter, what could she do about her own hair, which she’d hacked off so blindly with a knife?

  Several days later, with her hair once more a riot of tousled curls, thanks to the crew’s barber, she was ready to tackle Admiral Serrano.

  “You are coming with me,” Brun said. “I need you; I trust you.”

  “You could take Meharry-”

  “Methlin is a dear person . . .” Esmay blinked, imagining what the redoubtable Meharry would think to hear herself so described. “But she is not you. I need you.”

  “I’m the executive officer; I can’t just leave the ship.”

  “Well, then, the admiral can come here. Which do you think she’d like least?”

  Put like that, there was no question. Esmay tracked down Captain Solis and received permission to accompany Brun to the flagship.

  “And it has not escaped my notice,” Solis said, “that almost two years without a voice has not begun to stop that young woman giving orders. We had better get her commissioned, so at least it’s legal.”

  * * *

  Our Texas, Ranger Bowie’s Household

  Prima had known, from the beginning, that this was big trouble coming. She could hardly believe Patience had run off-and in fact it seemed she had been abducted. That happened sometimes, girls stolen away, but usually no one would bother a Ranger’s house­hold. And the man had said, loud enough to be heard, that he had business with Mitch.

  She hadn’t wanted to tell Mitch until she knew for sure what had happened. Mitch was at a meet­ing, an important meeting. But his younger brother Jed had stopped by, as he often did, and when Tertia came in to report that Patience had still not come home, he took it upon himself to find Mitch. He liked to give orders, Jed did, and Prima knew that his ambi­tions went beyond being a Ranger’s brother. He wanted that star for himself, and Mitch couldn’t see any danger in it.

  And then Mitch had come home, in a rage with her for not supervising the girl better; it seemed the woman who’d been captured at the same time as Patience had disappeared from the Crockett Street Nursery. He’d called the older boys and they’d all gone out to search, and he’d sent for the parson to come and preach at her and the women all afternoon.

  It was more than a nuisance; it was baking day, and they had to leave the dough rising to sit in silent rows and listen to Parson Wells lecture them on their laziness and sinfulness. Prima kept her eyes down, respectfully, but she did think it was a shame and a nuisance, to stop hard-working women in their work and make them listen to a scolding about their laziness. And he would go on and on about their sins tainting their children. Prima had trouble with that bit of doctrine: if, hard as she tried, her faults had made poor Sammie a cripple, and Simplicity stupid, then how could the outland women-who had arrived after lives of sin and blas­phemy-bear such beautiful, healthy ­children?

  Mitch had come home late that night, having found not sight nor word of Patience . . . or, presumably, the other woman, the yellow-haired one. Prima wanted to ask about the yellow-hair’s babies, but she knew better. He was in no mood to tolerate any forwardness, even from her. She set the house in order, and waited by the women’s door, but he never came to her. Early the next morning, she heard him leave the house; when she peeked, Jed was with him. She had hardly slept. She heard the roar of a depart­ing shuttle from the spaceport, and sometime later, another, and another.

  A few hours later, a tumult from the boys’ section drew her to its entrance. She could hear their tutor hollering at them, trying to quiet them . . . and then Randy, Tertia’s youngest boy, shot out the door with a clatter of sandaled feet.

  “Daddy’s dead!” he was screaming, at the top of his lungs. Prima caught him. “Lemme go! Lemme go!” He flailed at her.

  The tutor followed close behind. “Prima-put him down.”

  The tutor, though a man, was not Mitch, and she dared look at his face, pale as whey. “What is it?” she asked.

  “That abomination,” he said, through clenched teeth. “She stole a shuttle, and tried to escape. Ranger Bowie and others went after her; there’s been-” Light stabbed through
the windows, a quick shocking flash of blue-white. Prima whirled, suddenly aware of her heart knocking at her ribs.

  The tutor had opened the window and peered out and up. Prima followed him. Outside, cars had stopped cantways, and men were looking up. Prima dared a look into the sky, and saw only patches of blue between white clouds. Ordinary. Unthreat­ening.

  “I want to see the newsvid,” she said to the tutor, and walked into the boys’ part of the house without waiting for his permission.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The newsvid had two excited men yelling into the vid pickup. Prima could hardly make out what they were saying. Escape, pursuit, invasion . . . invasion? Who could be invading them? And why? Mobilization, one of the men said.

  “What is it?” she asked again. The older boys were already moving toward their gunboxes.

  “It’s the end of the world,” one of them said. Daniel, she thought. Secunda’s third.

  “Don’t be silly,” another said. “It’s the heathen, come to try to enforce their dirty ways on us.”

  “Why?” Prima asked. In all her years, no one had ever bothered Our Texas, and she saw no reason why anyone would.

  “Don’t worry,” Daniel said, patting her shoulder. “We’ll protect you. Now you get on back to the women’s side, and keep order.”

  Prima turned to go, still unsure what had hap­pened, and what it could mean. In the kitchen, Secunda and Tertia were quarrelling over the meaning of the bright light, and both turned to her for an answer. “I don’t know,” she said. Who could know? Temptation tickled her . . . no, she dared not risk her soul asking an outlander such questions, but . . . she made up her mind, and went out to the weaving shed.

  “Miriam!” The outlander woman turned from her loom. Her face was tight with tension; she must have seen the light too. “Do you know what that light was?”

  Miriam nodded.

  “Was it from space? From ships?” Another nod, this time with a big grin, a triumphant grin. Miriam mimed a rocket taking off, shooting another rocket.

  Invaders. There were invaders. “Who?” Prima asked the air. “Who would do this? Why?” She jumped when Miriam touched her arm. “What?” Miriam mimed writing. Writing . . . Mitch, she recalled, had threatened to take Miriam’s right hand if she didn’t quit writing; she’d hoped it wouldn’t be necessary because the woman was a gifted weaver. Now she led Miriam to the kitchen and gave her the pad of paper and marker they used for keeping accounts.

  Light is weapon Miriam wrote. Prima squinted, trying to read as fast as Miriam wrote. Weapon, that was clear. Ionizing atmospheric gases. That made no sense; she didn’t know any of the words. Miriam, glancing up, seemed to guess that. Made air glow she wrote. Well, but how could air glow? Air was just air, clear unless there was smoke in it.

  “Who?” Prima asked again. “Who would attack us?”

  Miriam scribbled rapidly. Guerni Republic, Emerald Worlds, Baltic Confederation, Familias Regnant . . . Prima had no idea what those were, besides godless outlanders. Battle in space, not attacking here. Some­one you stole from.

  “We don’t steal!” Prima said, narrowly stopping herself from slapping Miriam. “We are not thieves.”

  Stole me, Miriam wrote. Stole children, women, killed men.

  “That’s not true. You’re lying. The children had no families, and you women were rescued from a life of degradation . . .” But her voice wavered. Miriam had been here for more than ten years; if she still believed she had been stolen, if she had not understood . . .

  I can prove it. Miriam wrote. Get to a trans­mitter-call-find out who that is, and ask them.

  “I can’t do that! You know it’s forbidden. Women do not use men’s technology.” But . . . if she could find out. If it was possible . . .

  I know how. Miriam wrote. It’s easy.

  Forbidden knowledge. Prima glanced around, realized that the others in the kitchen were staring, trying to understand this conversation. “I-I don’t know where such machines are,” she said finally.

  I know how to find them.

  “How?”

  Tall thin things sticking out the top of buildings.

  “It’s still forbidden.” Thinking of looking up at tall thin things made her dizzy in her mind. Thinking of touching men’s machines was worse.

  We can look at the newsfeed. She must mean the machine kept for the women to watch religious broadcasts.

  “How? I don’t know how to set it up.”

  I do.

  Miriam went to the closet where it was kept, and pulled it out. More than a little afraid, Prima helped her pull it, on its cart, into the back kitchen where there were extra electrical outlets. Miriam uncoiled the nest of wires that Mitch had left, and plugged this one and that one into the back and sides of the machine. Prima had no idea which went where, and kept expecting the machine to burst into flame. Instead, it made a faint frying noise and then a picture appeared, the same back­ground as the one she’d seen on the boys’ side. This time only one man looked back at her. Miriam kept tinkering with the machine, and suddenly it had a different picture, crisp and colorful . . . men in strange uniforms, very odd-looking.

  Prima felt faint suddenly. Some of those odd-looking men in uniform were women. The view narrowed, concentrating on one of them, a woman with dark skin and eyes, and silver hair. Miriam touched one of the machine’s front controls, and a voice spoke.

  “-Return of children captured with the piracy of the ship Elias Madero. Return of infant children born to Sera Meager during captivity-” Prima felt behind her for the table and leaned against it. That yellow-hair . . . this must be about that yellow-hair. “-Ships are destroyed; your orbital station is destroyed. To avoid more damage and loss of life, you are urged to cooperate with us. This message is being transmitted on loop until we receive a reply.”

  Ships destroyed. Mitch’s ship? Was he dead? Prima felt the weight of that loss. If Mitch was dead, someone else would be Ranger Bowie, and she-she and the rest of Mitch’s wives and children-would belong to Mitch’s brother Jed, if he lived. Jeffry, if Jed had died.

  The sound of gunfire in the street brought her upright. “Turn that off,” she said to Miriam. “Before we get in trouble. Put a-a tablecloth over it.” She knew she should put it away, but if Mitch was not dead there might be more news of him, and she could not bring herself to lose that connection. “It’s past lunchtime, and we haven’t served,” she scolded, brushing past the questions the other women wanted to ask. “Feed the children, come on now. Feed them, put the babies down for naps. What would Ranger Bowie think, if he saw us like this!”

  They were washing up when Jed arrived, white-faced and barely coherent. “Prima-it’s terrible news. Mitch is dead or captive; all the Rangers are. Get me food, woman! I have to-somebody has to take over-” Prima scurried out, driving the maids away; she would serve him herself. Safer. When she had piled his plate with roast and potatoes and young beans, she summoned Miriam.

  “Turn it on, but keep it low. Be ready to hide it again.”

  The next time she came through the kitchen, all the grown women were clustered around it. This time the face on the screen was a woman in a decent dress-or at least a dress. Dark hair streaked silver-an older woman.

  “She says the yellow-hair was a big man’s ­daughter.”

  Oh, Mitch . . . ambition diggeth pits for the ­unwary . . .

  “She says our men murdered people and stole things . . .”

  “That’s a lie,” Prima said automatically. Then she gasped as the screen showed Mitch-sitting miserably at a table, not eating, with men she knew around him. Terry . . . John . . . and there was the Captain, Ranger Travis.

  “-Rangers are either captive, or dead.” That was the voice from the machine, with its curious clipped way of speaking. The way Patience had spoken at first.

  “Prima! Get out here!” That was Jed, bellowing as usual. Prima scurried away, resenting once again that part of Scripture which would give her to
this man just because he was Mitch’s brother.

  * * *

  Mitch Pardue came to in the belly of the whale, a vast shadowy cold cavern as it seemed. He blinked, and the threatening curves around him resolved into something he recognized instantly as part of a spaceship. Not the shuttle, though, and not the space station he’d been on. He looked around cautiously. There on the deck nearby were a score of his fellows, most still slackly unconsious, one or two staring at him with expressions of fright.

  Where were they? He pushed himself up, and only then gathered his wits sufficiently to realize that he was dressed in a skimpy shipsuit with no boots, with plastic shackles on his ankles. He felt his heart pounding before he identified the fright that shook him. He cleared his throat . . . and stiffened in outrage and terror. No. It could not be. He tried again, forming a soft word with his mouth, and no sound emerged.

  He looked around frantically-on one side of him the bodies of his own crew, men he knew well, now more of them awake, and mouthing silent protests. On the other, another clump of men he knew-Pete Robertson’s bunch, he was sure-beginning to stir, to attempt speech, to show in their faces the panic and rage he felt in his own.

  The troops that entered sometime later did not surprise him; he braced himself for torture or death. But after checking his shackles, they simply stood by the bulkhead, alert and dangerous, waiting for what­ever would come.

  He should rally his men and jump them. He knew that, as he knew every word of Scripture he’d been told to memorize. But lying there, mute and hobbled, he couldn’t figure out how. He turned his head again, and saw Terry watching him. Get ready he tried to mouth. Terry just stared at him blankly. He nodded, sharply; Terry shook his head.

  The women had been able to lipspeak to each other; some of them had a hand language too. Men should be able-he tried again, this time looking past Terry to Bob. Bob mouthed something he couldn’t figure out in return, and looked scared. Mitch was plumb disgusted. Giving up this way, what were they? He rolled over to attempt some­thing with Pete, but one of the guards had moved, and was making very clear gestures with his weapon. Mitch looked closer. Her weapon.