The Devil and Deep Space (17 page)

Ferinc heard Stanoczk’s language drop into the familiar, intimate mode of address, and felt fear gripping his heart. He hadn’t stopped to think about that. He hadn’t stopped to consider the effect his selfish action might have on Stanoczk at all.

“I don’t want another reconciler.” He had come much closer to the mystical understanding of the Malcontent with Stanoczk as his tutor than he had ever hoped. “How shall I beg to be forgiven? Do not deny me reconciliation, Stanoczk. I couldn’t bear it.”

Stanoczk turned so sharply on his heel that for a moment Ferinc saw Stanoczk’s cousin, and not Stanoczk himself. Koscuisko had had a quickness about him. It had been very unnerving.

“You do not ask forgiveness of any Malcontent, Ferinc, surely you know so basic a thing as that by now. Nor may I deny you reconciliation, even if I wanted to. It is as much as my soul is worth. But neither your wishes nor mine will change the fact that you are not of the Blood. The Malcontent has taken you on trust and out of compassion for your suffering because of the man who is responsible for it, and should I fail to help you to find peace, I fail our divine Patron. May he wander in bliss.”

In bliss and in intoxication. The Malcontent had been a very famous lover of liquor, in his life: liquor, lovemaking, and laughter.

“What happens now?” Ferinc asked, looking at his feet folded beneath him, on the floor. “I want to go back and see him again. I want to be sure Marana is all right. I love Koscuisko’s child, Stanoczk. What am I to do?”

He watched the ash fall from Stanoczk’s lefrol to the floor, and shuddered. Stanoczk turned back toward the table, and sat down.

“I will bring the Bench specialist to the Matredonat, Ferinc, she will an interview with Koscuisko conduct. You may during that time speak to the lady. The Second Judge still believes that she needs this Judiciary to win her bid, and has offered concessions that we want. We particularly need to secure them before Chilleau Judiciary comes to understand that it need not sue to the Combine for victory.”

Was Stanoczk speaking of neutral issues to calm his nerves, to avoid an unpleasant necessity?

“If she has so much support, it bodes well for the transition, doesn’t it?” Clearly the more people that supported Chilleau Judiciary, the fewer who would be rioting when the Selection was announced.

Stanoczk shook his head, however. “The transition may run well, Ferinc, you will be glad that you are sequestered and here before too much longer, though, I think. Will you speak to Koscuisko, and seek peace?”

Yes.

No.

He’d had fantasies. But after what had happened to him at the airfield, Ferinc had to admit to himself that he did not have the nerve. “If you think I ought, Stanoczk. What shall I say?”

Stanoczk shook his head. His expression had grown less serious, less stern, and he was leaning back in the chair with his knees splayed at a very informal angle, a very much more relaxed picture indeed. “It was a question, not a challenge, Ferinc. I see it all so clearly. ‘Hello, you may not remember me, but you had cause to discipline me once, and since then I have been providing comfort to your wife and a role model for your son. I only thought that you should know because I have no hard feelings.’ Yes. I can imagine.”

When Stanoczk put it that way, it did sound funny. Not a threat at all. Encouraged, Ferinc put what he could only hope was an expression suitably mild and innocent on his face, and shifted on the floor so that his knees were underneath him, and he was that much closer to Stanoczk. He was taller than Stanoczk. He was almost eye to eye with him, and could set his elbow to the table to look up into Stanoczk’s skeptical face confidingly.

“Shall I just go and get started on a suitable speech, then?”

It was a very cheeky thing to say to one’s religious teacher, the official representative of the religious order that had taken him in those years gone by and made the Fleet forgive the charges brought against him for desertion. Ferinc was counting on that.

And Stanoczk laughed. “You’d be better advised to give some serious consideration where you are here and now, if you hope to avoid falling into error. It is my opinion that you have gone too long without adequate reconciliation, it will take days to sort you out, and that will have to wait. Still. We have some hours. And so you may be confident that I mean to examine you with the strictest diligence, within the limits of the time that we have here and now.”

Oh, he could write his speech for Koscuisko tomorrow, then. Because when Stanoczk was minded to be thorough the process of reconciliation could go on and on. Rigorous though it was there was no substitute for the deep and profound peace, the inner security, the sense of calm and well–being that resulted from the reconciliation of the Malcontent.

There was water and a warmer, rhyti and food. The cell was small, but it was a secure safe place, and there was a thick pile of bearskins in the corner to guard against the chill as the hours wore on. He was alone with Stanoczk, whom the Malcontent in his mercy had granted to Ferinc to reconcile his pain with the mysteries of the Holy Mother’s Creation. There was nothing he could say to Stanoczk that would surprise, shock, or offend him; he was safe to open the dark agonies of his soul, and know that Stanoczk would handle him gently.

For these few hours he could be as happy as if he’d never even met Andrej Koscuisko.

###

Another day, General Rukota told himself, swallowing back his sigh of resignation. Another hostile and combative communiqué from Pesadie Training Command.

“Acting Captain ap Rhiannon.” The voice of the recorded image of Admiral Brecinn on view in the Captain’s office gave every ounce of the venom doubtless intended to the word
acting
, to emphasize ap Rhiannon’s tenuous claim to any rank at all. “We all approve of thoroughness. In theory. But it has been eight days.”

“I fully endorse Pesadie Training Command’s desire for a careful and complete investigation.” Ap Rhiannon’s own voice on record was smooth and validating in turn, for all the world as if she had believed that to be what the Admiral was saying. Rather than exactly the opposite. Rukota looked to ap Rhiannon, who was sitting alone in the briefing pit. She was drawing circles in spilt shirmac tea on the table in front of her, not meeting his eyes.

Rukota could appreciate that. It was one thing to say the words once; quite another to maintain that brazen composure the second time through, listening to herself. Knowing how confrontational the words had been. “It is for this reason that we so much appreciate the continued support of Pesadie Training Command, Admiral Brecinn. The investigation is well under weigh. We hope for completion within seventy days.”

The Admiral, to her credit, had not actually sputtered. “See if you can’t find some way to hurry things along. I have no intention of allowing the monopolization of my valuable personnel resources. That will be all, Lieutenant.”

Rukota couldn’t really blame Brecinn for “Lieutenant.” Ap Rhiannon had provoked her. And yet ap Rhiannon hadn’t done it to be provoking; she appeared to have a genuine motive that Rukota had not yet been able to decide if he could credit.

The record stopped. Ap Rhiannon looked up from her artwork with an expression of anxious tension on her face. “I don’t like her,” ap Rhiannon said, as though there had been any doubt. “I don’t suppose that you could shut her up for me.”

Rukota shook his head, walking slowly to the briefing pit to sit down. “You know better than that, your Excellency.” He didn’t mind giving her the rank. She had to deal with Brecinn, after all. “And in every conflict, there is usually a point on either side. With respect. But your Engineer is a very difficult man. And it’s catching.”

Don’t shoot me, I’m an artilleryman. I only fire the cannon. I don’t even know what’s on the other end of the round.
It was an old joke. Rukota wondered if he dared make it.

Ap Rhiannon frowned. “Difficult, how do you mean ‘difficult’? You know what he’s been given to work with. If he hadn’t had an attitude problem to rub off on Engineering, Engineering’s attitude would have rubbed off on him. And I don’t blame them either. You can see the environment Fleet expects this crew to deal with.”

Rukota stretched his legs out in front of him and studied the toes of his boots. What was on ap Rhiannon’s mind? She was crèche–bred. Troops were disposable, for crèche–bred. Duty to the rule of Law was everything. “That’s no excuse for failure to cooperate, your Excellency. We all have our own challenges.”

The look she gave him was equal parts confusion, anger, and disappointment. “Some of us more than most, General, and none of which include volunteering for martyrdom. Brecinn is not going to turn this into a training accident. The training accident was strictly coincidental.”

That was stating things a little strongly. He knew what she meant, though. But how far was she willing to take it? This was a side of ap Rhiannon he hadn’t seen before. She appeared to have personal feelings about the matter. He hadn’t thought crèche–bred were issued any personal feelings.

“It’s a reasonable suspicion, your Excellency, be fair. I’m not Fleet’s most particular officer. You know that.” He was in fact not very keen on rank and protocol unless he needed them to get the job done. Ap Rhiannon did not insult him by pretending to protest anything to the contrary, so he continued without any such hypocritical interruptions.

“But I’ve seen things on board of this ship that could make even me wonder. Another officer might easily decide to call the complaints seditious. And Brem was the third of the
Ragnarok
’s officers to go. It’s only been a few months, hasn’t it?”

She stood up suddenly, with a gesture whose angry violence startled him. “No, General. Any such expressions of discontent are more than understandable. You should have a look at the
Ragnarok
’s transfer history sometime; it’s fascinating. Fleet has been packing us with problems for years. I don’t like feeling like a target, General, but if this ship hasn’t been set up as a fire–ship, I’ve never seen a fire–ship in my life.”

Fire–ship. It took him a moment, then he understood. She meant that Fleet was using this ship to warehouse its undesirables until such time as Fleet could wipe them all out in one swift conflagration.

“I’ll grant you that the mess has fallen to near–punitive levels.” There was no point in mentioning that ap Rhiannon herself fell into that category, because ap Rhiannon was thickheaded and stubborn and difficult but she wasn’t stupid. “But that doesn’t mean Fleet’s willing to throw lives away, your Excellency. Your concern gets the better of you.”

As soon as Rukota said it he wished he hadn’t, because that was clearly exactly what Brecinn had in mind, and what ap Rhiannon was resisting with every weapon at her disposal. Ap Rhiannon had few weapons compared to the commanding officer of Pesadie Training Command, so perhaps it was inevitable that her deployment lacked finesse.

How had the Bench failed Jennet ap Rhiannon?

She was crèche–bred. She had been raised to show no tolerance for disloyal behavior or qualified opinions on anybody’s part. Anybody — peers, subordinates, superiors. But the crew of the
Ragnarok
sounded like a crew with serious problems of disaffection, and ap Rhiannon was defending them. Not calling in a Fleet Interrogations Group to conduct a purge.

She smiled at the wall where the image of the Admiral had been. “You’re very right, General. Nobody’s throwing any lives away. These are my lives. I’m responsible to the Bench for them. And I’m not letting a single soul on board of this ship pass into Fleet’s hands without a fight.”

There were in some ways some aspects of ap Rhiannon’s own behavior that could possibly be potentially interpreted as giving the appearance of mutinous intent.

Rukota stood up slowly, but with determination. He had to get out of here. Something in the atmosphere was clearly affecting his brain. The atmosphere scrubbers were failing. Yes. That had to be the explanation.

“By your leave, your Excellency. I’ll be getting back to trying to ignore my preliminary assessment team.”

If one of Fleet’s own prized paragons of devotion to the rule of Law could sound like a battery with its primer gone bad, there was no longer any sense nor reason in the world.

###

The plasma–sheath generators near the leading edge of the
Ragnarok
’s upper hull spooled their atoms–thin gauze in a ceaseless churning. Filament–tissue, invisible to the average hominid under Jurisdiction, fabric flowing like water up over the carapace hull and down along the maintenance atmosphere in constant motion, the sheath both protected
Ragnarok
and fed its great fusion converters, pulling the trapped dust and debris of both planetary and interstellar space into the ship’s engines.

Passing through the energy inferno, the sheath was constantly cleansed of matter and cycled back to the outer hull once more. Self–healing, tolerant of whole shuttlecraft passing through, and yet capable of absorbing the constant bombardment of subatomic matter, the plasma sheath fed the
Ragnarok
on whatever space had to offer, guarding the hull jealously — guarding the lives within.

Feeding the ship, and cleaning it, the sheath carried the industrial waste of the furnace process itself the entire circuit of its rounds to pass the dross back through the fusion converters and abandon it to nuclear disassociation.

The entire process was below the level of the
Ragnarok
’s consciousness, like breathing. Engineering was aware of it, in the background, and kept a close watch on the rate of spool and the yield from the outside, but for the most part, plasma–sheath generation was entrusted to ship’s computers.

Like the normal breathing of the average animal, occasionally something irritated one of the generators, and it coughed.

There was a little remote traveling in the plasma stream, as if dropped there through the cyclers at some point after that portion of the fabric of the sheath had left the furnace. Just a little smaller than one of the spooling–ports, perfectly round and smooth — catching on nothing — it fell from the ship embedded in the plasma, like a piece of grit surrounded by a protective layer of mucoid tissue.