The Legacy of Lehr (3 page)

The captain gulped, suddenly breathing hard, and backed off further as the cage passed, surreptitiously wiping clammy palms on the sides of his maroon uniform trousers—he had never liked cats of any sort—then resumed his previous scowl as a large, heavyset man in gray fatigues came down the ramp and started to join the others. Fleet commodore's insignia gleamed on his collar tabs, and the Imperial cipher on his sleeve. The name flash above the right breast pocket identified him as the very man the captain had been looking for.

“Commodore Seton, I believe?”

Mather turned to appraise the captain, a bland expression on his round, pleasant face.

“Yes, I'm Seton. You must be Captain Lutobo. I'm sorry we had to commandeer your vessel, Captain, but as I explained, we're acting under direct Imperial orders.”

He stuck out his hand in the captain's direction, but Lutobo pointedly ignored it.

“You said that you were on urgent Imperial business,” Lutobo said in a cold voice. “You implied that it was a matter of the utmost urgency. You did not say that it was to transport specimens for the Emperor's zoo! I don't know whether it's occurred to you or not, Commodore, or whether you even care, but the Gruening Line has a reputation to maintain. It cannot do that if officious Imperial procurers interrupt its schedules for frivolous purposes.”

Mather had lowered his hand at Lutobo's outburst, and now he tucked his thumbs casually into the waistband of his trousers. Though the movement did not appear to be obviously calculated, it did draw the fabric of his jacket more closely against his side, outlining with frank clarity the butt of the needler he wore beneath his left arm. Beneath a shock of light brown hair trimmed slightly longer than military regulations prescribed, the hazel eyes were clear of any menace; the voice was calm and carefully neutral, but the promise of cold power was there, nonetheless.

“I hardly think that you're in a position to judge whether the emperor's ‘whims' are ‘frivolous,' Captain,” Mather said quietly. “And while less flexible men than myself might feel obliged to take offense at your implied insult, I'm sure you reacted out of genuine concern for your own duties, just as I am trying to be faithful to mine. I assure you that my people and I will do everything within our power to help you make up the time you've lost by this unscheduled stop.”

Lutobo blinked, taken aback by Mather's mild yet unmistakably firm reponse, and folded his hands behind his back, drawing himself up straighter.

“I apologize if I spoke a little hastily, Commodore,” he conceded. “However, I'm afraid there's nothing you can do to make up for the delay. Aside from the fact that we've already lost our chance at the new speed record this time out and my crew will forfeit their bonuses, I cannot risk my passengers' comfort by making extra jumps, or by making scheduled ones too close together. The Gruening Line's reputation is built even more on passenger safety and comfort than it is on punctuality. My superiors would not support any action that endangered this reputation.”

Mather spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I understand perfectly, Captain. However, it may be that I can assist your navigation staff to fine-tune a few of your scheduled jumps. It won't get you your record, but we might at least make up for some of the lost time that way. I—ah—have some acquaintance with the Margall-Seton drive.”

“I appreciate the offer, Commodore, but—wait a minute! You aren't
that
Seton, are you?” Lutobo blurted.

Mather grinned. “No, but my aunt was. Seriously, Captain, I'd like to help, if you'll let me.”

“Well, maybe we
could
manage to—”

But before he could say just what they might be able to manage, he was interrupted by one of the purser's yeomen, who came hurrying into his line of sight with a look of concern on her usually controlled face.

“Captain, there's been a disturbance up on the observation deck.” She glanced over her shoulder, with both men's eyes automatically following the direction of her glance. “One of the passengers went into some kind of hysterical fit and started making a scene. He managed to get several other passengers upset in the process, and the deck officer had to close the observation level.”

“What about the passenger?” Lutobo asked. “Is he all right?”

“That I couldn't tell you, sir. It was one of the Aludran pilgrims. You know how private they are. His mate apparently took him in charge and they went back to their cabin, but someone from Medical Section probably ought to check on him. One of the other passengers said the Aludran was screaming something about demons.”

“Demons?” Lutobo said.

“He probably saw one of my cats,” Mather muttered under his breath. “As I recall, Aludran demons are green rather than blue, but other than that, they do look rather a lot like Lehr cats.”

Lutobo sighed. “I could have gone all day without hearing that, Commodore.”

“Sorry, Captain.”

Lutobo shook his head wearily and rubbed at the nape of his neck. “Well, we'll have to continue our conversation at a later time, I suppose. Will you excuse me?”

“Of course, Captain.”

As Mather turned to go back up the ramp, where two more Rangers were bringing along the next cage, Lutobo followed the yeoman back to the purser's desk.

“Mister Diaz, how many Aludrans do we have aboard, this trip?”

The purser pushed a last folder onto the pile he had been building and shook his head. “Only five or six, sir. Did you want a list of names?”

The captain snorted softly under his breath, then shook his head as well. “Never mind. I'll have Doctor Shannon do it. I was going to stop by Medical Section anyway. This whole morning has given me a splitting headache.”

“Sorry to hear that, sir.” The purser raised a hopeful eyebrow. “But if you're going to Medical Section anyway, would you take these medical records on the new passengers? Doctor Shannon will want to get them integrated into the files as soon as possible.”

With a shrug and a gesture of futility, Lutobo picked up the stack of chip cards that were the medical records and sighed, then began to make his way across the shuttle bay toward the crew lift. Behind him, Mather Seton watched his Rangers float a third cat cage down the ramp of the shuttle ship, its occupant screaming with a sound like ripping metal.

CHAPTER 2

“If they send me back to Tejat on the
Valkyrie
, I'm going to take you dancing, Doctor,” said the legless man, managing a courageous grin as he made his antigravity harness lift him awkwardly off the treatment table. “I mean that, so you'd better start limbering up your dancing slippers.”

Doctor Shivaun Shannon, Chief Medical Officer aboard the
Valkyrie
, gave the young major a wink and an answering smile and locked away the rest of the sanity-saving pain medication for another twelve hours. “I'll be looking forward to it, Major, but by then there are going to be dozens of other women just falling over themselves to dance with you. By the time you've got those new legs grown, you'll probably have forgotten all about me.”

“You think I could forget you, Doc?” The major made his harness lift him to standing height and took one of Shannon's hands with his free one, trying to twirl her. “I'd dance with you now, except that the other passengers might get jealous. Besides”—they both laughed as
he
twirled instead of her—“this blasted harness won't cooperate! I'm going to keep practicing, though. I just might get it right before we arrive at the Med Center.”

“You might,” Shannon said lightly, taking advantage of his weightless condition to propell him gently in the direction of the door, “but I'm afraid it's only a briefly useful talent. You'll have new legs again before you know it. Seriously, though, if you exert yourself too much, your painkiller isn't going to last the full twelve hours, and you'll be hurting until I can give you the next dose. Run along now, and try to stay reasonably quiet.”

“Spoilsport!”

“Yes, I know. I'm a cruel, heartless doctor, with absolutely no sympathy for a gallant war hero. Goodbye, Major.”

“'Bye, Doc.”

Shannon was still smiling as the major floated off down the corridor, and the twinkle in her eyes softened even Lutobo's dour expression as he approached from the other direction.

“You're awfully cheerful this morning, Doctor.”

“Well, it helps the patients feel better, Captain. Ah, I see that Mister Diaz has conned you into bringing me the records on the new passengers, hasn't he?”

Lutobo snorted good-naturedly as he handed them over. “Somehow, I always manage to forget that Diaz has as much blarney in his blood as you do—though you'd never know it by the name. At least yours got Major Barding smiling this morning.”

“Indeed, it did. He's even promised to take me dancing on the way home.”

She dropped the handful of medical chips into a holding bin on the reception desk and started to ask why
Lutobo
wasn't smiling, but decided to stick with the more neutral subject of Barding as the captain gestured toward her inner office with an expression that warned against further levity.

“Actually, Barding's doing pretty well—if he'd just stop overdoing things, so his pain medication would last the full time. The poor man goes through hell the last hour or so.”

“And I'm going through my own hell right now, Doctor,” Lutobo muttered, following her into the office and closing the door. “What have you got for a good, pounding headache?”

“Well, ‘good' and ‘pounding' are rather diametrically opposed when talking about a headache,” Shannon said, sitting at her desk and opening a drawer. Controlling a smile, she added, “But then, I suppose that depends a lot on what caused it.”

She shook a white capsule from a vial and handed it across to Lutobo, who gulped it gratefully before sitting down.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked.

Closing his eyes, Lutobo rubbed both hands hard across his face and sat back in the chair.

“Do you know what the ‘special' cargo was, the reason we diverted to B-Gem?”

“I'm sure I don't, Captain.”

“It was
cats
!” Lutobo's tone conveyed all the contempt of the avowed ailurophobe. “Four big, hairy blue cats for the emperor's zoo. They scream like banshees. I don't know how Diaz and his people were managing to conduct business down there. Ugly-looking brutes—the cats, that is.”

As Lutobo looked up at her again, Shannon raised an eyebrow.

“Cats, eh?” She started to chuckle but saw the warning gleam in Lutobo's eyes in time and managed to convert the chuckle to a cough. “Well, I—ah—can understand why you're concerned, Captain. We've lost a lot of time, haven't we? In addition to the bonus pay.”

“Yes. And then, to top it off, there was some kind of disturbance on the observation deck. According to a yeoman, who got it from the purser, who got it from the deck officer, one of the Aludran passengers got hysterical, apparently over the sight of the cats being unloaded, and made enough of a scene that the deck had to be shut down. There was some talk of demons or some such nonsense. I'd like you to check it out.”

“The Aludran?”

Lutobo nodded.

“Do you know which one?” Shannon persisted.

The captain shook his head. “Apparently his mate took him back to their cabin. But if we're going to have aliens berserking aboard my ship, I want to know why. I'd especially like to know what set him off. If it was the cats …”

Shannon sat forward in her chair and nodded. “I'll see what I can find out, Captain. As I recall, there are only six Aludrans, and they all have adjoining quarters. Anything else?”

The captain rose as a low, deep-throated chime sounded throughout the ship, signaling its imminent departure from parking orbit. The previous lines of pain in his face were already easing from the drug.

“Yes, you might check on those cats, when you finish with the Aludrans. Talk to this Commodore Seton, who brought the cats aboard. There's also supposed to be a doctor in his party. Maybe you can learn something from him. And don't let anyone distract you. Our first jump comes up in less than an hour.”

Ten minutes later, Shannon was moving briskly down the corridor toward the Aludrans' quarters, a medical kit slung on her shoulder and a wealth of new information in her mind about these particular Aludrans.

She was already familiar with the racial type, of course. Fledgling physicians were required during their training to dissect cadavers of most of the major physiological groupings, and to complete certain survey courses in alien psychology and culture. The latter training had been augmented in even greater detail when Shannon came to work for the Gruening Line, since a starliner's medical officer might routinely expect to encounter a far larger variety of alien patients than most planetside doctors saw in a lifetime. In two years, Shannon certainly had seen her share.

Lutobo's remark about demons disturbed her, though, for she remembered that the Aludrans were a very mystical people, possessed of an ancient and intricate myth system, and actually believed in supernatural beings. They were also slightly telepathic among themselves, though not with other races—which meant that one terrified Aludran could infect all the others. Her quick review of their medical records confirmed that these particular Aludrans were religious pilgrims bound for a retreat on Tel Taurig, which was to have been the ship's next destination before they diverted to B-Gem. The leader, a
lai
—or priest—called Muon, was a noted lecturer at several major universities both on and off his home planet and carried the reputation of a respected and stable individual—though one could never be really certain when evaluating aliens by human standards. She remembered meeting him briefly at the captain's reception, their first night out, and being impressed.