Sector VII HQ
Casea Ferradi was having more luck with blackening Esmay Suiza's name than with capturing Barin Serrano. She had managed to get herself assigned to Admiral Hornan's personal staff with only the slightest, insigificant pressure on the major—now lieutenant commander—she'd known so well on her first ship. Everyone knew she'd been Suiza's classmate, so her opinion had been asked more than once—she hadn't had to create opportunities to talk about Esmay. With Suiza off on leave to her home planet, Casea didn't even have to worry about contradiction.
"And she really said she thought the Great Families were a ridiculous institution?"
Casea didn't answer directly; she stared thoughtfully into the distance in a way that suggested noble reticence. "I think it's because Altiplano has no Chair in Council," she said, after a long pause. Neither did the Crescent Worlds, but that didn't matter. "There's no tradition of respect, you see."
"I'm surprised they didn't notice anything when she was in the Academy," Master Chief Pell said. He was, though enlisted, senior enough to have access to files in which Casea had particular interest.
"She kept a low profile," Casea said. "Actually, so did I—we were both outsiders in a way, you know. That's why we were together so much, and why I didn't realize that what she said was important." She shook her head, regretting her own innocence. "Then I got absorbed into things, you see, and just . . . didn't notice."
"It's not
your
fault," Pell said, just as she had meant him to say.
"Perhaps not," Casea said. "But I still feel bad about it. If I'd only known, maybe all this could've been prevented."
Pell looked confused. "I don't see how—"
She should have picked a brighter one. "I mean," Casea said, edging nearer to her intended message, "if I'd realized how bitter she was toward the Families, perhaps she would never have had any influence on Sera Meager."
Pell blinked. "You can't mean—she actually had something to do with the capture itself? I thought that was accidental; she just happened to enter the same system where they were plundering that merchanter . . ."
"A very handy coincidence, don't you think? And Sera Meager had traveled widely . . . I find myself wondering why she happened to take that particular shortcut at that particular time."
"And you think Lieutenant Suiza told her about that? Or told them—"
"I don't suppose we'll ever know," Casea said. The chances of this rescue succeeding were, in her unspoken opinion, so close to zero as made no difference.
"But—but does the Admiral know about this? That would be treason . . ."
"I'm sure someone else has thought of it," Casea said. "I'm only a lieutenant, and it occurred to me . . ."
"But you knew her before," he said. "Those more senior might not know what she said at the Academy."
"Well . . ." Casea feigned reluctance, though it was getting harder. She had trailed this particular theory across several potential helpers, and so far had no takers. Even Sesenta Veron, who had been telling his own wicked-Suiza stories, thought it was impossible.
"I think you ought to tell the Admiral," Pell said. Then, with returning caution, "It would help if you had any documentation."
"I'm afraid not," Casea said. "The only files which might contain useful references are all well out of my clearance."
The following silence lasted so long she almost gave up, but at last Pell's sluggish processors put two and two together. "Oh! You need access. Er . . . what files did you have in mind?"
"I did just wonder if anything had come up during the investigation of that mutiny."
"But surely you don't think—I mean, she was
decorated
for that action—"
"I think they might have been asking questions they didn't ask before," Casea said. "Even if they didn't look too carefully at the answers."
Pell shook his head. "It won't be easy, Lieutenant, but I'll see what I can do. I'll have to see who I can talk to over in legal . . . but I'll let you know."
"Thanks," Casea said, giving him the full benefit of her violet gaze and her smile. "I just want to help."
Barin Serrano was used to Fleet politics; he had grown up in that dangerous sea. He navigated the tricky currents of influence at the task force headquarters with care, noticing which competing Fleet families were taking advantage of Lord Thornbuckle's present annoyance with the Serrano name. The Livadhis were split, as usual: some were proclaiming their friendship and loyalty to various Serrano seniors like his grandmother, while others were passing snide remarks in the junior officers' recreation areas. Barin ignored the insults, but kept track. Someone in the family would need to know this, when he had enough data.
In another compartment of his busy brain, he began looking for signs of trouble in other master chief petty officers. Once is accident, twice is coincidence . . . he was willing to admit that Zuckerman could be an accident, and the others he'd heard of only as rumors, but if they were true . . . something was going on. His captain would've reported it, but in the present crisis, would anyone listen?
His duties consisted mostly of hand-carrying data cubes back and forth; he spent plenty of time kicking his heels in someone's front office, and thus had plenty of time to chat with people with lots of time-in-grade.
" . . . Like you take Chief Pell," an impossibly perky female pivot-major was saying. "I don't know if it's the strain of all this, or what, but he's not the man he was last Fleet Birthday."
"Really?" Barin's mental ears rose.
"No. Why, the other day I had to look up access codes for legal investigations for him—I'm not even supposed to know the lockout sequences, but he started asking me to keep track of that six months ago—and he couldn't remember
any
of them."
"My, my," Barin said, his mind flickering over the reasons why Admiral Hornan's chief administrative NCO would be poking into legal investigations now, when supposedly the admiral was after Barin's grandmother's job as task force commander. Was he trying to get something on Heris Serrano, who had been through a sticky legal process? "I don't suppose you'd know whose files he was sucking . . . ?"
"That awful Esmay Suiza," the pivot-major said, with a toss of her head. "The one that practically
sold
poor Lord Thornbuckle's daughter to the pirates."
Barin managed not to leap over the desk and snap the girl's neck, but it was an effort.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" he murmured.
"Well, everybody knows she hated her. And I heard Lieutenant Ferradi say that if everyone had known what
she
knew about Lieutenant Suiza, she'd never have been allowed
near
Sera Meager."
Barin mentally moved a marker in his head to change Casea Ferradi's label from "nuisance" to "enemy."
"She's so beautiful, isn't she?" cooed the pivot-major.
"Mmm?"
"Lieutenant Ferradi. You're lucky she likes you; she could have any man on the base."
"She probably has," Barin said without thinking; he looked up to find her outraged, glaring at him. "—Them all thinking about her," he amended quickly. She held the glare long enough to let him know she wasn't convinced, then relaxed.
"She's a fine officer, and Chief Pell thinks so too. So does the admiral."
Did he . . . did he indeed. Barin went out thinking hard in several directions, and nearly ran over the fine, beautiful Lieutenant Ferradi.
"Oh—Ensign—"
"Yes, sir?" He managed to smile at her.
"Have you heard anything from Lieutenant Suiza?"
"No, sir. I believe the lieutenant is on leave, isn't she?"
"Yes, but—actually I wanted to talk to you about her."
Now it was coming. He gripped his temper firmly by the collar, and waited.
"I know you . . . used to be friends."
"We served together on
Koskiusko
," Barin said.
"I know. And I heard you were friends. And I'm sorry, but—I think you should know that continuing that friendship would not be in your best professional interest."
As if Ferradi cared about his professional standing, other than to take advantage of his family name.
"I have not had any contact with Lieutenant Suiza since Copper Mountain," Barin said.
"Very wise," she said, approving.
Barin headed back to
Gyrfalcon
's berth, hoping that Captain Escovar was aboard. This time he knew when to call for help.
Escovar was not aboard; he was at another meeting.
"Is there something I could answer?" asked Lieutenant Commander Dockery. Barin hesitated only a moment.
"Yes, sir, quite possibly, but it would be better somewhere else."
"Trouble?"
"Perhaps."
"Sten, you have the bridge," Dockery said. And to Barin, "Come on, then—we'll use the captain's office."
Barin had just time to realize that he might be scuttling several careers, not just his own, when Dockery turned to him.
"Out with it, then. Found another problem with master chiefs?"
Barin's jaw almost dropped. "As a matter of fact, sir, possibly yes. But that's not my main concern."
"Which is?"
Best get it out quickly, before he was tempted to soften it. "Sir, an officer from this ship has accessed records which she has no legitimate interest in, and may have given false information about someone else."
"Hmm . . . that's a serious charge about an indefinite—I presume you have a name for each of these?"
"Yes, sir." Barin took a deep breath. "Lieutenant Ferradi talked a master chief named Pell—who incidentally is known to his juniors to be forgetting things this past year—into accessing Lieutenant Suiza's legal records from the court-martial."
"It didn't occur to you that she might have had orders to do so? She is on Admiral Hornan's staff for the present . . ."
"No, sir. If she'd had orders, she'd have gone through channels, not Chief Pell."
"And you also accuse her of giving false information about Lieutenant Suiza? What kind of false information?"
"She's said a lot of things about what Es—what Lieutenant Suiza was like in the Academy. Now I was too far behind to have witnessed any of this directly, but other people who were there don't have the same account at all."
Dockery pursed his lips. "I know that Lieutenant Ferradi's been interested in you, Ensign—it's been fairly obvious. Scuttlebutt had it that you were . . . 'falling under her spell,' I believe, is the term I heard used most. Are you sure this isn't just a lovers' quarrel you're trying to make official business? Because if so, you're about to be in more trouble than you were in over Zuckerman."
"No, sir, it is not a lover's quarrel. I have no interest in Lieutenant Ferradi and never did."
"Mm. The other rumor was that you had been in love with Esmay Suiza—" Barin felt his face getting hot; the exec nodded. "And so the other possibility I see is that you're accusing Lieutenant Ferradi of unprofessional behavior toward another officer because you're still besotted with Suiza and can't stand to hear her criticized."
"Sir, I became . . . very fond of Lieutenant Suiza when we were both on
Koskiusko
. I think she's a fine officer. We quarrelled at Copper Mountain, over what she'd said to Brun Meager"—and to him, though he wasn't going to mention that at the moment—"and I haven't seen her since. Whether I have a bad case of hero worship, which is what Lieutenant Ferradi's told me, or a friendship, or—or something else, doesn't really matter. What does, is whether the stories Ferradi's spreading about her are true."
"If they were true, what would you think?"
Barin felt a pain in his chest squeezing out hope. "Then, sir—I would have to change my opinion."
"Barin, I'm going to tell you something, in confidence, because right now you need to know it. Casea Ferradi has been trouble for every commander she's had—it's why she's at the back of her class's promotion list—but she's never quite managed to get herself thrown out. If Lieutenant Suiza hadn't had that quarrel with Sera Meager, if Lord Thornbuckle hadn't fastened on her as the scapegoat in this mess, no one would be paying the slightest attention to Ferradi's accusations. Now they are—and if she's so far overreached herself as to break regulations concerning legal paperwork, we've got her at last. Tell me, do you know if Koutsoudas is still running scan on your cousin's ship?"
"I think so, sir." Where was this leading?
"Good. We're going to need really good scan to catch her in the act, because she's no dummy. And by the way, good job on finding Pell. We've found two others here . . . though we haven't figured out what the problem is yet."