"That's right, it did. Old
Harkness
that was, who'd survived two full-scale engagements with Benignity battle groups, and because of one stupid idiot, she was scrap. Explosion in shuttle maintenance. But that was only the beginning. In those cruisers—and
Harkness
is one reason they're built different now—all the maintenance functions were clustered for efficiency. That included a warren of shops and parts storage lockers and so on, and—again for efficiency, as they saw it—the main nexi for electrical. We didn't just have one fire, or one explosion—captain finally had us cut away the weapons storage—thinkin' every minute the fire would reach us and we'd go up same as others already had—and jettison the whole thing. We fought it for over twenty-eight hours, and at the end we had barely life-support for the remaining live crew. Over three hundred dead, ship completely disabled—they had to take us off in p-suits, transfer us to another ship . . ."
"Hydraulic fluid," Barin said. "I didn't know it would burn."
"They've tried and tried to get something that will work better and be less flammable, but so far—if you vaporize it, and light it, it will go up. And don't forget, it'll slice you like a laser scalpel." The master chief sucked his cheeks for a moment. "Now the other," he said. "That wasn't so bad. Hull breach, but a cold one—heavy missile got through, but it misfired. A bit ticklish getting it out, and the poor fellows in there had died, but not nearly as bad. The only real problem was a youngster who wanted a souvenir, and was workin' away at the fusing access, so's he could get it off and hide it in his locker before we got there. Old Master Chief Meharry just about took his head off then and there. Could have blown us all up, he could."
Barin wondered if that Meharry was related to his aunt's crewmember, Methlin Meharry.
"Here—this is the best data-cube course we have," the master chief said, handing it to Barin. "You learn most from the trouble you live through, but that cube'll take you a bit farther than the others."
"Thanks," Barin said, and resolved to spend every spare moment with it. He would know everything about Troop Deck, from the hull to the plumbing.
What had actually happened in the battle wasn't clear until well into the next day, when the captain made an announcement to the crew. "We came out of jump to find a couple of mutineers—the admiral expected that, so we had everything hot. They were mining the jump point, but we blew through the first cordon with no damage, and all enemy ships are destroyed. We're credited with half a kill."
Barin wondered how they knew the other ships were mutineers—if they had stopped to ask questions, the battle might have been more even, and far more dangerous for him.
The battle group would stay insystem long enough to pick up the loose mines, then mine the jump point with its own, programmed to accept the changed Fleet IDs which the mutineers shouldn't have.
Brun Meager stroked the length of the pool, and splashed water on the woman lounging beside it. "Kate—come on in. You're being lazy."
"The water's cold," Kate Briarley said. "I'd get cramp." The Lone Star Confederation Ranger had changed into a swimsuit, but had a towelling robe around her shoulders. Her datapad and comunit were beside her, as well as one of her many weapons, this one a black-matte needler.
"You'd get exercise," Brun said. "Your whole planet can't be warm." Kate grinned, but shook her head. Brun rolled over and swam down the pool again. The water wasn't cold; the water was just right, as long as she kept moving. On her way back, she saw Kate was sitting up, talking into a comunit. Brun ignored her and flipped into a turn for another lap. She needed to work off tension anyway. Soon—in a day or so anyway—she would have to do something about her mother. And she had no idea what. She stretched, revelling in the feel of her body's strength and agility, the flow of cool water past her shoulders, her hips, her legs.
As she came back down the pool, this time in sidestroke, she saw Kevil Mahoney come out of the house. He walked better now, without any aids, but unevenly. Would a rejuv help that? He couldn't afford it, not until they straightened out his financial problems, but she could provide it. She made a mental note to talk to the family medical advisors about it as she rolled into a crawl, and powered off the last fifteen meters, hoisting herself at the end with a rush of water.
"Breakfast out here?" she asked. Then she blinked the water out of her eyes and saw their expressions. "What now?"
"Hobart's dead."
"What?"
"Hobart Conselline is dead. At the hands of a visiting fencing master, if you can believe that."
Brun grabbed a towel from the stack and scrubbed her head with it. She dropped that one, grabbed another to wrap around her shoulders. "When did this happen?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
"And we're only finding out now—?"
"His sept put a lock on the news, to locate all the Barraclough Chairholders before it was announced."
"His sept—!" Brun clamped her teeth together for a moment. "I see." She reached out to the table already set for breakfast, and touched its pad. "Staff—change of plans; we'll be eating inside, in the library. I'll be going in to the city as soon as I've dressed and eaten."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Kate asked.
"I'm sure it's necessary." Brun looked at Kevil. He said nothing—he wouldn't, outside in an unsecured field—but his expression ended any doubts she might have had.
It still felt strange to her, this sense of mastery that had come during her first Grand Council meeting after her father's death. It felt strange to walk into Appledale as if she owned it, even though she did, strange to feel no guilt about leaving wet footprints on the Issai carpets as she hurried upstairs. "I'll need a secure comlink to Buttons," she said to the guard on station in the entry hall—an innovation of Kate's that she now recognized as necessary.
Upstairs, in the room she had always occupied, she toweled off, and stood a moment scowling at her wardrobe. Pregnancy had changed her body enough that many of her old clothes didn't fit. Dark mourning made her look sick; she needed to look healthy and competent. Finally she chose a tailored suit in steel gray, and tucked a blue-patterned scarf into the neckline.
When she came down, Kevil and Kate were in the library, already loading their plates from a serving table. Kate had changed from the red swimsuit into one of her less-flamboyant Lone Star suits, this one pale blue. Her high-heeled fringed boots were beside her chair; her stockinged feet looked absurd in the deep carpet.
"It's clean," Kate said, waving at the room. Brun checked the scans and fields herself anyway and saw Kate nod approvingly.
"So—a fencing master went bonkers and killed Hobart. What else?"
"His sept claims it's conspiracy. By the Barracloughs—by you, in fact."
"What, in retaliation for my father's murder?"
"Except that they don't admit having him killed." Kevil prodded a sausage and sighed. "I'm not supposed to eat these things."
"Oh, live dangerously," Kate said, around a mouthful of bacon. Brun glanced at her. Kate had never been pregnant; maybe that's why she could eat the way she did, lounge about while Brun exercised, and not gain an ounce.
"I did," Kevil said, with a grin. "That's what got me in this mess." But he forked up a bite of sausage.
"Since I know I didn't hire any fencing masters to cut Hobart's head off—" Brun got that far and noticed that the others weren't moving. "What?"
"That's how it was done. Decapitation."
Brun looked at them, one after the other. "You're serious? His head—? Yes, I see you are. And so, he had his head cut off, and I mentioned it, and now you think—"
"No," Kevil said. "I don't think that. It's not your style, hiring someone else. But there's another complication."
"Which is?"
"Your mother."
"Oh, be reasonable, Kevil. She's off on Sirialis; she can't have come back here to behead Hobart."
"No, but she is Bunny's widow, and the evidence we unearthed about your uncle's dealings with the Consellines might be construed as giving her a motive. The very fact that she's off on Sirialis could be considered suspicious."
Brun shook her head. "Not Mother. She feels deeply, of course, and if we'd caught Dad's killer, she might have slapped his face, but I can't see her conniving at assassination."
Kevil shook his head. "Nor can I, exactly, and yet—your mother's a lot more complicated than you know, Brun. Back when we were young, she and my wife were close friends, and I heard more about the young Miranda than most."
Brun wondered suddenly what had happened to Kevil's wife, but didn't ask . . . whatever it was, now was not the time. "Still, if she was going to have anyone killed, I'd bet on Uncle Harlis for the designated victim—"
"Don't joke, Brun," Kevil said. "Right now, for the sake of the sept, you must hope your uncle stays healthy."
"For all of me, he can," Brun said, scooping marmalade onto a slice of toast. "Now that we've got his sticky fingers off Dad's estate—or at least put a kink in that—" She gave Kevil a questioning look.
"A kink, certainly. I'm afraid Hobart's murder, unless the motives become clear, will weaken your case. When you talk to Buttons, be sure to tell him to be especially alert for unexplained movement in the holdings of peripheral companies, will you?"
"Of course." Brun glanced around. "Where's George? I can give him a ride into the city—"
Kevil nodded at a crumb-covered plate. "He left an hour ago."
"Your secure link to Lord Felix, milady." The security tech gestured from the doorway. Brun rose and then closed herself into the family's combooth, entered her personal codes and touched the screen with the datawand that confirmed both her ID and her codes. Buttons' face appeared, looking even more like her father's than the last time she'd seen him.
"I'm glad you called," he said. "Bad news—"
"I know," Brun said. "We just heard an hour ago—but I didn't think you'd have heard yet."
"Why not?" Buttons asked. "I'm a lot closer—"
"What? Not to Castle Rock—or are you talking about something besides Hobart Conselline's death?"
"Conselline's dead?" Buttons looked startled, then more grave than ever. "When?"
"Yesterday afternoon; they just released the news this morning, local time. You didn't know? Then what bad news did you have?"
"Pedar Orregiemos—Conselline's foreign minister. He's dead too." Buttons flushed, then paled again. "Mother. She . . . er . . . killed him. By accident, of course . . ."
"Mother killed a Crown Minister?" Brun hardly knew what she said. It came to her like a sudden rupture in the foundations of a familiar tower . . . the sagging away of the wall . . . she pulled her mind back. "Mother . . . herself?"
"Yes." Buttons chewed his lip. "Apparently this fellow had invited himself to Sirialis. The servants say he was paying court to Mother. She had been up at the snow lodge, and he announced himself while she was gone . . . she'd just come back to the main house when he arrived. Anyway . . . he wanted to fence with her. Apparently he'd fenced with her long ago, before she married Dad. He insisted on using those old weapons out of the case in the hall."
Into Brun's mind came the memory of her father, standing by that very case, leaning on the wall, and talking to Kevil Mahoney. She had been—what? eleven or so?—and her father was saying, "The thing about Miranda, Kev, is that people simply can't recognize what she is. They see the porcelain figure of elegance, the beauty, the gracious behavior . . . and fail to recognize that she's deadly as any of these blades." Her father had tipped his head toward the case. "I'm just the front for her ambitions, really . . . as a swordsman is just the means for the steel to strike. She wields me skillfully, so skillfully no one notices."
Kevil had shaken his head, but smiled, then said, "I hope to God you have the scans off, Bunny."
"Well . . . I'm not a fool either," her father had said, and then turned to Brun. "And as for you, Bubbles, it's time you fizzed away to bed."
She had argued, she remembered, and lost the argument; she'd heard the tail of one of Kevil's comments as she flounced away to the main stairs. "—your instincts? Or Miranda's?" and her father's answer, which she'd paused, just around the corner of the stair, to listen for. "Both, Kev. Though at the moment she seems nothing but fizzy bubbles, she's got a brain in her head."
"Mother killed him?" she asked Buttons now. "Herself?"
"It was an accident, apparently," Buttons said. "The old blade broke, and Pedar was wearing an antique mask as well—and the metal was brittle."
"They didn't test it before—? No, they wouldn't, of course." Brun tried to put her scrambled thoughts in order. "When did this happen, Buttons?"
"Local time on Sirialis . . . perhaps four days ago, or five. Lady Cecelia was there, by the way. She'd come visiting—why I have no idea, it's not anywhere close to hunting season. Mother's gone off with her, to the Guerni Republic."