Service for the Dead Read online

  “What did you do to her?”

  “Do?” Crow’s shock at the lurid possibilities conjured up by Redburn’s question was unfeigned. “Nothing! But you know that I have enemies—what Paladin of the Sphere doesn’t, after all?”

  The Exarch nodded. “Go on.”

  “One of those enemies provided the Countess with forged documentation purporting to show—” The words caught in his throat. He paused to gather himself together, then continued in a voice whose thickness of emotion was entirely real. “—purporting to show that I was the party responsible for the Betrayal of Liao.”

  “And she believed them?”

  “She said not.” Crow shrugged regretfully. “But when the time for trust came . . . her judgment was affected.”

  “I see. So now the Wolves have Northwind.”

  “Yes,” Crow said. “And perhaps they have the Highlanders as well.”

  Redburn nodded sagely. “It would not be outside the bounds of belief. The Highlanders were mercenaries themselves—if not in living memory, at least in the memory of history—and might not find it a bad bargain to gain safety and independence for Northwind at the price of The Republic of the Sphere.”

  11

  Saffel Space Station Three

  Saffel System

  Prefecture II

  February 3134

  Ian Murchison, his medic bag firmly in hand, propelled his weightless self through the corridors of the space station in Anastasia Kerensky’s wake. The interior of the station was painted in pleasing pastels, with abstract designs that could have been meant to represent a mountain stream, or flowers, or an artist enjoying the interplay of light and hue. An incongruous background, in any case, for assault, battle, and sudden death.

  Murchison still did not completely understand the role that he was supposed to play in the taking of the station—whether he was the Galaxy Commander’s personal life insurance policy, or her good-luck charm, or some other thing which, not being born to the Clans and their way of life, he was doomed never to fully understand. All he knew at the moment was that whenever and wherever Anastasia moved, his job was to shadow her a few meters behind. Two Clan Warriors in full battle armor propelled themselves along beside her as she made her way inward in the direction of the station’s main control room.

  “Catch the brain,” she had said as the Steel Wolves—and one far-from-home Northwinder—moved from the air lock into the main station area, “and the body will follow.”

  Murchison heard the whine of a laser-pistol coming from somewhere up ahead and to the right. The two Clan Warriors matching pace with Kerensky pushed off and swam away in that direction. As the Warriors did so they switched their laser rifles from their carrying cradles to the ready position.

  Murchison found himself alone with Anastasia Kerensky. The leader of the Steel Wolves carried a radio and a hand laser and moved gracefully, but relentlessly forward. Unlike the two armored Warriors, she wore only regular fatigues in an interior-camouflage pattern. Murchison supposed that this meant she was opting for speed and flexibility over protection.

  Which is just fine for her, the medic thought, but if she gets herself killed I’m going to be in even bigger trouble than I am right now. Nothing I can do about it, though.

  Another laser-pistol sounded from up ahead, and at the same moment Anastasia went limp, spinning away to fetch up against the far bulkhead and float there, motionless. Murchison grabbed for one of the safety handholds that were set at intervals into the bulkhead and brought himself to a stop, his mind already running through the possibilities and not liking any of them very much.

  Laser weapon was his first thought. Those could produce nasty wounds. He didn’t see any blood, although that wasn’t as encouraging as it might have been. Internal bleeding was just as dangerous as the visible kind, if not worse. The blood could leak out into the space usually reserved for the lungs, or press on the heart, or fill the abdominal cavity with an infectious brew.

  He let loose of the handhold, keeping his medic bag in front of him as a shield, and started eeling his way across the open space to the opposite side of the corridor. The Wolves hadn’t issued him any weapons—he would have refused them if they’d been offered, because without training he’d be as dangerous to his own side as he would to the other. (And which one, the voice in the back of his head asked, is which? Do you even know anymore?) They had, however, given him a number of smoke grenades, on the grounds that even a medic might at some point need something to cover his movements. He popped one of the grenades now to obscure his snakelike progress across what felt like an infinite expanse of corridor.

  The station’s air system tore at the smoke screen, tattering it, and the beam from a laser-pistol flashed past his head. He kept going.

  He arrived at Kerensky’s side, still keeping low.

  “Medic,” he whispered. “Don’t move. Where are you hit?”

  “Nowhere,” she answered in a barely voiced murmur. “I am trying to draw their forces in here, so that I can surround them.” Belatedly, Murchison noticed the comm-tracker radio unit in her hand flickering with signals he could not read, presumably from other Warriors in the boarding party. “But thanks for thinking of me. I am certain that having a medic moving in made it look good from out—”

  She broke off and spun to one side, bringing up the laser pistol in her free hand and shooting past Murchison’s right shoulder. He scarcely caught a glimpse of the station defender who’d come looming up out of the smoke before the man went limp and slowly began to rotate in the air. The needle-gun dropped from his massive fist and floated away into the smoke-filled air of the station corridor.

  “So much for the subtle approach,” Anastasia said, and uncoiled from her position. She spoke into the comm-tracker, “One unfriendly down. Moving forward. Do mop up.”

  Unfriendly, Murchison thought, and glanced at the fallen stationer. Just a man who was doing his job, and maybe a little bit more than his job, trying to defend his home and workplace.

  Anastasia headed on into the next corridor, not bothering with stealth or concealment. She’s going to get herself killed if she keeps that up, Murchison thought, then turned his attention to the man now floating motionless a few feet above the deckplates.

  He propelled himself forward as he had before, medical bag first. Somebody up ahead still had a laser-pistol, and Murchison—unlike Anastasia Kerensky—didn’t want to make himself into more of a target than he already was.

  “Medic,” he said to the injured stationer, pulling on latex examination gloves as he spoke. The man didn’t respond, but Murchison could see that he was breathing.

  “Where does it hurt?” Murchison asked. This time he got a groan in reply.

  He ran his hands down the man’s body, checking for damage, and found some in the front of the right chest. Antibiotics, he thought. Painkillers, muscle relaxants. He didn’t have a lot of any of those with him, so he would stabilize the man with what he did have, then catch up with Anastasia Kerensky once he was done. The Galaxy Commander had, after all, expressed a preference for taking the station with its crew intact.

  Murchison cut away the wounded man’s shirt, exposing a cauterized hole that whistled air every time the man breathed. The man’s blue lips, gasping breath, and thready pulse confirmed Murchison’s suspicions—sucking chest wound, possible tension pneumothorax. He pulled out a one-way seal from the collection of bandages in his medic bag, and had just finished slapping it onto the injury when a backup squad of Steel Wolf infantry arrived, armor clanking as they propelled themselves forward in the zero-gee environment.

  “They have laser-pistols,” he said to the Warrior in the lead, a burly Star Colonel whose name he couldn’t recall at the moment. “And needle-guns. The Galaxy Commander went through that door there. I’d hurry after her if I were you.”

  “One man to guard the prisoner, and everyone else follow me,” the Star Colonel said. “You, medic. Come with us.”

 
Murchison passed through the same door Anastasia had done, and—like the Colonel and the rest of the backup squad—made his way to Station Control by following the sound of fighting. Their haste turned out to be unnecessary; by the time they arrived, the noise of gunfire had abated and the stationers in Control were either dead or had surrendered.

  “Star Colonel Dorn,” Anastasia said when the backup force arrived in the bridge area, even as Murchison started working on the nearest injured man, “take possession of the station. Commence recharge and refueling of our ships as soon as possible.”

  For a moment Dorn did not answer. Then Murchison saw him square his shoulders. “You and I have business to transact first, Galaxy Commander.”

  Anastasia twisted to face him and raised her eyebrows, balancing her hand laser lightly in one hand. “Business of what sort, Star Colonel?”

  “I have a grievance against you, Galaxy Commander,” the Star Colonel said. “You have unnecessarily put at risk the JumpShip Akela and its crew—”

  “Do you speak of our ruse with the solar sail?”

  “Yes,” said Dorn. “Had it failed, you would have thrown away the lives of valuable Warriors for the sake of a bad idea—just as you did on Northwind, for the sake of a useless castle you could not even keep.”

  12

  Saffel Space Station Three

  Saffel System

  Prefecture II

  February 3134

  Anastasia Kerensky looked Star Colonel Dorn up and down. The laser-pistol in her right hand made a tempting weight, and she had to fight the urge to raise it and fire.

  “That is not a grievance, Star Colonel,” she said, keeping her voice deliberately calm and scornful. “That is a pretext. I have taken Northwind, I have taken this station, I will take Terra and bring the Clans back to their rightful home. This is neither the time for a Trial, nor the place.”

  “Are you afraid?” he demanded.

  She laughed. “No—and I am not stupid, either. You do not goad me into foolishness as I goaded Kal Radick.”

  “It does not matter. You cannot refuse a Trial.”

  “Nothing impels me to it except my own will,” she said. “I do as I please, and it pleases me to accept. But not here and not now, while the station remains partially unsecured and the JumpShip is not yet docked for recharging.”

  “How long—”

  “Tomorrow noon,” she said. Despite her bravado, she knew that Dorn—damn his eyes!—was right. She could not refuse, and a long delay would be as bad as a refusal. “The choice of place is yours.”

  “Before the Star Colonels assembled,” Dorn said. The gleam of triumph in his eyes vanished as quickly as it had come, but Anastasia found it worrisome nonetheless. It confirmed her suspicion that this confrontation had been planned out in advance. “In the crew recreation area on the station’s gravity deck. Clear everything out, and we will have room enough to make the ring. Since we are in space, it will have to be unaugmented—as you fought Kal Radick.”

  Yes, Anastasia thought, but Kal Radick was a stupid man. While you . . . are also a stupid man, which means that somebody else wrote out this script and tutored you in your lines. And if I live through tomorrow, I will find out who.

  “So let it be done, then,” she said, and met Dorn’s gaze straight on. “Seylah.”

  The Warriors in the control room echoed her. “Seylah.”

  She drew a deep breath. “In the meantime, Star Colonel, you have your orders. Take possession of the station and commence recharge and refueling.”

  Noon the next day came sooner than Anastasia would have liked. She dressed for the occasion with some care, braiding her hair tightly and securing it close against her head with pins, so as not to give her adversary anything to grab. It would have been even safer, she knew, to cut it all off—many MechWarriors did, as a matter of convenience, and even the little Countess of Northwind had kept her blond hair clipped short—but to herself at least Anastasia would admit to being vain enough to keep her own hair long.

  She selected her clothing with similar care: snug-fitting black tights and black soft-sided combat practice shoes, topped with a red silk scarf worn halterwise and knotted beneath her breasts. When she was dressed, she summoned Ian Murchison from his quarters—telling herself that if she intended to continue her project of making a Wolf Clansman out of a Northwind medic, a Trial of Grievance would be an educational experience for him—and went down to the crew recreation area on the station’s spinning gravity deck.

  The rec area had been cleared out completely during the night, and now only held a circle of Star Colonels in their dress uniforms—except for Dorn, who had chosen to fight in a loose-fitting tunic and trousers combo, with soft shoes laced high—and a throng of spectators. She wondered briefly whether some enterprising technician had managed to rig the area’s security cameras for a live feed to the rest of the station, then decided that she didn’t need to know.

  “I am ready,” she said to Dorn, and stepped into the center of the circle under the overhead track lights. Peripherally, she was aware of Ian Murchison taking a stand with his medical bag, not far away. “Are you?”

  “I am,” Dorn said, and stepped into the circle. “For the honor of the Wolves, and to wipe out Grievance, let us see who is fit to command.”

  “I already know that,” Anastasia said, allowing herself to drift into his striking range. She hoped to goad him into striking first. If he did, and if she could block or dodge the blow, her counterstrike could be quick, and the Trial would be over before it had well begun.

  But this is Dorn, Anastasia thought, going over her opponent’s strengths and weaknesses in her mind even as she let her body with its training and reflexes take over the first stages of the combat. A good fighter, but not too bright. And not ambitious—not on this level of ambition, at least.

  Dorn struck at her right flank with a reaping kick. She blocked, and found herself blocking nothing but air. He was back in guard, balanced.

  What Dorn is, she thought, is the best hand-to-hand man of all the Star Colonels. Which means he was put up to this Trial by—

  Not a kick this time, but spear-hand blows, aimed at her throat. Anastasia leaned back out of range, at the same time kicking up so the reinforced point of her practice shoe grazed one of his elbows.

  The impact was not hard enough to hurt him. Instead, he grabbed her ankle with both hands, raised it, and twisted, throwing her down on her back. The landing would have been hard enough to stun had she not been ready for the move. She slapped the ground to absorb energy and rolled back to her feet, with a flurry of knife-hand blows aimed at Dorn’s jaw and ribs.

  Dorn blocked them easily, and laughed.

  Someone, Anastasia thought, was pulling his leash. Someone had offered him backing in return for—

  “Whoever put you up to this is planning to kill you as soon as you’ve killed me,” she said, low enough that only Dorn could hear it. “He did not tell you his entire plan.”

  She saw Dorn’s face grow a trifle stonier. That shot had come close to a bull’s-eye. She reached with her left hand, grasping his left wrist, and used the leverage to pivot herself around. But Dorn was fast. He had his right hand on top of her left hand, squeezing it to his arm and pivoting, pulling her around. An elbow strike to her midriff made her gasp. Before he could strike again, she pushed up against him, and dropped her head under his arm, so that he had the choice of letting go or suffering a broken elbow.

  He let go, with a kick to the back of her right calf that threatened to cramp the muscle. He was bigger than she was, and stronger. And just as well trained.

  “So who was it?” she asked. “Tell me their names and I will go lightly on you.”

  Dorn laughed again. “Not likely.”

  “Your decision.”

  Anastasia grasped the ends of her halter-scarf and jerked loose the knot. Pulling the scarf away from her body, she snapped the square of red fabric along its diagonal to make three fee
t of silken rope extending from her right hand to her left. She gathered up the loop of silk into her right hand.

  The move left her naked to the waist. The sight of a woman’s bare breasts wasn’t likely to distract her opponent—body shyness and prurience were not Clan vices. Lack of imagination and rigid adherence to tradition, on the other hand . . . Anastasia smiled. Clan Warriors might debate for hours whether or not a discarded article of clothing counted as a weapon for the purpose of an unaugmented fight, but it would never occur to most of them that anyone might test out the idea in practice.

  Dorn, at least, appeared to have recovered from whatever surprise he might have felt. He stepped forward, bent, and grasped Anastasia by her haunch bones while her hands were occupied and her feet too close together. She bent forward and attempted a head-strike against his skull—another distraction, and an effective one this time, to keep him from noticing that her hands were busy working a slipknot into one end of the silk.

  She dropped the noose around his neck and dived over his shoulder, skidding to the deck. Before he could turn, she planted one foot firmly in the small of his back and pulled on the end of her makeshift rope. Dorn grabbed and clawed at the silk band tightening down against his throat, but to no avail.

  The actual time it took for Anastasia’s adversary to lose consciousness was three minutes; it felt to her like three years. At last Dorn stiffened, quit struggling, and fell—first to his knees, then backwards as she maintained a steady pressure on the noose around his neck.

  He was down. He was blue. Anastasia did not stop to check whether he was still capable of breathing, nor did she bother to cover her upper body. Instead, she turned to the rest of the Star Colonels where they stood to form the combat circle. She stalked forward and prowled around the inside perimeter of the circle, looking each man in the face before moving on to the next, her teeth bared in a fighting snarl.