Charles Gannon - Raising Caine

Hirkun Morsessar, Tagmator of the Aegis patrol hunter Red Lurker , stared at the visual feed from the bow: swirling, dimly lit whorls and clouds. The violent collage was mostly white, but some of the drifts and plumes were bilious. Others were tinged with ochre. Together, they recalled the miasmas that hung about the Creche worlds’ shabbiest, unventilated pipehouses, tucked away in grimy urban helot-warrens.

A sharp bump, followed quickly by a sideways shuddering, reminded Hirkun that, despite appearances, they were actually in the upper reaches of the medium-sized gas giant that occupied the fourth orbit around the star the Aboriginals had labeled Cygnus 2, or V 1518. “Attend to your instruments,” Morsessar warned the pilot. The Autarch-assigned helmsman — a lictor, equal in status to a huscarl but without affiliation to any House — complied as best he could, but the buffeting downdrafts from the port side were patternless. They defied both his and the flight computer’s abilities to predict and stabilize their flight.

“Apologies, Tagmator.” The hush in the Houseless pilot’s voice sounded more like the product of fear than regret.

This was satisfying and proper. Technically, the maximum disciplinary action available to Hirkun was comparatively limited; lictors were the ward-chattels of the Autarchs themselves, and so could not be harmed too greatly without inviting their masters’ censure and consequent reprimands from one’s own House and Family. But this lictor was sufficiently fearful of Hirkun’s power, even so — one of the few gratifying elements of this accursed observation mission. A misnomer if there ever was one. Just how much observing can one do from inside a gas giant? “Keep your course, helm; you have strayed twelve degrees from our assigned heading. And make our journey smoother. Exercise greater powers of anticipation.”

“Yes, Tagmator.”

An impossible feat, of course, but one never maintained dominion by lowering expectations or even making them reasonable. We exceed our limits only when forced to do so , as the Progenitors’ Axioms had it. And since Hirkun’s life and fortunes depended, for now, upon this crew, then it was certainly in his best interests to—

The iris valve to the small bridge scalloped open: a tall, black-haired woman entered and sank, brooding, into the seat that doubled as the XO’s position and the backup sensor and comm ops station. She did not make eye contact with Hirkun.

“Problems, Antendant Letlas?”

“No, Tagmator,” the willowy Antendant answered curtly.

“Antendant, if you wish a recommendation that will aid your ascent to Intendant-vah, do not trouble your commander with indirect communication. Speak frankly and at once: what troubles you?”

Letlas sat straighter. “Apologies, Tagmator Morsessar. I am annoyed at myself.”

That was unexpected. “How so?”

She glanced at the pilot, the only other person on the bridge. “I am uncertain that my concerns are best shared in this place.”

Ah. Hirkun turned to the lictor. “Pilot, monitor the Aboriginals’ broadcast frequencies through your helmet. Increase the volume to maximum. Be certain you cannot hear me — even my orders.”

“Yes, Tagmator,” he replied, making haste to comply.

Once the lictor had settled the light duty helmet over his head, with the blasting static still clearly audible, Hirkun nodded. “Proceed, Antendant.”

“Tagmator, I am unsure that our chief sensor operator is fully competent.”

“You mean Nezdeh, the senior Agra?”

“Yes, she. Tagmator, I shall speak further only at your express encouragement.”

That cautious phrasing puzzled Hirkun. “Antendant, that is the formula whereby an Intendant — or an aspirant, such as yourself — warns one of the Evolved that to continue might involve speaking ill of another one of the Evolved.”

Letlas avoided Hirkun’s eyes. “It is as you say, Tagmator.”

Hirkun was too surprised to suppress the frown that he felt bending lines into his face. “Speak clearly, Antendant: do you suspect that Agra Nezdeh is Evolved, but masquerading as non-Evolved?” Impossible.

“This is why I was irresolute in expressing myself, Tagmator Morsessar. I know full well how absurd this must sound. But I have watched her manipulate the controls as she tracks the Aboriginal craft that is orbiting just above us, while we remain beneath the storm heads that block their rudimentary sensors.”

“Yes, and so far, she has done an adequate job.”

“Yes, Tagmator. She does an adequate job. But no more. It is not the place of us non-Evolved to merely perform adequately in our specializations. Since we lack the onerous responsibilities of ensuring dominion, we have the luxury of becoming true specialists. Nezdeh has not done so, but rather, shows a great breadth of competencies.” Letlas paused. “It is more akin to the skill diversity routinely associated with the Evolved.”

“Even among Intendants, to say nothing of huscarls, some non-Evolved have far more promise as generalists than as specialists. It can be frustrating. It can also prove invaluable.”

Letlas looked away. “Tagmator, I do not wish to seem obstinate, but—”

“Your insight is sought, Antendant. Speak your mind.”

“If Nezdeh were young, I would be less concerned. But by her age, a trend toward generalization at the expense of specialization would have been noticed in one of the non-Evolved. It would have been either corrected or exploited. But for her to come to this ship, at the last moment, touted as a sensor and communications specialist when she is, at best, adequate — this fills me with misgivings.”

Hirkun nodded. “It is peculiar.” He did not add his own misgivings, which did not concern Nezdeh’s skill levels so much as the peculiar manner in which she had been added to Red Lurker ’s complement. The veteran communications specialist who had been part of the patrol hunter’s rota for the last three years — Lokagon Emren Arrepsur-vah — had made his final return to space only four days before Red Lurker had been deployed. Wrapped in the winding sheets of a defeated duelist, Emren Arrepsur-vah had been pushed toward the winking red speck that was V 1581, four and a half light-hours away. By the time his remains were embraced and immolated by that red dwarf star, all memory of him, and the House to which he had aspired to add his geneline, would be long gone.

Nezdeh Kresessek-vah had been Arrepsur-vah’s logical replacement, recommended by the Aegis database as both capable and seasoned. Her slightly greater age and her status as ’vah — aspirant to having her geneline formally integrated into that of House Kresessek — had led Hirkun to conjecture that she was a promising Intendant, about to come into her own. Now, however, he began to reconsider: it was possible, given her rank, that she was in fact Evolved, a refugee from a House so badly defeated that it had been Extirpated. If so, then that would certainly explain why her skill set was marked more by breadth than depth. He would have to investigate her origins more closely upon the return of Ferocious Monolith .

But Hirkun perceived that her current performance might reveal other useful clues as well. “Antendant Letlas, is there any sign that her skills are improving? For instance, was she better than adequate in detecting the departure of Ferocious Monolith earlier today?”

Letlas forestalled a shrug. “Tagmator Morsessar, her performance was improved. But I am unsure if it was because her skill with the sensors is improving, or because she had maintained a log of Monolith ’s telemetry as it preaccelerated to its shift point. She knew exactly where to find the shift-bloom in her sensors. She may have known approximately when to look, as well.”