Elizabeth Moon - Change of Command

As always, quite a few people helped with technical bits. Certain parts of this book could not have been written without the help of the fencing group . . . I leave it to them to figure out who contributed which bit of necessary information or advice. David Watson helped choreograph some of the fights and advised on metallurgy, and Kathleen Jones did yeoman work in the structural engineering of a very complicated plot. Susan and Andrew both provided useful information on points of high finance I would never have thought of (stock parking?); Allen helped with naval procedure. Other assistance came from a panel at the Baltimore WorldCon, but unfortunately a computer crash six weeks later robbed me of all the names, email addresses, and even snail-mail addresses (I had put them in the computer, of course . . . and since it was the mail function that crashed . . . ) But they have my gratitude, though I can’t thank them properly unless we run into each other at another convention. Their input changed one section greatly; remaining mistakes are all mine, including having put their addresses in a computer about to lose its memory so that I couldn’t thank them properly.

Newscast: “Today the Speaker of the Table of Ministers and the Grand Council of the Familias Regnant was assassinated while en route from the shuttleport to the Palace. His close friend and legal advisor, Kevil Mahoney, was seriously injured and is now undergoing emergency treatment in a secure medical facility. Three security personnel also died. Speaker Thornbuckle’s youngest daughter, travelling in a separate conveyance, was not injured, but is now in protective custody. . . .”

Kevil was aware of disturbing dreams, and tried to fight his way to consciousness. He felt stiff, as if he’d been in the same position too long, and somewhere in the distance someone hurt quite badly. Red and pink swirls slid past his vision; when he blinked, nothing happened but the addition of ugly green smears to the swirls. He thought he heard something, but—like the vague shapes that teased his eyes—the sounds were curiously unhelpful, blunt and unformed.

He struggled harder, and finally made out a voice, speaking some arcane language he didn’t know. What was a sub-cue something—or-other? What was an ivy line? His fogged mind tried to show him a picture of ivy leaves lined up in a row.

“—need complete rejuv, if he lives that long—” came suddenly, with silvery clarity.

Ice, then fire, washed through him; he never knew if it was something they did, or his body’s response to what he heard. His eyes opened to see a pale blur; he struggled to get his mouth open, then realized it was open, wedged with some instrument.

“Lie still,” someone said. “Close your eyes.”

He was in no mood to take orders. He gagged on the thing in his mouth, and someone slid it out.

“What happened?” he croaked, in a voice he didn’t recognize but felt in his painful throat.

Memory returned in that moment, even as he asked. Even as the people he could not yet see hesitated, he knew what had happened.

He and Bunny in the ground car. Bunny’s face, taut and lined for so many months, finally relaxing. They had been chatting about the continuing problems resulting from the Morelline’s pharmaceutical plant on Patchcock, the rising price of rejuvenations and the political implications—

And then the white flare of some weapon, and Bunny’s face disappearing into a mess of red and pink and gray—

He must be dead. No one could survive that. And he, Kevil Mahoney, was alive—at least for now—because his friend’s head had taken the brunt of whatever attack.

The New Texas Godfearing Militia had sworn vengeance on them. Evidently it had been no idle threat.

He needed to know what had happened. Who was in charge now? What was Fleet doing? But he felt a dark chilly fog rising over him, and slipped into that darkness unsure if it was death or a drug.

Hobart Conselline permitted none of the emotions churning inside him to show in his face or demeanor. His secretary’s expression of cautious solemnity proved he’d been successful; the silly man couldn’t tell how his employer was taking the news. Good.

“It’s been confirmed by three separate agencies, milord,” his secretary said.

“Terrible!” Hobart said, and shook his head. “I suppose it was those terrorists, in retaliation for the executions—”

“That’s the speculation at this time, milord.”

“How many were killed or injured?”

“Lord Thornbuckle and three security personnel killed; Ser Mahoney is alive but in critical condition. He is not expected to live.”

“A terrible, terrible situation.” Hobart shook his head again. Terrible for some, certainly. Bunny Thornbuckle’s relatives and friends were no doubt reeling in shock and confusion. So would the whole Council be, if someone didn’t take hold and give the guidance that had been so sorely needed for the past several years. If Kevil Mahoney had been uninjured, they might have turned to him, but without either Bunny or Kevil, the Familias would mill about like panicky sheep, baaing uselessly at the wolfpack around them. He knew exactly what far-sighted, strong, decisive leader should take charge.

“Send our condolences to Miranda,” he told his secretary. “Inform my wife’s secretary that I’m sure my wife will want to call on her.” Poor, beautiful, clever Miranda, so unlucky in her choice of men and her children.

Poor Brun, for that matter. Like everyone who had met the child, he had enjoyed her scatterbrained, madcap beauty. She had needed a good husband to settle her down, but Bunny had insisted on letting her run wild, with disastrous results. Another instance of Bunny’s lamentable lack of decisive, firm leadership. Nothing like that had happened to the Conselline daughters, nor ever would. Bunny’s older children had turned out well enough, though young Buttons was no second Bunny. He had all his father’s stuffiness and none of his father’s brilliance. All the better; the last thing the Consellines needed was another Bunny Thornbuckle in that Chair.

“You have messages from several of the Families,” the secretary said.

“No doubt,” Hobart said. Those he had been talking to, in preparation for the Grand Council meeting this year, would want to know his plans now. For an instant, the internal vision of those plans blinded him to the room around him. With Bunny and Kevil Mahoney out of the picture—with Bunny’s supporters in disarray, shocked and grieving—a man who knew what he wanted and moved quickly and decisively might go farther than he had believed possible.

He glanced over the messages as his secretary left the room. As he’d expected: shock, concern, fear, shock . . . with every passing moment, he felt more certain that he, and he alone, would have to act in this crisis. How fortunate that he had not left Castle Rock with the others. “Make a list of all the Chairholders who are still onplanet,” he said. His secretary nodded. “And set up a conference call for the Conselline Sept, all chairholding members.”

“Sir, I have the list—I keep a current file on all the Chairholders—”

“Excellent.” He looked over it carefully while his secretary was arranging the complicated linkage of ansible and ordinary communications lines for the conference call, and realized that the opportunity would never be greater.

The Barraclough Sept, which included the lesser Aranlake and Padualenare septs, had not rallied to Bunny’s side when Brun returned. The Aranlakes, with the exception of Lady Cecelia de Marktos, had supported an Aranlake candidate, Hubert Roscoe Millander, for Family head, and they’d lost. They were home sulking. The Padualenares favored Bunny’s brother Harlis, who supported their claim to seniority over the Aranlakes, and their ambitions in the colonial worlds. This left only a few of the Barracloughs themselves onplanet, those closest to Bunny and therefore more likely devastated by his death.