Elizabeth Moon - Sporting Chance

“I hadn’t realized,” Ronnie said, looking at his hands. “I feel . . . bad about it. It’s sort of indecent, I mean—our quarrel, when he’s not—not like he was. Like the time George had that virus or whatever, and nearly flunked everything for a month; we started out teasing him, but it wasn’t funny.”

“It’s indecent that it happened, if you’re right. The quarrel’s beside the point, although I expect it influenced him.” Heris fought her way through Cecelia’s logic in that and by the time she had it figured out both aunt and nephew were off on another tangent. Whom to tell, and how, and when.

“Better not tell anyone,” she said, interrupting them. “It’s dangerous knowledge.” They stared back at her.

“But I must,” Cecelia said. “He’s the only surviving prince. If his father doesn’t know—”

“Then someone doesn’t want him to know. Someone who will be glad to eliminate you. His father probably does know, after all, and I doubt very much he wants it widely recognized or talked about.”

“I’m not a gossip. Everyone knows that.” Cecelia looked exasperated. “It’s not something I can ignore. If I do, and he knows, then he’ll suspect—it will be worse than telling him.”

“But it’s dangerous,” said Heris. Surely Cecelia could see that; it was like taking a light escort straight into a suspicious scanfield. They needed to know more before anyone said anything. Her mind tickled her with something Ronnie had just said about George. George had had a month of being stupid? A virus? Or the same thing that affected the prince? But Cecelia, sticking to her own main interest, was talking again.

“They need to know. Even if it’s dangerous, it’s more dangerous to have him like this, unrecognized. Dangerous to everyone, not just to me. It can’t be hidden much longer anyway; he’s getting to an age where he’ll be expected to take on some Crown functions. The sooner it’s known, the sooner we—” This time the we clearly meant those who managed things, the great families of the realm, “—can change our plans and adjust. If it’s permanent, for instance, he can’t take the throne later. Then there’s the Rejuvenant/Ageist split; this could change the balance in Council.”

“But it’ll be terribly embarrassing, Aunt Cecelia,” said Ronnie. “Maybe Captain Serrano is right—”

But Heris could tell from the stubborn set of Cecelia’s jaw that they weren’t getting anywhere. Maybe later. They were still a long way from Rockhouse. She could talk to Ronnie about George’s experience in private.

The ship itself functioned smoothly. Sirkin had looked startled the first time she heard Oblo say “Aye, sir” to Heris, but she soon got used to the preponderance of military backgrounds. Heris thought it improved the tone a lot; it seemed a comfortable compromise between military formality and civilian casualness. Bunny’s yacht crew, efficient enough, held themselves slightly aloof from Lady Cecelia’s; she didn’t mind, since they’d be going back to Bunny’s from Rockhouse.

Her relationship with Petris, however, seemed as uneven as the foxhunting fields. She had understood the prohibition of relationships between commanders and their subordinates as preventing both sexual harassment of subordinates and favoritism . . . it had not occurred to her that there was any intrinsic problem with the relationship if both desired it. She learned differently.

“I don’t know,” Petris said one late watch, when they had expected a pleasant evening in bed, and instead found themselves less interested in bed than talk. “It’s not the past, really. I’d been crazy about you for a long time, and once I found a way—but on this ship—”

“It’s the teal and lavender,” Heris said, trying to make light of it.

“No. It’s—how can I say this and not sound like a barbarian?—it’s the authority. Here, you’re in charge—you have to be. And—” Heris waited out a long silence as he worked his way through it. “When we were back on that island, you weren’t. You were hurting, and I could help. I had the choices to make.”

“Mmm. An authority block?”

“I suppose. Except I’ve never resented your authority, you know. Not with the ship. It never has bothered me who captained a ship, so long as they were good at it. I knew early on I never would . . . didn’t really want to.” That surprised her.

“Didn’t you?”

“No. Not all enlisted are lusting for command, you know. Commanders maybe, but not command itself. It’s damned scary; I can see that in your eyes. Maybe I feel that way here—it’s scary, because I’m stepping out of my role, with the commander. It didn’t bother me off the ship . . .”

“And it’s not something I can command,” Heris said. Some did; she knew that. But she couldn’t. “How about we pretend this isn’t the ship?”

“I’ll try.” It seemed to be working—Heris had felt the shifts in her own breathing that went with great pleasure long deferred—when the intercom intruded.

“Captain Serrano—there’s something on the screen—” She lunged across Petris to answer it, and he cursed.

By the time she’d been to the bridge, where the image onscreen had vanished, and gotten back to her quarters, Petris was gone. Heris didn’t call him back. Later. There would be time enough later.

Nothing had been settled—not about the prince, not about Petris—when the Sweet Delight made its last jump. They came out of the anomalous status of jump space precisely where Sirkin had intended, for which Heris gave her a nod of approval. She wished Sirkin hadn’t had a lover waiting at Rockhouse Major—she’d have liked to keep her as crew.

“Somebody flicked our ID beacon,” Oblo said. “Stripped it clean and fast: R.S.S., I’d say, remembering the other side . . .”

“We’re not fugitive,” Heris said. “And they’d be looking for the Sweet Delight , considering . . .”

“Mmm. Wish we had better longscans and a decoder that could do the same. Feels all wrong to have someone stripping our beacon when we can’t strip theirs.”

“Mass sensors show a lot of ships,” Sirkin put in. “And the delays are too long to tell me where they are now—”

“That’s what I meant,” Oblo said. “Now in the Fleet, we’ve got—” He broke off suddenly as Heris cleared her throat, and looked up at her. “Sorry, Captain. I’m used to being on the inside of security, not outside.”

“We’d all best be careful, if we want to stay outside a prison, and not inside,” Heris said. The only bad thing about Sirkin—and Bunny’s crew—was this tension between what the ex-military crew knew and what they weren’t supposed to know and couldn’t share with shipmates. It would have been easier if they’d all been her former crew members.

She had sent off a message when they first dropped out of FTL, with the codes given them by the Crown Minister. Now the system’s outer beacons blipped the first response.

“Captain, Sweet Delight , proceed on R.S.S. escort course—” and the coordinates followed.

Oblo whistled. “They’re putting us down the dragon’s throat, all right.”

“What?” Sirkin asked.

“Escort course is the fastest way insystem; eats power and makes a roil everyone in the whole system can pick up. Hardly what I’d call discreet. All other traffic gives way, and we’re snagged by a tug that could stop a heavy cruiser, in a counterburn maneuver. Plus, we go past the heavy guns and damn near every piece of surveillance between us and Rockhouse.”

Heris glared at him, and Oblo actually flushed. He knew better, and she had already warned him. Sirkin wasn’t military, had never been military, wasn’t ever going to be military, and he had no business explaining Fleet procedure to her. But he had a thing for neat-framed dark-haired girls, whether they liked men or not, and he had taken a liking to Sirkin.