Elizabeth Moon - Hunting Party

Heris rose from her careful crouch, and walked light-footed across the cave to Lepescu’s body . . . not body yet, for he was alive though mortally wounded. She looked down at him warily. He might have other weapons.

“You . . .” he began, but pain caught at him, and he could not go on. His breathing sounded loud, now that the echoes of the shot had faded; she could hear the ominous snoring rattle that meant his lungs were filling.

She could not think what to say. All the clever retorts she remembered from history crumbled and blew away in the wind of her anger. “Yes,” she said, and it came to her that she did not need to say much, under the circumstances. “Commander Serrano, with all due respect.”

Even dying, even in pain, he had a courage she could not deny. Scorn dragged his face into a mask of contempt. “Wait—” he breathed. “Haven’t won—yet—”

She wanted to throttle him, finish it with her fingers on his throat, but she could not do that. Instead, she removed, with such control that she felt herself almost a machine, his other weapons; she paid no attention to the bubbling breaths that faded to nothing.

Cecelia could not have stayed out of the cave after the gunshot if someone had chained her to the rock. She scrambled into the darkness, stumbled into the pool and back out, and came up, panting, against the stone buttress that had blocked Heris’s vision. Now, shocked and fascinated by her captain’s behavior, she had let her attention wander from the cave entrance. When she thought to look around, there was another stranger, this one dirty and ragged, as well as armed. Another stood behind him. He glared at her, his weapon aimed where it could menace all of them.

“What . . . are you doing here?” The pause, Cecelia was sure, held a dozen suppressed curses. The man looked dangerous and probably was. He must be one of those the hunters had chased.

“I’m Lady Cecelia—” she began. Then she realized he wasn’t even looking at her. He was looking past her, at Heris.

“Petris . . .” Heris said. Her voice wavered.

“Captain Serrano. Heris.” His didn’t, nor did the muzzle of his weapon.

“ You’re with Admiral Lepescu?” Quiet though it was, that question held a vast pain; it got through to Cecelia, who stared at her captain.

“You know this man? Who is he?”

Heris shook her head; for that instant she could not speak. Petris with Lepescu? Had he always been Lepescu’s agent? Was this what Lepescu’s dying words had meant?

Cecelia started to reach for her ID packet, but the shift of his weapon stopped her hand. Not her tongue. “I’m Lady Cecelia de Marktos, as I said; we came looking for my nephew Ronnie and his friends. With the militia.”

“Ah.” Petris still looked past her, to Heris. “The rescue arrives.” He glanced briefly at Cecelia. “Tell me what you know about Admiral Lepescu.”

Cecelia thought of objecting, but the weapon suggested caution, even cooperation. She had not realized before just how large the bore could look, seen from this angle. “I don’t know him,” she said.

“She didn’t tell you?” he asked, jerking his chin at Heris.

Cecelia’s patience snapped. “Whatever she told me is no concern of yours, young man.” He laughed, a short ugly sound with little humor in it.

“You’re not the best judge of that,” he said. Then, to Heris, “And you think I’m working with the admiral?”

Cecelia glanced at her, and recognized Heris’s expression for what it was, sorrow and despair, a great wound. Even when telling the story of her resignation, she had never looked this shattered.

“I know he organized the hunt, here,” Heris said. Her voice had no vigor, as if the words lay dead in her mouth. “And why else would military personnel be here with him—?”

“ With him.” Petris’s voice was no louder, but the passion in it would have fuelled a scream. “You—of all people—can believe I might work with that—that—and does it look like I’m with him? Is this a uniform?” His voice had risen then, chopped off by a gesture from the other man. “No,” he said savagely. “I am not with Lepescu.” He turned away, still pale around the mouth. Cecelia stopped him.

“Excuse me, young man, but although you and my captain may be perfectly clear about what is going on, I am not. Heris has told me the admiral is an old enemy she would rather not meet save over a weapon. When my nephew and his friends disappeared, and we found that Lepescu was expected, she became convinced he had something to do with it.”

Finally, the man seemed to focus, really focus, on Cecelia. “ Your captain? You’re her . . . uh . . . employer?”

“That’s right. Captain Serrano signed a contract with me only two days after resigning her commission.”

“And then?” He matched her gaze, as if he could pull answers out through her eyes.

“And then she took command of my yacht, and we came here. Now—”

“Directly?”

Cecelia drew herself up, annoyed. She had questions of her own, and he kept interrupting her. “No,” she said, not caring if he realized she was miffed. “No—although I don’t quite see what business it is of yours. My former captain had been negligent, if not actually criminal, in maintaining systems, and we had to detour for emergency repair of the environmental system.”

The man turned to Heris, the corner of his mouth twitching. “ You didn’t check things yourself before you started?”

“The inspection sheets had been faked,” Heris said dully. “Lady Cecelia’s schedule had already been set back; she wanted a quick departure, and I—” Her voice trailed off.

“You couldn’t wait to escape,” Petris said. Sarcasm edged his voice. “You took your bribe and ran off—”

“Bribe!” This time it was Heris’s voice that got the silencing gesture from the other man. At least, Cecelia thought, the insult had broken through and forced a live reaction. “Is that what he told you?”

“He told us nothing, except the list of charges.”

“Charges? But I resigned so they wouldn’t prosecute any of you—”

“Wait.” Petris lowered his weapon suddenly. “Then it’s true what this youngster heard?” He nodded at Ronnie. “Will you tell me you resigned? To save us, without any . . . any reward?”

“Yes. That was the choice. Resignation, and no trouble for you, or courts for all. It wasn’t fair to put all of you through that; it had been my decision. What do you mean about charges?”

“That . . . motherless son,” Petris said. Cecelia remembered hearing once that on some planets that was still an insult, although most people were now decanted and not birthed. “He got you out of the way, brought us to trial, and then had us here, to play his little games with.”

Heris stared, the whites of her eyes showing clearly in the dimness. “You—it was you he was hunting?” Petris nodded. Heris shook her head, like someone who has just taken a hard blow, and turned to Lepescu’s body with such violence that Cecelia was afraid she would attack it bare-handed. “Damn you! I killed you too soon! If only I could—” She was shaking now, starting to cry. Cecelia gaped, she had never imagined Heris losing control.

Petris strode past Cecelia and grabbed Heris by the shoulders, dragging her away. “He’s dead—don’t . . . you can’t change it now—”

“I’d have—have done something —it’s not fair—!” She turned a tear-streaked face back to Cecelia. “He took my ship—my career—and then to kill them this way—” And then to Petris, suddenly dry-eyed again, a sorrow too deep for tears. “I’m sorry, Petris. I didn’t—imagine this. I couldn’t. I believed they’d hold to the agreement.”