21

DropPort

Tara

Northwind

January 3134; local winter

Twelve days after his conversation with One-Eyed Jack Farrell, Ezekiel Crow watched Farrell’s mercenaries disembark from their DropShip at the Tara port. He had an excellent view of the proceedings, standing as he did beside Tara Campbell in the VIP observation lounge of the DropPort’s main concourse—a luxurious private room, all deep carpet and glass windows snugged up under the concourse’s overarching dome. In times past, when the volume of traffic in and out of the DropPort had meant DropShips arriving and leaving several times a day, the lounge had been a gathering place for passengers who considered themselves too well-off or too important to mingle with the crowds in the general waiting area. Today, as on most days since the collapse of the HPG network, it had been empty until the Countess and the Paladin arrived.

Outside the windows, the sky over the DropPort was an intense winter blue. In the dazzle of noonday sunlight the main cargo hatch of the grounded DropShip gaped open into an impenetrable black shadow.

The mercenary infantry left the ship first, marching in formation down the ramp of the cargo hatch. Crow knew that this was standard procedure—it was the fastest way to move men and women in large groups. Allowing the mercenaries to go one by one down the passenger ramp would take hours, and would create a disorderly mess that would take more hours to sort out. All the same, the steady flow of distant figures, anonymous in their dark fatigues, oppressed him.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know why. Liao had started out this way—the landing of a small force, meant only to restore order, or so at least they claimed—and it had ended with blood in the streets and Chang-An burning. Had there been a point all those years ago, he wondered now, when one person with the gift of foresight could have put out a hand and said, “Stop!” and prevented everything?

“You’re brooding,” said Tara Campbell. The Countess of Northwind was wearing a winter uniform, made of wool against the cold wind that blew outside, and her short, spike-cut hair gleamed bright gold in the light through the windows. She had a tendency to twist and pull at bits of that hair whenever she was feeling uncertain; it occurred to Crow that he hadn’t seen her doing so for quite a while. She was growing into her position as Prefect, then, which was good—the Senate and the Exarch had worried, at first, that her unexpected elevation to the suddenly empty post would overwhelm her. “I’m supposed to be the one with doubts about all this, not you.”

“Memories,” said Crow.

She knew enough of his past, he thought, that she would understand what he meant. He had told her last year about finding his parents dead and everything lost in the bloodbath that had become known as the Betrayal of Liao. It was rare for him to speak of the past, even obliquely, but Tara Campbell had a way of drawing confidences from him.

Down below, out on the landing field, the infantry had gotten themselves clear of the DropShip and into lines for boarding transport vehicles to take them to their assigned barracks. The cargo ramp was now spewing forth other stuff than soldiers: hoverbikes, all-terrain vehicles, armored cars, tanks, and self-propelled guns; all the muscle and sinew of mechanized war. The vehicles, armor, and artillery drew up in ranks on the tarmac as they emerged. Farrell’s mercenaries, Crow thought, were a fearsomely well-equipped group.

“It won’t happen,” Tara Campbell said, breaking into his silence. “What you’re thinking about. This”—she gestured at the field below—“is all about stopping it before it happens.”

“I know,” he said. “And I know that hiring mercenaries was my suggestion in the first place, and that I argued for it until I convinced you. But still.” He looked out over the growing array of military machinery with a growing sense of ill-defined unease. “One worries.”

The mercenaries’ BattleMechs were offloading from the DropShip now. The smaller ones came first—although “smaller” was a relative term, since even the least of them towered over the big self-propelled guns. Crow spotted first a Spider, then a Firestarter, then a Mad Cat III. Nobody was making do with Industrial or Agricultural Mods here; all the mercenary force’s ’Mech’s had been designed for battle from the start. Then the last of the BattleMechs emerged from the DropShip’s shadowed interior: a Jupiter, one hundred tons of heavily armored slaughter and destruction, One-Eyed Jack Farrell’s own deadly darling.

“They’re certainly a well-equipped bunch,” Tara Campbell observed. A wistful expression passed over her features. “I wish the Council loved its own Regiments enough to vote us money for hardware like that. Hell, I wish there was money enough available that I’d feel right about asking for it.”

She stepped away from the window with a sigh. “I suppose it’s time to go shake Mr. Farrell’s hand and bid him welcome to Northwind. I hope he wasn’t expecting to get a formal reception.”

“His kind of people seldom do,” Crow said.

22

Balfour-Douglas Petrochemicals Offshore Drilling Station #47

Oilfields Coast

Northwind

January 3134; dry season

Evidence. Damning evidence, spread out across the screen of the data console in Anastasia Kerensky’s quarters.

The medic Ian Murchison had given her nothing more than a name, an account of a disturbing—and unreported—incident, and a conjecture. That had been a good move on Murchison’s part, Anastasia thought, reminding her that his Bondsman status didn’t give him any room or authority to dig further, followed up by throwing her detective challenge right back into her lap.

And it had been a clever move as well. Murchison had slipped out from under responsibility by denouncing the Galaxy Commander’s known favorite, thus forcing Anastasia to carry out the rest of the investigation herself.

She was the only person on #47 with a high enough security override authority that she could track messages sent out over her name, or with her access codes; and she was the only person who could swear definitely that some particular message was one that she had never sent.

Once she had found the first such message, the rest came much more easily. She was able to track the use of those access codes to set up hidden mailboxes, and from the mailboxes she was able to find records kept in them and—foolishly!—never erased. Carrying out a search like that was not a knack most people would expect Anastasia Kerensky to have. She was all Steel Wolf Warrior, and Warriors were supposed to be above such things.

Tassa Kay, though, had an un-Wolflike interest in learning all sorts of unseemly skills. She had learned the rudiments of this one from a temporary lover several planets back. Anastasia had needed almost two weeks to uncover what her old bedmate could have brought to light inside a few minutes, but that did not matter. She had taken the time, and now she had the proof.

Now to wait. Nicholas Darwin had been away inspecting the DropShips all this while. That was yet another point in support of Murchison’s theory: Darwin could pass off a healing knife wound as an injury gained during that period. He would be coming back today, though, and sooner or later—sooner, if she were not where he could easily find her in the oil rig’s public spaces—he would come to her quarters.

She was ready for him. She would wait.

She had dressed for the occasion in Tassa Kay’s boots and leathers. The choice was fitting, she thought. She had been playing at Tassa Kay when she first met Nicholas Darwin, and she had been playing at Tassa Kay when she brought him home to her bed. She should be playing at Tassa again now, for at least this one more time.