The Serrano Succession (21 page)

"I see, sir. And you think it possible that Ageists assassinated Lord Thornbuckle because he was rejuvenated? Does this mean that you think they will attack you?"

"I don't think it was Ageists—I think it was the NewTex Militia, as I told you. But if I'm wrong about that, I'd look at the Ageists next."

Bai-Darlin did not look convinced. "I was hoping, milord, that you might share some insights into possible elements among the Seated Families . . . perhaps Lord Thornbuckle had aroused a particular animosity there? He seemed a popular Speaker, but there's always someone . . ."

Hobart waved his hand. "Minor resentments perhaps. Certainly there were those who felt he misused Familias resources in going after his daughter the way he did. A number of us thought so, and expressed ourselves at the time. But I'm not aware—and I wouldn't be, necessarily, since I've little to do with the internal workings of Barraclough Sept—of anything serious enough to cause someone to kill him."

"Very good, sir. Thank you, milord, for your time."

"Catch those killers, Colonel, and I'll see you get a medal." Instead of the eager grin Hobart expected, Bai-Darlin gave him a dark, brooding look before turning away. Strange fellow. Perhaps not as efficient as he had seemed.

Several days later, Hobart found himself glaring at the same desk he had coveted so much. That was the natural result of having to deal with obstructive fools, he told himself. A man had a right to have Ministers he could work with. Why should any of Bunny Thornbuckle's appointees expect to stay in office, if they were going to cause him trouble? They should have learned from his first dismissals and replacements, but they still obstructed him. They would have to go, root and branch; he was not going to deal with any more of this insubordination.

Hobart considered his options. Who should be replaced first? Defense had been making noises lately about rejuvenation in the enlisted ranks, something about aged NCOs going crazy or something. Their idiot medical branch had put a hold on all rejuvenations, and seemed to be determined to investigate thoroughly. He'd pointed out to Irion Solinari that it would be expensive and inefficient to hold a prolonged investigation into something like that, and that it would be better to cut their losses and simply discharge the affected personnel as medically unfit. But Solinari argued—Solinari did nothing
but
argue, Hobart thought, remembering that Solinari had also argued with Bunny, who had appointed him. Just a difficult personality, and not one suited to a responsible position like Minister of Defense.

If Solinari went—if he had his own choice in as Defense, then . . . he could also ease out the more difficult of the admirals. Perhaps
their
rejuvenations would fail? Those had all been done with the original Guernesi drugs, so if they failed it would take the burden of public opinion off the Patchcock connection. They didn't actually have to fail, if only Fleet could be persuaded to take them off active duty out of concern about the rejuvenations. Right now the medical branch and senior officers were being completely unreasonable, and Solinari was backing them up—or stirring them up, he wasn't sure which. Solinari definitely had to go.

He opened his private pad and began drafting a letter to Solinari, explaining his reasoning. He didn't want to be harsh, but the man had to realize that he just was not qualified. And even if he had been, his negative attitude, his contentious nature, made him unfit. More in sorrow than anger, Hobart told himself, was the tone he wanted to take. Not that Solinari had any friends worth worrying about. A bunch of backbiting, acid-tongued nonentities in the minor families, that was all. They'd soon find out what they were dealing with.

* * *

Admiral Vida Serrano rarely concerned herself with civilian matters, unless they seemed likely to precipitate a war. The change from one head of state to another should have been—usually was—a matter of ceremony and speeches, which affected the Regular Space Service no more than the change from one Grand Admiral to another.

Certainly Lord Thornbuckle's assassination had been shocking, but she expected that it wouldn't make much difference in the long run. Someone else would be elected, a few Ministers might change, and the inertia of the very large organization would keep everything going very much as usual. What could be frustrating when she wanted to make a change reassured her when she wanted stability. Her business, as she saw it, was to make sure her command was ready to deal with any exterior threat, which might see the momentary confusion as an opportunity to cause trouble.

To that end, she had put herself on the list for updates on the rejuvenation problem, and had come to the same conclusion as the first blue-ribbon panel charged with investigating it. A bad batch of rejuvenation drugs, purchased because they were slightly less expensive, and almost certainly manufactured at the Patchcock plant she had seen. The solution was also clear: repeat rejuvenations with clean drugs for those who had not yet suffered significant damage, and supportive care for those who had, for whom another rejuvenation would mean prolongation of senile misery. She had cosigned the report, when it was forwarded upstairs, and had also cosigned a letter suggesting that the manufacturer bear the expense of the repeat rejuvenations and the supportive care.

And nothing had been done. The update list had disappeared; she'd asked Headquarters, and been told it was "discontinued pending investigation of security problems." She'd heard rumors that one of the big independent research labs was itself under investigation for possible falsification of evidence and misuse of public funds. Headquarters had suddenly cut off funding for repeat rejuvenations, without explaining why. Surely they understood how important it was—Fleet needed those people back at work, not to mention the individuals' own need to be saved from senility and death. Vida approved as many rejuvenations as she could out of her discretionary fund, but she didn't have the money for all of them. She thought of contacting Marta Katerina Saenz, whose pharmaceuticals she trusted. But Headquarters had put a gag order on rejuvenation; she wasn't even supposed to discuss it internally. Going outside would be grounds for court-martial, if she were found out.

She wished she knew where all this nonsense was coming from. Was it someone in Fleet? Someone in the government? The Grand Council meeting the day after the funeral had elected Hobart Merethal Conselline as the new head of government, and he had appointed some new people to various defense-related committees. But Irion Solinari was still Minister of Defense, and he'd always been solid. She toyed with the idea of contacting him directly, but admirals who got involved with Ministers went up like a rocket and down like the stick, in her experience. It was almost as bad for a career as marrying into a Seated Family.

Most of these new appointees were only names to Vida Serrano. The Consellines and Morrellines had been involved in the Patchcock mess—everyone knew that much—but she had searched the databases a long time to find Hobart Merethal Conselline, and then the only information she could get was a short official biography on the occasion of his taking his Seat in Council. Nothing in it indicated why the other Families would choose him, unless it were a general desire to repudiate Thornbuckle and all his friends.

She had reached this point in what had become an all-too-familiar reverie when her clerk called.

"Admiral—there's a courier here from Headquarters with a hand-carry."

Hand-carries were an outdated pain, in Vida's opinion, but some of the mossybacks at Headquarters believed in them. Especially the Chief of Personnel. Maybe it was the information she'd requested on the progress of other sectors in returning their rejuvenated senior NCOs to active duty.

"Send 'em in," she said.

To her surprise, Heris Serrano's acquaintance, Commander Livadhi . . . Arash? Aram? . . . came in with the case under his arm. Not commander, she realized, as the obviously new star on his collar twinkled. Admiral minor.

"Congratulations," she said. "I hadn't heard about your promotion." She hadn't heard that a promotion board was even meeting. She should have heard. Another tiny alarm rang in her head.

"Admiral, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but thank you anyway." He looked shamefaced, almost as if he wanted to dig a guilty toe in her carpet.

"Excuse me?" He might be an admiral minor, but she was an admiral major, and she made the words a challenge.

"I don't know if you heard that we have a new Minister of Defense—"

"No! Solinari's out?" A major alarm, now.

"Yes. Out and gone—nobody had a chance to talk to him; the word is he left Castle Rock and went home, and he's not giving interviews to anyone."

"I see." What had they done to Solinari, who had never shrunk from interviews, who had spoken his mind in spite of everyone? What could send a Solinari back to—what was that world he'd come from?—and put a lock on his tongue? She felt cold, considering.

"The short of it is that the new Speaker didn't like what Solinari told him about the rejuvenation problem, and he's appointed someone who will do what he's told without question. The new Speaker does not believe that the problem with NCO rejuvenations is entirely the fault of the pharmaceuticals—"

"Of course it is," Vida said. "The data clearly show—"

"Data can be manipulated," Livadhi said. "The Speaker seems convinced that the data
were
manipulated, perhaps by special interest groups influencing scientists in the research facilities."

"He
wants
the data manipulated," Vida said, anger rising in her like a storm.

"That's not for me to say," Livadhi said. He paused, and Vida stared at him, taking in the warning she'd just been given.

"And what else, then?"

"Given the possibility, yet to be investigated, that the failure of the NCO rejuvenations was not entirely due to problems with the drugs, but to some idiosyncratic response . . . right now, they're talking about the level of inbreeding in Fleet families, I understand, though you didn't hear that from me."

"As if
their
families weren't inbred!"

"We are not Registered Embryos . . . so they said." He waited, while she seethed quietly, then went on. "Given that possibility, they say, then there is concern about the stability of rejuvenations of senior officer personnel as well. It has been decided that all rejuvenations of Fleet personnel must be investigated thoroughly, beginning with those of flag rank."

"They can't be serious!" Vida Serrano stiffened in her chair.

"Yes, sir, they are. They've extended the medical hold to all personnel—officers included, and specifically including flag officers—whose rejuvenations are more than ten years old. They're to be relieved of active duty until medical evaluations are complete."

"But—"

"Admiral, I know it's unprecedented." To his credit, Livadhi looked almost as unhappy as she felt. If he felt any triumph, he was concealing it well. "This whole mess is unprecedented. It is leave with pay—at least, full pay for those below commander, half-pay for those above."

"Which is nearly every officer involved." Vida scowled. "Besides, they
know
my rejuv is stable. I was one of the first—it's been over twenty-five years—"

"Yes, sir, but—"

"And who do they think is going to take over, all of a sudden? The losers they didn't want to waste rejuv on? Or even promote? No—don't answer that. I didn't say it; you didn't hear it. Blast!" This was how Livadhi had been promoted, and she was sure that other commanders were even at this moment pinning on the stars they had not expected to receive for another half decade or so. She wondered briefly if Heris had become the newest Admiral Serrano.

Vida swung her chair away from her desk, staring through the bulkhead into decades of memory. All lay clear to her inward sight, vista after vista, crisp images, faces, names, relationships. They were wrong—they had to be wrong. Nothing blurred her mind. She swung back. "Fine, then. I'll take myself off duty, hike down to Medical, they can take a look and put me back on."

"No, sir. Please—would the admiral look at the orders?"

"Which you didn't draft, I presume. All right." She looked at them, read them carefully, every word of every old-fashioned paper sheet.

Worse than bad. Mandatory immediate release from active duty. Immediate replacement by officers specified—in her case, Admiral minor Livadhi. Immediate surrender of all communications devices, encryption/decryption devices, data access devices . . .

"I'm not—I'm sorry, Admiral, I think it's unreasonable and ridiculous to make flag officers leave their quarters and their duty stations so fast—"

"Makes sense if someone really wants us gone, though," Vida said. She was past the first flash of anger now, and her brain had moved into combat-speed computation. "Rush us out, make sure we can't contact our friends still on active duty except by monitored channels, make sure we have no access to files—"

"I have a room in the Transient Officers' Bay," Livadhi said. "I see no reason to enforce this to the letter—"

Vida looked up and caught sympathy on his face. Heris had said he had his good points. "Don't you? Then you're more a fool than I ever thought, young man. When the wind changes, so must the sails. If you don't enforce your orders, you won't last long. I'll be out of here by the deadline."