The Serrano Succession (99 page)

"You're looking at us like a deer at a hunter," Taylor said, grinning. "Wondering what's going to happen." He licked his lips. "The difference between us, Ser Thornbuckle, is that I don't worry about what will happen, because I intend to make it happen . . . my way."

"It's not always that easy," Harlis said.

"No . . . war is not easy. Nor is hunting. But it's that or letting the human race degenerate to a lot of parlor ornaments, unfit for anything but eating and breeding. Something has to clean the genome, Ser Thornbuckle, and we can't all be Registered Embryos. But I don't expect much trouble at Sirialis. If you've told us the truth, they have no system defenses worth speaking of, and no defense against armored shuttles. Morever, the shuttles stored at the three orbital stations will increase our transport capacity."

"Unless someone back at Castle Rock thought to tell them we might be on the way," Harlis said.

"And who would do that?" Taylor asked.

"It's just possible someone figured it out," Harlis said. He could feel himself starting to sweat. "My niece—Brun Meager—she was just named the Barraclough Sept heir. Stepan chose her. I was going to . . . to persuade her to come along. She has all the codes. But she and that disgusting woman from the Lone Star Confederation went out to dinner before we could—"

"You
idiot
," Taylor said. "You said you weren't a fugitive."

"I'm not. I wasn't, anyway, when I said that. And I don't think I am now. She doesn't know who—"

Taylor gave him a look that stopped the words in his throat. "Even if she's too stupid to figure it out, someone will. And you left tracks all over the place—with Allsystems—"

"I told them I was going to Burkholdt and Celeste."

"And you think they'll believe that? After you made a grab for the girl and didn't get her?" His face hardened. "You lied to me, Thornbuckle, and I don't like being lied to."

"It wasn't a lie—" Harlis said. "At the time, it was true—"

At some signal Harlis didn't catch, the two officers nearest him slid out of their seats, and before he could push back from the table they had his arms twisted behind him.

"I don't like liars, Thornbuckle. And I don't accept excuses. Is that clear?"

Harlis remembered the pain from childhood, when boys were forever tormenting each other, but this was worse . . . boys knew about twisting arms but not about the nerves more subtly available to skilled fingers. The pressure increased steadily, hot flares of pain in shoulders, neck, elbows, wrists; his mouth opened involuntarily, and he gasped.

"I asked you a question," Taylor said, and someone grabbed Harlis's hair and pulled his head back. Through the tears of pain in his eyes he could see Taylor and the others, sitting there calmly and enjoying his pain.

"Yes," Harlis said finally, in a sort of grunt.

"Yes,
what
?" Taylor prompted. Harlis glared at him.

"I said yes," he said. "I'm the one who hired
you
!"

A hard punch from behind rammed him into the edge of the table.

"You're the one who lied to me," Taylor said. "I'm not your servant, or your peasant. When you hire troops, you don't lie to them. Not if you want to live long. Now, again: is that clear?"

"Yes . . . sir." The
sir
was wrung out of him by a last twist of the arms that made it clear his shoulders would come loose if he didn't say it. At a nod from Taylor, they released him, and he fell back into his chair. His shoulders hurt; his arms hurt . . . most of all, his pride hurt.

"Here's how it's going to be," Taylor said. "You're going to tell me everything you did, and planned, and thought, and heard . . . everything . . . and you're going to do exactly as you're told by me or by any of these officers. We will continue to treat you well, as long as you do not disobey us, or lie to us. But withholding information, or lying, or disobedience, will be punished."

Harlis nodded, speechless, hoping he wouldn't be made to say "yes, sir" again.

"Finish your dinner. We'll talk afterwards."

Taylor said, "We need money, and we need a secure base. You promised us both, and now you can't deliver—"

"I can—I have the money, all I have to do is get it. I have the access codes for the family ansible, at Sirialis—that's communication with anyone you want, free. I have the access codes for family accounts, as well as my own. There's information—stuff Bunny's wife had—about family businesses and things. And the place itself has money."

"You're sure you have the codes."

"Of course I'm sure. Bunny was my brother; I've had the codes since I was in my twenties. Look, you're worried about pursuit, but is there really any way Fleet could get there before we do?"

"No . . ."

"And even if they do, you could just hide. It's a whole system—"

"That's why we couldn't. It's too empty. But we could make a fast passage, see if your codes work, get some money, and head out."

"You won't need to," Harlis said. "I keep telling you, I'm Bunny's brother. Everyone on the planet knows who I am. They're not going to give you any trouble."

Over the course of the next several days, Harlis answered hundreds of questions about himself, his family, his fortune, and Sirialis. Taylor recorded all of it. Harlis knew how that would look to his family if they got hold of the cube. He'd heard that in storycubes the hero always managed to find some way of showing that he was being coerced. He couldn't think of anything that Taylor wouldn't recognize and punish.

When they arrived at Sirialis, Taylor called him in. "We need the ansible access code."

Harlis handed it over. Taylor handed it on to one of his communications techs. "Strip the records and check our control," he said.

"Sir." The man turned away and fiddled with controls Harlis couldn't see. "Someone did think we might come here. It's a voice message from Brun Meager—warning the population Harlis might show up, and then that she couldn't get Fleet to respond."

"A trap?"

"Could be," Taylor said. "We won't stay that long. We can resupply anyway—it's an ag world. With money on it, all concentrated in one place, right, Harlis?"

It still stung that Taylor had quit calling him Ser Thornbuckle, or even Thornbuckle. "Yes," he said slowly. "The main banking outlet's in the home village."

"Just how fancy is that house?" Taylor asked. "Got a lot of things in it? Jewelry those women left behind?"

"I doubt it," Harlis said. "They take it with them, or put it in the bank."

"We might just take a look," the man said. "Admiral Lepescu said this was a showplace. Gardens, lawns, stables—you ride, don't you, Harlis?"

"I can, yes. I'm not that fond of it."

"Not that fond of it." Lately they'd taken to mocking him, repeating his phrases.

"Captain, I can't get past the lockout. His password got us into the incoming queue, but there's a traplink on the outgoing, and I can't budge it."

"That might make it difficult to get your funds, mightn't it, Harlis?"

"Maybe it wants an ID check—sometimes it does—and I have to go to the terminal."

"Well, then, I think we'll take a shuttle down and see for ourselves . . ."

Harlis felt naked without even a p-suit when the others in the shuttle wore PPUs and armor. Six of them were neuro-enhanced marines, huge and bulky in their battle armor. At their order, he called down to the shuttle field. Someone answered—he didn't know the name—and turned on the field's electronic guidance system. He couldn't see it himself; this shuttle had no windows. He felt the BUMP-bump-bump of the shuttle's landing and roll in, then the hatch opened and the scent of Sirialis rushed in, the smell taking him back to a childhood that now seemed very far away.

In the midst of them, feeling small and vulnerable, Harlis walked across the field wondering why no one had come to meet them. The men looked this way and that, assessing, cataloguing.

"Piece of cake," someone said.

"Find us transport," said Taylor. But the hangars and shelters were empty. In the office, the only sign of occupation was the main control board, powered up and humming faintly. Taylor grinned. "They're playing hard to get, are they? Want a hunt?" The other men grinned too, and nodded.

"We'll see. Looks like we'll have to walk—where's this bank, Harlis?"

The village street, in early summer, looked like a travel poster: the neat stone buildings, the planters full of flowers, more flowers on the vines that clambered here and there. A marmalade cat raised its head from a doorstep, then slid down and into a flowerbed between cottages.

"Where is everybody?" Taylor asked. "Did they just run off in the fields?" One of the NEMs kicked open the door to the bank. "Some security," Taylor sneered.

They herded Harlis inside. No one was there, but the autobank was on, just as the shuttle field power had been on. Harlis entered his access codes, and his credit cube, and waited for the light to come on. The autobank transferred the contents of his accounts to the cube. He strained to remember Bunny's code—the bank would lock out for two hours if he made a mistake—but his first try worked. Bunny's account balance, however, was zero.

"Get your offworld accounts," Taylor said. Harlis entered the complete access codes for financial ansible transfers, and waited.

ansible access denied. enter correct code.

"They changed the codes," Taylor said. "They changed the
codes
." With the word he backhanded Harlis across the face. "And all you had here was a lousy two hundred thousand—" He jerked his head at the others. "Let's go."

"I can get more," Harlis said. "I know I can, if—"

"Shut him up," Taylor said. One of the NEMs flipped his weapon over and tapped Harlis on the shoulder. It looked like a tap, but it felt like his shoulder was broken.

"Stuff at the house, Captain?" asked one of the men.

"Knickknacks," Taylor said. "Probably all that's left—the civs have run out, like the rabbits they are; they'd have taken the good stuff that was easy to move. Unless you want sheets and pillowcases and things they wouldn't bother with—"

The man laughed. "Not me, sir."

Harlis looked up the street, where the top stories of the house rose above the trees that edged the gardens.

"Want a last look, Harlis?" asked Taylor. "Think there's something worthwhile they won't have taken away, or locked up so you can't get at it?"

"Pictures," Harlis said hoarsely. "Books, tableware, furniture, weapons . . ."

"Weapons?"

"Hunting weapons, and old ones, antiques."

"Worthless trash," Taylor said. "I'm not getting blisters going up there for souvenirs."

He led the way back to the shuttle; Harlis looked around, hoping against hope that someone would come to rescue him. There were only twenty mutineers in the landing party; he knew the militia could muster more than that. Couldn't they see he was a prisoner?

No one came, and the NEMs shoved him back aboard the shuttle for its return journey.

When they got back aboard, Taylor had two men bring Harlis to the bridge. "I think this smug little world needs a lesson," he said. "As does Harlis here. We're going to break a few windows, knock down a few chimneys." He looked at Harlis. "We'll start with your house,
Ser
Thornbuckle." He turned to his weapons officer. "You have the coordinates—drop one down the middle."

Harlis felt his mouth drying. "No—don't do that. Why destroy it?"

"Because I want to," Taylor said. "Because I can."

"But—they didn't do anything to you . . ."

"They didn't," Taylor said. "You did. You lied to me. And it annoyed me, and when I'm annoyed I sometimes take it out on things."

"But—but it's
mine
," Harlis said. "It's mine, it always should have been, and besides, it's beautiful."

"Not anymore," Taylor said. He grinned. "Show us, Leon," he said. Up on the screen, the great house appeared, serene and lovely in its encircling gardens and lawns, glowing in the early summer morning light, as beautiful as Harlis had ever seen. He could almost smell the roses. Then the missile struck; the house bulged, as if swelling with outrage, and was hidden in a boiling cloud of explosive debris. "Good shot," Taylor said. "So much for that one."

The expanding cloud from the first explosion obscured the view of the stable, but not the second billow, the thicker, more boiling cloud. Harlis felt sick; his stomach churned. He had never liked horses that much, but he had never wished them harm, either, and he could imagine the terrified animals that weren't killed at once, the shattered legs, the blood . . .

"We got what we came for," Taylor said. "Now that we have the money."

"Lob a few more at 'em?" asked another man.