The passenger liner Gravity’s Rainbow, four days out of Galcen and the sleekest commercial ship in the Red Shift Line, slid into the spacedock at High Station and began discharging passengers. For most of the elderly trippers and too-wealthy young people coming down the ramp, Pleyver was only the first stopover on Rainbow’s Outplanets Adventure Tour. Commander Jervas Gil, however, had come to High Station on business.
He turned his back on the Rainbow and her tour group and headed for High Station’s Customs and Immigration checkpoint. The carrybag in his left hand held enough changes of uniform to last him for two weeks, and the dispatch folder tucked under his right arm contained a letter.
Gil knew the letter by heart. It began: “FROM: COMMANDING OFFICER, REPUBLIC SPACE FORCE. TO: COMMANDER JERVAS GIL, RSF, 7872-0016. SUBJECT: INVESTIGATION/I. YOU ARE HEREBY DIRECTED TO TRAVEL BY THE FIRST AVAILABLE MEANS TO PLEYVER, THERE TO INVESTIGATE THE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE LOSS OF SPACE FORCE MEDICAL CLINIC AND RECRUITING COMMAND ON THAT WORLD . . . .”
The rest of the letter directed him to present his findings of fact, his opinions, and his recommendations to his commanding officer within twelve days. Since the commanding officer in this case was General Jos Metadi, whatever Gil decided to recommend was guaranteed attention at the very highest levels.
Highest levels . . . right, he thought, as the Customs and Immigration man looked at his passport and his orders. If I’d known two years ago what it was going to be like up here on the ‘highest levels,’ I’d have gone down on my knees to my detailer and asked for orders to a Reserve Force Retrofit Stores Ship instead . . .
He’d been in his office back at Prime Base, drafting the General’s testimony for the upcoming session with the Council’s Appropriations Committee, when Metadi had come in and tossed a folder of message flimsies onto his desk.
“How’d you like a few days away from politics, Commander?”
“If you can spare me, sir.”
“I can write my own speeches for a week or two,” said the General, “and you look like a man who could use a break.”
“Frankly, sir,” Gil told him, closing down the testimony file on the desk comp, “I could.”
The General nodded at the folder full of messages. “Well, this will give it to you if anything can. How do you feel about Pleyver this time of year?”
“I’ve already started packing,” said Gil. He began keying in a search of the port complex’s data base for vessels outbound toward the Pleyveran system. The news from Flatlands Portcity had been the talk of Prime Base all morning, ever since the first message had come in from the Supply Detachment on High Station. “What’s the latest on that mess?”
“Nothing good,” said the General. “One dead, one missing, two still in healing pods—and all they can see from upstairs is a pile of smoking rocks where the clinic used to be.”
“That’s bad.”
“Damned straight it’s bad. I want to know who did it, and I want to know why. Go out there, Commander, and find out just what the hell did happen.”
“I’ll get right on it, sir,” said Gil. “Any other instructions?”
“It’s all in the folder,” Metadi told him. “If anybody bothers to ask, you can tell them you’re acting for me personally—that might get you a word or two extra out of some of the old-timers, even these days. Don’t try it on the local law, though. For all I know, they’ve still got a warrant out for me in Flatlands Portcity.”
“A warrant,” said Gil, without much surprise. Most histories of the Magewar claimed that before the start of his privateering days, Jos Metadi had been an independent merchant captain. A few of the less laudatory texts, however, went so far as to point out that such a designation often covered a great deal of questionable activity. “If it’s not a breach of etiquette, sir—what for?”
“Not much,” said the General. “The last time I put in there—a couple of years before the Resistance recruited me, it would have been—one of the locals decided he didn’t like my number two gunner. The gunner got mad and punched him out, and that would have been the end of it, except that the big guy with a blaster at the other end of the bar turned out to be the local’s bodyguard. One thing led to another, and then we ran like hell for the spacedocks and left town in a hurry. Wound up threading the Web in something like six hours instead of twelve, because somebody dirtside whistled up a squad of Security fighters to chase us all the way to hyper. And I haven’t been back to Pleyver since.”
“Probably wise, sir,” murmured Gil. “Six hours through the Web?”
“Well,” said the General, “I used to round it down to six in those days for bragging purposes, but from high orbit to hyperspace jump it was probably closer to seven. I’ve turned respectable since then,” Metadi finished, “so I’ll say it was six-and-a-half.”
Six or seven, Gil thought, remembering the conversation as High Station’s lift system took him from the commercial docks to Space Force’s section of the orbiting structure, if he really did it, I’m impressed.
Gil had taken advantage of professional courtesy, and observed the Rainbow’s realspace progress through the Web from the liner’s bridge: twelve hours of what he recognized as tricky piloting even in the hands of an expert. Give me a courier ship running empty, and I might try doing it in eight-point-five . . . but seven’s right out. And as for six . . .
Gil shook his head.
The lift opened, and he stepped out in front of a pair of armor-glass doors marked with the Space Force crest.
Time to get to work.
Halfway through second lunch shift at the Space Force Medical Station on Nammerin, Llannat Hyfid checked her chronometer and frowned.
Bors Keotkyra caught the motion and looked up from his bowl of nut-butter soup. “What’s wrong?”
“If Ari’s working through lunch again—”
She paused, looking across the tables toward the door of the mess dome. She’d thought for a moment . . . yes. A familiar pattern was making itself felt among the varied presences in and around the crowded building. She relaxed and smiled a little in relief. “It’s all right. Here he comes.”
Bors gave her a nervous look that didn’t change when the doors of the mess hall opened and Ari walked in.
Llannat suppressed a sigh. She knew that expression. It was the reason Adepts took great care not to make the rest of the civilized galaxy nervous—whether over outworn tales of dark sorcery or the real fear of abuse of power. For that same reason, the Guild forbade its fully-trained Adepts to hold rank in the Space Force, although still allowing them to serve.
Llannat herself had never planned to wind up in such an awkward position, doing an officer’s work without an officer’s place in the chain of command, but when Ensign Hyfid’s latent sensitivity to the currents of power had unexpectedly ceased to be latent and became impossible to ignore, her superiors had sent her to the Adepts for basic instruction. They hadn’t thought that Master Ransome would go further, offering her an apprenticeship in the Guild—but he had, and she had accepted.
So what do I get for all my hard work? she thought. Stared at like I had two heads because I knew who was on the other side of that door.
“Good morning, Ari,” she said aloud, tilting her head back to look the big lieutenant in the eye. “I thought for a while we weren’t going to have the pleasure of your company.”
Ari put down his tray on the table across from her and pulled out the chair. “I was packing crash-trauma kits for Emergency,” he said, sitting down. “They’ve got the sterilizers back on line again, so we spent the morning playing catch-up.”
He started to work on a plate of steamed gubbstucker. Once you got used to the texture—which admittedly took some doing—the fibrous root had a flavor not unlike good Maraghite mud eel. After a few mouthfuls, he stopped chewing long enough to ask, “Any hot gossip?”
Llannat shook her head. “Not today—sorry.”
It didn’t take a Adept to guess what Ari had really been asking about. Nyls Jessan had been stationed on Nammerin before getting the nod to start up the new Space Force clinic on Pleyver, and the whole staff had been hit hard by the news from High Station. Ari, though, was taking it harder than most.
Bors Keotkyra made another try at conversation. “Hey, Ari. Did you catch last night’s episode of ‘Spaceways Patrol’?”
Ari shook his head. “I was working late over in the Isolation dome.”
“You should have seen it. I thought Serina’s dress was going to fall right off her this time.”
Llannat tried not to wince. Bors had a good heart and he was trying his best, even if his methods did lack subtlety. “You guys think Serina’s dress is going to fall off her every time,” she said. “Haven’t you ever heard of glue?”
Bors grinned. “Not for that.”
“I missed the show last night myself,” she said, “but I’m planning to catch the late rerun when I come off watch this evening. Black Brok’s about to take over the galaxy again, and I want to watch.” She turned to Ari. “How about you?”
“No, thanks,” said the Galcenian. “I was thinking of spending time studying up for the requals. I haven’t cracked a micro text since I got out of school.”
“Yeah—you were too busy doing micro.” Bors took up the familiar complaint. “That’s the thing about those exams. They’re slanted against all us people out here working at medicine instead of sitting home memorizing it.”
The comm link on the wall gave its usual blink-and-beep to get the room’s attention, followed by a three-tone sequence. Ari shoved back his chair and stood up.
“Death and damnation. I can’t even get a quiet lunch around here.”
Llannat watched, frowning, as he went over to the link and punched the Respond button. The sound of Ari’s signal sequence had sent a wave of foreboding washing over her, but the feeling refused to verbalize itself or resolve into anything specific. “Visitor for you, sir, over in Outpatient,” said the crackling metallic voice over the link.
“Roger, I’ll be there, out.”
Ari was already halfway to the door by the time the link clicked off.
“Don’t let them throw my food away,” he said over his shoulder as he went out. “I’ll be back as soon as I take care of this.”
The door shut behind him. After a couple of seconds Bors said, “Do you think the big guy’s all right?”
“What do you mean?” Llannat asked. Her sense of disquiet deepened.
“He’s pushing himself awful hard. And it’s like pulling teeth to get him to talk these days.”
“Look, Keotkyra,” she said patiently, “the man’s seen his mother assassinated and his sister killed in a messy spaceship wreck, he’s doing a tour of duty on a planet where somebody’s already tried once to kill him, and now he’s found out that his best friend is missing in action. Just because a man’s built like a brick wall doesn’t mean he is one.”
“Hey, Jessan was my friend, too,” protested Bors. “What I meant is, I’m worried about Ari. He’d probably punch me out for saying so, but he ought to have somebody looking after him.”
Llannat glanced over at her tablemate. “Don’t sweat it, Keotkyra,” she told him. “Somebody probably is.”
Ari walked past the central lab and pharmacy domes toward the field hospital’s outpatient wing. The day was shaping up to be a nice one by local standards, with just enough light rainfall to make the compound’s force field glow a faint pink overhead. The storms of high summer were still months in the future, and the winter floods had subsided to nothing but a soggy memory. There hadn’t even been an earthquake lately.
Inside the Outpatient dome, Esuatec had the desk watch. “I just got a strange one,” she told him. “Said he had to talk to you personally, and then he couldn’t wait. Left a present for you, though.”
“A present?”
Esuatec nodded. “A pair of dice.” She dropped the white cubes into Ari’s hand. “I didn’t know you gambled.”
“I don’t,” he said. “Was that all?”
“No, there was a message, too: ‘The same as before.’ Mean anything to you?”
“Absolutely nothing,” said Ari. “And for this I’m missing lunch. What did the guy look like?”
“Little bitty spacer type. Not a local.”
“One of ours?” asked Ari. RSF Corisydron had been on maneuvers in the Nammerin system for a week now, and they’d seen one or two crew members in Outpatient already.
But Esuatec shook her head. “Not Space Force, no.”
“Could you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“Only if he was wearing the same clothes,” said Esuatec. “He looked just like everybody else, if you know what I mean.”
“I know,” said Ari. “If he comes back, sit on him if you have to, but don’t let him leave till I get here. See you later, ’Tec—I want to get back and finish my lunch before mold starts to grow on it.”
“Got you covered, Ari. Later.”
As he’d expected, his plate of steamed gubbstucker was cold by the time he got back. The mess hall was empty except for Llannat Hyfid, still nursing a cup of cha’a. The Adept had been a good friend when he needed one, over the past few months, and she’d plainly been waiting for him today.
“What happened in Outpatient?” she asked as he sat down.
“Nothing.”
“You sure aren’t acting like it.”
“I’m puzzled,” said Ari. “That’s all.”
He turned his hand over and spilled the dice onto the table. They came to rest against the napkin dispenser, showing a three and a two. Moodily, he scooped them up and threw them again. “So tell me—does ‘The same as before’ mean anything to you?”
“By itself? No.” Her dark eyes followed the dice as he picked them up and tossed them again. “Why?”
He shook his head. “No reason.”
“What’s the trouble? Maybe I can help.”
The kindness undid him. His eyes blurred and his throat tightened. “Nothing is ever the same as before. Nothing.”
“Ari,” said Llannat’s soft voice from across the table, “there’s no such thing as luck or chance.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about philosophy right now, thank you.”
“I’m not talking about philosophy, I’m talking about those dice. They’ve been turning up fives ever since you started throwing them.”
Ari blinked and threw the dice again—watching them, this time. “Three and two. Four and one. Three and two.” He scooped up the little cubes and clenched his fist around them. “It’s the Quincunx. It has to be.”
“Just what we needed,” said Llannat. “I still have nightmares about the last time.”
“So do I, believe me. I thought we were dead for sure.”
“If it hadn’t been for you, we would be.”
“I could say the same thing about you,” he said. “We were both lucky, I guess.”
“Now you’re talking philosophy,” she told him. “Believe me, there’s no such thing as luck. Everything has a purpose.”
“All right, then. You tell me what the message meant.”
“Let me hold the dice.”
Ari hadn’t expected her to take up the challenge; he kept forgetting that Llannat Hyfid was an Adept as well as a medic. He handed the dice over anyway. She put the little ivory cubes between her palms and closed her eyes. After a minute or so, she spoke.
“The same place, the same people, the same time, the same trouble.”
“Clear as ditch water,” he said.
“They wanted it to make sense to you, and nobody else,” she told him, opening her eyes. “What were the first things that came into your head?”
“Munngralla’s curio shop,” he said without hesitation. “The Quincunx. Midnight. And my . . . ” The silence stretched out too long.
“Your what?”
“I was about to say ‘my sister,’ but they couldn’t mean that. There’s no way they could have known. So it’s probably intended to mean a killing.”
“There you have it,” she said. “A warning—or a summons.”
“A summons, I think,” said Ari. He tapped the pips on the dice with one blunt fingertip. “Five dots . . . Five Points Imports. The rest of it doesn’t matter, since they couldn’t count on me finding an Adept to read the patterns.”
“Then take the warning as a gift,” she said. “Now that you know there’s danger, are you still going in?”
“I don’t see that I have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” she said. “But I promised I wasn’t going to talk philosophy. Do you want a backup?”
“No thanks,” he said. He scooped the pair of dice off the tabletop and put them into his shirt pocket. “Helping me out before almost got you and Jessan killed. If trouble’s looking for me again, this time I’m the only one it’s going to get.”