“You—were there?” A transparent attempt to be indirect. Heris could not contain her laughter. He scowled.
“I was there,” she said. “I witnessed it.” Let him wonder if she was one of the hunted, or there in some other role. Right now he did not deserve to know more. “He’s definitely dead,” she went on. “And so are his associates on that trip, while records have been found listing those who accompanied him other times.” Livadhi stirred. Heris searched his face, finding nothing certain.
“If you have such experience,” she went on, “it’s one more reason I should not trust you. Although . . . I myself suspect he sometimes lured officers into it, and then blackmailed them later.” Livadhi flushed. Heris simply looked at him until his color returned to normal. So. Now she knew. But what would he do?
“I suppose . . . the Crown knows all about it.” His voice was low, hoarse.
“I would imagine so,” Heris said carefully. She didn’t actually know what the various investigators had turned up, but if Livadhi wanted to think she did, that suited her purpose.
“Nobody said anything—I mean, I haven’t heard any rumors.”
Heris shrugged. “I suppose the investigations aren’t complete, and they’re not moving until they are. Besides, why ruin the careers of good officers for one mistake?” That came out a little bitter, and she meant it to. Her one “mistake” had saved lives and won a battle, but still cost her a career.
Livadhi looked at her oddly. “I hope that attitude prevails,” he said. “Though I’m surprised to find you so lenient.”
“You mistake me,” Heris said. “I’m not lenient at all. This is not my fight. Carrying out the king’s request is. I will not let any . . . old grievances get in my way.”
“I see.” Livadhi’s face was carefully neutral again. “And you have no interest in rekindling an old friendship? You would prefer that . . . former shipmate?”
“My former shipmates suffered considerably on my behalf,” Heris said, ignoring the implication. If Livadhi had heard about Petris, it was still none of his business. “They proved themselves trustworthy. Can you blame me for wanting to put trust where it’s been rewarded before?”
“No, I suppose not. Well, then what about the mission?”
“You tell me what your mission was, and I will decide if you’re a potential help or hindrance to mine,” Heris said. Livadhi’s stare took on new respect.
“You’ve acquired an even keener edge to your blade,” he said. “You know the regulations—”
“And the realities,” Heris said. “Come, now—if you are loyal to the Crown and the Familias, you know why I have to hear your mission, and before I tell you of mine.”
“All right.” Livadhi sighed, and Heris sensed that his resistance had ended. “I was told that you were going to Naverrn Station to take the prince to the Guerni Republic, but that by a mix-up, the prince’s double was there instead. I was supposed to transport the prince and intercept you, ensuring that you had the right person aboard. I was to do this not while you were onstation, but in deepspace, to avoid detection. We expected you to be there another day or so, and I was going to hang about insystem—as you know, R.S.S. ships do sometimes observe in that system. My . . . er . . . sources told me that one of your crew had obtained, if that’s the right word, a tight beam receiver, so I planned to contact you before you left Naverrn Station, so that we could rendezvous at a distance, making it look like a routine inspection.”
“Except that there are no routine inspections out here,” Heris said. “As you well know.”
“It was all I could think of,” Livadhi said.
Heris would like to have made a sharp comeback, but she couldn’t think of a better plan herself, not off the top of her head.
“What were you supposed to do with the double I had?”
“Take him to Xavier, where he’s booked on a commercial liner, and put him aboard.”
“I see.” How much to explain? “You’re right: we were supposed to impersonate a small independent cargo vessel, and transport the prince to the Guerni Republic.” She was not about to explain for what purpose. “I was told his double would take over on Naverrn.”
“But you snatched his double—”
“But only because he was refusing to come, and I could not distinguish them . . . since they were clones.”
“That should have told you they were fakes, neither of them the prince.”
“Not . . . necessarily. After all, they matched the prince’s ID specs.”
Livadhi looked startled. “They can’t. They’re clones of each other, not of the prince.”
“Let’s check that out,” Heris said. She spread out the hardcopy of the identification specs in front of the scanner. “Is this what you got?”
Livadhi peered at it. “Yes . . . close, at least. I’ll need to check mine.” He touched one of his screens, and pointed a wand at the input screen from Heris. After a moment, he blanked his screen. “The same, our computer says. And our man matches. That means—”
“Three clones. One of them the prince.”
“Maybe,” Livadhi said. “And maybe not.”
“There’s only one thing to do,” Heris said. “Get all three of them where we were supposed to take the prince and let the medical personnel sort it out.”
“But that will risk detection,” Livadhi said.
“So would taking in a vat-grown clone as the prince,” Heris replied. “Do you think they couldn’t tell? The clones tell me that there is a technique, not part of the identification scan, but something to do with leftover markers of accelerated growth.”
“But I can’t take my ship off to the Guerni Republic. I have another assignment.”
“Then send your putative prince over here, and I’ll take all three of them.”
“But—alone?”
“You said it yourself. If you show up there in a Familias R.S.S. cruiser, it’ll be an Incident with a capital I. It’s safe enough for me; I’ve never been there, and neither has this ship.”
“I don’t like it,” Livadhi muttered. “But I can’t think what else to do. I suppose you have a shuttle lock on that thing?”
“Yes,” Heris said. She nodded to Petris and Kulkul, who picked up their weapons and left the bridge. “You can send your pinnace over and swim him through the tube.”
“By the way,” Livadhi said a few minutes later, when the pinnace was on its way. “I am authorized to tell you that a certain Lady Cecelia disappeared from an extended care medical facility a few weeks after you left Rockhouse Major. Would you like to explain that to me?”
“No,” Heris said shortly. “I would not.” But that wouldn’t do; Livadhi would pursue the mystery eagerly, just to annoy her. “She was my former employer,” she said. “You may have heard—she had a stroke, and her family blamed me. That’s why the king thought my leaving with the yacht wouldn’t be connected to any plan of his.” That far she could go.
“But why was I told to tell you?”
Heris shrugged. “I can’t imagine. I can’t say I think much of her family, keeping her in a place with no better surveillance than that. I hope she’s in good hands.” What could she say to change direction? The obvious topic came to her. “Who’s your new admiral?”
Livadhi grimaced. “Silipu, remember her?” His comments on the changes in command since Lepescu’s death filled all the time it took to unload the prince and retrieve the pinnace. When he signed off, she wondered just how much she’d fooled him.
Chapter Fourteen
“We’re almost there,” Brun said. Cecelia had come to prefer her hands to others; she had no professional skill, but a very human affection to convey. Amazing how different she was from the girl who had thrown up in the lounge of Cecelia’s yacht. It was hard to believe she had ever seemed a shrill-voiced selfish fluffhead. Was it the adventure she’d had on the island, or just normal maturation? She had helped dress Cecelia, this time in clothes Cecelia could feel—soft pants and shirt, a soft tunic, low soft boots. She had helped lift Cecelia into the hoverchair; the inflated supports held Cecelia’s head steady and gave her, she hoped, the look of someone disabled but alert. For now, the hoverchair was locked down . . . Cecelia felt a moment’s panic, but Brun’s hand stroking her hair calmed her. She hated herself for that panic; she could not get used to being helpless, blind, vulnerable. She wanted to be brave and calm. “It’s all right,” Brun was saying. “You are brave. It’s just—no one could be, every single minute.”