The Sea Without a Shore (ARC)

CHAPTER 21


Brotherhood on Corcyra

“They’re coming out of the Manor,” Tovera said. “They’ve seen us; they’re coming over.”

Adele reduced her data unit’s display—she didn’t shut down—and turned. She was sitting on a block of the tumbled railing at the northwest corner of the Plaza. The corner to the south had been carved away by the first of the missiles which destroyed the Gulkander Palace; the transmitted shock had been enough to damage the other end of the retaining wall also.

Daniel and Hogg came toward them across the Plaza, picking their way over the tilting blocks with the effortless assurance of water finding a level. Adele waved. She didn’t have to call attention to herself as she had thought she might need to do—Daniel hadn’t been expecting to see her—but it was polite. It was one of the things human beings did to show that they were pleased by the company of other human beings.

Adele glanced at Tovera and said, “You’re a good role model.” Tovera smiled faintly but said nothing.

Besides the toppled railing there were other reminders of the brief coup—or of the counter-coup, depending on how you wanted to describe the process by which Colonel Mursiello had returned command of the Garrison to Colonel Bourbon. There was enough powdered stone in the air, lifted by breezes, to make the back of Adele’s throat feel dry and itchy.

Much worse were the cloying, sickening combustion products of the propellant which had been sprayed over a wide area before it ignited. Anti-ship missiles used boron fuel to get maximum acceleration. The residues were poisonous, though at the present dilution they wouldn’t be an acute problem.

Adele smiled wryly. She didn’t expect to die of emphysema.

Daniel put his foot on the base of the fallen stone banister which had once supported part of the railing on which Adele sat; he stared down what was nearly a perpendicular cliff for the first twenty feet and a stiff slope for the next twenty feet also. RCN midshipmen accompanied the riggers as part of their duties, so it wasn’t likely that an officer who had risen to the rank of captain would be troubled by vertigo.

Daniel turned and seated himself on the block beside Adele’s. Hogg and Tovera were facing outward some six feet away from their principals, watching other people on the plaza.

“I’ve been talking with Colonel Bourbon,” he said, looking toward the main stream of the Cephisis well to the east. “He’s doubtful, but he’s willing to support my plan for the time being. In return, he’d like my help in getting fair benefits for his personnel.”

“Benefits?” Adele said.

“Bourbon is aware that an independent Corcyra will have very little need for a standing army,” Daniel said, “even without the general popular dislike of the Garrison. Mursiello may have thought he could rule by force, but Bourbon is smarter than that. The miners are mostly armed by this time.”

His laugh had a harsh undertone. “I don’t think Bourbon really has the stomach to try that, either,” he said, “but that’s a separate question. Still, he doesn’t want to see his people dumped in the street after the Pantellarians are gone. Dumped or massacred.”

“I see,” said Adele. That problem was now being considered in the back of her mind. She had a more immediate concern, however.

“Daniel,” she said, “I need to enter Hablinger to meet a man. I hope you have some suggestions. The Kiesche could do that, but I would like to return to Brotherhood afterward as well. Could you get me into Hablinger without being noticed by the independence forces?”

“Not directly,” Daniel said. He didn’t ask why she wanted to meet a man in Hablinger. “Now, it’s possible that we might be able to meet an incoming ship above Corcyra and transfer you to it. The only ships bound for Hablinger are Pantellarian and in convoy, so that would mean intercepting a normal copper trader and bribing her to take you into Hablinger instead; which we could do, though I’m not sure about timing. Or—”

He pursed his lips as he calculated mentally. I would be staring at my display, Adele thought.

“—we could lift for Pantellaria and put you on a ship there,” Daniel continued. “They wouldn’t think anything in Brotherhood about a Pantellarian ship landing in Hablinger, and of course they couldn’t track us from the ground. That would work!”

“I need to be in Hablinger within three days,” Adele said. “I’m sorry, I should have said that.”

“If you get us to the independence side, master…,” Hogg said, sidling closer. He continued to face outward. “I can get her through the Pantellarian lines. Unless you’re fussy about a sentry or two, mistress?”

“I don’t care about that,” Adele said curtly. “Daniel, will Colonel Bourbon give us his support? Because we’ll need at least neutrality from independence forces at the point we set out from.”

“I’m sure Bourbon would,” Daniel said, “but I suggest we discuss matters first with Brother Graves. The Transformationist segment of the siege lines is immediately to the west of the Cephisis channel, which I think would be a good location.”

“That’s the way I think too,” Hogg said, nodding his head enthusiastically. “I been looking at the satellite feeds all the time we been back on Corcyra. I figured there’d be more ways to get into the city than a couple thousand screaming idiots charging across the fields in broad daylight like last time.”


“Yes, I think that too,” said Daniel, grinning. “But as to Adele’s matter, Brother Graves is alone in Brotherhood. I trust Colonel Bourbon, but I don’t trust all the people around him to keep their mouths shut. We can’t afford to have the Pantellarians learn about this—”

He paused. Adele saw his face change, though not in any fashion she could have described with certainty.

“Unless,” Daniel said, “the Pantellarians are expecting you?”

“They’re not,” said Adele. “Not even the person I need to see.”

She coughed to put an end to the subject. “I’ve met Graves,” she said. “I can talk with him myself, but it might be better if you joined me to explain exactly what is required. I’m out of my depth here.”

“No problem,” said Daniel. “We can go to his office immediately. Though it’ll be roundabout because there’s a large hole where Ridge Road used to join the Plaza.”

“One thing…,” Hogg said. He looked at Adele. “Tovera’s going to have to watch my young master while I’m gone. It’s going to be like having a log chained to my leg, dragging you through the lines. I won’t guarantee how quick I can do it, so she’s got to be responsible here.”

All three of them looked at Tovera. Tovera turned with a lopsided smile.

“And you don’t want to haul a second log around, hey?” she said. “Well, I can see that. But bring her back, right?”

“Right,” said Hogg, meeting Tovera’s eyes. “She comes back, or nobody does.”

His expression might have been meant for a smile.

“Which is how it was going to be anyway,” Hogg added. “Now, let’s go find Brother Graves so we can be done with this crap quick.”

***

Daniel stepped aside at the head of the stairs so that Hogg could reach the top, but he let Adele approach the door of Graves office alone.

“Mistress,” said Tovera urgently. “It isn’t latched!”

“No,” said Adele. She rapped on the door jamb with the knuckles of her right hand.

“Come in!” a male voice called. “It’s open.”

Daniel felt himself relax and frowned because he had been anything but relaxed. The door was closed but not pulled quite to, something everyone did occasionally. Since it wasn’t an outside door which the wind might blow open, there was no reason to worry about it.

Unless you were a paranoid sociopath like Tovera. Was there another person like Tovera?

Adele pushed the door fully open and entered an ordinary office. Rikard Cleveland and an older man, presumably Graves, were standing on chairs as they replaced the glass in a window casement. Both panes had cracked across diagonally.

Ceiling plaster had fallen in the corner beyond them. Someone had swept it up, but the chunks waited in a wastebasket to be dumped.

“I’m sorry about the mess, Lady Mundy,” Graves said, stepping down carefully. “The excitement yesterday made the building flex a little. The disadvantage of building on bedrock is that anything that happens to the bedrock is transmitted at full strength.”

He laid his utility knife on the desk and walked around it, holding his hand out to Daniel. “And you would be Captain Leary,” Graves said. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. I’m Dallert Graves, as I suppose you know. Ah? Would you care to sit down? I can bring a chair out of the bedroom?”

“Our servants will stand,” Daniel said. He supposed that made him sound like the stern master of storybooks—and of no few noble townhouses, though in the country things were more relaxed.

“I thought they might,” said Graves with a sort of smile. He pulled the chairs from under the window, sitting in one and gesturing Cleveland into the other.

“Now,” Graves continued. “Please explain what you want from me, Captain, and I’ll do my best to provide it. The Transformationist Community is in your debt for removing Colonel Mursiello. In fact all Brotherhood is. Despite the occasional cracked window.”

Graves had understood that Hogg and Tovera were bodyguards, which Rikard Cleveland didn’t appear to have done despite being in close contact with them on the voyage from Cinnabar. It would be wrong to think of Graves as a dreamy religious nut.

“Captain?” said Cleveland. His hands rested on the back of the indicated chair, but he hadn’t sat down. “If you’re prefer that I leave, I won’t feel offended.”

Daniel had been on the fence about asking Cleveland to go. The volunteered offer convinced him that it wasn’t necessary.

“Please stay, Master Cleveland,” he said, taking the chair facing the desk. Adele was already in the one against wall, immersed in the display of her data unit. “Though of course the operation depends on keeping the discussion among ourselves. The operation and lives depend on secrecy.”

Daniel coughed. “Basically, we intend to put an agent into Hablinger,” he said. “We’d like to do it through the Transformationist positions in the siege line, because your contingent is relatively small. Also I believe your people are more trustworthy than those of other elements in the coalition.”

He grinned and added, “I suppose that sounds as though I’m buttering you up.”

“Yes,” said Graves, “it does. But I also believe it’s objectively true—as I suspect you do, Captain. Of course I’ll help you. Would you like me to accompany you north and speak to our field commander, Brother Heimholz?”

“Do you think that would be necessary?” Daniel said. The possibility hadn’t crossed his mind. “I was hoping for a letter of introduction, so to speak.”

“I believe our communications—mine, that is,” said Graves, “between here and both the field and Pearl Valley are reasonably secure.”

“They are,” said Adele without looking up from her display. “Secure from any Pantellarian on the planet at present, at least.”

“I was more concerned with the other factions in the independence coalition, to be honest,” Graves said with a smile. “But I suppose those risks aren’t as great with Colonel Bourbon back in charge. And I’m glad to know that the Pantellarians aren’t reading our messages, not that they would find much to interest them.”

“If you’d just send a note saying that we’ll be arriving, probably tomorrow,” Daniel said, “I would appreciate it. A general note like that wouldn’t be a problem even if it did get out.”

“Of course,” Graves said. “Brother Heimholz runs a tight ship, or whatever metaphor would be proper. He’s a former captain in the Land Forces of the Republic; and he rose from the ranks to a commission during the recent war.”

Graves tented his fingers before him and looked at them. “I think Heimholz may have a more difficult task than I do,” he said. “The common soldiers of our contingent are rotated back to Pearl Valley every three months, but Brother Heimholz remains where he is; both for continuity of command and because he’s really the only member of our community who has the expertise. It’s very hard for one of us, a brother, to be responsible for slaughter.”

“Brother Heimholz lives with a community,” Cleveland said. “You have nothing, no one.”

Then, fiercely, he added, “I don’t know how you stand it! I’ve only been a member for two years and even so the separation of returning to Cinnabar was, was…”

He smiled wryly. “It’s good that I’ve stopped drinking,” he said, his voice mild again. “I was an unpleasant drunk, and I would have stayed very drunk.”

“I’m doing it for the cause,” Graves said with a lop-sided grin to show that he was joking. He wasn’t joking, of course.

“I’m surprised that the Transformationists…,” Daniel said. His mind had toyed with “you cultists,” but there was no risk that would reach his tongue. “Would be so strongly for Corcyran independence. You don’t seem to be a very political group.”

Cleveland looked blank. So did Graves for a moment, but then the older man chuckled.

“I was unclear, Captain,” Graves said, “and I apologize. Yes, we’re an apolitical group as a general matter; our involvement in the independence movement is simply because we fear that the circumstances attending a return to Pantellarian rule would be non-survivable.”

He cleared his throat, then said, “The cause to which I referred is the transformation of men as individual thinkers to men as aspects of a single social mind.”

“That…” Daniel said. He didn’t know how to go on, so he stopped.

“I do not expect this to occur within my lifetime,” said Graves, smiling. “And perhaps it won’t occur within the lifetime of the universe. Still, it’s the cause for which we strive.”

As before, he wasn’t joking.

Daniel rose to his feet. “I’m not a religious man, Brother Graves,” he said. “But your religion is one I can honor from a distance.”

Graves stood also. “I’ll tell the field force to expect you, Captain,” he said. “And I assure you that craftsmanship at the level you and your companions demonstrate it—”


He nodded not only to Adele, joining Daniel at the door, but to Hogg and Tovera as well.

“—has my full appreciation also. May mankind be better for your efforts.”

“Yes,” said Daniel as he led the way out of the room. “We can all hope that.”

His own goals were shorter term, but that was a worthy sentiment.