Nina Osier - Exile's End

Exile's End

By Nina M. Osier

CHAPTER 1

It was a fine day for a kidnapping.

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The Trade Fair was in full swing on the surface of Chaitanya, and there were scores of ships parked

in orbit around that less-than-hospitable world. The Trade Fair was held here, and not on a more inviting

planet (of which there were of course dozens - hundreds, even - within the uneven sphere of human-

settled space), simply because of its location; Chaitanya belonged to no group in particular, and to every

human in general. And just as importantly, it was somewhere near the physical center of the area regularly

plied by freighters and tankers and other such commercial starships; so gathering here at intervals that

followed the solar year of long-abandoned Earth was as workable as any such gathering pattern might

have been, although of course not every trader's House was represented at every annual Fair.

Valeria was always represented, though. Like most of the older Houses, that family held several

ships and deliberately scattered them across the established trade routes in order to cover as much territory

and consistently gain as much profit as possible. This year the old man's own ship, which according to

custom bore the House's name on its superstructure, was itself in orbit above Chaitanya Spaceport. Of

course, everyone in the trading community knew that Anders Valeria himself would probably take little

part in the Fair's proceedings; but he was there, and his ship rode in one of the more coveted orbits where

shuttle access could be had by an almost direct rise from the surface instead of by a circuitous routing in

order to avoid everyone else's orbits and everyone else's shuttles. Everyone respected Anders Valeria, and

because they knew the cause of his weakness almost everyone excused it by never mentioning it where

any of his family members could hear.

But everyone knew, of course, that Anders Valeria would spend most of his time in a wine-fog in

his cabin while his eldest child - a thirty-year-old son - ran things, for all intents and purposes as if his

father were already dead. When his fellow traders spoke of this at all, carefully out of the Valeria family's

hearing, they agreed that it was fortunate for everyone that Jock had both his father's gifts for starship

trading and his long-dead mother's calm, sober personality. If Anders had bred another like himself as his

firstborn, that ancient House would have been in deep difficulties by now. It had taken young Jock the

entire nine years since he'd completed his military obligation and returned to his father's ship to get the

House back on an even keel; it had been tottering dangerously by that time, with Anders Valeria's young

second wife dead and his attention focused solidly on chemical consolation rather than on his business or

even on his ship.

Jock would have liked nothing better than to have gone down to the Fair with his young half-

siblings, on this day when the real business was taking place aboard the orbiting ships and what happened

dirtside was for fellowship and entertainment's sake only; but he no longer had that luxury, had not had it

since the year he himself had been just turned eighteen and on his way - literally, straight from the Fair -

to Guardbase Alpha to begin his three years of compulsory military service. So he had sent twins Jason

and Xanthe, who were celebrating their own eighteenth birth-anniversary this very day, down to the

festivities with firm instructions: "Enjoy every minute of it! I wish I'd known when I was 18 that being

young doesn't last forever!"

That, of course, made his half-siblings look at each other with mingled amusement and disgust. In a

sense he seemed as ancient to them as did their father, and therefore it was not conceivable that he'd ever

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been as young as they were; and in another sense he was their brother, not their parent, and therefore had

no business making such speeches.

They were technical adults themselves, as of today, and had for the first time been admitted to any

entertainment they cared to sample; had been able to purchase intoxicants, experiment as they pleased -

and hadn't bothered with much of it, because like so many of their kind they had figured out ways to do

illegally at fourteen (or earlier) everything that today was supposed to be so new and magical at eighteen.

Jason had spent much of his time discreetly trailing after a certain golden-haired, closely-chaperoned girl;

and Xanthe had spent her time keeping an eye on her twin.

Which was why they were arguing now, uncharacteristically, as the shuttle they were co-piloting

lifted from Chaitanya's surface toward their father's ship and as night began to come down on the

hemisphere where Chaitanya Spaceport was located. No longer were they young enough for curfews, but

staying dirtside to sleep hadn't even occurred to either of them. It was almost beyond imagining, to

voluntarily sleep anywhere but in the safety of the Valeria's familiar compartments.

"Jason, you looked just plain foolish!" Xanthe told her brother now, tossing her mane of dark hair

and giving him a quick glare when her eyes weren't busy with the instrument console in front of her.

"How could you think she'd be interested in you, even if she could get away from her chaperone? Do you

think she doesn't know her father hates ours?"

Jason Valeria was not responding well to his twin's needling, because he was barely noticing it at

all. The slim, wiry young man - shorter by centimeters than half-brother Jock, and so much less

powerfully built that seeing the likeness of their faces was always something of a shock to strangers - was

doing his job as co-pilot well enough, because that came almost as naturally as breathing; but he was

thinking far more about that slender, blonde girl who'd been boarding another House's shuttle just as he

and Xanthe had boarded theirs, than about his sister's chattering tongue.

"Jason! You do know that's Kyla Robie you've been trailing around all day?" Xanthe could have

reached out and shaken him, the half-smile on his face was so aggravating. "I realize no one ever sees her,

the old man keeps her locked up like some kind of exotic crystal - but you did know that's who she is?

And you do remember what that means?"

Jason gave himself a small, deliberate shake. It was becoming obvious that his twin wasn't going to

run down until she got a reply, and he was too happy to want to give her the sort of cutting response that

she probably deserved (probably even expected!); so he was searching half-heartedly for some

appropriate word or phrase that could be used to quash her gently, when he heard a different sound from

her lips.

"What?" she said, and followed the word with another that Jock would definitely not have let her

say in his presence no matter what birthday she'd just celebrated. "Jason! My console's off-line. Have you

got her?" (Her, of course, being the shuttle.)

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He hadn't. The shuttle was moving, at just the same speed as a moment earlier when Xanthe had had

it firmly in her experienced grasp; but its course was altered, and neither twin had entered any request for

that course change.

Jason tapped the comm. "Shuttle to Valeria," he said, in his surprisingly deep young voice. "Are you

tractoring us? What's going on?"

There was no reply except static. At his side Xanthe tapped her own comm, and tried for another

contact. "Chaitanya Control, this is Valeria shuttle," she said, with the outward calm of a lifetime already

spent encountering and dealing with the sometimes terrible surprises that were part and parcel to a trader's

life. "We're being tractored, apparently not by our own ship. Control, do you copy?"

More static. The twins looked at each other, then at the readouts on their consoles; and they went to

work without a word, tapping in instructions - rerouting controls - reconfiguring power circuits.

To no avail whatsoever. The comms stayed dead, the consoles stayed off-line, and the shuttle

continued lifting toward - where?

Alan Robie watched the dot on the viewscreen that represented the Valeria shuttle's progress, and he

smiled to himself in that way that his elder daughter Alana (and before her, each of the two women who

had been his wives) had learned to regard as the worst kind of storm warning. Kyla, his younger daughter

and the proverbial apple of his eye, would not have felt that shock of unpleasant recognition; but everyone

else who'd spent any length of time aboard the freighter Callon would have known that smile, just as

quickly and with just as much foreboding as would Alana or her mother Treena or Kyla's mother Dorina.

No one was here to see that smile and realize its meaning now, though, because Robie was not on

board the Callon. He sat in the control room of a just-purchased tiny yacht, with only a single companion;

and that woman, although a long-time associate, had no personal relationship with him - had never had to

work for him - and therefore saw only a smile. Nothing more. So all she said was, "You look pleased,

Captain Robie."

"I am pleased," Robie admitted, deliberately letting the small smile become a grin that distorted his

scarred face. "I've waited a long time for this."

"You're paying us well for this," the woman countered, returning his unholy grin. She did not have

his horrible facial scars, but her smile was somehow not one bit less distorted. "So. We'll take the young

Valerias somewhere very safe, and we'll release them only when you give the word. And, of course, when

you pay the other half of the fee for their - ah - detention."

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"Exactly." Robie checked his chronometer. "And now, although I don't want to be a poor host - isn't

it time for you to be back aboard your ship so you can greet them? And then get underway?"

"A moment, Captain." The woman touched her private comm, listened intently to a message that

was not audible to other ears, and then nodded in satisfaction. "I have more good news, although you may

not see it that way. The young Valerias are safely aboard my ship - and so is young Mistress Robie."

"What?" It was almost a bellow. Alan Robie reached for his associate, almost as if he would put his

hands around her throat and throttle her; but an instant later he had control again, although a vein

throbbed at his temple as he stared at her. "Kyla? What have you done to my daughter?"

"Nothing at all, Captain Robie. And as long as you keep your end of our bargain, nothing will be

done to her. But you've been known to - ah - alter agreements in your own favor in the past; and

kidnapping is an offense with a large enough penalty that I've made certain you wouldn't decide that the

safe return of the young Valerias to their family wasn't worth making the second payment. So you will get

Kyla back, when the House of Valeria gets Xanthe and Jason back. Fair enough, I think?" The woman did

not wait for a reply, did not even wait for an acknowledgment. She had risen from the co-pilot's chair as

she had spoken, and she was leaving the control room for the access tube connecting the Robie yacht to

her own shuttle. In fact, she was doing so rather more quickly than was strictly necessary.

Alan Robie gave a moment's real consideration to sealing his yacht's airlock behind her and

dumping the access tube - atmosphere, pressure, unsuited guest and all - into vacuum, before the woman

could gain the safety of her shuttle and cast off properly. If he did that now, he could claim imperfect

knowledge of what had just been done between Chaitanya's surface and a certain doubtfully registered

cargo ship orbiting a hundred or so kilometers from his current position. He could contact the small

Guardpost below, raise an alarm, have the youngsters - all three of them, his own child and Anders

Valeria's two brats - rescued before that ship had any opportunity to leave orbit. He could probably

manage to do it without even getting fined for his actions thusfar, so skillfully could he place the blame

elsewhere if he acted right now.

Which would mean giving up the revenge he'd planned for the past thirty years. If he'd had thirty

more years in which to accomplish it, he might have chosen differently; he might have raised the alarm,

because he honestly did not enjoy thinking about how frightened his daughter - that lovely, sheltered child

of seventeen - must be feeling right now. But she was in no danger, and she was not going to be in any

danger. He knew his associates, had done business with them on dozens of even more delicate matters

over a quarter of a century and more. They would not harm Kyla unless it profited them more to do so

than it profited them to hold her safely and return her to her family when the whole operation was

concluded. And he not only didn't have thirty more years to set up another attempt at Anders Valeria - he

didn't even have thirty more months. Right now he felt well enough, but the monstrous thing that was

growing inside his body would soon begin to rob him of mobility - of clear thought - of all that was

necessary, in order for him to do to Anders Valeria what he'd planned and dreamed of doing over so many

long and strangely empty years.

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No, he didn't like to think of Kyla's being frightened; but it was a price that must be paid. So, as he'd

done so many times when sentimentality and one of his chosen goals had clashed, he decided in favor of

pursuing the goal and deliberately put his daughter out of his thoughts.

She would be safe enough. And her psyche would recover; that was one of the best things about

being seventeen, you could recover from just about anything. Since he did know perfectly well that he'd

spoiled her thoroughly since her mother's death (and probably before it, for that matter!), maybe this

experience would even in the long run be beneficial; a bit of adversity wouldn't necessarily hurt Kyla. It

might actually be the making of her.

Robie checked his own private comm, trusting to the secured channel (which his associate had not

been willing to do - that was why she had come over to speak with him in person), and spoke briefly with

First Mate Berkey aboard Callon. Berkey was the only person who knew where his captain was just now.

Not even Alana, who should be arriving soon on emergency leave of absence from her post as executive

officer on an Interstellar Guard starship, knew or would know just how it was that her father happened to

be missing.

If Alana knew the truth, she might do something stupidly "moral" about it. She would have to know,

of course, but not until his plan was so far in motion that she would have no option but to go along with it;

and then he would be dead, and whether she liked it or not she would have to give up that so-called

military career of hers and captain her father's ship - at least until Kyla came of age and married.

He couldn't imagine Kyla serving the required three years of military service in order to earn the

right to be a ship's officer, and although he was leaving the Callon to her she would nevertheless have to

qualify herself legally if she wanted to command it. And since that wasn't going to happen - he'd been

very careful not to raise her with that possibility in mind! - if Kyla wanted her inheritance she was going

to have to hire or marry someone who could command the ship on her behalf. Once that happened, of

course, half-sister Alana would be free to go back to her precious Guard uniform if she still wanted to do

so. She wouldn't have lost too much of her career; just a few years at most, and she owed that to her

family.

Alan Robie was satisfied with the day's outcome, although being outmaneuvered by an old associate

didn't please him and created a score that he might yet find a way to settle. He wouldn't be around to do it

personally, though, so he would have to be very creative indeed and come up with a way to get Alana to

do it for him after his death.

Hmm. A challenge of just the sort he liked best; he would have something to occupy his mind, after

all, on the two week-long passage from Chaitanya to the remote and uninhabited star system that was both

his and the freighter Valeria's next destination.

All was as it should be. The yacht left orbit, getting a deliberate head start on the freighter. Callon

would follow, not far behind Valeria; Berkey reported that Commander Alana Robie of the Interstellar

Guard had just notified her father's ship of her arrival at Chaitanya Spaceport.

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Maybe things were working out for the best, after all. Alana was not notably fond of her half-sister,

but she had a trader-child's normal fierce sense of family and there was little doubt about how she would

react when she heard what had happened to young Kyla. She would go after her, and would bring her

home safely or die trying.

But it wouldn't come to that, of course. Both of Alan Robie's daughters would live, and by the time

Robie himself lay dead his life's last purpose would have been accomplished.

Anders Valeria would be dead, too.

Alana Robie was thinking bitterly of just where her ship must be by now, of what her people must

be doing. Her body was striding across the dusty field that was the private shuttle portion of Chaitanya

Spaceport, headed toward the trim craft that said "Callon" on its hull; but her mind was back on the

flagship, back ten days ago when that summons from her captain had turned her corner of the universe

upside down.

Flag Captain Anna Sullivan had not treated the occasion in a strictly official manner, and that by

itself had warned Commander Robie that something was terribly wrong. Sullivan had summoned the

younger woman to her office, but had done so with her husband - and commanding officer, Admiral Mace

Gelsey - present. Interstellar Guard protocol was not as formal as that of the old-time, Earth-based

military services; if it had been, a woman like Anna Sullivan certainly could not have served as her own

spouse's flag captain. But for her to confer with her executive officer in Gelsey's presence was most

unusual, because the Admiral was very careful about staying out of his wife's relationships with her senior

staff members. That sort of attention to the human relations side of starship life was probably exactly why

the Gelsey-Sullivan partnership had not only endured for so many years, but had actually thrived; had

even produced an adult son, who was now completing his required three-year cadet assignment on a little

patrol ship somewhere far from his parents' flagship.

Alana Robie had been with Anna Sullivan for a scant three months, just long enough to have begun

to form a comfortable and secure working relationship. She had barely seen Mace Gelsey in an official

capacity during that time, and had never seen him at all in any sort of personal context. Yet here he was,

sitting in his powered chair in his wife's office, his facial expression somehow telling Commander Robie

that he was here to offer support instead of to act as commanding admiral of a battle group conferring

with his flag captain and her exec.

Sullivan's face - kind, careworn, with far more laugh lines than frown lines in its middle-aged beauty

- told Alana Robie both that the matter was personal, and that it was tragic, even before the flag captain

opened her mouth to speak. "Alana, please have a seat," Sullivan said, her tone gentle. "I've been asked to

give you some difficult news. When was the last time you saw your father?"

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Thank goodness. It's Papa, not Kyla, was Alana's first - although perhaps unworthy - thought. She sat

in the offered chair, with the captain sitting beside her instead of across the desk as was usual; and she

answered without hesitation, "Years, Captain. I haven't been home since I was twenty-one."

"Oh." Sullivan exchanged a glance with her husband. "I didn't realize, Alana; you and I haven't had

time to get to know each other very well as people. Anyway," and her tone became more familiar in its

sudden businesslike briskness, losing the maternal tenderness that had made Commander Robie so

uncomfortable, "its seems that your father has disappeared. His first mate is requesting that you go home,

take the helm of your family's House, spend whatever time is required to either locate your father alive or

to - wind up his affairs. I've already made out the paperwork to grant you an indefinite leave of absence.

You will want to take it, Alana?"

The question that concluded the captain's words was understandable. Commander Robie's head had

moved in a sharp, negative motion; and although she had done so silently, her lips had already formed a

clear "no."

Leave of absence, when she was just settling into her new post - an assignment so enviable that she

still could hardly believe she'd won it for her own? Executive officer of Admiral Gelsey's flagship, for

heaven's sake! At twenty-nine! And someone thought she was going to leave this, and go back to the

Callon? Just because Papa had decided to drop out of sight for who could guess what reason?

They were staring at her - admiral and flag captain, husband and wife, two fellow humans who had

thought they were giving her terrible personal news and who had prepared to give her every kind of

support she might need while she absorbed the shock. How could she tell them, now, that all she wanted

them to do was let her stay right here and go right on doing her job? And to bloody hell with the House of

Callon, the freighter that bore its name, and - might as well think it even if you can't possibly bring

yourself to hurt these good, kind people by saying it in front of them! - to particular bloody hell with Alan

Robie.

"Alana?" Captain Sullivan asked again, even more gently.

"Is there a personal message for me from Mr. Berkey, ma'am?" Commander Robie gave herself a

firm shake. She wanted nothing more than to declare herself done forever with her father and his House,

but she remembered now that her captain had said the message came from the Callon's first mate; and Mr.

Berkey she remembered with respect, even with affection. If he was the person who needed her back there

- only for a few days, of course, no matter what! - then perhaps she must consider going. At least she must

listen to it, if the message was from him.

"Yes. I'll give it to you to take back to your quarters, Commander; you'll want privacy to listen to it,

I think." Sullivan smiled slightly. "I'll sit on those leave papers for a few hours. Please let me know if you

want me to approve them. All right?"

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"Yes, Captain. Thank you, Admiral." Robie nodded to her two commanding officers, took the data

pad from Sullivan's hand, and left the captain's office as quickly as she could.

Alone in her cabin - a solitude that was the privilege of only the ship's most senior officers - Alana

lay back on her berth, more like an adolescent girl than a starship executive officer, and chose to listen to

her old friend's voice instead of scrolling his words across the data pad's small screen. His voice was as it

had always been, rough-toned and accented heavily by a childhood spent on a particularly infamous penal

colony world (his father's fault, not his own!). Alana remembered that voice from her earliest days, and in

it she had always heard the reassurance and support that had never been there for her in her own father's

often strident tones.

"Alana, I know this is the last thing you want to hear when you're just settling in on board your new

ship," Cameron Berkey began informally (he never had been expected to call his captain's children by

anything except their given names), "but I need you back on the Callon for at least a few days. Your

father was diagnosed with Deneva Syndrome just about as soon as we arrived at Chaitanya to get ready

for the Fair, and the next thing I knew he'd disappeared. There's a message being held at his bank for you,

coded to your biometric seal; I suppose it's a will, or power of attorney, or at least instructions of some

sort. I wouldn't be able to access it, anyway, and the message he left for me specifically says you're to

come home and take care of some business for him. I don't think he's dead, Alana. Your father's not the

suicidal type, no matter what state of health he's in; and what checking around I've been able to do shows

that the day he was diagnosed, he purchased a yacht. It's warp-speed capable and it's operable for one

pilot only. So who knows what he has in mind? Anyway, please do come as soon as you can. You are

needed, Alana, or I wouldn't ask you - I'd just pass on your father's request and leave it at that."

There the message ended. There was no formal closing, certainly no word of affection for the young

woman who was the nearest thing to a daughter that old bachelor would ever be likely to have. But Alana

found her eyes stinging, anyway; so she had to scrub a hand at them, irritably, when someone outside her

door asked for admittance.

"Come!" she said, a trifle too sharply, and got off the berth before the door could swish open. She

need not have bothered with either precaution, because the man who entered her cabin had seen her cry

before and had seen her lie on that berth before. He'd been with her for so long that there was almost

nothing they had not shared. "Oh, Dom, I'm glad it's you," she said as soon as she saw him, and she held

out her arms.

He was taller than she by just a few centimeters, but his big arms enveloped her and his chest was a

solid support on which she could lean. And right now that was exactly what she wanted and needed to do.

Lieutenant Commander Dominic St. Pierre. On this ship, Second Officer and her immediate

subordinate (although of course everyone on board reported to her, through the chain of command if not

directly); on each assignment that she'd held since her patrol ship days, her comrade and friend and

companion.

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He was as dark as she was fair, which made the two of them an unusual contrast in a humanity that

had long ago begun to lose sharp distinctions of skin pigmentation and other such racial characteristics.

When Earth had become lost to her children, those several thousand humans who were stranded aboard

starships or already settled on colony worlds had had the good sense to pay attention to the avoidance of

inbreeding; and the by-product of that informal but nevertheless firmly enforced social policy had been

this blurring of the lines between what had been black and white, red and yellow (so-called - the old color-

names were so long out of use that whenever Alana had encountered them in ancient literary works, she'd

been puzzled as to how anyone had ever conceived such wildly unsuitable labels for skin colors that had

never been black or white or red or yellow no matter how far back one looked in history). But somehow

Dom St. Pierre had wound up with deep, rich, dusky skin, with hair and eyes darker still; and Alana Robie

had wound up with fair hair (more golden than blonde, her mother had been fond of saying), blue eyes,

and pale skin that always burned when exposed to a Sol-type star's rays.

Alana loved nothing better, now that they'd finally become lovers after being friends for so very

long, than to enjoy the visual contrast their bodies made when they lay close and touched each other.

Long before the start of their intimacy, she'd loved the way Dom's hand looked on hers when he touched

her simply as comrade to comrade. And distressed as she was feeling right now, she still was intensely

aware of the feel of his body against hers; of the strength of his arms around her, of the roughness of his

cheek when he bent to press it against hers.

"Alana, what is it?" he asked her gently, in a voice that was deep but had a lilt that never ceased to

startle her. Such a big man had no business having a voice like that. "When you didn't come back from the

captain's office, I started getting worried about you."

"Come, sit with me," Alana said, and drew her lover with her toward the berth. Her cabin was

private, and that was a privilege; but its only seating other than the berth consisted of a desk chair. Space

on a warship was always at a premium, and couldn't be wasted on unnecessary comforts like sofas or

guest chairs except in common recreation areas. "Dom, I have to take a leave of absence and go back to

my father's ship for awhile. I don't know for how long."

"What?" Dominic couldn't have been more surprised if she'd announced she intended to abandon her

career and take up the life of an exotic dancer. "Alana, you can't stand your father - and you haven't been

back to the Callon since before I knew you. What's going on? And are you sure you have to do this, no

matter why someone thinks you ought to?"

"Still telling it to me straight, aren't you, Mr. St. Pierre?" Alana found herself smiling, now that she

was past the first shock and now that she had her best friend's familiar shoulder to lean on.

"Well - you're the one who trained me to ask you all the hard questions, to always challenge you

when I thought you might be wrong. Ma'am." Dom's dark eyes twinkled with his infuriating brand of dry

humor. "So I guess it's your own fault! How am I doing, anyway?"

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Nina Osier - Exile's End

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