Starpilot's Grave (Mageworlds, Book 2). Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.Starpilot's Grave (Mageworlds, Book 2)

PART ONE

I.

NAMMERIN: NAMPORT; SPACE FORCE MEDICAL STATION GALCEN: THE RETREAT

WHEN THE courier ship from Galcen Prime arrived on Nammerin, a light but steady rain covered the entire Namport landing field like a fine mist. Lieutenant Ari Rosselin-Metadi ducked out through the hatch of the courier, cast a resigned glance upward at the low grey sky, and climbed down the steep ramp to the ground.

The metal creaked under his boots as he descended. Along with his father's dark hair and his late mother's elegantly chiseled features, Ari had inherited the size and strength of some unknown ancestor on the Metadi, or spaceport-mongrel, side of the family. As a result, he was considerably taller and heavier than the average Space Force trooper the ramp was designed to support.

With both feet planted on the tarmac, he reached up a hand to steady the courier's other passenger as she emerged. It wasn't a long stretch; his head brushed the side of the courier vessel in spite of the landing legs thatraised the ship a good seven feet off the ground. His traveling companion--a short, brown-skinned woman with long black hair twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck--took the offered hand and paused for a moment in the open hatch.

"Rain," she said. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because it always rains in Namport," said Ari. "The Space Force 'Welcome to Nammerin' booklet says that this part of the planet has a wet season and a dry season, but that's a lie. The only two seasons I've ever noticed are rainy and rainier."

The young woman laughed and jumped down to the tarmac, ignoring the ramp completely. Ari didn't feel her weight as she came down, even though her small, trim body carried more muscle than the appreciative eye might suspect. She'd taken his hand as a courtesy only, and he knew it.

Like Ari, the woman wore the uniform of a member of the Space Force Medical Service, but where he wore a lieutenant's bars, she wore no marks of rank at all. Mistress Llannat Hyfid was an Adept, and while the rules of her Guild allowed her to serve in the Republic's Space Force, they barred her from holding formal rank.

As far as anyone could ever tell, Llannat Hyfid accepted her in-between status with cheerful equanimity. Most of the time, Ari himself almost forgot that she was anything more than a fellow-medic and a good friend. Almost, but never quite.

He let go her hand as soon as she straightened from the slight crouch in which she had landed. "Time to collect our baggage before it gets mixed in with the mail sacks," he said. "Then we can see about an aircar rental."

They rescued their carrybags just as the Nammerin Mail hoversled pulled away from the side of the courier. The aircar rental, though, turned out to be unnecessary. When they got to the spaceport's vehicle lot, they found BorsKeotkyra from the medical station waiting for them beside the Med Station scoutcar. The stocky, fair-haired young officer was flanked by two of the hospital's senior enlisted personnel, wearing Ground Patrol brassards.

"I'm impressed," said Llannat as she and Ari tossed their carrybags into the scoutcar's cargo compartment. "Are you people that eager to see us back?"

"The CO wants to talk to both of you," was Keotkyra's oblique answer. "Nobody's sure whether he wants to kiss you or write you up for Punitive Articles 66 through 134, inclusive."

"How are the bets going?" asked Ari.

"Even money either way." Keotkyra peered into the cargo compartment. "Is that all you brought with you?"

"We left without stopping to pack," Ari said. "I've got ten credits that says we'll be in official disgrace before dinnertime."

"I'm not going to take your money," said Llannat as they climbed aboard and strapped in. "Gambling depends on luck--and I quit believing in things like that after I joined the Guild."

The Medical Station, when they got there, looked almost deserted. At the same time, Ari felt as if he and Llannat were the focus of a multitude of curious eyes. By the time Keotkyra and the Ground Patrol escort had finished marching them across the compound to the CO's office, he'd prepared himself to face the worst.

As far as anybody at the station knew, Ari and Llannat had last been heard of as a pair of kidnap victims, seized during an emergency medical call to the far side of the Divider Range and spirited off-planet by a heavily armed ship with an unprecedented turn of speed. Nobody here knew the truth: the pilot of the ship had been Ari's sister Beka--who had already died, officially and messily, in a spaceship crash on Artat.

Beka hadn't bothered to ask her older brother if he'dlike to join her in tracking down the men who had planned and hired out their mother's murder. She'd snatched him away from the Space Force without asking anybody's permission, least of all his own; and now that she was done with him she'd left him on his own to straighten out the mess.

Ari paused outside the door of the office and looked over at Llannat. The Adept had a nervous, intent expression on her face, as if she were listening for something too faint for others to hear.

"Well?" he asked. Llannat had "heard" things before, apparently pulling knowledge straight out of the air; she'd saved his life that way at least once.

But this time she gave a helpless shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Behind them, Bors Keotkyra cleared his throat.

Ari glanced over his shoulder at their escort. "All right," he said. "We can take a hint."

Ari palmed the doorplate and the panels slid apart. The office looked just as it had the last time he'd stepped across the threshold, several months before. Printout flim-sies covered the desk like fallen leaves, the CO's pet sand snake drowsed atop the office safe, and the CO himself wore his habitual expression of gentle regret.

He also wore his dress uniform--something that happened at the Nammerin Medical Station about as often as a month without earthquakes. Ari snapped to attention. That settles it. They're going to throw the book at us.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Llannat standing at attention beside him. Her left hand brushed the short silver-and-ebony staff clipped to her belt, and Ari felt a moment's flash of envy. She doesn't have to worry; even if she gets reduced in grade all the way down to a spacer recruit, she's still Mistress Hyfid, and the Guild takes care of its own.

That wasn't fair, of course. Llannat hadn't chosen to getcaught up in his sister Beka's half-mad quest for vengeance. The Adept had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, that was all; and if Master Ransome could spare her any of the consequences, Ari promised himself he wouldn't begrudge her the good luck.

Caught up in his thoughts, he barely noticed when the CO rose and said, "Follow me." It took a cough from Bors to get the whole procession moving again. They left the office by the side door, and marched back across the compound to the Main Supply Dome.

If protocol hadn't required that Ari keep his face expressionless, he would have frowned in puzzlement. Busting a couple of junior officers for Unauthorized Absence doesn't need a building big enough to park a spaceship.

Then the doors of the supply dome opened.

The crates and boxes normally held in Main Supply had been shoved aside. Where they had been, in the center of the dome, all Ari could see was dress uniforms lined up in formation.

I don't believe it, he thought. They've turned out everybody but Intensive Care and the gate guards.

The CO stepped up to a lectern facing the assembled ranks and nodded...