The battle at the Moons of Hell hw-1 Read online

  “Confirmed. In pipe Purple 24 Alfa for transit of the High Pass en route to the Palisades,” Mother responded confidently.

  Good, Michael thought as he eased the flier back to a more sedate 500 kph. He would hate to have to do a screaming high-g turn in front of a cliff that the flier couldn’t climb over.

  And then Michael was into the High Pass itself, the walls suddenly closing in on him at a truly frightening rate. The granite cliffs rushed past, an impossible blur, and all of a sudden he was seized with an outrageous sense of joy. Thumping and crashing through the turbulence of jet stream winds howling through the gash in the Tien Shan, the Honda was firm and true under his hands as Michael followed the twists and turns of the High Pass, the huge canyon weaving its way between the two giants of the Tien Shan. At times less than 300 meters above the snow and massive jagged rocks of the pass, the Honda slamming and bucking in the turbulent air thrown up from the broken ground, Michael could see the flier’s shadow racing ahead of him like some demented thing careless of what lay ahead as the rising sun squeezed its way down to ground between high rock walls.

  Mother brought him back to reality.

  “Caution. Approaching lower limit of flight pipe. Minimum permissible altitude on this pipe segment is 12,400 meters. Maintain altitude or return control to Mother.” If Mother’s voice could have sounded cranky, it would have. Michael sighed as he pulled the flier clear of the flight pipe’s lower limit, the moment gone. But still, what a moment it had been.

  Minutes later, Michael reefed the flier around in a last tight turn to the left, the High Pass rushing past his window, seemingly so close that he could touch the snow. Then the sheer cliffs of Mount Izbecki dropped away in a heart-stopping fall down to the jumbled, cracked, and fissured surface of the Radski Glacier, the vast white expanse of its broken surface streaked gray and brown, long lines of rock ground off the valley walls scarring the pristine white surface of the ice below.

  What a sight it was. Drawing ice from four smaller feeder glaciers high above it, the glacier cascaded in frozen disarray almost 7,000 meters down steep-walled valleys cut knife-edged into the sheer face of Mount Izbecki before melting into the pale waters of Radski’s Lake, a blue-green gem opalescent even in the morning shadows and framed by a tangled white, black, and gray confusion of snow, rock, and debris. Away from the wall of broken ice feeding into the lake, the Bachou River flowed across a broad rock lip before dropping in a plume of broken water and spray toward the valley floor a good 1,000 meters below. The plume of water shredded into a fine white spray long before it reached the bottom, tendrils of mist eddying and curling across and down the rock face as they fell.

  Taking care to stay well within the approved flight pipe, Michael put the flier into a circle to lose height. The massive bulk of the glacier below the lander wheeled past the plasglass as the flier orbited slowly downward.

  And then, finally, 500 meters above Radski’s Lake and with the lonely granite pillar marking the grave of Samuel Radski plainly visible on the shattered and chaotic slopes below the glacier, Michael turned the flier homeward down and across the Bachou River as it rushed from the Radski down to join the Clearwater. Ahead of and below him, plainly visible in the clear air, lay the thickly wooded hilltop on which the Palisades had been built.

  Michael was almost home. He cut the power to idle, disengaged noise reduction, and, angling the flyer sharply downward, began the final approach.

  The Palisades was an unremarkable house in all ways but one.

  Quite small and rectangular in shape, it was made of the local fine-grained red hardwood for which the valley of the Clearwater River, cutting its way for thousands of kilometers across the heart of Van Manaan’s Land, was famous. The house was blessed with a large west-facing deck that ran across the entire front from one end to the other and from which the huge prairie that filled the basin of the upper Clearwater Valley ran away into the distance, backdropped by massive banks of clouds coming off the Karolev Ranges hundreds of kilometers to the southwest. Another southerly buster coming, he thought. Behind the house, the enormous bulk of Mount Izbecki rose impossibly tall and sheer above him, looking for all the world as if it were about to topple forward onto the house below. Just an illusion, Michael had to remind himself, so powerful was the feeling of imminent destruction.

  It was an overwhelming, awesomely beautiful place and one that firmly reminded him how insignificant he and his affairs were.

  A bottle of Lethbridge pilsner close at hand, Michael sat waiting for his father to clean up after coming up-valley from the little town of Bachou where his post-Fleet business-geneering and growing the glorious red-flowered, deep purple-and green-leafed Flame tree-was based.

  A bang of the screen door announced his father’s arrival, his own beer securely in hand. Seconds later, Michael was engulfed in his father’s characteristic no-holds-barred hug. Finally, they broke apart. His father was the first to speak.

  “I have been so worried about you. It’s good to have you home. Mom had some stuff to do. She’ll be up later, and with a bit of luck Samantha will have caught the shuttle from Manindi.” Always “Samantha” and never “Sam,” Michael noted in passing.

  A long pause followed as the two looked at each other. Michael broke the silence.

  “Dad…” Michael’s voice cracked; he couldn’t go on.

  Andrew Helfort’s hand went up. “Michael, my boy. I’ve spoken to Admiral al-Rawahy and to Admiral Fielding, so I know all about what really happened. Let’s not talk about it anymore. The sooner you put it behind you, the better.”

  Michael’s voice was thick with emotion. “I know, Dad. Fielding was great, and so was Bukenya. I know what I have to do, and I will do it. But why, Dad, why?”

  “Who knows, Michael, who knows? They are a bad bunch, the men in the d’Castreaux family. As long as anyone can remember, they always have been, and it looks like they always will be. It’s a pity. Gaby d’Castreaux’s okay, though why she’d marry a pig like Jean-Luc is beyond me.” Andrew Helfort frowned. “But the one thing you have to remember is that it’s not personal. If d’Castreaux Junior is anything like his father, and I am sure he is, then you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just another easy target of opportunity.”

  Andrew Helfort took another long sip of his beer. “So tell me. How did you come from Terranova?”

  “Cheng Space Lines, on their new ship, Reliant. Very nice, if interstellar travel can ever be nice. Crap connections, though. As usual.”

  Andrew Helfort laughed. Some things never changed. “Cheng Lines are a good bunch. I know Anson Cheng; he’s a Flame tree collector, and he seems to like what we do. Though they are all good these days, even Prince Interstellar. Gaby d’Castreaux is a pretty straight shooter; her people seem to like and respect her, which is more than I’ve ever heard anyone say about Jean-Luc. Imagine being saddled with someone like him,” his father said.

  Andrew Helfort took a deep breath before continuing. “You know that d’Castreaux Senior was medically discharged?”

  “I did know. It was common knowledge at the college, mostly because there was a feeling that it had nothing to do with medicine at all-hard to pin down; nobody really knew anything definite. But asking questions was always a good way to upset d’Castreaux Junior, so it was just rumors. You know what Space Fleet is like.”

  “I do. Suffice it to say that all I know, and God knows it’s enough, is that d’Castreaux Senior is a psychopathic killer with a taste for torture.” His father’s face was taut with distaste, eyes narrowed and mouth a thin tight line. “But a coward with it, never willing to take much risk, which slowed him up a bit, thank God.”

  Michael’s shock was complete, not just at the news but at his father’s very matter-of-fact delivery. “So how was he caught?”

  “That’s the problem; he never was. Well, not officially. And it was only Admiral Fielding’s persistence that got rid of the bastard. Fielding was skipper of the Cheng Ho
at the back end of the Third Hammer War, back in…oh, ’79 it would have been. Youngest planetary assault vessel captain ever, as I recall. Anyway, Fielding’s ops officer blew the whistle on d’Castreaux; at the end of the war, d’Castreaux had been detached from Cheng Ho to clear out one of the Hammer’s space battle stations, and he was unable to resist the temptation to deal with some Hammer prisoners his way rather than in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Fifteen of them there were, and while I wouldn’t piss on a Hammer if he was on fire, I couldn’t do what d’Castreaux did.”

  As he took another sip of his beer, Andrew Helfort’s face was hard. For all that the Third Hammer War had ended almost twenty years earlier, Michael knew how bitter the fight had been and how many good friends his parents had lost.

  “So how come no one dropped d’Castreaux in it? Surely someone would have spoken up.” Michael’s face betrayed his puzzlement.

  “Well, d’Castreaux might be a psychopathic killer, but nobody has ever said he’s stupid. Far from it, actually. That bastard is as smart as they come. He made sure that his internal security team was involved as much as he was, God knows how. But people were very bitter at the end of the war. The massacre of the crews of the Ardent and the Clementine-almost two thousand men and most of them wounded-by those godless Hammer bastards had tempers running very high. So I suppose they rationalized it away somehow. Prisoner mutiny, they said. There was some forensic evidence to contradict the story but not enough to stand up in court. Not even enough to get a balance of probabilities finding, never mind a beyond-all-reasonable-doubt verdict.”

  Andrew Helfort took a long slow drink.

  “No bodies to autopsy, you see; blowing the hull made sure of that. And by the time anyone suspected anything, the bodies were well away. God knows where they ended up.” A long pause followed as Michael’s father squinted into his beer. Another sigh.

  “Anyway, no one would talk openly, and Jack Wilson, Fielding’s ops officer, found out about it only when two of d’Castreaux’s security team members got drunk and said too much one night. Boasting, they were, to one of Jack’s petty officers. Said much too much. Bad mistake. A week later, one died in a backstreet brawl on Pasquale-V. A month after that, the other was left brain-dead by a suit malfunction, and that was what made up Fielding’s mind. One could have been an accident, but two? Never. Fleet legal turned up some earlier incidents involving d’Castreaux that looked suspicious during the antipiracy campaigns around Kelly’s Deep and Damnation’s Gate in the early ’70s, and he was implicated in the disappearance of a young couple on Jascaria when he was there on Admiral Leahy’s staff as a lieutenant. That was back in the early ’60s, I think. But the court AI’s proof of guilt probability never got better than 58 percent, so no conviction was recorded. Pity. Only a few percent off a balance of probabilities finding, which would have been nice.

  “So that’s where things ended up, formally at least. Fielding finally got Space Fleet to pension d’Castreaux off on medical grounds. Even better, she made sure that the Anjaxx police were well briefed on his entertainment preferences. Fielding’s cousin was commander of the Anjaxx federal police, and there was enough circumstantial evidence together with the court AI’s proof of guilt rating to convince the Anjaxx high court to impose a permanent tracking order on him. So far as I know, he hasn’t strayed since. He just sits in that bloody great big house of his outside Cotentin looking out across the Middle Sea, and long may he rot there.”

  The pain was clearly visible now. Suddenly, Michael realized that he had been told all he needed to know and that making his father relive the bitter years of the Third Hammer War was something he didn’t want to do anymore.

  Michael’s hand went out to rest on his father’s shoulder. “Dad, no more. I’ll watch out for d’Castreaux Junior, that’s for damn sure. And his day will come, depend on it.”

  Andrew Helfort looked up sharply. “Michael, promise me. Don’t think about it anymore. Don’t think about him. Concentrate on what’s important. You hear me?”

  Michael nodded.

  “So, talking about what’s really important, what’s happened to the lovely Anna? Will we see her this time? Will-” Andrew Helfort’s well-intentioned if unwelcome foray into Michael’s love life was, much to Michael’s relief, cut off in midquestion by the arrival of his mother’s flier as it climbed steeply out of the valley below before turning with characteristic flair to land on the pad behind the trees, the mass driver briefly shattering the peace as she killed the flier’s forward speed. Anna was not someone he found it easy to talk about even to himself and certainly not to his father.

  “Come on, Dad. Mom’s home. And I think I saw Sam.” And with that, Michael was out of his seat and running through the house and out into the trees.

  Dinner that night was quiet but relaxed and close with just the four of them. In the hearth, a fire blazed to fill the room with a red-gold warmth, while outside the rising wind signaled the outriders of the storm Michael had seen coming off the Karolev Ranges. By morning, it will probably be blowing an absolute bastard, he thought, and pissing with rain into the bargain.

  Michael said very little during the meal, content to sit there as the tiredness washed over him in waves, contentment settling deep into his bones like balm. As ever, Sam took up the conversational slack, full of stories of life at the Manindi Center for Oceanic Research, where, at the ripe old age of eighteen going on nineteen, she had secured for herself a prime appointment as chief tank cleaner and general gofer since finishing school. With plans to become a serious marine biologist, Sam was in seventh heaven and made a point of ensuring that everyone knew it. Michael strongly suspected that the fact that Arkady Encevit, Sam’s long-standing boyfriend, had managed to find himself a job in Harbin only 750 kilometers from Manindi, a job, what was more, that involved no weekend work, had a lot more to do with Sam’s happiness than she was prepared to let on.

  Michael awoke with a start. Christ, he had actually dozed off at the table, and so far as he could tell, he had just been told something significant. “Sorry, Mom. Missed that,” he said.

  “You did.” Michael’s mother smiled. “I always knew the college was good, but how on earth did they teach you to sleep sitting up and apparently paying full attention to what’s going on?”

  “Years of sitting through astrogation lectures, Mom. A necessary aid to survival. You should know.”

  Kerri Helfort smiled indulgently. “Michael, I was just saying that Sam and I have finally fixed a date to go see Aunt Claudia. We’re-”

  Kerri sighed as Sam cut her off, a bad habit the girl showed no signs of getting over. Sam never even noticed. “You can see Aunt Claudia all you want, Mom, but I’m going to see Jemma. It’s been so long,” she said firmly.

  “Yes, dear, and Jemma’s probably the only person in this universe that you would give up Arkady to go see.” Game, set, and match to Mom, Michael thought as Sam sat back red-faced and suddenly silent. Michael laughed out loud at the sight and was rewarded by a scowl from Sam.

  “Aunt Claudia,” Michael said. “I never could work out why she had to up and go all the way out to the Frontier Worlds, but I’m sure she had her reasons. We haven’t seen her for what, eight years?”

  “Nine, actually, but who’s counting? It’s all arranged. We go on September sixth and should be back about three months later.” His mother’s face belied her confident tone of voice and betrayed the struggle going on inside her. Michael knew she badly wanted to see her sister again after so many years but was unhappy at leaving his father for so long, especially when the Flame tree seed harvest was due. Getting the seeds safely into storage was a tricky exercise at the best of times and not one she’d readily trust to Dad and his oafish, unreliable drinking buddy Maxwell Bassini. “Maybe we should wait until after the harvest-”

  Andrew Helfort knew his wife well enough to see what was going through her mind. He leaned over and took her hand. “Don’t you start again. We’ve been through
this a million times. She’s your only sister and you haven’t seen her for a very long time, so you must go. You know you must. And it would be good for Samantha to catch up with Jemma. So stop thinking about me. I’ll be fine. I’ve got Maxwell to help out at harvesttime. And despite what you think of him, he’s not a complete idiot.” Except after too many beers, Michael thought.

  Michael broke the awkward silence that followed. “Well, one thing I do know is that Jackson is a long way away. The trip will take how long?”

  Sam had it all worked out. “Fourteen days, and that’s including the time to get to Terranova first. Of course, I’m going to miss Arkady terribly, but I think it’s worth it even if we take ages to get there. Jemma vidmailed me, and there’s so much to do and she says the people are really nice and she’s dying for her friends to be able to meet me and I think we’ll have a great time.” Sam finally ran out of breath.

  “Arkady, where are you?” Michael whispered teasingly.

  Sam ignored him. “As I was saying, fourteen days there and fourteen days back gives us a good two months on Jackson. I bet we won’t want to leave, ’specially not to come back to a cruel pig like you, Michael Helfort!”

  After a short flight down from the Palisades, Michael got the flier safely back in the hands of Avis. The sheer pleasure of flying the little Honda across the impossibly rugged landscape around the Palisades had been more than enough to make the uncomfortably high cost of hiring it bearable.

  The rest of Michael’s leave passed in a tornado of furious activity as he attempted unsuccessfully to cram into two and a half weeks all the things he had planned to do in four. A riotous reunion with his friends in Bachou (that was two days gone, of which Michael remembered almost nothing), a four-day trip to surf the Point Barrow break, on a good day, the most perfect left-hander in the entire universe, and then a couple of days to catch up with Charles Mbeki, who was killing time waiting for his ship, the venerable heavy cruiser Arcturus, to return from patrol.