CLARENCE
Morrow’s Spur had built its landing field for practical starships, which Clarence saw as a failure of imagination rather than engineering.
The Lorelei descended between the white arches after dark, her five-deck obsidian hull reflecting the settlement’s lamps. Cerulean and violet plasma traced the curve of her bow. Tinted observation windows scandalized anyone who believed armor should be thick and pleasure private, while concealed railguns could reduce the settlement to scrap before its alarms finished sounding. The western dockmaster suggested berth twelve over the channel. Clarence studied the coordinates on his bridge display. Berth twelve was suitable for a grain hauler suffering from low self-esteem. Half its guidance lights had failed, and the manual fuel lines sagged between their iron supports like a pair of old garters.
“Berth three,” he commanded.
The dockmaster’s face tightened on the comms monitor. “Berth three is strictly reserved for official sector vessels.”
Clarence leaned forward, resting his chin against one jeweled hand so the man received an unobstructed view of his face. “Then you may officially move whatever minor craft is currently occupying it.”
Neris, his first officer, pressed her lips together while the dockmaster recited municipal docking policy. The Lorelei’s forward guns turned six degrees toward the empty landing pad beside berth three. The movement made no sound inside the bridge. It did not need to.
“Berth three is... suddenly available,” the dockmaster stammered.
“You see?” Clarence settled into the velvet curve of his captain’s chair. “Municipal policy thrives when given a little room to adapt.”
He changed his coat before going ashore. Morrow’s Spur had been hollowed into the pale ribs of an ancient machine and deserved contrast. He chose violet silk over a silver shirt fastened low for the climate. Rings adorned every finger except the one controlling his hidden resonance whip-blade, and silver bangles chimed when he moved. His blue-black hair fell past his waist, carrying the ship’s lights like deep ocean water.
The mayor’s offer waited on the dressing-room display. A valuable royal artifact had passed through the Marrow House, and its bearer was leaving aboard a frontier cruiser. Garris would provide the appraisal and departure telemetry for a price. He had attached a single still from the workroom, withholding the recording until payment. It showed Vera leaning over a scanning table, her companion reduced to a leather-clad shoulder at the edge of the frame. Clarence enlarged her face, then closed the message without answering it.
Six armed crew members accompanied him down the boarding ramp. The remaining fifty-four stayed aboard at their tactical stations; only amateurs brought an army to a negotiation, and only fools arrived without one waiting. Clarence stepped barefoot onto the dry red earth. Tall and long-limbed, he wore the silk over the lean muscle of a swimmer. Boots pinched the translucent webbing between his toes, so he didn’t wear them. He paused beneath the dock lights, which suited his cerulean skin, and turned toward a woman staring beside the fuel station. The light picked out his high cheekbones and the pleased curve of his full mouth. Her gaze followed the silver rings along his fin-shaped ears, then caught on the stars swirling in his black eyes. Her wife stared harder. Clarence smiled at them both, letting his sharp left fang show. The woman’s knees softened; her wife caught her elbow, then gripped the fuel stand to steady herself. He continued toward the local authorities, his ear rings chiming as he turned away.
Mayor Garris approached between two marshals, a ceremonial chain weighing down his narrow shoulders. Sweat darkened the cheap cloth beneath it. He wore the expression of a man who had rehearsed authority in a mirror and regretted the current lighting. “Captain Clarence. We received no request for landing clearance from The Lorelei.”
“You received my physical arrival, Mayor. Formal requests are far less memorable.” Clarence glanced at the escorts. Both kept their hands near their sidearms, but only the woman on the left had released her holster strap. The man on the right watched her hand. “I’m looking for the travelers in your message.”
Garris looked past him at the watching marketplace. “Morrow’s Spur protects the privacy of its visitors.”
“How profoundly admirable.” Clarence moved closer, his silk whispering around his legs. “I would very much like to purchase a temporary civic exception.”
Garris pitched his first refusal loud enough for half the marketplace to hear. Clarence allowed him the approving murmurs before offering a second price. He refused that too, with a glance at his marshals. At the third, his eyes flicked toward the communication tower. Clarence followed the glance. Its red warning light blinked above the dark arches. “Your distress signal hasn’t left the atmosphere grid, Mayor.”
The marshal on the right unfastened his holster. A specialist aboard The Lorelei had taken control of the tower fourteen minutes before they landed, using the connection that had delivered Garris’s offer. Making people wait while he learned where to hurt them was discourteous.
“I’ve offered generous credits,” Clarence said. “You’ve offered stubborn civic pride. We have both been wonderfully magnanimous. Now, let us try basic honesty.”
Garris gripped his ceremonial chain. “Is that an official threat?”
“It is a tactical transition.” Clarence turned to Neris. “Please invite the mayor, the archivist from Marrow House, and six citizens chosen at random to join us inside the council hall.”
The invitation took less than three minutes. His crew sealed both ends of the street, disarmed the marshals, and ushered eight people into the hall without firing. His specialist had sent Neris six names from the town’s maintenance logs and civic accounts; random selection was for the mayor’s benefit. The mayor and archivist were seated first. Beside them came the mechanic responsible for the launch cradles, a baker with flour in the hair at her temples, a schoolteacher, the woman from the fuel station alongside her wife, and a young man of perhaps nineteen who volunteered three different occupations before anyone asked his name.
Painted portraits of dead mayors watched from the wood-paneled walls. The long table beneath them was scarred where generations of officials had performed the rituals of governance and failed to use coasters. Neris set a projector at its center. Morrow’s Spur rose in miniature, pale arches curving above red-dust streets. Blue lights marked water lines and power conduits; four red points marked the reclamation plant, western hangar, communication tower, and Marrow House.
“We’ll begin with a basic community survey.” Clarence remained standing at the head of the table.
Garris looked from the map to the crew guarding the doors. “You abducted six innocent citizens for a survey?”
“Eight, actually. This is why we perform counts before attempting to govern, Mayor.” Clarence drew the silver handle from his hip bracket. Under his thumb, a razor-thin filament of violet plasma whispered from the tip. With a flick of his wrist, it crossed the table and coiled around the mayor’s right thumb. A gentle tug brought a bead of blood beside the nail. Garris flattened his other hand on the wood, and the baker stopped trying to rise from her chair.
“I ask a question. You answer it. If someone chooses to lie, I remove something mechanically useful.” Clarence tapped the western hangar’s red icon. “Who can put every starship in that building into the air during an emergency evacuation?”
Four citizens pointed at the mechanic. Garris named a marshal who wasn’t in the room. Clarence drew the filament back a millimeter, and blood slipped over the mayor’s knuckle onto his ceremonial chain.
“The mechanic!” Garris cried. “It’s the mechanic.”
“There you are. An honest public servant was trapped inside you all along.” Clarence eased the blade and turned to the woman with gray sealant under her fingernails. “How many launches fail if you cannot work?”
“Nineteen,” the baker supplied.
“All twenty-two, Captain.” The mechanic shook her head. “Three ships can clear their automated cradles, but their guidance checks run through my console. Without those codes, they’ll smash into the western arch.”
Clarence inclined his head, his bangles chiming. “That distinction would matter enormously to the people aboard them.” He looked at Garris. “Your town depends on a woman you didn’t think to name. I’ve been here twenty minutes, and already I am a vastly superior mayor.”
The survey continued with the blade around Garris’s thumb. The baker maintained the water filters because the council had delayed hiring a technician. The schoolteacher settled mining disputes before they reached court. The fuel merchant’s wife knew which captains carried black-market medicine and which merely bluffed. Clarence let each finish before asking which building could disappear tonight without halting food, water, schooling, fuel, or flight. The mechanic pointed at the Marrow House. The others followed, including the mayor.
The archivist sat straighter. “My clients pay a premium for discretion.”
“And yet none of them came to sit beside you.” Clarence touched the archive’s red marker, starting a sixty-second countdown. A targeting line connected it to The Lorelei’s forward battery, with FIRE AT ZERO beneath the falling numbers. Neris confirmed the gun link. “A woman brought you a black alloy Cane with a sapphire handle. You identified a royal connection. I would like the rest of your appraisal.”
“I gave her the working copy and erased my scans.” The archivist kept his hands on the table. “I sold no information.”
“I have an image of your workroom.” Clarence slipped the filament off Garris’s thumb and snapped his wrist. It looped around the archivist’s chair, pinning him against the carved wood with its humming edge against his waistcoat. Garris lurched to his feet; the loose tail struck the table and passed through three inches of hardwood with a smoking hiss. He sat down.
“Thank you,” Clarence said. “I dislike repeating questions. It makes them sound optional.”
“The municipal security feed,” the archivist said, looking at Garris. “You told me it covered the entrance.”
Clarence put a bare foot on the bottom rung of the chair. The timer reached forty-three. “We can discuss your camera placement afterward, Mayor. For now, tell me what you authenticated.”
“Nothing officially. There was no certificate.”
He tightened his grip on the hilt. The filament burned a narrow line through the waistcoat and the linen beneath it. The archivist drew in his stomach, but the chair gave him nowhere to retreat. “The distinction has cost you a very nice coat,” Clarence said. “We are approaching bare skin.”
Purple light flooded his eyes, swallowing the stars. The first resonant note of the Siren call entered his voice at its ordinary volume. “Tell me what she brought you, darling.”
The mayor’s shoulders lowered. “You understand,” he whispered, as though Clarence had just assured him that none of this was his fault. The fuel merchant turned toward her wife’s mouth; her wife pulled their joined hands against her breast without looking away from Clarence. The young man made a small sound and said a name Clarence had never heard. Across the table, the baker shut her eyes. “Stay this time,” she whispered.
Clarence rested a jeweled hand on the archivist’s shoulder. The old man leaned into it before catching himself, his waistcoat smoking where it met the filament. “You won’t hold it against me?” he asked.
Clarence stroked the back of his neck. “You can tell me.”
The call could not force an answer. The archivist still shook his head, eyes fixed on the countdown, while his cheek turned toward Clarence’s wrist. At twenty-four seconds, Clarence flexed his hand and the filament touched skin.
“Aurex!” The old man’s voice broke. “A royal household mark. A vessel called Gypsea. There were cultivation records. The Gravity Orchard.”
Clarence stopped the timer at twenty-one and withdrew the call. Garris reached for his chain with his uninjured hand. The young man looked around for whoever had spoken to him; the baker opened her eyes and wiped them with her flour-marked sleeve. Clarence released the blade, leaving a shallow red line across the archivist’s stomach. “Excellent. Now you know you can survive an instance of good judgment.”
Neris brought water while the archivist described the Aurex seal, Gypsea inventory, and supply route. Clarence’s ring chimed: his specialist had recovered the full workroom recording from the mayor’s account. He opened it and compared the answers with the footage. The hidden camera had caught the projected documents, but the Cane’s tactile marks had defeated it. The archivist supplied the interpretation Vera and her companion had worked out. Whenever he hesitated, Clarence tapped the whip handle. No second demonstration was necessary.
The old man identified the cruiser as Ebon Steed. Clarence held the glass halfway to his mouth. In the recording, the man beside Vera turned into view, one green eye lifted toward the projected map.
“Ryker Starshadow,” Clarence said.
“Yes, Captain. He corrected the maker’s attribution.” The archivist swallowed. “She seemed pleased.”
Clarence laughed a moment after the old man finished speaking. Neris put down the water jug and left her hand on its handle. He set his glass on the table hard enough to spill a little, then turned the recording back to the moment Vera looked at the swordsman’s hands. “How conscientious of him. Did she admire the scholarship before or after he paid your bill?”
The archivist looked at the mayor, who offered him nothing. “He paid at the end.”
Clarence watched Vera turn toward the man in the image. She had whispered that ship’s name once in his bed after too much Orinthian gin, her naked body coiled along his while she cursed its captain. He had learned Ryker Starshadow’s name that same stormy night. She’d defended him before Clarence could agree with her and refused to discuss him further within five minutes.
Their affair had meant humid mornings behind sealed doors, stolen royal jewelry offered as romantic gifts, and vicious arguments conducted half-dressed. It had meant Vera asleep with one hand around his wrist and a throwing knife beneath his pillow. He had wanted her to stay. She had vanished before dawn with three crates of jewelry, two bottles of his finest wine, and the gold comb he’d used in her hair. He wasn’t convinced she liked any of it.
He had publicly threatened to kill her. The threat had been theatrical, delivered to the syndicates, and sincere. Vera understood degrees of violence, and she had understood that one. In my bed or dead was not traditional romance, however prettily he phrased it.
“They were traveling together?” He kept the image paused.
“She did the talking,” the archivist said. “He paid.”
Clarence picked up his glass, leaving its wet ring on the wood. “My favorite bad habit has found her way back home.”
Garris stared over his bleeding hand. “You know this thief?”
“Intimately, Mayor. In several creative positions and at least two separate planetary jurisdictions.” Clarence finished the water. “That is strictly private information, Mayor. Kindly show some of that discretion you love to advertise.”
He offered terms. The archivist would reconstruct every record shown to Vera. The mayor would surrender Ebon Steed’s departure telemetry, the workroom recording, and all private communications concerning its passengers. In return, Clarence would free the hostages, restore the tower, replace the disabled sidearms, and leave Morrow’s Spur as he found it, aside from one unfortunate table.
Garris cradled his thumb. “You expect us to trust a pirate’s word?”
“No. I expect you to compare my word with your available alternatives.” Clarence met each face around the table. “But once I choose to give my word, I keep it.”
The schoolteacher looked from the countdown frozen above Marrow House to the crew at the doors. “Give your word, pirate.”
Clarence did, and the mayor cooperated. Within twenty minutes, The Lorelei held the surviving Gypsea records and the Gravity Orchard coordinates. Clarence released the hostages, compensated the mechanic for a door his crew had damaged, sent the baker a replacement valve, and ordered his medic to seal the mayor’s and archivist’s cuts.
At the exit, he paused beside the young man who had offered three professions. “Choose one path and become excellent at it,” Clarence advised, tapping his whip handle. “Once people depend upon your skill, begin the second one in absolute secrecy.”
The boy blinked up at him. “Is... is that how you became a pirate captain?”
“No, darling. I became a pirate because military uniforms made me look far too institutional.”
Outside, the settlement watched him cross the street without a shot fired. People drew back into their stalls as he passed. He smiled at the woman from the fuel station and her wife as they hurried home together. He hoped they had a productive evening.
The Lorelei received him in black glass and violet light. By the time he reached the bridge, the Gravity Orchard turned green across the panoramic display: a dead star circled by flight paths no modern chart admitted existed. His navigator waited at the helm while the crew prepared to lift off. Ebon Steed’s departure telemetry ran beside the route, ending where the cruiser had left the relay’s tracking range.
“Take the Orchard approach to the edge of the grid,” Clarence said. “Then plot an intercept.”
Neris stood beside the captain’s chair. “We could follow the cruiser.”
“And admire her evasive maneuvers for the next three days? I’ve seen them.” He settled into the velvet and reopened the paused recording. “Let her come to us.”
The Lorelei lifted between the white arches onto the first leg of the Orchard route. At the system’s edge, her main drive ignited with the registry masked, and the navigator swung wide onto the course that would take them ahead of Ebon Steed.
Neris glanced at the image. “Dinner for three, Captain?”
“Yes.” Clarence enlarged the frame. “Seat Starshadow opposite me. I want to see his hands.”