Elizabeth Moon.

Serrano.

Change of Command.

CHAPTER ONE.

CASTLE ROCK.

Newscast: "Today the Speaker of the Table of Ministers and the Grand Council of the Familias Regnant was assassinated while en route from the shuttleport to the Palace. His close friend and legal advisor, Kevil Mahoney, was seriously injured and is now undergoing emergency treatment in a secure medical facility. Three security personnel also died. Speaker Thornbuckle's youngest daughter, travelling in a separate conveyance, was not injured, but is now in protective custody.

BREITIS MEDICAL PAVILION.

Kevil was aware of disturbing dreams, and tried to fight his way to consciousness. He felt stiff, as if he'd been in the same position too long, and somewhere in the distance someone hurt quite badly. Red and pink swirls slid past his vision; when he blinked, nothing happened but the addition of ugly green smears to the swirls. He thought he heard something, but-like the vague shapes that teased his eyes-the sounds were curiously unhelpful, blunt and unformed.

He struggled harder, and finally made out a voice, speaking some arcane language he didn't know.

What was a sub-cue something-or-other? What was an ivy line? His fogged mind tried to show him a picture of ivy leaves lined up in a row.

"-need complete rejuv, if he lives that long-" came suddenly, with silvery clarity.

Ice, then fire, washed through him; he never knew if it was something they did, or his body's response to what he heard. His eyes opened to see a pale blur; he struggled to get his mouth open, then realized it was open, wedged with some instrument.

"Lie still," someone said. "Close your eyes."

He was in no mood to take orders. He gagged on the thing in his mouth, and someone slid it out.

"What happened?" he croaked, in a voice he didn't recognize but felt in his painful throat.

Memory returned in that moment, even as he asked. Even as the people he could not yet see hesitated, he knew what had happened.

He and Bunny in the ground car. Bunny's face, taut and lined for so many months, finally relaxing.

They had been chatting about the continuing problems resulting from the Morelline's pharmaceutical plant on Patchcock, the rising price of rejuvenations and the political implications-

And then the white flare of some weapon, and Bunny's face disappearing into a mess of red and pink and gray-

He must be dead. No one could survive that. And he, Kevil Mahoney, was alive-at least for now-because his friend's head had taken the brunt of whatever attack.

The New Texas Godfearing Militia had sworn vengeance on them. Evidently it had been no idle threat.

He needed to know what had happened. Who was in charge now? What was Fleet doing? But he felt a dark chilly fog rising over him, and slipped into that darkness unsure if it was death or a drug.

Hobart Conselline permitted none of the emotions churning inside him to show in his face or demeanor. His secretary's expression of cautious solemnity proved he'd been successful; the silly man couldn't tell how his employer was taking the news. Good.

"It's been confirmed by three separate agencies, milord," his secretary said.

"Terrible!" Hobart said, and shook his head. "I suppose it was those terrorists, in retaliation for the executions-"

"That's the speculation at this time, milord."

"How many were killed or injured?"

"Lord Thornbuckle and three security personnel killed; Ser Mahoney is alive but in critical condition. He is not expected to live."

"A terrible, terrible situation." Hobart shook his head again. Terrible for some, certainly. Bunny Thornbuckle's relatives and friends were no doubt reeling in shock and confusion. So would the whole Council be, if someone didn't take hold and give the guidance that had been so sorely needed for the past several years. If Kevil Mahoney had been uninjured, they might have turned to him, but without either Bunny or Kevil, the Families would mill about like panicky sheep, baaing uselessly at the wolfpack around them. He knew exactly what far-sighted, strong, decisive leader should take charge.

"Send our condolences to Miranda," he told his secretary. "Inform my wife's secretary that I'm sure my wife will want to call on her." Poor, beautiful, clever Miranda, so unlucky in her choice of men and her children.

Poor Brun, for that matter. Like everyone who had met the child, he had enjoyed her scatterbrained, madcap beauty. She had needed a good husband to settle her down, but Bunny had insisted on letting her run wild, with disastrous results. Another instance of Bunny's lamentable lack of decisive, firm leadership. Nothing like that had happened to the Conselline daughters, nor ever would. Bunny's older children had turned out well enough, though young Buttons was no second Bunny. He had all his father's stuffiness and none of his father's brilliance. All the better; the last thing the Consellines needed was another Bunny Thornbuckle in that Chair.

"You have messages from several of the Families," the secretary said.

"No doubt," Hobart said. Those he had been talking to, in preparation for the Grand Council meeting this year, would want to know his plans now. For an instant, the internal vision of those plans blinded him to the room around him. With Bunny and Kevil Mahoney out of the picture-with Bunny's supporters in disarray, shocked and grieving-a man who knew what he wanted and moved quickly and decisively might go farther than he had believed possible.

He glanced over the messages as his secretary left the room. As he'd expected: shock, concern, fear, shock . . . with every passing moment, he felt more certain that he, and he alone, would have to act in this crisis. How fortunate that he had not left Castle Rock with the others. "Make a list of all the Chairholders who are still onplanet," he said. His secretary nodded. "And set up a conference call for the Conselline Sept, all chairholding members."

"Sir, I have the list-I keep a current file on all the Chairholders-"

"Excellent." He looked over it carefully while his secretary was arranging the complicated linkage of ansible and ordinary communications lines for the conference call, and realized that the opportunity would never be greater.

The Barraclough Sept, which included the lesser Aranlake and Padualenare septs, had not rallied to Bunny's side when Brun returned. The Aranlakes, with the exception of Lady Cecelia de Marktos, had supported an Aranlake candidate, Hubert Roscoe Millander, for Family head, and they'd lost. They were home sulking. The Padualenares favored Bunny's brother Harlis, who supported their claim to seniority over the Aranlakes, and their ambitions in the colonial worlds. This left only a few of the Barracloughs themselves onplanet, those closest to Bunny and therefore more likely devastated by his death.

Hobart glanced around the room, his gaze roaming from one proof of his eminence to another. Would his family be devastated if he were assassinated? Delphine would be; she could cry and cry until her pretty face was all swollen and splotched with ugly color. The girls would cry, but only for

awhile, he was sure. They would look for another patron, another source of favor and another dispenser of luxuries. Fickle, that's what women were, unless you trained them well, as he had trained Delphine. The boys, though-if he had brought them up well, they would be planning already how to avenge him, and how to gain more power.

But he would not be assassinated. He would be more careful than Bunny, more alert to covert threats, less-not less brave, but less foolhardy. Brun had no doubt got her foolhardy genes from him, not from prudent Miranda.

His excitement mounted as he went on through the list. If he had had Bunny killed-and the thought had crossed his mind more than once, in the year when it seemed that nothing else would get that great fool out of an office he was unfit to fill-he could not have chosen a better time. Best of all, he hadn't done it himself; he'd had nothing to do with it. Fate had finally come over to his side. He had proven himself capable of succeeding against the worst Fate could do, and now Fate-womanlike-had chosen him for that very energy and persistence and will to triumph.

He closed his eyes a moment, allowing himself the luxury of imagining the moment when he took over as Speaker-when the faces which had ignored or turned away turned to him-had to turn to him-and he could finally show his true abilities. I will make the Familias great, and everyone will know who saved it from destruction.

R.S.S GYRFALCON.

"I didn't know they would take it out of my pay," Ensign Barin Serrano said. His voice almost squeaked, but he couldn't help it. His entire paycheck, gone . . . nothing in his credit cube, and he'd already ordered the traditional engagement and wedding gifts.

"Well, who did you think would pay for it? Those people have already used up the Sector discretionary fund, and most of the recreational reserve. And they're not even charging you for all of them, just the ones your pay will cover."

"Ten dependents . . ." Barin murmured. That would eat up all his pay after he was promoted, too.

He supposed he should count himself lucky that Fleet regulations prohibited official indebtedness.

"And I'm not even married. How could they do this to me?"

"Look at it this way, sir-it'll keep you out of trouble."

"No . . . not really. I've just sent in my order for the wedding . . ."

"Well, sir-"

"Attention all hands . . . attention all hands . . ." A pause, during which Barin tried to think how to get himself out of his present financial fix. Then the captain's voice: "It is my sad duty to announce that the Speaker of the Table of Ministers has been assassinated. Stand by . . ."