The Serrano Succession Read Free

offer any more rejuvenations?"
     
    Just the kind of ideas she did not want floating around. But was it true?
     
    "In my opinion, Chief—and it's only my opinion, but I do have some data—this may have to do with medical problems from a bad batch of rejuv drugs."
     
    "Problems."
     
    "Yes. I am not going to blacken anyone's name, because I don't know all the facts. I'm not a medical officer. I do know that investigation of something else revealed a source of contaminated rejuv drugs, and there was concern that they might have made it into our supply chain. Meanwhile, several senior NCOs began showing neurological symptoms within a few months to a year of each other—widely separated in their duty stations, and not all in the same branch."
     
    "Could they—have given us bad drugs, to justify later refusal to rejuv?"
     
    "On purpose?" He nodded. "Absolutely not. If that's what happened, I suspect it is a simple mistake—or, if not, an enemy wished to deprive us of our most valuable senior NCOs in order to make a strike easier."
     
    "I hope you're right, sir." He went out, shaking his head.
     
    She hoped she was right, too . . . and that he believed her. If the NCOs started worrying about whether they had been given bad drugs intentionally, the close-knit community of Fleet could unravel with fatal speed.
     
 
Internal Memorandum, MorCon Pharmaceuticals:
 . . . despite the best efforts of our advertising departments to restore confidence in our product, the market share is still severely depressed compared to the 68% dominance of the market we enjoyed before the Patchcock scandal. Our competitors have taken full advantage of revelations about the inferior quality of our product, and our legal staff tells us that litigation is still increasing. This has severely affected profits, which used to make up over 20% of the total for the Conselline Sept. Non-political means of recovery have been ineffective; we need legislative relief from laws that are crippling our attempt to deal fairly and honestly with the consequences of the errors made by others. We feel it is imperative that some means be found to regain market share. Lady Venezia Morrelline continues to oppose this, and we have been unable to convince her that we cannot be held responsible for the acts of sabotage by a foreign agent. . . .
 
     
Regular Space Service
Military Prison,
Stack Islands, Copper Mountain
    On a cold, windy day in local autumn, the prisoners of Stack Islands Military Prison were drawn up in ranks to witness another change of command ceremony from behind barriers of both steel and invisible force shields. In front of it, in the small enclosed parade ground, all but a few of the guards were also in formation, uneasily aware of the prisoners' gazes fixed on their backs. No matter that a force shield lay between them; nothing protected them from the malevolence.
     
    Up in front, Iosep Tolin relinquished his command to Pilar Bacarion with relief. He had not enjoyed any moment of his stay in that exile from his former sphere of power, and he had agreed to take early retirement to get quit of it. Pilar, though—he would be very glad to put the width of the Big Ocean, and later some deepspace, between himself and one of the few women who had ever been close to Admiral Lepescu.
     
    On her part, Commander Pilar Bacarion felt an almost physical surge of pleasure in the tension on Tolin's face. He not only disliked her, he was afraid of her. He should be. They all should be, and they would be, in time. She smiled at Tolin, letting him see that she recognized his fear, and saw the glisten of sweat on his forehead, even in the cold. Then she released him from her gaze, and turned it instead on her subordinates.
     
    They did not flinch. She had not thought they would. Their gaze challenged her—the first female commander this prison had ever had. Was she tough enough, their gaze asked. Could she do the job? Others—whose identities she