Commander Read online

  I nodded back, then sat down in my undersized chair. Our office was a single cramped room with barely enough room for two desks and three spare seats. All of our equipment, right down to our single working data terminal, had been salvaged from the wreckage of the hangers. My desk had a huge crack running down the middle, while Jean’s was scorched and so warped out of true due to a nearby fire that none of the drawers would open. Of all our furnishings only my personal chair could be described as being in good condition, and that was probably because it’d been purpose-built for a Rabbit. I couldn’t see the Imperials—or even most Royals, sadly—making such nice stuff available to their slaves. Therefore it was useless to the invaders and had been tossed on a junkheap. Nestor had found it still brand-new in its crate while exploring the hangars one afternoon, and it’d been mine ever since. Though I had to admit to a qualm or two—I seemed to recall Father requisitioning some furnishings for me in my new role as his apprentice just before our last flight together. There was no way to know if it’d been meant for me all along—the shipping tag was missing. But it was comfortable, and I wasn’t about to let such a treasure go to waste whatever its pedigree. In fact, I planned to take it with me wherever I went.

  “We must work with the tools we have, not the ones we wish for,” Fremont said, meeting my eyes and grinning. I smiled back—it was an old saying of mine that I’d had much occasion to use aboard first the Beechwood, then Zombie Station. And he and I had done exactly that together, over and over again.

  “True enough,” Heinrich agreed. “But still…” He sighed.

  “I spoke to James earlier this afternoon about the ships he’s going to buy,” I replied. My friend had already promised me that every single House-owned ship and crew would be made available to the fencibles—if the Imperials ever tried to occupy Marcus Prime again, he intended to put up a far better fight than his father had been able to. “Jean, you and Heinrich are both going to accompany the purchasing teams when they get rolling. It shouldn’t be more than a few days. We all know what we’d like to see in a fencible ship—ideally it should be fast, modern, low-maintenance, have a standard powerplant, and so on. The Marcus buyers will be instructed to take your advice under the strongest possible advisement, though you’ll have to keep in mind that they’re on a budget too. Do your best for us.” I smiled as their jaws dropped—I’d warned them that they’d be given responsibilities far above their nominal ranks, but until that very moment perhaps they hadn’t realized just how far above. “That’ll be our first priority, along with getting our support infrastructure in place. Which’ll also take time, and lots of it. We Rabbits will work on that little matter.”

  They nodded. “Aye-aye, sir,” Jean replied for them both.

  I looked at the clock. “It’s almost five,” I observed. “And heaven knows we’ve all got our work cut out for us over the next few decades or so. How about we take it easy while we still can and knock off early for the day?”

  8

  It wasn’t often that I quit work so early—usually I remained at my desk until seven or eight at night. But just this once, it was pleasant to leave the cramped little office before dark and revisit the scenes of my youth. While I’d been offered a power-scooter for my own exclusive use—my rank as a Marcus was the reason why, as otherwise no mere naval lieutenant could aspire to such luxury—I’d declined it and asked the motor-pool people to forward the thing to the relief effort instead. As a child I’d wandered up and down the streets of Rabbit Town all day long without difficulty on my own two feet, and surely I could manage the same as an adult. Nestor had found us an old shotgun house with an intact roof that was occupied only by a single ancient doe. Even before she found out who I was—Nestor told me she’d been certain I was human—old Bethany had been more than willing to rent us her back room. Then, when I finally walked in through the front door carrying my little travel bag, well… Her jaw dropped, then she knelt on the floor and wept. It took me almost twenty minutes to calm her down and convince her that I didn’t want to be treated any differently by her nowadays than back when I was eight and had accidentally flown my toy glider through her front window.

  “That was you?” she whispered from behind wide eyes. “I’d forgotten!”

  At any rate, my fellow Rabbits no longer stared and made a fuss when I passed up and down the streets, now that they knew I liked it that way, and I was starting to feel very much at home again in Rabbit society. Bethany insisted on cooking for me, which I allowed her to do despite the fact that it wasn’t specified in the lease agreement. She was a much better cook than Nestor, though he was learning fast, and the cuisine of my childhood was good for my still-recovering digestive tract. In exchange I made sure she received some extra rations for trade purposes and set up a small shoreside power supply in her back yard. That way she had electricity all the time instead of having to put up with frequent blackouts like the rest. Overall, she was delighted with the arrangement,

  And so were all the other Rabbits I found myself in daily contact with. At first my money wasn't any good—one day I stopped at a produce stand, for example, and the proprietor insisted on giving me the single, solitary orange he’d seen in the last four months. It was terribly embarrassing—the thing was almost beyond price for him, then and there, while just days ago I’d been aboard a luxury liner where I could’ve eaten a dozen of them every morning had I wished. But Pete would’ve been terribly offended had I refused his gift, so I accepted the shriveled, pathetic thing with a bow, ate it on the spot so that I could at least share it with him, and tried to “shut up and be honored” as His Majesty had once put it. Since then all the other merchants had done similar—I’d been given a beat-up datapad that really should’ve been in the hands of a school-attending kit, for example, and a beautifully-finished hand-made Rabbit-style chair for the single overcrowded room I shared with Nestor. It was touching! In return I did what I could to help them, which wasn’t much since I already had an all-consuming, oversized task of my own to perform in setting up the fencibles. If Nestor or Bethany heard about any Rabbit who was having a particularly tough go of it, I made it a point to type up a quick inquiry and send it along to the local authorities, sealed with an impression from my signet ring. If this ever failed to produce results, I never heard about it.

  In some ways it was emotionally difficult for me to have so much contact with the old neighborhood. The Imperial occupation government hadn’t been nearly so open-minded about Rabbits as the Marcuses, and from day one had clamped down upon my home community like a vise. Where my own House preferred to let their Rabbits roam as freely and unencumbered as Royal law allowed, the Imperials had taken one look at Rabbit Town and seen nothing but an untapped resource. Not only was the neighborhood systematically looted of everything of value over and over again, but press-gangs gathered up every last able-bodied Rabbit and sent them off to who knew where. Only the very young, the very old and a tiny handful of the crippled who’d somehow managed to escape euthanasia remained—my entire generation was practically absent, save for Nestor and I. All the kids I’d played and attended school with might as well have evaporated. Including Frieda, the girl I’d once had such a crush on. And her entire family to boot. None of my inquiries led me anywhere.

  I sighed as I tramped past the long-shuttered Sweetgrass Hay Market. The fact was that at a certain level I’d never gotten over Frieda, and broad hints had been dropped that I never would. I was illegally gengineered, His Majesty had informed me long ago, part of a very limited program. Because of this, it’d been arranged that I’d be attracted to a single, preselected mate. It’d worked all too well, so far as I was concerned. Frieda haunted all my fantasies and dreams—deep down, I burned for her in a way that I wondered if the non-gengineered could appreciate. While other does might catch my interest from time to time, only Frieda could ever really matter to me.

  And she was gone, gone, gone! Carried off to who knew where, and mated to…

  I scowled
at the thought, then purged the image from my mind as best as I was able. It wasn't Frieda’s fault that she’d been kidnapped; most likely she missed me as badly as I missed her. Besides, contrary to the Master Plan I was locked in a war to the death with the Imperials. I couldn’t afford jealousy, even if it wasn’t really my fault—powerful, unreasoned emotion could be a terrible weakness. There were dozens of Rabbit-does who’d do almost anything to become my mate, I reminded myself. Maybe even hundreds. And for a time, that thought helped tame the blind beast within me.

  But later that night I woke up screaming and lashing out blindly in the darkness. In my nightmare I’d been slashing at a dozen Imperial Rabbit-marines with a highly phallic Sword, trying to rescue Frieda from imminent gang-rape. Nestor was so frightened that he called a navy doctor, and I didn’t get another minute of sleep. It was very powerful stuff indeed, that dream was. Too powerful, I decided. It represented a weakness, one that someday was liable to get me killed and perhaps others along with me.

  So I decided to do something about it.

  9

  For the next few weeks I was terribly busy. My gengineering and its effect on my personal life was a sensitive issue indeed, one I couldn’t safely broach with anyone except Uncle Robert. Yet due to work overload, it took what felt like forever to set up a meeting. My staff was growing daily as the various personnel I’d requested arrived, and for a while it was all that Nestor and I could do just to keep up with the inflow. Housing was practically unobtainable, and work space more precious still. It was just as well that a Marcus ship-buying expedition left almost immediately. Heinrich left with it, so I was able to set Sergeant Piper, my one-time academy instructor-sergeant, up in his former digs. I’d been hesitant to even so much as ask the sergeant to leave his plum assignment and serve under one of his former snotties; where the others had received out-and-out orders to report to me I’d offered Frederick the option and this was part of why he’d arrived later in the game than the others. But he’d accepted, and his smile when I greeted him at the still-crippled spaceport seemed genuine enough. I’d selected him not only because he was an experienced trainer of raw recruits, but also because long ago he’d let it slip that he’d specifically asked to have me assigned to him. If he was open-minded and diplomatic enough to seek out a Rabbit as a cadet and then support me as he had without patronizing me, well… I was willing to bet that he’d do a good job doing non-traditional training work with civilians and slavebunnies as well. But that was still well down the road during those earliest of days; in practice what I needed most was more space to house my growing operation, and fast! In the next few weeks I was expecting a ground facilities expert and his staff of ten, a ship’s armorer with three assistants and a purser to keep our books and ensure that our indents were kept in proper form. I was looking forward to the arrival of each and every one of them—I wasn’t and couldn’t ever be an expert in all of these fields. But as their commanding officer it was ultimately my responsibility to see that they were provided with decent places to live and work on a planet desperately short of both. In the end it was Fremont who suggested what should’ve been obvious all along. Yes, the traditional office facilities on Marcus Prime were overcrowded to the breaking point. But Rabbit Town’s population remained far below its peak; while many of the buildings were damaged from all of the looting it wouldn’t take all that much to render them at least weatherproof again. Soon we shifted our headquarters to the former Sweetgrass Hay Market, which also had plenty of room in back to billet new arrivals until something better could be found for them. This not only shortened my commute but also gave us the opportunity to hire some local Rabbits and Dogs for wages, as the House treasury advisers were always begging us to do as a way to help restart the economy. So what if we were the only human-staffed enterprise in Rabbit Town? Soon we were taking perverse pride in the fact—Jean even wore fake bunny-ears on the first day. No one else in the navy had it half as good as we did, facility-wise. One day a local Rabbit-entrepreneur even showed up with vending machines! No one else anywhere had those yet, or at least not that I knew of. Clearly, it paid to have friends in low places. Sergeant Piper was instrumental in getting all of this set up and relieving me of the burden of dealing with the day-to-day problems, and I was grateful indeed for his help.

  So, it was a long busy time before Uncle Robert and I could make an opportunity to sit down for a long talk together. But one afternoon we finally met at the old family residence. “David!” he greeted me as I entered his clean but still-unrefurbished office. All the marblework had been ripped away, leaving ugly scars. So had the mahogany bookshelves and most of the ornate, Old Earth floor tiles. His desk was almost as much a mess as the office was—it was supported by four stacks of books instead of proper legs. But Uncle Robert looked better than I’d seen him in years; this was his home, and it showed. “How are you, son? Please, sit down and have some tea!”

  I smiled—it was Nestor’s blend, the one he’d created back on Zombie Station out of whatever had been left lying around. Someone had troubled themselves to find out what I liked. We made small talk for a time and exchanged polite inquiries about how each other’s projects were progressing. Then, when the time was finally right, I came to the point.

  “Uncle,” I said softly, setting my empty cup down on the desk. “We both know that I’m gengineered. Illegally, in fact.”

  “Yes. You were part of a long-term project that’s been short-circuited by the wars.” He sipped at his tea. “Even today, now that the project’s been shut down by the war, we guard that information very closely indeed.”

  I nodded. “Of course; I’m grateful that you do.” Then I met his eyes. “But… Uncle, has it ever occurred to you that for me the project can never be truly shut down?”

  He pressed his lips together and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I know that you’ve shown little interest in seeking a mate,” he said at length.

  “Heh!” I replied, wincing at his choice of words. “From your point of view, I suppose it must seem that way.” I looked at my feet again. “Did you know that I’m preprogrammed for a specific doe?”

  He blinked. “I’d rather you hadn’t found that out, David. Not that I begrudge you the knowledge, mind you. But I’d hoped that if you never were told, well… It might open up your horizons some. For your own good, you see. Now that the program’s irretrievably ruined.”

  Suddenly it was difficult to find the proper words—I sat in silence for a very long time before continuing. “Trust me. If I’d never met Frieda and never heard the truth about myself, then just maybe I perhaps might’ve been able to love another doe. But even then… Most likely I’d have gone through a whole series of miserable relationships with girls who couldn’t ever measure up to an impossible ideal. Even worse, neither they nor I would’ve ever been able to figure out what was wrong. It would’ve been miserable, not just for me but for who knows how many others.” I sighed. “Better this way. Far better. Even though I yearn for her more than I suspect you can ever know.”

  He nodded. “You’ve written several letters to House Security, trying to find her. The search was costly enough that they requested my approval before proceeding.” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry to have intruded, in that sense. But they were following standing orders. At any rate I authorized the expenditures and… Well, the negative reports you got back were accurate. We’ll keep trying, son. I have to say, though, that you'd be a fool to hold out much hope. Most likely she’s an ag-slave somewhere. And…”

  He didn’t have to finish. “I know, Uncle,” I replied, balling my fists. Ag-slaves didn’t often last long, or at least they didn’t under Imperial overseers. “But… She’s a lot like me, isn’t she? I mean, she’d sort of have to be, one would think.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Perhaps. I’ve never considered the matter before.”

  “And… I mean… With all due respect, I think I’d find a way to survive. Even there.”

  “Perh
aps,” Uncle Robert allowed. Then he smiled. “Or get yourself killed rebelling, more likely.”

  I smiled back. If I rebelled, well… A good few smug, holier-than-thou masters might just find themselves dead long before me. Though I’d never say such a thing aloud to a human, especially one who’d been so kind and generous.

  But Uncle Robert read my expression perfectly. “Hah!” he replied with a grin. “That’s my David, the one I’m so proud of!” Then his face softened again. “In all seriousness, son… You’re sure you’ll never get over her? That only she can be the one?”

  I bowed my head. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

  He sighed. “Don’t be sorry—this situation is our fault, not yours. Indeed, I’m the one who should apologize on behalf of the House—you’d think that by now we’d have learned not to monkey around with the natural order of things. It so rarely comes out well in the long run, you see.” Then he leaned his chair back and closed his eyes in concentration for a moment. “I’m going to send you to see someone who might be able to help,” he said eventually. “They’ll be instructed to be frank with you in every way and to withhold nothing. In return, I’ll have to request that you be discreet. Some House secrets are better kept House secrets, and it might for the best if you asked no more questions than you absolutely need answered. That which you don’t know you can’t share, even against your will.”