Murder on the Oathkeeper Express

> “Men came in the night to the palace of the Red King, bearing all manner of weapons hidden beneath their cloaks. At the north gate, they asked for an audience. The northern gatekeeper refused them entry and said that the Red King would see no visitors. At the east gate, they asked for refuge. The eastern gatekeeper refused them entry and said that there was no place for people to shelter here. At the south gate, they asked for a day’s work. The southern gatekeeper said that there was no work to be had, and refused them entry. At the west gate they murdered the gatekeeper and entered by force. By this method, even the thrice refused may have their way.”

>

> -from ‘Fourth Song: Reign of the Red King’

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Aymon had been to a Guild funeral one time before, when the previous Guildmaster had died. He hadn't enjoyed that one, and he didn't particularly find himself liking this one, either. For one thing, hitching a ride in on a random Guild ship was a blow to his dignity, and being surrounded by freakishly tall spacers was a blow to his ego. It wasn't as though Aymon was short, he just hadn't grown up on lessened gravity like all of these people had. Being towered over by this sad group of strangers was unpleasant, to say the least.

After coming into Canerra station, they had immediately been shuffled away onto the Vaneik family ship, the Oathkeeper. Since the Oathkeeper had been the ship of the head of the Trade Guild for several generations, it was very well appointed. It was clean, functional, and decorated to an extent that most other Guild ships were not. There was "art" on the walls that was beyond the homemade scribbling that most Guild ships were covered in. Apparently one of the many Vaneiks had hired artists to paint murals and various sculpted fixtures around the ship. Either that or they just had one or two particularly talented family members. Aymon would put money on having hired someone, or more than one someone, because every area of the ship they passed through was decorated in a different tasteful style. Aymon didn't have the greatest appreciation for art, but at least he could tell that there had been time and talent put into it.

Even the ship's chapel, where the funeral would be held, was far better appointed than any other one he had seen outside the First Star. Aymon heard someone whispering that the Oathkeeper actually had two chapels, a normal one and this one for large gatherings. The whole room was crowded with people, all those tall spacers from every ship in the Guild's fleet. In attendance was every captain who could bear to leave their own ship, as well as every council member. And that wasn't even counting the crew of the Oathkeeper herself, some of whom looked legitimately distraught over the death of Vaneik, or Ungarti, as he was known here. Aymon recognized few people. He wasn’t in the business of knowing spacers, but he could tell various affiliations apart by the colors of the suits they wore. Family members shared the same color scheme, so all of the crew of the Oathkeeper wore the same formal wear.

He had a seat up in the front of the room, but Halen and Kino had both been banished to the far back. Despite the well known clashing of personalities between Aymon and Vaneik, it still wouldn't do to have the leader of the Empire not be given a seat of honor at his funeral. After all, for as much as they had struggled to work together, Aymon and Vaneik had considered themselves equals of a sort.

The crowd was quiet in the general shuffling way that any funeral crowd tended to be. They were packed in tightly together, shoulder to shoulder. Despite the room being much larger than it had any right to be, there were still an absurd number of people there. The part of Aymon's brain that had developed a healthy amount of paranoia over the years was thinking about all the reasons that this would be the perfect opportunity to kill every important member of the Trade Guild, and himself. Luckily, Halen was watching like a bird of prey from the back of the room. It was unlikely that any mischief would go down while he was paying attention.

The music of the service swelled from the band at the front of the room. It was all made up of various members of the Oathkeeper's crew. Apparently spacers used their copious free time to develop musical talents. The band was fairly good. The whispering and shuffling in the hall stopped, and everyone stood up and turned to look at the back of the room. Vaneik was being carried in. His wife and son were carrying one side of the casket, and his two apprentices were holding the other. Behind them, the cantor came in, wearing the black funeral robes, heavily embroidered with silver thread. He must be the cantor for the Oathkeeper, because Aymon didn't recognize him.

They set the casket down on the prepared dais at the front of the room. The four pallbearers went to take their seats in the front row, and the cantor lifted the lid of the casket, revealing Vaneik's body.

Vaneik looked smaller than he had ever been while alive. His face, though it had been poked and prodded into looking 'peaceful', was sunken and quite literally dead. He was no longer animated with the enthusiasm and power that he had held so dear while alive, but Aymon hadn't realized just how much that would actually take out of the man. It was ghastly. He wished they had kept the casket closed.

The cantor gestured for the gathered people to sit.

"Lord of all creation, we come before You with the soul of Ungarti Vaneik…"

The funeral rite was the same as it ever was. Aymon had been to many of them, and all of them were the same. The only difference was the distinct lack of candles. Spacers were, on the whole, allergic to fire, and avoided using it at all costs.

There was no one there who could say that Vaneik hadn't lived a rich and full life. He had seen his son grow to adulthood, stayed faithfully married to his wife for thirty years, ruled his family ship fairly, and wrangled all the captains and council members in the room into submission as leader of the Guild. Many people, Aymon included, considered Vaneik a bastard, but he was a capable one, and would be missed because of it. Everyone had time to share their piece about him, during the long middle section of the funeral.

Aymon gave his own small eulogy, of course, near the beginning of the long service. Vaneik's wife Marne gave the first remarks, then their son Wil, then his two apprentices (the boy first, then the girl), the second from the Oathkeeper, then Aymon was finally able to talk. He was an outsider among spacers, but aside from Vaneik's corpse, he was the most highly ranked person in the room, so he figured that was an appropriate time for him to speak. He stood and positioned himself right behind the casket, where there was a microphone set up. He had a mental debate with himself if he should suffer the indignity of moving the microphone lower (damn spacer height), and decided that he would have to. Even if he did some sort of trick with the power to direct his voice, it would be absurd for him to stand with a microphone pointed at his forehead. He adjusted the microphone.

"What can I say about Ungarti that everyone doesn’t already understand?" Aymon began. "Most of you knew him better than I did, worked with him more closely, and considered him a close friend, a mentor, or a member of your family. I could boast none of those things.

"Ungarti and I had a difficult working relationship. I'm not sure if we ever saw eye to eye. We were twins of a sort, both trusted with power at around the same time. We both worked to distinguish ourselves from our predecessors and fight for what we each thought was right. We clashed on almost every issue, but only because he believed fiercely in his duty to the Guild. Ungarti worked tirelessly to serve every ship, every captain, every crewmember under his command.

"You are all here to speak to his effectiveness as a leader, his kindness as a father, and his generosity as a friend. I can speak only to his dedication, his guile, and his strength. We saw each other as equals, and I respected him greatly.

"If I have regrets from my time working with him and against him, it is that there was too great of a divide between us for us to know each other as friends. We came from different worlds, and the distance between them was too great, or I was perhaps too unwilling to reach out and bridge it. God knows that Ungarti came to me often enough. Hardly a few months went by without him passing by Emerri. He always had some reason to come see me, and perhaps that was what got in between us. There was never a time that we could meet without this-"

God help him, he was actually getting a little choked up over the slimy bastard. Aymon took a breath. If only Ungarti had been a sensitive, they would have been classmates at the Academy, and Aymon was sure they would have had a smoother relationship. Maybe they could have even been friends. Still, the man was dead and it was too late for that now.

"Without our duties hanging over us like a cloud,” Aymon continued.

"There will never be another like him, not in my lifetime, and not in yours. He was a man of singular talents and singular vision. He leaves behind a legacy that will be hard to follow." Aymon had specifically decided not to include nods to any of the people who were hoping to take up Vaneik's mantle. He knew which one he preferred, but it wouldn't do to be too political at a funeral.

"He is with God now. And so it becomes your duty to carry on his memory and continue his work. Under him, the Guild prospered. I know that it will continue to do so in the coming years because of the groundwork that he laid.

"Godspeed you on your journey, Ungarti. You were known and loved, and you will be missed."

Before Aymon sat down, he gave a silent look at the corpse. Out of curiosity, not expecting to find anything, Aymon reached his power out through Vaneik's body, seeing if he could see what had killed him. He wasn't really expecting to find anything, as it was only a cursory examination, but he wanted to find telltale signs of a stroke, or maybe any remnants of a disease. Instead, as he walked back towards his seat, he almost tripped and fell, because what he found in the corpse was not a blood clot in the brain, a tumor in the lungs, or cells ravaged by illness. When he passed his power through the body, there was the unmistakable sensation of one of the things he checked his every meal for: cyanide.

Aymon returned to his seat, face pale. The captain sitting to his side gave him a sympathetic look, but he ignored it. This threw a major wrench into all of the reorganization that the Guild was going to go through in their search for a new leader. Aymon looked around the room. Halen, feeling his panic, sent out a tendril of his power, accompanied by a questioning feeling. Aymon sent back as simple of an instruction as he could, for Halen to examine the body. Halen responded a few seconds later with understanding, then with anger.

Aymon had a decision to make. He could, fairly easily, call the whole funeral to a halt, demand they return to somewhere where someone would be able to perform an autopsy. He could demand a full investigation into this murder; he could try to find some sort of independent commission to interrogate everyone who had been aboard the Oathkeeper at the time of death. He could do a lot of things. But at the same time, he was trapped by his position. It could destroy the Trade Guild, and it could put him in a precarious position with all the planets in the Empire if the Guild became uncooperative.

He thought about it all through the rest of the funeral. It seemed like everyone there gave their own accounting of what Vaneik had meant to them, and how they had known him. Not everyone could have, of course, because it would have dragged on forever, but every time the cantor looked like he was ready to say the closing prayer, yet another person would stand and walk to the front to deliver their remarks.

Was he really going to let it go? They were going to shoot his body off into space at the end of the service, and it would be close to impossible to ever locate again. There would go all the evidence that Vaneik had been murdered.

He felt Halen's eyes on him as the last person finally sat down from their eulogy. There was a long moment of silence as the cantor judged whether anyone else would speak, saw that there was no one else willing, and stood to give the closing part of the funeral rite. The cantor closed up the casket, and the four people who had carried it in came to take it out again. It must have been lighter than it looked, because they didn't seem to be straining at all. The whole gathering followed them out, tramping in a line through the hallways of the Oathkeeper, toward one of the bays of the ship. The transition from the rotating rings of the ship to the gravity free storage area was tedious. The group split; the corpse and its carriers headed toward a shuttle bay, the rest of the mourners all gathered into the observation room and waited for the shuttle to launch.

Despite being small, the observation room fit everyone much more comfortably than the chapel had, because they could fully use all three dimensions of the space to array themselves out. Aymon had no interest in actually watching Vaneik's body be set adrift by the shuttle, so he hung in the back with Halen and Kino. Halen was scanning the room, and Kino was looking bored. The atmosphere here was generally more relaxed. It would take time for the shuttle to launch and go far enough out, most people were taking the opportunity to stretch and talk with each other after the brutally long funeral service.

Aymon and Halen floated next to each other, close enough for their arms to brush, and thus close enough to talk through the power. Their intimate knowledge of each other made it easy, and they could converse in this fashion just as easily as they could talk.

"Who did it?" Aymon asked silently. "Could you tell?"

"The feelings in that room were overwhelming. I have no idea," Halen admitted. "The only reason I could tell something was wrong with you was the sheer panic you were feeling, and I'm used to feeling for you."

"Was it really that bad?"

"You were spooked."

"Yeah. Well, this is about as bad as it gets," Aymon said. "Killing the leader of the Guild is a step above anything I've ever seen." Perhaps that was an exaggeration. He himself had survived several assassination attempts.

"Do you have any ideas about who did it?"

"We can narrow down the actual murderer to people who were aboard the Oathkeeper at the time of death, but it could have been a plot arranged by someone else, so-"

"Motive?" Halen asked.

"There's only a million possible. Vaneik had his hands in every money making scheme in the Empire. If he wasn't so honest about it, he could be the richest man alive. Maybe someone wanted a slice of that. Or it could be someone who wants to take his place. It could be personal drama that has nothing to do with larger Guild politics."

"Everything has to do with larger Guild politics. A captain sneezes and ten people write secret messages to each other about it. Fuck," Halen swore. Aymon understood his sentiment exactly. It was a mess, and with the body about to vanish, it would become a worse one.

"You're keeping your senses out?"

"I will, but emotions are already running high, and it's easier to sense a crime in progress rather than one that's already over," Halen cautioned.

"Yeah, well, you're the best we've got."

"Are you actually going to investigate this?"

"I need to know," Aymon said with a feeling of finality. "If this is political, even if we can't bring it to light, I need to know who and why. I can't work with Guild leadership if I think that the person at the top is out to stab me in the back for petty gain."

"Understandable."

"If you had to put money on it, who would it be?" Aymon asked.

"How good was his relationship with his wife?"

"How would I know that? He always talked of her fondly, and I never saw her unhappy, but she raised an idiot son, so how happy could she be?"

"So you don't think there's a chance that she killed him for infidelity or something like that," Halen clarified.

"I don't know." Aymon's mental sigh was clear. "Did she seem suspicious?"

"I don't know, like I said, I couldn't pick out heads from tails in there."

"Okay. Maybe this will all become clearer at the council meeting. When's that?"

"Should be…" Halen thought about it for a second. "It's six hours until we jump back to Canerra, and then after that we'll probably wait the night out and the council will convene in the morning. Everyone needs the night together to establish whatever their little voting groups are."

"Of course, of course."

"Look out," Halen warned, but it wasn't a danger alert. Aymon looked up.

Floating towards their little group were two tall brown men. Both were dressed nicely in olive green suits, presumably the color of their ship, and they looked related in the way that spacer families do. They were approximately the same age. One had long hair in cornrows with beaded ends, the other was bald. If Aymon had to guess, they would be the captain and council member from the same ship, and if he had to guess further, that ship was the Iron Dreams. Most of the other spacers seemed content to ignore him, for which he was grateful.

"First Sandreas," the bald man said, dragging his gloved hand along the wall to slow his approach. "Are you busy? May we have a word?"

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Aymon put on his most neutral of smiles. "Of course, gentlemen."

"Thank you," said the bald man. "I would have preferred to meet under more auspicious circumstances, but I'm glad to make your acquaintance. I'm Pellon BarCarran, captain of the Iron Dreams, and this is Maxes BarCarran, council member. Your apprentice, Yan, is my cousin and Maxes's niece."

"Of course. It's a pleasure to meet you both." Aymon stuck out his hands, and they all shook. "This is one of my other apprentices, Kino Mejia."

Kino shook hands with as much of a pleasant smile as she was able to muster. Halen studied them dispassionately, moving behind Aymon to not impede in the conversation.

"I guess I've met the whole trio now," Maxes said. "How lucky I must be."

"When did you meet my other apprentice?" Aymon asked. He didn't recall Sid ever mentioning meeting Yan's extended family.

"As a council member, I was involved with the whole affair on Olar," Maxes explained with a wink. "I weaseled my way on to the team headed there just so I could spend some time with my niece. Apprentice Welslak was there as well."

"Ah, I see. Well, I must thank you both for raising Yan to be the person she is. It's a joy to have her as my apprentice," Aymon said. He felt like he was one of the teachers he had as a kid, before he went to the Academy, telling his mother all about how he was doing in school.

"I'm glad to hear it, though I can hardly take credit," Pellon said. "I'm sorry that she isn't here for the funeral."

Aymon resisted raising his eyebrows. It seemed hard for him to believe that Pellon didn't understand the reasons why Yan would be a poor choice to bring to Vaneik's funeral. "I believe there are people here she'd rather stay away from at the moment," Aymon said. "She's going out to Anthus right now, to consecrate the new colony. She was originally going to accompany me there, but circumstances changed, obviously."

"Oh, that whole business," Maxes said about the pirate disaster, waving his hand as though it were nothing. "I highly doubt anyone would dare to bring it up."

"It isn't so much that they would bring it up, but that Yan would be unhappy regardless," Kino said. "She's not avoiding you."

"Truth be told, if Sid, my other apprentice, weren't on a bit of probation," Aymon began. Kino stifled a laugh. "He would be going to Anthus and I would let Yan stay home. I think he would much prefer the excitement of getting out and about."

"Excitement, yeah," Kino said. She had a weird tone in her voice, but Aymon couldn't question what she meant by it at that moment. He would ask later, if he remembered.

"So you have one apprentice here with you, one out setting up new colonies, and one keeping the peace back at home?" Pellon asked.

"That's the idea. I'm ever so slightly loosening everyone's leashes, making them walk on their own."

"Bit early for that in their apprenticeship, isn't it?" Maxes asked. "They've only been with you for about four months."

"Are you doubting Yan to be capable of running the galaxy?" Pellon asked Maxes, looking fake shocked. He seemed like a fun man.

"Yan isn't running anything, yet. But I'm sure she will be quite capable someday," Aymon said. "As long as everything doesn't go to complete disaster while I'm away, I have no problem letting my apprentices test their strength."

"So why are you here, Apprentice Mejia? Wouldn't you prefer to be on your own personal adventure?" Maxes asked.

"I'm here because First Sandreas likes me the best," Kino said in that flat voice of hers, but the corners of her mouth twitched up, indicating the joke. Pellon and Maxes didn't know what to think, but Aymon laughed and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"I don't pick favorites," he said. "But it seemed like the best choice for Kino to accompany me. Maybe we just work best together."

"Well, I have to say, Yan speaks the world of you in her letters home," Maxes said.

"She's not spilling government secrets, I hope," Aymon said, but he smiled, indicating it was a joke. Maxes laughed.

"No, she just tells me how much she enjoys working with you, and how much she's learning. I just wanted to thank you for taking her on."

"The relationship is as much to my benefit as it is to hers. After all, I'm getting a lot of free labor from my little gaggle of apprentices."

"Free? I seem to recall she was getting a generous salary," Pellon said.

"Free in that I can't trust anyone else to do the work. It's a funny thing, apprentices. As soon as you get one, it seems like everyone's willing to accept their word as yours," Aymon mused.

"You can't ask me to explain it, I don't understand anything about sensitives, however much I love Yan," Pellon said.

"We're just a different breed," Aymon said lightly.

"That is true," Maxes said. "Nothing against you, of course. After all, we wouldn't have starships without all your tireless service."

"I always an so worried about spacers who turn out to be sensitives," Aymon said. "There's bound to be a few who will decide they can make a stardrive with no training."

The feeling of amusement that Halen sent him was so strong, Aymon almost laughed at his own joke. Kino covered her mouth with her hand, hiding her smile. After all, Halen was one of those spacers who made their own stardrive.

Pellon raised his eyebrows, the inside joke lost on him. "Well, I don't think that Yan would ever be so stupid."

"Oh, ha, I'm not worried about her, I'm just speaking in general terms. Yan is a very bright girl."

"That she is," Maxes said. "Well, it was a pleasure to talk to you, First Sandreas. We won't trouble you any longer."

"The pleasure is all mine," Aymon said.

"If you are ever in need of anything that the Iron Dreams can provide, just say the word," Pellon said. "Again, thank you for taking on Yan."

"I'll keep that in mind." They smiled and nodded at each other, then the two BarCarrans pushed off the wall and drifted towards the viewing window. The band in the front of the room had struck up again, playing some new, mournful tune. Someone made an announcement and pointed out the action outside the window.

Everyone watched out the window as the tiny dot of the shuttle, clutching Vaneik's casket in its grasping claws, tossed the thing off into the depths of space. The action was so distant that it could barely be seen, but Aymon watched with mixed emotions as the corpse, and all the evidence for Vaneik's murder, floated away. The cantor said another short prayer over the band's mournful strumming, and then the whole thing was over. The shuttle turned around and made its journey back to the ship.

People stood around and talked for a while, but eventually everyone started to trickle out. Unfortunately, the ship didn't have very many places for people to go; none of the visiting captains and council members (or Aymon and his party) had been given guest rooms aboard the Oathkeeper for their little jaunt, so everyone was forced to wander around the public areas of the ship until the whole thing jumped back in to Canerra station. It was a pain dictated by tradition that these funerals be done in deep, empty space. It seemed as though it would be just as proper for them to happen in the station. Then again, he wasn't a spacer, so he really couldn't judge their peculiarities.

Aymon, Halen, and Kino waited around in the viewing area for a little while longer. Most of the spacers gave them a wide berth. Drifting side by side, close enough that they could touch, Aymon and Halen continued to discuss the lurking problem of Vaneik's murder. In order to make it non obvious, Aymon pretended to be praying, keeping his eyes closed and his hands floating out.

The best thing to do would be to get each of the likely suspects by themselves in a conversation, and then see if they could ask probing questions so that Halen could feel out their guilt. But who were the likely suspects? Marne, his wife? Aymon didn't know her very well, and he didn't see any motive. His two apprentices? It seemed more likely that they would murder each other, or Vaneik's stupid son, before they killed Vaneik. The idiot son himself? It seemed like he was too lazy and stupid to orchestrate such a thing. Someone else looking to seize power within the Guild? They would have had to be on the Oathkeeper at the time of Vaneik's death, and there were no people who fit that description. A disgruntled crewmember? There were so many crewmembers; there would be no way for Aymon and Halen to sniff them all out. It was looking more and more hopeless by the second.

"Can we go get lunch?" Kino asked, after fifteen minutes of her floating patiently next to Aymon and Halen, who were deeply wrapped up in their interior discussion. She didn't know about any of this. Aymon debated whether to inform her and decided against it for the moment. Perhaps if he needed to make use of Kino's particular skillset (being invisible in the power), then he would tell her. But it seemed unlikely that he would need to send Kino sneaking around, and the only people it would be even remotely useful against would be the two apprentices, Nomar Thale and Yuuni Olms.

"Yeah. Let's go find the dining hall," Aymon said. They all made their way through the ship, tracing their path back based on what murals they remembered seeing on the walls. The Oathkeeper was a nice looking ship. Aymon could admit that. After all, Ungarti Vaneik was dead, there was no reason for Aymon to continue hating everything associated with him.

Part of him even believed the things he had said in his eulogy. Not that he had lied, exactly, but he had tried to make the best of a complicated relationship. Maybe it would have been better if they had been friends. Maybe it would have been better if they had trusted each other more, or if Aymon had let Vaneik just a little further into his confidences. After all, it wasn't as though Vaneik had ever been in a position to truly betray him, just to make life slightly more confusing and difficult. And he had managed to do that just fine without ever being let into Aymon's life on more than a business level.

It was sad. Aymon could admit that. They passed a long line of portraits- previous captains and other important crew members of the Oathkeeper. The faces, all bearing trace resemblance to Ungarti in his prime, that long line of Vaneiks, stretched back two hundred, four hundred years. It was a shame that Ungarti was just going to become another face on this wall. Aymon had always assumed that they would be squabbling with each other until he ended his tenure as Voice, which he was planning on putting off for as long as humanly possible. Ungarti was still, if not in his prime, at least still well in the time when a man could be expected to work. He had been murdered, and everyone was chalking it up to illness. It seemed a disservice.

He hoped that Vaneik was laughing at him from heaven. Reminiscing over all the mediocre-to-bad times they had had together- what was he, some sort of pathetic kid? He glanced over at Halen who walked next to him, and Halen raised his eyebrows. Aymon struggled to get his feelings back under his complete control, but he ended up only frustrating himself.

The dining hall was crowded with people. While the bulk of the Oathkeeper's crew had returned to their normal stations, most of the visiting captains and council members decided that the dining hall was the best place to sit and pass the time before the ship jumped back. Thus it was also the best place to hear any gossip about what was going to happen at the council meeting, and who was going to announce their candidacy to be the next Guildmaster. It was strange, usually the position would be passed on with a strong recommendation from the current Guildmaster, who would simply be retiring, but in this case, Ungarti had died before giving that recommendation. Presumably he had been intending to stay the leader of the guild for several more years. It didn't do to make that sort of announcement too early, because people would start scheming.

Of course, considering the way he had died… There were most definitely schemes afoot.

Aymon, Halen, and Kino all got food in the long serving line. The kitchens of the Oathkeeper were struggling to feed everyone, given the unusual crowd, so the line was long. Aymon felt like he was back at the Academy, getting served in the dining hall- it had been a long time since had needed to wait in line for anything. It amused him, and took his mind off the facts of the situation. They found a table and sat, listening to the chatter in the hall. People were discussing the upcoming council meeting. Aymon was eager to hear what the captains and council members thought of who was going to put their name in the running.

The council meetings were closed affairs, and so Aymon would not be able to attend, but he would be sticking around and holding a court of his own. Every contender would announce their running to the council member for their ship, and that council member would deliver the message to the council at large. The meeting could stretch on, as candidates were announced and withdrew, as alliances formed and dissolved, until eventually a vote was able to get a majority for one person or another. Usually, given the recommendation of the previous Guildmaster, the whole process would be a mere formality, but here it was anyone's game. What alliances would turn up?

Aymon's thoughts were interrupted as he saw a familiar face walk into the hall. Yuuni Olms, the former apprentice of Vaneik, headed into the food line, seemingly alone. His eyes followed her as she got her meal, and she saw him staring, and nodded. Once she got what she had came for, she brought her tray over to where Aymon's little group was.

"Mind if I sit here, First Sandreas?" Olms asked.

"Not at all," Aymon said. It really was just like being in the Academy dining hall. Olms slid into the seat next to Kino, and gave her a small smile. "I'm sorry for your loss, Apprentice Olms."

"Apprentice no longer, I suppose," Olms said with a sad smile. "It's bittersweet."

"I'm sorry that your apprenticeship ended so suddenly, then. Was Ungarti sick for long?" Obviously, Aymon knew the length of time that he had been sick for was less than ten minutes, considering the cyanide in his system, but he wanted to probe Olms for answers.

"No, it was very sudden, just a few days. We had just been in port, so he must have picked up something he wasn't vaccinated for as a child," Olms said. She seemed sincere.

"There wasn't an autopsy?"

"Why would there be?" Olms asked, looking askance at Aymon. "It's sacrilege to disrespect the body."

"Well, not if you need to find out how he died."

Olms raised her eyebrows. "I wasn't aware that there was anyone worrying about how he died. No one on the Oathkeeper brought it up."

"Oh, I'm not trying to be rude, Ms. Olms, I just-" Aymon laughed a little. "If I ever came down with the classic 'sudden, short illness', I'd want someone to do an autopsy, just because of my position as First."

"Guildmaster isn't exactly on the same level," Olms said.

"Ungarti and I always considered each other equals."

"Not to speak ill of the dead, but that's because my dear mentor always had a bit of an inflated sense of importance."

Aymon laughed. "You don't seem to hold the position of Guildmaster in high regard. Do you not have an intention of running for it?" Halen wasn’t signalling him through the power, so he must have decided that Olms's emotions were not betraying her as Vaneik's murderer. Aymon was glad of it, and continued to talk with her without that worry hanging over him. Unfortunately, it also meant that she probably wouldn't be able to provide him any useful information about who the killer actually was, so it was a bit of a wash.

"It was clear to anyone who knew him that Ungarti wanted Wil to be the next Guildmaster. I wouldn't want to step in between that," Olms said.

"Ungarti never made that a formal recommendation, the door is still open."

"Why does it matter to you? Do you want me to run?" Olms asked. "The only reason he didn't make that recommendation is because he died before he could. I'm sure in ten or so more years he definitely would have."

"I think that you would be capable. Yan and Sid were highly impressed with you when you met on Olar."

"The feeling is mutual," Olms said with a smile. "I quite like those two."

"Then you should run; you'd see a lot more of them if you became Guildmaster."

"I don't like them that much," Olms said. "Look, First Sandreas, I was planning on bidding for a ship of my own. I have access to the funds, and with this year's glut of stardrives, it's the perfect opportunity. I don't want to waste my life chasing a dream that somebody else picked for me."

"You didn't want your apprenticeship?" Aymon asked. He knew that the process had been somewhat perverted by the complicating factor of Vaneik not being a sensitive, and having his apprentices recommended to him by someone else, but…

"I had several other offers," Olms said. She took a bite of her food before she continued. "And I picked this one because of my family. I think any spacer would do the same. Is that not true?"

"It's true of Yan," Kino said, a rare interruption in the conversation. "I think, anyway. She wanted to go into xenobio."

"What do you mean?" Aymon asked.

"It's important to put the family's needs, the ship's needs, before your own. Sometimes that means taking the most prestigious position you can," Olms explained.

"And by not running for Guildmaster you're doing what, exactly?"

Olms laughed. "I've managed to spend the past few years mostly away from my family. Some of the brainwashing's worn off."

"You should consider it anyway," Aymon said. "I know you don't want to, out of respect for Ungarti, but I think you would make a good leader."

"People have said I would make a good captain," Olms stressed.

"The skills are transferable, I'm sure."

"Is this open favoritism from the leader of the Empire? It seems inappropriate."

"You haven't even announced your candidacy yet, and neither has anyone else, so it's not really favoritism. Just a humble suggestion."

"I'll think about it," Olms conceded.

"Better think fast, the council meeting's coming right up. Any idea who else will be putting in a bid?"

"Nomar, my fellow former apprentice, definitely will. Wil Vaneik, certainly. Some people have floated Pellon BarCarran's name around, but I don't think that's a possibility."

Aymon raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Only because of his association with you. I heard you talked earlier."

"Word does get around fast here," Aymon said. "But I don't know him. He only wanted to talk to me about Yan."

"Of course. He's a competent captain, and I'm sure he wouldn't make a bad candidate, but I think that's idle gossip. He doesn't seem like the really ambitious type."

"Anyone else?"

"Joun Migollen from the Sky Boat might jump at the opportunity, even if he's an unlikely candidate to actually win. Uniss Fenn from the Fantastic might toss her hat in the ring as well. I don't know. No one was really expecting anything like this to happen, so no one was prepared. I think everyone who's ambitious will throw in their name for fun."

"You're saying it will be a bloodbath in the council chambers?"

"No, I'm saying that a lot of people who don't have a chance will throw their name in because they don't know any better. Nothing like this has happened in our lifetimes, or even my grandfather's lifetime."

"And who do you think has a real chance?"

"I couldn't possibly judge that right now. We'll have to see how it plays out in the council."

"Are you going to be there?"

Olms laughed. "Yes, probably for the last time. Nomar and I have what I guess is considered a probational seat, since we're symbolically filling in for Ungarti."

"Did you attend council meetings a lot before?"

"Oh, constantly. I think that was the one real joy Ungarti got out of having apprentices, he could send me to council meetings so that he wouldn't have to go. I did the council's business quite a lot."

"Hm. Wouldn't that make you an excellent candidate then?" Aymon smiled. He really did think that Olms would be an excellent choice for Guildmaster, but if she couldn't be convinced then he wouldn't push her.

"I've made myself plenty of enemies on the council," Olms said. "I have been known to let my temper get the best of me."

"Don't we all, at one point or another?" Aymon asked. "I heard about what happened on Olar."

"Yeah," Olms looked embarrassed and poked at her food for a minute. "I think I came off a little strong handed there."

"Sometimes that's what it takes to get people in line. Besides, council members come and go on a moment's notice, anyone you don't like is bound to be replaced soon enough."

"That depends on the ship," Olms corrected. "Some of them have been in the council for years and years."

"Perhaps. Have there been big shakeups recently?"

"No. Most of the captains, they'll just tell their council member how to vote, if they care at all. That's one thing I don't like about the Guild: if something doesn't directly affect the daily workings of their ship, most captains don't care at all."

Aymon gave Olms another pointed look, but didn't say anything.

"You are really going hard on this," Olms said. "I said I'd think about it."

Aymon smiled. "Olms, if you see Thule around, can you tell him to come find me? I would like to talk to him as well."

"So you are just trying to butter up the next leader of the Guild, I see how it is."

"Are you that confident that he'll win?"

"Nomar has spent his time very deliberately not making enemies. I think that he's a very popular choice."