Read Online The Serrano Connection by Elizabeth Moon - Free Book Online

personal treasures." Should she mention that they'd been found after the battle, in the cleanup phase, in the locker of someone killed? Yes; she had been taught that withholding information was the same as lying. "We found the things after the battle," she said. "But the person whose locker they were in had died in the original fight."
     
    "The mutiny, you mean."
     
    "Yes, sir. Under the circumstances, we just gave the stuff back to the owners—the surviving ones, that is."
     
    A grunt from the chairman, which she could not interpret.
     
    The trial went on, hour after tedious hour. Most of the time the questions made sense, examining what she had known, what she had witnessed, what she had done. Other times the court seemed determined to follow some useless thread of inquiry—like the kinds of grumbling she'd observed—into a thicket where they would lodge until one of them kicked free and returned to the main issues.
     
    One of the side-issues turned nasty. The hectoring Thedrun had continued to ask his questions as if he was sure she was guilty of something dire. He began asking her about her responsibility in regard to supervising the ensigns. "Isn't it true, Lieutenant Suiza, that you were charged with ensuring that the ensigns carried out their duties and put in the required hours of study?"
     
    "Sir, that duty rotated among the four senior lieutenants junior grade, under the supervision of Lieutenant Hangard. I was assigned that duty for the first thirty days after Despite left Sector HQ, then it devolved onto the next senior, Lieutenant Junior Grade Pelisandre for thirty days, and so on."
     
    "But as the senior, you were ultimately responsible—?"
     
    "No, sir. Lieutenant Hangard had made it clear that he wished the jig—sorry—"
     
    "Never mind," the chairman said. "We do know what the word means."
     
    "Well, then, Lieutenant Hangard wanted the jig in charge of the ensigns to report directly to him. He said we each needed to feel the responsibility alone for a short time." Where was this leading?
     
    "Then you are not aware that Ensign Arphan was engaged in illegal diversion of military equipment?"
     
    "What!" Esmay couldn't keep her voice from reacting to that. "Ensign Arphan ? But he's—"
     
    "Ensign Arphan," the chairman said, "has been convicted of diversion and illegal sale of military goods to unlicensed buyers—in this case, his father's shipping company."
     
    "I . . . it's hard to believe," Esmay said. On second thought, she could believe it, but still . . . why hadn't she noticed? How had someone else found out?
     
    "You haven't answered the question: were you or were you not aware that Ensign Arphan had illegally diverted military equipment?"
     
    "No, sir, I was not aware of that."
     
    "Very well. Now, about the mutiny itself—" Esmay wondered why they bothered to ask questions which the surveillance cubes had already answered. Hearne had attempted to destroy all the records of her conversation with Serrano, but the mutiny erupted before she could. So the court had seen the playbacks, from several angles . . . for Serrano had of course recorded Hearne's transmissions, and the transmissions agreed.
     
    What seemed to worry the court most was the possibility that the junior officers had been plotting even before Hearne defied Serrano. Esmay repeated her earlier statements, and they picked them apart. How was it possible that she had not known Hearne was a traitor before? How was it possible that she had been party to a successful mutiny, if she had not been involved in some plan with the other mutineers ahead of time? Was it really that easy to produce a spontaneous mutiny?
     
    By the end of the second day, Esmay wanted to bang heads. She found it hard to believe that a whole row of senior officers were so incapable of recognizing what lay in front of them—so insistent on finding something other than the plain, obvious truth. Hearne had been a traitor, along with a few