The Insurrection

David Weber

The Insurrection

GALE WARNING

Ladislaus Skjorning frowned at his watch and resca

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned slowly, one hand moving unobtrusively to the small slug thrower in the sleeve of his loose tunic of Beaufort seawool. A man faced him in the conservative informal dress of New Zurich's upper classes but it wasn't Greuner. Greuner was a little man; this fellow rivaled Skjorning's own 202 centimeters, and, unlike many Corporate Worlders, he looked fit and mean. Ladislaus eyed him with hidden distaste, and the muzzle of the invisible slug gun settled on the newcomer's navel.

"Mister Skjorning?" "Aye, I'm to be Skjorning." Ladislaus" deep voice sawed across the thin New Zurich accent like a doomwhale catcher through fog.

"Mister Greuner sends his regrets." "Not to come?" Ladislaus asked siowlv, broad face expressionless as scorn for his uncouth dialect flared in the Corporate Worlder's mocking eyes. He plowed on like an icebreaker, pandering to the man's contempt. "Would it chance he's to be sending a wording why not?" "Illness, I believe." The Corporate Worlder's mouth was a thin slash of dislike as he eyed the bearded giant.

Skjorning was a Titan for any world--- especially a heavy gray planet, even one whose chill temperatures favored large people--but the one huge hand he could see was a laborer's, thick-knuckled and scarred by a childhood with the nets and a young manhood with the purse seines and harpoons.

"Not to be serious, I'm hoping," Ladislaus said sadly.

"I'm afraid it may be. In fact, I believe he's decided to return to New Zurich for.., treatment." "I'm to see. Well, grateful I'm to be for your wording, Mister--his" "Fouchet," the tall man said briefly.

"Aye, Fouchet. Remembered to me you'll be, Mister Fouchet." Skjorning turned away with a bovine nod, and Fouchet watched him enter a deserted washroom. He started to follow, then stopped and turned on a scornful heel. Whatever Greuner might have thought, that thick-witted prole was no danger.

The washroom door eased slowly open behind him, and one brilliant blue eye followed his retreating back. The slug gun eased back into xs sleeve clip regretfully, and Skjorning stepped out of the washroom.

"Aye, Mister Fouchet," he said softly, barely a trace of accent coloring his voice, "I'll remember you." Fio

"He didn't show?" Fio

"No," he said softly.

"Fhey got to him, is it?" she asked, equally softly. "Aye. Hustled him back to New Zurich--I hope. But there's little to be putting past a Corporate Worlder who smells gelt, Chief." She felt him relaxing as her strong fingers iug the tension from him, then frowned and stopped massaging, leaning her forearms on his massively muscled shoulder.

"You're right, Lad. I just wish I knew what he had for "I feel the same," Ladislaus rumbled, allowing himself a frown, "but let's be grateful for what he already gave us. He turned from his own to be helping us because he thought it right; now I've the thinking he's to be paying for it soon and late." "I know, Lad. I know." She patted his shoulder, smiling contritely, and he felt a surge of guilt. It was hard enough heading a Fringe World delegation without your own people snapping at you. Besides, Fio

"I did pick up something a mite useful," he proffered as a peace offering. 'rhe name of the new New Zurich bully boy, I'm to be thinking.

Fouchet. A tall, mean son-of-a sand-leech with a face like boiled blubber." "He's their new security chief?." Fio

"Chief, you know they're not to be using such titles] They're not so crude as that--heql to be called Computerman's Syndic or some such. But, aye, he's the one.

And had he just a little more curiosity or a little less brain--mind, I'm not sure which it was--it's squeezing Greuner's information from him I'd be the now." "Lad," Fio

She and Ladislaus had grown up together on the cold and windy seas of Beaufort, and she knew it irked him to play the homespun fool for men like Fouchet--but she also knew he recognized the advantages of his role. During his time in the Federation's navy, Ladislaus had acquired a cosmopolitanism at odds with the I

Her eyes swept over upward-soaring walls hung with the flags and ba

A tiny light glowed on her panel as the Sergeant at Arms warned her a member o pounds her delegation was on his way, and she looked up, hiding a smile as Skjorning lumbered down the aisle. Thank Cod none of their constituents ever visited Old Terra! They'd have a fit ff they ever saw the role Ladislaus had assumed so well.