Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

nice smile. We don't want to frighten him." Frost bared her teeth, and Silence winced. She looked as though she was about to bite him somewhere painful. "All right, forget the smile. It doesn't suit you. Leave all the talking to me and don't get touchy about anything he says. I want to know what's reduced Stelmach to a state like this."
    Frost shrugged, but kept her hands ostentatiously away from her weapons. Silence decided to settle for that. He stepped forward into the corridor and walked through the open door to Stelmach's quarters. Frost stuck so close behind him he could feel her breath on the back of his neck. Silence smiled and nodded to Stelmach, who was sitting on the side of his bed, his head hanging down, his shoulders slumped in tiredness or defeat or both. His gun was lying on the floor, well out of his reach. Silence relaxed just a little and looked around.
    The place was a mess. Everything that wasn't nailed down or an intrinsic part of the ship had been picked up and thrown at something else. The single table and
    chair had been overturned, and the shattered fragments of his more fragile personal belongings covered the floor, along with pretty much everything else.
    The bed folded down from the cabin wall, and had survived intact, but the bedclothes had been torn apart and strewn all over the small cabin. Stelmach was sitting on the bare bed, looking anything but dangerous, but Silence decided he was going to take it slowly anyway. He could sense Frost behind him, like an attack dog straining against a short leash. He stepped forward, and Stelmach finally looked up. His face was tired and drawn, and he looked ten years older.
    "Come in, Captain, Investigator. Excuse the mess. It's the maid's day off."
    "I've seen worse," said Silence. "You've been very… busy, Stelmach. Any particular reason?"
    "What does it matter?" said Stelmach. "I know the regulations. I belong in the brig. Go ahead and take me. I'm finished."
    "I don't believe in sentencing someone until they've had a fair hearing," said Silence carefully. "Explain yourself. What brought this on?"
    "It's private, Captain. Family business. I don't want to talk about it."
    "Talk anyway. If I'm going to lose the best Security Officer I've ever had, I want to know why."
    Stelmach looked past Silence's shoulder at Frost. "Does she have to be here?"
    "She's concerned for my safety," said Silence. "But she can step out into the corridor if you'd like."
    "No," said Stelmach. "I don't suppose it matters." He leaned back against the bulkhead his bed folded down from, and his voice was very tired. "I got a letter this morning. From my family. We've always been very close, ever since our father died when I was very young. There was a demonstration, some kind of
    political thing, and it turned ugly. Someone threw something, someone else opened fire, and my father the police officer was dead before he hit the ground.
    Mother brought us up, kept us together, did whatever was necessary to keep a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food in our bellies. I was the youngest. Never wore new clothes in my life till I joined the Service. We were raised to revere my father as a saint and to have nothing at all to do with politics. She had all of us sign up for the Services, the moment we were old enough. There's always job security in the Services, whatever might be happening anywhere else.
    "My sister Athena was the eldest. They took her away to become an Investigator when she was ten. We lost touch with her after that. My brothers Bold and Hero did well for themselves. Bold's a Major in the army, Hero's a Group leader in the Jesuit commandos. They write home regularly, send money when they can. I'm the only failure. My career's over. After the debacle on the Wolfling World I was lucky not to be executed, but I'll never be more than a Security Officer now, not even if I was officially exonerated. Even my work on controlling the Grendel aliens has been taken over by other people. As far as my family is concerned, I've disgraced them by being such a failure. My mother wrote to me, telling me not to come home again. She's expelled me from the family, disinherited me, and removed all references to me from the family history. She now tells everyone she only ever had two sons.
    "I always did my best. Followed the regulations, did as I was told, tried hard to be a good soldier. Lived my live for the Empire. And what did it get me? A Security Officer's post on a ship