The Service of the Sword

by David Weber

  "Well," Abigail said a bit damply from inside the cone of spray, "I always figured he just thought he was so much better than anyone else that we were being obtuse and rude not to acknowledge it spontaneously." She withdrew her head from under the shower, slicked her hair back into a thick rope, and began squeezing water out of it. "So since we aren't going to extend proper obeisance to him on our own, it's clearly his duty to extract it from us any way he can, instead."

  Shobhana turned under the other showerhead to look at her in surprise, and Abigail bit her tongue. She knew the caustic bite she'd let into her voice had twanged her friend's mental radar.

  "I wasn't exactly thinking about all of us," Shobhana said after a moment. "I was thinking about the way he seems to have a problem specifically with you. And unless my finely honed instincts are deceiving me, I think maybe you have a problem with him, too. No?"

  "No, I don't—" Abigail began sharply, then stopped.

  "You never were a very good liar," Shobhana observed with a slight smile. "Has to do with that strict religious upbringing, I bet. Now, tell Momma Shobhana all about it."

  "It's just . . . well—" Abigail found herself suddenly very busy squeezing water out of her hair, then sighed. "He's one of those idiots who think that all Graysons are cave-dwelling barbarian religious fanatics," she said finally. "And he thinks our customs and notions of propriety are ridiculous."

  "Oho," Shobhana said softly, regarding Abigail with knowing eyes through the shower's steam. "Came on to you, did he?"

  "Well, yes," Abigail admitted. She knew she was blushing, but she couldn't stop. It wasn't the way Shobhana was looking at her, even given the fact that neither of them had a stitch on at the moment. Women outnumbered men by three to one on Grayson, and for a thousand years, the only really acceptable female career on Abigail's home world had been that of wife and mother. Given the imbalance in births, competition for the available supply of men was often . . . intense. Moreover, Grayson's practice of polygamy meant that any Grayson woman could expect to find herself one of at least two wives, with all of the need for frankness and compromises that implied. All of which meant a Grayson girl grew up accustomed to a degree of explicit "girl talk" which was far more earthy and pragmatic than almost any Manticoran would have believed, given the SKM's view of the Grayson stereotype, just as they grew up accustomed to sharing living quarters and bathing facilities. But that was really part of the problem, wasn't it? She'd grown up accustomed to that sort of openness with other young women, not in a society which had prepared her for overt, direct expressions of masculine interest.

  "I'm not surprised," Shobhana said after a moment, head cocked as she considered her friend. "Lord knows if I had your figure, I'd spend all of my time beating men off with a stick! Or, more probably, not beating them off," she admitted cheerfully. "And from what I've seen of friend Grigovakis, the fact that you're from Grayson probably added spice to it, didn't it?"

  "I thought so, anyway," Abigail agreed with a grimace. "Couldn't wait to get the 'neobarb ice maiden' into bed where he could thaw her out. And probably brag to all of his friends about it, too! Either that, or he's one of the idiots who believes all Grayson women must be sex-starved, crazed nymphos, our frantic lust stayed only by our religious programming, just because our men are so outnumbered."

  "You're probably right, given the crowd he hangs out with. Hell, for that matter, I wouldn't be surprised if he was dumb enough to believe both stereotypes at once!" Shobhana made a face. Then she waved a hand over the shower control and reached for a towel as the water stopped.

  "Tell me," she went on, "did he take no for an answer?"

  "Not very well," Abigail sighed. She closed her eyes and raised her face for one last rinse, then turned off her own shower and grabbed a towel. "Actually," she admitted through its folds as she dried her face, "I probably didn't say no as . . . gracefully as I could have. I'd only been on the Island for about two weeks at the time, and I was still in some pretty severe culture shock." She lowered the towel and grinned wryly at her friend. "The best of you Manties would curl the hair of any properly raised Grayson maiden, you know! As for someone like Grigovakis—!"

  She rolled her eyes, and Shobhana chuckled. But the blonde's green eyes were serious.

  "He didn't try to push it, did he?"

  "On Saganami Island? With a Grayson? A Grayson everyone insisted on assuming was Lady Harrington's protégée?" Abigail laughed. "Nobody would be stupid enough to follow that closely in Pavel Young's footsteps, Shobhana!"

  "No, I guess not, at that," Shobhana conceded. "But I'll bet he's never missed an opportunity to make your life miserable, has he?"

  "Not if he could help it," Abigail admitted. "Fortunately, until we wound up assigned here, our paths didn't cross that often. Personally, I'd have preferred for it to stay that way indefinitely."

  "Don't blame you," Shobhana said, picking up a fresh towel and starting to help Abigail dry her hair. "But at least you can look forward to the fact that the two of you will be in different navies after graduation!"

  "Believe me, I thank the Intercessor for that regularly," Abigail assured her fervently.

  An hour and a half later, Abigail Hearns, who was far more anxious than she strove to appear, found herself, along with Mr. Midshipman Aitschuler, seated at the foot of the large table in the captain's dining cabin of HMS Gauntlet. The only really good news, she reflected, was that Karl's class standing was eleven places behind hers. That made him the junior officer present, which meant that at least she wouldn't have to offer the loyalty toast. Although, at the moment, that seemed like a remarkably grudging favor on the Tester's part.

  She looked surreptitiously around the dining cabin. One thing about growing up as a steadholder's daughter was that a girl learned at a very early age how to be aware of her surroundings at a social gathering without gawking with ill-bred and obvious curiosity, and that training served her well now.

  Lieutenant Commander Abbott was the only person present—aside from Karl, of course—whom she felt she knew at all. Not that she knew him very well yet, of course. The sandy-haired Abbott seemed a pleasant enough sort, in a slightly distant fashion, but that might just be the separation he felt an officer candidate training officer had to maintain between himself and his charges. Aside from that, and from a general aura of competence, though, she had very little to go on in forming an opinion of him.

  Which was only about a thousand percent more than she had for anyone else at the table.

  Commander Tyson, Gauntlet's chief engineering officer, sat to the right of the empty chair awaiting the captain's arrival. He was a solidly built, slightly stumpy man with muddy colored hair and a face that looked as if it had been designed to smile easily. Commander Blumenthal, the ship's senior tactical officer, faced Tyson across the table, and Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Anjelike Westman, the ship's surgeon, sat to Blumenthal's left. The sixth and final person at the table was Lieutenant Commander Valeria Atkins, Gauntlet's red-haired astrogator. Atkins, seated across from Westman, was obviously a third-generation prolong recipient, and she was also an extremely tiny person. In fact, she was one of the few Manticorans Abigail had met who made her feel oversized.

  Commander Tyson, as the senior officer present, had made the introductions all around, and the other three had acknowledged Abigail's and Karl's presence politely enough. But the two middies were too astronomically junior to any of them to feel truly comfortable. The dinners they'd shared at Lady Harrington's invitation helped some, but this was definitely a case of better to be seen than to be heard.

  Abigail had just answered a question from Lieutenant Commander Atkins which had clearly been intended to help her feel more at ease, when the hatch opened and Captain Oversteegen entered the dining cabin. His juniors rose respectfully as he crossed to his chair at the head of the table, and Abigail found herself intensely grateful for the controlled expression any steadholder's child had to master at an early age.

&nbs
p; It was the first time she'd set eyes on Gauntlet's master after God, and her heart plummeted at the sight. Oversteegen was a tall, narrowly built, dark-haired man with limbs which seemed somehow just too long for the rest of his body. He moved with an economic precision, yet the length of his arms and legs made his movements seem oddly out of sync. His uniform, while immaculately neat, had obviously profited from the attentions of a high-priced tailor and displayed half a dozen small touches which were definitely non-regulation. But what caused Abigail's sudden sense of dismay was the fact that her new captain looked exactly like an athletic, fifty-years-younger version of Michael Janvier, Baron High Ridge, Prime minister of Manticore. Even if High Admiral Matthews hadn't warned her about the captain's family connections, one look would have given them away.

  "Be seated, Ladies and Gentlemen," he invited, as he drew his own chair back from the table and sat, and Abigail hid a fresh internal wince. Oversteegen's voice was a light baritone, and it was pleasantly enough modulated, but it also carried the lazy, drawling accent affected by certain strata of the Manticoran aristocracy. And not, she thought, the strata which were particularly fond of Graysons.

  She obeyed the instruction to sit back down and felt intensely grateful when the captain's personal steward immediately bustled in, followed by two mess attendants, to begin serving dinner. The arrival of food and drink put a temporary hiatus into any table conversation and gave her an opportunity to take her emotions firmly in hand.

  There was little enough conversation even after the servers withdrew. Abigail had already gathered from the ship's rumor hotline that aside from Commander Watson, none of Captain Oversteegen's officers had ever served with him before. That might have helped to account for the lack of table talk as his guests tucked into the really excellent dinner. On the other hand, it might just as well represent Oversteegen's own preferences. The captain had been aboard for over two months before Gauntlet departed Hephaestus, after all, so this could hardly be the first time he'd dined with any of his officers.

  Whatever the reason, Abigail was just as happy for it, and she concentrated on being as politely silent as was humanly possible. At one point, she looked up to find Commander Tyson regarding her with a small half-smile, and she blushed, wondering if her efforts to remain seen and yet invisible were that obvious.

  But in the end, the meal was finished, the dessert dishes were removed, and the wine was poured. Abigail glanced across the table at Karl, ready to administer a reminding knee kick, but he hardly needed his memory jogged. Obviously, he'd been looking forward to this moment with just as much trepidation as Abigail would have been in his place. But he knew his duty, and as all eyes turned towards him, he picked up his wine, stood, and raised his glass.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Queen!" he said clearly.

  "The Queen!" came back from around the table in the traditional response, and Karl managed to resume his seat with an aplomb which did a very creditable job of masking the anxiety he must have felt.

  His eyes met Abigail's across the table, and she gave him a small smile of congratulation. But then a throat cleared itself at the head of the table, and her head turned automatically towards Captain Oversteegen.

  "I understand," that well modulated voice drawled, "that it would be appropriate for us t' offer an additional loyalty toast this evenin'." He smiled at Abigail. "Since it would never do t' insult or ignore the sensibilities of our Grayson allies, Ms. Hearns, would you be so kind as t' do the honors for us?"

  Despite all she could do, Abigail felt herself color. The request itself was courteous enough, she supposed, but in that affected accent it took on the overtones of oh-so-civilized contempt for the benighted neobarb among them. Yet there was nothing she could do except obey, and she rose and picked up her own glass.

  "Ladies and Gentlemen," she said, her Grayson accent sounding even slower and softer—and more parochial, she supposed—than ever after the captain's polished tones, "I give you Grayson, the Keys, the Sword, and the Tester!"

  Only two voices got through the proper response without stumbling: Karl's and Oversteegen's own. Karl was no surprise; he'd heard the exact same phrase at each of the dinners he and Abigail had shared at Lady Harrington's Jason Bay mansion. Nor was it a surprise to her that the other officers around the table had been caught short by the unexpected toast. The fact that the captain got it straight was a bit of a surprise. Then again, it would hardly have suited his aura of superiority to have invited the toast and not been able to throw off the correct response with polished ease.

  "Thank you, Ms. Hearns," he said in that same, intensely irritating drawl as she sank back into her chair. Then he looked around the other officers at the table. "I trust," he continued, "that the rest of my officers will recognize the need t' be suitably sensitive t' the courtesies due t' our many allies. And t' the desirability of respondin' t' them properly."

  Abigail wasn't sure whether it was intended as a reprimand to his senior officers or as yet another way of underscoring the need to pander to the exaggerated sensibilities of those same primitive allies. She knew which one she thought it was, but innate self-honesty made her admit that her own prejudices might explain why she did.

  Whichever his intention might have been, his comments produced another brief pause. He let it linger for a moment, then tipped back in his chair, his wine glass loosely clasped in one hand, and smiled at all of them.

  "I regret," he told them, "that the press of events and responsibilities involved in preparin' Gauntlet for deployment has prevented me from gettin' t' know my officers as well as I might have wished. I intend t' repair some of that failure over the next few weeks. I could have wished for at least a few more days t' spend on exercises and shakin' down the ship's company, but unfortunately, the Admiralty, as usual, had other ideas."

  He smiled, and all of them—even Abigail—smiled dutifully back. Then his smile faded.

  "As Commander Atkins and the Exec are already aware, Gauntlet is headed for the Tiberian System. Are any of you—aside from the Astrogator—familiar with Tiberian?"

  "One of the independent systems between Erewhon and the Peeps—I mean the Republic of Haven, I believe, Sir," Commander Blumenthal offered after a moment. Oversteegen arched an eyebrow at him, and the tac officer shrugged. "I don't know much more than that about it, I'm afraid."

  "T' be completely honest, Mr. Blumenthal, I'm surprised you know even that much. There's not much there t' attract our attention, after all. And that was especially true durin' the shootin' war." This time his thin smile was downright astringent. "Most of the systems that did draw our attention out that way tended t' be places where the shootin' was goin' on, after all."

  One or two people chuckled, and he shrugged.

  "Actually, I didn't know anythin' at all about Tiberian until the Admiralty cut our orders. I've done a little research since, however, and I want all our officers t' familiarize themselves with the information available to us. The short version, though, is that we're headin' there t' look into the disappearance of several ships in the general vicinity. Includin'—" his voice hardened slightly "—that of an Erewhonese destroyer."

  "A fleet unit, Sir?" Blumenthal's surprise was apparent, and Oversteegen nodded.

  "That's correct," he said. "Now, I suppose it's reasonable t' assume, as the Admiralty has and as ONI's analysts agree, that the suspension of hostilities between the Alliance and the Havenites is logically goin' t' lead to a resurgence of the piracy which was so prevalent out Erewhon's way before the war. Certainly, no one in the area was prepared t' take responsibility for making the local lowlifes behave when everyone was busy worryin' about who the Peeps were about t' devour next. The Admiralty consensus, however, is that now that hostilities have ended, the Erewhonese and our other local allies between them have more than enough combat power t' deal with any pirate foolish enough t' set up business in their backyards."

  He paused, and Commander Westman frowned.

  "Excuse me, Si
r," she said in a soft soprano, "but if the Admiralty believes that this is the responsibility of the Erewhonese, why exactly are they sending us out here?"

  "I'm afraid Admiral Chakrabarti failed t' explain that t' me in any detail, Doctor," Oversteegen replied. "An unintentional oversight upon his part, I'm sure. However, my best guess, given the general tone of our instructions, is that Erewhon is just a bit upset over its perception that we no longer regard it as the center of the entire known universe."

  Abigail hid a mental frown behind an attentive expression. The captain, it seemed, was less than overwhelmed with admiration for whoever had drafted his orders. At the same time, both his tone and his choice of words seemed to her to indicate a certain contempt for the Erewhonese, as well. Not surprisingly, she supposed, given his personal and political connections to the High Ridge Government.

  "As nearly as I can tell," he continued, "our mission is intended primarily t' hold Erewhon's hand. Logically, there's nothin' much a single heavy cruiser can do that the entire Erewhonese Navy shouldn't be able t' do even better. However, there's been a persistent perception on the part of Erewhon and certain other members of the Alliance—" his eyes cut ever so briefly in Abigail's direction "—that they're no longer valued since the cease-fire. Our mission is t' demonstrate t' Erewhon that we do indeed place great value on our alliance with them by offerin' whatever assistance we can. Although, if I were the Erewhonese, I believe I would probably be somewhat more impressed by the deployment of a destroyer flotilla or at least a division of light cruisers than by that of a single heavy cruiser. We, after all, can be in only one place at one time. And as all of our experience in Silesia should indicate, what's really needed t' suppress piracy is a widespread presence, not individual units, however powerful."

  Despite herself, and despite her instinctive dislike for the captain, Abigail found herself in total agreement with him in that regard, at least.