The Far Side of The Stars

by David Drake

  "You'll be buying or hiring a ship here, I presume," Adele said. From the look of comprehension on Valentina's face it was obvious that she already understood, but Adele continued for the husband, "I believe this information will make it easier for you to negotiate."

  She cleared her throat. "I have an acquaintance—a relative, in fact—on Todos Santos. Under other circumstances I'd suggest that he use his good offices on your behalf, but the present emergency precludes that. Still, you should be able to find acceptable transportation home."

  The Princess Cecile had dropped into normal space some four million miles from Todos Santos. Most astrogators merely hoped to make their initial reentry within the solar system for which they were aiming, though she knew Daniel had on occasion done even better. The first thing Adele did was to alert the Cinnabar exiles through their emergency net. She and Daniel had a meeting arranged in Adrian Purvis' mansion in three hours time or however much longer it took them to work through the landing formalities.

  "We'll return to Cinnabar aboard a trader, I believe, and hire a Cinnabar ship to Novy Sverdlovsk," said the Count. "Without discussing in detail the curios we've collected."

  He frowned and went on, "But Mistress Mundy, why is it that you went to this trouble for us? You've gathered information on more than a hundred ships, not so?"

  Adele pursed her lips. A quick answer would've been, "It wasn't any trouble." That was true at least for her, but it wasn't really the answer.

  "Your excellency," she said, "you've behaved like a gentleman during our contact on this voyage. The Mundys of Chatsworth have a reputation of giving as we receive, in good or ill."

  "Adele, the relative you have here?" Valentina said. "That is how you rescued Georgi from the trouble when we first arrived, yes?"

  "Yes, that's right," Adele said. "My cousin is one of a community of Cinnabar expatriates in the Cluster navy."

  The port officials were closing their airsuits to return to their own ship. Adele had offered her resources to help with the bribe, now that the Klimovs were no longer the owners, but Daniel had assured her he could meet the requirements himself.

  "And you will be visiting your relative and his colleagues when we land?" Valentina continued. "Because of the emergency you mention."

  "Yes," said Adele, speaking even more carefully than she normally did. The Klimovna obviously knew more about the "Cinnabar expatriates" than Adele had told her. "Why do you ask?"

  Valentina turned to the Count. "Georgi," she said, "we will loan them the aircar. They will want to make an impression, and they will be in haste because of the trouble. They should not have to hire the trashy common vehicles here."

  "What?" the Count said. He shrugged. "Yes, of course. If you wish, my dear."

  He rubbed his hands as he smiled quietly into the distance. "Our business will be here in the harbor anyway," he said. "And we're in haste as well. I don't even think I'll find a card game on this visit."

  * * *

  Daniel preserved a pleasant smile and kept his right arm sprawled loosely on the top of the aircar's door, but doing that took more effort than facing the dragon with a clubbed gun had. It was easier to act in the face of oncoming disaster than to keep from acting. The aircar's speed and Barnes' white-knuckled grip on the control yoke were an oncoming disaster if Daniel had ever seen one.

  "Perhaps we should put down in the street, Barnes," Daniel said, hoping that he sounded reassuringly positive. "The courtyard of Commander Purvis' palace isn't really made for landing—"

  "Hang on!" shouted Barnes. He apparently wasn't listening. All things considered, Daniel supposed he wanted the driver to be completely focused on his job—given that even with full concentration he looked likely to make a real mess of it.

  "You got that bloody right!" Hogg snarled from the far back where he sat alongside Dasi. "I swear t' God, master, I'm going to walk back if this don't break both my legs first!"

  Daniel glanced over his shoulder with the instinct of an officer for the personnel under his command when things got tight. Adele and Tovera were in the middle seat. Tovera had a cool expression, while Adele was viewing something projected by her commo helmet. The image was a blur from Daniel's side.

  "Adele, you'll want to hold—" Daniel said on a rising note. Tovera reached across her mistress and gripped the handrest, smiling at him.

  To blazes with looking confident! Daniel braced his right arm against the dashboard and grabbed the bottom of the seat with his left. The aircar skimmed over the palace's facade, banked into a turn like a paperclip, and dropped into the middle of the courtyard. The screaming children managed to scatter in time, but a gout of bloody feathers as the car bounced showed that one of the chickens hadn't been so lucky.

  Daniel held his mouth wide open so the shock didn't break his teeth on one another, but he came up hard against the seatbelt. When the car hit the second time, he found the cushions weren't up to the job of keeping the seat from trying to punch his spine through the base of his skull.

  The car was still turning tightly, so this time it mowed down the poles supporting the clotheslines along the south face of the courtyard. When they finally halted, bright-colored garments festooned them like holiday bunting.

  Barnes lifted an orange-and-yellow-striped tunic away from his face, then shut off the fans. He beamed at Daniel.

  "Bloody hell, sir," he said cheerfully. "I was worried there for a minute, but I guess we come in all right after all!"

  Daniel unlatched his door, untangled the set of baggy pantaloons that kept it from opening fully, and got out. "Some of the laundry's gotten into the fan intakes, Barnes," he said. "Remove it before we lift off, will you please? I've had enough excitement for the morning."

  Adele took off the commo helmet and replaced it with the peaked cap that was normal headgear with the 2nd Class uniform she was wearing. She smiled faintly as she allowed Daniel to hand her out of the vehicle.

  "Ordinary diplomats," she said, "would find a meeting like this one to be very stressful. Personally, I'm feeling quite relaxed now that I have my feet back on the ground. Perhaps we could offer a suggestion to the foreign service when we return to Cinnabar?"

  "I don't know any diplomats well enough to dislike them that much," Daniel said, straightening his tunic. He felt good—buoyant, in fact. Surviving a ride like that was an exhilarating experience.

  Whistling a snatch of "The Atlas Cluster Squadron," Daniel strode toward the staircase with Adele beside him. A tattooed female petty officer was in command of the guards. "Does your driver always land like that?" she said.

  "Pretty much so," Daniel said nonchalantly as he started up the stairs. Now orbiting off Thermidor we took aboard a shipwrecked whore. . . .

  "I'd like to say one gets used to it," said Adele over her shoulder. "But I haven't as yet, I'm afraid."

  Commander Purvis ushered them into the loggia shaded by hand-carved screens. Admiral O'Quinn stood just within the doorway. Daniel had met them on the roof of the Anyo Nuevo the first time the Princess Cecile docked in San Juan, but he knew the other four officers present only by file imagery.

  Adele had warned him, but great God! they looked terrible! If it weren't for the uniforms—flashy, locally-made versions of Dress Whites—Daniel wouldn't have connected them with the RCN or with any military organization.

  "Admiral," Daniel said, saluting. He nodded to the others. "Fellow officers. I'm glad you were able to meet Officer Mundy and myself at such short notice. There isn't a great deal of margin, but the RCN is used to that—"

  He felt the corners of his lips quiver in what was as much a snarl as a smile. When the time came he'd be calm; he knew that from past experience. Now, though, visualizing the battle ahead, he couldn't prevent the outward trembling of emotions older than the human portion of his brain. The Alliance might start the dance, but in the end the RCN would be calling the tune. . . .

  "—and I think there's enough margin, if we act quickly."

 
"Act?" said Lieutenant Estaing, who was the least changed physically of any of them. "By cutting our throats, you mean, Leary? Because there's nothing else to do! Two battleships, modern battleships, a heavy cruiser, and a flotilla of destroyers. That's hopeless odds!"

  Daniel crossed his hands behind his back and looked at Estaing. Not changed physically, but . . . and then again, from what Adele's records said about the man, maybe he was morally the same man he'd been before the mutiny, too.

  "I don't believe it's that bad, Mr. Estaing," Daniel said calmly. "The Alliance squadron only arrived at Gehenna a week ago. They had an exceedingly difficult voyage from Pleasaunce. They'll be an additional month fitting out, and they won't be expecting an attack. I believe—"

  "They won't be facing an attack either, Leary," said Admiral O'Quinn heavily. Daniel looked at him in amazement. The Admiral glowered for a moment, then grimaced and lowered his eyes to the floor. "Look, you're a young fellow, full of piss and vinegar—which is fine when you're young."

  "We've been young too," said the grotesquely fat Lieutenant Tetrey. All the Aristoxenos' officers were holding goblets, but Tetrey was swigging hers between bites from a platter of glazed fruit slices. "That's why we're here now, at the back of nowhere."

  "We have to face reality, Leary," O'Quinn said. "The truth is, I don't know that the Zanie could lift even if we took the full month you say the Alliance squadron will be refitting. She hasn't entered orbit in three years, and it's seven since we last took her into the Matrix. It's hopeless to imagine us engaging two battleships!"

  Daniel cleared his throat.

  "I'm forgetting my manners," said Adrian Purvis. "Here, Leary—and you, Cousin Adele. Won't you have something to drink? Or eat, but these vintages are very respectable."

  "Try the red," said Admiral O'Quinn in a jolly voice. "It's from my estate in the Dantas Mountains."

  A pair of servants stepped forward with a carafe and a silver-chased goblet, bowing low to Daniel. They wore smarmy smiles.

  Daniel waved his left hand before him, palm out in a mixture of brusque refusal and disgust. "No," he said. "No thank you."

  He grimaced and—he could've stopped himself but he didn't see any reason to—blurted, "For God's sake, fellow officers, what are you talking about? I'm not suggesting we fight a head-on battle with two battleships, even ships like these that've been configured for a long voyage with reaction mass tanks replacing half the missile stowage. We'll hit Gehenna unexpectedly and catch the Alliance squadron on the ground."

  Daniel gestured, lifting both hands as though he were a preacher rousing his congregation. He'd expected argument, doubts, and disagreement over strategy. He was the most junior officer present; the others had been of higher rank than he was now when they fled the Three Circles Conspiracy. Of course they weren't going to accept his proposed tactics immediately, especially since the others didn't have his recent experience of knowing everything through the Tree.

  What Daniel hadn't expected was the present willful apathy and determination to ignore a reality that looked terrifyingly bleak. Admiral O'Quinn and his officers planned to stick their heads in the sand and discuss vintages until the Alliance commander worked up his squadron and brought it here to rain down destruction on the Cluster—with the Aristoxenos the first target.

  "One missile into each ship and they won't be able to lift without repairs," Daniel said cajolingly. "Even the battleships. And you can imagine how long it's going to take them to make repairs with only the Commonwealth's resources to draw on, right? With one stroke you'll have saved the Cluster, saved yourselves, and put the Republic of Cinnabar in your debt!"

  "Well, Admiral, did you hear that generous offer?" Lieutenant Estaing said, his cheeks bright with drink and emotion. "We're to be given posthumous pardons."

  He glared at Daniel, furious and frightened at the same time. "Except I suppose the pardons would be contingent on our succeeding," he continued with his voice rising, "and that's impossible. Impossible!"

  "Mr. Estaing," Commander Purvis said sharply, "pray recall you're in my house and speaking to my guest."

  Purvis turned to Daniel and coughed into his hand. "But the fact is, Leary," he continued, "that you just don't know what it's like here in the North. The Zanie isn't a warship any more, not with the sort of maintenance we've been able to do in a place like this. Oh, sure, we could probably see off a squadron of the flyboats the Commonwealth navy uses, but not real ships. Not a crack Alliance squadron. It just isn't in the cards."

  "Fellow officers!" Daniel said, wondering if he sounded as desperate as he felt. "If you'll allow me to show you a simulation—"

  Lieutenant Williams, the cadaverous Second Lieutenant, rose so abruptly from the stool she was sitting on. Her goblet tipped in her hand. She was drinking gin, not wine. She opened her mouth with a stricken expression. Instead of speaking, she turned and vomited a gout of bile and liquor onto the rugs layered on the floor of the loggia.

  Servants trotted over, whispering cheerfully among themselves. They shared space with the officers but remained apart, like the aviforms fluttering about the Governor's Palace. One held a basin of water; another had napkins draped over her arm. The rest rolled the stained rugs sideways with the skill of long experience and took them away.

  Daniel turned slightly so that he could keep his eyes on O'Quinn but pretend not to see the retching Williams. "A simulation, as I say . . . ," he resumed.

  Bodo Williams turned without rising. She'd given her face a wipe with a napkin that left it wet but not quite clean. "For God's sake, don't you understand?" she said. "There's no point in simulations, there's no point in anything! We can't fight battleships, we can't fight anybody! Just go away and leave us in peace for as long as we have left, can't you?"

  Williams hugged her wasted chest and began to cry, though whether her pain was physical or mental was beyond deduction. Estaing stared at Daniel in silent fury; his goblet was only half-full but his hands trembled so badly that the contents were sloshing. The others kept their eyes averted, from one another as well as from Daniel and Adele.

  "Fellow officers . . . ," Daniel said. He stopped there because he wasn't sure where to go from that opening.

  He knew there had to be some way. He saw—well, saw the kernel—of a way to defeat the Alliance squadron. The Aristoxenos' officers didn't. They hadn't been the Tree, and also they weren't Daniel Leary who through luck, a crack crew, and perhaps something more, had won against long odds in the past.

  All this Daniel understood, but he didn't understand RCN officers being unwilling to fight. The RCN had never lacked ignorant personnel and even downright stupid personnel, but no one imagined it was a haven for cowards. . . .

  Adrian Purvis looked at O'Quinn, waiting for his superior to speak. Under the pressure of the commander's eyes, the Admiral said, "See here, Leary, I understand what you're trying to do, but you have to appreciate our situation. Helping out some Cinnabar spacers in a brawl here in San Juan, that's one thing, but now you're asking us to get involved in a war with the Alliance. When you were here before, Officer Mundy—"

  He nodded to Adele, his expression sternly professional save for the nervous twitch at the corner of his left eye.

  "—made it perfectly clear, insultingly clear I might have said, that the Republic had no use for us. Now you say it does? Well, I'm afraid it's too late!"

  "Admiral O'Quinn," Daniel said. He was as calm as he'd be in battle, even a battle he knew he couldn't win. "You know that the first thing an Alliance squadron in support of the Commonwealth will do is to reduce the Cluster to submission. The Aristoxenos—"

  "We don't know anything!" Adrian Purvis said. "We don't know that there's even an Alliance squadron on Gehenna. This is probably a trick by you and the Commonwealth to lead us into an ambush!"

  Daniel looked at him. "Mr. Purvis," he said, "you have my word as a Leary of Bantry that the situation is as I've described it."

  "Yes, and what's the word of a—"
Purvis said.

  Adele slapped him across the mouth with her right hand. It was a sharp sound, very like a pistol shot.

  Daniel picked up a wine carafe. There wasn't much chance of getting out if matters went the wrong way, though with Hogg and Tovera in the courtyard there was just a chance. If you were an RCN officer, you didn't stick your head in the sand and wait for death. . . .

  Commander Purvis backed a step. He put his fingers to his mouth, then lowered them, his eyes fixed on Adele's. No one else moved.

  Admiral O'Quinn said, "I don't believe there's anything more to accomplish here. I won't tell you your business, Leary, but I suggest you go back to Cinnabar and place the affair in the hands of the proper authorities. If they don't act or don't act quickly enough, well, that's not your fault."

  "Cousin Adrian," Adele said in a voice which rang like a bell in the silence. "You are a disgrace to a family which has had more than its share of fools, but no cravens I was aware of until now."

  "Fine!" Purvis said. "Since you insist, we'll settle this! My seconds will call on you in the morning."

  Adele laughed. "Don't bother," she said. "My colleagues and I have matters of state to conduct. But I will say that the one regret I have about the Princess Cecile attacking the Alliance squadron alone is that I won't survive to cleanse the blot from the family honor with your blood!"

  She turned on her heel and walked out. Daniel bowed to his host and followed. Halfway down the outside stairs he realized he was still holding the carafe; he handed it to the petty officer waiting at the bottom.

  "Back to the Sissie, Barnes," Daniel called across the courtyard to those waiting with the concern in their eyes hooded. "And see if you can't get us up a hundred feet or so before you give us forward impulse, will you?"

  "We are going to attack Gehenna ourselves, aren't we, Daniel?" Adele said in an undertone as she got into the car. "A force from Cinnabar can't possibly reach the North in time to save our traders from massacre."

  "Yes, I rather think we are," said Daniel, smiling faintly as possibilities spun through his mind. If he could only grasp the right ones, in the right sequence. . . .