The Road of Danger

by David Drake

  Mistress Sand looked at her. Adele was suddenly afraid that the older woman was going to ask how she had gotten access to Platt’s databases. Adele wouldn’t lie; but neither, she decided, would she answer fully.

  Sand wouldn’t be happier to know the truth. Neither was Adele herself. Platt had been a loathsome beast whose death made the human universe marginally better . . . but despite that, Adele had dreamed of his moonlike face and his one accusing eye every night since she killed him.

  “I came to the region to bring you information, Mundy,” Mistress Sand said, changing the subject. “I would have left the execution in your hands, because I’ve never met anyone with better tactical appreciation of matters of this kind. I trust your judgment implicitly.”

  She didn’t change the subject after all. She heard about what happened on Madison and has drawn the correct conclusions about who was responsible.

  “I’ll credit myself with making sure that you left Cinnabar with plenipotentiary authority from Admiral Hartsfeld,” Sand said. Her smile grew. “On the other hand, I don’t think you would have found it difficult to create that authorization yourself. Would you have, Mundy?”

  Adele considered the question. “Creating documents that would pass scrutiny in the Macotta Region,” she said neutrally, “would be easier than creating something that would be examined on Xenos, that’s true.”

  “Would you have hesitated to forge them if I hadn’t been so farsighted?” Sand said, this time with the edge of real challenge.

  “Would I have hesitated to do my duty, mistress?” Adele said in the same tone. “No, I would not.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said Sand. “Because I may not always be as sharp as I was when you and I last met on Cinnabar.”

  She laughed and turned. “Let’s go back,” she directed. “I thought I was going to have to soothe the ruffled feathers of the regional commander about the cavalier way my department usurped his authority. From the look on Cox’s face as he went into his conference, it seems that your friend Leary has already done that. I wonder how?”

  Adele really smiled. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I think you do know a better tactician than I am.”

  * * * *

  “Hogg,” Daniel said. “Stay here with Tovera and protect the jeep against car thieves.”

  Turning to Adele he said, “Wait a moment,” to stop her from trying to clamber out of the air-cushion vehicle. He walked around to her side and offered his arm as a brace.

  Adele’s foot had slipped on the wide bulge of the plenum chamber when she got into the vehicle. Tripping while getting out would at best be an embarrassment in front of the Alliance official whose assault boat was approaching the shore. If she managed to break her neck — and it could happen — the loss to Cinnabar would be great, and the loss to Daniel Leary personally would be incalculable.

  Daniel had borrowed the jeep from the Macotta Squadron; it was part of the Warhol’s regular equipment. Admiral Cox was being very helpful. His behavior toward the Princess Cecile and her complement was averaging out to the pleasant neutrality Daniel had expected of the squadron commander before they arrived on Kronstadt.

  Tovera had been driving. She started to get out to follow. Adele looked at her servant and said, “I believe Captain Leary and I can handle matters, Tovera. I’ll summon you if your presence is required.”

  Tovera looked as though she intended to protest. Instead, she gave a curt nod and slid back behind the car’s control column.

  “I think we’ll wait midway between our vehicle and where Master Storn lands,” Adele said, walking north along the beach. “Which I expect will be where he landed when we met yesterday.”

  The assault boat raised a bow wave out of proportion to the modest speed at which it was approaching the shore. The wheels and wheel wells ruined any hope of streamlining, but they allowed the big vehicle to drive through shallows and up the beach without the hesitation a hull better adapted to water would have.

  “If you can tell me . . . ,” Daniel said, standing with his hands crossed behind his back. “Was Admiral Jeletsky actually involved in the plot, or were the authorities — ”

  He didn’t like referring directly to the Fifth Bureau. He knew the organization existed, just as he knew cancer existed. Naming a thing sometimes seems too close to calling it up.

  “ — just blaming him for poor oversight?”

  He and Adele wore utilities, in his case with a commo helmet. Adele didn’t like helmets and instead stood bareheaded, which violated uniform regulations. Her commanding officer had better things to do with his time than to train the most brilliant signals officer in the RCN to follow nitpicky rules.

  Adele shrugged. “While I can’t speak for my Alliance counterpart,” she said, smiling faintly, “Jeletsky had to have known about the plot to take Tattersall. The Sunbright revolt provided him with an excuse for holding his squadron at high readiness, but it didn’t require him to do so. Doerries offered Jeletsky a coup that would put sparkle on his service record, and Jeletsky was too limited to see the wider implications.”

  “Guarantor Porra doesn’t like high officers who think in broad policy terms,” Daniel said. “Commander Doerries would have learned this if he’d risen to flag rank himself, I suspect.”

  It struck him suddenly that the RCN’s greatest strength may have been that it was nonpolitical. The Senate and the Republic itself had factions whose differences might burst into mutual violence; the RCN remained above the struggle, shielding the Republic regardless of which person or party or class ruled the body politic.

  “Doerries wasn’t a strategic thinker,” Adele said coldly. “He thought of everything in tactical terms.”

  The assault boat grunted onto the beach and began to turn around. Only the driver and a single passenger were visible, though any number might be hunching out of sight below the gunwales.

  “Daniel,” Adele said, turning her head toward him. “Could you make yourself sole ruler of the Republic? In, say, fifteen years?”

  She didn’t ask if I would. This is Adele, whose words mean exactly what they mean — and no more.

  The question involved too many variables to have a real answer. Still, if from this moment he directed all his efforts to that end, he would have a real possibility; one in three, perhaps. Except —

  The Alliance vehicle stopped. The passenger, the man in brown who had overseen the arrests of Doerries and Jeletsky, got down from the cab and started toward them.

  Daniel looked at Adele and grinned. “I couldn’t succeed without perverting the RCN from its traditional role,” he said. “In effect I would have to destroy it. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Your answer,” said Adele, straight-faced, “demonstrates real strategic thinking.”

  The Alliance official stopped a polite six feet away. She nodded to him and said, “Master Storn. I’m glad you could meet me here.”

  “The least I could do, Your Ladyship,” Storn said with a polite bow.

  “Allow me to introduce my colleague, Captain Leary,” Adele said. “Captain, Master Storn is an official in the government of the Alliance.”

  Storn switched his attention to Daniel. When his eyes focus on you, he isn’t nondescript. He said, “Captain Leary, you demonstrated great presence of mind when Admiral Jeletsky was being taken into custody. Thank you for helping avoid public awkwardness.”

  “Lieutenant Bazaine was showing courage and loyalty to her superior officer in an unclear situation,” Daniel said. He’d learned the lieutenant’s name with the help of a directory of the Forty Stars Squadron; he hadn’t caught her name tag when it was all happening. “I hope her actions won’t negatively affect her future career.”

  Storn looked at Daniel with the expression he might have given a strange dog; a potentially dangerous dog. He said, “All right, I’ll see to it.”

  Adele looked from one man to the other. She smiled minusculely and said, “Daniel — ”

  Using hi
s given name rather than his rank was a signal as clear as if she had fired a shot in the air.

  “ — perhaps you would explain to Master Storn why you’re concerned that the Fleet not remove a junior officer who has shown herself willing to risk her life and career in a crisis?”

  Daniel chuckled. “Well, since you put it that way,” he said.

  He met Storn’s eyes. “I suppose I’m a spacer first and an enemy of the Alliance only second,” he said. “At least while we’re at peace.”

  “Then let us all hope that our nations remain at peace,” Storn said mildly. His smile was as slight as Adele’s and was as hard to interpret. To Adele he added, “Which will be longer than would have been the case without your intervention, Lady Mundy. My superiors thank you for your assistance. As for me personally — ”

  He turned his hand outward, palm up, in a deprecatory gesture.

  “ — such help as I can provide consonant with my duties is yours for the asking. I am not without influence even beyond the boundaries of my diocese.”

  “I would expect that anything I asked from you,” said Adele, “would be of mutual benefit to our nations . . . as this recent matter was. May I say that while I expected your bureau to dispose of the business in a thorough fashion — ”

  She smiled. Storn smiled back. Love Adele though he did, Daniel felt as though he were watching a pair of cobras meeting.

  “ — I am impressed by the speed with which you did so.”

  The driver of the assault boat was the same bruiser who had backed Storn during the arrests. His hands weren’t visible as he watched the conference from the cab, but the only question in Daniel’s mind was what kind of weapon the fellow held ready. Though I’d put my money on Tovera if it came down to cases.

  “My bureau’s station on Madison will have some questions to answer about how Fleet Intelligence was able to mount so extensive an operation without being noticed,” Storn said. “The station forwarded to me in a very expeditious fashion the material you provided them, however. Therefore the questions will be asked in a — ”

  He paused to consider his words. “In more survivable fashion,” he resumed, “than might otherwise have been the case.”

  Storn repeated the gesture with his left hand. “You called this meeting, Lady Mundy,” he said. “I assume you have a request for me?”

  “I have information for you,” Adele said. “Daniel, please give Master Storn the chip I asked you to carry.”

  Daniel reached into his right cargo pocket. He paused and burst into laughter as he finally understood the reason Adele had given him the chip case.

  “Oh, my goodness!” he said. “Captain Leary, the harmless beast of burden who can stick his hand into his pocket without risking a resumption of war! Here you are, Master Storn — documents which my good friend Lady Mundy thought would interest you.”

  Storn wore a chip reader pinned to the outside of his breast pocket. He inserted the chip from Adele’s case, looking somewhat embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry, Daniel,” Adele said, sounding ill at ease. “I meant no reflection on your . . .”

  She doesn’t know how to go on.

  Grinning at both spies, Daniel said, “If you meant that I’m a terrible pistol shot, then you’re right and I don’t feel in the least insulted. Quite a practical solution to the problem of trust, I would say.”

  “I told Olafsen,” Storn said, tilting his head slightly to the assault boat to indicate the driver, “that even if I were killed in front of him, he should return to the Feursnot and inform my superiors instead of reacting himself. I’m not, however, certain that he would obey my orders.”

  His eyes were focused on the holographic image blurring the air in front of him. His twitching left little finger was presumably controlling the data flow.

  “I have the same concerns about Tovera,” Adele said. “Though of course it won’t matter to me under those circumstances.”

  She and Storn exchanged smiles again.

  Storn switched off his chip reader and met Adele’s eyes. “So,” he said. “Another case where it’s uncertain which of us is doing the other the favor. If your information is correct — ”

  Daniel chuckled.

  Storn looked at him and said, “Yes, I have a tendency to be overcautious with my phrasing. Habit, of course. If your information is correct, Lady Mundy, then my government will find another position for Governor Blaskett. As fertilizer, for example.”

  “I leave the matter in your capable hands,” Adele said. The hint of approval in her voice suggested that she wasn’t being ironic. “Then I believe our business here is finished.”

  “Yes,” Storn said. He bowed again to Adele. Then he faced Daniel and saluted. Daniel returned the salute in awkward amazement.

  “The personnel of Master Storn’s bureau hold military rank, Daniel,” Adele said. “I believe he is the equivalent of a lieutenant general.”

  “General of the Army, Lady Mundy,” Storn called over his shoulder as he mounted the step into his vehicle. “It has been a pleasure to meet you both. It gives me faces to put to the reports I’ve been reading.”

  The assault boat drove into the low surf. It proceeded in a relatively sedate fashion until it was far enough out that spray from the water jets didn’t splash Daniel and Adele.

  Daniel let out his breath. “We should get back to the Sissie,” he said. “When the Feursnot lifts, it won’t be dangerous on the beach, but it won’t be very comfortable, either. And besides — ”

  He grinned at Adele. We’ve won!

  “ — I’ll be really glad to be back on Cinnabar!”

  “Yes,” said Adele. “But we’ve got a little time, Daniel. I want to show you the beach vegetation I noticed when I came here the first time. It’s called gray plantain.”