by David Drake
“I know that, Chief,” Daniel said. “I plan to assign four to the Power Room.”
“Right, that’s plenty,” Pasternak said, nodding. He looked at the bosun and said, “And Woetjans? I’ll make sure that a couple of them have rigging experience so they can double in brass if they have to. You’re signing Sun, right? I’d want him even if you didn’t need a gunner.”
“I’ve talked to Sun, yes,” Daniel said. “Ah—Chief? I’m surprised that you’re so determined to ship on a voyage which I expect to be both unpleasant and unprofitable.”
“Then you’ll have me?” Pasternak said with a sigh of relief. “Thank the blessed heavens!”
Daniel smoothed what would otherwise have become a frown. He most certainly had not given the Chief a slot … though he knew he was going to.
“Sir, you don’t know what it’s like at home,” Pasternak said. “My wife, she figures she’s the Squire’s wife now, so she wants me to stay home and play the Squire, you know? And I’m not the bloody Squire, I’m the third son of the mechanic on the Squire’s estate. And Emily can’t see that. She thinks it’s enough to own the estate myself now, which I do, and have more money than anybody else in Wassail County. Which I do, too, not that that’s saying much.”
He took a deep breath and then another. Daniel had seen Pasternak running repair operations on ships that had been battered by plasma bolts or, in the case of the Milton, had lost fifty feet of hull to a missile. The Chief had been fiercely decisive, and he hadn’t shown either worry or relief.
“I can’t say, ‘I want to ship out,’ not and not have Emily and the boys shouting so loud you could hear them in Xenos,” Pasternak said. “But I tell them, ‘Six needs me,’ and there’s not a word from any of them. The Squire is off to do his duty, you see. That’s what a gentleman does.”
He smiled raggedly. “Well, that’s what Ivan Pasternak does, too,” he said. “Only I’m no bloody gentleman.”
Daniel stepped forward and clasped hands with the engineer. “You’ll do for me, Chief,” he said. “Round up the rest of your team and report back here soonest. I’ll want your report on the plant, not that I don’t trust Mon’s people.”
Pasternak strode back to the elevator. The smile on his face could have lighted a stadium. The door closed behind him, and the cage started down.
Daniel grimaced. He turned to Woetjans and said, “Look, I know that for a job like this, you’d expect a younger engineer who didn’t mind mixing it up if things got rough. But demons take me if I could turn down the Chief when he begged me!”
Woetjans shrugged. “It’ll be a cold day in hell that you hear me say that my riggers need help from the ship side in a dustup,” she said. “And so far as that goes, I figure Pasternak’ll bring Evans, and he’s worth two in a fight anyway.”
She grinned. It made her look even uglier than usual. “That’s mainly because you can’t hurt Evans by hitting him in the head,” Woetjans said. “But with you and Mistress Mundy aboard, nobody else needs to think, right?”
Daniel seated himself again. “I don’t know that I’d go that far,” he said, “but so long as you’re satisfied I suppose it’s all right.”
“Six,” said Woetjans. “I’ve never served with a better engineer than the Chief there. But as for what makes me satisfied—you making the decisions satisfies me. It’s sure worked so far.”
CHAPTER 7
Bergen and Associates Shipyard, Cinnabar
“Hey, Six,” called Sun from the hallway. “This one says Cory sent her. I’ve never seen her before, though.”
Daniel had been vaguely aware of the elevator stopping on the other side of the closed office door, but he was lost in details of the Pantellarian navy since independence on the command console. Adele had supplied up-to-date information. Daniel didn’t know whether the data came from Navy House files or somewhere else, and he wasn’t going to ask.
“Send her in,” Daniel called as he rose from the console’s seat. It was time for a break and a stretch anyway. Cory was negotiating for rations for the voyage, but that shouldn’t have required Daniel’s input until there was a contract to sign.
The young woman who entered wore RCN utilities without insignia. She was as much a stranger to Daniel as she had been to Sun, who was acting as doorman because he had both the rank and the intelligence for the job.
She braced to attention and saluted. “Sir!” she said. “I’m Lucinda Hale! And Lieutenant Cory didn’t direct me to apply, he just said that there might be a crew slot open!”
Hale’s salute was clumsy, although she had obviously tried hard. Perversely, that made a better impression on Daniel than drill-team execution would have. He’d always been terrible at Drill and Ceremony himself.
“Close the door and sit down, Hale,” he said. Moments before, he’d expected that the visitor would be leaving as quickly as she had arrived, but he was intrigued with her comment about Cory; and Daniel needed a break; and anyway, she was an attractive young woman. “Now, explain what you mean about Cory.”
“Sir, Lieutenant Cory told me that the Kiesche was already oversupplied with officers, but that you might have a crew position open,” Hale said. She reached forward, holding a data chip. “This is my file, sir. Cory and I were in the same class at the Academy, but I don’t mean we were close. We knew one another.”
Daniel took the chip, but he was frowning and didn’t insert it into the console yet. “You heard the Kiesche was fitting out and contacted Cory?” he asked.
“No, sir,” she said. “Cory called me out of the blue. I’d never heard of the Kiesche, and I don’t think I’ve seen Cory twice since we graduated.”
“I see,” said Daniel, which he certainly did not. Well, he could check with Cory later, if he needed to. He called up the chip’s data and added, “You’ve passed your lieutenant’s boards.”
“Yes, sir,” Hale said, “but there isn’t a chance in Hell of me ever being promoted so long as we’re at peace. I don’t have any interest. And not much money, though enough that I’m not starving, strictly speaking, while I’m on half pay.”
“I noticed your utilities were new,” Daniel said without emphasis as he continued to scan the data. This console appeared to have access to all the records in Navy House. Mon might not know that, but Daniel was sure that Adele did.
“Yes, sir,” Hale said. She screwed her face up over a thought, then blurted, “Sir, I didn’t know what to wear. There wasn’t time to get a set of Whites tailored, and anyway, that’d have been wrong. You want spacers, not a clotheshorse. I want to make the RCN a career, and I’d rather be a common space under you than third mate on the freighter Mare’s Nest.”
Daniel laughed. “The sort of ship you’re talking about doesn’t have a third mate,” he said, “or a second mate, generally. But if you went far enough out in the sticks you could get a master’s papers on the basis of your record here.”
The chip Hale had given him was a direct copy of the Navy House original, with no embellishments or omissions. That was a mark in the woman’s favor, regardless of whether it meant she was honest or that she was too smart to risk getting caught while improving what was already a respectable record.
“Sir, I’ve been hanging on, hoping that a midshipman’s slot will open up,” Hale said. “I had good marks at the Academy, and my service record is good, too. There’s nothing to boast about in two years as midshipman on a destroyer that never saw action, but there’s no black marks, either. I thought I might have a leg up on a new graduate when they were making up the roster on a battleship coming out of ordinary.”
Daniel looked at her and pursed his lips. “We are going out to the back of beyond,” he said. “It won’t be a pleasure cruise, though the crew will probably eat better than anybody on an ordinary tramp out there does. Even the captain.”
He grinned, then sobered again. “Did Cory say why he called you?”
“Sir, I couldn’t have been more surprised to hear from my mother,
” Hale said, shaking her head in puzzlement. “And she’s been dead three years. I thought of calling him back, but I didn’t have much time as it was if I was going to buy a set of utilities—”
She pinched the loose fabric of her sleeve.
“—and get up to speed on a Lewiston Mark 17, which is what the Sailing Registry says the Kiesche has for a fusion bottle.”
“Good judgment,” Daniel said mildly. He highlighted an item on Hale’s service record. “You were on the small-bore team?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Hale said, visibly brightening. “I was Academy Champion my last three years. And I was runner-up to Cadet Dorst when I was first-year, but I won’t pretend I’d ever have beaten him if he hadn’t graduated.”
She frowned. “You don’t suppose that was why Cory called me, do you?” she said. “He was second-team football, I think, but I wouldn’t have bet he even knew I shot small-bore.”
Daniel was thinking. As often, the silence drew Hale to speak further, saying, “I wasn’t interested in football—and I certainly wasn’t any good. But I’ll venture to shoot with anybody you want to name.”
“Will you indeed?” Daniel said mildly. He wondered what Sun would say to that. Probably something more polite than Hogg’s response to the same statement.
He looked Hale over again. “Footer is good training for the rigging,” he said, “but I’ve found myself in places where having people who knew how to use stocked impellers has been handy.”
There was a booklet of notepaper in the console’s top tray. Daniel pulled off a sheet and wrote on it with his stylus.
“Take this to Woetjans,” he said, handing the note to Hale. “She’s on the Kiesche down there in the pool. Tell her to run you up and down the rigging enough to make up her mind. If she’s satisfied, she’ll assign you to a watch.”
Hale hopped to her feet. “Thank you, sir!” she said, attempting to salute again. She forgot that she had the note in her right hand and made an even worse hash of it than she had before. The midshipman, soon to be common spacer if she was as fit as she seemed, bent to pick up the note she’d dropped.
“We don’t salute much on ships I command,” Daniel said. “Which is as much for my benefit as it is for the sort of spacer I like to be with in hard places.”
Hale went out laughing. She was in so much of a hurry that she went down the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator to return.
Daniel shook his head in wonder. It was remarkable that he was finding so many people who were enthusiastic about crewing a scruffy tramp freighter into a war on a mudball planet.
Of course, Captain Daniel Leary was pretty enthusiastic himself.
Xenos on Cinnabar
“There’s somebody waiting at the stop,” said Tovera as the monorail rocked, slowing. She opened her attaché case.
“That’s scarcely surprising at a tram stop,” Adele said, but she slid her data unit away and stood beside Tovera at the car’s front window. Tovera’s instincts were very good, in a manner of speaking. Adele supposed she read body language—and the more accurately because she had no emotions herself.
The plastic windshield had been clear when installed, but it now was covered with scratches, road film, and bug spatters: the trams rarely got to speeds which would crush an exoskeleton, but they were even more rarely cleaned. All Adele could see through it was a blurred figure getting up from the bench; probably a man of middle height, wearing loose garments.
Tovera closed the attaché case which held her submachine gun. “It’s Cory,” she said.
How can she tell?
What is Cory doing here?
Has something happened to Daniel?
The car opened. Adele stepped out behind Tovera and said, “Cory, why are you here?”
Adele thought, I shouldn’t snap at him because I’m worried about Daniel.
If her abrupt greeting bothered Cory, he gave no sign of it. “Ma’am, I was just waiting for you,” he said. “I thought I’d sit here because it’s a nice afternoon. And we didn’t have houses like this on Florentine, where I come from, you know.”
He gestured with his open left hand, palm up. The tram stop was at the head of the narrow cul-de-sac. At the bottom was Chatsworth Minor, four stories of brick above a stone basement, with stone tie courses and wrought-iron balcony railings. The three houses on either side of the cul-de-sac were of similar age and style.
“After four hundred years there aren’t many left in Xenos either, I suppose,” Adele said. Whatever Cory had to tell her can’t have involved a serious danger or he wouldn’t be so relaxed. “The neighborhood didn’t become run down, and the families here aren’t the sort which prefer change over stability.”
Cory had a quiet smile and rarely seemed to be disturbed by anything. He was so easygoing that Adele had initially thought that he was simpleminded, but the young midshipman had taken to the commo suite like no one Adele had met before or since. Everything else, from astrogation to ship-handling, had proceeded from the confidence Cory gained from that first success under Signals Officer Adele Mundy.
Adele glanced at the sky. The sun was below the tall houses, though it was still half an hour short of true sunset.
“Would you care to come in for dinner, Cory?” Adele said.
She didn’t imagine the cook would have difficulty feeding a guest. Indeed, the fellow would probably appreciate a healthy appetite: Adele ate very little, and Daniel, when he ate at the townhouse, wasn’t particularly interested in food, either.
“Oh, no, ma’am,” Cory said in surprise. “I just thought I’d tell you that I dropped a word to Lucinda Hale like you wanted. I’m pretty sure she’ll be applying as common spacer. She seemed pretty excited at the chance, in fact.”
Adele looked at him without expression. She thought, I didn’t tell you to do anything of the sort! Which was technically true, but it was what Adele had hoped would happen when she asked Cory about his classmate.
“I didn’t know how much of a secret it was,” Cory said, smiling cheerfully, “so I thought I’d come by instead of calling, you know? And I didn’t use your name to Hale. She may figure it out on her own, but it won’t have come through me.”
“Your caution does you credit, Cory,” Adele said. “Though it was probably unnecessary in this case. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, ma’am,” Cory said. “I’ll let you get off to your evening now.”
He pressed the tram call plate, then turned to face Adele again. “Hale was always nice to me, you know? At the Academy, I mean. She’d smile or say hi, and it doesn’t sound like much, but there were days that it really helped.”
“I imagine it did,” Adele said, but she spoke so quietly that Cory probably didn’t hear the words over the squeal of a tram car braking to stop.
She walked toward the house with Tovera behind her. She remembered the cul-de-sac filled with Popular Party supporters and her father addressing them from the third-story balcony the night he had been elected tribune. The cheers were still loud in Adele’s memory.
And Midshipman Lucinda Hale’s smile was bright in Cory’s memory. The past wasn’t dead so long as there was someone who remembered it.
The same could be said of the scores of men and women whom Adele had glimpsed only briefly over her gunsight as her finger took up the pressure on her trigger. For they visited her in the dark hours before dawn, and she knew they would be with her until she, too, died.
CHAPTER 8
Xenos on Cinnabar
Adele stepped back and looked critically at the row of clothing arranged neatly on her bed in Chatsworth Minor. The two bulkiest items were a 2nd Class uniform—her Grays—and a civilian suit of the highest quality in case she had to appear as Lady Mundy.
She did not expect to wear either garment when visiting a mining world as a civilian. She certainly hoped that she did not wear either.
Adele was used to living with very little in the way of personal possessions. She could have gotten
along quite comfortably with a set of clothing sufficient to satisfy local propriety, the pistol she normally carried in her left tunic pocket, and her personal data unit.
She didn’t really need the pistol. She felt more comfortable armed, and the pistol had saved her life and the lives of her colleagues on a number of occasions, but comfort wasn’t something Adele Mundy expected from life.
Adele could even do without the data unit. On balance, though, she would rather die than to live without the data unit. Well, neither should be necessary.
The data unit projected an attention signal as a fist-sized ball of red light thirty inches in front of Adele’s nose. She took the unit out and saw that Bernis Sand was calling. Rather than hold the discussion as a text conversion as she normally would, Adele said, “Adele Mundy speaking.”
As best as Adele could remember, Mistress Sand had never before called her directly. Their meetings had always been arranged discretely by third parties. Adele supposed that the use of cut-outs had been chosen for security’s sake. That meant either that this call wasn’t anything to do with the Republic’s business—or that it was a sudden crisis.
Or both, of course.
“Mundy,” said Mistress Sand, “my son went out two hours ago. I learned from the attendant of his quarters that he had said that as a matter of ethics he needed to inform Captain Sorley that his ship would no longer be required. Rikard wasn’t a prisoner here, of course.”
She’s probably regretting that now, Adele thought. Which was silly, of course: mother or not, Mistress Sand was not the sort to imprison her son because he had become ethical.
Adele’s own parents would not have had any hesitation about imprisoning their children, if their own principles required it. Her mother would have sacrificed things she held of more importance than her daughters if it would bring about the victory of the Common People. The Common People under the enlightened leadership of Esme Rolfe Mundy and her associates in the Popular Party, of course.
Lucius Mundy’s guiding principle was as starkly simple as the barrel of a gun: he would become speaker by whatever means were available. He wouldn’t have regarded imprisoning his bookish elder daughter as a sacrifice if it advanced his agenda.
