by David Drake
Extracting, a voice was saying, but Adele had suddenly become a block of clear ice. She stood beside herself, seeing light passing through her body and refracting from tiny cracks and impurities.
What does the process of returning to normal space do to my brain that causes these illusions? Or—are they illusions?
Adele was back in her own skin. She no longer had time for philosophy—because that’s all it really was, philosophy. Philosophy was never a useful occupation for someone who was concerned with objective reality.
The Princess Cecile had extracted 127,000 miles out from Zenobia. The High Drive had kicked in as usual, to counterfeit gravity. In addition, the corvette retained its velocity from when it had most recently left sidereal space, the way point where they met the transports.
If Adele linked directly, she took the risk of being cut off by orbital motion or planetary rotation. She instead used the circuit she had prepared in Zenobia’s constellation of communications satellites.
It made her feel smug, though that fact irritated her and intellectually she knew it wasn’t warranted. Many people wouldn’t have been ready for the present situation—but that was because they were fools who hadn’t done the obvious, not because Adele Mundy had anything to boast of.
Lieutenant Commander von Gleuck had overseen the laying of a fiber-optics line between the console in his quarters in the Fleet Reservation and Lady Belisande’s bedroom in the palace. The dedicated line couldn’t be tapped, but Adele could—and had—entered the public levels of the console itself. She called through it while her wands located the other people on her list.
“Yes?” Posy said breathlessly. “Otto, what is it? Are you all right?”
Adele blinked. She had rather expected a long wait. Either she had been very lucky, or Posy was camped on her terminal.
“Lady Belisande,” Adele said, “this is Adele Mundy. Lieutenant Commander von Gleuck is all right at present, though I expect there will shortly be a battle which he may not survive.”
It struck her that she was being overly precise for most people’s taste and that she was potentially confusing people who read too much into her flat statements of fact. Which was almost everyone she had met. Well, it was too late for her to change.
“The Princess Cecile will be aiding his ships in battle, of course, and we may not survive either,” she said. “In case all goes well, Otto will want you safe to greet him. That’s what I’m trying to achieve now. Please listen to me.”
“I’m listening, Adele,” Posy said. Her voice was even higher than it had been when she first answered the call, but it was controlled. She was controlled. Adele’s tentative good opinion of the woman was being borne out.
“The Autocrator Irene is preparing a coup against Zenobia,” Adele said. “The allied Alliance-Cinnabar squadron will deal with external threats to the degree possible, but there is already a Palmyrene infrastructure on Zenobia, a combination of traitors and Palmyrene agents. If that infrastructure is removed, I don’t believe the coup can succeed regardless of what happens above the planet.”
“Yes,” said Posy. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go immediately to your brother,” Adele said. “He’s in his office on the ground floor now. Tell him to confirm to anyone who calls him the orders I will have given, pretending to be you. I’m going to call various security personnel. It simply isn’t practical in the time available to give you the information and have you pass it on.”
“Yes,” said Posy. “Otto had suggested that we should be ready for trouble, but he didn’t give us details. Hergo has put the Founder’s Regiment on alert and told the captains of the militia companies to be on call, but he didn’t want to cause a panic without more information.”
She cleared her throat. “Shall I go to Hergo now?”
Without knowing anything whatever about the woman who had replaced this one in Porra’s bed, Adele was quite sure that he had made a bad bargain. Men had different priorities, of course; but even there the Guarantor was unlikely to have shown good judgment.
“Yes,” said Adele aloud. “I’ll contact you in the Founder’s Office if necessary. And if you would, please don’t get separated from your maid.”
Posy laughed. “Never fear, Adele,” she said. “Wood is very much of the same opinion. Dear, you’ve actually made her smile!”
Adele could imagine the smile. She’d seen it on Tovera’s face often enough; and sometimes in the mirror.
“Yes,” she said. “See your brother at once.”
Without bothering about polite closings, Adele broke the connection and chose the next name from her list: the Honorable Jan Belisande, Marshal of Zenobia. He was by background a wealthy banker with no military experience whatever.
Adele could not have chosen a better man to head the planetary militia—the Forces of Zenobia—in the present crisis, though: Marshal Belisande was Hergo’s first cousin. He would certainly be executed by the new regime if the coup succeeded, and he ought to be smart enough to know that.
“Jan,” Adele said, “this is Posy. There’s an emergency. I’m calling you for my brother.”
She had listened to conversations between the cousins; they were on terms of informal friendship though not intimacy. Rather than try to counterfeit Posy’s voice—Adele’s skills as a mimic weren’t up to that—she subjected the transmission to severe compression so that her gender was all that came through to the person on the other end.
“Posy?” the Marshal said. “I didn’t know you had access to this line. How did you get this line?”
“Jan, I’m calling for my brother!” Adele said. Despite his business success, Cousin Jan wasn’t raising the family’s intellectual average. “You must mobilize the entire militia, the Forces, immediately. The Palmyrenes are planning to invade. And—”
“What! What!” the Marshal said. “The Palmyrenes are invading? Is that what Hergo meant when he told me to have my officers available for summons? Why didn’t he say it was the Palmyrenes?”
Biting off a series of comments that wouldn’t have been in the least helpful, Adele said in calm, measured tones, “Do you have any troops already mobilized?”
“Well, yes,” said the Marshal. “I thought after talking to Hergo that as a, well, training exercise I’d stand to the First Company of Calvary District E. They’re assembled at their muster point right now.”
Adele had noted the militia muster points as a matter of course. She superimposed them on her current display, a schematic of the city with a caret at the location where her call was being received. It was too obvious even to bring a smile that the muster point for Company E1 was the courtyard of Jan Belisande’s townhouse.
“Wonderful!” Adele said with false heartiness. “Bring them here to the Palace immediately. If you’re not here in ten minutes, it may be too late.”
“But!” said the Marshal. “But Posy, you have the Founder’s Regiment! What will happen to my house if I abandon it?”
“Jan, we’re facing a Palmyrene coup!” Adele said. “If you don’t get your troops over here immediately, the only thing you’ll own is six feet of dirt—and that’s if the Autocrator bothers to bury you! Do you understand?”
“I—” the Marshal said. “I . . .” Then, “I’m coming at once. But you have to tell me what’s going on!”
“As soon as you get here, Jan,” Adele said soothingly. She broke the connection. She had much more to do, but for a moment she put down her wands and rubbed her temples with her fingertips.
It took conscious effort for Adele to raise her voice. She would have found it much easier to draw her pistol and shoot Marshal Belisande . . . though of course she wouldn’t have done that even if they’d been facing one another across the table.
Not without greater provocation, at least. Somewhat greater provocation.
The trouble, the thing that brought Adele so often to the brink of cold fury, was that people didn’t listen to what she wa
s saying unless she shouted at them. They reacted to tone, not substance, like so many infants to whom words meant nothing.
The statement, “You will die unless you do this thing,” would be ignored or disputed if one—if Adele Mundy—said it in a calm, logical voice. Screaming was more effective than waving a pistol.
The human race couldn’t be wrong: this was the way the species had evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. But it certainly proved that Adele herself was of a different species, though deceptively human in her physical appearance.
She sighed and picked up her wands. Oh—and one further thing.
“Rene, this is Adele,” she said to Midshipman Cazelet. “I need you to check on a militia unit, E1. It should be moving shortly from its muster point to the Founder’s Palace. If it isn’t doing so in ten minutes, tell me and discuss the matter again with Marshal Belisande. The captain’s call sign is—”
“I have it, mistress,” Cazelet replied from the BDC. “And if necessary, I’ll try to put the fear of god into them before I bother you. Out.”
I should probably have cleared that with Daniel; or perhaps with Vesey. Well, another time. She called the next name: Major Aubrey Flecker, commander of the Founder’s Regiment.
Flecker had been a captain in the Grand Army of the Stars, but he had resigned his commission after being discovered in intimate contact with the twelve-year-old daughter of his commanding officer.
Knowing Flecker’s background didn’t make Adele warm to him, but he appeared to have been extremely able professionally. The Founder was willing to use him, so Adele was forced to do so.
She smiled minusculely. And there was always the chance Flecker would be killed in the near future. That was reason for hope.
“Flecker,” said the voice on the other end of the connection. He didn’t shout, but he spoke with the authority of a man used to being heard and obeyed. “Is this Lady Mundy, over?”
Well, that’s unexpected. “This is Officer Mundy, yes,” Adele said. “Have you spoken with Lady Belisande, Major?”
“I’m in the Situation Room with her and the Founder, Your Ladyship,” Flecker said. “The Founder has ordered me to take your orders as though they were his own. Go ahead, over.”
Adele wondered if Posy was holding a gun on her brother. Though she would probably have delegated that sort of duty to Wood.
“I have Marshal Belisande on the way to the Palace with his company of the Forces,” Adele said without preamble. She smiled slightly as she wondered whether her musing had been entirely a joke. “While I don’t imagine a company of militia will be what you or I consider an efficient military unit, they should be at least equal to anyone who might attack the Palace in the immediate future.”
“Your Ladyship, I’ve got my whole unit under arms,” Flecker said, sounding more distressed than angry at what he took to be an insult. “Believe me, we don’t need a hundred and fifty armed civilians running around to keep the Founder safe. Ah, begging your pardon, over.”
“Yes,” said Adele, “but I need your troops for more important purposes than sitting on their hands until somebody’s ready to attack them. I’m transmitting a list—”
Her wands moved, sending the data not only to the Situation Room—what had been the conference room of Flecker’s suite in the Palace—but also to the console in the Founder’s suite. She didn’t mistrust Flecker, but she had decided it was best to give Hergo the option of following up with the militia in case something went wrong with the professional response.
Neither computer was secure or anything close to secure; Adele could only hope that the plotters were as inept at communications intelligence as the security forces were. Regardless, the information would be unimportant in a few hours, one way or the other.
“—of forty-one names and the subjects’ present locations where I have them. In all cases I’m attaching their home and business addresses. When the subjects have guards or employees who are likely to be armed, I’m attaching that information as well. You are to oversee the arrest of all these persons and all persons who are with them at the time of arrest, whether or not the additional parties are on the list.”
Adele paused. She could hear Flecker speaking to someone in the room with him, then a response. Flecker said, “The information has been received, Your Ladyship. Ah—Marshal Belisande has called, saying that he’ll be arriving in a few minutes with his troops, as you said. Over.”
“Yes,” said Adele. She felt considerable relief that Marshal Belisande really had gotten his militia company moving. She wasn’t concerned about Palace security—Wood alone could probably handle anything that the plotters, reacting in panic, were able to attempt—but she’d been afraid that Hergo wouldn’t release his professionals to the real work unless he had someone close by to hold his hand.
Mind, Posy had thus far proved very convincing.
“Also send a squad to Cinnabar House and escort the Commissioner and his family to the Palace,” Adele said. The Browns were completely neutral in what was going on, but in a coup attempt there was simply no safety except being in the midst of a military force. “I’ll warn them to expect you.”
“All right,” Flecker said. “Anything else, over?”
“Major,” Adele said, “I won’t tell you your job, but make sure you use sufficient troops for each pickup. There are several Councillors on the list who will have a squad of personal guards, and the employees of the Palmyrene business people listed will very likely include military personnel who are prepared to act as a fifth column in Calvary.”
Flecker snorted. “Thank you, Your Ladyship,” he said, “but I figure my people can handle a bunch of monkeys, even if the monkeys think they’re soldiers. Privates in this regiment are paid at the rate of non-coms in Alliance service, and I trained ’em so they earn their money. Can we get on with it now, over?”
Adele smiled coldly. It was a pleasure dealing with professionals, even if you didn’t particularly like them as human beings.
“One further matter, Major Flecker,” she said. “It may be that you won’t be able to capture some of your targets alive. In that case you are to kill them, using such force as is necessary. If you blow up the building they’re in, at the very worst they won’t dig out in time to be a factor in the coup attempt. Do you understand?”
“Bloody hell!” Flecker said. “I heard you were a hard bitch, and they weren’t kidding, were they?”
Adele’s faint smile spread a trifle wider. She said, “I’ve told you your duties, Major Flecker. All you need do is carry them out. You can be quite sure that I will carry out mine. Good day, sir!”
She broke the connection, then set up the call to Cinnabar House. Not only would the Browns be safer in the Palace, they were also evidence of Cinnabar good faith. If the Belisandes and von Gleuck didn’t have doubts about the game she and Daniel were playing, they were fools.
Adele thought about Flecker saying she was—accusing her of being—hard. Well, perhaps so, but counter-coup activities were a hard business on which she was an expert. After all, she’d studied every detail of how Speaker Leary had crushed the Three Circles Conspiracy, right down to where the heads of her parents and sister had been nailed on Speaker’s Rock.
“This is Commissioner Brown,” her console said. Then, “Who is there, please? This is the Cinnabar Commission?”
Adele returned from ancient murders to her present business. Of murder.
CHAPTER 20
Above Zenobia
Daniel watched with satisfaction as the Maid of Brancusi dropped toward the surface of Zenobia. Plasma wreathed the hull as her thrusters cut in some thirty seconds before he would have expected. Though—
It didn’t really matter, but the question had piqued his curiosity. Daniel called up the imagery which the Sissie had gathered as a matter of course on all five transports at the waypoint. There was quite a good view of the Maid’s underside. Magnified, it showed that only four remained of the six High Drive m
otors that the transport had been fitted with in the builders’ yard—and they appeared ratty even at a distance.
A High Drive’s exhaust spewed out a certain amount of antimatter which hadn’t recombined within the motor. In an atmosphere, the explosive cancellation of waste particles ate away the High Drive itself. A captain ordinarily was willing to accept the minor erosion that would occur down to twenty miles above a habitable planet, because the output of the High Drive was greater and much more efficient than that of the plasma thrusters.
The Maid’s captain must have decided to nurse his motors. Daniel suspected that he was right to make that decision—assuming, of course, that his thrusters weren’t in equally marginal condition.
“Sir?” said Cory, who had been doing an exemplary job as signals officer. “If I may ask—are you going to put all five transports down on Diamond Cay, over?”
Daniel glanced toward the astrogation console. Lieutenant Cory smiled—but toward Daniel’s image on his display, not at the man himself a few feet away. He’s aping Adele . . . but all right, that’s perfectly proper behavior in a signals officer.
“Yes, that’s right, Cory,” Daniel said. “I’ve directed the captains to dump their reaction mass as soon as they’re on the ground. That won’t harm the ships, but it’ll take a number of hours before they can even think of lifting again. The troops can’t walk anywhere, and even if they have a few vehicles aboard, the Green Ocean will stop anything but aircars. You couldn’t ferry a couple thousand troops with all the aircars available in the Qaboosh Region. Over.”
“Yessir,” said Cory. “But, ah, sir? The buildings on Diamond Cay are really unusual, aren’t they, over?”
“They’re unique, so far as I know,” Daniel agreed. He grinned. “And I know what Officer Mundy has told me, which I suspect means I have all information available in the human universe.”
He paused, going back for a moment to the pleasure he’d taken in the material Adele had provided when they returned from Diamond Cay. “That crystal castle is certainly Pre-Hiatus,” he said, “but it seems to me—from negative evidence, I’ll admit—that it’s pre-settlement and probably a long time pre-settlement. The biota of the island, including the shallows around it, isn’t natural to Zenobia, you see, and it certainly wasn’t introduced recently. Perhaps when this is over, I’ll have some time to explore it in a less, ah, directed fashion. Over.”
