by David Drake
Daniel very deliberately didn’t glance toward Adele as he spoke. Half the other RCN officers present did, however, but then jerked their eyes in any other direction. Admiral Mainwaring was one of those who did the double-take.
Which means I’ve won, Daniel thought with a rush of triumph. He hadn’t realized until that instant how nervous he had been about the Admiral’s reaction.
“—and learned that Autocrator Irene’s agents had laid a false trail that would have made it seem that the Republic’s government was involved in the Palmyrene invasion. This forced me to act. Because there was very little time, it forced me to act without consulting either my superiors—”
Daniel nodded to Mainwaring . . . who technically wasn’t his superior, but who would appreciate the reference.
“—or to the Zenobian authorities. I sincerely apologize to those whom I slighted in my haste.”
He had brought Adele into the discussion deliberately, though not by name, because of the effect the reference would have on Mainwaring. The Admiral obviously suspected that Mistress Sand had, on the basis of secret intelligence, ordered the bluff, honest RCN officer to act in the fashion he had. Mainwaring wouldn’t push for an answer that might uncover matters that he didn’t want to know about.
Daniel had never met a real space officer who was comfortable with spies. Certainly Captain Daniel Leary was not; though he thought of Adele Mundy as a friend with a different background who helped him solve problems.
“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for,” the Founder said gruffly. “If it wasn’t for you, we in Calvary would’ve been screwed with a barge pole no matter what happened in space. Those names and places you had your signals officer send us, they saved our asses. Didn’t they, Flecker?”
The major looked sour, but he said, “The information we got from the yacht in orbit saved us a certain amount of time. Though I assure you, sir, you’d have found my troops equal to the problem.”
“The Militia alone would have crushed the uprising, Hergo!” said the man seated just below Otto on the Founder’s right. He wore a uniform of forest green with blue lapels, heavily encrusted with gold braid and buttons. “Let’s not make a bigger thing out of this than it was. The foreign help was welcome—”
From the way he glared first at Major Flecker to his right, then at Daniel across the table, he certainly hadn’t welcomed it.
“—but Zenobia easily would have maintained her own independence against the Palmyrene dogs.”
Hergo looked at the fellow—his cousin, if Daniel remembered correctly what Adele had mentioned in passing about the militia commander. He said, “Jan, your boys did bloody well and I’m thankful for them. Now, drop the subject, all right?”
Jan reddened, but he didn’t speak again.
The Founder turned back to Daniel. “Leary,” he said, “this is all well and good—there was a plot and you uncovered it. But why did you act? I may be a rube from the Qaboosh to you lot—”
His eyes swept the table. Daniel, along with all the Cinnabar and Alliance officers present, put on a blank expression.
“—but I’m not stupid enough to think that the Cinnabar navy goes around doing good for the sake of its soul. What does Cinnabar get out of this? What do you get out of this?”
The Founder is rather sharper than I’ve given him credit for being, Daniel thought. Aloud he said, “No, Your Excellency, neither the Senate nor the RCN is a priestly order. If I’d learned that your—”
He gestured across the table. Daniel wouldn’t have gone out of his way to repay Jan for sneering at the Cinnabar contribution to his head remaining on his shoulders, but since an example was needed anyway . . .
“—your militia commander was plotting a coup against you, I’d have passed the information on to my superiors at the next opportunity. And I’d have slept perfectly well knowing that nothing—I suspect—would be done about it.”
“You’re bloody well told that nothing would be done about it!” Admiral Mainwaring said. “The RCN doesn’t meddle in politics, and certainly not politics in a—”
He caught himself and closed his mouth. After a swallow, he resumed, “Politics on a world well outside the Republic’s sphere of influence.”
Lieutenant Ames, standing on the other side of the plush ropes, grinned from ear to ear. Daniel suspected that after the story had been retold a few times, Mainwaring would be reported as saying, “The RCN doesn’t meddle in the politics of a satellite of Bumfuck Major,” or words to that effect. Which in fact would more accurately describe the Admiral’s thought than the phrase he had used.
“But it wasn’t an internal problem, it was the action of a so-called Cinnabar ally,” Daniel said. “Furthermore, the Autocrator had falsified evidence to make it appear that the RCN was behind her grab. Since she chose to bring us into the business, then she could take the consequences of her decision.”
Daniel realized that by the end of that sentence his tone had become harsher than he’d intended. He was looking at Hergo, but that meant Mainwaring was in the corner of his eye. He breathed another sigh of relief when the Admiral slapped the table with his palm and said, “Hear, hear!”
Posy Belisande laughed musically, drawing all eyes to her. “Thank you, Captain Leary,” she said, “for reassuring me that Cinnabar policy is not determined by altruism. I would have felt spiritually inferior to you. Pride, on the other hand, is an emotion which we in the Qaboosh understand quite well.”
There was a moment’s frozen silence before Daniel, Mainwaring, von Gleuck, and the Founder all laughed—together, but in a striking variety of styles. If that girl was sitting beside me, I’d have clapped her on the back, Daniel thought. Well, if she’d been a man, I would.
Admiral Mainwaring leaned back in his chair. He lifted his saucer hat—like Daniel and Milch, he was wearing Whites—and rubbed his brow with the back of his hand.
“All right,” he said. “I understand. I’d have approved your actions, Leary, if you’d had time to warn me. Hell, I might have done the same bloody thing myself when I was a young fire-eater. I only hope I’d have been as lucky as you were. But—”
Mainwaring gave the table a challenging look. Daniel laced his fingers on the tabletop before him and looked at the Admiral with bright interest.
“But this has been a quiet region, ladies and gentlemen,” Mainwaring said. “I liked it that way. That’s good for trade and it’s good for people. The only thing it’s not good for is promotion, and if you want to think I’ve gotten soft because I don’t like the thought of a lot of people being killed to put another stripe on my sleeve—”
He tapped the single ring around his right cuff. It was the silver of a rear admiral, not the gold that served for lesser ranks.
“—then you go ahead and think that.”
“No one at this table,” said von Gleuck, “is such a fool, Admiral. A soft man does not attack a cruiser with a sloop.”
Mainwaring looked at him. “Thank you for that, Resident,” he said.
Sweeping the assembly again but settling his eyes on Founder Hergo, Mainwaring continued, “The thing that’s done the most to keep the Qaboosh quiet is Palmyra. With the Autocrator dead and probably half her nobles besides, political stability there has gone to hell in a handbasket.”
He spread his hands, then clenched them and scowled. “That means piracy,” he said, “and the gods alone know what else. I don’t look forward to it, and I suspect neither does whoever takes charge of the Zenobia detachment now that Fregattenkapitan von Gleuck has stepped upstairs. Not so?”
“Quite true,” said von Gleuck, nodding. “But wearing my current hat as Interim Resident, I have a more pressing problem involving Palmyra: the troops on Diamond Cay. I believe there are two thousand of them?”
The Fleet aide standing behind von Gleuck started to call up a field from the data unit hanging from his belt. “Roughly,” said Adele. “More accurately, nineteen hundred and twenty-three. As of
this morning.”
Von Gleuck looked startled. When he saw Daniel grinning at him, he relaxed and smiled back.
“Thank you, Officer Mundy,” he said. “They can’t stay on Diamond Cay, of course, or on Zenobia—”
“They must be shot!” said the militia commander. “Or—they’re all in one place, after all. We can bomb them. Or shoot them with cannon. Resident, I guess your ships were pretty badly damaged, but the Cinnabar navy will help you, won’t they? After all, they’re enemies of all of us!”
He looked from Mainwaring to Daniel. His tone, Daniel would have said, had been more imperious than imploring.
Von Gleuck’s expression as he stared at the fellow was a mixture of disgust and amazement. He didn’t reply, but his mouth worked.
Before the Interim Resident could come out with something that he would later regret saying to a member of the planetary nobility, Daniel said, “That would be quite impossible, Marshal Belisande. It would leave the galaxy with the impression that Zenobia was no better than a rookery of vicious animals.”
The marshal opened his mouth but shut it again. By now he had realized that the temper of the conference—the civilized members of the conference—was not with him.
“That’s all well and good,” said Hergo, “and we’ve got a little time to think about it now that Irene’s dead. But we don’t have forever—they’ll get off the island if we don’t do something about them fast. When it comes down to cases, I’m more worried about my life than my reputation back in Xenos.”
He looked at von Gleuck; he wasn’t quite glaring. “Or on Pleasaunce. I want to hear a solution.”
“There is a solution,” said von Gleuck, smiling; again the affable gentleman. “The troops aren’t a threat if they’re a thousand light-years away. I’ll arrange on behalf of the Alliance of Free Stars that they be transported to Caftan—”
The nearest Alliance Central Base. It had facilities for a battle fleet and was garrisoned by at least a division of troops.
“—where they’ll be enlisted as auxiliaries in the Grand Army of the Stars. I think the Palmyrenes will be agreeable to that outcome, as an alternative to the sort of treatment which they, as barbarians, expect from the victors.”
“Now, wait a minute, Commander,” said Milch. “We captured those troops, not you, so the Land Forces of the Republic should get them. Besides which they’re on Cinnabar-registry ships. You can’t—”
“If I could have a moment, Commander Milch?” Daniel said.
“Leary,” said Admiral Mainwaring loudly. “This is a regional matter now, and I’d like you to leave it to the regional authorities, all right?”
Daniel’s face froze. Mainwaring was correct: it was a regional matter. But if it were left to regional interests making their parochial arguments, the best result would be the decades of piracy and fear that the Admiral himself had prophesied.
“Unless Cinnabar is asserting a claim to Zenobia . . . ,” von Gleuck said. He didn’t raise his voice, but you could have used it to crack walnuts. “Then the only authority to be considered is mine. I have—”
“Brother!” said Posy Belisande.
Daniel sat up as stiffly as if he were a cadet who’d been caught napping; even Admiral Mainwaring jumped. Von Gleuck and the Founder straightened with similar expressions of startled concern.
“Am I correct in recalling . . . ,” Posy said. Her voice was still cutting, though she had reduced the volume now that the initial whipcrack had brought silence. “That this is the conference which you called as leader of the independent world of Zenobia?”
Von Gleuck looked at though he wanted to speak. His eyes met Posy’s; his tongue touched his lips. He closed his mouth again.
“Yes, sister,” said Hergo in a conciliatory voice, “but without the support of—”
“Then may I suggest that you call on my friend Lady Mundy,” Posy said as though Hergo had stopped after the second word. “She has a proposal which will not only solve our problem but—”
She gave Mainwaring a look you could have speared an olive with. Daniel kept a straight face.
“—will address a situation which the so-called regional authorities have described but which they don’t have the wit to solve.”
Daniel was glad that he wasn’t expected to respond to Lady Belisande. Posy had spent years at the highest level of Pleasaunce society—the standard by which even Cinnabar measured sophistication—but it appeared that she remained a woman of Zenobia at heart. Daniel doubted whether anyone at the conference table would have guessed that until the present outburst.
“Ah . . . ,” said Hergo with a hunted expression. “Lady Mundy?”
He hasn’t connected “Lady Mundy” with the RCN junior officer at the end of the table.
“Officer Mundy,” Daniel said. “Will you please give your recommendations to the company?”
“Yes,” said Adele. She held her control wands, and her personal data unit’s display was a blur before her, but she remembered to raise her eyes and turn toward Founder Hergo.
“The best choice . . . ,” she said. “Clearly the best choice, I believe, is to repatriate the troops to Palmyra. If there were a practical way to send the heavy weapons captured at the Farm along with them, that would be even better, but I think in this region it would take too long to arrange shipping on vessels of sufficient displacement.”
Daniel concealed his smile: Mainwaring, and possibly von Gleuck as well, would have suspected that the smile was mocking instead of simply showing amusement at what Adele’s words had done. She couldn’t have gotten a greater effect by rolling a live grenade down the table. Everyone was chattering, and at least one Zenobian Councillor shouted.
“If you will all be silent!” Posy said. “Lady Mundy will explain her reasoning!”
Adele rarely—or never, in Daniel’s experience—raised her voice; Posy didn’t feel that constraint. Here, sharp words were more acceptable and very possibly more effective than the alternative Daniel had seen his friend use to get attention: drawing her pistol.
The babble died down, though it didn’t completely disappear. Adele said, “There’s a political vacuum on Palmyra, as the Squadron Commander pointed out.”
She nodded to Admiral Mainwaring. Because she was speaking at an ordinary level, the whispers and muttering ceased. Those present were more interested in what Lady Mundy was saying than in the sound of their own voices.
“If we do not take a hand, one or another of the surviving space captains will eventually gain the throne,” Adele said. “He and his peers will have turned to piracy to recruit a maximum number of followers against his rivals. Piracy is the only way for a cutter captain to make money quickly.”
Von Gleuck suddenly smiled. Admiral Mainwaring must have seen where the explanation was going at the same moment, because he clapped Daniel on the shoulder with a delighted guffaw.
“General Osman, who was to command the invasion of Zenobia,” Adele said, “seems to be an intelligent man. Further, he’s able enough to have kept his troops in check after Captain Leary landed them on a large mudbank. The Cinnabar transports they arrived in are unharmed, as are the crews. And those troops are far and away Palmyra’s best.”
Von Gleuck’s Fleet aide, and the junior officers standing behind Mainwaring and Milch, suddenly buried themselves in their data units. The Zenobian Councillors looked puzzled, but Founder Hergo had relaxed. He might not understand the details of what was being said, but he was satisfied because his sister was nodding with approval.
“If Osman returns home with two thousand troops who owe their lives to him,” Adele said, “he will take the throne. Perhaps even without fighting, since not only Autocrator Irene but also Osman’s most active potential rivals have been killed in the recent battles.”
“He’s a soldier, not a spacer,” said Mainwaring. “That by itself is likely to make him less interested in building the Horde back up to strength. Though—”
He pursed his lips.
“—will he be able to keep his captains in harness?”
“He will if their families remain on Palmyra,” said Adele with the chilling dispassion she always displayed in discussions of this sort. “I suppose we—”
She glanced at von Gleuck.
“—or the Fifth Bureau can provide Osman with advisors if he is more tenderhearted than I’ve found to be the norm among barbarians. Or soldiers, either one.”
She’s thinking about her little sister, Daniel realized. And probably about Speaker Leary, who ordered the Proscriptions.
Daniel Leary, RCN officer, wasn’t sure that the Proscriptions had been necessary, and he was sure that he wouldn’t have ordered them. Lady Adele Mundy, however, saw things in a very different fashion.
“I suspect that Autocrator Osman will have his hands too full at home,” von Gleuck said, “to be planning foreign adventures. Certainly I believe that my host, Founder Hergo—”
He nodded to Hergo in pleasant deference. He’ll make a very good Resident.
“—and I will be fully occupied for quite a long time in returning Zenobia to calm after the attempted coup and invasion.”
“Milch,” said Admiral Mainwaring, “put together a team to survey the transports and determine what they’ll need to become spaceworthy. I don’t imagine that parking in a swamp has had good effects on their seals and environmental systems. Besides which—”
He looked across the table to von Gleuck.
“—they’ll need rations, and that the RCN cannot help with.”
“We lifted in a bloody hurry when the Philante raised the alarm,” said Milch, speaking while he keyed notes into his data unit. “Well, we thought it was an alarm, Leary.”
He looked at Daniel with a wry smile. “One of our own ships turning pirate was what it looked like to me. Anyway, we’re transferring cereals from the Espeigle to the Dotterel right now or we wouldn’t have bread.”
“There must be troop rations stockpiled at the Farm,” said von Gleuck. “We can transport them to Diamond Cay.”
