What Distant Deeps-ARC

by David Drake

  WHAT DISTANT DEEPS—ARC

  David Drake

  Advance Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by David Drake

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN 10: 1-4391-3366-2

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4391-3366-8

  Cover art by Stephen Hickman

  First printing, September 2010

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  t/k

  Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)

  Printed in the United States of America

  DEDICATION

  To Jason Williams and Jeremy Lassen of Night Shade Books

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Dan Breen continues as my first reader, thank goodness. I give each of my works multiple passes. Despite this, Dan consistently catches things—and sometimes extremely obvious things—which I nonetheless had missed. Besides, he laughs at jokes in my manuscripts that most people are going to miss.

  Dorothy Day (under difficult circumstances) and Evan Ladouceur helped enormously with continuity. Such problems as remain are merely a hint of the mess things would be in without them.

  Dorothy and my webmaster, Karen Zimmerman, archived my texts in widely separated parts of the country. Only somebody who kills as many computers as I do can appreciate the sense of relief that gives me.

  And I'm not sure than anybody else does kill as many computers as I do. This time it was my backup machine, which got rained on and then crushed. My son Jonathan set me up with a new backup, a laptop whose screen my grandson Tristan had broken. (Apparently the computer-slaying gene has skipped a generation.)

  Besides archiving texts, Karen (a cybrarian) searched material for me. I now have (for example) several versions of The Ring That Has No End, though none of them is quite what my friend Manly Wade Wellman used to sing with banjo-picker Obray Ramsey in his cabin in the mountains.

  The only things that matter in a book are the things that matter to the writer himself. Details of that sort matter very much to me.

  My wife Jo took care of me, the house, and the dogs while I wrote. I mentioned that knowing my texts were safe brings a sense of relief. Knowing that my nest is safe is far more important.

  My sincere thanks to all those mentioned, and to the many other people who brighten my life by their presence and support.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  I'll start out with what in my days as a lawyer we would call boilerplate: I use both English and Metric weights and measures in the RCN series to suggest the range of diversity which I believe would exist in a galaxy-spanning civilization. I do not, however, expect either actual system to be in use in three thousand years. Kilogram and inch (etcetera) should be taken as translations of future measurement systems, just as I've translated the spoken language.

  I really wish I didn't have to say that. I've learned that I do.

  The situation on which I based the plot of What Distant Deeps is the crisis that overtook but did not—quite—overwhelm the Roman Empire in the 3d century AD. The extremities of the empire went through striking (and strikingly different) convulsions. For the action of this novel I'm particularly indebted to what happened in the East, but there is by no means a direct correspondence between this fiction and historical reality (even to the extent that we know the reality).

  I write fiction to entertain, not to educate; but Aristophanes proved it was possible to do both, and on a good day a reader might learn something from me as well. Empires have generally used proxies to fight wars on their borders. The problem—as Rome learned with the Oasis of Palmyra—is that the proxies have policies of their own. Not infrequently, things go wrong for the principal when the proxy decides to implement its separate policies.

  For a recent example, in the 1970s the US hired a battalion of troops from Argentina, called them "the Contras" and employed them to fight the socialist government of Nicaragua. The military dictatorship running Argentina at the time was more than happy to support the US effort.

  Unfortunately for everybody (except ultimately the Argentine people), General Galtieri and his cronies (some of whom, amazingly, were even stupider and more brutal than he was) decided that their secret help to the US meant that the US would protect them from Britain when they invaded the Falklands and subjected the islands' English-speaking residents to what passed for government in Argentina. Galtieri was wrong—the tail didn't wag the dog during the Falklands War—and Argentina ousted the military junta as a result of its humiliation by Britain; but there might not have been a Falklands War if the US had not used Argentina as a military proxy in Nicaragua.

  I could mention cases where US proxy involvements have led to even worse results. If the shoe fits, wear it.

  Finally, a word about the dedication. I could simply let it stand (I've many times dedicated a book to an editor or publisher), but there's an aspect to this one that won't be obvious to anyone outside my head (including Jason and Jeremy).

  I came back to the World in 1971 and began writing the Hammer stories as a way of dealing with my experiences in Viet Nam and Cambodia. The stories were successful, but they made me a pariah to a number of very vocal people.

  Jason took me aback when he approached me about putting the series in limited-edition hardcovers. Nobody had ever suggested the stories were worthy of that before. Indeed, the people who said anything were likely to be protesting them being in print at all, even in mass market editions.

  When I opened the box that contained the beautifully produced Complete Hammer's Slammers, Volume 1, I had an unexpected emotional reaction: I'd finally come home to the America which sent me to Nam in 1970. It was something that I didn't know I'd been missing until Night Shade Books gave it to me.

  Dave Drake

  david-drake.com

  CHAPTER 1: The Bantry Estate, Cinnabar

  In what distant deeps or skies

  Burned the fire of thine eyes?

  On what wings dare he aspire?

  What the hand dare seize the fire?

  The Tiger

  William Blake

  "Come and join, Squire Daniel!" called a dancer as she whirled past. "I'm not partnered!"

  Daniel vaguely recalled the face, but he knew he must be thinking about an older sister. Ten years ago, he'd left Bantry to enter the Republic of Cinnabar Naval Academy. This girl was no more than sixteen, though she was undoubtedly well developed.

  Mind, he didn't recall the sister's name either.

  Steen—Old Steen since the death of his father, who'd been tenant-in-chief before him—elbowed Daniel in the ribs and said, "Haw! Not just a dance she's offering you, Squire! Going to take her up on it? You always did in the old days!"

  Steen's wife was hovering nearby, though she hadn't presumed to enter the group of men centered on Daniel and the cask of beer on the seawall. Foiles, the commodore of the fishing fleet, and Higgenson, the manager of the estate's processing plant, were from Bantry, like Steen, but also present were the owners of three nearby estates who had come to the festivities. Waldmiller of Ponds was over seventy and Broma of Flattler's Creek wasn't much younger; but at twenty-five, Peterleigh of Boltway Manor was a year Daniel's junior.

  Bef
ore Daniel could pass off the comment with a grin and a shake of his head, Mistress Steen clipped her husband over the ear with a hand well used to hoeing. Fortunately Steen hadn't gotten his earthenware mug to his lips, so he merely jerked the last of his ale over his bright purple shirt instead of losing his front teeth.

  "Where's your manners, you drunken old fool?" Mistress Steen demanded in a voice that started loud and gained volume. "Can't you see Lady Miranda close enough to spit on? You embarrass yourself and you embarrass the Squire!"

  Daniel caught Mistress Steen's hands in his own, partly to forestall the full-armed follow-up stroke she was on the verge of delivering. "Now, Roby!" he said. "My Miranda's a sensible woman who wouldn't take note of a joke at a celebration, or even—"

  He bussed Mistress Steen on the cheek. It was like kissing a boot.

  "—this!" he concluded, stepping away.

  "Oh, Squire!" Mistress Steen gasped in a mixture of delight and embarrassment. She put her hand to her cheek as though to caress the memory.

  "Oh, you do go on!" she said as she stumped off, seemingly half-dazed. Daniel thought he heard her titter when the piping paused.

  The original piper, gay in a green vest with blue and gold tassels, was snoring in a drunken stupor behind the bench. His son—who couldn't have been more than twelve—was making a manful effort to replace him. All the will in the world couldn't increase the boy's lung capacity.

  Daniel's eyes touched Miranda, who was with her mother Madeline a good twenty yards away—Roby Steen had been exaggerating. She waved with a merry smile, then went back to describing the stitching of her bodice to more women than Daniel could easily count.

  The wives of the neighboring landowners were there, but Bantry tenants made up most of the not-quite-crush. The tenants observed protocol in who got to drink with Daniel, but their wives and daughters weren't going to give way to outsiders from other estates at their first chance to meet the Squire's lady.

  "A pretty one, Leary," Peterleigh said. "Your fiancée, is she?"

  Daniel cleared his throat. "Ah, Miranda and I have an understanding," he said, hoping that his embarrassment didn't show. "There's nothing formal at this moment, you'll understand, until, ah, some matters have been worked out."

  Miranda herself never raised the question. She was an extremely smart woman, smart enough to know that others would prod Daniel regularly.

  "For the gods' sakes, boy," Waldmiller said with a scowl at Peterleigh. "If you weren't raised to have manners, then at least you could show enough sense to avoid poking your nose in Speaker Leary's affairs, couldn't you?"

  Peterleigh could probably buy and sell Waldmiller several times over, but seniority and the words themselves jerked the younger man into a brace. "Sorry, Leary, sorry!" he said. "Don't know what I was thinking, asking about a fellow's private affairs. Must've drunk too much! My apologies!"

  Bringing up Daniel's strained relationship with his father was calling in heavier artillery than Peterleigh deserved, but the young man could have avoided the rebuke by being more polite. Corder Leary was one of the most powerful members of the Senate—and certainly the most feared member. He hadn't visited Bantry since Daniel's mother died, and Peterleigh—who was both young and parochial—had obviously forgotten who the estate's real owner was.

  "Not at all, Peterleigh," Daniel said, smiling mildly. "But as for drinking, I think it's time for me to have another mug of our good Bantry ale. It's what I miss most about Cinnabar when the RCN sends me off to heaven knows where."

  So speaking, he stepped to the stand beside them where a ceramic cask of ale and a double rank of earthenware mugs waited. He knew his neighbors—Bantry's neighbors—would be surprised at having to pump their own beer, but Daniel was providing a holiday for all the Leary retainers.

  He'd thought of bringing in outside servants, but city folk would mean trouble. One of them would sneer at a barefoot tenant—and be thrown off the sea wall, into the Western Ocean thirty feet below.

  Daniel was dressed more like a countryman than a country gentleman, but he was wearing shoes today. He generally wouldn't have been at this time of the year when he was a boy on Bantry.

  A pair of aircars landed in quick succession, drawing the men's attention. "That's Hofmann in the blue one," Broma said. "I don't recognize the gray car though."

  "I think that's . . . ," Daniel said. "Yes, that's Tom Sand, the contractor who built the hall. I, ah, invited him to the dedication."

  Broma squinted at the limousine which was landing a hundred yards away, on the field of rammed gravel laid for the purpose beside the Jerred Hogg Community Hall. "That's quite a nice car for . . . ," he began.

  He stopped and turned to Daniel in obvious surmise. "You don't mean the Honorable Thomas Sand of Archstone Construction?" he said. "By the gods, Leary, you do! Why, they're one of the biggest contracting firms in the whole Capital Region!"

  "They did a fine job on the Hall," Daniel said with a faint smile, turning to look at the new building itself. All four sides had been swung onto the roof as they were designed to be, turning the building into a marquee. The drinks—no wines or liquor, but ale without limit—and the food were inside, where Hogg was holding court.

  Hogg had been the young master's minder when Daniel was a child and his servant in later years. He'd taught Daniel everything there was to know about the wildlife of Bantry which he and his ancestors back to the settlement had poached. He'd taught Daniel many other things as well, much of it information which would have horrified Daniel's mother, who was delicate and a perfect lady.

  Hogg had a tankard of ale and a girl half his age ready with a pitcher to refill it. His arm was around a similar girl, and as many tenants as could squeeze close were listening to his stories of the wonders he and the young master had seen among the stars. Daniel was probably the only man present who knew that the wildest stories were absolutely true.

  Hogg was royalty in Bantry today. Daniel smiled faintly. That was a small enough payment for the man who'd taught the young master how to be a man.

  Tom Sand walked toward Daniel in the company of half a dozen children including at least one girl. They could claim to be guiding Sand, but they were more concerned with getting a good look at a stranger who was an obvious gentleman. Sand had weather-beaten features and more chest than paunch, but his suit—though gray—shimmered in a way that neither wool nor silk could match. Daniel suspected it had been woven from the tail plumes of Maurician ground doves.

  "You'll be spending more time in Bantry now that we're at peace again, Leary?" Waldmiller asked, letting his eyes glance across their surroundings. His tone was neutral and his face impassive, signs that he was controlling an urge to sneer. This was a working estate, not a showplace.

  They stood in the middle of the Bantry Commons, a broad semi-circle with the sea front forming the west side. The shops bounded its south end and the sprawling manor was to the north; tenant housing closed the arc. The dwellings facing directly on the common were older, smaller, and much more desirable than the relatively modern units in the second and third rows. Younger sons and their sons were relegated to the newer housing.

  Instead of turning the manor into a modern palace to reflect the family's increased wealth and power, Daniel's grandfather had put his efforts into a luxurious townhouse in Xenos. Corder Leary had visited Bantry only as a duty—and not even that after the death of his children's mother. The house looked much as it had three centuries ago.

  Birds screamed overhead. The fish processing plant was shut down for the celebration, and they were upset at missing their usual banquet of offal.

  Daniel grinned. At that, the flock wasn't much less musical than the piper . . . and there'd been enough ale drunk already that the dancers could probably manage to continue even if the boy on the bagpipe gave up the struggle he was clearly unequal to.

  "It's true that many ships have been laid up since the Truce of Rheims," Daniel said, "and that means a number of officers ha
ve gone on half pay."

  In fact almost two-thirds of the Navy List had put on Reserve status. That meant real hardship for junior officers who had been living on hopes already. Those hopes had been dashed, but they were still expected to have a presentable dress uniform to attend the daily levees in Navy House which were their only chance of getting a ship.

  "But I've been lucky so far," Daniel continued. "I'm still on the Active list, though I don't have an assignment as yet. And anyway, I wasn't really cut out to be a—"

  He'd started to say "farmer," but caught himself. Thank the gods he'd drunk a great deal less today than he would have even a few years earlier. Daniel hadn't become an abstainer, but he'd always known when he shouldn't be drinking; and the higher he rose—in the RCN and in society generally—the more frequent those occasions were.

  "—a country squire."

  Sand joined them; the entourage of children dropped behind the way the first touch of an atmosphere strips loose articles from the hull of a descending starship. Miranda was leading Mistress Sand to the house, having shooed away a similar bevy of children.

  Waldmiller opened his mouth to greet Sand. Peterleigh, his face toward the sea, hadn't noticed the newcomer's approach. He said, "Well, I think the truce is a bloody shame, Leary. You fellows in the navy had the Alliance on the ropes. Why the Senate should want to let Guarantor Porra off the hook is beyond me!"

  "Well, Peterleigh . . . ," said Daniel. "You know what they say: never a good war or a bad peace."

  "And maybe it was a good war for folks who live out here in the Western Region and don't leave their estates," boomed Thomas Sand, "but it bloody well wasn't for anybody trying to make a living in Xenos. Off-planet trade is down by nine parts in ten, so half the factories in the Capital Region have shut and the rest are on short hours."