BRETTA MARTYN
Books by L. Neil Smith
* The Probability Broach
The Venus Belt
Their Majesties’ Bucketeers
The Nagasaki Vector
Tom Paine Maru
The Gallatin Divergence
Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu
Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon
Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of Thonboka
The Wardove
Contact and Commune
Converse and Conflict
Brightsuit MacBear
Taflak Lysandra
* The Crystal Empire
* Henry Martyn
* Pallas
* Bretta Martyn
* denotes a Tor book
BRETTA MARTYN
L. NEIL SMITH
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This is a work of fiction.
All the characters and events portrayed in this novel
are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
BRETTA MARTYN
Copyright © 1997 by L. Neil Smith
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Edited by James Frenkel
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, L. Neil.
Bretta Martyn / L. Neil Smith.—1st ed.
p. cm.
A sequel to: Henry Martyn.
ISBN 0-312-85893-0 (alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-312-85893-3
I. Title.
PS3569.M537555B7 1997
813'.54—dc21
97-1156
CIP
First Edition: August 1997
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY OWN DAUGHTER,
RYLLA CATHRYN SMITH,
WITH THE HOPE OF A LOVING FATHER THAT SHE’LL HAVE
LESS TROUBLE GROWING UP FREE THAN BRETTA DID.
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt thanks to Dr. Jamie Teumer, not only for saving my life on a couple of occasions (and being very entertaining company while he did it), but for supplying me with information about skull fracture and oxygen consumption that allowed me to save somebody else’s life as well. Thanks also to Timothy H. Willis.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE: THE GALACTIC COORDINATOR
PART ONE: LIA WOODGATE
CHAPTER I: AMAZING DISGRACE
CHAPTER II: INFAMOUS VICTORY
CHAPTER III: REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES
CHAPTER IV: DAMAGED GOODS
CHAPTER V: AN UNWANTED TIME OF TRIAL
CHAPTER VI: THE BRAND OF BASTARDY
CHAPTER VII: BIG, SILLY BIRDS
CHAPTER VIII: TOO TERRIBLE TO TOLERATE
PART TWO: BRETTA ISLAY
CHAPTER IX: A MESSAGE FROM HANOVER
CHAPTER X: THE USAGES OF POWER
CHAPTER XI: MEMORIES OF WAR
CHAPTER XII: RUMINATIONS UNDER GLASS
CHAPTER XIII: OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN
CHAPTER XIV: OF CHILDREN AND PARENTS
CHAPTER XV: ARRAN ISLAYS DAUGHTER
PART THREE: JENNIVERE DAIMLER-WILKINSON
CHAPTER XVI: DICTATES OF FASHION
CHAPTER XVII: A SHOW OF ACCESSIBILITY
CHAPTER XVIII: CIVILIZED CAPTIVITY
CHAPTER XIX: AN ALMOST MOTHERLY INTEREST
CHAPTER XX: EUNUCHS DRESSED AS CLOWNS
CHAPTER XXI: NOBLE SAVAGES
CHAPTER XXII: THE SHADOWS BETWEEN THE STARS
CHAPTER XXIII: A CEO’S SECRET
CHAPTER XXIV: BENEATH CONTEMPT
PART FOUR: ANASTASIA WHEELER
CHAPTER XXV: THE NIGHT-BLACK DEEP
CHAPTER XXVI: BASIS FOR SELECTION
CHAPTER XXVII: HIJACKED AT LENSPOINT
CHAPTER XXVIII: BALANCE OF TERRA
CHAPTER XXIX: THE WINDHOVER
PART FIVE: LOREANNA ISLAY
CHAPTER XXX: THREE TACTICAL ELEMENTS
CHAPTER XXXI: HEAT AND CLAMOR
CHAPTER XXXII: THE BUTCHER’S BILL
CHAPTER XXXIII: A NEGLECTED SPOUSE
CHAPTER XXXIV: THE LADDERWELL
CHAPTER XXXV: OVERMOMS IN CANDYLAND
PART SIX: HENRY MARTYN’S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER XXXVI: THE LAMINA
CHAPTER XXXVII: SHAH NAMAH
CHAPTER XXXVIII: THE SEVEN-GUNNER
CHAPTER XXXIX: A TOUCH OF THE ULSIC
CHAPTER XL: BOBSHAWS AND VULNAVIAS
CHAPTER XLI: LARGE, IRREVOCABLE STEPS
EPILOGUE: THE GALACTIC COORDINATOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“. . . But slavery is another matter—the most vicious habit humans fall into and the hardest to break . . . After a culture falls ill of it, it gets rooted in the economic system and laws, in men’s habits and attitudes. You abolish it; you drive it underground—there it lurks, ready to spring up again, in the minds of people who think it is their ‘natural’ right to own other people. You can’t reason with them; you can kill them but you can’t change their minds.”
—Robert A. Heinlein, Citizen of the Galaxy
PROLOGUE:
THE GALACTIC COORDINATOR
YEARDAY 162, 3027 A.D.
AUGGE 30, 519 HANOVERIAN
PRIMUS 19, 1597 OLDSKYAN
A YOUTH THERE WAS, LATE OF HANOVER,
WHO COURTED A BEAUTY SO GAY.
AND ALL THAT HE COURTED THIS BEAUTY FOR
WAS TO STEAL HER VIRTUE AWAY.
“COME GIVE TO ME OF YOUR FATHER’S GOLD,
LIKEWISE OF YOUR MOTHER’S DOWRY,
AND THE BEST SHIP THAT CIRCLES YOUR FATHER’S WORLD,
WHEREABOUT STAND TWENTY AND THREE.”
AND ALL THAT HE COURTED THIS BEAUTY FOR
WAS TO STEAL HER VIRTUE AWAY.
A YOUTH THERE WAS, LATE OF HANOVER,
WHO COURTED A BEAUTY SO GAY.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Anastasia Wheeler poured herself a drink.
“That it has, Your Worship, although it’s mighty good to be seeing you again! And you, as well, Captain-Inspector darling—you know you’ve quite an admirer waiting in the anteroom outside. Bright, pretty—and a cunning warrior as the man said. I’d marry her myself if I were as much as three feet tall!”
Setting her drink on the desktop, she sat back comfortably in her chair, pushed a cigarette into the long holder that was her personal trademark, lit it, and gestured to the other two that they should follow her example if they wished.
It had never been the Coordinator’s habit to turn to ardent spirits under stress, especially at this time of what they all agreed between them was the morning (outside, it was rather late in the afternoon, and would be for the rest
of the week) especially in the presence of her right-hand troubleshooter, Captain-Inspector Nathaniel Blackburn of Coordinated Arm Intelligence, who had suffered more than his share of difficulties with the stuff over the past few years.
Naturally, the War with the Clusterian Powers had taken its toll with everybody, and certainly nobody more so than the unfortunate individual seated across the blotter from her now. (Whenever anybody asked her what it was she did in the war—everybody knew her, it was merely a setup for a very old, familiar joke—she told them that she sailed an LMD, a “large mahogany desk.”) This fellow, this friend she’d known well for more than half a century, had just returned to her in a condition that would have driven anybody to drink. He’d enthusiastically accepted her offer of what passed for Scotch whiskey on the Moon in these trying times, and while she was about it, it had seemed a good idea to her (or at least a prudent one) to make and accept a similar offer to herself.
“Seventeen years old,” Blackburn replied with a good-natured scowl.
“Sixteen,” the visitor corrected him, “and only just that. But she’s captained a starship across half the diameter of the galaxy, fought your enemy to a standstill upon his home ground, and killed more men in combat than you have.”
“And that’s supposed to recommend her to me?” Blackburn suddenly grinned and slapped at the holster of the force projector hanging from the broad belt of his military kilt. “Well, I suppose it does. However, what will I tell my wife?”
“About the joys of bigamy. Better worry what you’re gonna tell her.” The visitor indicated the anteroom with his eyes. “She thinks you’re still unmarried.”
Anastasia took a long drink, looking a wordless apology over the rim at Blackburn, who grinned back and shrugged. Handsome devil, she thought, older, more seasoned, considerably soberer than when she’d first taken the risk of employing him during his convalescence, as her tactical advisor. No more than a third her age, he’d walked with a cane and a limp while the medical science of the Coordinated Arm regenerated the leg he’d lost in that debacle at Osnoh B’nubo, a planet, as someone had written, of eternal snow and hurricane-swept glaciers, punctuated by charred machinery, mutilated bodies, and frozen pools of scarlet, green, and gold—the blood-colors of the allied species fighting against the Clusterian Powers. The tricolors of the flag of the Coordinated Arm.
If the Coordinated Arm had had a flag.
Which it did not.
Despite their attempt at good-natured banter, their conversation faltered, and there was a long moment of self-conscious silence nobody knew how to fill. Blackburn had known her old friend, too, not as long, but nearly as well. She could see that, for all the time he’d spent in combat, for all he’d seen in this brutal war, he was having a hard time recovering from the man’s hideous appearance.
“Well,” Blackburn offered at long last, “I’ll try to let her down gently, then.”
Anastasia stifled an impulse to get this over with quickly. Her son and daughter-in-law were bringing the kids over for a visit this afternoon, their first since she’d returned from Ganymede, and she wanted her calendar clear. If the Galactic Coordinator couldn’t baby-sit her grandchildren now and again (while pretending it was an imposition), was there any point to fighting this war?
On the other hand, her unfortunate old friend had a tale to tell, of an entire civilization they’d no idea existed until now, and the apprehension of a nine-hundred-year-old enemy agent. Her friend’s tale was important; it could mean a disastrous escalation of the War with the Clusterian Powers, or its sudden, welcome end. She’d heard her friend tell it once already, herself, and still couldn’t make her mind up which it was. This time through it would be for Blackburn.
Anastasia cleared her throat. “Whatever our gallant Captain-Inspector has in mind for the girl—or she for him—it would be in-humane to leave her sitting in the next room for very much longer, waiting nervously to meet her idol. Old friend, you’d better tell Nate, here, the story you told me last night.”
Her visitor nodded his agreement with her, reached out for his drink, and laid his other green hand on her desk. “That I will, Your Worship, that I will . . .”
PART ONE:
LIA WOODGATE
YEARDAY 102, 3026 A.D.
JANNE 17, 518 HANOVERIAN
TERTIUS 7, 1595 OLDSKYAN
THEY MOUNTED UP ON A GOLDEN CABELLE
AND INTO THE LUBBERLIFT BAY,
AND THEY SAILED TILL THEY CAME TO THE OPEN DEEP,
NO MORE THAN A PARSEC AWAY.
“ALIGHT, ALIGHT TO THE TAFFRAIL,” HE SAID,
“ALIGHT, ALIGHT,” CRIED HE,
“SIX PRETTY MAIDS I’VE ANNIHILATED HERE,
AND YOU THE SEVENTH SHALL BE.
“SIX PRETTY MAIDS I’VE ANNIHILATED HERE,
AND YOU THE SEVENTH SHALL BE.
ALIGHT, ALIGHT TO THE TAFFRAIL,” HE SAID,
“ALIGHT, ALIGHT,” CRIED HE.
CHAPTER I:
AMAZING DISGRACE
Sedgeley Daimler-Wilkinson was the kind of man of whom it is said, “His future is all behind him.”
Once upon a time, some fifteen years ago, old-style, he had been a great favorite among the loveliest, best-turned-out and fashionable ladies that the Monopolity of Hanover—a glorious entity in and of itself—had ever produced. Once upon a time, he had been a gentleman gambler, epicure, gallant, and interstellar diplomat. Once upon a time, he had arisen, hand over hand as it were, to the exalted and powerful station of Executor-General to the Ceo of the Monopolitan ’Droom.
Now, a discontented Sedgeley grunted to himself and watched a minuscule stream of silvery bubbles escape his lips, as some final corner of a lung gave up its last measure of air to the medium in which his body hung suspended. It would have been ridiculous, in all sincerity, to refer to his circumstances as “reduced,” although again, in all sincerity, that was just how he felt about them.
Had it been easier, he would have sighed.
His personal apartments, as luxurious as might have been found in all of the magnificent capital city nearby, were filled, from lushly carpeted floor to highly embellished ceiling, with one of the most expensive artificial substances known to the many imperia-conglomerate that occupy the vast and star-filled Deep. Paintings and other hangings upon their walls were of the highest quality, and the sconces that illuminated them were subtle and well placed.
He squirmed to reposition himself upon a chaise lounge that felt little of his weight. This rich liquid he breathed was as clear as the very air, suffused with oxygen and vitamins and nutrients and medicines in such a manner that no man who had taken up this way of life that Sedgeley now found himself pursuing had ever died, so far, but instead had lived far beyond his natural time.
And perhaps, Sedgeley found himself thinking, beyond the time he wished to live.
Had he desired it, he might have floated upward—indeed, flown—and turned one joyous somersault or cartwheel after another in the center of the room. Instead, he sat in pensive thought, waiting for a matched pair from the latest batch of beautiful young colonial girls to fetch him a fresh dressing gown—with weighted hem—a sumptuous midday meal eaten for pleasure alone, and, as always, the unrestrained enjoyment of their smooth, tight, youth-hard flesh.
The physical reaction beneath his present attire which that particular idea provoked was a testimony, at his age, to the effectiveness of his current way of life. Out of long habit, he sought a subject upon which to contemplate that would allow him to control his rejuvenated body until such a reaction was appropriate.
The ’Droom, he reflected with some effort, sometimes referred to as the “Congress of Masques,” was the penultimate locus of all governance within the mighty, dreaded, and fearsome Monopolity of Hanover. And Sedgeley, with his distinguished features concealed by a stylish and provocative machiavelli, or sometimes a dashing relief, had been the feared and powerful right-hand henchman to none other than Ceo Leupould IX, himself, abs
olute ruler, for his part, of the most feared and powerful imperium-conglomerate in the Known Universe.
Sedgeley squirmed again. As far as that went, the Monopolity of Hanover was still the most feared and powerful imperium-conglomerate in the Known Universe; what galled its former Executor-General was that it appeared to be accomplishing this entirely without the benefit of his particular talents and expertise.
It had all been long ago, long before Sedgeley had been persuaded to become another humble “Initiate” of the so-called “Immortal School” and, like his fellow Initiates, spend as much of his time as he could contrive, immersed and weightless in whole suites of oxygenated liquid fluorocarbon. And, like his fellow Initiates, Sedgeley told himself that it was a calling similar in many respects—but by no means all, it was conceded—to that of a simple monk.
The “by no means all” encompassed the finest food, the best clothing, the most comfortable quarters that their vast commingled wealth was capable of obtaining. It also included perpetual saturation of their unique liquid environment with longevity drugs and other beneficial substances. In addition, Initiates could look forward every day to an intimate and continuous attendance upon their pampered persons by hordes of attractive and compliant females, shipped in by the dozen upon a regular basis—happy to be “rescued” from the uncultured hinterlands—from the Monopolity’s many starflung Drectorates.
Bother!
Unsurprised at the devious persistence of his appetites, Sedgeley once again found it necessary to redirect his thoughts. The task was less demanding than might have been supposed, for to individuals such as himself, accustomed to wielding great power, a full life consisted of far more than unremitting satiation.
A particle of self-flagellation would appear to be in order, and, for the former Executor-General, the scourge was always near at hand. The principal reason for Sedgeley’s more or less luxurious state of disgrace preyed forever upon his mind: a humiliating (if not to confess, astonishing) military defeat that the Monopolity of Hanover had suffered those fifteen years ago, at the hands of a rebellious young Drector-Hereditary of a backwater colonial world, the beautiful, mountainous, everblue-wooded, moonringed—intransigent—planet Skye.
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