Which, now, it was.
For Phoebus Krumm had arrived.
CHAPTER XVII:
A SHOW OF ACCESSIBILITY
Phoebus Krumm never changed.
Even the passage of fifteen eventful years had failed so far to put a single white hair into his magnificently voluminous beard. It was a well-worn dictum among the family Islay that the oceans might dry up, mountain ranges might crumble into dust, stars might consume all of their fuel and turn into supernovae, whole galaxies might collapse and suck themselves down into black, gravitic oblivion, but Phoebus Krumm abided, constant, immutable, invariable, unalterable, and reliable.
Standing in the double doorway to the captain’s quarters, Krumm reached an interminable arm backward, past Arran, to his two wives, Tula and Tillie, big-eyed as always, with curiosity and excitement, who were bringing up the rear. Not apparently related to one another, the pair of Krumm women, whom Bretta had known all of her life, were nonetheless of the same approximate size, shape, and demeanor. Bretta was more than a trifle scandalized with herself to discover that she was wondering why the man had never thought to add a little variety to his life. “E’er we do or say aught else, medears, will ye kindly show the girls, here, t’yer facilities, as they are too bashful t’ask for themselves? By the Ceo’s bladder, t’was a long haul aboard that lighter!”
Across the maindeck, leaning against the quarterdeck taffrail, stood the Osprey’s communications officer, Mr. Suprynowicz, the weaponlike barrel of his ship-to-ship laser resting upon his shoulder, speaking into a microphone which converted his words into light impulses that could be received at short range by other ships. No doubt he was exchanging remarks with the helmsman of the towing vessel which was presently pulling them into the desired parking orbit.
At the same time, directed more by long-standing experience than by their officers’ shouted instructions, hundreds of briskly moving crewbeings upon the main- and quarterdecks and high aloft were busy taking in all sail and making other changes to the running rigging that would effectively put their vessel to sleep for as long as her master determined she should stand in orbit about Hanover.
All about the Osprey lay dozens of other starships, along with their auxiliaries, making the same changes for the same reasons, or making the same changes in reverse, preparing to leave behind that planet which the Known Galaxy turned upon in point of economic and political fact, if not in terms of astrophysical geometry.
It was one of the most distracting—and distracted—moments Bretta could remember in a long while, with so many interesting things going on all about her, both aboard the Osprey and outside her hull in the surrounding Deep, that she could barely keep track of them all. Not for the last time did she find herself yearning (despite her earlier desire to be out upon deck or somewhere aloft with her father) for the tranquillity—even for the boredom—of her faraway homeworld, and even more, for time to think about what was happening.
It was more than probable, Bretta thought now, that her mother privately disapproved of the Krumms’ polygynous marriage, being herself well and truly dedicated to a single man alone. Nevertheless, as she had upon every previous such occasion, Loreanna stepped forward now, from where she had been standing beside the outboard windows, warmly taking Tula and Tillie’s hands in both her own.
“Kindly permit me the inexpressible pleasure of welcoming both of you to what presently serves us as the Islay family home. And welcome, as well, my dear Phoebus. It has been far too long—as indeed it would be, had we last seen you only yesterday afternoon. Please, Tula, Tillie, be seated wherever you will. How have you all been? May I offer you anything? A cup of tea, perhaps?”
Outboard, a brightly decorated steam launch hurtled past within not more than a crossbow shot of the Osprey, its rapid passage utterly silent until the vapor of its exhaust reached the cabin windows, which it rattled. Further away, Bretta could see a pair of similar utility vessels—by which she meant not ship’s boats—identifiable by the huge reaction-mass containers fastened upon the exteriors of their hulls. Behind them they towed the sad, dismasted cadaver of some old Jendyne or Duggerine caravelle, perhaps toward a graveyard of ships.
Bretta could guess from the uncharacteristically rigid manner in which Loreanna controlled her movements at the moment that she had been about to throw herself at Phoebus, as well. After all, he had known her since she was at least a year younger than Bretta was now. The loss of spontaneity was just another price of growing up, she supposed. A consensus was quickly arrived at that a “nice cup of tea” would be more than acceptable to everybody concerned. Loreanna left the room for the sketchy galley facilities that their quarters afforded, joined by the two Krumm women before the girl herself could offer to help her mother. Bretta remembered her father’s stories of how Krumm and his wives used to bake bread and cakes and pies and biscuits aboard the old Gyrfalcon.
This apparently suited Phoebus, who, with Arran beaming proudly at both of them, had set Bretta down in what he thought was a gentle manner upon the deck and pushed her back to his great arm’s length as if to get a well-focused look at her. The door behind him still lay open. Through it, she could hear all the wonderful racket of a ship’s busy and amazingly crowded maindeck just outside.
“Ye’ll definitely do, lass—though you’re getting that tall and full-bodied t’be flinging yerself upon old Phoebus lest he fear for his unsullied reputation!”
She could not help but laugh with him, and noticed that her father was similarly compelled. The man had this effect upon everyone who came within the sound of his voice, and that was some considerable distance, to be sure. Although her father had once told her that the first time he had heard that voice, it had been reciting a list of the many shipboard offenses that could get one thrown into the §-field. But now Krumm frowned suddenly, fingering the lace he had just found at the cuffs of her puffed velvet sleeves. With a similar expression, he turned a giant hand over—a more polite distance away—at the same sort of material spilling extravagantly out of her bodice front.
“But what’s all this frivolous cupcake frippery ye’ve put on about ye? What’s become of Bretta the Bloodthirsty, me thinly clad warrior-maiden? Bedad, at yer age, yer father here had just been chosen captain of his first starship!”
The style was far from new, unlike the bizarre habit her mother presently affected, but its intention was essentially the same. The skirts of her dress were enormous and swept the deck about her feet. Had she been considered of a marriageable age, its front hem would have been rolled up to the waist—or that appearance given by the dressmaker—to display each of her petticoats, layer by layer, and offer at least a show of accessibility. In much the same manner, her decolletage would have not been camouflaged with lace, but would have been cut low enough to expose the uppermost margins of her areolae. The entire matter of Hanoverian fashions was impossibly humiliating to the girl, and for once—in this context at least—she was happy to be only fifteen years old.
“So he was.” In her defense, she turned back the lace upon her wrist to show the deadly lens of her thrustible. “Krumm the Baker ought to know better than anyone else,” she offered, “how unwise it is to judge a cupcake by its frosting.”
Both men convulsed with laughter, Bretta joining them heartily, and were still wiping tears from their eyes when Loreanna and the Krumm women reentered with a loaded tea tray, full of questions about what the men had been laughing at. Phoebus pointed helplessly at one particular item of baked goods sitting, by coincidence, upon the tray, but was unable to answer them any further. How all three of the women had fit into the galley was the question Bretta wanted answered.
Past them, through the windows, a stately row of great Deepsailing ships could now be seen, not far away, only a small part of the impressive military fleet the Monopolity maintained—a fleet, Bretta recalled with a thrill of pride, that her father had once defeated soundly. Every one of these enormous vessels could have made four of the little O
sprey, although Bretta doubted that any Hanoverian dreadnought could ever claim a more willing crew than her father’s starship, or a better-hardened, battle-craftier master. Nor could any vessel merely four times Osprey’s, size boast of a greater weight of projectibles.
Never had she seen the Deep so crowded, although her personal experience, she admitted to herself, was somewhat limited. Aside from special warning and defensive satellites, contributed by the nacyl, which he had installed—a majority of them hidden in the rubble of the moonring—her father’s ship was generally the only man-made object in orbit about Skye. Here, vessels were as numerous, it would appear, as the individual pebbles of which that moonring was comprised, and vastly more varied in their size, purpose, and style of rigging.
In due course, they had all contrived to seat themselves upon various articles of furniture scattered about the tiny stateroom, as Loreanna poured and distributed their tea with her daughter’s assistance. Each of them went through the usual difficulties of balancing their teacups and saucers while politely accepting sweet biscuits and small cubes of pastry. Bretta had long since decided that this was a ritual of some kind, most likely a trial by ordeal.
“As to your earlier question, Captain Krumm,” Bretta began judiciously, casting what she hoped was an accusing eye upon her father, “you must ask the master of the Osprey why he forces me to wear this impractical and demeaning mantrap of an outfit, denies me the freedom of a deck I’ve known since I was five, and forbids me to go aloft to work his ship as I have done since I was eight!”
There passed a moment of surprised and embarrassed emptiness. Loreanna raised an eyebrow, but remained silent. The two Krumm women glanced at one another, maintaining neutral expressions. Unabashed, Arran arose and took his daughter’s hand—the hand that carried the dangerous end of a thrustible along its back and a control yoke across its palm—bent his head over it and kissed it. Bretta backed away, utterly astonished and blushing to the lace in her bodice.
“I had not been aware, melady,” her father intoned gravely, maintaining a studiously sober face as he did so, “that I offended. If you had but told me—”
Bretta exploded: “I should not have had to tell you, Daddy! You know I—”
“Pardon me, but you did not permit me to finish, my dear,” he admonished mildly.
Krumm chuckled, “ ‘Daddy,’ is it, now?”
“Shut up, Phoebus!” Ignoring his old friend further, Arran turned back to his daughter. “If you had told me, Robretta Islay, I would most certainly have done precisely nothing, for since when does a captain explain his orders?”
“Well, I—” Bretta could say nothing. Helpless, she dropped her arms to her sides. Her father had restated a policy which had long seemed wise to her.
He nodded acknowledgment of her defeat upon this initial issue, and went on. “Did I not bestow upon you an adult’s responsibility, by arming you as I have?”
“Well, I—” Again she could think of nothing to say. He was entirely correct. She did not resent that in itself—she was long accustomed to her father being correct about things and had come to reply upon it as any daughter has a perfect right to—but she hated to be proven wrong this way, in front of guests, and particularly in front of Krumm who, second only to her parents, was the single individual in the entire universe whom she was most desirous of pleasing.
For his part, the giant sat upon a ship’s chest against a bulkhead, with his arms folded into one another. His expression at the moment was impossible to read. Perhaps he, too, was discomfited at being present during a family dispute.
“Is it not an adult responsibility to study the task ahead,” Arran nodded at the enormous stack of textbooks she had brought with her to read upon the history, politics, economics, and customs of Hanover, which she had finished the first month of their journey, “and protect the physical well-being of her mother?”
“Well, I—” That, at least, was absurd: Loreanna required nobody’s protection. If she were an evildoer, Bretta thought, she would almost have rather faced Henry Martyn than the woman who often signed letters, “Loreanna Martyn.” To begin with, being thrust at must have been unpleasant enough, but Bretta was willing to wager that Loreanna’s little antique cartridge weapon hurt. She glanced at her mother, but found no support or comfort in her eyes.
Arran gave Phoebus a significant glance. “And is it not mine, equally, both as captain and father, to protect that of the next Drector-Hereditary of Skye?”
“Well, I—what?”
He took a step toward her and seized her hand again, holding it in his. “My Little, had I given you the freedom of the deck, would you have learned all that you have by now of the planet below? Or would you have simply raced up and down the lines and ladders of this ship ecstatically, learning nothing you did not already know? More than that, would you have started acquiring, in the eyes of our crew to begin with, a certain quality of aloof dignity that I wish you to possess before you try your hand at commanding a starship, or a planet?”
“But I . . .” Bretta was confused and stunned. She, a female, to be her father’s heir? Was that even legal? On the other hand, had Arran Islay ever shown concern over what was legal when it conflicted with what was right? And was this right? It certainly might have helped allay her boredom over the last two months if she had known that—against all Monopolitan convention past and present—Arran had intended to make Bretta his political heir. She could see now that Loreanna, of course, supported her husband in this decision and was speechless with pride in both of them. For some infuriating reason, all she could say was, “I already know these crewbeings, Father! They are my friends!”
Krumm seemed to be watching her carefully—even critically—now, but it was her father who continued speaking. “Precisely, My Little, which is why they must now begin to learn to know you all over again. But that part is easy enough; the difficult trick is to persuade the wild woodsrunner within you to settle down—only the merest trifle, mind you—to some serious business. Knowing you best by knowing myself, I believe that the experiences we are all about to have—whatever they prove to be—will help you do just that.”
“And there is this, too.” At long last, her mother spoke. “The Ceo sent your father and me a warning we have not told you of until now, that attempts might be made to interfere with our voyage or to injure or kill one or all of us.”
Arran nodded. “Knowing that you were here with your thrustible—yes, and your mother with her little pistol—made my mind rest easy, believe me, and greatly aided me in seeing to the good reckoning and good conduct of the ship.”
“So you have explained your orders after all, my captain.” It was a weak rejoinder, and she knew it. She was beginning to grin at him and could not help it. She only hoped she had not failed some test it was vital that she pass.
Apparently not. Arran placed his other hand atop hers, squeezed them, and smiled back. A glance showed her that her mother, too, was quietly beside herself with joy and pride, the faintest glimmering of tears showing in her eyes.
“So I have, indeed. And now, My Little, may we have our tea before it gets cold?”
Bretta folded the drinking siphon of her emptied teacup into the closed position and placed it back upon the magnetic center of its delicate matching saucer.
Far below the Osprey’s present orbital position, she observed another steam launch plunging into the dense atmosphere of the capital world, no doubt upon some tremendously important official business, as direct landfalls of this sort, she understood, were seldom permitted upon Hanover for any lesser reason.
But what was it Krumm had been saying?
“. . . I grew that weary of hangin’ about in orbit, an’ when I heard that ye’d arrived, arranged t’come onboard with the pilot.” Krumm sipped at a cup that looked ridiculously tiny in his hand, then took a professionally critical nibble at a sweet biscuit. “Nor, meboy, would I have handed me starship over t’some civil servant quite that easily, and co
me all lackadaisical-like, down t’tea.”
Arran laughed. “No, my dear old friend, you most certainly would not. I believe I know you well. You would have hung upon the poor fellow’s every move, breathed down his neck, questioned his every decision, and made his job twice as difficult as it is already. Pray let us change the subject: so you have been orbiting up here for an entire week and not yet been down to the surface?”
“Aye,” Phoebus nodded, speaking round a mouthful of his dozenth biscuit and not hearing the good-natured irony in his younger comrade’s voice. “With our good old friend the Ceo of Hanover payin’ the position fees. At that, I’d vastly liefer be up here, than down there upon that great, gray, miserable surface.”
Increasingly drawn to the spectacle outside—although equally concerned with the conversation in which she was supposed to be taking part—Bretta blinked in disbelief as a figure in some sort of protective garment wafted by the window upon a column of expelled steam. The many pleats and folds of what he wore reminded her of meat-maggots, or of pupae in the nests of insectoid colonies.
Arran laughed again, a phenomenon for which his daughter felt particular gratitude to Phoebus. “My dear fellow, that ‘civil servant’ whom you failed to recognize—no, no, blind me, that would have been after we took separate ships, back at the end of the war, would it not?—well in any case, that Hanoverian pilot, one Captain Ernest Hancock by name, is a onetime sailing master of this very vessel. Willingly would I entrust my life to his skilled hands, and in fact I have done, upon many an occasion. He will be joining us here for tea, just as soon as he has brought the Osprey down to the Ceo’s Eye.”
“The Ceo’s Eye?” All of this was news to Bretta, whose recent education had chiefly concerned people and events upon the surface of the capital world. Again she chafed at having been over-protected like a child (or a Hanoverian woman) and kept in the dark. Still, she kept her peace until she could learn more.
Coordinated Arm 02: Bretta Martyn Page 16