“Yes,” Grandy said, “but I have some experience with the naval courts. In some ways they are superior to the civilian courts, in others …” He shook his head. “No, the court on Uffington will say that you must be there to make a complaint, while the court here will say that they must have the impressment records from Uffington.”
“We must send for those records, then,” Alexis said.
Grandy nodded. “Which shall be done.” He gave her a thin, rueful smile. “And when they arrive some months from now, where will your ship be?” Isom’s shoulders slumped. “That is presuming, of course, that they send the correct records in response to the request. The Impressment Service there will not wish its actions known. Your Navy, Mister Carew, can be remarkably efficient in its inefficiencies.”
Alexis wanted to defend the Service, thinking of Captain Grantham and Merlin, but the knowledge that captains like Neals also existed stopped her. She remembered Williard’s words. Two Navies.
“All this is not to say that you must give up hope, my good man,” Grandy said, reaching forward to pat Isom on the leg. “Between me here and Prescott on Uffington, we’ll work it out. They’ll have a much harder time failing to produce the proper records with him right there. Once he sends them to me, I’ll be in a better position to file the case.”
Isom looked up at him, eyes wide with hope. “So you’ll take the case, sir?”
“Of course!” Grandy said, taking up his tablet again.
Isom’s face fell and he looked suddenly worried. “I haven’t much in the way of money, sir, a bit of savings, but —”
Grandy waved his hand. “No matter, Mister Isom. This will be a professional courtesy.” He smiled. “I’m sure you’ll have ample opportunity to repay the favor when you’re back on Uffington … with your own practice one day.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Grandy asked Isom a few more questions and then sat back. “Sadly, there’s nothing more we can do until we have the records from Uffington. I assume I may contact you by sending the message care of … Hermione, was it?”
“Yes, sir,” Isom said.
“Well, then,” Grandy said, standing. “We’ll try to get this cleared up as soon as may be.”
“Mister Grandy?” Alexis said. The man seemed to have a grasp of the law; and Isom, for all he was a sad sight as a spacer, seemed a knowledgeable clark. Dalthus had no real solicitors yet, the population was too small, and she hadn’t had the thought to speak to one since joining the Navy. Perhaps he might have some insight into the issues of her inheritance.
“Yes, Miss Carew?”
“If you have a moment, there’s a matter I might wish to consult with you regarding.”
Grandy smiled and sat down again. “Two new clients at one go? A banner day.”
It took a surprisingly short time for Alexis to lay out the situation she faced on Dalthus. Being her grandfather’s only heir, but unable to inherit because of a law of male primogeniture. For something so important, it should take longer to explain.
Grandy frowned when she was done and she took this as a bad sign. He’d been smiling and reassuring throughout the talk of Isom’s situation.
“Yes,” he said finally. “We see things like this in the Fringe so often. It’s a patently illegal law, you see, but there’s no real system in place to deal with it. The colonies are generally allowed to do as they will, provided there’s no real human rights violations. And even if there are, they’re left alone if their emigration policy is liberal enough. A sort of ‘if you don’t like it, leave’ policy.” He sighed. “The problem for you is standing, you see.”
“Standing?” she asked.
“Yes. You see, in order to bring a case before a magistrate, you must have standing. You must have been injured by the law in order to challenge it. Unfortunately, you have not been injured.”
Alexis drew in a deep breath. “I have, sir, I assure you. Were it not for this law, I would be at home this minute, tending to my grandfather’s lands.”
Grandy nodded. “Yes, and there’s the rub, you must understand. Your grandfather’s lands, still. As he’s alive, the inheritance laws have not yet injured you, do you see?”
Alexis was shocked. “Do you mean to say that the courts will not hear my case because my grandfather is not dead?”
“Bluntly, yes.” He nodded at her look of outrage. “I quite understand your feelings, Miss Carew. This would be one of those areas where your naval courts are superior to the civilian, in my opinion. The civilian court must follow the law — that’s their oath, on all sides — while the naval court, the captains presiding, even the prosecutor, well their oath is ‘to seek justice and the best interests of the Service’.” He sighed. “Gives them greater latitude to seek a just resolution. Like your Articles of War, yes? Full of ‘shall suffer death’ for every offense, but then gives the captain the option of ‘or such other punishment as shall be decided’.” Alexis began to think that Grandy had a great deal more knowledge of the Navy than she’d originally suspected.
Grandy frowned. “I assume your family is not titled?”
“No, sir,” she said. “Would that make a difference?”
“If you were titled, they would be family lands and must pass with the title.”
Of course, the aristocracy would have an out for it. Above the law, even the bad ones.
“Let me do some further research,” Grandy said. “Dalthus, was it?”
“Yes, sir. I have some funds with an agent, if you —”
Grandy waved his hand. “No, Miss Carew, I suspect that I should not have the opportunity to help my friend, Mister Isom, were it not for your kindness. A bit of research is the least I can do in thanks for that.”
“Thank you, Mister Grandy,” Alexis said. “I do appreciate it.”
Her tablet began beeping insistently and Alexis pulled it out. Her face fell and she felt a chill run through her.
“Are you quite all right, Miss Carew?”
Alexis looked up at him, eyes wide and struggling to regain her composure. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d been hoping, and the disappointment she felt on reading the message made her want to scream.
“Hermione’s returned.”
* * * * *
“Drunkenness! Brawling! Desertion!”
“Sir,” Alexis said, back straight, eyes focused on the bulkhead of Captain Neals’ day cabin. “There was no desertion, sir. All the lads are accounted for.”
Neals slammed his tablet onto his desk. “I’ve the reports from Station Patrol right here, Carew! That they caught the man before he could succeed doesn’t excuse it!”
“Sir, Isom wasn’t deserting. He was free to do as he wished until reporting back — the lieutenant misunderstood something about a pass and —”
“Will you forever argue with me, Carew? Forever play the space-lawyer?” Neals stood, palms on his desk and looked down at his tablet. “I have never in my life seen —” He raised his eyes to look at her. “— such a list of offenses.”
Alexis stared at him in shock. What Navy had the man been serving in all these years? While she’d been on station, she’d seen the Penduli Station Patrol take up virtually the entire crews of two other ships, rival captains in some matter, and ban the lot from landing for six months over brawling. Her lads had been piddling puppies in comparison. Why, her brawlers were welcomed back into pubs as soon as the damages were settled, and her drunks … well, publicans had sent boys to wait outside the berth to make sure her lads found their way back the next night.
“This is what happens from putting a woman in the mix,” Neals went on. He slammed his palm down on the desk. “No discipline!”
Alexis clenched her jaw and resumed staring at the bulkhead.
Neals came around the desk and stood near her. This close, she could feel him trembling with anger.
“I thought I was finally shut of you, Carew,” he whispered. “Cost me a boat and some crewmen, but well worth it at tw
ice the price. Yet now you’re back.”
Alexis swallowed hard to stifle a gasp. It sounded almost as though he’d left them behind deliberately and not just as an accident of his running, but not even Neals would do something like that, would he?
“I will be shut of you, Carew, do you understand? I’ll have you out of my Navy, no matter the cost.” His jaw worked, breath ragged, before he stepped back.
“Sir —”
“Shut up, Carew.” Neals resumed his seat and picked up his tablet. “No discipline. That’s what comes of trying to play at Captain Goodfellow with the men. They should have been in the Assize Berth where they belong, not … coddled by a little girl.” He sighed. “Well, I’ll have them back under proper naval discipline.” Neals narrowed his eyes and tapped the tablet. “You’ll write them up for next Captain’s Mast, Carew, every one of these offenses.”
“Sir! I held Masts myself and issued punishments. They’ve already been —”
“Punishments?” Neals raised the tablet. “Yes, I read your report as well as the Station Patrol’s, Carew.” He snorted. “Cleaning? A bit of pay stoppage for the worst? Confined to the berth … in a pub?”
Alexis cringed. Yes, confinement to a pub for drunkenness might seem odd, but the lads had taken the spirit of it. The offenders had kept to themselves at a corner table for the duration and not had a bit to drink past their daily issue. All of them had taken their punishments as willingly as they would have aboard ship. And she feared their reaction if they had to appear before another Captain’s Mast for the same offenses — the men would accept punishment for an offense, even the lash, but they expected that to be the end of it. “Over, done with, and no more said about it,” was their view — to be punished twice for the same offense wouldn’t be tolerated lightly.
“As for yourself, Carew,” Neals was saying, “I must say that I find myself disappointed beyond measure.”
Well, of course, why would I expect any different?
“This coarse, money-grubbing scheme of yours to steal from your shipmates goes beyond even my lowest opinion of you.”
Alexis blinked and her mouth dropped open in shock. What on earth —
“Trying to claim a prize for yourself alone? Cheat Hermione’s crew of their just reward? Shame, Carew. You can be sure I’ll be challenging this in the Prize Court … on behalf of the crew.”
Alexis steeled herself. Well, of course he’d try to get a piece of what her lads had accomplished in taking Sittich. She wouldn’t begrudge at all sharing the award with Hermione’s crew, but for Neals to accuse her of cheating and stealing from them …
“Sir, it was submitted so at Admiral Piercy’s order.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the tale you spun the admiral about being ‘abandoned’, Carew. Not a word about your utter, contemptible failure to dock with Hermione as ordered? As ordered more than once! You can be assured that I’ve corrected Admiral Piercy’s perception of the events … despite your conniving efforts to beguile the poor man.”
“Sir, I —”
“And that Crandall, too! Why the man had the nerve to contact me and compliment me on having such an officer as you!” Neals slammed his hand onto the desk again, his face growing red. “What kind of slattern are you to have so befuddled good officers?”
Alexis flinched and stared at the bulkhead. She felt her eyes burn and her muscles clench with the effort to fight back the urge to speak. She’d forgotten, at least for a time, how easily and quickly Neals’ moods could swing. The time aboard Penduli Station, out from under Neals’ thumb, had caused her to relax — perhaps not such a good thing now she was back aboard Hermione.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Alexis started for the base of the mast, easing herself along the hull in the gliding walk that always kept one magnetized boot in contact with the hull at all times, so she wouldn’t drift free and have to pull herself back toward the ship by her safety line. The men of her division had just finished trimming the sails to Captain Neals’ latest orders and were hurrying down.
The captain had again ordered that the last man down be flogged, a practice that made Alexis sick to her stomach. She understood the use of flogging for discipline — with months spent in space, well away from any planetside authority, the captain had to have some means of enforcing order. As one of the spacers on her first ship, Merlin, had explained it to her, even the men understood the need, and typically faced their punishment with an attitude of ‘over, done with, and now forgotten’ for both the flogging and the offense for which they’d earned it. They understood that there was no way for a captain to imprison or otherwise discipline a man while spending months in space, and so the corporal punishment allowed for an immediacy of consequences.
And then there are the Tartars. The captains who didn’t just use the lash for serious offenses, but for every little thing, thinking it motivated the men to work harder or, as she suspected of Neals, because they enjoyed ordering it.
So stupid, she thought as she took her place at the base of the mast. She hated this task, as she’d have to identify the last man down herself and report him to Neals. Her stomach turned at the thought of being complicit in his barbarous cruelty, but she couldn’t refuse a legal order.
It was the best of the topmen who bore the brunt of Neals’ order, for they were the ones who went highest and farthest out on the yards to work the sail. Naturally it was they who were last down. Flog your best and most skilled men — for no more reason than that they are the best. The man’s a fool.
High above her, the men had started down. Those nearest the mast on the yards clipping their safety lines to the guidewires and pulling themselves toward the hull. Those further out began jockeying for position, trying to reach the mast ahead of their fellows. The men were already dreading the next Captain’s Mast, for Neals had announced that he’d be passing judgment on them for their offenses aboard Penduli Station. There was no little resentment about that, in addition to the dread, and not just from her own division — she’d heard the muttering and dark looks from the rest of the crew when Neals had announced his intentions.
One of the men on the topgallant yard, almost forty meters from the mast’s base, unclipped his line and leapt off the yard for the mast. He caught hold of it in a narrow space between two shipmates, but it was as though his actions had spurred the others. A half dozen more spacers on the topgallants unclipped their lines and pushed off downward at an angle toward the mast. Bodies were suddenly flying across the intervening space, crashing into those already on the mast and knocking them loose to be pulled up short by their safety lines. But those who’d leapt had no lines attached and Alexis’ blood chilled as she saw two, knocked off course by their fellows, miss the mast and sail past.
Several spacers already on the mast reached out to them or jumped from it themselves, relying on their own safety lines to keep them attached in an effort to reach their mates, but the two men were already too far away. The would-be rescuers were brought up short by their lines and could only watch helplessly as the two drifted away from the ship.
Alexis cried out and reached for the rescue gun at her belt. The officers each carried one for these circumstances, it used a charge of compressed gas to shoot a weighted bag attached to a line. She’d used hers once on Merlin when two men were cut loose from the masts during an action and she’d managed to save one of them.
Crying out again, this time in frustration, she saw that it wouldn’t work. The men had already drifted out of the ship’s field and entered the morass of darkspace. As their momentum slowed, the ship continued to sail away from them and she was too far down the bow of the ship, near the mast’s base just above the sail locker. Hermione was too large for her shot to reach the men, so she began scrambling up the bow. If she could reach the top of the hull and a clearer shot, or even pull herself aft and catch up with them.
Her breath rasped, echoing in her helmet as she cleared the top curve of the hull. She transferred her safety line to
one of the guidewires that ran the length of the ship and grasped it with both hands. Her lower mass meant she could accelerate faster than someone larger and if she could just get close enough to fire off the line. She glanced up and saw that she couldn’t. The two men were already more than halfway down the hull and the squat bulk of the quarterdeck took up a full third of the upper hull. She’d have to maneuver around that to reach the stern and a clear shot, but the men were falling farther back faster than she’d be able to travel.
The bosun, on the other hand, had a clear shot. Alexis gripped the guidewire, fists tight as she watched him squat on the hull and aim his own rescue gun upward. There was a puff of escaping gas and the weighted bag flew toward the two men, Hermione’s lights sparkling off the wire that trailed behind it.
The bag left the ship’s field about ten meters up and started to slow and fall behind the ship as well. It arced slowly through the void toward the two figures, whose arms and legs were flailing in a vain effort to turn or propel themselves back to safety. The nearer man saw the bag crawling toward him and reached out his hand, straining to grasp it, but it slowed to a stop just out of his reach.
The men and the bag continued to fall behind, the rescue line playing out, and Alexis screamed in frustration at the horrifying tableau. The nearer man continued to reach and grasp, his hand opening and closing in a desperate effort to reach the bag that remained always just centimeters away.
The bosun dropped the now useless rescue gun and rushed for the hatch to the quarterdeck. Alexis yanked on the guidewire and pulled herself toward it too. If they could notify the captain in time to begin turning the ship, then the men could still be saved.
There was no battle in progress, no reason not to bring the ship about and sail back to retrieve the two spacers. If they saw the ship turn, then they’d have a chance to activate the chemical lights on their suits so that Hermione could find them, but they’d have to see the turn begin before they gave up hope of rescue, for many spacers would dump their air if a ship wasn’t clearly returning for them, preferring to end things quickly rather than suffer through an extended period of time under the effects of darkspace.
Mutineer Page 13