Though Hell Should Bar the Way

by David Drake

  “I guess, sir,” I said, following the captain into the airlock as he did up the torso of his suit.

  I didn’t know what I really thought about Monica and me. I’d told myself that “we” were over as soon as she got home to her wealthy family. I still figured that was true … but I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to shrug off her absence the way I’d expected to do.

  The captain didn’t say anything in the airlock. Getting used to the rigging suit meant developing calluses at different points than where the air suit had rubbed. I’d been looking forward to a little sack time after I tweaked our course.

  I wasn’t complaining, mind. Captain Leary was choosing to talk to with me in private, the only truly private place on a starship: outside the hull.

  We tramped into the far bow. Two riggers were adjusting the dorsal mainyard. The sail wasn’t set at the moment, but I knew from experience that the gears that rotated the yard sometimes stuck.

  For a moment Leary looked up at the Matrix: the whole cosmos. Ours to sail through for as long as the Alfraz held together; ours to vanish into forever if she came apart.

  He took out the half-meter-long brass rod. The bulbous tips were engraved with three leaping fishes; I looked at the design for a moment before putting my end firmly against my helmet.

  “That’s the Bantry crest,” Leary said. “The tenants had a set made up for me in the shop there.”

  His voice was thinned but clear. I wondered what the rods were filled with. They gave better sound quality than touching helmets would have, and they were much handier.

  “Sir?” I said. “Why doesn’t the RCN make them standard equipment?”

  Leary laughed. “You’d have to ask somebody else about Navy House policy,” he said, “but if I had to guess I’d say that very few captains feel a need to communicate privately with members of their crews. And also that it’s not a practice that our lords and masters would want to encourage if it were brought to their attention.”

  He cleared his throat and went on, “Most captains don’t have someone like Officer Mundy in their crew, of course; which brings me to why we’ve come out here.”

  He waved his free arm in a broad gesture ahead of us.

  “Besides getting a look at the most beautiful sight in the universe, of course,” he said. “The universe itself. Besides that, I say. Olfetrie, you’ve never commented on what you were told just before you were shanghaied: that Lady Mundy and I were part of an intelligence operation to bring about a war with Karst.”

  I swallowed. When I was sure the Captain was waiting for me to speak, I said, “Sir, it’s like I said to Maeve at the time: That’s above my pay grade. I trust you and Lady Mundy to know what you’re doing.”

  “You don’t think we could make a mistake?” Leary said.

  “Sure you could make a mistake!” I said. “You don’t have divine wisdom! But you’ve got more facts than I do, you’ve got a track record, and you’re a hell of a lot smarter than I am.”

  Captain Leary burst out laughing. “Well, Olfetrie,” he said, “I wouldn’t bet against Adele having divine wisdom, though I’ll tell you that she’s not a god to get on the wrong side of. And also”—his voice changed slightly—“I haven’t noticed anything wrong with your own intelligence. But we can talk about that over a drink, and maybe talk about women too. Right now, I’m going to discuss what Mistress Grimaud told you.”

  “Sir,” I said, automatically bracing to attention.

  “Lady Mundy and I are on Saguntum to provoke a war with Karst,” he said. “What the Foreign Ministry does not know—very, very few people besides Adele and me, and now you, do know—is that the highest level of the Alliance has secretly given Cinnabar authorization to bring Karst into the Friendship of the Republic.”

  In nondiplomatic terms, to absorb Karst into our empire.

  “Wow,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say that. I guess I had to say something.

  “Now, it occurs to me that Guarantor Porra might not keep his word about accepting Cinnabar’s action,” the captain said. “In that case the Republic is going to need the RCN, and the RCN is going to need officers. Either way, I’d say you’ve made the right choice, Olfetrie.”

  “Sir,” I said. “I kept my word with you.” I swallowed. “I’d say that was always the right choice.”

  Captain Leary laughed again, but he also reached over with his free hand and squeezed my shoulder.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The remainder of our return to Saguntum was an intensive course for me in astrogation, taught by the man acclaimed as the finest astrogator in the RCN—Captain Daniel Leary. I learned a great deal, but one of the things I learned was that Captain Leary—Six, he told me to call him, did things that couldn’t be taught or learned.

  Twice Six suggested changes in the course I had programmed. I made the changes, though I couldn’t see any reason for them. In one case, after our second transition on the new course it became obvious that the next stage would be far easier than the course I had originally chosen. The other case was the reverse: When we had made two transitions on the new course, the different perspective on the Matrix showed me that my planned course would have been so stressful that the Alfraz might even have broken up.

  “Sir?” I said as we stood in the bow, looking at the Matrix with the communication rod connecting us. “How did you know to avoid GC75951? It was the console’s choice, and there was nothing visible to say otherwise when we viewed it two transitions ago.”

  “Umm,” said Six. “If there’d been something I could see, I’d have pointed it out to you. I just had a feeling, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m glad you’re on our side,” I said, and that was the truth if I’ve ever spoken it.

  * * *

  The other benefit of spending time on the hull was that I didn’t have to be aware of our passengers. The crew, all of them Sissies—veterans of Captain’s Leary’s armed yacht, the Princess Cecile—kept order. For the most part, the freed slaves were just glad to have gotten away from pirates who had held them, for as much as ten years in some cases.

  Sanitation in the hold of the Alfraz was rudimentary. What had been installed for the police commando worked if the users were disciplined enough to use it properly. Cultural norms in Salaam and on some of the worlds from which the slaves had come didn’t involve anything but a patch of ground on which to squat. Hoses cleared the immediate problem, but the entire hold stank like a latrine after the first day out.

  * * *

  When we extracted from the second long stage, the Alfraz was within a light-minute of Saguntum. I was proud of that, but I managed not to say anything aloud. I plotted the final jump, though my left side felt like frozen wood and my vision of my right eye blurred.

  “Mind if I announce us?” Captain Leary said, speaking through the console. He was in the striker’s seat.

  “Sir, I’d appreciate it if you’d handle commo,” I said. “Or if you’d like to bring us in, that’d be fine too.”

  “I want you to be the best astrogator you can be,” he said. “You won’t get that way from me doing the work for you.”

  Six hailed Orbital Control. We’d be about three minutes real-time reaching Saguntum orbit, so we were getting a slight edge on the formalities. I didn’t expect to be boarded—and I certainly hoped not; the shorter time our passengers were in free fall, the better—but Orbital Control could assign us a landing berth in Jacquerie Haven.

  This is even better than having Monica aboard! I thought. But it wasn’t.

  My final extraction brought us out within thirty thousand miles of the surface. Woetjans led the watch onto the hull to make sure the rig locked down properly, while Six took care of the berthing details with Control.

  When we had our berth assignment, I set it up in the console. I’d thought of making a manual landing to show Captain Leary that I could do it—and rejected the thought. Now that I’d programmed the thrusters to flare as we set down, there was no reason
to land manually—any more than there was reason to work in the rigging without a line.

  I didn’t guess Six would think better of me if I showed myself to be a boastful fool—and if I was wrong in that, he wasn’t the man I thought he was. Besides, I might really muff the landing in a fashion that would be embarrassing or worse.

  “We’re here ahead of the Lezo and the Magellanes, Olfetrie,” Captain Leary said. “El Cano and Concha are in harbor, but not their sisters. That’s very good time.”

  That was great time, given Alfraz’s minimal rig! Aloud I said, “They didn’t have a crew like ours, sir!”

  The riggers started coming through the airlock in groups of two. I was smiling.

  * * *

  The landing was a satisfactory one. Not neat, not exceptional, not something for Captain Olfetrie to preen himself with. We’d gotten safely to where we were supposed to be, and for that I could feel pride.

  Woetjans and Pressy, another of the riggers, opened the cabin’s two hatches almost immediately. The gush of steam and ions wasn’t as unwelcome as it would have been under other circumstances. Even the garbage in the harbor water had been thoroughly incinerated before it entered the ship.

  Hogg got up from a jump seat and stood beside Captain Leary at the console. The crew, Lal included, was getting ready to disembark. I planned to hold them until we’d handed the freed slaves over to the Saguntine officials who were waiting on the quay to process them. I was pretty sure that the arrival of over a hundred former slaves wasn’t an entirely welcome event for the authorities in Jacquerie.

  “Olfetrie?” Captain Leary said. “I’d like you to stay aboard for a while after everyone else has left the ship.”

  “Yessir,” I said. “Ah—you want to talk to me?”

  Six smiled. “No,” he said, “though we’ll talk later. Officer Mundy is coming aboard to go over the business you and I discussed on the voyage back.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  Discussing politics at that level with Captain Leary made me feel honored. The thought of discussing them with Lady Mundy—and Tovera—was frightening in a way that an ordinary human bully like Wellesley had not been.

  * * *

  I greeted Officer Mundy and her servant at the bottom of the boarding bridge instead of in the hold. They had waited on the quay until the Alfraz cleared; Captain Leary, the last person to disembark, spoke briefly with them as they passed.

  “Welcome aboard,” I said, hoping that I sounded less nervous than I was. “I apologize for the condition of the ship. We had quite a load of passengers and there hasn’t been time to steam the hold out yet.”

  Mundy walked up the ramp beside me. Tovera was a half pace to Mundy’s rear and about that much to the side.

  “My parents, my mother especially, were strongly supportive of the lower classes,” Mundy said. “Because of their political activity, I spent fifteen years living with the lower classes, and for a time with the lowest classes. The condition of your hold isn’t going to be worse than flophouses where I slept in Bryce City.”

  “I was luckier than you, Lady Mundy,” I said, using her title for the first time. “Captain Leary threw me a lifeline before I had to move out of my room in Xenos.”

  “Quite a number of people have been lucky to have met Daniel,” she said. “None luckier than me.”

  She spoke with such calm that a fool might have believed that there was no emotion behind the words.

  In the cabin, I offered Mundy the console couch. She shook her head and seated herself primly on the edge of a bunk; she brought out her data unit. Tovera, having closed and dogged the hatch, stood beside it with her back to the bulkhead. I took the couch myself, rotated into the compartment.

  “Daniel has informed you that our purpose on Saguntum is to cause Karst to behave in a fashion which can be construed as an act of war against the Republic,” Mundy said. She looked up from her display and met my eyes.

  I took that as a question. I nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am. Technically I suppose Mistress Grimaud informed me first, but I didn’t believe her.”

  I hadn’t really disbelieved Maeve either, to tell the truth. I just closed it out of my mind because I didn’t want to think about such things. And here I was, waist deep in the whole business.

  “The Foreign Ministry’s information is incomplete,” Mundy said, “but what you were told was accurate so far as it went. My original plan was to convince Colonel Foliot that Councillor Perez was plotting against him with the backing of the Karst Residency.”

  I didn’t react, or I tried not to; but Colonel Foliot wasn’t just a foreign politician to me. I liked and respected him as a man; and he was the father of the girl I, well, liked very much.

  “I gave that up,” Mundy went on, “because I became convinced that Foliot would not act against his superior even if he thought that his superior planned to have him disposed of. Foliot would leave Saguntum with his daughter rather than strike first against the man he’d sworn his oath to.”

  I nodded. That described the man I’d entered the Admiral’s palace with.

  “My replacement plan was to convince Councillor Perez that the Colonel was plotting against him with Karst help,” Mundy said. “That was developing in a promising fashion, but your return with Colonel Foliot’s rescued daughter provides an alternative which would be even simpler. If Colonel Foliot learned that unless he aids us we will make public his daughter’s murder of a Karst official, he’ll be forced to do as we say.”

  I swallowed. “I shot Platt myself,” I said. “That doesn’t put any pressure on the colonel.”

  “You did not shoot the consul,” Mundy said. “Your crewman Lal gave a full account of what happened before you lifted from Salaam.”

  I didn’t think Lal had seen the shooting, but I guess he might’ve done. Regardless, I didn’t think I could convince anybody if I stuck to the lie. I was a terrible liar.

  “Olfetrie,” Mundy said, looking into her data display again. “We don’t need your help to do this, though it has advantages. If you prefer to stay out from the business, just tell me now.”

  “No, ma’am,” I said, shaking my head. “Look, I’ll help, I’m a Cinnabar citizen. But I just want to talk to the colonel straight. He didn’t swear any oath to Karst, and he’s got no reason to love them, either. Let me just talk to him.”

  “There’s a risk to Saguntum if war with Karst breaks out,” Mundy said, looking up.

  “Sure, Karst isn’t going to beat us,” I agreed, “but they could do quite a job on Saguntum before Cinnabar could stop them. The Colonel knows that, but I’d tell him anyway. But Karst isn’t carrying out its part of the bargain with Saguntum. I don’t believe that Platt was the only Karst official who was screwing”—the pun was accidental—“Saguntines instead of helping them. And I’ll promise that Cinnabar will help, just maybe not much at the beginning. I can say that, can’t I?”

  If I couldn’t—well, I didn’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t say that. If Cinnabar was just throwing Saguntum to the wolves, then I didn’t stand with Cinnabar after all.

  “Yes, you can say that,” Mundy said, nodding crisply. “Obviously the Republic’s immediate resources in the region are limited, and I won’t guess at when that might change.”

  She stood up, shutting down her data unit. Tovera opened the hatch, glanced into the—empty—hold and stood aside for her mistress to exit.

  Tovera looked back at me and grinned. She said, “I see why Six likes you, kid.”

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say.

  * * *

  I went over the ship at leisure, since I had it to myself. The cabin was, well, shipshape: nothing out of place, and even the bedding squared away on the bunks.

  The pistol I’d bought from Abram was still in the secure locker. I stuck it into my right cargo pocket, where I’d carried it until I’d entered the Admiral’s palace. It made me think of the Admiral, his legs pinioned by Azul’s body. He’d
flung his arms up when Colonel Foliot shot him. I grimaced, but I didn’t want to leave the weapon on board.

  The hold looked like a disaster area, the wrack left by a violent windstorm. Besides trash, there were dozens of items of clothing including a boot, a sandal, and a slipper—for different left feet. Now that the passengers were gone, the hold could be hosed out with steam—

  But I couldn’t do that alone, and at the moment I didn’t even have Lal to help. For that matter, I was an officer on the Sunray. I hadn’t reported aboard since our return from ben Yusuf.

  I set off for Jacquerie Haven, walking briskly. I’d have liked to leave an anchor watch on board, but there wasn’t much for prowlers to steal.

  * * *

  Evans, on watch in the Sunray’s boarding hold, called cheerfully to me as I started up the extension. A moment later Pointer, another of the techs, stepped into view. I waved at both of them.

  Evans was good-natured and the strongest spacer on the ship; even Woetjans would have said that. He wasn’t the man to make even simple decisions, though: They weren’t simple to him.

  “Lieutenant Olfetrie reporting,” I said. “Who’s got the duty?”

  “That’s Master Cory, sir,” Pointer said. “He’s usually in the TDC or whatever they’re calling it on this cow, but I can buzz if you like.”

  “I’ll find him, Pointer,” I said. “Starting with the Supplementary Station.”

  I skipped up the companionway, thinking of the stairs of the Wives’ Wing. I’d known what I was doing then. I didn’t have a plan now. I was just doing the thing that was in front of me and wishing that somebody would give me orders to carry out.

  The Supplementary Station was at the stern of the A Level corridor. It wasn’t armored like a true Battle Direction Center, but the Sunray could be conned from it if a missile clipped off the bridge in the freighter’s bow.

  How that could ever happen was beyond me, but I strongly suspected the modifications had been paid for out of Foreign Ministry appropriations. I wondered if Bergen and Associates had gotten the contract? Well, the job would’ve been done well if they had.