RCN 11: Death's Bright Day (eARC)

by David Drake

  Her smile was as quick and humorless as a snake’s strike.

  “—which I think describes us accurately, his own position in regard to Guarantor Porra would become very difficult. Potential problems could be avoided by eliminating all those who know of his connection with us.”

  “He can’t…” Daniel said, then treated the question as a problem for solution instead of simply reacting to it. “He could try to have Minister Forbes assassinated, but there’d be a considerable chance of it going wrong. Even if he succeeded, there’s at least a toss-up chance that it’d mean resumed war between us and the Alliance. Storn doesn’t want that!”

  Or does he? How much of Daniel’s belief was simply wishful thinking?

  “Forbes isn’t a risk to Storn,” Adele said. “A Cinnabar minister’s statement is scarcely compelling evidence that a 5th Bureau official is a traitor. You and I, however, are another matter.”

  The incoming vessel was close enough to be a background rumble. It must be a big one, perhaps even the remaining battleship.

  “I see,” said Daniel. He thought of pulling his goggles down, then simply turned his back on the searing actinic radiation. “I had the impression that you and General Storn were, well, on good terms.”

  “You started to say ‘friends’ but corrected yourself,” Adele said with another flash of that grim smile. “The correction was proper. I have helped General Storn in the past, and he certainly will consider the possibility that I might help him further in the future…but we aren’t friends, and in the last analysis it wouldn’t matter to him if we were. Do you worry about the spouses and offspring of the crews of ships you attack?”

  “That’s in war,” Daniel said, surprised by his own anger.

  “Life is war to people at General Storn’s level of the intelligence services,” Adele said. “Everyone is expendable.”

  The ship on landing approach was a cruiser, still loud but not so loud that it seemed to turn the world inside out for those near the harbor.

  “You’re not like that, Adele,” Daniel said. He raised his voice only slightly; he wasn’t sure that he had wanted his words to be understood.

  “No,” she agreed. He was reading the words on her lips. “That’s why I wasn’t better prepared for the situation. I apologize, Daniel. I didn’t consider the wider implications until we had arrived in the middle of them.”

  The cruiser’s thrusters shut off. The waterfall-hissing of metal cooling in the slip continued in a diminishing background.

  Daniel suddenly felt the humor of the situation. “Adele,” he said, “I took on this project and asked for your assistance. I didn’t think it would be without risk. The factor that I hadn’t allowed for is the arrival of an Alliance squadron. That’s what’s upset things.”

  A thick-wheeled vehicle pulled up beside the van that had brought Adele. This was a dockside runabout with a small cab in front and a short lowboy behind it. The driver, a very big man, got out.

  I’ve seen him somewhere.

  Hogg and Tovera faced the vehicle. Neither held a weapon—Tovera deliberately set her attaché case on the ground beside her—but they were tremblingly rigid.

  General Storn got out of the passenger seat. He was wearing a civilian business suit, and the driver was his bodyguard.

  “Master Hogg?” Storn said in a carrying voice as though Hogg were standing twenty feet away with Daniel and Adele rather than directly in front of the speaker. “Might I have a word with your master, please?”

  “If he’s come alone,” Daniel said in a whisper that only Adele could hear, “then we’ve won.”

  He walked toward the line of bollards so that he could be heard when he said in a normal voice, “Do you want to speak with me or with my friend, sir?”

  “Good morning, Captain Leary,” said Storn. His hands and those of his bodyguard were at their sides. “I was hoping that you and I could have a quiet discussion somewhere. Lady Mundy would be quite welcome, but—”

  He turned and looked over his shoulder. An aircar with a four-place cabin and a separate cab for the driver landed behind the two ground vehicles. Dust and debris puffed away for an instant before the fans shut down.

  “—I believe she has other obligations,” Storn concluded. He smiled.

  Commander Huxford, also in civilian clothes, got out of the cabin. He started forward, then actually looked at the three servants facing him from the line of bollards. He stopped, swallowed, and called, “Lady Mundy? A lady has asked that you join her for lunch. I’ll carry you to her, ah, when you’re ready.”

  Adele had followed Daniel forward. She looked at him and said, “Daniel, would you like me to accompany you and General Storn?”

  “Ah…?” he said. He nodded in the direction of Huxford.

  “We were discussing priorities a few minutes ago,” Adele said, looking at General Storn. “I suspect that Mistress Sand already knows that I place the duties of friendship ahead of other obligations. If she doesn’t know that, it’s high time that she learns.”

  Daniel grinned. “Go have your lunch,” he said. “General, there’s a construction office there—”

  He pointed to the frame building at the open end of the quay.

  “—which I can empty if it isn’t empty already. I suspect it’s secure simply because no one would have seen a reason to bug it, but I’m sure you can search it before you say anything if you’re concerned.”

  “I’m not concerned,” said Storn. “Now, if I can join you…?”

  He cocked an eye at Hogg.

  “Let him through, Hogg,” Daniel said. “You and the general’s driver can probably find something to talk about while you prevent anybody from walking in on us.”

  Hogg stepped aside. He nodded the general through, then followed with the big driver.

  Storn turned and called, “Have a pleasant lunch, Lady Mundy. It’s always a pleasure to see you again.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Elazig Harbor on Danziger

  Adele got into the aircar after Huxford. Though the vehicle was featureless on the outside, the interior of the cabin was covered—cushions and panels both—with pebbled leather.

  I wonder if Daniel could identify the animal? Adele thought. She clipped an image with her data unit to show him later.

  It had been built on Cinnabar by Bevis and Sons, according to the car’s computer. Better, I could run the car’s specifications through the manufacturer’s database when I return to Xenos.

  “Are you going to invite me in, Commander?” Tovera said to Huxford. She grinned. “Or shall I get in without an invitation?”

  “I was directed to let Lady Mundy bring any companions she chooses,” Huxford said, sitting on the rear-facing seat across from Adele’s. “It’s entirely up to her.”

  “Get in, Tovera,” Adele said. At this point she was willing to let bygones be bygones with Huxford. Her servant was not, however, and Adele didn’t feel compelled to protect the fellow from discomfort his arrogance had brought on him.

  The door shut with a heavy thump and the car lifted smoothly. The cabin was windowless, but where windows would have been, real-time images were instead. The considerable noise of the fans was muted to a background whisper.

  “Is this car armored?” Adele said.

  “Yes,” said Huxford, “though it can’t be very thick and still fly, of course. The vehicle is part of the regular outfit of the communications vessel which brought us.”

  Adele checked her data unit. She hadn’t been aware that a Cinnabar ship was accompanying the Alliance squadron, but there it was, the RCS Themis; in harbor not far from the Princess Cecile. According to the harbormaster’s records, it had landed immediately after the battleship Crown Prince, on which Storn had arrived.

  “I see,” said Adele. She wasn’t surprised that Mistress Sand could demand the use of one of the few RCN communications vessels, shortened cruiser hulls which retained the warship’s full set of antennas and sails. It was very surprising t
hat the Themis was travelling in company with an Alliance squadron, however.

  “Does it bother you to have been demoted to errand boy, Commander?” Tovera said. “You must have thought you were on the way up when you decided to put the mistress in her place. You certainly learned what her place was, didn’t you?”

  “That’s enough, Tovera,” Adele said. The interior of the car was shielded, so she was linking her data unit to the vehicle’s own communications system.

  “I have been chastised for that error in judgment by the highest authorities in the Republic, Lady Mundy,” Huxford said bitterly. His cheekbones were flushed. “The yapping of a nasty little animal don’t concern me.”

  Tovera giggled. “That’s right,” she said as she opened her attaché case. “I’m not even human.”

  Adele looked at the sub-machine gun Tovera had taken out of the case. “What is that?” she said. Her voice was neutral but probably harder than usual.

  “A friend of Dasi’s, a fitter in the Power Room, took four inches off the barrel of an issue gun,” Tovera said, ejecting and then reseating the magazine tube. “At the receiver end so that he didn’t have to splice the coils. Now it fits in the case till I can replace the one I gave Hale.”

  “I see,” said Adele. Tovera had made friends within the crew of the Princess Cecile. Spacers didn’t think in philosophical terms about what constituted a human being. They stood up for their own, though, and the Sissies knew that Tovera was one of them.

  As was Tovera’s mistress.

  The car began to descend. Adele hadn’t been paying attention to the view outside. When she looked, she saw they were banking around a rectangular building set in a moat. Inside was a paved courtyard.

  “We leased a villa beyond the city proper,” Huxford said. Perhaps they were all glad to change the subject. “It was possible on such short notice because of help from Alliance officials. From General Storn, as you know.”

  They curved into the courtyard; it had a cobblestone surface. Rather than cut his throttles abruptly, the driver eased them off so that the low skids didn’t bang down.

  Huxford got out on the right side; Adele and Tovera got out also, on the left. “You’re to go in through there,” Huxford said, pointing to double doors in the south wall. “She will be waiting in the Great Hall, where you’ll enter.”

  Beside the doors was a small building, half-timbered to match the look of the courtyard interior. A doghouse, Adele assumed, though empty now. The dog must have been the size of a small horse.

  Tovera gave Huxford a hard look, then moved in front of Adele and pulled open the right-hand door-valve. She stepped through, then backed up with a look of surprise.

  Isn’t it Mistress Sand after all?

  “Come in, Mundy,” called Elisabeth Forbes. “We have things to discuss. And feel free to bring Tovera if you like, though I don’t think I’m really that fierce.”

  Adele’s meeting was with the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Cinnabar.

  * * *

  No one was in the office when Daniel opened the door. There were three desks of different sorts; several lengths of high-pressure tubing lay on top of one. Windows on two sides were open; papers had blown to the floor long enough ago that the edges were curling. There was also a used condom and a bag with the remains of someone’s lunch.

  Storn turned one of the chairs to face Daniel and sat in it. There were connections in the walls but no electronics in the building. Daniel similarly turned the chair at the adjacent desk and said, “I’m surprised to see you, sir, and I’m very glad you’re not from General Krychek.”

  “Master Krychek is pursuing other opportunities, Captain,” Storn said. His smile reminded Daniel more of Tovera’s than of any other expression he had seen. “As for agents, no one alive today would admit to being an agent of his.”

  Storn raised an eyebrow in question and said, “Would you care for a drink? I certainly would. Does one ever get use to the feeling of extraction from the Matrix?”

  “No one I’ve ever heard of did,” Daniel said with a grim smile of his own, “and that includes my Uncle Stacy who had about as much experience as any man born. As for a drink, I doubt there’s anything here—”

  He glanced around the shed; there was nothing at all, as he expected.

  “—but I suspect my man Hogg can promote something pretty quickly.”

  Storn reached under his tunic and brought out a flat silvery flask. “I’ll offer you some of mine,” he said as he unstoppered it, “if you’re not too proud—”

  He took a swig from the mouth of the flask, then held it out to Daniel.

  “—to drink from the bottle.”

  Daniel laughed, thinking of some of the things he had drunk from in the past. Including a dancing girl’s pump, though for the life of him he couldn’t remember why. He probably hadn’t known at the time either, because he’d been very drunk already.

  He sipped the liquor. It was whiskey, but it left a tingle in his mouth like that of hot pepper. He sipped more, then returned the flask.

  Storn capped it. Instead of putting the flask inside his tunic, he set it upright on the desk beside him and said, “General Krychek, as he was until very recently, had been under investigation for some months, but his decision to involve the Commonwealth of Karst shortened the process. Guarantor Porra came to suspect that Krychek planned to replace him.”

  “Did he?” said Daniel, frowning.

  Storn shrugged. “It was a possible interpretation of Krychek’s actions,” he said. “Whether or not it deserved the weight it received in the report which went to the Guarantor is a moot point now.”

  Daniel remembered Adele’s description of life at General Storn’s level. Well, it was to my advantage this time, he thought; but he was still uncomfortable at the cool brutality of Storn’s attitude.

  Daniel said in what he realized was a hard voice, “Then the war with the rebels was all waste effort? The deaths?”

  Storn’s tone was as hard as Daniel’s own. “Waste? Of course not! If Krychek had brought the Tarbell Stars into the Alliance, I’m quite sure that his position would have been reevaluated. He had many friends and a great deal of influence—until he failed in a humiliating fashion. Thanks to you, Captain.”

  He twisted and looked back through the grimy windows toward the Triomphante. It occurred to Daniel that though Storn was now an intelligence chief, he had spent ten years as political officer of combat units. He had first-hand experience of war at the sharp end.

  “When we learned that the Almirante was under way for the Tarbell Stars,” Storn said musingly, “my son—you’ve met him, I believe? Major Grozhinski?”

  “Yes, I’ve met him,” Daniel said. “Though I believe most of his contacts were with my colleague, Lady Mundy.”

  The relationship explained Storn’s choice of a go-between. Even now, however, Daniel couldn’t see a family resemblance between the spare, ascetic Storn and the beefy blond Grozhinski.

  “Mikhail believed that our only chance of success,” Storn said, “was to provide the Tarbell government with a battleship to counter the Almirante. I said that the best result of that would be for us to be executed beside Master Krychek. Besides—”

  He turned to face Daniel again.

  “—I was more optimistic than my son that the Tarbell government could survive without such obvious support from the Third Diocese. Though I couldn’t imagine how you would do it.”

  “We had good luck,” Daniel said. He remembered how his gut had twisted when he saw the Triomphante unexpectedly insert—to flee, he had assumed. “And very good personnel, not all of whom survived. Captain Joycelyn was a loss to the Fleet when he took service in the Tarbell Stars.”

  He smiled wryly. “Also we were fortunate in our opponents. If Lieutenant von der Main and her crew had been in the Almirante instead of a destroyer, I probably wouldn’t be here talking to you.”

  “You fought a battle and there were casualties,” St
orn said. “Captain Joycelyn did indeed have a fine combat record, which he lived up to above Danziger. His comparable level of success with the wives of senior officers made his decision to leave Fleet service a wise one, however. I dare say he wouldn’t have greatly regretted the way his career has ended.”

  “Your agent, Christopher Robin, was on the Triomphante’s bridge also,” Daniel said. “I doubt he would have been as happy with the way things worked out.”

  Storn smiled again. “Perhaps not,” he said, “but I don’t think I need to pretend loyalty to a man simply because he was a recipient of my aid. As it turns out, the chance of Minister Robin’s death has simplified the next stage of events.”

  “Go on, please,” said Daniel, trying to smooth the frown from his forehead.

  “Minister Robin was an able and strong-willed man,” Storn said. “President Menandros is neither of those things. Admiral Paul will shortly take the squadron to Peltry. I’m confident that the President will realize immediately that the Tarbell Stars will be better off as an Alliance protectorate than they were in their previous fractious independence.”

  Daniel said nothing for a moment. Storn’s level gaze met his with neither concern nor challenge.

  “My understanding…” Daniel said slowly, “was that under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens, neither Cinnabar nor the Alliance of Free Stars would expand its possessions. Their empires, that is.”

  Storn is telling me this. He came to me to tell me this. That means the situation can’t be what I think it is.

  But what in hell is it?

  “The matter has been the subject of discussion at high levels,” Storn said evenly. “I’m sure that you will be informed of your government’s position by the proper authorities, but since you were in the Tarbell Stars at my request I thought I should personally alert you to the situation.”

  In other words, this is above your pay grade…which is true.

  Daniel took a deep breath. He said aloud, “I appreciate your candor, General. I will await further information through my chain of command.”

  He grinned at Storn. It had taken a great deal of personal courage for the general to face him this way. Courage was a common virtue in the RCN; you could be as thick as two short planks and be promoted to admiral, but cowards were very rare. Daniel still valued a brave man more than he did a clever one.