‘First flap of the wings,’ he said, which Kate understood. She too had found her wings in the Fourth, after an extraordinarily unnatural and controlled childhood in a Gifted Child institute and the even more alienated experience of being a ten year old at university.
‘That’s great,’ she smiled at Andrei, but he was not at all anxious to discuss or even to think about the fact that he was away from his retinue for the first time in his entire life.
‘What is going on here?’ he asked, as triple-cracks sounded over their heads.
‘They’re making me a work station.’ Pride and delight shone in Kate. They could not have done anything more perfect for her if they’d scoured the galaxy for ideas. There was nowhere she loved more than to be in engineering, and the fact that they were going to the trouble of constructing a high-platform station for her where she could work undisturbed amidst the heaven of engine noise was just… well, it went beyond words. She had said thank you eighteen times before Buzz had finally managed to stop her. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she asked. ‘My own eyrie!’
Andrei did not look any more impressed. Gazing up, he could see that the ‘eyrie’ was just a couple of metres square, with just enough room for a workstation desk and a chair.
Andrei looked back at Kate.
‘You know that I would give you anything you want, right?’ He said. ‘Your own ship, unlimited funding, you name it.’
Kate giggled, though she knew he was serious.
‘I do know that, sir, yes,’ she said, with a little roguish twinkle. ‘Davie already offered.’
‘But…’ Andrei was struggling to comprehend. ‘You prefer this?’
Kate looked back at him, wondering if there was any way to explain to him how she felt, and why, in any way that he would understand. Probably not, she realised, but she would have to give it a go.
‘I like the structure,’ she said. ‘Being part of something that’s like a living machine, and at the same time, the camaraderie – and I want to be an engineer, hands on, making things work, not just a theoretician. Serving with the Fleet and working with the Second, that’s everything I want to do and everything I want to be. It is me, my niche, my perfect niche.’
‘Well,’ said Andrei, clearly not understanding this at all but recognising that she was at least clear about what she wanted in her own mind, ‘when you change your mind, you need only let me know.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Kate looked brightly at him. ‘I was just about to make some tea, if you would like some.’
‘Uh–oh.’ Davie intervened quickly. Being served engine-room tea in a battered tin mug would convince Papa once and for all that the world beyond his retinue was far too insane and horrible to venture out into again. ‘Another time, maybe,’ he told Kate, and put his arm back through his father’s. ‘I’ll take you back to the party.’
‘I want Katie to come too,’ said Andrei, and held out his other arm, elbow crooked invitingly. Kate, evidently, was going to become one of the highly privileged few who were allowed to make physical contact.
Kate looked at the skipper, and getting a smile of permission from him, gave a little chuckle and stepped up, tucking her arm through Andrei’s so that she and Davie were walking either side of him. And that way, with Alex bringing up the rear, Andrei made it back to the interdeck, beaming with pride at his solo adventure.
He was back, too, the following day – astoundingly, without the preliminary bow-wave of preparations and with no retinue at all beyond the handful who remained aboard the shuttle.
It was mid-morning, and Alex was holding the conn, or at least supervising the junior officer who was really holding it. Buzz was on shoreleave and the other seniors were either groundside too or busy elsewhere about the ship, so Alex had taken the watch while he was working on admin anyway. Andrei’s arrival looked as if it would be a major spanner in the works, but it soon became apparent that he intended only to sit on the command deck with Davie for a while.
Alex raised no objection. If there was any security clearance higher than that of nine ack alpha, Andrei Delaney would have it. He owned the shipyards which had built this ship, too, and some of the most advanced R&D facilities in the League, so it would have been nonsensical to refuse him access on any grounds of classified tech.
‘There doesn’t seem to be a great deal going on,’ Andrei said, sitting next to Davie at the command table, but speaking to Alex.
‘No, just port routines,’ Alex agreed. ‘We’ve already done the maintenance work which gets done while we’re sublight, taken on supplies and replenished our tanks, so this is as quiet as it gets.’
‘But you’re taking the watch?’ Andrei asked, as if unable to square the fact that there was nothing going on with the fact that the captain was holding the watch personally. Clearly, he knew enough about Fleet protocol to recognise that the captain only normally held the watch at times of emergency.
‘Not as such,’ Alex said, and would have smiled if he’d felt comfortable enough with Andrei Delaney to break through formal manners with him. As it was, his manner remained cool and his face expressionless. ‘Mr Porter is holding the watch,’ he indicated the Sub who at that point was attempting to make himself look busy. ‘I’m just catching up on paperwork.’
Andrei looked in some awe at the sight of a man who did his own paperwork, and looked back at Davie with a rather too obvious wonder. He might just as well have said aloud, this place is just weird.
‘Is this ‘how it rolls’?’ he queried, obviously quoting.
‘Sometimes,’ said Davie, straight faced. ‘Other times there are more explosions.’ He grinned at his father’s slight shudder. ‘All very quiet today, though,’ he assured him.
‘I cannot for the life of me understand what you see in it,’ said Andrei, and looked at Alex, the words what you see in him unspoken but apparent. Alex was mindful of that sensitivity. He had not missed the significance of Andrei’s comments – you’re a big influence on my son and you’re his best friend, so he tells me. The potential for resentment was there, Andrei jealous of anyone he saw as usurping any part of his own role. The idea of rivalry between them over Davie, though, was preposterous. Alex was Davie’s friend. Andrei was his father. No contest.
‘Novelty, perhaps,’ said Alex, looking at Davie, who chuckled.
‘Fair shot,’ he conceded. ‘I am a dilettante, stick around for the fun stuff and clear off when it’s boring.’
‘Well, we value your input when you are with us, Mr North,’ Alex said.
‘Thanks, Boss.’ Davie grinned appreciatively and his father did something of a double-take.
‘I thought you were supposed to be friends…’ he said.
‘We are.’ Davie and Alex spoke together, and Davie laughed. ‘I told you,’ he addressed his father, ‘It’s a thing, he won’t call me Davie and I call him anything but Alex. It’s just a game. And yes, I know…’ he saw the dubious way his father was looking at the set-faced captain, ‘he looks about as much fun as a lump of rock right now, but that’s only because you’re here. You make him uncomfortable.’
Andrei gave a gratified little chortle. ‘I’ve noticed.’ He said, and looked at Alex. ‘You’re friends with my son,’ he observed, ‘but you won’t be with me. Is it the Corporate Emperor thing? Surely not!’
Alex looked steadily at him. He had managed – just about – to come to terms with the fact that Davie was involved in corporate affairs, but that was mostly because he’d come to understand the depth of Davie’s commitment to clean and ethical business practice. His father, however, did not subscribe to the clean and green programme. His father, indeed, owned some of the corporations which Alex had spoken against, publicly, at an official enquiry into the practice of senior Fleet officers being given highly paid consultancies. The eventual decision to ban such corporate consultancies had not been made because of what Alex had said – it had been part of a paradigm shift within the Fleet which far more senior officers than him had spoke
n more compellingly about. But it was Alex’s words which had flashed around the Fleet, the utterly tactless, searing declaration that he considered corporate consultancies to be tantamount to corruption.
He stood by that, even now. There was a clear and evident conflict of interest when flag rank officers with influence over decisions about such things as ship building contracts had highly paid consultancies with luxurious fringe benefits provided by the ship building companies.
‘Oh, I see,’ Andrei grinned suddenly. ‘It’s the corporate corruption thing, isn’t it?’ He shook his head, not giving Alex time to answer. ‘You got that all wrong, you know. Crashingly naive, of course. Why in heaven’s name would I even need to corrupt Fleet officials to give me ship building contracts when my relatives and I own all the shipyards anyway? And when I take a heavy loss, every time, on warship contracts – wouldn’t dream of profiting from providing defence for the League, that’s a basic obligation for me as it has been for all of my ancestors. But we have always valued the input of senior Fleet people in guiding us as to what’s required and beneficial. Otherwise, we’ve found, there is a tendency to just keep building bigger and bigger ships, which turn out to be not as good as more agile, smaller ones. We can’t design in a vacuum and serving people are far more in touch with what’s needed than people who retired twenty years ago, too, hence the consultancies. Which had, I should point out, been going on happily for centuries before Dix Harangay went on his ‘moral’ crusade. But that’s fine…’ he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, ‘if the Fleet doesn’t want consultancies any more, fine, no problem, it was only a boost to the working relationship – and due reward, too, for officers I consider to be grossly underpaid for the responsibilities they carry. But there it is, it’s been stopped, fine, no problem. Just don’t, please, look at me as if you think I am some evil mastermind with a secret plan to take over the galaxy.’
‘I apologise,’ said Alex. ‘I meant no offence.’
‘Yes you did, and you do,’ said Andrei, shrewdly, and gave him a puzzled look. ‘What is your issue with me and mine, Alex?’
‘I wouldn’t presume,’ said Alex, ‘to express my private opinions on matters which are none of my professional concern.’
‘Ouch,’ Andrei said. ‘Snubbed!’ He seemed more amused than offended. ‘Come on!’ he coaxed, half teasing. ‘This is your chance, Alex – perhaps the only chance you’ll ever get to speak up on issues which clearly matter to you. So let’s agree that this is time out…’ he made a T shape with his hands. ‘Just you and me having a chat, two guys nattering, speak freely, no offence given or taken. And I really want to know, okay? Is it the Founding Families in principle that you object to, or me, in particular?’
‘I don’t ‘object’ to you, sir,’ Alex said. ‘I respect what you do for the League, and what you and your ancestors have done throughout our history.’
‘But…?’ Andrei pressed, and when Alex didn’t answer, ‘Come on. What is it that you take issue with?’
Alex hesitated, but seeing Davie’s nodding encouragement to speak up, too, he seized the moment and did so.
‘The secrecy,’ he said.
‘What secrecy?’ Andrei seemed genuinely bewildered.
‘The fact,’ Alex said, ‘that hardly anyone knows who you are, or how much of our infrastructure and vital industries you actually own.’
‘Huh?’ Andrei stared at him. ‘What has that got to do with anything? The people who have a right to know who we are and what we own do know. We don’t keep secrets from the authorities; presidents and people always know who we are, and we make no secret of our existence, everyone knows that the Founding Families are still around, that we protect our privacy, but that we’re still here. As for people knowing what we own, are your financial affairs a matter of public broadcast, Alex?’
‘Well, no,’ Alex admitted, feeling obscurely that that was different, somehow, though he’d have been hard put to it to justify why. ‘But I am accountable for financial probity even in my private life, I would have to disclose any financial matters which might lead to professional conflict of interest and my affairs are subject to review by Internal Affairs if any allegations of impropriety are made. Since you have asked me to speak frankly, it seems to me – uninformed and naïve as my view may be – that the Founding Families operate to their own agenda, and with such tremendous wealth and power at your disposal, that does lead me to wonder… who are you accountable to, sir?’
‘To history,’ Andrei said, at once, and with conviction. ‘To my ancestors, and to my descendants. To the Constitution, which is a sacred trust. And to the peoples of the League, who deserve nothing less, ever, than the best that I and mine can do for them. But if you are suggesting that I should be ‘accountable’ in some way to public opinion over what I own and the decisions I make in the service of the League, I will just ask you this, Alex my dear, how much notice do you take of public opinion when you are carrying out your missions?’
‘Oh.’ Alex said, quite at a loss.
‘It is important, in this,’ Andrei told him, kindly, ‘to draw a distinction between the peoples of the League, those people I spend my life trying to keep safe and in a sound, thriving economy and for whom you would no doubt lay down your life, and the actual people who live on our planets, who are mostly idiots. Come on,’ he grinned, as Alex would have made an automatic protest. ‘You know it. Groundhogs are grubs, they’ll believe any rubbish they see on the holly and they have no more sense of the big picture than plankton does of the ocean. Just look at what happened to you. You stood up for a guy who was the victim of a miscarriage of justice and fought through to get the opportunity to give people a second chance on your ship and what happened? Mobs, rioting outside the Admiralty! Half the people out there now think you’re running a black ops unit using prisoners as cannon fodder and the other half think you’re swimming in champagne, just about everyone thinks you’re a psycho and you have been accused of just about everything from torturing lizards to firing people out of airlocks. And will they listen when they’re told the truth, no matter how often or by whom? Go on, please,’ he gave a wolverine grin, ‘Tell me, convince me, of the intelligence, sound judgement and common sense of those people. Look me in the eye and tell me that you believe, hand on heart, that those people would have an informed, balanced, useful opinion on the management of intersystem corporations.’
An expression appeared on Alex’s face – it was just a wry look, but it was a crack in the stone-faced detachment, and Andrei did not miss it.
‘I wish I could,’ Alex admitted. ‘But…’ he struggled, and found the words. ‘Even though their ideas about me, about the Fourth, are so wrong, mistaken, I respect their right to have those beliefs, and if that’s based on what they’ve been told in the media, whose fault is that when the media is the only source of information they have? And I can’t even blame the media, either, really, because they only reported what they had good reason to believe at the time, very good reason to believe, not just because of the imbecile antics of Sub-lt Hollis, but because they were told by a high ranking source inside the admiralty that the allegations being made about what we were doing were true. So you can’t blame the media for running with that story, and if you have any understanding at all of the dynamics of a media storm then you have to accept that once media and public opinion is united in the belief that you are a liar and up to no good, nothing that you can say, nothing, will convince them that they are wrong. So if they’re mistaken, they’re mistaken because they have been misinformed, and however harassing it may be at times having to deal with all that, I do respect their right to protest against what they believe we are doing, and frankly I would not want to live in a society which wasn’t concerned about psycho lizard-torturing killers being in command of warships. You are right in one sense, of course, we don’t plan or carry out our missions with any regard to public opinion. But then, we get our mission orders from the elected authorities – I don’t
just go off doing whatever I think is best for the League on my own recognisance.’
‘Well, neither do I!’ Andrei was quite hurt at that. ‘I am no loose cannon, Alex! I have my mission orders too, you know – absolute, incontrovertible, as binding on me as any orders are on you. They start We, the people and you can read them in the original in that nice little building next to the Senate. And don’t talk to me about elected authority. If anything is necessary to prove my point about the mindless plankton of the actual people on our planets, you need look no further than the self-serving gimboids they elect. President Tyborne, the ultimate representative of the public’s choice of leadership, has just crashed and burned more than a century of painstaking diplomatic effort with the Solarans and sent them fleeing from our space in terror. There are times when I find the principle of non-interference with elected government deeply frustrating – don’t you just wish you could kick that moron’s backside so hard he’d go into orbit? But I console myself, as I have before and no doubt will again, that the idiots come and the idiots go, and the real business of the League – defending and developing our worlds – goes on regardless. Ah hah.’ He exclaimed, suddenly, seeing that Alex’s eyes had got noticeably brighter, a gleam of moisture in them, and a tiny giveaway tautness in the corner of his jaw. ‘You’re laughing…’
Alex cracked, giving way to a chuckle, though bringing it rapidly under control. He was still enjoying the wonderful mental image of booting Marc Tyborne into orbit.
‘No comment,’ he said, and then, for the command deck cameras, ‘I have the utmost respect for the offices of elected authority.’
‘Hah!’ Andrei saw at once that what Alex was saying was that he had respect for the office, not necessarily for the people who occupied them. Alex’s attention, though, was being claimed by a young man who’d come up to the command deck and was hovering with a noteboard in his hand.
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