by David Drake
Hogg carried a pair of four-ounce sinkers joined by a length of monocrystal sea-fishing line that could cut unprotected flesh like a knifeblade. It was primarily a throwing weapon, of small use in a ruck like this Daniel would've said.
A sinker on six feet of line made a hissing arc past Daniel's ear. The fellow with the brick fell screaming, his arm dangling from a broken collarbone. He'd been lucky not to have a dished-in forehead—and it was luck, because Hogg didn't pull his punches in a brawl.
Daniel's right hand caught the man trying to take the girl from him. He lowered his head and jerked the civilian's face into the point of his skull, feeling cartilage crunch. "RCN!" he called, but there were too many of them and—
"RCN!" other voices shouted. Through the mob's noise Daniel heard a series of cracking, slapping sounds accompanied by high-pitched screams. "Clear a path for the RCN!"
Two warrant officers stood in front of Daniel, the bosun with the pool cue and the woman with a thick-bottomed liqueur bottle in either hand. The green glass was bloodstained. They parted to pass Daniel and his burden between them; their four fellows were holding the flanks.
"Hogg's with me!" Daniel called as he trotted/stumbled toward the bar's entrance only a few feet away. He didn't dare look behind. Suddenly he had barely enough strength to stay on his feet.
"Here you go, sir," said the tense-looking barman standing just inside the doorway. He held out the open whiskey bottle in his left hand; in his right was a bung starter. "And will your good lady be having something tonight?"
"In a moment, perhaps," Daniel wheezed. He cleared his throat and went on, "Miss, we're all right for the moment. I believe you can let go now."
She unwrapped her legs but continued to hold onto Daniel's neck. Her body was trembling.
The warrant officers retreated to their previous position in front of the bar; Hogg was with them, Daniel was pleased to see. The mob backed away like surf curling off a beach. The girl was out of their sight, and the cost of coming in after her was obviously going to be high. There were other, less dangerous targets available.
"Hermy, phone the Shamrock and tell Woetjans her captain's here and could maybe use a hand," the bosun with the pool cue ordered the bartender. He caught Daniel's eye and added, "That's where your Sissies mostly drink, sir. Not that you're not welcome here with us Starchies, but I figured you'd as soon be with your own."
"I'm much obliged to you, bosun," Daniel said. The other warrant officers were watching sidelong while keeping one eye on the mob just in case something changed. "To all of you."
"We're sorry, Mister Leary," the woman said with a rueful grin. "We didn't see it was you, you know."
"I know," Daniel said. "And I understand."
Hogg still wore the mesh-armored right glove which permitted him to handle his weighted line without losing fingers. He'd emptied his flask and was prudently refilling it from the bottle the bartender had offered Daniel a moment before.
Daniel looked at the girl he'd saved; she eased back slightly. Well, saved from a bad time. A—he grinned to himself—worse time, anyway; she'd just about lost her tunic as it was.
"Mistress?" Daniel said. "My name's Daniel Leary, Lieutenant Leary, that is. Friends of mine should be arriving shortly. May we escort you to someplace you'll be safe?"
"I'm Marta Grimes," the girl said. She was no longer clinging to Daniel's neck, but she hadn't moved far away. She didn't seem inordinately concerned that she was wearing nothing but a gauzy bandeau above the waist. "My father's Grimes of Octagon though he's off-planet now. Our townhouse is only two blocks away, but it won't be safe. The servants couldn't . . ."
Her voice broke. She stared into Daniel's eyes, suddenly trembling again. "You saw what happened, Lieutenant Leary!"
"Indeed I did," Daniel said, putting his arm around the girl's shoulders. She squeezed herself to him as though she hoped he'd pick her up again. "May I ask if your father has liquor in the house? Quantity is more important than quality, for this purpose."
In the near distance he heard voices shouting, "Outa the way for the Princess Cecile!" The sound came from at least twenty throats, led by the rasping alto of Woetjans, the Sissie's bosun.
"Purpose?" Marta repeated in puzzlement. "But yes, Lieutenant. Dad's cellar is famous."
"Then if you don't mind expending some of it in a good cause," Daniel said, "I think we can keep you and your townhouse safe for the duration and make some of my shipmates very happy at the same time."
He looked at the warrant officers who'd rescued him. "You all are welcome too, I believe."
"Thanks, but Hermy's made us the same offer," the bosun of the battleship Aristarchus said. "I know Woetjans. You won't have no trouble."
"And what can I do to thank you, Lieutenant?" the girl said.
"For a start, you can call me—" Daniel began.
But that wasn't where the girl wanted to start, apparently, because her lips closed his before he finished the sentence.
CHAPTER 4
Xenos on Cinnabar
The line of officers signing in at the bar of the General Waiting Room was shorter than usual, even for the present wartime situation that placed a relatively high value on unassigned personnel. The riots had left Daniel in rather better shape than he'd have been otherwise, though. Instead of spending the night bar-hopping along the Strip as he'd intended, he'd wound up drinking very little after leaving his house.
Daniel still hadn't slept much, but he was used to that. Though as for his uniform, well, it was a good thing he wasn't going to be called to an interview in the personnel department. He hadn't been home to change, and the brawl hadn't helped what'd been marginal before the evening started.
The overage, overweight captain ahead of Daniel rose from the sign-in sheet with a wheeze. He took a numbered ivory chit from the supercilious civilian at the gate into the open bullpen beyond where the clerks sat. Daniel guessed the captain hadn't seen active service in a decade and must know he never would again. The General Waiting Room merely got him out of his house and into the society of other officers in the only fashion available to him.
And maybe that wasn't such a minor thing after all.
Daniel took the stylus and began to sign in. The attendant reading the sheet upside down suddenly stiffened and frowned. "Lieutenant Daniel Leary?" he said.
Daniel straightened with a flash of anger that he hoped didn't show on his face. Hogg had reattached the sleeves and mended the rip in the tunic, but a replacement saucer hat would have to wait for his return from Chatsworth Minor. Yes, Daniel was technically out of uniform, but it was no business of a civilian to tell him so.
"I am," Daniel said, his nostrils flaring.
"Don't bother taking a chit," the attendant said, reaching forward to lift the bar. "Go to desk four immediately."
"What?" Daniel said. "Why on earth?"
"Lieutenant," the attendant said with a touch of irritation, "I have absolutely no idea. The memo was waiting for me when I arrived this morning."
He glowered and added, "It's very unusual!"
"I see," said Daniel, stepping into the clerical enclosure.
He felt edgy. To a bureaucrat in the Navy Office, an unusual event meant his routine had been disrupted. That was a terrible thing—to a bureaucrat. To a spacer, however, "unusual" was likely to mean something lethally dangerous.
Clerk Four—a small plate on the desk's front corner with a stencilled number was the only identification—was a thin, middle-aged woman who looked up with a disapproving expression from the data she was entering when Daniel reached her desk. He guessed disapproval was how she viewed most things; it didn't make him special.
"I'm Lieutenant Daniel Leary," he said. Without really meaning to—because she was a civilian too—he braced himself to Parade Rest, his feet regulation distance apart and his hands crossed behind his back. "I was told you have orders for me?"
The clerk sniffed. "Directions, rather," she said. "You're to go at on
ce to the Bellerophon Club and ask for the gentleman in Room 247. One of the guards in the passage—"
She nodded minusculely toward the doorway at the back of the clerical enclosure. It led to the offices of the RCN's top bureaucrats.
"—will take you through the building to the back entrance of the Bellerophon and see to it that you're admitted."
She went back to her data entry.
"Ah," Daniel said brightly, hoping with the optimism of youth that if he paused for a moment the words would suddenly mean something.
They didn't.
The Bellerophon Club stood behind the Navy Office but faced the square on the other side. The chief figures of government, elected and appointed, were members but the club remained resolutely above party politics. Common report—which Daniel knew through his father was true in this case—said the Bellerophon gave enemies a place to bargain without the rhetoric and emotion of the Senate floor.
It wasn't anywhere a mere lieutenant was ever likely to enter. And if he were invited there, then he needed clothing more formal than Grays that looked like he'd worn them while performing maintenance in the Sissie's power room.
"Ah?" Daniel repeated, this time with a rising inflexion. "I'll just go back to my quarters and put on my Whites, eh?"
The clerk looked up again. This time her expression was positively frigid.
"I'm sure I wouldn't presume to tell a gentleman how to behave," she said with cutting dishonesty. "But my understanding has always been that an RCN officer's duty is to execute his orders, not to waste time in his quarters when he's been given clear direction."
"Ah," said Daniel. That he understood. Not why, but what; and "why" wasn't a proper question for a junior officer anyway. "Thank you, mistress. I'll see the guard in the passage immediately."
Daniel walked to the door in the back wall with his back straight, wishing very strongly that he'd worn a better uniform when he went out the night before. He felt that everybody on the benches was watching him.
They probably weren't. The only feeling he'd had about what happened in the General Waiting Room was occasional momentary envy that somebody else'd been called for an assignment interview and Daniel Leary hadn't.
The two guards in the hallway on the other side of the clerical enclosure were alert but unconcerned. They were RCN personnel wearing Shore Police armbands, not soldiers from the Land Forces of the Republic.
Daniel opened his mouth to say, "I was told that—" Before the words reached his tongue, he rephrased them to, "Clerk Four said one of you men would guide me to the back entrance of the Bellerophon Club. I'm Lieutenant Daniel Leary."
Passive voice was a sign of weakness and fear. Daniel felt weak, and he was afraid; but he'd be damned before he'd advertise the fact.
The younger guard squeezed a small data cube. An air-projected hologram—merely a blur of light from Daniel's perspective—formed above it briefly. "Yes sir," the guard said, sticking the cube away in its belt pouch. "If you'll come with me, please."
He opened a door in the opposite wall and preceded Daniel down a flight of stone steps cushioned with red plush. The stairs and the corridor beyond were dry and well-lighted, though they didn't appear to get much traffic. Daniel had passed through the door from the General Waiting Room a number of times in his RCN career but he'd never guessed the existence of this part of the building.
The guard with Daniel following made a short dog-leg to the right, then another to the left. Two more guards waited at an armored door. They brightened at the sight of company. "Hey, Binnings," one asked Daniel's guide. "This the package for the club?"
"Right," said the guide. "One of you want to take him over? Melies is supposed to be waiting for him."
"It ain't Melies at this hour," said the guard who hadn't spoken. "It's Roberto. And you bet I'll take him. It'll be the first sunshine I've seen in four hours."
Not unless the overcast unexpectedly burned away in the past few minutes, Daniel thought, but he didn't speak. He was being treated like an object—a package—not only by these flunkies but also the unguessed powers above them. He'd keep his mouth shut like a good package until he knew enough to comment intelligently.
Daniel grinned as the guards unlocked the heavy door. He wished he'd worn a better uniform when he went out last night, yes; but he didn't in the slightest regret not leaving the Grimes townhouse early enough to change clothes at home. The present mysterious business might work out very badly for him; and if so, the last hour and a half with Marta Grimes would be something to savor in bleak times.
With the guard, obviously disconcerted by Daniel's grin, leading, they stepped out into an alley. Though narrow, it was cleaner than many hotel corridors. Daniel glanced left and right as they crossed. As he by now expected, there were Shore Police at either end.
The door in the otherwise blank wall of the building opposite opened the instant the guard tapped on it. "Got your package, Roberto," he said to an elderly servant in livery of vertical black and white stripes.
"Ah," Daniel said. "I'm to see the man in Room two-four-seven."
"Of course, Lieutenant," the servant said, bowing slightly. "But he's asked that you join him instead in the roof garden. It's been reserved for your use this morning."
Daniel nodded. He didn't speak because his mouth was dry and anyway, he didn't know what he might've said. What in the name of goodness was going on?
They went up a circular staircase not unlike the companionways of a warship. You could armor a shaft against flying fragments and even decompression, but it was next to impossible to prevent the stresses of combat from twisting a tube enough to bind an elevator cage. Stairs were a better option.
Daniel had no difficulty following the servant up the four flights, but he was surprised at just how agile the old man appeared to be. Occasionally there were sounds through the doors they passed at each floor, but these were merely unidentifiable murmurs.
The servant opened one of three doors at the top of the stairs. Bowing he said, "You'll find refreshments already laid beyond, sir, so you won't be interrupted. I will wait here to escort you back when you're ready."
By a gentleman's reflex Daniel shook hands with the servant, slipping him the florin he'd palmed as he climbed. The old fellow smiled, the first human expression he'd displayed, and bowed as Daniel stepped past him. Another good memory to have if hard times followed. . . .
The roof garden was several hundred square feet in extent. Daniel had expected a view over the city—but that, he immediately realized, would've meant others might've observed those holding discussions in the garden. The walls were high, and the trees around the margin were evergreen spray-leaves from the planet of Peltin Major, a screen in any weather.
Natural history was one of Daniel's wide range of leisure delights. He wondered if the landscaper had placed pools for the climbing fish which pollinated the spray-leaves in their distant home . . . and smiled at the comforting pointlessness of the thought.
A heavy-set man in Whites sat reading from a stack of hardcopy printouts at a table in one of the garden's trefoil groves. He turned and looked up: he was Admiral Anston.
"Sit down, Leary," said the most powerful man in the RCN, a highly successful admiral who'd retired rich to become possibly the best President of the Navy Board of all time. He waved to the serving table laid with a truly remarkable range of bottles, some of them new to Daniel. "Have a drink if you need one."
Without waiting for Daniel to respond, Anston lurched to his feet and lifted a tawny bottle. "Damned if I don't need one myself." He poured three inches, then pointed to the glass. "Rye good enough for you? There's likely mixers somewhere."
"Straight's fine with me," Daniel said, taking the glass and waiting while the admiral poured a similar slug for himself. Straight was fine under the circumstances; battery acid would've been fine if that's what Admiral Anston was offering. But normally, at least this early in the morning, Daniel would've added water.
Ans
ton raised his glass, muttered, "Cheers," in the tone of a man responding to a funeral eulogy, and took a healthy gulp. "Sit down, boy. Dammit, sit down!"
Daniel obeyed, taking a careful drink lest he be snarled at for not doing that too. Anston was angry, and while Daniel couldn't imagine that the admiral was angry at him, he was the closest available target.
Anston sat down also, glowering at the papers before him. "This is ninety percent bullshit, you know, Leary?" he said, thumping the stack. "Ninety-nine percent! Most of what I do all day is bullshit."
"Sir," Daniel said, nodding. He didn't know what he was supposed to say or do. This was much worse than being reamed out for the condition of his uniform; that he could've understood.
"And this next part is bullshit also, but I'm going to do it regardless," Anston said, his voice suddenly firm. "The Republic owes you a good deal, boy. You know that and I know that. Every bloody soul in the RCN knows that."
"Sir," Daniel repeated. He was holding a full glass of whiskey and he had no desire whatever to take a drink. Bloody hell!
"But we don't always get what we're owed," Anston said. "You know that too?"
"Yes sir," said Daniel, his voice calm and his mind suddenly calmer as well. "I know that very well." He paused, considering, then finished his thought aloud: "And often enough, sir, we get more than we really deserve. I have, at any rate."
"Huh!" Anston said, smiling and tossing off half the remainder of his whiskey. "Well, you won't say that this time, I'm bound."
He eyed Daniel across the table's patterned marble surface. "You're a good officer, Leary," he said. "A good officer and a lucky one, which can be even better. Your uncle taught me things about astrogation that the Academy never dreamed of, and he taught you more—your record shows that."