The Far Side of The Stars

by David Drake

  "Is he?" said Anston, grinning grimly at Daniel—one spacer talking to another. "Well, I wouldn't know about that, boy; I leave those questions to the priests. I do know that I used the route Lieutenant Bergen charted through the Straw Pile to reach the fullerene convoy from the Webster Stars before it met its Alliance escort. The profits paid the RCN's budget for a year and didn't do me personally so badly either, eh, Maggie?"

  He beamed at his wife, as near a double to him as their different sexes would allow. Her pants suit was covered with lace and ruffles—but all of them black, so from any distance she was merely a pudgy older woman instead of the clown she'd have looked in contrasting colors. "Josh, don't call me Maggie in public!" she said in a furious whisper.

  Anston clapped her on the buttock. Lady Anston affected not to notice, but the admiral's aide—a lieutenant commander of aristocratic bearing—winced in social agony.

  "What was Semmes saying to you?" the admiral demanded in a lowered voice. "He came calling at my office—for courtesy, he said. I was out and I'll damned well be out any other time he comes by!"

  "Nothing that matters, your lordship," Daniel said. Behind him, Hogg grunted agreement with the admiral's comments. "He met Uncle Stacey on Alicia, when the Alliance expedition under Lorenz arrived just after the government had signed a treaty of friendship with the Republic."

  "I guess he wouldn't forget that," Anston said with an approving guffaw. "They had no idea we were operating within ten days Transit of there—and we wouldn't have been except for your uncle's nose for a route where nobody else could see one."

  "Josh, we're holding up the line," Lady Anston said, glaring at Daniel as though he and her husband were co-conspirators in a plot to embarrass her.

  "Well, Commander Bergen isn't complaining, is he?" the admiral said in a testy voice. Then to Daniel he continued, "Listen, Lieutenant. The Senate doesn't want a war with the Alliance so it pretends there won't be one. I don't want a war either, but I know sure as the sun rises that war's coming. Coming whenever Guarantor Porra decides it's in his interest, and that won't be long. You needn't worry about being put on half pay—you're the sort of young officer the RCN needs even in peacetime. And when it's war, you'll have a command that'll raise you up or use you up, depending on the sort of grit you show. On my oath!"

  The admiral passed on into the church, guided to the front by one of the corps of ushers provided by Willams and Son. The rhythms of his wife's harangue were intelligible even though the words themselves were not.

  "A navy warrant officer," said the undertaker's prompter. Then, testily, "She should have been directed to the gallery via the back stairs!"

  "Hello, Adele," Daniel said, gripping Mundy's right hand with his and clasping his left over it. "By God, I'm glad you could see this! They've turned out for Uncle Stacey, by God they have! He'd be so proud to see this!"

  Adele nodded with her usual neutral expression. Tovera, as pale as something poisonous from under a rock, stood just behind and to the side of her mistress. Daniel had a fleeting vision of the scene when an undertaker's functionary tried to shunt Adele to the gallery as a person of no account; he grinned broadly.

  "Daniel," Adele said, "Lieutenant Mon's back with the Princess Cecile and seems in a desperate rush to see you. He'll be here for the service as soon as he changes into his dress uniform."

  "Ah?" Daniel said, letting his left hand drop to his side. He met Adele's gaze calmly. She didn't show emotion as a general rule, but they were good enough friends that he could see when the emotion was present regardless. "I'll be glad to see him, of course—but what's wrong?"

  Adele cleared her throat. "He says the Sissie is to be sold as excess to RCN requirements," she said. "I gather it will happen very soon. In a matter of days."

  "Ah," Daniel said, nodding his understanding. "They must have a buyer, then. I regret the matter, though of course I understand the advantages to the Republic."

  "Of course," Adele agreed. "I'll see you after the service, then. Back at the house, I suppose?"

  Daniel nodded, though he wasn't really listening. All he could think of for the moment was the light of the firmament blazing about him as he stood on the deck of his first command—the RCS Princess Cecile.

  "Come along, mistress," Hogg said. "I'll sit you down in front."

  "I hardly think—" said the chief usher, a severe figure imbued with a mincing, sexless aura of disapproval.

  "That's right, boyo," Hogg snapped, "you hardly do. Put a sock in it while I take the master's friend down t' the best seat in the house!"

  Hogg and Mundy disappeared into the nave of the chapel; the chief usher fulminated at an underling.

  "Good morning, Captain Churchill," Daniel said to the next in line, an old man wobbling in the grip of a worried younger relative. Churchill had been a midshipman with Uncle Stacey.

  The fabric of the universe distorting around the gleaming prow of the Princess Cecile, under the command of Lieutenant Daniel Leary. . . .

  CHAPTER 2

  Between wheezes for breath, the undertaker snarled at the troupe of actors wearing death masks of Stacey Bergen's famous ancestors in the rear yard of the chapel. Adele considered taking out her data unit to determine whether the large, elderly man—tall but definitely overweight besides—was Master Williams proper or the Son. The urge was wholly irrational so she suppressed it, but it would've taken her mind off the past and the future; and off death, at least for the moment, which is what it seemed to Adele that the past and future always came down to.

  She smiled. She knew other people viewed life differently, though she'd always suspected that they hadn't analyzed the subject as rigorously as she had.

  The undertaker had finally sorted the actors to his satisfaction. The clowns in the initial group started off down the boulevard singing, "Stacey came from the land where they understand . . ."

  The females wore caricatures of RCN uniforms and the males were in grotesque drag. Mind, some of the prostitutes Adele had seen plying their trade successfully outside Harbor Three were scarcely less unattractive. The RCN had high standards in many respects, but she'd come to the conclusion it was any port in a storm when it came to sexual relief after a long voyage.

  " . . . what it means to fornicate!" sang the clowns to the music of the flutes some of their members played.

  The actor playing Commander Bergen was next in the procession, walking ahead of the discreetly motorized bier which a member of the undertaker's staff guided. Torchbearers, statuesque women in flowing garments, flanked him.

  Adele had listened without comment to the discussions Daniel and the widow held as to what age the actor was to portray his uncle. They'd finally decided on the man in his prime forty years ago when he'd just returned from the first of his long exploring voyages in the Beacon. The actor wore mottled gray fatigues with senior lieutenant's pips on his collar; he walked with a slight limp, miming the result of a fall on a heavy-gravity planet and the spinal injuries which eventually left Stacey confined to a wheelchair.

  "Where even the dead sleep two in a bed . . . ," sang the clowns. The masked "ancestors" followed them out of the courtyard in pairs, moving at a stately walk while the clowns capered and mugged for the spectators lining both sides of the street to the crematorium. A funeral of this size was not only entertainment for the poor, it was news for all Xenos.

  The Bergens were an old but not particularly distinguished house; Stacey, who had retired from the RCN as a commander, was typical of his family. Today his lineage had been improved by leading military and political figures of the past. The families involved would never have lent the death masks without pressure that could only have come from Corder Leary.

  Adele'd never met Daniel's father and hoped never to meet him; that would save her the decision as to whether or not to shoot the man responsible for her parents' death. But no one had ever accused Speaker Leary of doing things halfway.

  " . . . and the babies masturbate!" sang the clo
wns.

  "Mistress Mundy?" murmured a voice in her ear; one of the undertaker's functionaries. "Come, please. The living family is next."

  Adele followed the little man through the crowd gathered inside the courtyard gate. He was polite as befit anyone dealing with people of the rank of those waiting, but he squeezed a passage for her with the authority of a much bigger fellow indeed.

  "You and Mistress Leary will follow Lieutenant Leary with the widow," the fellow said, depositing Adele, frowning in doubt, beside Deirdre Leary. Daniel's elder sister wore a tailored black suit of natural fabrics. The rosette on her beret was cream-and-rose, the Bergen colors.

  "Ah, Deirdre," Adele said. "Yes, of course you'd be here."

  Deirdre Leary had requested when she met Adele that they deal with one another by first names. Referring to their relationship as informal would've been stretching the word beyond its proper meaning, though. Adele respected the other woman, but she felt the two of them had as little in common as they did with the chlorine-breathing race of Charax IV. She presumed that Deirdre reciprocated her feelings.

  Adele was irritated with herself for not having expected Daniel's sister to be at the funeral. Speaker Leary's two children were, after all, the deceased's closest relatives by blood. And for that matter, Adele had almost nothing in common with Daniel either—on paper.

  The last of the actors passed through the gate. The undertaker spoke to Daniel, making shooing motions with rather less ceremony than Adele thought was due the man who was paying for this affair. Supporting the widow, a countrywoman who'd cooked and kept house for the retired commander and who had never said a word in Adele's hearing, Daniel stepped into the street.

  Adele's eyes narrowed. How much was this costing, anyway? She had a scholar's disregard for money, but Daniel's attitude was more that of a drunken spacer . . . which of course he was, often enough. Lieutenant Leary'd been a lucky commander, but even the captain's share of prize money didn't overwhelm the needs of a 23-year-old officer who demonstrated the same enthusiasm for living as he did for taking his command into the heart of the enemy's fire.

  The undertaker turned to Adele and her companion. His mouth, open to snap a brusque order, closed abruptly. He bowed low to Deirdre.

  Adele started forward, matching her pace to Daniel and the widow. It struck her for the first time that the bill—or at least the whole bill, knowing both that Daniel was stiff-necked and that he had very little conception of what things really cost—might not be going to the nephew after all. She looked at Deirdre but said nothing; there was really nothing to say, after all.

  The crowd in the street had a carnival atmosphere quite beyond the traditional life-affirming bawdy of the clowns in the lead. Adele heard spectators identifying members of the procession, herself included, to their children and companions. She couldn't imagine how they were able to do that until she heard a hawker in the near distance call, "Get your programs! Every famous personage, living or departed, listed here with their biographies!"

  Deirdre glanced over with a dry smile. "Surprised?" she asked.

  "Gratified, rather," Adele said. "I don't think there's anything that could have made Daniel happier. Since he got his first command, at any rate. You arranged it, I presume?"

  "I was acting on instructions," said Deirdre. "My principal will be pleased that you think matters are going well."

  Deirdre's principal would be her father—and Daniel's.

  The three-block avenue from the Stanislas Chapel to the crematorium was through public land which had been a floodplain before the Market River was first channelized, then covered. On a normal day there'd have been people doing outdoor gymnastics and running on the tracks around both halves of the property. A maze of kiosks on the north side catered to shoppers of all varieties. The booths were dismantled every dusk, leaving commercial activities to prostitutes of both sexes. Since Harbor Three lay just the other side of the perimeter fence, trade in the hours of darkness was also brisk.

  This morning everybody in sight had come to watch the funeral procession. She smiled wryly. Turning to Deirdre she said, talking over the crowd noise, "Commander Bergen actually deserves this pomp for having opened so many trade routes for the Republic . . . but his actions aren't the reason this is happening, are they?"

  Deirdre shrugged. She was dark-haired and reasonably attractive in business clothing. If she'd put the effort into her looks that most women seemed to, she could look stunning. Adele doubted that Daniel's sister felt any need to bother. Money and power would bring her any men she wanted, and the likelihood was that Deirdre shared with her brother a complete disinterest in what the partner of a night chose to do the next morning.

  Adele couldn't object. She herself wasn't interested in a partner at all.

  "It depends what you mean by 'his actions,' " Deirdre said, meeting Adele's eyes with a level gaze. "The fact that he was a good friend and teacher to Corder Leary's son certainly has something to do with it."

  "Yes, I see," Adele said, nodding crisply.

  "But since we're on the subject of business . . . ," Deirdre said. "Do you know what my brother intends to do as heir to Commander Bergen's share of the shipyard? The Republic's present state of peace with her neighbors will limit the opportunities open to a young naval officer, I should think?"

  Adele faced front, her expression cold. Her first reaction was shocked amazement; then the humor of it struck her and she chuckled aloud. They had been talking business, as Deirdre viewed the world, after all.

  Everything could be refined down to business if you looked at it the right way. The cost of the most elaborate funeral in a decade was on one side of the ledger; Adele didn't know, couldn't guess, what Deirdre put in the other pan of the balance, but she knew there had to be something.

  "I haven't discussed the future with Daniel," she said, wondering if the other woman would find her smile insulting. It wasn't meant to be; not entirely, at least. "He's been quite busy with funeral preparations, of course. Based on what he's said to me in the past, I don't imagine that he's interested in becoming a Cinnabar businessman, however."

  In all truth, Adele couldn't imagine her friend as anything except an RCN officer. Perhaps she was unduly influenced by the fact she'd only known Daniel for a year in which naval duties had absorbed him . . . but the uniform fit him perfectly. If anyone could be said to belong to the Republic of Cinnabar Navy in war or peace, it was Lieutenant Daniel Leary.

  Her smile quirked wryly. Perhaps the same was true of Adele Mundy, who'd found a family which respected her talents and which was willing to use her just as hard as it used her friend Daniel.

  "A shipyard can't simply be left to the workmen to run," Deirdre said. Her voice was thinner than it had been a moment before. Nobody likes to have her nose rubbed in the fact that someone else sees no value in what she holds dear; for all that Deirdre must have known before she raised the subject that Adele had no more interest in business than Daniel did. "Unless there's a suitable manager in place very shortly, the silent partner will demand that Bergen and Associates be sold up. I can understand my brother having other priorities—"

  She probably couldn't understand, any more than Daniel could have understood Deirdre's preoccupation with wealth and political power; but it was the polite thing to say.

  "—but he's trustee for Uncle Stacey's widow during her life. That will surely affect his decision?"

  The crematorium was a low, cast-concrete building, modeled on a pre-Hiatus temple; there were Corinthian pilasters across the front. The actor dressed as the deceased took his place to one side of the square bronze door flanked by the torch bearers, while the attendant locked the bier against the opening.

  The coffin was closed; the last six months had ravaged Stacey beyond what his nephew was willing to display to the world. A touch of a button would roll it through the door into the gas flames.

  The clowns had split to either side of the crematorium and waited behind it, still wearing
their costumes but talking among themselves in low voices. Their parts were played, but their dressing rooms were trailers behind the chapel, inaccessible until the crowd dispersed.

  The troupe of ancestors seated themselves on the triple semicircle of folding chairs, each with a pole holding a card with the name of the character the actor represented. An usher guided Daniel and the widowed Mistress Bergen to their place on the left behind the actors; another usher gestured Adele and Deirdre to the right.

  Adele looked across the lines of age-blackened death masks to Daniel Leary, who beamed with pride and the joy of life. Beside and behind her, ushers were arraying the other mourners—admirals and cabinet ministers and merchant princes.

  She looked at her companion. "Deirdre," she said, "your brother will fulfill his duties to the widow in the fashion that seems best to him. I can't guess what that will be; I'm not Daniel. But—"

  She felt herself stiffen to even greater rigidity than usual, and her voice honed itself to a sharp edge.

  "—I would be very surprised if it crossed his mind that he should take up the partnership that his father used to degrade Uncle Stacey. And if Daniel did consider that, I would be merely one of his many friends to tell him that the notion was absurd. Am I sufficiently clear?"

  Music, an instrumental version of a martial hymn, boomed from speakers beneath the front corners of the crematorium. The coffin began to rumble forward.

  "Perfectly clear," Deirdre said. "I'll report your thoughts to my principal."

  The bronze door sprang upward and shut behind the coffin; an instant later, Adele felt the throb of the concealed gas flames. Deirdre leaned closer to continue in Adele's ear, "For what it's worth . . . Speaker Leary doesn't respect very many people. I believe that he'll be more pleased than not that his son is one of those few."

  * * *

  Attendants had opened side gates so that spectators could disperse through the park as well as going up the avenue to the chapel the way they'd come. Daniel took off his saucer hat and mopped his face and brow with a handkerchief. He could barely see for sweat and the emotions that'd been surging through him during the morning.