The Far Side of The Stars

by David Drake

  "Yes," Adele said. Her smile was as cold as the winter moon. "Commander Adrian Purvis. My closest living relative as a result of his having successfully fled."

  "In fact the Aristoxenos is part of the problem," Sand explained, rising and walking over to the tantalus. "But you see, the Commonwealth of God has its own internal divisions, rather worse than those which beset the Republic sixteen years ago. O'Quinn made his first planetfall on Todos Santos in the Ten Star Cluster where Governor Sakama had already been pursuing a policy independent of the government on Radiance."

  Without turning, Sand held to the light a glass of liquor the color of sun-struck brass. "With a modern battleship and an RCN crew to support him," she continued, "Sakama took an even stronger line. The Aristoxenos practically annihilated a Commonwealth fleet six months later, guaranteeing that the central government would be content with lip service from the Cluster."

  "I see," said Adele. She poured more water, but she didn't feel the need to drink it. Having a real question to deal with had jerked her mind out of the blood-drenched groove it'd been running in ever since she shot the gunman this afternoon.

  She'd had no choice. He'd attacked and she'd defended herself. She'd had every legal and moral right to shoot the man. . . .

  But only sociopaths like Tovera killed without regret, because they had no consciences and no souls. That wasn't Adele Mundy. Not yet.

  "Warships degrade without maintenance," she said aloud, meeting Sand's eyes as she turned. "Ships do and crews do as well. Has the Cluster been able to maintain the Aristoxenos? Because if not, I doubt it's an effective fighting unit by this time."

  " 'Effective' is a relative concept, Mundy," Mistress Sand said. "Given the sort of small, indifferently-crewed ships that make up the Commonwealth naval forces, yes—the Aristoxenos is still effective, at least as a deterrent. And the drubbing she doled out to the central government fleet created a legend that fifteen years doesn't erase."

  Adele turned up her left palm. "Go on," she said quietly. The quickest way to learn what Sand wanted from her was to sit and listen.

  "The Ten Star Cluster lies on the shortest routes from Cinnabar to the Galactic North," Sand continued. "The Republic had more serious concerns at the time than the defection of one battleship—"

  Adele nodded curtly. The Alliance had massed naval forces to threaten several Cinnabar dependencies. Had the conspirators successfully gained power in Xenos, Alliance squadrons would almost certainly have swept in to support them. The actual fighting didn't go beyond isolated single-ship actions, but there'd been no certainty of that before the fact. Speaker Leary hadn't been about to order the RCN to send to the back of beyond a powerful force which might be needed to defend Cinnabar itself.

  "—and later, capturing or destroying the Aristoxenos at the cost of permanent hostility from whoever ruled the Ten Star Cluster looked like a very poor bargain. Besides—after tempers had cooled, there was very little stomach for executing a thousand or so mutineers."

  Adele thought of the pair of soldiers cutting off the head of her little sister Agatha, who'd managed to avoid capture for several weeks before she was caught. The act had shocked the consciences even of those who'd ordered the Proscriptions.

  "Yes," she said without emotion. "I can imagine that would be a problem. A practical politician might decide to live and let live."

  Sand seated herself again across from Adele. She sipped from her crystalline drink tumbler, but her movements appeared to have been less a matter of thirst than an excuse to turn her back while she spoke difficult truths.

  "The situation was—is—satisfactory from Cinnabar's point of view," Sand said. She shrugged. "Politics is the art of the possible, after all. It remains a serious thorn in the flesh of the authorities in Radiance, however. Quite apart from the insult, tribute from the Ten Star Cluster had provided a third of the central government's revenues. After the Aristoxenos arrived, that of course ended. And now . . ."

  She drank, her eyes holding Adele's over the glittering crystal arc. She set the tumbler down and continued, "I have reports that Alliance personnel are building a modern naval base on Gehenna, the only satellite of Radiance. If the Commonwealth government were to reconquer the Ten Star Cluster with Alliance support, the ramifications for the Republic would be very serious."

  "I can see that," Adele said carefully. "What I don't see . . ."

  As she chose her words, she let her eyes rove slowly over the ranks of glass-fronted bookshelves. She couldn't read the spine stampings from where she sat, but it was obvious that this was a real collection rather than yea-many books by the yard that one often found in households whose noble residents chose to affect erudition instead of sporting prowess or a taste for the graphic arts.

  A space captain with a real affection for literature had ample time and opportunity to pursue his hobby. Carnolets was apparently one of those captains. Adele felt a surge of warmth toward a man—or woman; she had no way of knowing—whom she'd never met.

  " . . . is why you sent for me," she continued, locking her gaze with the spymaster's. "If there's a naval base on Gehenna, then it's a matter for the whole RCN. Not for me."

  "The Senate doesn't want a war," Sand said bluntly. "And the shipping firms, from the largest to captain-owned tramps, really don't want a resumption of hostilities. The Cinnabar ambassador to the Commonwealth, Train of Lakeside, believes the base on Gehenna is still years from completion. If he's correct, then there's no need for precipitate action on our part."

  Sand drank. Lowering the tumbler she went on, "I can't prove Train is wrong, but I will say that if that good gentleman said the sun would rise in the east I'd want a second opinion. I want you to determine the actual progress on the base."

  Information cascaded across Adele's holographic display under the direction of her control wands. Gehenna was fully a third the diameter of its primary, Radiance, but it was uninhabited, cold at the core, and lacking a significant atmosphere. A great deal of water was trapped within the mantle, though, offering reaction mass for the plasma thrusters that lifted starships into hard vacuum where they could use their antimatter High Drive motors.

  Gehenna would make a very suitable naval base for someone who was willing to trade a degree of discomfort for nearly complete secrecy.

  "Are you going to send a ship to the Radiance system?" Adele said. She'd almost said, "—send the Princess Cecile?" but that would never happen again.

  She continued to scroll through data. The best way to learn what you needed to know was simply to study what had been published, correlating the bits in your mind and noting the anomalies. When things didn't fit it meant that somebody was lying, and the mere fact of the lie would often show you the truth behind it.

  "The Commonwealth embargoed Radiance to foreign naval vessels three years ago," Sand said, her tone bleak with suppressed anger. "Ambassador Train was quite angry about it, because he'd been intriguing to have his private yacht declared an RCN warship so that its crew and maintenance would come out of the naval appropriation. It didn't cross his mind to report the matter through official channels, however."

  "How, then?" Adele said, looking up from her display for the first time in minutes. Had some Commonwealth magnate expressed a desire for a trained librarian?

  "Count Klimov and his wife Valentina from Novy Sverdlovsk plan a private expedition to the Galactic North," Sand said. "They're quite real—they have no connection with either me or Cinnabar more generally. But they're buying the Princess Cecile and have hired Lieutenant Mon as her captain. I want you to go with them as signals officer."

  "Ah," Adele said. She shut down her data unit and crossed her hands on the table. Her eyes were unfocused; her mind spun as she dealt with the implications of the spymaster's simple statement. A plum job like that made it obvious why Mon had been so excited when he came looking for Daniel . . . but that was the only part of the business which was obvious.

  "You of course know Lieutenant Mon," S
and said quietly, setting down the empty tumbler. "Are your relations with him good?"

  "Yes, certainly," Adele said with a flash of irritation. "He has my confidence, of course. But. . . ."

  She rose to her feet and slid the data unit away in its pocket. "Mistress Sand," she said. "I understand the importance of the matter to, to the Republic. But I don't wish to give you an answer immediately, because if I must my answer will be no."

  Sand nodded calmly. "I appreciate your concerns, mistress," she said. "I'll expect your answer when you're able to provide it."

  Adele turned to the door as the servant silently opened it. She wondered how long it would take to get a tram out here to Portsmouth. . . .

  "Mundy?" the spymaster asked. Adele turned. "Would your decision become easier if the Klimovs hired Lieutenant Leary instead of Mon as their captain?"

  Adele smiled, though only someone who knew her well would recognize the humor in the expression. "Yes," she said, "it would. But the likelihood of Daniel maneuvering a fellow officer out of a position he desperately needs is something less than the chance that Daniel will decide to join a celibate religious order."

  She was still grinning as the servant led her to the front door where Lieutenant Wilsing waited for her.

  CHAPTER 5

  The tram ran only to the gate of Harbor One. Three drunks sprawled against the side of the kiosk. One of them straightened as Daniel dismounted and called, "Begging your pardon, lieutenant, but could you spare an old spacer the price of a drink? I was gunner's mate aboard the Burke oncet, till I lost me arm at Xerxes Two."

  Only one strip light in the kiosk's interior still worked; the speaker was in shadow, his voice so rusty that Daniel was scarcely willing to swear he was male. He was missing his left arm, true enough, though that could've been the result of a drunken accident as probably as an incident of Admiral Cawdrey's great victory over the Alliance a generation ago.

  "Yes, of course, my man," Daniel said, fumbling in his purse for a one-florin coin. He found a five instead—and tossed it to the fellow. "Can you perhaps tell me where the Princess Cecile is berthed? She arrived from—"

  "Slip Seventeen, that's the third on the right as you go in the gate," said another of the drunks. His voice was muffled because he'd pulled his woven cap down over his face. "Arrived oh-eight-one-seven hours this morning from the Strymon system, scheduled for immediate disposal."

  "Ah?" said Daniel. "Indeed, thank you sir."

  He reached for another coin. The first drunk raised the five-florin piece in his only hand and said, "Bless you, lieutenant, but this is as much as we can drink in a night. Any more'd only be stolen, and our throats slit besides like enough. God speed your course, sir."

  The guard at the gate was chatting with several civilians; he merely threw a casual salute to the lieutenant's badge on the saucer hat Daniel wore tonight with his 2nd Class uniform. Daniel walked into the enclosure.

  Harbor One was historic in the sense that it had launched the ships by which Cinnabar returned to the stars after the thousand-year Hiatus which ended Mankind's first ventures into the wider universe. For several centuries the harbor had remained the main starport of the expanding Republic, but it'd continued to be used after it lost importance. By now the site was a nautical jumble shop from which every piece of its evocative past had been razed to make room for something newer—or simply something else. Uncle Stacey had remembered when a rank of pre-Hiatus brick barracks stood on the eastern edge of the compound, but woven-wire cages of salvaged High Drive motors were there now.

  Ships, generally several to a slip, filled the basin. For the most part they were berthed too close together for one to lift off without damaging others; they'd have to be towed into the center of the pool for that. Many of them weren't in condition to lift, of course. The vessels in Harbor One sometimes had a past, but there was no future for them, at least in the RCN.

  The Princess Cecile stood out like a jewel on a mudbank. Other ships made do with a single area light at bow or stern, but the corvette's auxiliary power unit was still live. Not only were her running lights on, open ports flooded the slip with illumination from her cabins. The harbor water winked, and the indirect glow cast a memory of romance over the scarred concrete quay.

  Music sounded from a bow compartment—"Ize the bye that builds the boat and Ize the bye that sails her. . . ." It was a song from the East Capes, the region where the Leary estates lay. A trio of male voices were singing to the accompaniment of a flute.

  Daniel hadn't expected more than a minimal anchor watch—and those spacers very likely drunk, as their fellows were drunk in the taverns nearest the harbor, spending the advances crimps had provided at steep discounts against the pay parade in the morning. Instead at least a dozen crewmen in their glittering, beribboned shore-going uniforms sat or stood in the entrance hold, talking quietly.

  A catwalk led from the quay to the main hatch. Daniel walked toward it. Woetjans—the big bosun was unmistakable; her leave cap sported a ribbon for every port she'd called in during thirty years in the RCN—saw him approaching and straightened. She keyed the rubidium-plated control stub hanging from her neck on a chain, her badge of office, and the corvette's public address system piped Captain coming aboard. The singing forward stopped and everyone in the entrance hatch came to attention.

  Daniel felt a shiver of delight at the bosun's call. He didn't expect he'd ever lose that feeling, even if they were carrying him on a litter to die aboard the ship he commanded.

  "Stand easy!" he said as his boots thumped the narrow, quivering catwalk. He walked as straight as a rigger, never looking down. The RCN trained its midshipmen to do every job the common crewmen did. Officers who couldn't walk the yards while the sails billowed to the thrust of Casimir radiation, or replace a scale-clogged thruster feed while a vessel was under weigh, didn't deserve to command spacers who could.

  He smiled at the group as he stepped onto the Princess Cecile's nickel-steel C Deck. The armored companionway up to B and A Decks was to the right, forward; the down tube to the Power Room and bulk storage was on the left. Even floating in harbor the ship felt shiveringly alive. There was nothing quite like being aboard a starship; and for a spacer like Daniel Leary, there was nothing better.

  "I'm not the captain, you know, men," Daniel said. "I thought I'd come aboard the old girl once more as a private citizen."

  "Right," said Woetjans. "You're not captain and I'm not a rigger. In your ear!"

  Sun, the gunner's mate—acting gunner on a corvette, which didn't rate a senior warrant in that slot—held out a squat, long-necked bottle; in place of a label, a medallion was cast into the dark ruby glass. "Here you go, sir," he said. "Ah . . . ? It's all right. Barnes and Dasi have the duty and they're sober."

  "It'd be all right regardless, Sun," Daniel said. "Tonight."

  They were all sober or the next thing to it, though some had probably put down more liquor than a landsman who intended to walk away would've done. Vesey, one of the pair of midshipmen from the Strymon cruise, was among them; initially Daniel'd missed her slight form between Barnes and Dasi, who'd returned to Cinnabar with Daniel aboard a requisitioned Stryomonian cutter. Those riggers—and several other crewmen in the immediate group—had come to the Princess Cecile tonight for the same reason Daniel had: to say goodbye.

  Daniel swigged from the bottle. It was excellent brandy, though he couldn't identify it closer than that. He offered it to Sun, but the gunner's mate said, "I've had mine, sir," and gestured toward the four machinists who'd appeared down the forward corridor. One had stuck a short flute into a pocket of her coveralls. Daniel gave her the brandy instead.

  "Midshipman Dorst will be back shortly, sir," Vesey said. She was trim and blond, scarcely half the size of her male shipmate; and lover, though Daniel didn't carry his duty of standing in loco parentis to his midshipmen to the extent of involving himself in that sort of private business. "He went to see his mother as soon as we docked, is all."
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  Vesey had showed herself an able astrogator, not just by computation but with at least a touch of the feel for the Matrix that had made Stacey Bergen and to a considerable degree his nephew Daniel legends in the RCN. Dorst wasn't either as smart or as clever as Vesey, but he was as solid as bedrock; that too was a virtue the RCN prized in her officers.

  "So, Woetjans . . . ," Daniel said, trying not to be completely obvious. "Lieutenant Mon said you had your share of trouble on the voyage back from Strymon?"

  The bosun made a sour face. "I've had worse, I guess, sir," she muttered, refusing to meet Daniel's eyes.

  "Well, if you have," said Sun forcefully, "then you've been harder places than I have, thank the Almighty." He turned to Daniel and went on, "Sir, you wrung the Hell out of us when you ran us to Sexburga in seventeen days straight in the Matrix, I swear you did, and we had less trouble with the ship than I'd expect in dockyard. Mon brought us back and, well, I'm bloody glad to have solid ground under my feet. Bloody glad."

  "Amen to that," muttered Chief Engineer Pasternak, who'd just come up from the Power Room. A third of the Sissie's crew must be aboard her tonight, a remarkable percentage for a ship returned to her home port for the first time after a long cruise. The entrance hold was becoming crowded, but there was no larger compartment aboard the corvette until the stores were off-loaded.

  "Tush!" said Daniel. "I don't regret pushing her the way I did, but you all know as well as I do that half the trouble you had on the return voyage was because of the strain I laid on her outbound."

  The machinist who'd just emptied the brandy bottle snorted. Perhaps the liquor had gotten up his nose.

  "Mon said you had passengers, too," Daniel went on. "What were they like?"

  The spacers looked at one another. After a moment Vesey said, "Well, the Klimovs aren't bad, sir. For foreigners, you know. Quite open-handed folk, the both of them."