The Road of Danger

by David Drake

  There was another babble of cheers and laughter. Daniel smiled until it cleared, then said, “Until we meet again, fellow spacers!”

  As the crew cheered, Adele leaned closer to Daniel and lifted onto her toes to speak into his ear. “May I address them?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said with a raised eyebrow. He turned toward the pickup again and raised his hands. “Fellow spacers!” he cried.

  The audience quieted; at first slowly, but then with a rush to near silence.

  “Her Ladyship wishes to address you,” Daniel said, sweeping his right hand toward Adele. He was grinning, probably at his pun on her civilian rank and the persona she had adopted for this mission.

  Adele fixed her eyes on the pickup. She was used to communicating through electronics; used to the process and comfortable with it.

  “Fellow spacers,” she said. She would never be an orator. Her father had been a brilliant speaker, a man whose verbal skills had carried him high in the Republic . . . though ultimately to the top of Speaker’s Rock.

  “Captain — Six, that is, Six — is depending on us,” she continued, picking the words carefully. She could not afford to be mistaken. She knew that people often heard tone, not words; but they had to hear, to believe, her words; for Daniel’s sake and for their own. “He has put Captain Vesey in command of the ship, because he has implicit confidence that she is the best suited to support him.”

  Adele coughed into her hand. She knew that Vesey wouldn’t like what she was about to hear, but Adele was going to say it anyway.

  “Now,” she said aloud, “I know that everyone in a crisis would do anything Six ordered without hesitating. But some of you might think, “That can’t be right,” when Captain Vesey tells you to jump. Don’t let that happen, on your lives.”

  Daniel was watching her, his face unusually quiet. There was no disapproval in his expression; just a sort of alert calm.

  “If members of this crew endanger the life of Six — ”

  Adele nodded toward Daniel.

  “ — by hesitation or inattention to orders,” Adele said, “they will answer to me. It will be a very short meeting, and their last. On my oath as a Mundy.”

  There was silence in the compartment for a moment; a literally breathless hush, because the spacers seemed afraid to breathe. Suddenly Dasi shouted, “Count on us, ma’am!”

  To Adele’s utter amazement, Sissies started cheering. All of them were cheering! What was there to cheer about? She had just warned them that she would kill anybody who failed Daniel — and they knew she meant it.

  Daniel touched her arm, then bent close. “They had been told that Vesey speaks for me,” he said. “Now they really know it, more clearly than they would from anything I could say.”

  Adele grimaced. She didn’t understand human beings, probably because she wasn’t one herself. Even when she got it right — as she appeared to have done this time — she did so for the wrong reasons.

  “Ma’am?” said someone. She looked up. Dasi had stretched out his hand, but he’d stopped short of touching her sleeve.

  Before Adele could snap harshly because of her discomfort at the situation, she saw that the rigger’s other hand pointed out toward the quay where a black utility vehicle had just pulled up. Tovera was driving.

  Adele glanced at her outfit. She had intended to change into something gray or blue, but this dull russet would do.

  “Daniel,” she said, “I have business which doesn’t concern the ship.”

  Without waiting for a response, she walked down the boarding ramp and across the gangplank without a slip or a wobble. She was in a different mindset now.

  She walked around the van and got in the passenger side. It was a ground vehicle whose small wheels were mounted on four trucks. From the singing of the motor, it was a diesel. As soon as she got in, Tovera made a hard turn and started off.

  “This looks very much like the van we saw,” Adele said, comparing the present vehicle with the imagery of the one which delivered the street children.

  “Yes,” said Tovera. “I thought that was the best choice. The former owners don’t need it anymore.”

  Adele nodded. She looked over her seat into the rear compartment. A ten-year-old boy lay on the bare floor. Tovera had cinched him to both sides of the vehicle with elastic cords so that he wouldn’t bounce around too badly, but he wasn’t bound. She must have drugged him.

  “I believe we have everything we need,” Tovera said.

  “Yes,” said Adele. She didn’t bother to tap her tunic pocket. She could feel the familiar weight of her pistol without checking.

  * * * *

  Daniel heard the aircar dawdling down the Harborfront. It was fifty feet in the air, high enough that the downdraft wouldn’t do damage. The throb of the fans would be unpleasant to anybody beneath it, though.

  The hatches on the Princess Cecile’s bridge were open for ventilation. Now that Cory had been promoted to first lieutenant and gone aft to the BDC, Daniel was using the astrogation console as a passenger and supernumerary. He got up from it and looked out the port hatch.

  “Suppose it’s the mistress coming back?” said Hogg, voicing the unstated hope that had brought Daniel to his feet. “Do you know where she was going?”

  “No idea at all, Hogg,” Daniel said with an appearance of calm. Hogg had been drinking off and on all day. The alcohol had apparently affected him enough that he hadn’t noticed Adele’s expression when she strode off the ship.

  Daniel had seen his friend’s face change when she saw Tovera driving the van which had just pulled up. He didn’t question Adele about her business anyway, but nobody who’d seen her eyes at that moment would have chosen to speak to her.

  The aircar cut the corner over the adjacent slip and slanted down as it drove along the quay toward the Princess Cecile. The vehicle had a windscreen but not a roof. The driver was a middle-aged woman in a business suit, a stranger to Daniel, but her passenger was Kiki Lindstrom.

  “Come along, Hogg,” Daniel said, scooping up the barracks bag which held the personal effects of Kirby Pensett. “It isn’t Adele, but it seems to be our business somehow.”

  He started toward the companionway. The only others on the bridge were Sun and a rigger named Wesley who was striking for gunner’s mate; they were practicing deflection shots on the gunnery console.

  “You hook “em for us, sir!” Wesley called. “And you can count on us to set the gaff!”

  “The lad was raised a fisherman,” Hogg explained over the echo of their boots on the companionway treads. “On the east coast, where it’s nothing like the seas we get off Bantry; but he’s got promise, I do believe.”

  Daniel reached the entry hold as Lindstrom started across the catwalk. He dropped his bag on the deck — it was little beyond toiletries and a spare set of utilities — and said over his shoulder, “Watch the gear, Hogg. And come when I call you.”

  The guard had changed since he’d addressed the crew; Barnes, Dasi’s partner, was in charge now. He bobbed his head as Daniel went past, an acknowledgment somewhere between a salute — which spacers didn’t attempt on shipboard — and a tenant’s bow to the squire.

  Daniel grinned as he started down the ramp, waving Lindstrom back toward the quay. Nobody was going to touch his bag, but he didn’t want Hogg with him while he learned what the shipowner wanted.

  The trouble with Petrov had keyed up Hogg and had also supported his jaundiced view of the operation. Nothing he added to the coming discussion would be helpful.

  Lindstrom frowned for a moment, but her face cleared and she stepped back onto the concrete to wait. Daniel judged the period of the catwalk’s wobble — three pontoons supported the surface; the structure was safe enough, but it certainly wasn’t stable — and hopped to the quay as it rose.

  “I hadn’t expected you to come for us, mistress,” Daniel said with an engaging smile. “Though I suppose we’re ready to go, if that’s what this is.”

>   “Not “with me,”” Lindstrom said, “and not your man — ”

  She nodded toward Hogg, standing in the hatchway with his hands in his pockets.

  “ — this time either. There’s a man wants to talk to you, one of our backers. He sent the car and driver to take you to him. And bring you back.”

  “I see,” said Daniel, who was sure only that he didn’t see. His tone was mild. “Who is this man, precisely?”

  “Look,” Lindstrom said in frustration. “It doesn’t matter who he is. We just do what he says. You were Cinnabar Navy, right?”

  “Yes,” said Daniel.

  “Then he’s a friend of yours, that’s all you need to know,” she said. “That’s all I know. I don’t know his name and it doesn’t matter. His money’s good and he supplies stuff we get top dollar for.”

  Daniel considered the situation. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go, but Hogg will accompany me.”

  He gestured. “There’s enough room in the car.”

  “No,” Lindstrom said, irritation showing in her voice and scowl. “He said you were to go alone. I told you that.”

  “Yes,” said Daniel. “And I’m telling you that anonymous strangers don’t get to set the terms for a meeting which they want and I see no need for. I think that’s simple enough.”

  “Are you afraid?” Lindstrom said. “Is that it? You need that yokel to hold your hand?”

  “Master Petrov used the term “hobby’ to describe Hogg,” Daniel said, grinning in the direction of his servant. “That turned out to be an unfortunate choice of words.”

  His humor dropped away. “I’ll be clear. I am your astrogator and shipmate, mistress. I am not your flunky, and I am certainly not a dancing monkey to entertain your unnamed friend.”

  The shipowner snorted, then let her expression soften. “I’ll make a call,” she said.

  She walked back to the aircar and got in. After a few words with the driver, she unclipped the handset of the communicator and touched a preset. She spoke into it, paused, then closed the connection and returned to Daniel.

  “Have it your way, Pensett,” she said. She looked tired and a little disgusted. “And you might as well take your traps along. Watchly says she’ll take you both to the ship when you’ve had your talk.”

  Daniel looked at the driver, presumably named Watchly, and nodded. “All right,” he said.

  He waved toward the Sissie’s hatch. “Bring our bags, Hogg,” he called. “We’re travelling in style.”

  He watched the shipowner trudging down the quay toward the Savoy. He wondered why she didn’t want a ride back with them. Maybe despite her protestations she wasn’t really sure what kind of a meeting was planned.

  And maybe she did know. . . .

  CHAPTER 12

  Ashetown on Madison

  The aircar had curved well out to sea, so Daniel had nothing but time and estimated speed to judge their location by. That was sufficient for him to guess that when they cut the shoreline again, they were about ten miles east of the harbor and therefore well beyond the settled fringes of Ashetown.

  Hogg could probably estimate a good deal closer than that, though it didn’t matter: satellite tracking from the Sissie would give precise course data. Adele wasn’t aboard, but Cazelet and Cory were following events in real time.

  Daniel bent over the seat back and said, “Are you a native of Madison, Watchly?”

  The driver glanced toward him, then back to her course. “Master Pensett,” she said uncomfortably, “the Chief will tell you anything he wants you to know. I have nothing to say.”

  Daniel leaned back on the cushions, smiling cheerfully. Adele would probably have known where Watchly had gone to grammar school, but even he could be confident that the driver’s accent meant she was from one of the Alliance homeworlds.

  She was no ordinary driver, either, though she did drive well. Watchly had the look and mannerisms of a senior aide; with near certainty, she was her “Chief’s” personal assistant.

  She brought the car around and dropped toward the yard of a disused farm. They had overflown a right-of-way which a dual-track railroad shared with a highway for self-powered vehicles; that was about a mile behind them now, providing another — unnecessary — data point.

  The car landed on the high grass behind a rambling farmhouse. Watchly shut off her fans. The aircar was out of sight from the main road as well as from the driveway leading to the house; Daniel had noticed as they approached that the gate was closed and chained.

  “I’m to take you in, then leave you alone with the Chief,” Watchly said. She glanced meaningfully at Hogg.

  Hogg raised an eyebrow toward Daniel. Daniel grinned and said, “I’ll scream for help if anyone attempts my virtue, Hogg. Until then, perhaps you could interest the fellows there in the shed — ”

  He gestured toward the small outbuilding some twenty feet beyond where the aircar was parked. The door was ajar; there had been movement inside as the car came in to land.

  “ — in a game of poker, do you think? You’ll be more comfortable here on the back porch, though, I think.”

  They both looked at Watchly; she flushed. “That’s Martensen, the caretaker,” she said uncomfortably. “I can call him out, if you like. We just — the Chief wants to see you privately.”

  “And so he shall,” Daniel said cheerfully. He gestured toward the back door. “I suspect I can find my own way, mistress,” he said. “But if you prefer to introduce me . . . ?”

  “I’ll take you through,” she said, stepping onto the porch and opening the door. The hallway beyond was dark. She gestured Daniel inside — that was safe enough with Hogg waiting behind her with his hand on a pistol — and followed; a glowstrip lighted as soon as the door closed.

  She walked past Daniel again and tapped on the interior door. “Yes,” a muffled voice called.

  She opened the door and gestured to Daniel. “The Chief is waiting for you, Lieutenant Pensett,” she said.

  Though dim, the ceiling glowstrip was adequate to show all the details of the room beyond. That was in part because there was little to show. A figure faced the door from behind a desk; a distortion screen turned him and the holographic display he was watching into a grayed-out blur. There was no other furniture.

  Daniel wouldn’t have been sure even that the Chief was male had it not been for the bass voice in which he said, “How long ago did you graduate from the Academy, Lieutenant Pensett?”

  “Five years,” Daniel said. Pensett had been his classmate, though the physical resemblance between them was limited to height and gender. That should be enough out here in the Macotta Region. “I was on active duty until the Treaty of Amiens, so I’ve kept my skills up.”

  He hesitated, then added, “I assure you that my astrogation abilities are well beyond anything to be expected in the merchant service.”

  “Do you have any particular memories of your Senior Cruise on the Swiftsure?” the concealed figure asked. He seemed to have ignored Daniel’s answer to the previous question.

  “I bloody well do,” Daniel said. “Cinnabar orbit after we lifted off was the closest I’ve come to getting killed on duty, and that was too close. A cable snapped as we were raising the rig. One end came near as near to taking my head off my shoulders!”

  The incident was true, though Cadet Pensett had been in the bow section and therefore not in danger. Cadet Leary, on the other hand —

  “How did that happen?” the Chief said. He continued to sound bored.

  “Ventral K Antenna had been cross-rigged,” Daniel said, his mind going back to a very vivid memory. “It was the crew ahead of ours — we’d just reached orbit, so this was the first time we had the rig up. As the antenna extended, one of the lines tried to tighten instead of running out. A battleship’s hydraulics have a lot of thrust, and even beryllium monocrystal has a tension limit.”

  He shrugged. “I saw strands popping on the cable and ducked just in time,” he said. “Colley
— no, Colling his name was, Colling — he was looking the other way. The cable whipped like you wouldn’t believe. It cut him in two at the waist, rigging suit and all. I don’t think they ever did find where the leg half went.”

  Daniel licked his lips; they were suddenly dry. “There was blood all over,” he said. “I thought the right sideplate of my helmet was cracked because I couldn’t see out of it. It was Colling’s blood. That cable had slung it everywhere.”

  With a continued lack of emotion, the voice said, “Who was your classmate Cadet Halevy dating, then?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Hell if I know,” he said. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t know her well enough to care.”

  He paused and added, “She was bright, I give her that. But that’s all I’ll give her. She had trouble with her PT scores. I had the feeling that if she wasn’t so bloody bright, she’d have left at the end of the first year.”

  The figure across the desk shrank his display to look directly at Daniel. Until then it had been a rectangular sheen within the otherwise featureless blur of the distortion field.

  “Look,” Daniel said, letting his disquiet at the situation enter his voice; he hoped his tone would read as bored irritation. “Are you going to get to the point? Because if you want to hear about my dear old schooldays, you can wait for my memoirs while I do something useful.”

  “I assure you that this is useful, Lieutenant,” the voice said. “I had to determine that you were not an imposter before I opened the matter to you.”

  The portentous tone struck Daniel as false, but it might well have been no more false than that of any other man pretending to himself that the fate of the nation was in his hands. There were no few of those, which Daniel had learned as a child in the house of Speaker Leary.

  Corder Leary himself spoke with the unemotional precision of an architect describing a housing block. Nothing in his voice ever suggested that there was more than casual importance to the order he was giving, though it might mean the immediate murder of some thousands of men and women . . . along with a number of children, inevitably gathered up in haste and error.