Some Golden Harbor

by David Drake

  Hogg had paused to pay the driver with a handful of local scrip—and when had he found time to gather that? He scrambled onto the ramp a moment later, glaring at Daniel's spray-sodden Whites. "Bugger-all use they'll be till I get 'em cleaned!" he grumbled.

  "It may be some while before I need them again, Hogg," Daniel said. "The quality people of Bennaria don't seem to have warmed to my charms."

  "The Lieutenant's on the bridge, sir," said Plastin as he retrieved the sub-machine gun that Fairfax, his partner on guard, had been holding while Plastin helped Daniel aboard.

  "And Mistress Mundy's in the BDC, sir," Fairfax added. "By herself."

  "I thought Tovera was with her," Plastin said, frowning.

  Fairfax gave his partner a broad grin. "Like I said," he replied.

  "I'm glad she's aboard," said Daniel, striding toward the companionway. It was a pleasure to hear the familiar echoes of his boot soles on the steel deck plates. "Thank you both."

  "I've seen better-quality people working the Harbor Three Strip," said Hogg in a low voice. "I've seen better quality people lying in the gutter on the Harbor Three Strip!"

  Daniel didn't respond except perhaps to smile a little broader; but then, he was generally smiling. He more or less agreed with Hogg. Any Cinnabar citizen would.

  A brief frown touched his forehead. Well, almost any; Master Luff was a disturbing exception.

  Vesey was coming out of the bridge to meet Daniel as he stepped from the companionway into the A Level corridor. "Good evening, sir," she said. "Mistress Mundy was hoping you'd drop in on her in the Battle Direction Center when you came aboard."

  "That's where I'm headed, Vesey," Daniel said. "You've had no excitement, I trust?"

  Vesey'd been alone on the bridge, running a simulation at the command console. Daniel couldn't make out the details at this distance, but his mind made an intuitive leap at the sight of a few blue specks maneuvering among the large number of orange ones.

  "There haven't been any angry calls from the groundside authorities," said Vesey with a perfunctory smile. "Ah—I gave the starboard watch liberty, as we'd discussed, but I let both Blantyre and Cory go tonight. I hope that's all right?"

  "I'd have done the same," Daniel said as he turned toward the BDC at the other end of the corridor. Over his shoulder he added, "And regardless, Captain, it's your decision."

  Tovera cycled open the heavy hatch as Daniel approached; the BDC was armored, like the bridge and Power Room. She gave him a smile that made him think—as usual when he was around Tovera—of snakes, then said, "Come have a drink with me, Hogg. They won't need us for a little while."

  Daniel glanced at his servant. "Yes, of course," he said. He didn't know what Tovera wanted to discuss with Hogg, and he did know that asking wouldn't gain him anything. "For that matter—I intend to go out later myself, but there's no reason you need to accompany me."

  Hogg sniffed. "No reason the sun needs to rise in the morning either, young master," he said. "But I guess it will."

  To Tovera he added as the hatch closed, "I've got a pint of what they call whiskey on Blennerhasset. Leastwise we can make room for something better, eh?"

  The consoles of the BDC were arranged petal-fashion around the center of the compartment, with five jumpseats along each side wall. Adele, alone in the room, didn't turn when Daniel entered behind her.

  "I've been busy," she said as her wands flickered; she'd slaved the console to her little data unit as she generally did. She was so familiar with its controls that she gained minusculely by the circumlocution. "I assume you want to know about Admiral Wrenn?"

  "Yes-s-s . . .," said Daniel carefully, patting his head by reflex to be sure that he wasn't after all wearing a commo helmet that would've transmitted the business aboard the destroyer back to Adele here in the Princess Cecile. He wasn't—of course.

  He settled onto the console to the left of Adele's. Text spilled across the display, broken up with images of Wrenn at various stages of his life. Mostly he was dressed in one or another comic-opera Bennarian uniform, but in one he appeared in the unpiped gray of a probationary RCN midshipman.

  Understanding dawned, filling Daniel with relief. "I turned the Sibyl's console on!" he said. "You used that to see what was going on aboard her. And then you gathered the rest of this because you knew I'd want to know what had gotten into Wrenn."

  "You would, and I did also," said Adele, cocking her head just slightly sideways and offering Daniel a smile. Well, a smile for Adele; a slight tick of the lips for anybody else. "And I suspect the answer is that Wrenn was sent to the RCN Academy at Xenos as a foreign student but was dismissed after the first year. He doesn't seem to have showed up for classes. The Wrenns are a Counciliar House, of course."

  She frowned. "I'm a little surprised that he wasn't simply waved on through," she said. "Since he wouldn't be entering the RCN, after all."

  Daniel shrugged. "If he'd been from somewhere more important," he said, "Kostroma or the Danziger Stars, say, I suspect that's what would've happened. Bennaria doesn't matter enough for External Affairs or Navy House either one to worry about offending the local nobility."

  He laughed. "I suppose I ought to regret that choice," he said, "but I don't. I don't care that some dimwit from Bennaria gets angry any more than the Academy Provosts did."

  "I was puzzled by the timing of Wrenn's appearance on the Sibyl," Adele said, cascading additional text across Daniel's display. He glanced at it but kept his attention on his friend instead; she'd give him the information he needed in an organized and compact fashion, a much better plan than him trying to sort the raw data himself. "Since it didn't seem random. I found—"

  More text in the corner of Daniel's eye; he continued to watch Adele and to smile as she worked, completely absorbed with her task.

  "—that as soon as Councilor Fahey had returned to his town house, he called Admiral Wrenn and informed him you were inspecting the ships and installations at the Squadron Pool. You see from the transcript—"

  "Summarize it, please," Daniel said mildly.

  Adele looked up, caught his smile, and managed one of her own. "Yes, of course," she said. "While the Councilor doesn't refer directly to the fact Wrenn flunked out of the Academy, he's obviously wording his comments in a way to remind Wrenn of the fact. 'These Academy-trained Cinnabar officers think the sun shines out of their asses' was one of his lines. It strikes me as an effective job of goading Wrenn into actions that he'll reasonably regret."

  She frowned and added, "I don't see why Fahey's opposing us, though."

  "He's not," said Daniel. "He resents Waddell's power, so he's using my visit to embarrass him. Fahey doesn't gain anything, but he irritates his rival. And he doesn't think his involvement'll be traced back to him."

  Daniel shrugged. He smiled, but he felt suddenly tired.

  "It's the sort of thing my father'd do," he said. "Except that my father would probably have done it better."

  "I have enough to regret about my own actions," said Adele coolly, "that I'm not going to become depressed over the behavior of foreigners whom I neither know well nor care for. And as it chances, my trip back to the ship wasn't as uneventful as I'd expected either. I've met Yuli Corius. He arranged to meet me, rather."

  "Did he indeed?" said Daniel, his expression sharpening. "And what was that in aid of?"

  "He told me he intends to defeat the Pellegrinian invasion of Dunbar's World," Adele said. "By himself, if necessary; but he'd like us to work with him."

  "By himself?" Daniel repeated. "Can he do that, do you think? From the way Waddell was talking. . ."

  He let his voice trail off. Adele had been at the same meeting; he didn't have to repeat what was said there. Besides, anything Councilor Waddell said had to be taken with a grain of salt.

  "I'm still working on that," Adele said. "Corius has rented four large transports, which implies he's serious about moving a significant number of troops somewhere. They're at his estate eighty mil
es up the River Noir from Charlestown."

  More data appeared on Daniel's display; this time he did look at it. The ships were the Greybudd, IMG40, Todarov, and Zephyr; 3,000-ton freighters of the type standard in Ganpat's Reach.

  His hope had been wrong: they weren't warships and couldn't be converted to warships. Two of the transports mounted single 10-cm plasma cannon; the other pair had pods of unguided eight-inch rockets, the sort of light armament that pirates used to cripple their prey. By no stretch of the imagination could they tackle a cruiser, even a cruiser crewed by Pellegrinians.

  "On a short run," said Daniel. He was thinking out loud as much as he was informing his companion. "You could pack three thousand people aboard them. A run from here to Dunbar's World, that is. But soldiers—not nearly so many, not if they've got any kit at all. And even three thousand troops won't throw Arruns off Dunbar's World. Corius's going the wrong way about it if that's really what he plans. He ought to be looking for warships."

  He pursed his lips. "Do you believe him?" he asked.

  "I don't disbelieve him," Adele said. "He's a clever man and clearly a bold one." She smiled faintly. "Rash, in fact. He nearly got himself killed this afternoon, and I can easily imagine him miscalculating other risks just as badly."

  She paused. "I don't disbelieve him, Daniel," she said. "But I certainly don't trust him."

  Daniel laughed and got up from the console. "Based on what I know thus far," he said, "I see no way to accomplish our mission. That doesn't mean I'm giving up."

  Adele sniffed. "I didn't imagine you were," she said dryly.

  "No, of course," said Daniel in mild embarrassment. "Sorry."

  He'd been talking for effect rather than talking to Adele. He didn't need to convince her of anything, and she wasn't the sort to be swayed by words alone anyway.

  "We need more information," he said. "We'll get it—here, I think, though I'll go to Dunbar's World if we've explored all the avenues here."

  "Corius may be the answer," Adele said. "There's his assembly tomorrow."

  "Right," agreed Daniel. "And tonight I'm going out to see what I can learn around the harbor. Spacers may tell me what the Councilors wouldn't."

  He grinned and added, "Besides, it's been a long voyage. I'm looking forward to having a drink on the ground."

  Adele nodded. "I'm going out myself," she said. "I'd like to get a neutral opinion about the situation here on Bennaria before we pick a side—whether Waddell or Corius."

  Daniel felt his lips purse; he knew Adele was a spy, but that wasn't a business he felt comfortable around. "Well, I trust your judgment, of course," he said, and turned toward the hatch.

  "Oh, not one of Mistress Sand's people, Daniel," she replied with a hint of amusement. "His name's Krychek, and I have an introduction to him from an old family friend. His ship's berthed at the other end of this island. From the way he responded when I called him this evening, he'll be very glad to talk to someone whom he considers civilized. The members of the Council of Bennaria and their associates don't qualify as civilized in his opinion, I gather."

  Daniel laughed as he cycled the hatch open. "Well," he said, "Master Krychek and I agree about something, at any rate. Good luck to you!"

  The water taxi's electric motor began to arc and spit before it'd carried Adele and Tovera more than halfway to Krychek's ship. They wallowed.

  "Can you get us to shore?" Tovera said. Adele couldn't see her face in the darkness, but her voice was cold. "We'll walk the rest of the way."

  "No no!" said the boatman, pulling on a rubber glove. "Is not a problem, you see!" He put his index finger on the motor's control panel, apparently holding down a relay. The motor buzzed back up to speed and they proceeded, a nimbus of sizzling blue wrapping the boatman's hand.

  "There's no road on the island," Adele said mildly. That was why she'd called a water taxi for the trip to the Mazeppa. "It's just mud except for the individual slips."

  "Yes," said Tovera from her seat in the far bow. She was wearing RCN goggles which gave her several-light enhancement options as well as magnification if she wanted. "But even so we wouldn't sink as deep."

  The boatman cut inshore toward a freighter hulking against the tip of the island. The stars were thick enough to silhouette dorsal turrets at the vessel's bow and stern; there were rocket clusters also, bolted on awkwardly between the folded masts.

  Krychek's Mazeppa displaced nearly 6,000 tonnes, nearly twice the size of anything else in harbor. Lights shone through open hatches on the upper levels, though the hull at the waterline was dark save for the vast square of the entrance hold.

  Adele had examined the Mazeppa through its computer. The vessel didn't carry missiles so it couldn't engage a real warship with any chance of success, but its array of short-range armament was enough to warn off a pirate—or squadron of pirates.

  "There's two automatic impellers aimed at us," Tovera said. She didn't sound frightened, but she'd raised her voice more than she usually would.

  "Sheer off!" a man shouted. "We don't want visitors!"

  A powerful searchlight above the entrance hatch blazed down at the taxi. The boatman yelped, jerking his hand away from the relay. The motor spluttered, leaving the boat to wallow again.

  Adele had expected the light and was already squinting. In the side-scatter of the beam she saw a pintle-mounted automatic impeller aimed at them from the boarding ramp. Tovera'd opened her attaché case, but she used the lid to conceal her right hand from the vessel.

  "This is Mundy of Chatsworth!" Adele said. "Visiting Captain Krychek by arrangement!"

  "Bloody hell!" somebody muttered from the Mazeppa. The searchlight cut off, turning the night into a pit of total darkness.

  "Come aboard, Mistress," a different voice called. "Sorry for the confusion."

  The taxi coasted against the Mazeppa's outrigger. The boatman was hunched with his hands clasped over his head, so Adele herself grabbed the rope ladder hanging from the metal. Tovera remained as she'd been, smiling faintly but focused on other concerns than whether the taxi would drift away from the freighter.

  Adele didn't have local currency, so she dropped two florins beside the boatman and climbed the ladder. "That's too much, mistress," Tovera said mildly as she waited for Adele to reach the outrigger.

  "He may have trouble changing Cinnabar money," Adele said, waving aside the spacer bending to offer her a hand. "Besides, he just had guns pointed at him."

  Tovera tittered. Adele didn't ask what her servant had found funny. Perhaps it was the thought that an automatic impeller was more dangerous than she was.

  A hatch squealed open; full illumination flooded the entrance hold in place of the yellow watch light that'd been on before.

  "Mistress Mundy!" said the big man coming toward her with his arms out in greeting. "I am Krychek! Pardon my men's mistake. The Bennarians do not welcome us, and we do not encourage drunken louts to speed past and hurl garbage. As has happened in the past."

  Krychek was about sixty, with close-cropped hair, a full beard, and a wrestler's build. He wore closely tailored trousers and tunic of blue fabric with red piping. The outfit suggested a uniform but had no unit or rank markings.

  "I regret to hear that," Adele said, clasping Krychek's right hand in both of hers to prevent him from embracing her—if that was actually what he'd intended. "I was hoping for a neutral assessment of the political situation here."

  Adele'd looked up Krychek as soon as Claverhouse mentioned his name, though at the time she hadn't expected the information to be of importance. He was hereditary Landholder of Infanta, one of the founding worlds of the Alliance of Free Stars.

  From the beginning Infantans had been more notable for military prowess than scholarship; Adele didn't remember ever meeting one in the Academic Collections. She didn't know what the culture considered a friendly greeting, and she had no intention of adapting her own upper-class Cinnabar reserve to anything more physical.

  "A neutral ass
essment?" said Krychek, taking her firmly by the elbow and guiding her toward the companionway. "A difficult task, mistress. Flies, I am sure, can find all manner of subtleties in garbage, but for such folk as you and I—what can we say about a stench and an abomination? Still, come with me to my library and I will do what I can to inform you."

  The first segment of companionway would've been dark except that a work light hung on a length of flex running back into the corridor behind. Adele had noticed that the floor of the entrance hold wasn't level, a more serious maintenance problem. The port outrigger must leak enough to float lower than the starboard one.