by David Drake
Commander Stacy Bergen, the brother of Daniel’s mother, was renowned as the best astrogator ever to wear the uniform of the RCN. If he had a rival, it was Daniel Leary, the nephew whom Bergen had trained from infancy.
“Patrol vessels B113 and B117,” Cazelet repeated. He had been using tight-beam microwave with separate sending units aimed at the widely separated Ischian ships. This time he added a short-wave hailing frequency, 15.5 mH in the 20-meter band. “This is freighter Kiesche out of Corcyra, seeking permission to land at Jezreel, over.”
The Kiesche had extracted 29,000 miles above Ischia, performance that most captains—and most crews—would have considered miraculous. Even Daniel had to admit that there had been a good deal of luck in the result, though an experienced RCN officer was expected to come within 50,000 miles more often than not.
The patrol ships were in powered orbits at 100,000 miles, where tramp freighters were most likely to extract. Images captured by the Kiesche’s newly fitted optics showed that B113 and B117 were small freighters coupled to huge tanks which allowed them to hold station at 1g acceleration for months instead of weeks.
Tugs could replace the water buffalos when necessary and probably rotate the crews. The duty was as boring as that of a lighthouse keeper on the ground, but Daniel knew there were people whose personalities were a perfect fit.
If Daniel simply concentrated on his display, he could pretend that he was back in the Princess Cecile: the consoles were effectively identical. The freighter’s limited sail plan had prevented Daniel from taking advantage of subtleties with which the corvette would have saved a few minutes here, a few hours there, on the way to Ischia. All in all, however, the Kiesche was a sound little vessel which had amply justified Sun’s praise of her.
“Kiesche, this is One-three,” a male voice responded from B113. The vessel was slightly more distant than its sister, but she and the Kiesche were in approaching orbits. “What is your cargo, over?”
“Sir?” said Cory, using a jumpseat and a flat-plate display. He was using a two-way link rather than the general push, though any communications aboard a ship where Adele had set up the net included her. “The Monfiores have issued a general alert, and some of their neighbors are doing the same thing. They’re not planning an ambush, but everybody’s supposed to grab his gun and be ready, over.”
During the rebuild, four flat-plate displays had been added to the freighter’s bridge. Daniel realized that he didn’t know whether Mon had done the work on his own hook, or if was a gift from Adele’s other employer. They didn’t add computing power, but they used only an insignificant fraction of the command console’s capacity unless they were attempting astrogation.
“Understood, Cory,” Daniel said. That was what he had expected. The people who had planned and executed the envoys’ kidnapping would certainly be ready to respond to a smash-and-grab rescue attempt.
“B113,” Cazelet said. According to Daniel’s display, he was on microwave only, but he was continuing to copy the other patrol vessel. “We’re not carrying any cargo. We’ve come to discuss the release of Corcyran envoys with the Monfiore clan. Kiesche over.”
Sun had a gunnery array up on the third flat-plate display. Daniel didn’t imagine that the Kiesche would need her 50-mm popgun, but neither was there any better present use for the unit. Knowing that the gunner was ready to respond probably calmed some of the spacers; and Daniel rather liked knowing it also.
“Kiesche,” the patrol vessel said, “this is your first landing here. Be aware that customs officials will be on the ground by the time you’re ready to open your hatches. There is a one-percent tariff on everything imported to Ischia, and we’re bloody serious about it. Your ship will be confiscated if you try to evade the tariff, over.”
“Understood, B113,” Cazelet said calmly. “We have no cargo on this voyage, over.”
“Sir,” volunteered Cory, “they run their whole planetary government off the tariff. There isn’t much government, but they’re still being pinched by the way trade’s shut down to the planet, over.”
“Thank you, Cory,” Daniel said. “That could be important, over.”
Daniel hadn’t bothered to learn about the planetary government since his dealings would be with the Monfiores alone. It was comforting to know that there was no chance of an Ischian destroyer appearing if things went wrong, though.
“They don’t search ships in orbit,” Cory said, “but they ask where you’re landing and send an aircar from the nearest customs station on the ground. If anybody gets gay with the inspectors, the clan’s neighbors come in and take care of things. That hasn’t happened in thirty years though, over.”
There had been a period at the beginning of the Hiatus when Cinnabar had a similar government—or lack of government. The Xenos region expanded, either by conquest or the voluntary association of families in other regions. The Learys of Bantry had joined Xenos—and had used that alliance to bludgeon other families on the southwest coast into submission to them as well as to the central government.
Corder Leary was a proper descendent of those ancestors, and perhaps his son was, too. The ability to see the way a situation was developing and to get on the right side of those developments was as useful to an RCN officer as it was to a politician.
The fragmented nature of Ischia’s settled terrain had allowed the clans to remain largely independent. Ischia wasn’t a place where you would look for great art or—Daniel smiled—great libraries; but as with isolated patrol vessels, there would be people that the life suited.
“All right, Kiesche,” the orbiting controller said. “You’re cleared to Jezreel. One-one-three out.”
Daniel paused a moment, then said, “Ship, this is Six. We’re going to start hard braking in … one minute. When we disembark in Jezreel, we will not be carrying side-arms, repeat not. This is going to go fine unless somebody screws up, and I am not going to make it easy for these boneheads on the ground to screw up. Six out.”
He pressed EXECUTE with both thumbs together, the way he had learned to do as a cadet on a training ship which was older than his grandfather. That seemed a lifetime ago, but it was only ten years.
The High Drive motors switched to maximum impulse, and the plasma thrusters added their roar to the high-frequency buzz of matter recombining with antimatter. Daniel leaned back into his couch, since there was no need to fight the braking thrust. When they dropped a little deeper into the atmosphere, he would have to shut off the High Drive to prevent the exhaust from eroding the throats, but that wouldn’t happen for some minutes.
The harbor at Jezreel filled one quadrant of Daniel’s display. It was a pool of modest size formed by damming the river which had carved the valley. There were six ships floating idle there, probably a sign of the collapse of planetary trade. They didn’t fill the harbor, but Daniel wouldn’t have wanted to land a vessel larger than the Kiesche on the surface area remaining.
Daniel had inset a realtime image of Adele, facing him on the other side of the console. Her expression was her usual one of unemotional focus. Daniel had no idea of what she was working on; he rarely did.
But he was sure that when the time came, she would provide something that he suddenly realized that he needed. Whatever he suddenly realized that he needed.
He grinned.
Jezreel on Ischia
The main hatch began to grind downward. It hadn’t jammed again, but it still vibrated badly every time it opened. Steam and ozone swirled through the rear compartment and onto the bridge, but they had no effect save for occasional sneezes.
Adele got up stiffly. Vesey quickly took her place on the couch. She would command the Kiesche while Daniel was heading the negotiations with the Monfiores.
Daniel arched his shoulders backward to stretch his torso. “Time to meet our hosts, I think,” he said.
Hogg grunted, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. Tovera said nothing, but her eyes flicked to Adele and away.
The l
ast member of the negotiating team was Cazelet, who stood stiffly by the hatch to the stern compartment. He wore new utilities which, for a spacer on a tramp, were dress clothes. He had the business expertise which the task required, though he had admitted that he was uncomfortable bargaining for lives.
Adele wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting at the console. That was the beauty of losing herself in work, of course: it took her from a world of human realities to one of information, which was much more to her liking. Aches and stiffness were far down the list of aspects of the real world which she found uncomfortable.
“Six!” said Cory. He could now move to the command console, but he apparently didn’t want to leave whatever he was doing at the flat-plate display. “There’s a four-inch plasma cannon aimed at the harbor from the hillside to port. It isn’t new—it must’ve been there for decades. And it isn’t netted into the defense computer, so I can’t switch it off.”
“Officer Mundy?” said Daniel. He grinned. Does he know or is he just guessing?
“There is an icon on our displays beside the gunnery lockout,” Adele said. “If it is activated—and I don’t expect that to happen unless I do it—the power goes out in the Jezreel community. The cannon has a backup generator, but that will not switch on.”
“Thank you, Officer Mundy,” Daniel said. “Hmm … Lady Mundy, I think, for this purpose. Please walk beside me down the ramp.”
Adele nodded and followed him through the hatch. The rest of team fell in behind.
The spacers in the rear compartment held submachine guns and stocked impellers. Apparently the order that the crew shouldn’t carry guns outside had convinced them to be armed while still on the freighter. Heaven help us if Evans starts shooting!
Daniel stepped close to Woetjans and whispered something, then strode toward the entry hatch without the pause Adele had expected. She hopped after him to catch up so that they stepped onto the ramp together. Behind them she heard the bosun bellow, “All right, Sissies! Hand your guns to Hale right bloody now and she’ll unload them. Then slide them back into the arms locker, got it? Now!”
“Some risks,” Daniel said, “are unavoidable. Being shot in the back by your own people shouldn’t be one of them.”
The sunlight was pleasant. Adele didn’t usually have an opinion about landscapes, but Jezreel seemed, well, nice. Most harbors were cesspools, literally; ships emptied waste into the water, and often the city’s sewers drained into it. The plasma exhaust from ships landing and lifting incinerated the floating organic materials and mixed the smoke with steam to form a thick miasma.
“The flow from upstream must flush the pool constantly,” said Daniel with approval. He must have been thinking the same thing that Adele was. “And of course, there hasn’t been much movement through Jezreel because of the slowdown in trade.”
A delegation of four locals waited at the head of the floating pier which they had extended to the Kiesche’s starboard pontoon. They looked grim-faced, but they weren’t obviously armed.
The fifty or more men whom Adele could see among the houses up the slope from the harbor, and about half the similar number of women, did carry guns openly. The buildings themselves had walls of cast concrete and roofs of structural plastic, but gardens and window boxes softened their appearance.
“Rather a pleasant little community,” Daniel remarked cheerfully as they walked down the ramp. “I’m sure that you and I can work matters out with them.”
“You always think that,” said Adele.
“And I’ve always been right,” said Daniel. “Well, I’ve usually been right.”
In a louder voice he said, “Gentlemen, I’m Captain Leary, and this is Lady Mundy, both of Cinnabar. We’re here to talk about the Corcyran envoys whom you’re holding.”
“I’m the Elder Paul,” replied the man of fifty, one of the pair in the center. “These are three of my councillors. We know your reputation, Leary. If—”
Paul’s voice, never friendly, became as harsh as a war cry.
“—you think you’re going to waltz in here and steal our prisoners away, you’d better think again!”
Adele imagined that she was watching on a display. She absorbed information better that way than she did if she had to think about interacting directly with other human beings. She hadn’t told anyone else about her trick, but all people needed to know about her methods was that they worked.
“I’m sorry that I have the reputation of being a fool,” Daniel said mildly. “I volunteered to come here because it appeared to me that your demands could be accommodated without difficulty. And of course I’m neutral as to the political situation on Corcyra. There are parties in Brotherhood who would just as soon that the envoys didn’t return.”
He smiled knowingly at Paul. “As you have probably guessed by now yourselves,” he added. “But is there a place we could sit down while we discuss? I’d offer my ship, but I’m afraid the only space large enough on the Kiesche is the hold, and the amenities there are rather spartan.”
“We’ll go up to my house,” Paul said. “The meeting room’s there.”
He turned and started up the path toward the buildings. He was scowling, but that might have been in embarrassment at the way he had greeted Daniel. His voice had lost its harsh rasp.
“Do they meet our terms or don’t they?” said one of the councillors, a man of seventy with a long face and eyebrows bushy enough to make up for his baldness. He glared at Paul. “l don’t see there’s much bloody discussion to have.”
“I believe we can accommodate your requirements, yes,” Daniel said as though the question had been directed to him—as it should have been, Adele thought. “But Commissioner? Matters must be much simpler here than they are back on my family estate if you believe that a negotiation like this has a yes or no answer.”
“Louis,” snapped the Elder Paul. “If you think this meeting’s a waste of your time, why don’t you go mind your corn and the rest of us will talk to these parties from Cinnabar.”
The old man looked aside. In a low voice he said, “My corn’s doing just fine. Same as it’s done since before you was born, Paul Monfiore.”
The path led past a group of men, one of whom was missing his left leg below the knee. Most were tattooed. The name Schliemann on a biceps, between a pair of nymphs, was probably the RCN heavy cruiser of that name.
“Good morning, spacers,” Daniel said, nodding pleasantly.
A few muttered “Sir,” and one even attempted a salute. They shifted their bodies so that the carbines they carried were less obvious.
A pair of women sat on the front stoop of the house nearest the harbor. One was knitting while her younger companion suckled a baby. The older woman tugged her ball of pale blue yarn a little to cover the butt of the service pistol in her knitting basket.
Adele supposed she might have followed Daniel’s lead and said something friendly to the women, but she had no more experience with that sort of small talk than she did with knitting. She prepared to nod crisply and pass on.
On New Year’s Day Adele’s mother had distributed gift baskets to the wives of Popular Party workers. When Adele turned twelve, Esme Rolfe Mundy had decided that they would hand out the baskets together. Adele had been a quiet if not precisely dutiful daughter, but her refusal to undergo that experience had finally convinced even her mother.
Perhaps I should have viewed it as a learning experience which would aid me in my RCN career, Adele thought. She smiled, and the two women smiled back.
The Elder Paul turned toward a house halfway along the road into which the path expanded. Its frontage was about the same as those to either side, but it had been dug farther back into the hillside. A young man with Paul’s features pulled the door open and held it as the elder and councillors, then the Cinnabar contingent, entered.
There was a cloakroom to either side of the front door. Past the door in the partition wall was a meeting room with chairs for fifty people to sit. The se
ats were full, and there seemed to be nearly as many others standing. Even so it was only a fraction of Jezreel’s adult population.
Paul led the way down the central aisle toward the dais. There were six folding chairs, identical to those on the floor of the hall. Paul and his councillors took the four in the middle.
Adele hesitated. Daniel stood by the chair on the left end of the row and bowed Adele toward the other empty, making a courtly sweep with his right arm. Hogg and Tovera seated themselves on the edge of the dais, facing the audience with smiles on their faces.
Adele sat down. Hogg looked crazed, and Tovera’s expression was that of a demon. At least the audience was being given fair warning.
I suppose it’s up to me to kill the four on the dais, Adele thought. Though Daniel will certainly be knocking heads together if the Monfiores decide to attack.
The idea made her smile. That in turn made her wonder whether she more resembled Hogg or Tovera. She smiled still wider.
If the audience was a fair sample, people in Jezreel were tall and lanky, with a tendency toward red hair and long jaws. Adele took out her data unit but restrained herself from checking on inbreeding within Ischia’s separate clans.
Paul rose to his feet. “All right!” he said. “We’ve been waiting for the Corcyran representatives. Here they are, only they’re from Cinnabar. It doesn’t seem to me that there’s anything for us to talk about till we hear what they’ve got to say.”
He turned to look down at Daniel. “Captain Leary, you claim you’re going ‘to accommodate our requirements.’ Those were the words you used. Tell us how.”
Paul didn’t use or need an amplifier; the hall had good acoustics, and Paul had apparently trained his lungs by bellowing across the valley or similar rural pursuits. Adele had nothing in common with the audience in this hall, but she suspected Daniel—or Hogg, or any other Bantry resident—did.