What Distant Deeps

by David Drake

  For the rockets to hit, they had to be launched at knife range. Pirates achieved that by tracking their prey in the Matrix and dropping into sidereal space on top of them. Spacers who’d soaked themselves in the feel of the Matrix could pick up the linear anomalies of other ships passing close to their own. Daniel could do that, and he’d taught the art—it wasn’t a skill—to some of his midshipmen.

  But to actually conn a ship from the hull instead of depending on computed solutions—that would have been beyond even Uncle Stacey’s abilities. All six of the Horde cutters were fitted to do that, and a quick survey of similar cutters in the harbor showed that at least half of them had similar installations. Ordinary warships would be as useless against such enemies as cannon would be to deal with flies.

  Daniel pursed his lips and nodded in understanding. “I take your point, Commander,” he said. “I surely do. Now I suppose I’m ready to go be a performing monkey for Admiral Mainwaring.”

  “Take us down, Simmons,” Milch said in obvious satisfaction. As the aircar curved toward a parking area near where the Piri Reis floated at the west end of the harbor, he added, “The Qaboosh isn’t like Cinnabar, not by a long run, I’ll admit. But it has its interesting points.”

  Daniel nodded. Milch was right about that.

  Adele was busy and therefore content. Thirty-two separate worlds had sent delegations to the Qaboosh Assembly. Dakota had sent two, from the East Continent and the West Continent respectively, both of which had spent the event in their hotel rooms with liquor and prostitutes. Adele was gathering information on everyone attending, using payment records, imagery, and security logs as well as the Assembly minutes.

  Her console whirred softly. She dipped into what blurred past, but for the most part this was a job for machinery. The data couldn’t really be digested until there was a use for it. Was it significant that Mortonsonia’s President of the Conference was having an affair with the Hereditary Queen of Isis? Perhaps, but not until at least one of those worlds became important—which certainly wasn’t the present case.

  Adele smiled. In a perfect universe, her data banks would contain all the information there was on every subject. As soon as someone had a use for the information, she would provide it to them.

  Information wasn’t of any intrinsic use to her, of course. She just wanted to have it available.

  Tovera was at the console’s training station, viewing feeds from the security cameras recording the Autocrator’s gala. Adele had unlocked the station for her, of course, but Tovera could have used another console if she had wished to—the two of them were alone on the bridge. Apparently she found the jumpseat adequately comfortable. Besides, like her mistress, Tovera considered comfort to be a matter of small importance.

  Adele would view the imagery later, after the rout had broken up. She wanted to watch Lady Posthuma Belisande conducting herself in public: with whom she interacted, how much she drank, what her expressions were in the moments she wasn’t talking to another guest. All of those things had bearing on how Adele might best get close to her target.

  Her display registered an incoming call via microwave, from RCN Qaboosh Regional Headquarters to CS—not RCS, because the Sissie was a private charter—Princess Cecile, Attention Signals Officer. Adele would have fielded the call anyway, though she supposed she was technically off-duty. The routing had piqued her interest.

  “Qaboosh, this is Princess Cecile,” she said. Tovera had shut down her display and was listening intently to the conversation. “Go ahead, over.”

  “Princess Cecile, I’m Technician Runkle,” said the female voice on the other end of the signal. “The communications section here has a problem, and we’ve heard that your Signals Officer is a wizard. Adele Mundy is your Signals Officer, is she not, over?”

  “Qaboosh, that is correct,” Adele said. Her wands flickered as she spoke; the data stream now in the center of her display told her what she had expected. “What sort of assistance are you requesting, over?”

  “We would appreciate it if Officer Mundy would come to the Headquarters Annex 6, that’s the white temporary building to the left of the main building, as soon as she can be spared from her regular duties,” Runkle said. “She’ll be met at the door. Ah—I’m sorry, but we don’t have a car to send, over.”

  “One moment, Qaboosh,” Adele said. “Break. Mundy for officer-in-charge, over.”

  “Vesey here,” the acting captain responded almost instantly. She had remained in the BDC rather than coming forward to take the command console. Either decision would have been proper, but Vesey was extremely punctilious about not seeming to covet the captain’s prerogatives. “Go ahead, over.”

  “Sir,” said Adele, “Tech 8 Runkle has requested that I join her in the Headquarters Annex six. She stated that the communications section is having a problem which they would like my help with. Do you have any objection to my going to the Annex as requested, over?”

  “Permission granted,” Vesey said crisply. “Do you want any support, Mundy? Or a vehicle? We’re supposed to have the use of a pair of motor pool trucks while we’re here, over?”

  “Thank you, sir, but that won’t be necessary,” Adele said, rising from her console. “It’s only half a mile. Mundy out.”

  “I wondered if you were going to tell her,” Tovera said. Her smile was a smirk most of the time so that it didn’t look as though she were a carnivore preparing to leap.

  “I told her everything that was important to her,” Adele said. “I have to change out of utilities before I leave the ship, though.”

  They started for the companionway. Tovera said, “Cory would have known, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes, I suppose he would,” Adele said. “But he’s still standing on the quay with the Browns, and anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

  Cory would have traced the signal back to its source as a matter of course. He liked signals. And with that cue, he probably would have found a building manifest. That in turn would have told him that the only occupant of Annex 6 was the Regional Intelligence Section.

  The band was playing a song Daniel remembered as being current in Xenos just before he graduated from the Academy, but it had been rescored for what he supposed were Palmyrene instruments: recorders with a swollen air box immediately beneath the mouthpiece; stringed instruments, plucked as well as bowed, with very long necks and rounded bodies; sets of hand-stroked drums; and a sistrum—fourteen pieces in all.

  The Piri Reis floated in the largest slip in the civil basin, suitable for a bulk freighter or even a battleship, so there was a good deal of water between the cruiser’s bow and the peripheral quay. That had been decked for a dance floor with steel beams and thick wooden planks instead of the usual thin plating supported by gridwork attached to pontoons.

  Daniel grinned. It didn’t flex, although among the dancers was a circle of twelve men in pantaloons and loose tunics whose whirling was definitely on the acrobatic side. Several of them held in either hand green scarves which fluttered wildly as they spun.

  “They’re from Behistun,” Milch said, leaning close to be heard. “The only reason I know is there was a lieutenant commander in Administration when I was first posted here who was doing a study of them. You couldn’t shut him up in the mess.”

  The crowd numbered several hundred. Some wore uniforms, but not nearly so many as Daniel had learned to expect on the fringes of—not to put too fine a point on it—civilization, as a citizen of Cinnabar or Pleasaunce would define the state.

  The other surprise was that planetary costumes of various types predominated. Indeed, Daniel would have seen far more women dressed in the latest Pleasaunce fashion at a party in Xenos than he did here. The residents of the Qaboosh Region were so distant from the centers of power that they didn’t realize their customs were quaint and laughable.

  Daniel smiled wryly. Given their ability to navigate in the Matrix, they had reason to be satisfied with who they were.

  “Leary?” someo
ne called. “Daniel Leary, and it’s not half a wonder to find you on Stahl’s World!”

  Coming through the press wearing Grays was Lieutenant Ames, an Academy classmate with whom Daniel had spent a good deal of time when they were both impecunious Cadets. Ames had the same smile and the same unruly black hair. His uniform looked as though it was meant for a larger man and had been cut down inexpertly, so he was probably still impecunious as well.

  “By heavens, it’s good to see you, Ames!” Daniel said, clasping hands with his old friend. “I’m glad to see you’ve—”

  His tongue twitched an instant, then concluded, “—kept yourself so fit.”

  “The great thing about being out in the boondocks, Leary . . . ,” said Ames with a quirked smile. “Is that the chances are you won’t be thrown on half pay when peace breaks out and your ship is put into ordinary. Our Lords of Navy House can’t run down the Qaboosh Establishment very much and still have an establishment here. So yes, I’m still Second Lieutenant of the Fantome.”

  Daniel nodded in embarrassment. He’d always thought Ames was among the sharpest of his classmates, but his combination of being brash, poor, and unlucky was a bad one.

  “If you don’t mind, Ames,” said Milch, who obviously minded the delay quite a lot himself, “I need to introduce our guest to Admiral Mainwaring. Do you know where he is? Perhaps you can catch up with the captain at some later point; but not, I think, today.”

  “The Admiral is on the quay near the forward boarding ramp, sir,” Ames said. “About as far from the band as he could get, I shouldn’t wonder. Ah—I wonder, Commander Milch?”

  “Well, what is it, boy?” Milch snapped as he started down the quay separating the cruiser’s slip from the adjacent one where the six Palmyrene cutters were berthed. They were small enough in all truth, but against the bulk of a heavy cruiser they looked tiny.

  “I’d appreciate a chance to introduce Captain Leary to the Admiral myself,” Ames said. “We are old friends.”

  He cocked an eyebrow toward Daniel.

  “Hear hear!” Daniel said with honest enthusiasm. “We are indeed, Commander.”

  “And it’s a, well, different context from some of those the Admiral may recall me in,” Ames concluded hopefully.

  Milch guffawed. “You mean, like the time you and Midshipman Jarndyce appeared at the Governor’s Ball in silks, claiming to be the Sultan of Patagonia and his Chief Concubine?” he said. “All right, Ames, you can introduce your friend. But make yourself scarce as soon as you have, got that?”

  “Aye aye, sir!” said Ames. “And here, most honorable Captain, is the man we’re fortunate to have as our squadron commander.”

  The admiral stood in the midst of Whites and civilian clothing ranging from tweeds to a barefoot woman wearing a poncho of cerise feathers with a mantilla. Mainwaring was a big man; he certainly carried more weight than he needed to, but Daniel’s first impression was of power rather than flabby indolence. He was holding a drink in his right hand and gesturing forcefully to the befeathered lady with his left.

  “Admiral Mainwaring?” said Ames. “May I have the honor to present my classmate, Captain Daniel Leary?”

  “What?” said Mainwaring. He held out his drink to the side; a boy of sixteen or so, wearing Whites without insignia, snatched it away to free the admiral’s hand. “Ames, are you telling me that the captain was a classmate of yours?”

  “He was indeed, sir,” said Daniel. By regulation, salutes weren’t to be exchanged in civilian venues, but he’d held himself ready to try if Mainwaring’s scowl had showed that the admiral was expecting one. “And you can take most of his stories for true, because Cadet Ames was generally in the lead when the more interesting incidents were happening.”

  Mainwaring laughed, but he gave the lieutenant an appraising look. Ames nodded politely, then said, “I’ll be off then, sir. Leary, it’s a pleasure to see you, as always.”

  “You and he really did run around together, Leary?” Mainwaring said.

  “Yes, sir,” Daniel said. “And based on my experience of Ames at the Academy, I’d venture that Midshipman Jarndyce is a comely young lady.”

  A lieutenant commander laughed. “You got that in one, sir,” he said. “I’m Paxston—” which Daniel had already determined from the tag on his left breast “—of the Fantome, young Ames’ CO.”

  Not for the first time it struck Daniel that people were referring to him with deference and his classmates—Ames was thirty-seven days his senior—as “young this-or-that.” Apparently success added not only laurels but years.

  “Now,” said Mainwaring, “we need to find the Autocrator. Milch, do you see anybody in a yellow cap?”

  To Daniel he added, “Those would be Palmyrene officers. One of them ought to know.”

  Milch disappeared on his implied errand. Daniel spread a smile across the group around the admiral, feeling uncomfortable.

  One learned in the RCN that a superior officer’s whim was the word of god, but he’d much rather that Mainwaring had taken a moment to introduce him at least to the Cinnabar officers present. Nobody likes to be ignored, and—quite apart from being a generally courteous person himself—Daniel had learned that nobody was so insignificant that their resentment couldn’t matter.

  It also struck him that the quickest way of learning where Autocrator Irene was would be to ask Adele over the microphone concealed under his left epaulette and get the answer through the bud in his right ear. He didn’t want to call attention to himself—or to Adele—in that fashion, but the idea was tempting.

  “I believe I can help you there, Admiral Mainwaring,” said a cultured baritone behind Daniel’s left shoulder. “Autocrator Irene is in conference with your Regional Governor, Master Wenzel, in the Admiral’s Suite on A Level of the Piri Reis.”

  Daniel turned and backed slightly, though he kept his smile. The speaker, a man of about thirty Standard years, was, by leaning slightly backward, being punctiliously careful not to crowd. That didn’t make much change in the distance, but the body language was clear.

  His costume was remarkable: loose pantaloons gathered above the ankles and an equally billowy shirt with full sleeves but a deeply cut V neck that displayed quite a lot of muscular chest. Over it he wore a gold chain whose links looked so buttery pure that Daniel suspected he could bend them with his fingers.

  “This is Zenobian national costume,” the man said, facing Daniel with an engaging smile. They were of a height, but the stranger was undeniably trimmer. Daniel controlled his urge to suck his gut in; he was better off not to try to compete on those terms.

  “The colors aren’t,” said the woman touching the fellow’s arm. “If you can even call those colors.”

  “I’d suspected as much,” Daniel said, smiling in growing amusement. The pantaloons were light gray and the tunic was gray-green—field gray, if you were describing a Fleet dress uniform, whose hues the outfit perfectly mimicked. The golden bangle hanging from the chain was three crossed tridents: the rank insignia of a Fleet lieutenant commander.

  “Thank you, sir!” said Admiral Mainwaring. “And now if I may ask, who the bloody hell are you?”

  The stranger turned and made a half bow to Mainwaring. “Your pardon, Admiral,” he said. “I am Fregattenkapitan Otto von Gleuck, commanding the Z 46. We have no friends in common, I fear, so I chose to approach you without a proper introduction. I of course knew of you and likewise knew of Captain Leary.”

  He glanced again to Daniel and nodded, not as formal an acknowledgment but an apparently friendly one.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you both.”

  “Pleased as well,” said Daniel with a comparable nod and an equally friendly smile. “I hope that now that our peoples are at peace, there’ll be more chance for the professionals on both sides to socialize.”

  He offered his hand as though they were civilians meeting; von Gleuck gripped it firmly, but without attempting the silly game of trying to crush a st
ranger’s fingers. They stepped back from one another.

  Admiral Mainwaring was turning red. Von Gleuck bowed again to him and said, “Admiral, may I have the honor of presenting Lady Posthuma Belisande of Zenobia. Her brother Hergo, you may know, is the Founder of her planet; so to speak, the President for Life. She has recently returned home from a stay on Pleasaunce.”

  That explains her fashion sense, thought Daniel. He’d seen his share of attractive women, but no more than a handful whom he would put in Lady Posthuma’s class. Her poise gave her a presence beyond what her exceptional face and body could have done by themselves.

  She curtseyed to Mainwaring and rose with a smile that could have lighted an arena. “Admiral,” she said, “it truly is an honor to meet you. And do please call me Posy. All my friends do.”

  Daniel smiled ruefully. Mainwaring would have had to be a better man than Captain Daniel Leary to resist charm on that level. But from the proprietorial way the lady’s hand had rested on von Gleuck’s arm as they approached, the Alliance had already won this battle.

  “Enchanted, Your Ladyship,” Mainwaring said, bending over Posy’s hand with the enthusiasm of a starving cannibal. “Is your brother here, then? Not that anyone would care when your lovely self is present.”

  Commander Milch reappeared with a sharp-featured man of fifty who wore a round, brimless yellow cap. His uniform was tan with silver buttons but no other markings. There was a five-pointed star on the cap, also silver.

  “Sir?” said Milch. “This is Commander Bailey, the Chief Gunnery Officer of the Piri Reis. The Autocrator gave him a message for you.”

  “Right you are, Admiral,” Bailey said in an accent straight from the spacers’ tenements around Harbor Three. “She was just going into conference with your Governor Wenzel when she heard that the ship what just landed had brought Captain Leary. She asked could I show him around the cruiser till she was through, because she really wanted to meet him.”