by David Drake
Mainwaring looked thunderous again; then his face cleared. “Well, I wanted to show you off to the Autocrator myself, but it seems she’s stolen a march on me,” he said. “Run along, Leary, and I’ll catch up with you later. I trust you to uphold the honor of the RCN without me nursemaiding you.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Daniel said brightly. He had been in an awkward situation for a moment. It was Mainwaring who’d created the problem, by ordering him to be present at the gala and thereby giving his hostess a right to request his attendance. One didn’t need much experience of the RCN or of life more generally to know that admirals and their civilian equivalents tended not to blame themselves when their wishes were thwarted, however.
“I wonder, Commander Bailey?” said von Gleuck. “Would you mind if Lady Belisande and I joined you? If it’s all right with Captain Leary, that is.”
“Perfectly all right, ah, Master von Gleuck,” Daniel said, gesturing toward the lieutenant commander’s civilian tunic. “The more the merrier, wouldn’t you say, Bailey?”
Bailey looked stricken, but he swallowed his confusion and mumbled, “Well, I suppose it’d be all right. Come along, then.”
As they followed Bailey up the forward boarding ramp, Posy giggled and whispered, “You men! You’re being cruel to the poor little fellow! He’ll get in trouble.”
“Now, now,” von Gleuck said. “I just wanted to chat with Leary here.”
Daniel gave the woman a shamefaced grin, knowing that she was right: the Autocrator might be very unhappy when she learned that Bailey had given an enemy officer a tour of her flagship. But whatever Bailey’s Palmyrene rank might be, he was clearly an oik from the Xenos slums; there was no way he was going to resist the double-teaming of two aristocrats.
And apart from anything else, Daniel wanted to get to know von Gleuck.
CHAPTER 8
Raphael Harbor on Stahl’s World
Headquarters Annex 6 was the last in a row of prefabricated single-story buildings behind the stuccoed masonry of the headquarters building proper. It was built from sheets of structural plastic. The walls were beige, while the corrugated roof was reddish brown where it had been in the shade. Where the surface took direct sunlight, it had faded to pink.
“Not a very secure site,” Tovera said as they approached. By training she stepped slightly ahead, putting herself between Adele and the door in the center of the building, but neither of them imagined that there would be any real trouble here.
Adele smiled faintly. “My suspicion is,” she said, “that if they tried to attack us, they would injure themselves.”
“If you follow your training, you have less to think about and so make fewer mistakes,” said Tovera in a primly chiding tone. She accepted Adele’s ethical decisions without question: Tovera had no conscience, but her sharp intelligence let her act within the bounds of society so long as she had a guide she trusted to tell her what those bounds were.
Tovera did not, however, defer to Adele’s judgments regarding doctrine and technique, except under orders. She was apt to honor even direct orders in the breach if she decided they would endanger her mistress unduly.
That wasn’t simply a matter of loyalty, though perhaps it was that as well. Tovera knew that she wouldn’t survive in society without direction. She had been the tool of a Fifth Bureau officer. After he was killed, she had attached herself to Adele as someone who would appreciate the usefulness of a murderous sociopath the way she appreciated the pistol in her tunic pocket. Either would kill at Adele’s direction, and Adele’s duties and ruthlessness guaranteed that she was likely to need them.
A hefty middle-aged woman in utilities watched through the glass-paneled door. She pushed it open a moment before Tovera would have had to reach for the latch.
“Officer Mundy?” the woman said. Her voice was the one Adele recognized from the call. “I’m Technician Runkle. Lieutenant Leonard is waiting—”
A thin, very serious looking young man, also in utilities, came out of the office at the end of the hall. “Officer Mundy?” he called.
“Yes, I’m still Officer Mundy,” Adele said as she followed Tovera into the building; Runkle locked the door behind them. “Now, shall we go to your office where you can explain what this rigmarole is about?”
“Officer Mundy,” Leonard said, looking nervously over his shoulder as he trotted back the way he had come, “I have to apologize for deceiving you. You see—”
Tovera snickered.
“You didn’t deceive us,” Adele said in a more formal version of the same statement. “You’re the Regional Intelligence Section. What do you want of me?”
“Oh!” said Leonard. “Oh, yes, of course. I suppose we should have expected that, Runkle.”
“Sir,” the technician muttered in agreement. “Sorry, ah, Officer.”
Adele said nothing—and Tovera didn’t sniff, as she might have done—but that was certainly true: if this pair knew who Adele was, they should have expected her to investigate them.
In fact they probably thought they knew who Adele was, but only by reputation. They could no more understand what she really did than they could imagine the processes going in at the heart of a star.
Half the building was an open clerical pool with storage cabinets along one wall. On the other side of the hallway was Runkle’s office with Assistant to the Director on the door, a closed file room, and the door Leonard had come out of. The four of them seemed to be the only people in the building—Tovera would know for certain—but going into the lieutenant’s office seemed the choice that would put the locals most at ease.
Which in turn would get them to the point most quickly, though Adele didn’t have high hopes for that. People simply wouldn’t be as direct as efficiency required.
There were only two extra chairs in the office. Runkle, realizing that, said, “Just a second. I’ll bring another chair.”
“Don’t bother,” said Tovera. “I’ll stand.”
She placed herself in the corner to the left of the outward-opening door. Her expression was probably one of amused contempt, but it could be read as friendly openness.
Adele seated herself. She knew Tovera as well as anyone did, she supposed, but she certainly wouldn’t claim to know what was going on in her servant’s mind.
“Well, if you’re sure . . . ?” said Runkle; Tovera didn’t deign to answer. Runkle sat gingerly on the open chair.
A Technician Grade 8 was a senior warrant officer, on a level with a bosun or a chief engineer—far superior to a signals officer. The deference Runkle and her commissioned superior were displaying proved, which was scarcely necessary, that they weren’t thinking of Adele in the RCN chain of command. It also indicated that they believed that she and they were all in a continuum of the intelligence community. That was a degree of arrogance which would have made Adele angry if it weren’t so foolish.
Leonard coughed and crossed his hands precisely on the deck before him. He said, “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ve been sent here because of our reports to Xenos, Lady Mundy?”
“With respect, Lieutenant . . . ,” Adele said. There was no respect whatever in her tone. “While I’m wearing this uniform—”
She flicked her left sleeve with her right little finger. Her personal data unit was in her lap—she had brought it live without really thinking about it when she sat down—and she was holding the control wands in her thumbs and first two fingers of both hands.
“—I am Officer Mundy.”
“I’m very sorry, Officer Mundy!” Leonard said hastily, clasping his hands by reflex. “It won’t happen again!”
“And as for the question,” Adele continued, “I know nothing about your reports, but I’m inclined to doubt that they had anything to do with me passing through Stahl’s World. As I was given to understand the matter, a minor figure of the Representation Service died and the Princess Cecile was chartered to deliver his replacement as quickly as practical. I am the
Signals Officer aboard the Princess Cecile.”
The locals looked at one another. Runkle grimaced and said, “I don’t wish to speak about matters which shouldn’t be discussed generally, Officer, but if I may say—it’s public knowledge that you have a reputation beyond the RCN.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Adele said dryly. “I won’t speculate on what you or anyone else may have heard—about me, or about the inner workings of the Senate, or the true story of this or that video entertainer’s love life. I will say, however, that my duties to the RCN brought me to Stahl’s World, and my courtesy has brought me to this room.”
She paused, then said, “That courtesy is rapidly becoming exhausted, Technician.”
The lieutenant opened his mouth but then froze. Runkle looked at him, then blurted, “Palmyra is dangerous, really dangerous. We thought, everybody out here thought Autocrator Odin was less an ally than a tin-pot king with delusions of grandeur. After he died, though, we saw—we in the Intelligence Section, I mean—that the real pressure had been coming from Irene all the time. Odin had been holding her back.”
She looked again at Leonard. This time he said, “No one will listen to us, Officer Mundy. You know how the RCN is. Nobody counts except watch-standing officers. They completely ignore us technical specialists.”
Adele kept a straight face. The lieutenant had obviously forgotten who he was talking to.
She would agree that spacers, not just RCN officers, tended to treat anyone who wasn’t a spacer with good-natured contempt. Space officers of Adele’s acquaintance had invariably accepted her as soon as she had given evidence of her abilities, however. Leonard and Runkle hadn’t yet convinced even her that they had a point.
“The Squadron staff treats us like a joke,” Runkle said. “We’ve compiled evidence that Palmyra intends to expand by force in the near future, but nobody will pay any attention to our dossier.”
“Commander Milch told me that the Palmyrenes were ‘good fellows and bloody fine spacers,’ ” Leonard said bitterly. “As if commanding a light cruiser in the Battle of Dorking made him an authority on political intelligence!”
“You believe that Palmyra intends to attack us, Technician?” Adele said. Her tone was dry, by habit rather than policy. She kept her eyes on the display her wands were manipulating, though she was listening to the locals as she worked.
“We don’t know,” said Leonard. He spread his hands on the table and scowled at them. “But they have four regiments of infantry confined to base in preparation for embarkation. Plus the Horde on high alert, though that isn’t so unusual. The Palmyrenes feel the same way about the importance of the Horde as RCN officers do about the RCN.”
“The soldiers are under General Osman,” said Runkle. She had her own personal data unit out. It was larger though far less capable than Adele’s, but the technician handled the virtual keyboard with skill. “He’s a good officer. Probably the only Palmyrene ground officer who you could say that about.”
The section’s electronic databases were well protected, much better protected than Adele had expected them to be. Their weakness was the provision to allow transfer of files from open storage to locked storage. Adele set her PDU to emulate the Section’s administrative computer, then used it to insert a Trojan Horse to take control of the remainder of the system.
“The Palmyrenes have been talking for a generation about their traditional hegemony over the Qaboosh,” Leonard said, relaxing slightly now that he and his assistant had begun talking without being slapped down. Since they’d finally come to the point, Adele had no reason to slap them. “If you go back far enough there’s evidence for that.”
If you go back far enough, Earth rules the human universe, Adele thought. The reality is that since a dozen asteroids crashed into the home planet to begin the Hiatus, what remains of Earth is either pastoral or barbaric depending on your viewpoint.
But the present reality in the Qaboosh Region appeared to be the Horde; which did indeed put a different complexion on Palmyrene claims.
“Founder Hergo may well be right,” said Runkle. “Though he doesn’t do himself any good with his yelping and posturing. And if Irene attacks Zenobia or another Alliance possession, who’s to say that the Alliance isn’t going to retaliate against our shipping because Palmyra is a Cinnabar ally?”
“You said that two thousand Palmyrene ground troops appear to be poised for invasion,” Adele said as her wands moved. She was switching tasks. The data harvest was complete, but it could have continued without her oversight if that were necessary. “My information is that Zenobia has a population of about three million, almost entirely on Setif, the main continent?”
When Runkle referred to Zenobia, she brought up a subject with which Adele had been familiarizing herself. Adele let her tone suggest a question, but she was confident in her statement. Quite apart from anything else, the data she’d brought from Xenos turned out to mirror that which she’d just gleaned from Section files.
“Well, yes, but there’s no Zenobian regular army,” Runkle said. “A sudden landing at Calvary might capture the government.”
“Except for the three hundred personnel of the Founder’s Regiment,” Adele said, her lip curling in contempt at Runkle’s imprecision.
“Besides that,” she went on, viewing her display as she spoke, “Calvary Harbor has anti-starship missiles. It would be necessary to capture or disable those, or else to land at a distance—at least a hundred and eighty miles from the batteries. Even then there would be a risk if a battery commander were alert. A landing starship can’t maneuver; it’s already operating at maximum stress.”
“Have you technical specialists ever been on an assault landing?” Tovera said, her voice a buzz as quiet as a wasp’s wings. “Mistress Mundy and I have, several times. Even when Captain Leary was in charge, they weren’t nearly as neat and simple as they may seem on a computer display.”
“Yes,” said Adele, “there’s that.”
She shut down her data unit and rose. The visit hadn’t been a waste of time, since she would have found it very difficult to enter the Section’s locked files from outside the building. This way she could check whatever information the Section gave her without them knowing she was doing so.
“I will relay your concerns to such persons as might have an interest in them, Lieutenant Leonard,” Adele said; she turned her head slightly to include Runkle in her statement. She thrust the data unit away in the thigh pocket she’d had added to her Grays. “For the moment, however, I must repeat that to the best of my knowledge, the fears you express are not shared on Xenos.”
“But there has to be a reason you were sent to the Qaboosh!” Runkle said, frustration getting the better of her tone. “It doesn’t take an agent of your stature to nursemaid some commissioner!”
“I am here, Technician . . . ,” Adele said, suddenly coldly angry, “as signals officer to the best fighting captain in the RCN. And now that you’ve reminded me, I’ll get back to my duties. Good day to you both!”
She stalked into the hall, past Runkle who was trying to burble an apology. Tovera followed, walking backward with her hand inside her attaché case. A needless precaution, but she would ignore Adele’s objection; and anyway, Adele didn’t feel like objecting.
The trouble was that Adele suspected there really was fire somewhere in the smokescreen of sloppy thinking which the Intelligence Section had raised. The best hope was that Autocrator Irene planned to attack a Cinnabar ally or even Stahl’s World itself; such a business could be put down at modest cost in lives and property.
If the attack was on an Alliance world, however, the danger wasn’t just commerce raiding in reprisal. It would light a fuse which, when it burned back to Pleasaunce, would engulf the Peace of Rheims and with it, very possibly, both exhausted empires.
“This bay houses the Power Room watches,” Commander Bailey said as he entered the B Level compartment with Daniel at his side; von Gleuck and Lady Belisa
nde followed closely. Most of the bunk towers had been lifted against the ceiling to clear the huge compartment.
Three spacers squatted near the hatch to play cards on the floor. They hopped to their feet and one—presumably the senior man, but they wore only breechclouts—shouted, “Attention!”
A dozen other personnel leaped up in various stages of undress. “Stand easy,” Bailey said with a nonchalant wave. The Palmyrene spacers may have relaxed slightly, but they didn’t go back to their previous occupations while the visitors strode down the center aisle.
“The room is very clean,” Lady Belisande said as the party approached the rear bulkhead. “But perhaps that is because it’s so much bigger than your destroyer, Otto?”
Von Gleuck snorted. Daniel said, “Your Ladyship, I’ve never seen a ship of any size this neat before. I’ve seen battleships straight from the builders’ yard that had more trash and litter about them, not to mention grease.”
“What Captain Leary says is my experience also,” von Gleuck said. “Commander, has the ship been cleaned specially for the gathering? Even so it is remarkable—and we are not in the public parts of the vessel where strangers are to be expected.”
Bailey led them out into the corridor through the sternward hatch. None of the off-duty spacers had spoken while visitors were present, save for the man who had called the compartment to attention.
“No,” Bailey said. “That’s how it is in the Horde. It’s a good thing, you know, but to tell the truth it gives me the creeps sometimes.”
“You’re from Cinnabar yourself, are you not, Commander?” Daniel said with a friendly smile.
Bailey had been reaching for the control of the hatch marked Missile Magazine #2. He started and gave Daniel a look of nervous surmise. “I’m from Kostroma, born right in Kostroma City,” he said. “But, ah, I lived a while in Xenos. And had twelve years as Chief Missileer in the RCN if you want to know the truth. But I didn’t desert, I mustered out proper, and anyway I’m an officer in the Horde now and the Autocrator won’t let you haul me back!”