Lt. Leary, Commanding

by David Drake

  “I have done so, Admiral,” called the little man from the outer office. The servant, Whately, shifted from foot to foot in the doorway though he didn’t choose to break in on Anston again.

  “You’re here about the corvette, the Princess Cecile,” Anston said, grimacing at the vessel’s name. No Cinnabar vessel would’ve been christened anything like “Princess Cecile,” but Anston was one of the old-fashioned officers who felt that renaming a ship changed her luck. “What do you think of her? Your assessment as an RCN officer!”

  “Sir,” said Daniel, “I’d match her against any vessel of her class, regardless of where she was built.”

  Like everything else he’d said since he entered the office, that was the simple truth. He didn’t understand enough about the situation to guess what Anston wanted to hear; and when in doubt, the truth was always the best option.

  Anston bellowed a laugh so loud that it trailed off into coughing. He slapped his desk again and said, “As all Cinnabar knows, lad, you matched her against a cruiser that was miles beyond her class. Oh, I know, you had luck to pull it off. I didn’t make it to this office without knowing what luck was, I assure you. But you had balls enough to try, and that’s the first requirement for a good officer.”

  “Admiral, please … ” Whately said. He’d breezed in initially with the authority of Lady Anston. If that wasn’t sufficient, he was likely to be ground to dust between her and the admiral.

  “Yes, yes,” Anston said, rising from his chair again. “I just wanted to meet Leary here. Leary, Klemsch will take care of you while I go pretend I see more in a line of bronze statues than so many bearings gone bad.”

  He walked Daniel into the outer office. Whately already had the door open and was hovering by it, a wraith of the self-important fellow who’d bustled in minutes before.

  Daniel didn’t understand what had just happened—any of the things that had just happened—but there didn’t seem to be any advantage in commenting on the fact to Mr. Klemsch. He therefore said as the door closed behind Anston, “I’m requesting a twelve-hour draft of sixty ratings while I test the Princess Cecile before turning her over as ready for service.”

  The forty Sissies—former Aggies from the communications vessel Aglaia, aboard to handle the refit—were all experienced spacers. With them as a core, the corvette would be able to function even if the rest of the crew were ten-thumbed landsmen … which would very probably be the case.

  Klemsch typed at a sheet of boron monocrystal marked with symbols. Daniel didn’t recall seeing a physical keyboard like that in service anywhere within the RCN: the volume within a warship was too short to dedicate any of it to uses that could be accomplished by holograms. Klemsch’s eccentricity would subtly disquiet any spacer who dealt with him, Daniel included.

  But Daniel’s passion for natural history disposed him to view the mechanisms at work within and among living entities. He recognized why the keyboard bothered him—and grinned broadly. It wasn’t as though anything so minor as that was going to affect him in the present circumstances.

  “The admiral has passed the Princess Cecile for service,” Klemsch said as he typed. “You’re to work her up in the course of your service cruise.”

  The printer whirred, extruding and clipping off a sheet of flimsy. Klemsch handed the document to Daniel.

  “This appoints you captain of the Princess Cecile,” the clerk said. His expression was perfectly deadpan, but it covered a sardonic grin as surely as flesh did his cheekbones. “You’ll have to pardon the informality, but the stress of events prevents me from having it done with the proper seals and ribbons. You’re to arrange for a full crew on long-term recruitment.”

  He cleared his throat. “Your orders give you authority to accept volunteers from any RCN vessel on Cinnabar, whether or not the volunteer’s present commander acquiesces.”

  “Good God!” Daniel said; the phrase was getting to be a habit today, and this time he’d blurted it aloud.

  He wasn’t an unduly boastful man, but he’d brought the Aglaia’s crew back from a disaster and filled their pockets with prize money. Spacers preferred to serve beneath lucky officers than able ones, though Daniel hoped the Aggies and everyone they talked to thought Lt. Leary was pretty damned able as well. If he was allowed to recruit under those terms, he’d get the pick of the RCN.

  By God! He’d get back the crew that fought the Princess Cecile on Kostroma, barring those few spacers posted to vessels which had lifted during the corvette’s refit!

  “Ah,” Daniel said. “I’m very grateful for these orders, Mr. Klemsch, very grateful. But can you tell me what the, ah, reason for them might be?”

  The clerk looked up coldly. “Do I care to speculate as to Admiral Anston’s motives, you mean, Lieutenant? No, I do not.”

  Daniel’s heels clicked to a brace. “Good day, sir,” he said. “Meeting you has been an unexpected pleasure.”

  He stepped out the door and began to whistle. What would Adele say about this?

  Chapter Four

  Adele sat on a bench in the huge forecourt and took out her personal data unit. The upper court with six banks of theater-style seating for a few hundred worshippers was to her right. Beyond it rose the gilded eighty-foot image of the Redeeming Spirit, framed rather than shielded by a conical roof supported by columns. Those structures on the very crown of the hill were the only portions of the complex really given over to religious uses; and that only rarely, when representatives of the Senate and the allied worlds gave formal thanks for the safety of the Republic.

  Adele smiled, half in humor. In another way the whole Pentacrest was a religious edifice, dedicated to the faith that Cinnabar was meant to rule the human galaxy. Daniel certainly believed that, though he’d be embarrassed to say so in those blunt words.

  And Adele Mundy? No, she didn’t believe it and she didn’t imagine she ever would. But not long ago she’d believed in nothing but the certainty she would die, and today she was convinced of the reality of human friendship as well. Perhaps someday Daniel would manage to convert her—by example; Daniel was no proselytizer—into a Cinnabar chauvinist as well.

  Adele felt, as she always did when walking out of a library, that the sunlight was an intrusion. Still, she hadn’t wanted to call up her messages within the Celsus; not after the meeting with Mistress Sand. Contact with intelligence personnel always made her feel both unclean and paranoid, uncomfortably aware of how easily she could be observed within the confines of a building.

  Adele was an intelligence agent herself now. That made her feel more, not less, uncomfortable. Perhaps the paranoia would prove a survival trait, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to live if she had to worry this way in order to do so.

  Most of the messages she’d downloaded were of no consuming interest—RCN information, updating her status; or even less significant queries from people who wanted to sell her things. Adele had gained a great deal of attention from publication of the list of those entitled to a share in the proceeds of the Princess Cecile whenever the government of the Republic got around to paying. She found it quite amazing that so many people thought she wanted to buy real estate, an aircar, or companionship.

  She permitted herself another smile. Companionship of the sort those folk offered had never interested her, even as a matter of scientific curiosity. Daniel was the naturalist, after all. Mind, Daniel’s interest in companionship couldn’t be called scientific, though the way he hooked and netted each night’s quarry showed the same tactical acumen that had turned the tables on the Alliance at Kostroma.

  A short block of information was encrypted. Adele entered the day’s key; even with the wands, the hundred and twenty-eight characters took some time.

  The message was from Tovera, Adele’s servant insofar as that intelligent, highly trained sociopath could be said to serve anything except her own will. Tovera knew she wasn’t fully human: that there were things which human beings felt that she would never feel. Her strategy fo
r coping with her lack was to attach herself to a human who understood what she was, and who didn’t care.

  Every time Adele looked at Tovera, she thought of the boy she’d killed fifteen years before; and the others. How many more lives could Adele Mundy end with a four-ounce pressure of her trigger finger, before her eyes were just as empty as those of her servant?

  The message was simple: Adele’s bank had called regarding the drawing rights she had established against the award of prize money for the Princess Cecile. They would like her to meet with them at her earliest convenience, giving an address.

  It wasn’t the address of the office where Adele had set up the account, but that was only to be expected. It was on the north slope of Progress Hill, however; easier to walk to than to take a car.

  It was also only to be expected that something was wrong with her account. Well, she’d known poverty before; she could learn to skip meals again.

  She set off through the archway beneath the upper court. It was unadorned concrete, the lighting muted but functional. This passage wasn’t meant for show but merely for the use of visitors coming from the north to the Celsus or to offices in the complex.

  Ahead of her walked a noble with a small retinue. A group of minor bureaucrats passed from the other direction, one eating the last of a roll-up and others carrying part-filled mugs. They were talking about a construction project and speculating on how much the contractor would pay for permit approval.

  Adele felt her senses focus down: locking faces in her memory without appearing to stare, catching intonations and freezing the precise phrasing of the discussion. She caught herself and rubbed the impulse—though not the series of impressions—from her mind.

  The Xenos municipal government wasn’t paying her to root out graft. Still, Adele had spent her life learning to gather and integrate information. The past months with Daniel—and Mistress Sand—had led her to consider other forms of information to remain alive, but she couldn’t let that get out of hand if she were to stay sane.

  She grinned. Her sanity was perhaps an unwarranted assumption.

  There was nothing in the call from the bank that required encryption. Besides, if someone did want to know about it, the original message had certainly been in clear. Tovera had relayed it in secure form because Tovera sent all messages to her mistress in code, so that data which was of crucial importance wouldn’t stand out because it alone was encrypted.

  Tovera did everything by plan because she lacked the instincts on which normal humans operated most of the time. Guarantor Porra’s Fifth Bureau had trained her well … and now Tovera did as Adele directed her, just as the pistol in Adele’s left jacket pocket would do: no scruples, no hesitation—only action when the trigger is pulled.

  Adele stepped out of the tunnel. She’d checked the address against a map reference but hadn’t bothered to call up an image of the building. It was of five stories and, though quite new, had a pillared facade which echoed the architecture of the complex on the hill’s reverse slope.

  The small brass plate beside the door read Shippers’ and Merchants’ Treasury; its air of understated elegance would have been anathema to the populist pretensions of Adele’s parents. She stopped dead when she read it.

  Adele hoped she had few pretensions, and she’d lived as an impecunious member of “the common people” for too long to find anything in the concept to be idealistic about. Nonetheless, she’d gone to the People’s Trust to set up a drawing account. This wasn’t her bank, and if somebody thought to play games of that sort with a Mundy of Chatsworth …

  She didn’t follow the thought through, because she could thus far only visualize a pinkish blur instead of a real face over the barrel of her duelling pistol.

  A doorman bowed politely as he ushered her into the lobby, an unexpectedly small room. A tree with a fan of broad leaves at the top grew from an alcove, lighted by a shaft to the roof high above; beneath it was a receptionist at a desk of age-yellowed ivory.

  The two teller’s cages were unoccupied. Closed doors along the back wall gave onto rooms which provided greater privacy for clients.

  “I was directed to Office E,” Adele said to the receptionist, wondering if her face showed the anger she was trying to suppress till she was sure of her facts.

  The receptionist touched an unobtrusive button and rose with a smile. “Yes, Mistress Mundy,” he said. “Will you come this way, please? It won’t be a moment.”

  He opened a door into a drawing room appointed in muted good taste. The only apparent exception was the desk, a dense plastic extrusion. In this context it was almost certainly an antique dating from the settlement.

  The door in the opposite wall opened for a plumpish, severely dressed woman of Adele’s age. The banker would never pass for beautiful, but if she showed more tendency to smile she might have been pretty. Not that Adele was one to cast stones in that regard.

  “Please sit down, mistress,” the banker said. Instead of stepping behind the desk, she went to one of the pair of chairs in front of it.

  “Thank you, I’ll stand,” Adele said. She’d never met the woman, but there was a tantalizing familiarity to her nonetheless. “My account is with the People’s Trust. Why have you summoned me here?”

  “We bought your account from the People’s Trust this morning, Mistress Mundy,” the woman said. “The new arrangements are among the things I’d like to discuss with you. I should begin by saying—”

  They bought my account? How do you buy—

  “—that my name is Deirdre Leary. I believe you know my younger brother.”

  Oh.

  Adele remained stiffly erect, ignoring the hand Daniel’s sister offered her. “Mistress Leary,” she said, “I am leaving now. If you wish any further communication with me, it should be through our seconds arranging a meeting.”

  “Please Mistress Mundy,” Deirdre said. She didn’t withdraw the outstretched hand. “Please, this will be to your benefit and that of my brother. On my honor as a Leary!”

  Adele remained frozen, trying to understand the situation. Daniel spoke of his sister with respect if not warmth. Deirdre had followed their father into business and perhaps soon into politics as well. She appeared to be a paragon of moral virtue besides; which Daniel was the first to admit he himself was not.

  Adele didn’t have enough information to analyze what was going on. She smiled like a sickle, though the grim humor was directed at herself rather than the woman in front of her. Obviously, she needed to gather more information.

  “I’ve known your brother long enough to value the honor of a Leary,” Adele said. She took Deirdre’s hand and shook it; the banker’s grip was firm though the flesh of her hand was soft.

  Seating herself on the offered chair she continued, “Now, if you can give me an explanation of why I’m here, Mistress Leary, I’d be pleased to hear it.”

  “You’re aware that my father and brother parted on very bad terms, I’m sure,” Deirdre said, sitting as well. The chairs were side by side instead of facing, so that the two women looked over their shoulders at one another. “They’ve had no contact since.”

  “Daniel’s mentioned that, yes,” Adele said. It had frequently occurred to her that testosterone was responsible for more than a few of the world’s troubles.

  Deirdre’s moue suggested her opinion of the matter was much the same as Adele’s own. “I informed Father of my intention,” she said, “but I wouldn’t want you to think that this contact was at his suggestion, let alone behest. On the other hand, he didn’t attempt to forbid me either.”

  “Perhaps you should tell me precisely what your intentions are,” Adele said, keeping her tone emotionless. What it appeared to be was an attempt to get at Daniel through his friend; and if that was the case, Adele was going to be more angry than she’d ever been before in her life.

  “My sole intention, already effected,” the banker replied in a voice as dry as a fresh brick, “is to decrease the discount on the
sums you draw from twenty percent to seven percent. Seven percent is a better rate than a stranger who walked in off the street might expect, but we at the S&M trust the government to pay its obligations.”

  Adele digested the information, what Deirdre implied as well as the explicitly stated. “The discount I’ve been charged by my parents’ bank is excessive, then,” she said.

  They must have seen me coming!

  “I won’t speak for the management of another firm,” Deirdre said with a cold smile that suggested she’d be perfectly willing to do that if she weren’t sure Adele already understood. “If one of my subordinates were to offer that contract to a naval officer, however, he’d be looking for another job. Outside the banking sector, because I’d blackball him as well as terminating his employment.”

  Adele, as the only surviving member of her family, knew very well how ruthless Speaker Leary was. It appeared that his daughter had inherited some of that personality.

  “Before you blame yourself for allowing yourself to be taken advantage of, mistress,” Deirdre continued, “I should mention that my brother made an even worse deal for his share of the prize money. Banking involves as much specialized knowledge as astrogation or archival research do.”

  “You bought Daniel’s account also, then?” Adele said; hoping against hope that the answer would be “No,” because Daniel’s reaction would be—

  “Good God, no!” Deirdre said. “I won’t claim to understand my brother, Mistress Mundy, but I can guess how he’d react to that sort of interference. The S&M cultivates a genteel atmosphere, and the presence of a young naval officer threatening to demolish it stone by stone wouldn’t fit in with that at all.”

  Adele choked when an indrawing breath met a jolt of laughter going the other way. She’d just had an image of a detachment from the Princess Cecile arriving at the Shippers’ and Merchants’ Treasury with axes and pinch bars.