Lt. Leary, Commanding

by David Drake

  Daniel kept his expression blank as he considered both the question and what was behind the question. The Princess Cecile was too small to rate a chaplain, so the crew’s religious health was part of the captain’s duties. That was pretty clearly the hat Vesey wanted him to wear now.

  “There are cases of parallel evolution,” Daniel said carefully. “On single planets and between species from planets a thousand light-years apart where there isn’t the least genetic similarity. But I don’t think that could be involved here.”

  There was a ravine close by to the left. Daniel had intended to declare a break and lead the expedition into it—and he would, but first he needed to deal with the midshipman’s question in the privacy that the march provided.

  “They’re really human, aren’t they?” Vesey said uncomfortably. “They’re what colonists from the first settlement turned into, here on South Land.”

  “We have samples from the carnivore,” Daniel said. Hair, skin, and a scrap of bone blown from the back of the creature’s skull. The last contained marrow. “When we get back we’ll be able to test them. Even the Princess Cecile’s medical computer should be able to make a genetic comparison. With human DNA.”

  The bushes growing to the lip of the nearby ravine made a brilliant contrast to everything around it. Though the small leaves were the dull red usual on Sexburga, they merely speckled the yellow and white striped bark of the trunks and branches. Daniel didn’t recall anything so colorful from the natural-history database. The species might be new to science. Human science.

  “The thing is, Vesey,” he said, “we’ve had star travel for less than two thousand years, and to adapt ordinary humans into forms like those we saw underground would take either genetic engineering beyond what’s possible today or a very great deal of time. It couldn’t happen in less than fifty or sixty thousand years, and it might require as much as ten times as long.”

  “Then they’re not human after all, sir?” Vesey said. She sighed with obvious relief. “I’m—well, it was just so creepy to think that they might be. What if my children—”

  She stopped, flustered, then blurted onward, “If I ever had children, I mean, not that I …”

  Daniel kept a straight face, suspecting that if he smiled it would delay the midshipman even more. Besides, he had more to say. Vesey’s misunderstanding was comforting to her, but Daniel couldn’t in good conscience leave her in it.

  “That’s not quite what I meant, Vesey,” he said. “None of the starfaring races we’ve met in the last two thousand years could live on human-habitable planets without full life-support systems. There’s some evidence, though—I’ve found some evidence myself—that in the distant past there was another race living on planets we’ve colonized recently. The—seeming mammals we’ve found here on South Land, call them that … they’re the only native vertebrates on Sexburga. If they’re native.”

  Vesey raised her visor so that she could rub her eyes. “I see,” she said. “Thank you, sir. That was very informative.”

  Which in the tone she used was equivalent to, “And next time, I’d prefer you give me a rectal exam with a shovel.” Well, Vesey knew as surely as Daniel himself did that the RCN didn’t train its officers to lie to their subordinates.

  Daniel turned, his mouth open to order his people to fall out for a ten-minute break. “Unit!” said Jeshonyk over the intercom. “There’s an aircar coming from the south. Hear it? Over.”

  Daniel did hear the distant mixture of high and low tones now, though he hadn’t until Jeshonyk called it to his attention. Power room crewmen had an almost mystical ability to pick up mechanical noises—and particularly variations in mechanical noises. When you were dealing with fusion bottles, quick diagnosis of strange sounds could be the difference between life and death for the whole ship.

  “Everybody into the ravine under cover!” Daniel bellowed, lifting his visor so that the helmet wouldn’t muffle his voice. He deliberately didn’t trip the intercom. “Radio silence, but everybody echo images from my helmet so that you know what’s going on.”

  The spacers scrambled over the edge of the ravine like children entering a swimming pool: in a variety of fashions, all of them clumsy. Hogg disappeared also, but without kicking up a sand grain or disturbing a leaf of the sheltered bushes. Hogg looked portly and seemed slow until he saw a need to move quickly.

  “Sun, you’re in command if there’s a problem,” Daniel continued. He faced the south and smiled for the oncoming vehicle which he couldn’t see without magnifi—no, he could after all, there was a glint in the sky. “I suggest you be guided by Hogg till you reach an environment more familiar to you, however. God and the Republic be with you, spacers!”

  Daniel lowered his visor again and increased the magnification. He sounded like quite the sanctimonious prig, now that his mind had leisure to review what he’d just said. At the time it had seemed like what was called for, though; and maybe it was.

  The oncoming vehicle was an aircar, not an armored personnel carrier. It was large enough to carry quite a number of soldiers, but marksmen as good as Hogg and Sun could shoot it into a colander if that were required. Daniel’s people wouldn’t start the firefight, though, and Daniel himself made an easy target as well.

  He grinned naturally at a further thought. He’d just made the sort of speech that would look well in a book like Our Navy’s Martyred Heroes; which he’d read when he was eight, and which he might very possibly have stolen the words from. Well, the RCN put more of a premium on propriety than originality.

  “Leary Force, this is, ah, Mundy Force,” Daniel’s earphones announced in a crisp, familiar voice. It was like hearing his mother crooning when he woke screaming from an infant nightmare. “Liebig tells me that we’ll be landing beside you in approximately two minutes.”

  There was a pause which presumably included Adele getting some politely worded suggestions from within the aircar. “Right, over,” she said.

  “Mundy Force, this is Leary,” Daniel said. “We’re very glad to see you. Break. Unit, you can come up to greet our friends now. Out.”

  The aircar was descending as it neared, keeping an even keel instead of dropping its nose in a dive. The driver—Liebig? Daniel doubled his magnification to 40x. Yes, Liebig. The driver was more able than Daniel had realized.

  Daniel noticed who was with Liebig and Adele in the vehicle’s cab. A slight frown wriggled his brows.

  “Hogg, this is Tovera,” another voice said. “I’d appreciate it if you not shoot Mr. Dorotige at least until after we’ve landed. I understand your feelings, but I didn’t bring a change of clothes for my mistress. The impeller you’re aiming is going to bathe her in brains if you fire now. Out.”

  Hogg stepped up beside Daniel, laughing like he hadn’t done since one of Mistress Leary’s city visitors had fallen into the Bantry cesspool. “I swear, master,” he said between gulps of laughter. “Ain’t she a pistol? Ain’t she just!”

  “Yes,” said Daniel. “I believe Tovera is that indeed.”

  Chapter Twenty

  It was crowded with four on the cab’s bench seat, but Woetjans had insisted in riding up front with Adele, Daniel and Liebig. The central driver’s station was the problem: Adele was squeezed between Daniel and the right doorpanel, while Woetjans had the relative luxury of all the space to Liebig’s left.

  Woetjans didn’t do things without a reason. Adele wouldn’t have requested the bosun’s presence, but her strength and experience had been a welcome addition when Mon ordered that she accompany Adele’s party.

  “Adele?” Daniel said. “Can you connect me with Spires? The squadron’s scheduled liftoff is in ten minutes, so it’s time for me to take my medicine from Commodore Pettin. The news will make his day, I’m sure.”

  “We told Captain Mon that you and the crew were fine, sir,” Woetjans said. Adele felt her lips tighten at the bosun intercepting a request meant for her. “We called in as soon as we landed.”

  “Ye
s, I’m sure you did, Woetjans,” Daniel said. There was a touch of reserve in his tone, an echo of what Adele herself was feeling. “But I need to report to the commodore directly and tell him that it’ll be at least four hours before I reach the harbor. Adele, can you … ?”

  “Of course,” Adele said. She’d already wiggled out her personal data unit and brought it live. “Do you want the cruiser’s communications center or a direct patch to Mr. Pettin?”

  Adele had linked the aircar’s satellite radio to her RCN helmet, but she couldn’t claim to be any more comfortable with the helmet than she was with the radio’s own peculiar voice controller. She’d learned on the flight out from Spires that the aircar was as smooth as a library table, so she’d reprogrammed the unit in order to run it with her wands through the data unit.

  She hadn’t expected to be quite as cramped as she was at the moment, but the task was easy enough. She switched on the radio and brought up the RCN menu as she spoke.

  “He’ll send me a rocket whichever choice I make,” Daniel said reflectively. He didn’t sound depressed, but his voice wasn’t as boyishly ebullient as usual. “I think the direct line, though.”

  He grinned. “I’d rather be accused of arrogantly calling my superior direct,” he said, “than of being a coward and hoping that I could avoid his notice by dealing with his staff.”

  “Ma’am?” Woetjans said. “Officer Mundy? Don’t make the call. Don’t make any more calls out till we’re back with the Sissie, all right?”

  Daniel leaned forward to look at the bosun past Liebig. Obviously the driver had been warned to expect what was happening now, because he had a false smile and his eyes fixed front.

  “Woetjans?” Daniel prompted gently. Adele froze her display and watched the tableau from her corner.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Woetjans said. She did sound sorry. Though she faced Daniel, her eyes were focused a thousand miles away. “The captain’s given me orders that you aren’t to call anybody till you resume command of the Princess Cecile; Acting Captain Mon has, I mean.”

  Adele couldn’t see Daniel’s face from where she sat, but his silence itself was telling. Woetjans took a deep breath and continued in an anguished voice, “Sir, Mr. Mon gave me the job instead of, instead of somebody else—”

  Adele dipped her chin in a nod of understanding.

  “—because he knew I’d follow naval discipline. That I’d put this pipe through the radio—”

  Woetjans tapped her length of tubing with a little finger. She’d brought it to encourage the Captal if that proved necessary. It wasn’t. The prisoners hadn’t even complained aloud at being marooned with the remnants of food Daniel’s unit had brought to South Land.

  “—if that was the only way to keep you from getting a signal out. Sir.”

  “I see,” said Daniel. He leaned back in his seat and grinned. “Adele?” he added. “What would you have done if Captain Mon had given you the orders that he gave Woetjans?”

  It was an honest question, so Adele paused a moment to form a complete and honest answer. “I like Mon well enough,” she said. “It’s clear that he has what he considers to be your best interests at heart. But I wouldn’t thank anyone who tried to control me for my own good, and I wouldn’t be a party to a plot to do that to you.”

  She grinned just enough to lift one corner of the knife blade line of her lips. “Of course,” she went on, “I bow to force majeure in the form of Woetjans’s bludgeon.”

  Daniel laughed merrily. “Well, Woetjans,” he said, “I hope I understand naval discipline as clearly as you do. Captain Mon has given you a lawful order which I’ll watch you obey, little though I care to do so.”

  He twisted to look through the window into the passenger compartment. Woetjans had brought a cask of Sexburgan beer for the rescued unit, saying that it wouldn’t affect their ability to function when they reached the corvette. Adele wondered how Tovera was getting along with the festive spacers.

  Daniel turned back with a satisfied expression. “I trust I’m allowed to listen to traffic between the squadron and the Princess Cecile, however?” he said. “Ah, assuming that’s possible, Adele?”

  “Of course it’s possible,” she said, frowning. Daniel didn’t mean to be insulting, but how would he react if she said, “And can you walk through that open door, Daniel?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Woetjans said. “Sir, you know I didn’t want to …”

  “Part of being in the RCN is learning to carry out unpleasant orders, Woetjans,” Daniel said without expression. He tried to smile but gave it up as a bad job after a moment.

  Adele checked the machine-made transcripts of the past four and a half hours of commo traffic between squadron command and the Princess Cecile; for her, written text provided a quicker way to assess material than sound bites were. Each message in turn proved low-level and routine: duty rosters, liberty records, the current supply manifest, and similar matters.

  While she was scrolling through the data, the display threw up a red sidebar: the Princess Cecile was receiving a communication for the captain and slugged Squadron Six—Commodore Pettin himself. Betts, the duty officer, had just passed the call on as directed.

  Adele paused only a moment, then routed the message live through the speakers in both cab and passenger compartment.

  “Sir!” Mon’s voice said. “Acting Captain Mon here, over.”

  “Mon, if you’re in charge, then Lieutenant Leary is still absent from duty,” Commodore Pettin replied. Adele wasn’t good at identifying voices, but no one else in the squadron would have shown such disregard for naval propriety. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Sir,” Mon said, “I’ve failed to recall Captain Leary from the expedition on which you ordered him. I’ll keep trying, and I’m confident that he’ll have returned well before the liftoff time you originally set. Over.”

  Daniel’s left hand clenched, released, and then clenched again. His expression remained calmly attentive, his head cocked slightly to the side.

  “Well, he won’t find a ship to report to if he does,” the commodore said, his tone suddenly cheerful. “Lieutenant Mon, I’m making your appointment to command of the Princess Cecile permanent in the absence of Leary. A captain who can’t keep in touch with his ship has no business in the RCN. Your command will lift in six minutes, according to the schedule of operations. Hold in orbit for the remainder of the squadron to join you. Squadron Six out.”

  “Sir!” said Lt. Mon. “I’m very sorry, but the Princess Cecile is not ready to lift. While under my temporary command, the cooling system for her Tokamak went out of order. I haven’t been able to repair the problem yet. Over.”

  “By God, Mon,” Pettin said. He didn’t sound angry, just amazed. “By God. I suggest you get your little problem solved in the next five minutes. Because if your foreign-built so-called corvette doesn’t lift with the squadron, you will have no career at all. None!”

  The transmission ended in the hiss of an open line; Adele broke the contact. No one in the cab spoke for a moment.

  Adele looked out the side window. The aircar was over land again; North Land, she supposed, but geography didn’t greatly interest her. Most of the continent was as barren as its wholly uninhabited sister.

  “I very much regret Lieutenant Mon’s decision,” Daniel said quietly. “But I’m not one to second-guess the man on the ground.”

  He gave first Woetjans, then Adele a smile with something of steel in it. “And a great deal can happen before Commodore Pettin returns to Cinnabar and files his report with the Navy Office. We’ll see what we can do in the interim to change his mind.”

  *

  As the aircar dropped in tight spirals into the harbor, Daniel noted that the Princess Cecile was ready to lift off as soon as the gangplank came in. The turret would have to be lowered and two hatches were for the moment being used as gunports, but in an emergency all that could be taken care of while the corvette was bound for orbit.

 
Daniel nodded in approval. That was what he’d expected, of course, from Mon or any competent RCN officer, but it was still a pleasure and relief to see that his confidence had been justified.

  They landed just short of the gangplank. A curtain of spray flashed up from the quay: wheeled traffic had worn the stone enough that it filled when vessels maneuvering in nearby slips sloshed the harbor’s surface. Liebig cursed because he hadn’t noticed the puddle in the twilight, but Daniel wouldn’t have cared if he’d been standing in the middle of the splash. He couldn’t be much more bedraggled than the past few days marching in the desert had left him.

  “Move it, move it!” Woetjans bellowed. The passenger compartment had double doors to ease the passage of the wealthy and corpulent. The spacers were neither, but they disembarked as hastily as they ran to action stations; the wide openings eased the process.

  Woetjans was out before the car was fully at rest. Liebig followed an instant later after he’d shut off the power. Adele, on the other hand, was looking puzzled about what she should do next.

  Rather than wait for her to open the door beside her, Daniel slid out past the steering yoke. “Woetjans, two men to help the signals officer!” he called as he trotted to the gangplank past the crewmen waiting tautly for their captain to lead them aboard.

  Daniel felt thoroughly alive. The Princess Cecile had missed the squadron’s liftoff, a difficult situation but not necessarily a career-ending one. He’d have to play his hand as well as ever an officer did to save himself, however.

  “Captain, I’m in the Battle Direction Center,” said Mon’s voice on the helmet earphones. “I have a course to Strymon loaded, based on Commander Bergen’s logs. I know you’ll be able to refine it, but I thought we could get under weigh now and save a couple hours computation time over a cold start. Mon over.”

  Daniel went through the corvette’s entryway at a brisk walk instead of the dead run that instinct urged him to. He didn’t want to waste time, but in fact a few minutes here or there wouldn’t make any difference. A hasty error would mean disaster—and if he spooked his crew into such an error, it could be just as bad as his own blunder.