Lt. Leary, Commanding

by David Drake

  Daniel signaled, bending his arms in riggers’ code. The first symbol was the antenna for which the command was intended; the rest of the string, shorter or longer as need required, described the operations which were to be carried out on the antenna.

  For the most part the riggers were on the hull to execute commands transmitted from the bridge by mechanical semaphore. The astrogation computer could process more data than any number of human beings in a lifetime: the captain set a course, and the computer translated that human desire into a path through the Matrix.

  But the Matrix was as variable as a cloud-wracked sky, so a computer had only approximations of the reality through which the vessel sailed. No sensors but the human eye were available outside the hull, but the eye was a tool of great subtlety when used in the right fashion.

  Daniel’s arms moved; swiftly, precisely. He was modifying the set of six antennas, two of them on the ventral row which was completely hidden from him. The spacers watching him would relay his commands around and along the hull to those who were in position to carry them out.

  Daniel couldn’t have navigated the Princess Cecile to Strymon or even across the Cinnabar system by himself. He could refine the choices made by the astrogation computer, however; and right now, viewing aberrations in the smooth whirls of Casimir radiation … and all right, perhaps they weren’t herringbones, exactly, but they were patterns that didn’t belong in the natural sequence of the Matrix … viewing those markings, Daniel knew he’d found three ships travelling in close company.

  Only naval forces did that. Well, naval forces and pirates coming to grips with their merchant prey. From the course and location, so close to what Daniel had plotted for the commodore, he was sure that he’d found the RCN squadron.

  He grinned, seeing a faint reflection of himself in the faceplate of his rigging suit. Of course if it did turn out to be a pair of pirates homing in on an argosy, that would be all right as well. Much as Daniel wanted to join Commodore Pettin and mend fences on his own behalf and that of Lt. Mon, a chance to see off a pair of pirates on the way would be more than welcome.

  Daniel finished his series of commands; the sails of Port and Starboard Two already beginning to ripple. Whistling a tune he’d learned as “Pity the Poor Poacher”—in the RCN it was sung as “Pity the Poor Rigger”—he returned to the mast with his arms crossed before his chest.

  Adele stood like an awkward piece of equipment clamped to the mast, watching Daniel with a stony face. She’d obviously felt insulted by the degree of his concern that she’d do something fatally foolish.

  Touching helmets with her, Daniel said, “I appreciate your going along with my whim, Adele. There’s a risk to walking out along the yard—”

  There was a risk the reprocessing latrine would explode when he used it too, but in neither case was it one that he’d bother to mention except as a way of soothing a friend’s ruffled feathers.

  “—and having any other concern on my mind, however unlikely, would have added to my danger.”

  Adele deliberately took one hand away from the mast and said, “Yes, it looked very dangerous to me. What were you doing?”

  Daniel could feel the corvette start to rotate beneath him. The change was minute, a degree or two. The light of the cosmos flared in great banners from the Princess Cecile’s mast trucks, highlighting the maneuver for those to whom the motion of the vessel was too subtle a cue.

  “On our calculated heading, we would have returned to the sidereal universe within optical range of the squadron,” Daniel explained, “but too far out for communication since they won’t be expecting our arrival. I’ve made some small refinements so that when we drop from the Matrix three hours from now, we’ll be within hailing range of the Winckelmann.”

  He grinned more broadly than he might have done if there’d been anybody to see his face. Since he was leaned sideways into contact with Adele’s helmet, not even she could tell his expression. “In fact,” he added, “I believe that we’ll be within the regulation twenty thousand miles, which is considerably closer than either of the destroyers is going to manage on their present headings.”

  “And you can see all that from streaks in the sky,” Adele said. He could visualize her wry smile. “Well, every profession has its unique language.”

  Daniel cleared his throat. “I can’t identify individual ships from their wakes,” he said. “That’s an assumption based on probabilities, so in case I’m wrong the Princess Cecile will exit with the crew at action stations. Pirates have the same problem, of course: they risk dropping into sidereal space with a warship instead of the freighter they thought they were tracking. Rather than fight a battle, they’re always prepared to slip at once back into the Matrix and hope their opponent can’t follow them there.”

  “Ah,” said Adele. Daniel waited for her to decide how to raise the topic that had brought her onto the hull with him in the first place. “Daniel, I’ve been reading Delos Vaughn’s files, as you know. One thing that appears from them is that his niece Pleyna—or at any rate the regent, Friderik Nunes—really is intriguing with the Alliance. That wasn’t simply a story to gain Cinnabar support for Vaughn’s return.”

  “I see,” Daniel said. It struck him that his words were a perfect echo of Adele’s when he was trying to point out wakes in the Matrix to her. He’d heard what Adele said, but as for understanding what she meant, she could’ve been trying to communicate by eyeblinks. “Ah, do you mean that the Princess Cecile has a political mission, Adele? That is … ?”

  He simply didn’t know how to go on. Did she expect him to aid Delos Vaughn openly? And if Daniel did, how in heaven’s name was he going to explain his actions to Commodore Pettin, let alone the board of the court-martial which would surely be convoked on his return to Cinnabar?

  “I don’t see that there’s anything we could do directly,” Adele said, probably unaware of the relief her words gave Daniel. “I do think that we ought to warn Commodore Pettin, however. If you can think of a discreet way to do that, which I’ll admit I cannot.”

  “Ah,” said Daniel. “Yes, I can see that. Well, perhaps I can find a way, though getting the commodore to listen to me is another matter. Even assuming he doesn’t order me removed from command at our first interview.”

  Daniel found himself smiling faintly. There was a real risk of Pettin reacting with explosive anger as soon as the Princess Cecile joined the squadron, but for all that Daniel didn’t find himself particularly concerned. This voyage, even more than the record run from Cinnabar to Sexburga, was a piece of astrogation that Uncle Stacey and his friends would discuss for hours over mulled rum in the office of Bergen and Associates. Whatever happened to his career, Lt. Daniel Leary had a name that real spacers would always mention with honor.

  Thinking of the coming interview with Commodore Pettin raised another question in Daniel’s mind. “Adele?” he said. “I gave you some tissue samples collected on South Land to run through the Medic’s analysis when an opportunity presented itself. Have you … ?”

  “Yes,” Adele said. “Yes, of course. I did that before we lifted, but it slipped my mind to give you the information with the bustle since then. And my own researches, of course. Both were healthy at present, though Sample A showed signs of a recent viral illness.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Daniel said. “The samples I gave you were for DNA matching to human beings. A portion of skull from the carnivore that attacked us, and some skin cells that Sun found under his fingernails after struggling with a, an herbivore in the cave we found.”

  “Oh?” said Adele. “I misunderstood, then. I simply checked them for disease. They must have been human to five decimal places or the Medic wouldn’t have been able to proceed on the normal setting.”

  “Good God,” Daniel said. People couldn’t have reached Sexburga under their own power back the forty, sixty, perhaps one hundred thousand years ago. It would’ve taken that long to modify humans into the creatures the expedition had fou
nd in the burrows under South Land.

  Chickens hadn’t reached Sexburga under their own power either; but there were chickens there now.

  “What do you think it means, Adele?” Daniel asked.

  She laughed, the sound made metallic by being transmitted through the sides of their helmets. “I’m a librarian, Daniel,” she said. “I organize and retrieve information. As for what it means, I’m afraid you’ll have to go to some other kind of specialist.”

  Daniel thought for a moment, then clapped her on the shoulder. “Let’s go in,” he said. “I need to make sure my 1st Class uniform is wearable, because I’m quite sure the commodore is going to expect me to make a formal appearance on the flagship.”

  *

  Daniel had never served on an Archaeologist-class cruiser, and this visit aboard one—even more than his first in harbor on Sexburga—made him thankful of the fact. The Winckelmann had been designed during a period when compartmentalization was the fad among naval constructors. The result was a squat cylinder divided into quadrants longitudinally as well as by decks on her vertical axis.

  In theory the Winckelmann could continue to fight with at least a quarter of its strength after a direct hit by a missile anywhere except on the power room. In practice the class was inefficient in action even when undamaged, required larger crew complements than ships of comparable force, and broke down approximately four times as often as less complicated designs.

  As usually happens, reality trampled a brilliant theory into the dust. Again as usual, the theory left behind detritus of which the Winckelmann was one of the more prominent clods.

  Daniel grinned as a signalman guided him up a third armored companionway, this like the others half-lit and dank with condensate which sometimes formed rust-bright pools along the welded seams. He didn’t imagine he’d enjoy this visit to the Winckelmann if she were outfitted and maintained like Corder Leary’s townhouse.

  “Here you go, sir,” said the signalman, stepping aside so that Daniel could enter the H Level rotunda serving the squadron commander. The armored hatch was locked open and showed rust on the hinges. Daniel didn’t need a micrometer to tell that the jamb was warped beyond any possibility of sealing the hatch in event of disaster.

  Four offices opened off the rotunda; the hatches of three were closed. A senior lieutenant in his late thirties sat at the central console, looking at Daniel with no expression whatever. He spoke into the intercom, his words smothered by the console’s active muting feature.

  Daniel struck a brace before the console. “Sir!” he said. “Lieutenant Leary reporting to the commodore!”

  “Cabin One, Leary,” the lieutenant said. He nodded minutely in the direction of the open office. “The commodore requests you to close the hatch behind you.”

  Daniel stepped into the anteroom of the squadron commander’s office, closing the hatch as he’d been directed. Commodore Pettin watched him silently from across the console in the inner office beyond.

  Pettin was wearing Dress Whites, just as Daniel was. Daniel didn’t know precisely how to take that, but he supposed he’d call it a good sign. Optimism didn’t cost anything, after all.

  Daniel strode through and stopped two paces from Pettin’s console. The room was as bare as a cell. He drew a deep breath and was a heartbeat short of announcing himself.

  “Sit down, Leary,” the commodore said. He didn’t sound in the least friendly, but neither was he snarling. “I’m going to proceed informally.”

  Daniel hesitated. There were two chairs on his side of the console, to his right and left, and he didn’t know which would be the better choice. The less bad choice. Besides, the paranoid part of his mind was in control at the moment, and it had no difficulty in imagining Pettin having him court-martialled for sitting down before saluting and announcing himself.

  “Sit down, dammit!” the commodore said. “Don’t you understand Universal?”

  Daniel plopped into the chair to his right. His 1st Class trousers didn’t strain the way they usually did; marching across South Land on cold rations had been good for his waistline.

  There was a moment’s silence. Knowing the risk he was taking, Daniel said, “Sir, I regret I didn’t inform you before I gave Lieutenant Mon orders to dismantle our fusion bottle for servicing while I was absent. The Princess Cecile’s inability to lift with the rest of the squadron was my own sole responsibility.”

  “Bullshit, Lieutenant,” Pettin said, not unpleasantly. “But that’s not what I’ve summoned you here to discuss.”

  Daniel folded his hands over the saucer hat in his lap. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “I suppose I’ve got to decide you’re either the finest astrogator alive,” Pettin said, “or the luckiest son of a bitch ever born. Or both, of course. Do you have anything to say on the subject, Lieutenant?”

  Daniel’s mind mulled the response, “No, sir,” but he didn’t let the words reach his tongue. This wasn’t the time to play safe by keeping a low profile; if there was ever such a time.

  “Sir,” Daniel said, “my uncle Stacey is the finest astrogator alive. I don’t know of anyone who can match his abilities.”

  The commodore laughed: briefly, high-pitched, and as bitter as wormwood. “Commander Bergen, yes,” he said. “I think of his career often when I’m contemplating my own. Whatever you got from your uncle, Leary, you didn’t get his luck—because he never had any.”

  Pettin formed his right hand into a fist but he didn’t slam it against the top of his silent console as Daniel thought he might. He looked old and very weary.

  “You were lucky, damned lucky, to join the squadron on our first exit from the Matrix,” Pettin said. He relaxed his fist. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Daniel said. “The variables fortunately cancelled one another out. We were very lucky.”

  Pettin nodded. “But you were going to join before we reached Strymon,” he said. “That wouldn’t have been luck. We have six intermediate exits, and you were going to keep refining your data at each one until you were in communication range of the Winckelmann, weren’t you?”

  Daniel nodded. “That was my intention, sir,” he said. This is as good a time as any will be… . “Admiral Torgis asked me to join you before you entered the Strymon system if it was humanly possible. He’d received some intelligence data just too late to provide it to you directly before liftoff.”

  “Torgis?” the commodore said, showing for the first time during this interview the petulance that had been so characteristic a part of his personality during Daniel’s past meetings with him. “What does he have to say?”

  “There’s very credible information that the Regent of Strymon is intriguing with Alliance representatives,” Daniel said truthfully, though the statement would be news to the admiral who was its implied source. “There’s a risk of active hostilities directed against the squadron.”

  Pettin snorted dismissively. “Torgis still likes to pretend he’s part of the RCN,” he said. “Passing on harbor gossip as if it came from Guarantor Porra’s private chamber is his way of forgetting he’s in a job that a dancing bear could do with clothes and the right barber.”

  Daniel sucked his cheeks in. Nothing he could say would have a desirable effect on the commodore.

  Pettin saw and understood the expression. “When you’re next having a drink with your good friend the admiral, Leary,” he said with more analysis than rancor, “you can tell him that you delivered his warning, and that the squadron spent its time on Strymon as it would on a recently conquered planet. I don’t need drunken rumors to know that there’s no lack of people on Strymon who hate and resent the Republic.”

  Pettin’s face twisted into what Daniel with difficulty identified as a smile. “I might add that I understand Mr. Torgis’ wish to be something more than a wall hanging as well,” he said. “I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect him to be thankful that the Republic found some duties for him after he retired from the RCN. Ma
ny of us will not be so fortunate.”

  Daniel dipped his head to show that he’d been listening, but he said nothing. He’d had his share of stupid urges in life, but none that would be as insane as encouraging the commodore to open his heart about the way his career had proceeded.

  Pettin grimaced and drew himself up straighter. “It won’t surprise you to learn, Lieutenant,” he said briskly, “that in the time since you unexpectedly rejoined my command I’ve been considering what I ought to do with an officer of your varied capacities. I think I’ve found a mutually desirable solution.”

  He smiled at Daniel. It hadn’t been a question in so many words, but Daniel knew better than to ignore it. “Yes, sir?” he said.

  “The Winckelmann and her original consorts will land on Strymon as planned,” Pettin said, obviously relishing the situation. “Your Princess Cecile, however, will proceed to the naval base on Tanais. You’re familiar with Tanais?”

  “I’ve reviewed the Sailing Directions for the entire Strymon system, sir,” Daniel said carefully.

  As though Daniel hadn’t spoken, Pettin continued, “It’s the satellite of Getica, the giant planet on the rim of the system. The Princess Cecile will spend the next two weeks in the naval dockyard there, having her fusion bottle removed and refitted by trained staff so that we can be sure it’s no longer a source of problems. And of course the officers and crew will remain with the vessel out of security concerns. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Daniel said. “I understand perfectly.”

  “According to my understanding,” Pettin said, “the night life on Tanais tends to be of the basic sort. It’s an ice ball, after all. Crib girls and industrial alcohol to drink. I sincerely hope this won’t cramp the style of a socialite like yourself, Lieutenant.”

  Daniel smiled faintly. “I expect I’m going to be too busy with the power room refit to be concerned about socializing, Commodore,” he said. “Ah—may I ask if the squadron’s astrogation plan has been transmitted to the Princess Cecile?”