by David Drake
She coughed, giving herself another moment to organize . . . not her thoughts, but how she could present those thoughts in a fashion that a politician would understand. "Captain Leary sees himself as an RCN officer before everything else."
That might not be true: Daniel probably considered himself as a spacer first and an RCN officer only as a subset of his greater role. If that meant Adele was lying to a politician, it was merely a pleasant reversal of roles.
"He's certainly capable of political maneuvering in the course of his RCN duties," she continued. "I've watched him do so a number of times, most recently in the Bagarian Cluster. But—"
"Don't forget who you're talking to, Mundy," Forbes said, though it was with bluff good humor rather than a threatening snarl. "I saw Mistress Sand's hand in that business."
"With respect, Senator," Adele said, feeling the edge in her tone. "Don't underestimate Captain Leary. He is his father's son. But you can take my word for it that they share no interests—"
Save for liking the favors of young women; but this wasn't the time for Adele to be as precise as her instinct urged.
"—whatever. Or I wouldn't be here."
Forbes laughed. She sounded like glass breaking, but Adele was reasonably sure she was really amused.
They'd led the procession all the way from the cruiser. As they neared the concrete pier, Tovera slipped between without brushing either one of them. "What?" said Forbes, too shocked to be angry.
"She'll wait for us, Senator," Adele said. She wondered if her voice showed the humor she felt. "There's some things she needs to take care of."
She watched her servant mount the metal stairs. Though they slanted out toward the bottom only by the width of each tread, Tovera didn't use her hands. On top of the pier she moved Governor Das and his aides back with a few words and an imperious jerk of her head.
Adele followed. At this stage of the tide, the pier was eight steps above the water level. The bottom two treads were slimy, but at least the stringers at shoulder height were dry to Adele's hands; they left black corrosion on her palms, though. Behind, Forbes muttered, "This is abominable!"
Adele stepped aside on the concrete. She took out her handkerchief and wiped her hands.
"Ah, Senator . . . ?" said Governor Das hopefully to Adele. His uniform had a high collar, and his throat above it was squeezed to almost the same scarlet hue.
"She's coming, Your Excellency," Adele said, nodding toward the ladder. She refolded the handkerchief to bring clean surfaces outward.
Forbes reached the concrete. "Senator Forbes," Das said, his voice a half octave above where it had been a moment before. "Allow me to welcome you to—"
"I do not know you, sir," Forbes said, wiping her hands on Adele's handkerchief. She dropped it disdainfully into the water. "Come along, Mundy. I think I hear an aircar."
Adele fell into step. The business left an unpleasant taste in her mouth, but she hadn't liked Forbes to begin with. Das had behaved like a social-climbing toady, and by so doing he'd let himself in for a snub in front of his subordinates. That was simple cause and effect, and the victim was the cause of his own discomfiture.
She smiled wryly. It still left a bad taste in her mouth.
Forbes looked at her. "If Captain Leary did decide on a political career," she said quietly, "an alliance with an experienced politician could save him from the sort of mistakes that even a clever young man could make in ignorance."
"Senator," said Adele, "I'll deliver your message discreetly. But information is my business."
She smiled coldly. "I started to say, 'my life.' That would have been accurate also. I've told you that Captain Leary will not, in my best personal and professional analysis, ever consider a political career."
Forbes made a moue, screwing her face into even more unattractive lines. "You have a reputation for being as blunt as you're clever, Mundy," she said. "It's a wonder you've lived as long as you have."
"I'm also a good shot," Adele said. If Forbes had learned the rest, she knew that already; but stating it—bluntly—made a useful point. "That has helped on occasion."
She glanced over her shoulder. Daniel and five other officers had followed the senator's party to the pier at a polite distance. The junior officers were now returning to the Milton—their presence had been merely for honor's sake—while Daniel and Hogg were accompanying the local officials back to the car.
Adele gave a mental shrug. She could only hope that Beckford's aircar arrived before Das and Forbes found themselves at the end of the pier together. The governor could avoid awkwardness by dawdling, of course, which he should be able to figure out on his own. His record in Client Affairs—she'd looked Das up, of course—was good if unspectacular.
She and Forbes had reached the broad esplanade which ran in both directions around the harbor. Tractors hauled cargo wagons, many of them wooden-framed, to and from lighters. Some of the piers had derricks, but much of the work was being done by human beings. Some stevedores were women, but the gangs themselves were segregated by gender.
Forbes looked at the buildings across the esplanade. It was early in the day, but the taverns were busy. Several of the spacers staggering through the swinging doors were so drunk that they must have spent the whole night inside.
"What a bloody dump," she said bitterly.
"Oh, Paton isn't really so bad, Senator," said Adele, following the other's eyes with her own. "You mustn't judge a planet by its harborfront. Even Cinnabar, I'm afraid."
"You have the advantage of experience, I suppose, Mundy," Forbes said. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to learn to accept this sort of—"
She gestured toward the buildings. They were roofed with corrugated metal or plastic sheeting, and the bright paint had flaked in many places to show underlayers that from a distance had looked like designs.
"—environment unless I can somehow find a way to get back into the fight in Xenos. My whole life to date has been spent in civilized surroundings."
An aircar was approaching from the north at five hundred feet. As Adele glanced up, it dropped into a spiral centered on the senator and her entourage. It was a large, enclosed vehicle, painted light blue with swirls of pink blurring into magenta.
"I've learned I'm not very good at predicting the future," Adele said in a neutral voice as she watched the car landing. One of the things "civilization" meant to her, of course, was her sister's head nailed to Speaker's Rock; but there was no need to remind Forbes of that. "The best things that have happened to me have been wholly unexpected."
"Life has made me less optimistic than you, Mundy," the senator said. "You may be right, of course."
The aircar fluffed to a halt on the esplanade twenty feet away. The driver had landed downwind so that he didn't blow grit on the waiting passengers. If he'd been hired locally, the standard of drivers on Paton was extremely high.
Servants hopped from the vehicle's open rear compartment and opened the double doors in the middle. They wore full livery, not collar flashes, in the same blue and pink color scheme as the car.
Beckford waddled out. He was at least fifty pounds heavier than he looked in the last images taken of him before he left Cinnabar, and he hadn't been slim then. He made kissing gestures with both hands and cried, "Bessie, dearest!"
His costume had feathers for a theme; Adele wondered if Beckford had designed it himself. There was a range of competence in any specialty, of course, but she would've expected any professional designer to have some taste.
"Hello, Willie," the senator said. She didn't step closer, but she gave Beckford a tiny bow in greeting. "It's my great good luck to find you here in this—"
She lifted her hands, palms up, and gave him a false smile.
"—corner of the universe, shall we say?"
Adele stood quietly with only her eyes moving, but Beckford's attention fell on her nonetheless. "I say, Bev," he said. "Couldn't they find an officer to escort you? You really are slumming, aren't you?"
Adele realized she'd been waiting for that; waiting for some excuse, anyway. She'd known it would happen ever since she watched Forbes snub Governor Das.
Her mind was as cold as steel in the Matrix. She smiled.
"Willie," Forbes said urgently, her eyes flicking between Beckford and Adele. "You should know—"
"You are mistaken, Beckford," Adele said. There was a rasp she didn't expect beneath her drawl. Her left hand hung down at her side. "My father, who was Mundy of Chatsworth before me, didn't shun you because your people are in trade. He was quite willing to entertain tradesmen and even manual laborers when the needs of the party required it, but as a gentleman he had to maintain some standards."
She paused and smiled a little wider. "He shunned you," she said, "because you personally are a maggot."
"Willie . . . ," said Senator Forbes. She took Beckford by the right hand and half-guided, half-forced, him to turn toward the car again. "I was going to introduce you to Lady Mundy, but I don't think this is the time. Come, be a dear and get me to a hot bath and dinner at once, won't you?"
She shoved Beckford into the shadowed interior of the vehicle and followed him. "But Your Ladyship, what are we to do?" bleated Platt, stepping forward.
"Stay here until the car comes back for you!" Forbes shouted. "For Hell's bloody sake, stay here till you rot, you fool! Driver, get us out of here!"
The footmen closed the doors with mechanical precision, then leaped like acrobats for the rear compartment. Before they were fully in, the aircar lifted as smoothly as it'd settled to the pavement.
Tovera chuckled. "I didn't have anything heavy enough to get the driver," she said. "The windows were armored. But I don't suppose he was much of a threat anyway, do you?"
"None of them were threats," Adele said. She was trembling in response to the adrenaline she hadn't burned off in an orgy of killing. "There wasn't going to be any trouble."
"Officer Mundy?" Daniel called.
Adele turned, clenching and unclenching her left hand to work the tension out of it. Daniel, with Hogg and the three Paton officials, stood beside the official groundcar. "S-sir?" she said.
"Would you care to join us at the Governor's Palace for a discussion of recent events in the Veil?" Daniel said. "Since you appear to be free, that is."
He'll learn more without me, Adele realized. Her presence would disturb the locals, either because they didn't know why a signals officer was at the meeting, or because they did know. Daniel was inviting her as a way of getting her out of what must have looked like a dangerous situation.
"No thank you, sir," she said aloud. "I'll return to my duties on board, if I may."
"Carry on, then, Mundy," Daniel said, but she was already walking back down the pier. Of course she'd carry on; that's what she did.
And she'd keep on doing it until the day she died.
"I hope you won't mind if I loosen a few buttons, Your Excellency," Daniel said. He grinned across the compartment at Das and his aides, perched on the edge of their rear-facing seat. "Even these Grays are bad enough. I really should've gotten out my Dress Whites to accompany Senator Forbes, but I find them the most uncomfortable things I've worn since I was put in the stocks on Manzanita in the course of a midshipmen's cruise."
Das's official vehicle used the chassis of an armored personnel carrier. It was quite roomy, given that the present occupants weren't a squad of troops in battledress—and the furnishings were reasonably comfortable. The suspension was tuned for an additional five tons of armor, however. Jolts over potholes didn't harm the vehicle in the least, but the passengers bounced like peas in a maraca.
Das gave a sigh and unhooked his collar—as Daniel had intended he should. In fact his Whites wouldn't have been bad at all; he'd lost a few pounds on space duty, as he usually did. The governor was as miserable in his dress uniform as any middle-aged man would be squeezing into a closely tailored garment that he wore only rarely. Putting the poor fellow at ease was a kindness and was likely to lead to a better conversational atmosphere.
"It's part of the job," Das murmured with a self-conscious smile, "but not a part that I take naturally to."
His face dropped into bleak misery. "I needn't have bothered today, should I?"
Daniel looked out the vehicle's big side windows. The larger flying species on Paton had scaly bodies and used their hind limbs to flap wings stretched by rigid tails. A pair were curveting through a cloud of chitinous glitters drawn by a spill on the sidewalk.
"I'm afraid Senator Forbes suffered a very embarrassing political defeat recently," Daniel said, keeping his head turned to imply that his whole attention was on the wildlife. "You wouldn't go far wrong to suggest that she's in mourning for her senatorial hopes."
"I told you!" said Das's female aide. "It had to be something like that, Governor."
Well, no, it didn't, Daniel thought. And indeed, it probably wasn't anything to do with Forbes's behavior. But a polite fiction, like a loose collar, made for a more comfortable ride.
"Well, of course the ambassador was merely stretching her legs on Paton, I realized that," Das said. "There's nothing here of real importance to the Republic, or—"
His smile wasn't bitter, though perhaps it was a little sad.
"—I wouldn't be here myself, Captain Leary. Still, I like to think that although this is a small corner of Cinnabar's influence, we keep it well swept."
"You do indeed, sir!" said the young male aide. He had acne scars, and his uniform—beige with scarlet piping, apparently the diplomatic equivalent of Dress Grays—had been taken in and lengthened considerably after being cut for a shorter, fatter man. "It's an honor to be assigned to your tutelage."
Either that was blatant flattery, or the boy must have trouble in the morning deciding which foot to put each shoe on. Given that he'd been sent to Paton, Daniel suspected his Ministry instructors were of the latter opinion.
The vehicle—was it technically a limousine since that was the function it fulfilled?—pulled up in front of a long, low building similar to many of those it had passed on the way from the harbor. The walls were structural plastic, originally white but muted to a pleasant cream color by decades of sun and dust. The surface could be burnished to its original brightness, but that would just make it blindingly unpleasant in full sunshine.
The guard seated in front of the building had jumped up as the vehicle approached. He stood at attention with his weapon—an impeller carbine and not, Daniel thought, of Cinnabar manufacture—butted alongside his right foot.
"You run a tight ship here, Governor," Daniel said, surprised and amused.
Das coughed. "Well," he said, "not always. Charcot, you can relax. Senator Forbes is off on her own business, and Captain Leary here takes a reasonable attitude toward appearances."
The guard grinned and lost his stiff brace, but he didn't sit down again while Das was present. "Glad to hear it, sir," he said.
"Come in and have a drink while we talk, Leary," the governor said. "And Amos can find something for your man—"
He nodded toward Hogg.
"—if you don't object?"
"The young master doesn't object," Hogg said firmly. "Let's go, boy. And if you know where a pack of cards can be found, maybe we can try a few friendly hands of poker."
As Hogg and the youth disappeared through the front door, Daniel took a better look at the building. To the right, a number of women—several with children in their arms or clinging to their skirts—were talking with people inside. One was even holding hands. It was a moment before Daniel realized that the windows were barred.
"The jail's in that wing," said the female aide. "Mostly drunken knifings. Some theft, but that's mostly drunken too. There isn't much scope for master criminals on Paton, I'm afraid."
Daniel followed the governor through the swinging door and into a rectangular hall. It was dim after the street, because the only illumination came from clerestory windows shaded by the eaves. The air was notic
eably cooler than that outside.
Half a dozen men lounged on wooden benches, apparently taking advantage of the temperature. Two were playing checkers on a board set between them. No one spoke, though several looked up when the door opened.
"We fine prisoners or sentence them to a term of labor if they can't pay the fine," Das said, leading the way down the hallway to the left. "Which they generally can't. Cone Transport buys the labor contracts, which is handy for everyone concerned."
He opened the door at the end of the hallway and waved Daniel through. A massive desk faced out from the back wall, and a modern console purred across from it. The aide moved to the console, while Das stepped behind the desk and opened a drawer.
"Have a chair, Leary," Das said. "Or—" he patted the conformal seat of off-planet manufacture beside him "—would you like this one?"