by David Drake
Daniel grinned. It didn't flex, although among the dancers was a circle of twelve men in pantaloons and loose tunics whose whirling was definitely on the acrobatic side. Several of them held in either hand green scarves which fluttered wildly as they spun.
"They're from Behistun," Milch said, leaning close to be heard. "The only reason I know is there was a lieutenant commander in Administration when I was first posted here who was doing a study of them. You couldn't shut him up in the mess."
The crowd numbered several hundred. Some wore uniforms, but not nearly so many as Daniel had learned to expect on the fringes of—not to put too fine a point on it—civilization, as a citizen of Cinnabar or Pleasaunce would define the state.
The other surprise was that planetary costumes of various types predominated. Indeed, Daniel would have seen far more women dressed in the latest Pleasaunce fashion at a party in Xenos than he did here. The residents of the Qaboosh Region were so distant from the centers of power that they didn't realize their customs were quaint and laughable.
Daniel smiled wryly. Given their ability to navigate in the Matrix, they had reason to be satisfied with who they were.
"Leary?" someone called. "Daniel Leary, and it's not half a wonder to find you on Stahl's World!"
Coming through the press wearing Grays was Lieutenant Ames, an Academy classmate with whom Daniel had spent a good deal of time when they were both impecunious Cadets. Ames had the same smile and the same unruly black hair. His uniform looked as though it was meant for a larger man and had been cut down inexpertly, so he was probably still impecunious as well.
"By heavens, it's good to see you, Ames!" Daniel said, clasping hands with his old friend. "I'm glad to see you've—"
His tongue twitched an instant, then concluded, "—kept yourself so fit."
"The great thing about being out in the boondocks, Leary . . . ," said Ames with a quirked smile. "Is that the chances are you won't be thrown on half pay when peace breaks out and your ship is put into ordinary. Our Lords of Navy House can't run down the Qaboosh Establishment very much and still have an establishment here. So yes, I'm still Second Lieutenant of the Fantome."
Daniel nodded in embarrassment. He'd always thought Ames was among the sharpest of his classmates, but his combination of being brash, poor, and unlucky was a bad one.
"If you don't mind, Ames," said Milch, who obviously minded the delay quite a lot himself, "I need to introduce our guest to Admiral Mainwaring. Do you know where he is? Perhaps you can catch up with the captain at some later point; but not, I think, today."
"The Admiral is on the quay near the forward boarding ramp, sir," Ames said. "About as far from the band as he could get, I shouldn't wonder. Ah—I wonder, Commander Milch?"
"Well, what is it, boy?" Milch snapped as he started down the quay separating the cruiser's slip from the adjacent one where the six Palmyrene cutters were berthed. They were small enough in all truth, but against the bulk of a heavy cruiser they looked tiny.
"I'd appreciate a chance to introduce Captain Leary to the Admiral myself," Ames said. "We are old friends."
He cocked an eyebrow toward Daniel.
"Hear hear!" Daniel said with honest enthusiasm. "We are indeed, Commander."
"And it's a, well, different context from some of those the Admiral may recall me in," Ames concluded hopefully.
Milch guffawed. "You mean, like the time you and Midshipman Jarndyce appeared at the Governor's Ball in silks, claiming to be the Sultan of Patagonia and his Chief Concubine?" he said. "All right, Ames, you can introduce your friend. But make yourself scarce as soon as you have, got that?"
"Aye aye, sir!" said Ames. "And here, most honorable captain, is the man we're fortunate to have as our squadron commander."
The admiral stood in the midst of Whites and civilian clothing ranging from tweeds to a barefoot woman wearing a poncho of cerise feathers with a mantilla. Mainwaring was a big man; he certainly carried more weight than he needed to, but Daniel's first impression was of power rather than flabby indolence. He was holding a drink in his right hand and gesturing forcefully to the befeathered lady with his left.
"Admiral Mainwaring?" said Ames. "May I have the honor to present my classmate, Captain Daniel Leary?
"What?" said Mainwaring. He held out his drink to the side; a boy of sixteen or so, wearing Whites without insignia, snatched it away to free the Admiral's hand. "Ames, are you telling me that the captain was a classmate of yours?"
"He was indeed, sir," said Daniel. By regulation, salutes weren't to be exchanged in civilian venues, but he'd held himself ready to try if Mainwaring's scowl had showed that the admiral was expecting one. "And you can take most of his stories for true, because Cadet Ames was generally in the lead when the more interesting incidents were happening."
Mainwaring laughed, but he gave the lieutenant an appraising look. Ames nodded politely, then said, "I'll be off then, sir. Leary, it's a pleasure to see you, as always."
"You and he really did run around together, Leary?" Mainwaring said.
"Yes sir," Daniel said. "And based on my experience of Ames at the Academy, I'd venture that Midshipman Jarndyce is a comely young lady."
A lieutenant commander laughed. "You got that in one, sir," he said. "I'm Paxston—" which Daniel had already determined from the tag on his left breast "—of the Fantome, young Ames' CO."
Not for the first time it struck Daniel that people were referring to him with deference and his classmates—Ames was thirty-seven days his senior—as "young this-or-that." Apparently success added not only laurels but years.
"Now," said Mainwaring, "we need to find the Autocrator. Milch, do you see anybody in a yellow cap?"
To Daniel he added, "Those would be Palmyrene officers. One of them ought to know."
Milch disappeared on his implied errand. Daniel spread a smile across the group around the admiral, feeling uncomfortable.
One learned in the RCN that a superior officer's whim was the word of god, but he'd much rather that Mainwaring had taken a moment to introduce him at least to the Cinnabar officers present. Nobody likes to be ignored, and—quite apart from being a generally courteous person himself—Daniel had learned that nobody was so insignificant that their resentment couldn't matter.
It also struck him that the quickest way of learning where Autocrator Irene was would be to ask Adele over microphone concealed under his left epaulette and get the answer through the bud in his right ear. He didn't want to call attention to himself—or to Adele—in that fashion, but the idea was tempting.
"I believe I can help you there, Admiral Mainwaring," said a cultured baritone behind Daniel's left shoulder. "Autocrator Irene is in conference with your Regional Governor, Master Wenzel, in the Admiral's Suite on A Level of the Piri Reis."
Daniel turned and backed slightly, though he kept his smile. The speaker, a man of about thirty Standard years, was, by leaning slightly backward, being punctiliously careful not to crowd. That didn't make much change in the distance, but the body language was clear.
His costume was remarkable: loose pantaloons gathered above the ankles and an equally billowy shirt with full sleeves but a deeply cut Vee neck that displayed quite a lot of muscular chest. Over it he wore a gold chain whose links looked so buttery pure that Daniel suspected he could bend them with his fingers.
"This is Zenobian national costume," the man said, facing Daniel with an engaging smile. They were of a height, but the stranger was undeniably trimmer. Daniel controlled his urge to suck his gut in; he was better off not to try to compete on those terms.
"The colors aren't," said the woman touching the fellow's arm. "If you can even call those colors."
"I'd suspected as much," Daniel said, smiling in growing amusement. The pantaloons were light gray and the tunic was gray-green—field gray, if you were describing a Fleet dress uniform, whose hues the outfit perfectly mimicked. The golden bangle hanging from the chain was three crossed tridents: the rank insig
nia of a Fleet lieutenant commander.
"Thank you, sir!" said Admiral Mainwaring. "And now if I may ask, who the bloody hell are you?"
The stranger turned and made a half bow to Mainwaring. "Your pardon, Admiral," he said. "I am Fregattenkapitan Otto von Gleuck, commanding Z 46. We have no friends in common, I fear, so I chose to approach you without a proper introduction. I of course knew of you and likewise knew of Captain Leary."
He glanced again to Daniel and nodded, not as formal an acknowledgment but an apparently friendly one.
"I'm very pleased to meet you both."
"Pleased as well," said Daniel with a comparable nod and an equally friendly smile. "I hope that now that our peoples are at peace, there'll be more chance for the professionals on both sides to socialize."
He offered his hand as though they were civilians meeting; von Gleuck gripped it firmly, but without attempting the silly game of trying to crush a stranger's fingers. They stepped back from one another.
Admiral Mainwaring was turning red. Von Gleuck bowed again to him and said, "Admiral, may I have the honor of presenting Lady Posthuma Belisande of Zenobia. Her brother Hergo, you may know, is the Founder of her planet; so to speak, the President for Life. She has recently returned home from a stay on Pleasaunce."
That explains her fashion sense, thought Daniel. He'd seen his share of attractive women, but no more than a handful whom he would put in Lady Posthuma's class. Her poise gave her a presence beyond what her exceptional face and body could have done by themselves.
She curtseyed to Mainwaring and rose with a smile that could have lighted an arena. "Admiral," she said, "it truly is an honor to meet you. And do please call me Posy. All my friends do."
Daniel smiled ruefully. Mainwaring would have had to be a better man than Captain Daniel Leary to resist charm on that level. But from the proprietorial way the lady's hand had rested on von Gleuck's arm as they approached, the Alliance had already won this battle.
"Enchanted, your ladyship," Mainwaring said, bending over Posy's hand with the enthusiasm of a starving cannibal. "Is your brother here, then? Not that anyone would care when your lovely self is present."
Commander Milch reappeared with a sharp-featured man of fifty who wore a round, brimless yellow cap. His uniform was tan with silver buttons but no other markings. There was a five-pointed star on the cap, also silver.
"Sir?" said Milch. "This is Commander Bailey, the Chief Gunnery Officer of the Piri Reis. The Autocrator gave him a message for you."
"Right you are, Admiral," Bailey said in an accent straight from the spacers' tenements around Harbor Three. "She was just going into conference with your Governor Wenzel when she heard that the ship what just landed had brought Captain Leary. She asked could I show him around the cruiser till she was through, because she really wanted to meet him."
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 pre-fabricated 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 5th 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 t
he 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—"