by David Drake
She flicked her left sleeve with her right little finger. Her personal data unit was in her lap—she had brought it live without really thinking about it when she sat down—and she was holding the control wands in her thumbs and first two fingers of both hands.
"—I am Officer Mundy."
"I'm very sorry, Officer Mundy!" Leonard said hastily, clasping his hands by reflex. "It won't happen again!"
"And as for the question," Adele continued, "I know nothing about your reports, but I'm inclined to doubt that they had anything to do with me passing through Stahl's World. As I was given to understand the matter, a minor figure of the Representation Service died and the Princess Cecile was chartered to deliver his replacement as quickly as practical. I am the Signals Officer aboard the Princess Cecile."
The locals looked at one another. Runkle grimaced and said, "I don't wish to speak about matters which shouldn't be discussed generally, Officer, but if I may say—it's public knowledge that you have a reputation beyond the RCN."
"I shouldn't wonder," Adele said dryly. "I won't speculate on what you or anyone else may have heard—about me, or about the inner workings of the Senate, or the true story of this or that video entertainer's love life. I will say, however, that my duties to the RCN brought me to Stahl's World, and my courtesy has brought me to this room."
She paused, then said, "That courtesy is rapidly becoming exhausted, Technician."
The lieutenant opened his mouth but then froze. Runkle looked at him, then blurted, "Palmyra is dangerous, really dangerous. We thought, everybody out here, thought Autocrator Odin was less an ally than a tin-pot king with delusions of grandeur. After he died, though, we saw—we in the Intelligence Section, I mean—that the real pressure had been coming from Irene all the time. Odin had been holding her back."
She looked again at Leonard. This time he said, "No one will listen to us, Officer Mundy. You know how the RCN is. Nobody counts except watch-standing officers. They completely ignore us technical specialists."
Adele kept a straight face. The lieutenant had obviously forgotten who he was talking to.
She would agree that spacers, not just RCN officers, tended to treat anyone who wasn't a spacer with good-natured contempt. Space officers of Adele's acquaintance had invariably accepted her as soon as she had given evidence of her abilities, however. Leonard and Runkle hadn't yet convinced even her that they had a point.
"The Squadron staff treats us like a joke," Runkle said. "We've compiled evidence that Palmyra intends to expand by force in the near future, but nobody will pay any attention to our dossier."
"Commander Milch told me that the Palmyrenes were 'good fellows and bloody fine spacers,'" Leonard said bitterly. "As if commanding a light cruiser in the Battle of Dorking made him an authority on political intelligence!"
"You believe that Palmyra intends to attack us, Technician?" Adele said. Her tone was dry, by habit rather than policy. She kept her eyes on the display her wands were manipulating, though she was listening to the locals as she worked.
"We don't know," said Leonard. He spread his hands on the table and scowled at them. "But they have four regiments of infantry confined to base in preparation for embarkation. Plus the Horde on high alert, though that isn't so unusual. The Palmyrenes feel the same way about the importance of the Horde as RCN officers do about the RCN."
"The soldiers are under General Osman," said Runkle. She had her own personal data unit out. It was larger though far less capable than Adele's, but the technician handled the virtual keyboard with skill. "He's a good officer. Probably the only Palmyrene ground officer who you could say that about."
The section's electronic databases were well protected, much better protected than Adele had expected them to be. Their weakness was the provision to allow transfer of files from open storage to locked storage. Adele set her PDU to emulate the Section's administrative computer, then used it to insert a Trojan Horse to take control of the remainder of the system.
"The Palmyrenes have been talking for a generation about their traditional hegemony over the Qaboosh," Leonard said, relaxing slightly now that he and his assistant had begun talking without being slapped down. Since they'd finally come to the point, Adele had no reason to slap them. "If you go back far enough there's evidence for that."
If you go back far enough, Earth rules the human universe, Adele thought. The reality is that since a dozen asteroids crashed into the home planet to begin the Hiatus, so what remains of Earth is either pastoral or barbaric depending on your viewpoint.
But the present reality in the Qaboosh Region appeared to be the Horde; which did indeed put a different complexion on Palmyrene claims.
"Founder Hergo may well be right," said Runkle. "Though he doesn't do himself any good with his yelping and posturing. And if Irene attacks Zenobia or another Alliance possession, who's to say that the Alliance isn't going to retaliate against our shipping because Palmyra is a Cinnabar ally?"
"You said that two thousand Palmyrene ground troops appear to be poised for invasion," Adele said as her wands moved. She was switching tasks. The data harvest was complete, but it could have continued without her oversight if that were necessary. "My information is that Zenobia has a population of about three million, almost entirely on Setif, the main continent?"
When Runkle referred to Zenobia, she brought up a subject with which Adele had been familiarizing herself. Adele let her tone suggest a question, but she was confident in her statement. Quite apart from anything else, the data she'd brought from Xenos turned out to mirror that which she'd just gleaned from Section files.
"Well, yes, but there's no Zenobian regular army," Runkle said. "A sudden landing at Calvary might capture the government."
"Except for the 300 personnel of the Founder's Regiment," Adele said, her lip curling in contempt at Runkle's imprecision.
"Besides that," she went on, viewing her display as she spoke. "Calvary Harbor has anti-starship missiles. It would be necessary to capture or disable those, or else to land at a distance—at least a hundred and eighty miles from the batteries. Even then there would be a risk if a battery commander were alert. A landing starship can't maneuver; it's already operating at maximum stress."
"Have you technical specialists ever been on an assault landing?" Tovera said, her voice a buzz as quiet as a wasp's wings. "Mistress Mundy and I have, several times. Even when Captain Leary was in charge, they weren't nearly as neat and simple as they may seem on a computer display."
"Yes," said Adele, "there's that."
She shut down her data unit and rose. The visit hadn't been a waste of time, since she would have found it very difficult to enter the Section's locked files from outside the building. This way she could check whatever information the Section gave her without them knowing she was doing so.
"I will relay your concerns to such persons as might have an interest in them, Lieutenant Leonard," Adele said; she turned her head slightly to include Runkle in her statement. She thrust the data unit away in the thigh pocket she'd had added to her Grays. "For the moment, however, I must repeat that to the best of my knowledge, the fears you express are not shared on Xenos."
"But there has to be a reason you were sent to the Qaboosh!" Runkle said, frustration getting the better of her tone. "It doesn't take an agent of your stature to nursemaid some Commissioner!"
"I am here, Technician . . . ," Adele said, suddenly coldly angry. "As signals officer to the best fighting captain in the RCN. And now that you've reminded me, I'll get back to my duties. Good day to you both!"
She stalked into the hall, past Runkle who was trying to burble an apology. Tovera followed, walking backward with her hand inside her attaché case. A needless precaution, but she would ignore Adele's objection; and anyway, Adele didn't feel like objecting.
The trouble was that Adele suspected there really was fire somewhere in the smokescreen of sloppy thinking which the Intelligence Section had raised. The best hope was that Autocrator
Irene planned to attack a Cinnabar ally or even Stahl's World itself; such a business could be put down at modest cost in lives and property.
If the attack was on an Alliance world, however, the danger wasn't just commerce raiding in reprisal. It would light a fuse which, when it burned back to Pleasaunce, would engulf the Peace of Rheims and with it, very possibly, both exhausted empires.
* * *
"This bay houses the Power Room watches," Commander Bailey said as he entered the B Level compartment with Daniel at his side; von Gleuck and Lady Belisande followed closely. Most of the bunk towers had been lifted against the ceiling to clear the huge compartment.
Three spacers squatted near the hatch to play cards on the floor. They hopped to their feet and one—presumably the senior man, but they wore only breechclouts—shouted, "Attention!"
A dozen other personnel leaped up in various stages of undress. "Stand easy," Bailey said with a nonchalant wave. The Palmyrene spacers may have relaxed slightly, but they didn't go back to their previous occupations while the visitors strode down the center aisle.
"The room is very clean," said Lady Belisande said as the party approached the rear bulkhead. "But perhaps that is because it's so much bigger than your destroyer, Otto?"
Von Gleuck snorted. Daniel said, "Your ladyship, I've never seen a ship of any size this neat before. I've seen battleships straight from the builders' yard that had more trash and litter about them, not to mention grease."
"What Captain Leary says is my experience also," von Gleuck said. "Commander, has the ship been cleaned specially for the gathering? Even so it is remarkable—and we are not in the public parts of the vessel where strangers are to be expected."
Bailey led them out into the corridor through the sternward hatch. None of the off-duty spacers had spoken while visitors were present, save for the man who had called the compartment to attention.
"No," Bailey said. "That's how it is in the Horde. It's a good thing, you know, but to tell the truth it gives me the creeps some times."
"You're from Cinnabar yourself, are you not, Commander?" Daniel said with a friendly smile.
Bailey had been reaching for the control of the hatch marked Missile Magazine #2. He started and gave Daniel a look of nervous surmise. "I'm from Kostroma, born right in Kostroma City," he said. "But, ah, I lived a while in Xenos. And had twelve years as Chief Missileer in the RCN if you want to know the truth. But I didn't desert, I mustered out proper, and anyway I'm an officer in the Horde now and the Autocrator won't let you haul me back!"
"Nothing like that, my good man," said Daniel. "Quite a number of RCN personnel will be entering foreign service or trying to live on half-pay very shortly if the peace holds."
He'd slipped into the tone of a superior to a servant rather than speaking as peer to peer. Bailey had merely confirmed Daniel's existing assumption: the fellow was a warrant officer with a commission from barbarians rather than an officer by birth and education.
"Are there many foreign officers in the Horde?" von Gleuck said. "I met a number of cutter captains below at the gala, and they were all Palmyrenes."
"Specialist officers is all," admitted Bailey. He'd apparently decided just to answer what he was asked rather than worry about what he should say. "Which means some of us aboard the Piri Reis and also the Turgut. And nobody from Cinnabar or Pleasaunce, either: I'm Kostroman, remember. The destroyer's got a Palmyrene chief engineer, but Antoniani here on the Piri Reis is from Pantellaria."
Daniel looked into the missile magazine without entering. All the cradles were filled, and everything was as precisely arranged as the interior of a mechanical timepiece.
The missiles were single-converter units, however. They had the same terminal velocity as the weapons in front-line service with Cinnabar and the Alliance, but they took twice as long to accelerate.
The units that turned reaction mass into the antimatter which was annihilated with ordinary matter in the High Drive were expensive. Otherwise a missile was a water tank which relied on kinetic energy to destroy its target. Navies which expected to use their missiles—and who could afford them—equipped their ships with dual-converter models, thereby gaining an advantage in combat.
"Is the Piri Reis having trouble with her own converters, Bailey?" Daniel asked as he turned away from the magazine.
That got through the commander's cloak of resignation. He blurted defensively, "Why do you ask that?"
"Probably because every Pantellarian ship in the RCN has converter problems," von Gleuck said. "Certainly that's true in the Fleet, as I know to my cost. I was a midshipman on the Turbine. We counted ourselves lucky when we had 75% of our High Drive motors on line."
Daniel laughed. "Yes, but they have such pretty lines, do they not?" he said, exchanging grins with von Gleuck.
He bowed to Lady Belisande and added, "Though not nearly so pretty as those of her ladyship here."
"Captain," she said with an arch lift of her slim nose, "I will slap you if you do not immediately begin referring to me as Posy. Lady Belisande died at my birth, as you might guess from my given name of Posthuma. I am alive."
"And quite lively, in a ladylike fashion," said von Gleuck with an affectionate grin.
"Sometimes ladylike," Posy said. She covered her giggle behind her hand. They were obviously an affectionate couple, comfortable in one another's presence.
The commo unit on Bailey's shoulder gave three shrill beeps. That must have been more than merely an attention signal, for he cracked his heels together and stiffened before replying, "Bailey here, Excellency!"
"Bring Captain Leary to my suite, Bailey," a woman's voice directed. The Palmyrenes used external speakers rather than earbuds. While the tiny speaker might account for some of the harsh tone, Daniel suspected that it gave a fairly accurate impression of the Autocrator's manner. "At once."
"This way," said Bailey, gesturing with his hands as though he were shooing his guests toward the companionways in the stern rotunda which widened the central corridor just beyond the missile magazine. "And don't dawdle! The Admiral's suite, that's where Her Excellency is, is just forward of the BDC."
Daniel took the lead, which would allow von Gleuck to shepherd his lady at the speed they chose. He and the Alliance officer exchanged glances, but they both understood the situation without needing to speak. This way there wasn't a risk that a spacer—well, a rated landsman; no spacer would behave that way—would barrel down the up companionway, nor that someone in a hurry would try to push by from below.
Posy couldn't have a great deal of experience on helical metal staircases, but her steps pattered up quickly enough that Daniel didn't feel a need to slow down for her sake. He grinned, remembering how easily Miranda Dorst took to companionways. In Miranda's case, poverty after her father's early death had meant the elevators of the apartment block where she and her mother lived were frequently out of order.
Pantellarians wearing body armor and carrying mob guns—impellers whose short barrel fired clusters of aerofoils which spread widely when they left the muzzle—stood outside the open hatch just up the corridor. Two guards turned to cover Daniel and his companions, while the third kept his weapon aimed toward the bow.
If the Autocrator is really concerned for her safety . . . , Daniel thought, she had better consider how aerofoils would ricochet from steel bulkheads. He gave the guards an engaging smile.
A man in black Cinnabar formalwear with a white ruff stepped out of the compartment, followed by a young woman with a briefcase; she wore a beige suit with maroon piping, the dress uniform of members of the External Service. She and her superior strode silently past Daniel and disappeared into a down companionway. The man—Governor Wenzel, by deduction—nodded warily to Daniel's uniform.
The woman who followed the Cinnabar officials into the corridor wore a tiara. Golden robes concealed her body, but there was no fat in her cheeks or hands.
"You're Captain Leary?" she said. "Come into my suite. I want to tal
k to you."
The commo unit hadn't misled Daniel about her voice, though in person the Autocrator had a resonance that commanded respect. He said, "Yes, I'm Daniel Leary, your Excellency. May I introduce my friends, Lady Posthuma Belisande of Zenobia and Fregattenkapitan Otto von Gleuck of the Alliance Fleet?"
"A Zenobian?" Irene said on a rising note. "And you—"
Her eyes searched for Commander Bailey. He had stepped behind the visitors as soon as Daniel made his announcement.
"—have brought a Fleet officer here?"
"Your pardon, Leary," von Gleuck said politely. He fluffed the sleeve of his 'Zenobian' blouse and added, "Aboard this vessel, your Excellency, I am the Honorable Otto von Gleuck, second son of Count Johann. We on Adlersbild continue the custom of hereditary nobility, foolish though it may seem to you sturdy republicans of Cinnabar."
"I recall my father, Speaker Leary, commenting on that very thing," said Daniel, grinning at von Gleuck.
They were baiting the Autocrator. That certainly hadn't been Daniel's intention when he jumped to obey Admiral Mainwaring's summons, but he knew instinctively that it was the correct response—at least when he had a partner like von Gleuck to support him.
If he didn't make clear the position of Cinnabar relative to that of Palmyra, the Autocrator would begin ordering him around like a puppy. That would force him, as an RCN officer in the middle of an RCN base, to react. She might become angry at being treated with gentle amusement, but that was less dangerous in the long run to the relations among the powers of the Qaboosh Region.
The Autocrator's chiseled features went pale. It occurred to Daniel that it would not be beyond possibility that the ruler of a world so far out on the fringes might order her guards to shoot them all dead. After long moments of silence she smiled coldly and said, "Come into my suite, then, all of you. It is well that you should have seen the Piri Reis for yourselves."
She swept back through the hatchway. Daniel exchanged glances with von Gleuck, then led the way. The Alliance officer followed Posy.