Lt. Leary, Commanding (28 page)

The stack on Adele's plate had risen beyond the practical possibility of adding to it. With a longing glance at a tray of unfamiliar sliced meats, she stepped back—then paused to snatch a roll.

Tovera was outside in the van which had brought Adele to the party, watching a bank of images transmitted by tiny cameras secreted in every room of the Residence. Their fish-eye lenses distorted the views to the point Adele would have found them useless, but Tovera seemed to have no difficulty.

Adele didn't see any reason for such paranoia; but then, she wouldn't have suggested her servant bring a submachine gun to Delos Vaughn's party on Cinnabar. She could certainly appreciate Tovera's fastidious attention to the details of her profession.

Large though the Residency was, the present number of guests comfortably filled it. Most were well-fed and all but the Cinnabar nationals from the RCN and the Commissioner's staff wore bright costumes, though they differed widely in style. Perhaps half the number were Sexburgans; the others came from at least a dozen other worlds within the Republic's sphere of influence.

Lt. Mon got up with three locals who'd been crushed against him at a tiny table, apparently a father, mother, and their strikingly attractive daughter. Mon tossed off another tumbler of tawny liquor. He looked stunned by the attention. Adele was virtually certain that he'd never imagined he'd ever be part of a gathering like this. The daughter took his arm as the parents beamed.

Cherry and Adele moved to the just-vacated table as Mon and his new friends walked toward the stairs to the roof garden. "How often does the Resident have parties of this sort?" Adele asked as they waited for a servant to clear the table of litter.

"Admiral Torgis gave a similar do on Republic Day both years that he's been here as Resident," Cherry said, settling down opposite her. He was in his forties and well-fed, if not exactly fat. "This is obviously because of Mr. Leary's presence."

"Because of Kostroma, you mean?" Adele said. She started with the candied bug since it seemed to watch her sadly from its perch at the edge of her dish. "Because surely a great deal of RCN traffic passes through Sexburga in the course of a year? Vessels more prepossessing than a corvette, that is."

Cherry tapped the side of his nose. "Oh, the admiral's given out that it's because of the business on Kostroma," he said, "and I suppose most of the guests believe that. But some of us know the
real
reason Speaker Leary's son has been sent on this mission. I understand you're an intimate of Mr. Leary yourself?"

Adele swallowed, hoping that her shocked expression would be put down to the mouthful she'd just consumed. The bug had been pickled before being coated with honey; the combination of flavors would take a great deal of getting used to.

"In a manner of speaking," she said. "We're on duty for the full period of the cruise, of course."

Adele had bitten back a retort along the lines of, "And what do you mean by `intimate,' sir?" when she recalled that she had duties to Mistress Sand. If this fat civilian was ready to blurt secrets to Mr. Leary's light-o'-love, then it wasn't the business of Mistress Sand's agent to disabuse him.

"Yes, yes, of course," Cherry agreed through a nibble of bread. "The deception has worked excellently, you'll be pleased to know. Why, the common folk here are falling over all of you on the say-so of Admiral Torgis. And you'll notice that the admiral pretends he doesn't even know that the President-to-be has arrived on Sexburga."

"
Delos Vaughn isn't here,
" Tovera agreed. "
Nor is Mistress Zane. All the other persons who met Captain Leary at the Captal da Lund's dwelling are here.
"

"Yes," Adele said mildly as she speared a sausage from her plate. Another result of her earlier privations was that she tended to the foods of the highest calory and protein content; starches and greens were relatively cheap. "Quite a clever ploy for a man who appears to be a bluff old spacer, isn't it?"

"Between us . . ." Cherry said.
Surely no one could be so great a fool as to believe that anything shared among conspirators as amateurish as Cherry and his friends wouldn't also be common knowledge with anyone else who cared?
"I think the idea came from young Gerson. He's the one who's been appointed as our liaison with the Republic."

"I see," said Adele. "I'd noticed that Mr. Gerson spends rather more money than his position on the admiral's staff would run to. That explains it."

Which it did. Adele had examined Admiral Torgis's record, both the public version and the one Mistress Sand had provided. The admiral was exactly what he seemed, a well-born, reasonably competent RCN officer who'd been put in place on Sexburga because of its value as a fleet base if trouble broke out again in the Sack.

Giving a gala reception for a naval hero was perfectly in character for him. Involvement in subtle diplomatic and intelligence activity was as unlikely as Torgis defecting to the Alliance.

And to corrupt a man like Gerson, who borrowed large sums of money and spent it in the form of cash, would be no more difficult than persuading a bitch in heat to couple. Adele didn't know what Gerson's unpleasant vice was, but it was obvious that he had one.

On the third floor guests danced to the accompaniment of a percussion band which played castanets, tambourines, and a glockenspiel. The effect was melodious and, though penetrating, didn't overwhelm speech even on the outskirts of the dancers. When the stairwell door opened, however, chiming music poured out over the refreshment room. It drew the attention of all the diners.

Admiral Torgis, imposing in Dress Whites instead of civilian attire, strode out of the stairwell looking even more red-faced than he had when Adele met him in the reception line. Behind him, his right hand gripping her left and pulling her along, was a woman who could pass for his twin sister but was in fact his wife. Lady Torgis wore a white dress with gold braid in the form of panels and hussar knots: not a uniform, but close enough to one to make her Tweedledee to the admiral's Tweedledum.

"Damned elevators in this place take forever!" Torgis boomed. "Who needs them, eh, Lieutenant? A companionway was always good enough for me during forty years of service!"

Daniel Leary emerged from the stairwell at a polite distance behind Lady Torgis. Instead of dragging his companion, a striking redheaded woman, the way Torgis did his wife, Daniel supported her in the crook of his right arm. Adele would've said that the redhead looked healthy enough to climb stairs by herself, but no doubt Daniel knew his business. Climbing stairs probably wasn't the—person's—preferred form of exercise.

Daniel caught Adele's eye and waved his free hand to her. She smiled back, causing Cherry's face to brighten with speculation, then go studiously blank.

Behind Daniel and his tramp came a stream of other guests, panting and distressed. The line was long enough to keep the door to the third floor open; thus the dance music flooding out to announce Admiral Torgis's arrival.

"
Holodi of Zampt and her husband, they're factors for Zampt and the Learoyd Cluster,
" Tovera said as the first couple came into view. Her running commentary continued, identifying those following Torgis as among the leading residents of Sexburga.

They were divided equally between natives and expatriates, just as Cherry had suggested. When the Resident Commissioner had decided not to wait for the elevator, all his chief guests had to follow suit.

Adele felt a faint smile play at the corners of her mouth. There were extensive floral arrangements on the buffet tables. If Admiral Torgis picked an iris and began chewing on its stem, his guests would strip the displays of iris . . . though Adele believed they were poisonous. She withstood the urge to pull out her personal data unit and get a certain answer to the question.

"Let's get some more tables here for me and the lieutenant!" Admiral Torgis said. Harassed servants held a quick conclave, then shunted food from one of the serving tables to the others and brought the emptied one out to join the smaller eating tables.

"Adele," Daniel said, stepping over to her while the admiral's orders were being obeyed, "allow me to present Mistress Kira . . ."

He looked suddenly stricken.

"
Lully
," Tovera said in Adele's ear as the two of them rose.

"I believe you're Mistress Lully," Adele repeated in straight-faced amusement, touching fingertips with the redhead. She'd already noticed that women didn't clasp one another on Sexburga—any more than they did on the Alliance worlds. "Very glad to meet you. I'm Signals Officer Mundy of the
Princess Cecile
."

"Leary, bring your Mundy over to join us," Torgis boomed. "Who's that, Cherry? You come over here too, Cherry, if you like. Anyone good enough for the company of an RCN officer is good enough to eat with me!"

Servants were rustling chairs from around the room. One of them had started to snatch Adele's when she stood up, then froze in horror as he realized the junior officer had become one of the admiral's pets. Working for a master whose whims were as strong and (from a diplomatic perspective) unconventional as those of Admiral Torgis must be a nervous business at best.

"You had luck, Leary," the admiral said in a voice that could probably be heard on the floor below over the orchestra. "You know it and I know it. But all the luck in the world wouldn't have saved Kostroma if you hadn't been a man and a damned fine officer. By God, I'm glad the RCN still makes men the way she did when I was a cadet!"

"Hear, hear!" cried the members of his entourage, locals and expatriates evidently trying to outclap one another. They'd have been cheering just as loudly if the Resident Commissioner had called for infanticide and immediate submission to the Alliance of Free Stars. In Sexburga's social hierarchy, the Cinnabar representative was the sun and everyone else seemed desperate to become the planet in the nearest orbit.

Daniel leaned close to Adele's ear and whispered, "I know, it's all nonsense . . . but I'd be a liar if I didn't admit it feels good."

Adele patted him lightly below his gold-encrusted right epaulette. That raised eyebrows from not only Cherry but Mistress Lully as well.

"Quite all right, my dear," Adele said to the local woman in an accent redolent of the highest strata of Xenos society . . . to which she had, after all, belonged. "Our association is purely professional."

Good God, I
am
jealous! Adele realized in shock. Not of Daniel's body, of course; but the outrage on this red-haired trollop's face at a hint of intimacy between her and Daniel had lit an unexpected fuse in Adele's mind as well.

"Actually, Daniel," Adele said, uncertain whether or not he could hear over the bustle, "it's not nonsense. The admiral is quite correct about what happened on Kostroma."

The buffet was for ordinary guests; Admiral Torgis and those about him would have a sit-down dinner. The servants were now handing the expanded entourage into chairs, trying to judge status and fearful of their master's anger if they mistook his preferences.

Daniel went into the chair at Lady Torgis's right hand. After a moment's hesitation, the stick-thin, gray-haired female majordomo put Adele herself on the admiral's right and Mr. Cherry, of course, beside her. The Strymonian businessman looked as amazed as Mon had at the preference.

There were service stairs or at least a dumbwaiter, because three servants hustled in through the side door bearing place settings. The china was blue-and-gold with the RCN insignia, but instead of metal the flatware was made of plastic or—

"Scaleware from the Cassiterides, Admiral?" Daniel said in unfeigned enthusiasm. "I don't believe I've ever seen a set so fine."

Adele had her personal data unit half out of its pocket before she caught herself.
Cosmographical directory, initial sort
CASSITERIDES
, sub-sort
SCALEWARE . . .

Not her job, not necessary, and
very
much not the right time to call attention to herself. Daniel was bonding with the former admiral. In a thoroughly innocent fashion, of course; simply by being his own engaging self.

"You're not likely to see a better set ever, Leary," the admiral said. "I haven't and I've got a few years on you. A few decades, by God! But I wasn't more than your age when a grateful prince from Cassis gave them to me for saving his son and heir from the Alliance privateer who'd captured his ship. In the knickers of time, if you catch my drift. The privateersman was as queer as old Jaunty Teillor who commanded the Home Squadron when I was a boy."

Torgis, his wife, and Daniel all bellowed with laughter. Mistress Lully looked puzzled, and the member of the admiral's staff hovering in the background winced with psychic pain.

A servant set Adele's place; she picked up the outermost spoon and examined it more closely. The material weighed amazingly little. She'd thought the color was gray, but in fact there was a lambent fire—gold to green to a black that was total absence of hue—at the core of the piece. It was so clear that she could read the whorls of her finger pads through it.

"Cassis III is a sea world, Adele," Daniel said, leaning toward her over the table as the fingers of his right hand caressed Ms. Lully's bare shoulders. "The top of the food chain is the saberfish that grows to forty feet long. During the Hiatus only princely houses were permitted to have flatware made from saberfish scales, and even now very few sets of the real thing ever leave the planet."

"Right, right," Torgis said, bobbing his head with the animation of a man who believes he's met his soul mate. "They fob off muck made from the gill-rakers of filter-feeding worms on foreigners! This is the real thing. You can tell by the axial pinctatus, see?"

He held a fork up to the light, apparently trying to display the internal color that Adele had already noticed. Other guests peered at their host's waving utensil instead of looking at their own.

The expressions of Daniel and Admiral Torgis suddenly shifted. The humor was gone, replaced by an eager intentness. Around them the party continued to swirl.