Lt. Leary, Commanding (43 page)

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. Many 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," Petting 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
?"

"Yes, yes," Pettin said. He waved toward the hatch. "We'll enter the Matrix in an hour and a half, so you'd better get moving. I fear that your ship's company wouldn't be able to function without you to lead them."

Daniel froze. "Sir," he said in a voice he hadn't meant to use, "the officers and crew under my command are the equal of any in the RCN. Sir."

Pettin grimaced. "No doubt they are," he snapped. "Now get the
hell
back to your own ship. After you've had two weeks freezing your feet on Tanais, I'll see if your deportment has improved to the point that I won't feel required to mention it on your next fitness report. Dismissed!"

Daniel stood, saluted, and walked out of the cabin as quickly as he could without running. He reclosed the hatch behind him; he'd had no orders on the subject, and it certainly made him feel better to know that there was a steel panel between his back and the commodore.

He threw a smile toward the startled lieutenant at the console. Daniel regretted being sent to Tanais for the crew's sake, but to be perfectly honest the recreation available there was about what most of them would have chosen on Strymon proper.

Adele might miss the lack of museums to tour, but Daniel was pretty sure that her real work was expected to begin after she reached the Strymon system. She'd be very busy, and the heart of a naval base was at least as suitable a site from which to send out electronic tendrils as the capital would be.

As for Daniel himself, even two weeks on Tanais would be a vacation compared to the run from Cinnabar to Sexburga. He could take it easily.

And it was a great improvement over the career-ending efficiency report that Pettin had probably planned to issue at the time the squadron lifted from Sexburga.

_A
dele echoed the right half of Daniel's display—a schematic
of the Strymon system rather than the astrogation data on the left portion—as a sidebar on her own screen. Frankly, the icons on ghostly orbital tracks didn't mean a great deal more to her than the abstruse mathematics of Matrix navigation, but she knew Daniel would want to walk her through the display when he had a moment.

Her communications board was as silent as a snake waiting for prey. Within the Matrix, there was nothing to hear but static; so the experts said. Though sometimes the static formed patterns that almost mimicked communication.

Once Adele imagined that she heard her sister calling, "
Adele
. . ." After that she no longer listened to her equipment until the
Princess Cecile
reentered normal space.

"Going to put her right in the slip when we exit, sir?" Betts called from the attack console. His display was a mass of overlying curves in many colors.

Adele checked for curiosity's sake and found that the missileer had set up twelve separate attacks for each of his pair of launchers. The first factor in each equation was blank. The actual courses would be determined when the
Princess Cecile
exited the Matrix and thus had a location in the sidereal universe.

"No, we're going to be very discreet and not offend our hosts," Daniel said. He leaned back in his chair, watching his display but obviously not called on to act at the moment. "They deal with pirates who enter normal space adjacent to their target and use plasma cannon to strip the sails. A ship exiting near Tanais the way a pirate would is likely to be hailed by eight-inch cannon instead of a microwave dish."

There was general laughter on the bridge. The corvette was noisy with preparations for its return to sidereal space, but the spacers were talking normally instead of using the helmet intercom. Adele found communication systems interesting, though she felt a mild surprise whenever she remembered that she was no longer merely an observer.

"
Eight minutes to exit,
" rumbled the PA system in Lt. Mon's voice.

"Adele?" called Daniel. "Are you—yes, of course you are. Do you want a rundown of the Tanais control area?"

"Yes, Daniel," Adele said, careful to speak loudly so that she'd be heard. She was vaguely curious about the place they'd be spending the next two weeks, but not nearly as interested as Daniel was in informing her. The layout of the Strymonian naval base was a matter of record. What Adele had been sent to the system to learn was of a subtle and immaterial nature, not concrete and tunnels.

"
The base has three orbital forts, you see
," Daniel said, now switching to intercom to keep private a conversation of no general interest. Carets of red light stabbed into the display. "
Because of tidal forces from the primary, that's Getica, they can't use an automatic defense array—
"

A constellation of nuclear mines in orbit, each ready to punch a light-speed rod of charged particles through a hostile vessel.

"
—unless they were willing to renew it every week. The orbital forts are powered, of course.
"

"I see," said Adele to indicate her presence. As she listened, her wands called up a catalog of the frequencies and codes on which the Tanais forts had operated in the past. The information had been gathered by visiting RCN vessels over six decades.

The Strymon fleet didn't pay nearly as much attention to communications security as it should: when a code changed, it generally reverted to one that had already been used in the past. The pirates who were the main threat to Strymon apparently didn't concern themselves with signals intelligence.

"
The
Sailing Directions
give a hailing point sixty thousand miles short of Tanais and in a direct line between the satellite and her primary,
" Daniel continued. His highlight this time formed a tiny sphere in the blankness, trundling slowly across the screen in concert with the large, peach-colored Getica and the smaller, bluish ball that was Tanais. "
We're going to exit a little farther out than that just to be safe.
We're not expected, and I don't want to startle some sleepy watch officer into thinking he's being attacked.
"

Adele created a probability rota for codes and frequencies. There was no reason to hunt for a solution if one were already at hand. With the algorithms Mistress Sand provided, the
Princess Cecile
's main computer could turn any intercepted transmission into plain speech within minutes if not seconds, but even short delays could be significant.

A quarter second was enough time for Adele Mundy to draw her pistol and fire a pellet into the brain of another human being, for example; even less on a good day.

"
Two minutes
to exit
," Mon announced.

"
Ah—it appears that Getica is on the other side of the sun from Strymon,
" Daniel went on in sudden concern. "
When we arrive and during the whole period we'll be docked there. Will that be a problem for you, Adele?
"

"There's arrangements for message traffic between the base and Strymon, surely?" Adele said. Her wands quivered, putting her question into electronic form almost without her conscious volition. Data sprang to life on her display. "Yes, of course. A trio of transponder stations at three hundred million miles. There'll be delays, of course, and probably some corruption, but nothing that will prevent me from carrying out my tasks."

"
As if anything could, short of death,
" Daniel said. The intercom didn't transmit his chuckle, but she heard it faintly from across the bridge.

"I like to think so," Adele said. She allowed herself a smile, though there wasn't a great deal of humor in it.

Her work for Mistress Sand would be mostly archival. Conspirators—competent ones, at any rate—would shut down their operations while a Cinnabar squadron was in port, but there would remain vestiges of past activities that they couldn't remove even if they realized the need to do so.

Tanais would have a supposedly secure link to all government databases on Strymon proper. Adele would tap it within a few hours of the
Princess Cecile
's arrival. Sorting for evidence of treachery would take time, but she was confident that before the squadron was ready to leave the system, the only thing that would prevent her from finding what she was looking for was total innocence on the part of Pleyna Vaughn and her government.

Adele's smile grew minutely broader without gaining much in the way of humor. She didn't believe in innocence as a concept, save perhaps in children like her late sister, Agatha.

Any responsible government in Strymon would have opened lines of communication to the Alliance. But if the present one had done so, its members would go the way . . . Agatha, say, had gone. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

"
One minute to exit,
" Mon said. Tones echoed themselves up and down the
Princess Cecile
's corridors.

"
Good, good, I was sure you'd manage,
" Daniel said. In his official voice he continued, "
Captain to ship. Prepare to enter normal space. Captain out.
"