With the Lightnings (12 page)

He took a small case from his purse and opened it. His fingers moved with assurance though he continued to meet Adele's eyes.

"—offer you my card with the address of my present lodgings written on the back. If you choose to have a friend call on me, my landlord will take the message even if I'm absent and we can proceed with arrangements."

Shouted confusion rattled windows in the north wing. The noise might well be coming from the library, but for the moment that wasn't the most important situation Adele Mundy had to deal with.

She looked at the card of bi-surfaced plastic. The front read:

Daniel Oliver Leary

Lieutenant, RCN

The finish was slick and hard enough to turn a knifepoint. She flipped the card over to read the address written on the porous back in a neat hand. The street was somewhere down by the harbor, she thought, but she hadn't made an effort to learn the geography of Kostroma City.

As she weighed her response, knuckles tapped and the glass doors opened. She and Leary looked around, Adele in surprise and the lieutenant with obvious irritation.

The woman who'd intruded was big and had close-cropped black hair. She was around thirty and would have had an attractive face if it weren't for the scar across her lower left cheek, ear-tip to chin.

In the woman's right hand was a hammer gripped by the head. She slapped the handle into her left palm idly. The hammer looked very similar to the one the journeyman carpenter in the library had carried.

"Yes, Woetjans?" Leary said in a thin tone.

"Sorry to intrude, sir," the woman replied; she didn't sound particularly sorry. "There was a bit of difficulty when we asked the wogs where the shelving was supposed to go up. If the officer-in-charge here—"

Woetjans nodded toward Adele.

"—will come set us straight, we'll get started."

She smiled with satisfaction. "Doesn't look like much more than a couple weeks' work to get shipshape, though that depends on your man Hogg finding the materials like he says he can."

"What in God's name is going on?" Adele asked mildly.

Leary cleared his throat. In some embarrassment he said, "It appears to me that since you're in charge here, Ms. Mundy, the library project is a matter of Cinnabar's national pride. I've therefore taken the liberty of enlisting a detachment of sailors to show the locals how it's done. Ah . . ."

He looked away, grimaced, and turned to face Adele squarely again. "This business is irrespective of any matters of honor that may take place between two Cinnabar citizens, of course."

Adele tapped the card on her opposite thumbnail. "I see," she said. "An admirably succinct explanation."

She tucked the card into her purse and looked at the lieutenant again. He stood in a loose brace, waiting for her decision. He wasn't nearly as young as she'd first judged him.

"I won't have a friend call on you, Lieutenant Leary," Adele said, "because I don't have a friend on this planet. Few enough anywhere else, though Mistress Boileau no doubt qualifies."

Leary smiled. For an instant he was a boy again, or a friendly puppy.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd come with me now," Adele continued, "to give me your viewpoint on how the library should be organized. I'm always willing to learn from those whose knowledge and ability I respect. And I'm afraid that if the rest of the navy is like you—"

She gave Woetjans a glance of appraisal only slightly softened by a smile.

"—we'll probably find the room completely finished if we delay more than a few minutes."

Leary bowed her toward the doorway. They walked down the corridor side by side. Woetjans strode ahead of them bellowing, "Clear way, you lot!" and gesturing with the hammer to emphasize her point.

Daniel Leary eased his way around a group of Kostroman citizens, most of them arrayed like peacocks, already gathered in the third-floor hallway hours before the Founder's Day activities would begin. The procession would wind through all the districts of Kostroma City, but the best place to view it for those who weren't in the grandstands immediately below was from the upper portico of the palace facade.

In contrast to the crush at the front of the building, the hall at the back of the north wing was empty except for a pair of men arguing about freight rates and, at the end, the Electoral Librarian with her hand on the padlocked library door. The staple and the lock itself were new since when Daniel last visited the palace.

"Good morning, Mundy!" Daniel called, waving the loose ball of his handkerchief containing the insect he'd brought. "I'm glad I caught you before you got your seat for the celebrations. Though if you want to leave now . . . ?"

The reserved expression on Mundy's thin face broke into sudden recognition. "Good morning indeed, Lieutenant," she said. "Without your uniform I wasn't sure who it was."

She pressed the thumb and index finger of her right hand against the lock's identification plates. The hasp popped open. "I was arriving, not leaving. You're more than welcome. In fact I was regretting I hadn't come to thank you already. I suppose you've been occupied with your duties, but I should have made the effort."

Holding the lock in one hand, she swung the door open and gestured Daniel into the library. "I cleared up some cataloging matters this morning in my apartment before coming in. I have a personal terminal."

She gestured toward the flat bulge along her thigh.

"I should have checked on the work earlier," Daniel said in apology. "Not that I was concerned about Woetjans."

Shelving already rose floor to ceiling to cover a quarter of the library's area. The room was noticeably dimmer as a result, even now near midday, but conduit snaked across the ceiling decorations in obvious preparation for artificial lighting.

"As for my duties," he added with a tinge of bitterness he didn't like to hear in his voice, "no doubt I'll be informed when any are assigned me. I expected to be sent on a round of diplomatic parties, but Admiral Lasowski's secretary takes care of that."

Daniel cleared his throat, swallowing his next intended comment with the phlegm. The justification for Lasowski's behavior was that "young Leary is a hothead who can't hold his tongue." No point in providing supporting evidence.

"The secretary's a Martino of Ulm," he said instead. "A very cultured fellow and handsome in his way. But not RCN."

Mundy ignored the implications either out of disinterest or because she thought the discussion would be painful to her visitor. She walked down an aisle of quite practical width, gesturing to the new shelves.

"Leary," she said, "I wouldn't have believed it was possible in this length of time. I've cleared a third of the boxes off the floor. I truly believe that in a few days I'll be able to start the rough sorting. I thought . . . I didn't think . . ."

She turned to face him. "Lieutenant Leary," she said, stiff as a statue with the light of the north windows behind her, "when we first met my behavior was unworthy of a citizen of Cinnabar, let alone a Mundy of Chatsworth. I offer you my sincere apologies—and my hand, if you'll take it."

She held out her hand. Daniel reached for it with both of his, then realized he held the handkerchief with his prize in his left.

They shook right-handed. Mundy's flesh felt like ivory, dry and firm. "I saw nothing in your behavior that in any way discredited one of the great houses of the Republic," he said. "And, ah . . . When I was growing up on Bantry I was Mister Leary to my tutors, but always Daniel to the other children on the estate. My friends."

Mundy smiled without humor. "Mistress Boileau calls me Adele," she said. "I've always called her 'Mistress Boileau' or 'professor.' I'm not used to first names for other people."

She gave Daniel a glance that he thought was wistful. "I'm willing to try, though," she added.

"Good, good," Daniel said warmly. They'd covered the subject to an adequate degree. In a conscious effort to sheer away from embarrassment he went on, "And now you can help me, if you will. The natural history database aboard the
Aglaia
is regional and only hits the high points of individual worlds, so to speak. I want to know what this is."

He set the handkerchief on a box and opened the corners, darting his thumb and finger in to catch a leg of the trapped creature before he completely uncovered it. It was the size of his thumb and had four legs like all Kostroman insects. Briefly it unfurled dull wings, then folded them back onto its carapace. The creature's only touches of color were the violet beads pulsing to either side of the neck.

"They live under water on tidal flats," Daniel explained. "The purple color is gills that they spread out on the mud. They lure sucker fish in for dinner by looking like patches of algae."

He grinned broadly. "Supplying dinner, not eating, that is. But when the pools dry, they fly into trees and wait for the tide to come in again. They're
tri
phibious, and I've never seen the like before."

Adele seated herself at the working data console. "Give me keywords," she said as she typed. "Insect, water and air living, fish-eating—what?"

"Family Barchidae," Daniel said. "That's a guess, but reasonable from the wing structure."

"If you told me the thing's name was Thomas . . ." Adele said with a faint smile. She continued to adjust her controls. "I wouldn't question it. The only interest I have in bugs is when I find them in my apartment; which, I regret to say, is more often than not."

As she worked, Daniel cleared his throat. He hadn't any good reason to be upset, but . . .

"I
am
wearing a uniform," he said, returning to Adele's first comment in the corridor. "This is a utility uniform, perfectly proper for an officer who's not expected to formally represent the RCN to civilians or members of other military forces."

He plucked the loose, gray fabric. It probably did look like pajamas, but he had only one 2nd Class uniform—and the Full Dress, which wasn't paid for, God knew how he'd do that, and which he'd had tailored for him because he was sure he'd need it for formal receptions on Kostroma.

Daniel cleared his throat. "I've been chasing life at the harbor's edge and I thought these were more suitable. . . ."

Lasowski would skin him alive if she knew he'd been wearing utilities in public whatever the technical wording of the regulations. There wasn't much chance the admiral
would
learn since she seemed barely conscious that Daniel was alive, but . . . In any case, Adele hadn't had any intention of probing a sore point with her remark.

"Huh," she said. "That's odd. From the address this should be a sermon file in the headquarters of the Established Church."

Daniel leaned over her shoulder. The air-formed holographic display was visible only over a narrow angle; all Daniel could see from behind her was a quiver of color with no more substance than an image of the aurora borealis.

" 'As the hydropter wallows in the greatest foulness but nonetheless ascends into the upper air,' " Adele said. It was a moment before Daniel realized she was quoting. " 'So a man may hope, no matter how great his sin, to achieve the portals of heaven so long as he turn his face upward.' "

She touched her controls again. "I think," she said dryly, "that if we search a zoology database under 'hydropter' we may find a more useful—
there
, I think."

She rose, turning the console's chair over to Daniel. He slid into it gratefully. At the top of the display area was the image of a creature identical to the one he'd bundled again into the folds of his handkerchief.

Daniel brought up the text. He could use the data unit—there was nothing unfamiliar about its controls—but he suspected he could have spent days at the terminal without getting the results the librarian had achieved in a minute or two.

"I gave your men the day off," Adele said behind him. "The locals have a holiday. Quite apart from fairness, they wouldn't be able to get into the warehouses for the stores they need."

"Fairness is important," Daniel said as he scanned the description of the hydropter; indeed, a member of the Barchidae. "A Cinnabar rating won't complain about hardship, but God help the officer he thinks is unfair. As for the stores—if Hogg couldn't get through the lock, Woetjans is quite capable of blasting the door down."

He rotated images of adult and juvenile hydropters. The display was so sharp the creatures looked solid. This was a naval-quality system, a light-year more advanced than anything he'd thought to find in Kostroma City.

"I can't get over the amount of work your sailors have done," Adele repeated. Her voice had moved away; she was beside one of the new cases, filled now with books arranged only by size. "And they took time to clear living quarters for themselves in the subbasement here."

She paused. "Ah, I hope that was all right? Ms. Woetjans said it'd save transit time and have other advantages."

"Quite all right," Daniel said. "She checked with me and I informed Maisie—that's Lieutenant Weisshampl. It keeps the detachment closer to its work, and I gather makes it easier to gather the necessary materials outside duty hours."

"Ah, I meant to ask about that," the librarian said in a tone that implied she wouldn't have raised the subject if Daniel hadn't brought it up. "Ah, I trust the wood and other materials aren't coming from navy stores?"

"No," Daniel said, "and the arrangement is quite legal."

He grinned broadly and continued, "Which is why I was informed about the details. You have a warrant from the Elector to receive goods and services for the library operation?"

"That's right," Adele said in puzzlement, "but it's worthless because all expenditures have to be approved by the Chancellor. Her approval hasn't been forthcoming even to the extent of my outstanding pay."

Daniel swiveled out of the console and stood; he didn't like to be seated while talking to a person who was standing.

"There's quite a lot of construction and reconstruction in Kostroma City," he explained. The idea had been his, though it couldn't have gone anywhere without Hogg's local contacts. "In the palace, but elsewhere as well."