Lt. Leary, Commanding (12 page)

"Tredegar," Vaughn said as though he hadn't heard the other man speak, "would you go organize the service for me? You know where everything is, you see."

Tredegar paused with his mouth open. He closed it, took on a blank expression, and strode off silently.

"Thea, Lieutenant, let's go over here," Vaughn said, leading the way to a bower whose curved couch had room for four. The barge with the servants was only now grounding, but an aide from the second boat was already setting a tray with a chilled bottle and three glasses on the half-round table facing the couch.

This invitation wasn't spur of the moment.
I doubt Delos Vaughn does things on the spur of the moment any more often than my father does,
Daniel thought with a flash of realization.

The aide poured the wine, then stepped back and set a screen of woven feathers across the open side of the alcove. Vaughn handed glasses to his guests, then took a sip himself. "Do you like the vintage, Lieutenant?" he asked.

Daniel tried his glass, remembering Hogg drilling him in company manners and not slurping it down all at once. It had a fruity taste with a tingle underneath. Besides that, the color was a nice blend of gold and pale raspberry.

"Yes, I like it well enough," he said, "but I'm not a connoisseur, I'd have to say. I'd probably be as well satisfied with any old thing from a jug as I would with what is, I'm sure, an exceptional wine."

He raised his glass for punctuation.

Vaughn laughed at the candor. "It's from my own planet, Strymon," he said. "Thea brought it with her to remind me of home, not that there was any likelihood of me forgetting."

"Are you familiar with Strymon, Lieutenant Leary?" Zane said, watching him over the rim of her glass. She wore a ring whose bezel was two serpent heads facing one another; the eyes of one were ruby chips, the other diamonds.

"After we met Mr. Vaughn at Harbor Three," Daniel said, nodding to his host, "I went over my Uncle Stacey's logs of his visit to Strymon twenty-seven years ago. Of course, that was a long time past, and ships' logs aren't heavy on local color."

But Daniel Leary, using the official logs and Uncle Stacey's annotations, would be able to take the
Princess Cecile
from Cinnabar to Strymon with an efficiency no other ship of her class could equal. Piloting a ship through the Matrix was an art. There'd never been a greater master of it than Commander Bergen, but his nephew had enough talent to gain full profit from his teachings.

"I haven't been back to Strymon in many years," Vaughn said. "As no doubt you know. Your father is Corder Leary, the former Speaker of the Senate, I understand?"

"That's correct, so far as it goes," Daniel said. He wasn't precisely angry at being interrogated under the fig leaf of polite conversation, but viscerally he reacted to it as a challenge. He knew that was affecting his choice of words, but even so he added, "You should be aware, however, that over the past six years I've seen no more of my father than you have of yours."

He drained his glass. Mistress Zane looked startled, but Vaughn merely laughed and offered Daniel the decanter. "I didn't have a warm relationship with my father either, Lieutenant," he said. "It might well have come to a similar pass if I'd stayed on Strymon . . . which of course I did not. And I don't mean that Leland should've been shot in the back, though that's neither here nor there."

"On Strymon . . . " Zane said. Her eyes were like agates, layered brown and green and blue. " . . . it's usual for a young man with political interests to serve in the navy for a few years first as a preparation for public life. Is that the case here on Cinnabar?"

"It is not," Daniel said, a little surprised at his own vehemence. He set down the glass he'd just refilled, afraid he'd otherwise spill it. The woman had—innocently, beyond question—spoken what was virtually blasphemy to an officer of the RCN.

He cleared his throat. "Mistress, the RCN is nonpolitical. Above politics, if you will. The RCN defends the Republic against her external enemies but has nothing to do with internal policies."

"I don't mean to contradict you, Lieutenant," Vaughn said, "but a number of senators
are
former naval officers, a background they frequently mention during debates on naval appropriations."

"Yes, sir," Daniel said, nodding forcefully, "yes indeed. But I think you'll find that when Admiral Marks or Pereira of Amadore speak in the Senate, they're representing the RCN as a whole, not aligning the RCN with one or another of the civil factions. As for myself—"

He took a deep breath, then grinned with a return of good humor. "Mistress Zane, my father—and I gather now my sister—are very much a part of the political establishment of the Republic. I'm not, by temperament. If my father and I hadn't had words, I'd probably be managing Bantry now. Doing an adequate job, I'm sure, but spending most of my time hunting and fishing as I did when I was a boy."

And meeting girls in the evening; which was easy for the young master to do on Bantry, but not so difficult for an engaging youth in a naval uniform either.

"But what I've found now in the RCN is not only a career but a life, sir and madam," he concluded, raising the glass again. "Any suggestion to the contrary is ill-founded."

Smiling to take the sting out of a statement of faith, Daniel drank. He forgot he was in urbane society until the full contents had slid down his throat; the sensation was like peppercorns in ice cream.

"I wouldn't dream of doubting the word of a Leary of Bantry," Vaughn said easily. "You're a lucky man to have found your vocation and been permitted to practice it, Lieutenant."

Daniel looked at him, wondering how much of the statement was sincere and how much was Vaughn's attempt to curry sympathy for his own plight. He snorted more with irony than humor. As with Speaker Leary,
everything
Vaughn said was for effect. The statement's truth or otherwise came a bad second in the decision tree.

"Yes, sir," Daniel said. "I am very lucky. "

He coughed lightly, to clear his throat and punctuate the thought. "I wonder, sir," he continued, "since we're answering questions for one another—"

Daniel had been answering questions for the Strymon citizens; it was time to remind them of that.

"—if you'd tell me why you were visiting the
Princess Cecile
yesterday when we met? She's a lovely ship, as I'd be the first to tell you, but not one of the more impressive sights in Harbor Three at present."

"The
Princess Cecile
is the corvette Lieutenant Leary captured almost single-handed," Vaughn said to Mistress Zane. He turned to Daniel and continued, "You're thinking I should have been interested in the battleship in the next dock, I suppose? Strymon didn't have battleships when I lived there; we hadn't had anything so large in a generation."

"By treaty," Zane said. Her tone wasn't bitter, but there was a hint of something harsher than resignation in her voice.

"By treaty, of course," Vaughn said. "A treaty my father supported and I fully support, because it prevents Strymon from wasting resources by trying to compete where we cannot compete successfully."

He lifted the decanter and gestured toward Daniel; Daniel shook his head minutely in refusal. Vaughn poured for himself and continued, watching the sparkling liquid swirl into the glass, "Strymon does have frigates, though, very similar to your ship. I think with those frigates, properly commanded and supported as they should be by the government, we could sweep the Sack clear of pirates as we did under my father. Don't you?"

He met Daniel's eyes. Daniel nodded and said, "Well, sir, if the opinion of a junior lieutenant is of any importance—yes, I think you're right."

And I hope it happens soon
, he thought; but while Daniel was no politician, he was too much his father's son to blurt that while stone sober. Which he wouldn't be much longer if he didn't watch himself.

"I think I've monopolized the company of my host for long enough, sir," he said, offering Vaughn his hand. "Mistress Zane, a pleasure to meet you. I hope your stay on Cinnabar is profitable."

The Strymon aide slid the screen away as soon as Daniel's hand touched it. He stepped out of the bower and saw Hogg waiting for him with a glass of something clear that wasn't likely to be water. That looked even better than Shawna and Elinor, but by heaven they were waiting too!

Whistling a tune he'd learned on Bantry as "The Farmer's Daughter," Daniel walked toward the trio. The rest of the afternoon was for pleasure, or he'd know the reason why.

_T
he barge nosed back up on Rakoscy Islet with the last load
of the guests who'd dispersed throughout the Gardens during the course of the party. The leaves on the shrubs and the islet's ground cover were canted to catch the late afternoon sun, giving the shore a subtly different appearance from the one Daniel and his companions had left two hours before.

Shawna and Elinor pressed close to Daniel from either side, cooing things that probably wouldn't have made sense even if he'd bothered to listen to them. The young noble he'd cut out was sitting under a bower, drinking straight from a bottle and glaring at Daniel with undisguised hatred. His nervous-looking servant was close by; a balked noble was likely to be a dangerous master.

You're welcome to them now, buddy,
Daniel thought.
I haven't been so tired out since I climbed Hessian Hill when I was six and then realized I had to get down again before nightfall.
In a few days this afternoon would be one to remember fondly. At the moment, Daniel just wanted to be shut of the girls and to have a chance to sleep.

Adele had been sitting primly alone in a bower with the personal data unit deployed on her lap. She didn't look out of place; from her smile, she was having at least as good a time as anyone else at the party. When the barge tooted twice to announce its return, she'd shut down the data unit and walked toward the shore.

Tovera wasn't at first visible, but Daniel suddenly spotted her at the serving tables where she could see the interiors of the bowers. Hogg waited where the barge had grounded, standing stiffly with his hands crossed behind his back. He was probably very drunk. It was hard to imagine a circumstance in which Hogg, surrounded by free liquor, wouldn't become very drunk.

"Girls," Daniel said, holding a hand of each girl and then joining them to one another as he stepped away, "I have to speak privately with my servant at once. I'll never forget having met you!"

"Oh, Danny!" they said in dismayed unison. They'd have clasped him again but he managed to make his escape.

Adele reached where Hogg stood at the same time Daniel did. "Quick!" Daniel whispered. "Come up with a reason I can't ride back with those girls."

"Lieutenant Leary," Adele said without missing a beat, "I need your input immediately to make up the crew list." She tapped the purse where she'd just placed her data unit.

"Very good, Mundy," Daniel said in a similarly carrying voice. "We'll go over it on the way back."

"Looks to me like you had a pretty good time," Hogg said, flicking a shower of dust from beneath Daniel's collar. It glittered in the air, then vanished. When disturbed, the trees of Joart sprayed great silver fountains of pollen which sublimed in sunlight unless it touched receptive stamens within a few moments. Daniel's collar had shielded a portion of the gouts loosed while the trio thrashed in a glade on Joart Islet.

"Besides which," Hogg added judiciously, "you're missing both epaulettes." He patted the denuded shoulders for emphasis.

"Ah," said Daniel. He'd almost forgotten that. "Ah, yes. Shawna wanted one to, ah, remember—"

Though he'd have thought the memories would be clear enough without a trinket; heaven knew his own would be.

"—and of course when she said that, Elinor too . . . It just seemed simpler. And I figured they could be replaced?"

The last sentence, though phrased as a statement, was really a question and not much short of a prayer. Daniel knew what effort Hogg had gone to so that his master would have a 1st Class uniform, and now on first wearing Daniel had gone and damaged it.

"And so they can," said Hogg with the formality of a priest giving absolution. "I will waylay an admiral this very night and remove his epaulettes, young master."

"No, Hogg," Daniel said firmly. "I personally will visit Sadlack and buy a pair of epaulettes. I regard the task as proper punishment for having mutilated my uniform in this fashion."

Which was true in a way, but it was also a lot easier than dealing with the consequences if Hogg hadn't been joking. Hogg had a sense of humor: a bawdy, raucous one that had rubbed off on Daniel. On the other hand, there was almost nothing that Hogg
might
not do, especially if he was drunk. There were many things that Daniel wouldn't do; though now that he thought about it, forcibly borrowing an admiral's epaulettes probably wasn't beyond the realm of possibility.

"As you say, young master," Hogg muttered. "A Hogg would never be able to live with himself if he disobeyed his master's order."

"Daniel," Adele said to break into Hogg's maunderings—and whatever the truth of the threat to an admiral, the notion that Hogg would never disobey Daniel was
not
to be taken seriously, "Tovera placed an eavesdropping device at Vaughn's table. I've heard the conversations."

She tapped the data unit in her purse. Daniel controlled his reflex to glance at Tovera. Adele continued, "During the afternoon Vaughn's agreed with three people here to rent a new townhouse for the next year. That's three
separate
townhouses, giving each owner the same story about wanting larger quarters. He must be lying to two of them, but I can't imagine why he'd do that. He's bound to be caught in a few weeks."

"Ah!" said Daniel, because Adele's words gave him a vivid recollection of some of the things he'd recently been murmuring to Shawna and Elinor. "Only if he's here, you see."

It wasn't the same, well,
quite
the same, because Daniel had used words like, " . . . for all the time I'm on Cinnabar. . . ." But he knew the girls thought the phrase meant, "for the future," while Daniel knew he'd be off-planet in a week at the latest.