The Road of Danger-ARC (12 page)

The aide smiled brightly and said, “Won’t you be seated, Your Ladyship, mistress? And can I have some refreshment brought to you?”

Adele sat down. Though the chair looked like stone, it deformed firmly but comfortably to her weight. She said, “No, I have my own food aboard the yacht.”

Tovera stood against the wall, on the hinge side of the door panel. If it opened, she and her attaché case would be concealed from the person entering. Neither Quinley nor the aide paid her any attention: Tovera was as colorless as the walls.

“I see,” Quinley said in a neutral voice. He shrank his holographic display—it had been merely a haze of light to any eyes but his—and looked at Adele. He said, “I’ve reviewed the records, Lady Hrynko. So far as I can see, there’s no reason you couldn’t have let the port authorities handle the clearance in the normal course of business. That might take a day or two, but since you’re the owner but not the listed captain, your employees could have made the declarations without troubling you.”

Adele raised her head slightly so that she was speaking down her nose at the deputy controller. It was acting, of course, but her mother had been a very good role model for this sort of thing.

“I should let flunkies come aboard my yacht?” she said. “Even if I am on emeritus status, I am owed the honors of a Principal of Kostroma!”

“As you wish, Your Ladyship,” Quinley said equably. He brought up his display again, then narrowed it to a single column so that he could meet Adele’s eyes.

“Since I’m acting as clearance officer, Your Ladyship,” he said, “I’m curious about the size of your crew. One hundred and fifteen effectives would be heavy even for a warship the size of your yacht. Why is that, please?”

When Adele didn’t respond instantly, Quinley added, “I’m officially curious, that is. An answer is a requirement of your presence on Madison.”

Not at all a pompous nonentity
, Adele thought, pleased at the realization. She liked to meet competent people, even in cases where her job would have been simpler if they were like the dullards who vastly outnumbered them.

Aloud she said toward the corner of the ceiling, “Should the Principal Hrynko allow a booby from Vitebsk—”

She had recognized the deputy controller’s accent.

“—to question her motives? But no matter.”

Adele met Quinley’s eyes again; he had flushed at the reference to his origins. “I explained,” she continued, “that I was Emeritus; that is, that my stepson guides Hrynko in my place. I considered becoming Elector of Kostroma but decided that the position was unworthy of me in the final analysis. Elector Cargill, who took the position when I renounced it, arranged a pension for me sufficient to support my love of travel.”

Anyone with a feeling for politics would hear Adele’s statement as an admission that Principal Hrynko had lost the struggle to rule her planet but that she retained enough power that the victor had preferred to buy her off instead of carrying the fight to the end. From the way Quinley relaxed,
he
certainly heard it that way.

Adele turned her hands palms-up. “I have chosen to invest part of my pension in safeguarding my person,” she said. “Instead of spending larger sums to ransom myself from the pirates who infest many of the regions in which I may travel. Should anyone question my judgment?”

Quinley smiled, then touched a keyboard control. “I certainly don’t question it, Your Ladyship,” he said. “I’ve cleared your yacht. Enjoy your stay on Madison.”

The aide had been standing across the doorway from Tovera. “Wycherson,” he said. “Please show her Ladyship out.”

Adele followed the aide down the corridor at a stately pace. There was nothing more to do here, but rushing off to check what her data unit had gathered would threaten the pose of aristocratic foolishness which she had taken pains to cultivate. Patience was always a virtue, and here it was a necessary one.

“Feel free to call on us, Your Ladyship,” the aide called as she held the entrance door open for “the Kostromans.” Adele swept past without deigning to look at her.

Woetjans shouted an order, but the Sissies were already sorting themselves out. There were different spacers on the litter poles; this time they were techs from the ship side rather than riggers. It appeared that even the bosun had decided that the riggers’ individual initiative wasn’t the best choice for teamwork on the ground after all.

Adele waited until they had lifted the litter before she took out her data unit; through sheer effort of will she waited till they had paced a block back in the direction of the yacht before she switched on the display. Tovera walked alongside instead of being ahead with Woetjans.

Adele looked at her servant. She would have spoken, but a ship lifted from the roadstead just then. Though the vessel was small and a mile offshore, its three plasma thrusters hammering at full output were loud enough that she would have had either to shout or to speak through the earbud, in which case Tovera could not have responded.

When the sound had died away, Tovera looked up and said, “Mistress?”

“Most of the departments might as well be without any security at all,” Adele said. “Which I suspect means that there will be nothing to help us in their files.”

Tovera shrugged. “The exercise was healthy, I suppose,” she said.

The techs moved more smoothly by far than the riggers had; with a little practice they would probably become quite good at the business. Though if Adele never had to ride on a litter again, it would be too soon.

Aloud Adele said, “I said ‘most of the departments,’ Tovera. The exception was Fleet Intelligence, which seems to be walled off securely.”

Tovera frowned, a momentary parochial irritation overcoming her usual detachment. “The Fifth Bureau didn’t have a high opinion of Fleet Intelligence,” she said, making her opinion impersonal in form.

“No,” said Adele, “nor do I—in general. Since the 40 Stars detachment is such an exception, I think I’d better learn more about the Commander Rudolph Doerries, who runs it.”

***

Daniel got up from the console. He braced himself in the doorway of the office and pushed hard against both jambs. His muscles had stiffened while he went over the Calpurnius Trading files.

It might have been useful to have Cazelet with him—or for that matter, to have Cazelet in his place—but Daniel was confident that he would have spotted a problem if there were one; at least he would have spotted the fact that there
was
a problem. His sister Deirdre handled the Leary family’s extensive investments, but Daniel himself wasn’t a babe in the woods when faced with a ledger.

Bremington must have heard the movement, because he came out of the adjacent office where he’d been working since he unlocked all files on his personal console and left Daniel alone with it. Obviously he was making a point—but it was precisely the point an innocent man would want to emphasize.

“Are you satisfied, Pensett?” he asked.

“I am,” said Daniel, looking over his shoulder as he shifted and thrust against the doorway in the other direction. “Both with your good faith toward Master Sattler and with the good business judgment with which Calpurnius Trading is run.”

Daniel had the impression that Bremington made sure that the shipping side went smoothly while Mistress Sysco ran the front office and was the partnership’s public face. He hadn’t seen Sysco since starting work on the files: an earnest looking young man was still at the reception desk which he had taken over when Sysco offered to show Hogg some nearby establishments where he could relax.

Daniel grinned. How relaxing Hogg had found the afternoon was another matter—and none of the young master’s business.

“Well, give my regards to Bernhard when you next see him,” Bremington said. “Is there anything more we can help you with?”

Will you please get out of here and let me do my job!
Daniel translated mentally. He smiled. Aloud he said, “There is, sir, but I hope it won’t be a burden. Master Sattler wants me to follow a shipment of his goods to Sunbright. I’m a spacer, of course, so I’m more than happy to work my passage.”

“To
Sunbright
?” Bremington said with a rising inflection. “Why in the name of the infernal does he want to do that? Our sales are Free Alongside at Ashe Haven. If the buyers want to dump the goods into the sea after they pay for delivery, that’s no skin off our noses—us or Bernhard either one.”

“I didn’t figure it was my business to ask,” Daniel said, shrugging and spreading his hands. “I’m being paid and paid pretty well. Besides which—”

He grinned engagingly at Bremington.

“—it occurred to me that when I get to Sunbright, there might be a more interesting job than supercargo available for an RCN-trained astrogator. At any rate, I can ask around.”

Hogg came in the front door and bowed as he held it open for Mistress Sysco. Both looked flushed but cheerful. Hogg seemed to have had more than a little to drink, but Daniel had never seen his servant too drunk to function.

Of course it might have happened when Daniel himself was passed out drunk. That had happened a few times; or maybe more than a few. But not recently.

Not
very
recently.

“
Good
afternoon, young master!” Hogg said, straightening with pie-eyed care. “And if I may say so, it has been a very good afternoon, an afternoon of great exceptionableness!”

Bremington seemed to be taken aback to see his business partner leaning across the reception desk, bracing her weight on her arms. The boy seated there stared at her with a horrified expression.

“Ah, Madge…?” Bremington said. “Lieutenant Pensett wants to travel to Sunbright on an interloping trader. I was thinking of sending him to the
Savoy
?”

“That’s a bloody good idea, Picque,” Sysco mumbled to the desktop. “Whatever you say is a bloody good idea. You go on and do it, why don’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” Bremington said. He was beginning to smile.

Turning to Daniel, he said, “The
Savoy
has a load of solar-charging lasers which we provided. She’ll stage from here to Cremona, then make the jump to Sunbright. I’ll call the owner, Kiki Lindstrom, and tell her you’re coming.”

“Thank you indeed,” Daniel said, dipping his head in something between a nod and a bow. “Is Lindstrom the captain as well as owner?”

“No, she’s got somebody from Novy Sverdlovsk for astrogation,” Bremington said. “I guess she knows a console well enough that she could probably find her way to a planet by herself if she had to.”

He pursed his lips, then added, “I haven’t met the captain. I’ve never had much use for folks from Sverdlovsk, though.”

Daniel shrugged. “I’ve sailed with them,” he said. “They can be all right. Still, any help you can provide in getting us places would be appreciated.”

“It’s Berth 54,” Bremington said. He looked at Hogg, leaning against the doorframe. “Ah, would you like me to call you a surface car? That’s about a kilometer north of here.”

“The walk will do us good,” Daniel said with a laugh. “Come along, Hogg. Duty calls.”

“Faithful to the last, young master!” Hogg said, straightening. He immediately began to wobble, but with Daniel’s touch to steady him he started out onto the Harborfront.

“But one bloody minute,” he added. He turned and bowed again.

“My red-haired lovely,” Hogg said. “I will never forget you. Never, never, never.”

They marched northward along the Esplanade. Daniel glanced back. Mistress Sysco was still bent over the desk.

It wasn’t a bad view, given that she was much older than Daniel’s tastes lay.

CHAPTER 8: Ashetown on Madison

Daniel would be whistling if he felt like this
, Adele thought as she pattered up the
Sissie
’s companionway toward Level A and her console on the bridge. Tovera was ahead, though not even a paranoid sociopath like her servant wasn’t really worried about someone waiting ahead in the armored staircase to attack them.

Adele didn’t regret her inability to whistle, but it pleased her that other people might have done so if they were as content as she was now. She wasn’t going to take off her clothes and dance up the stairs either.

Though now that she thought about it, she
had
tossed “Principal Hrynko’s” gown behind her when she reached the entry hold. She probably ought to send someone back for it in case she was suddenly required to impersonate a Kostroman noblewoman. Well, one of the spacers would probably bring it up unasked; and if not, she would worry about it later.

Adele had new data to pore over—and the promise of still more shortly. She planned to visit the Assumption Library this afternoon, as soon as she had set her systems working to harvest data from the Forty Stars Headquarters. She could justify going to the library—the
Assumption
was the colony ship by which Madison had been settled before the thousand-year Hiatus in star travel—on reasons of duty, but in truth she was hoping to find ancient documents which had been lost to scholars on other worlds.

Tovera led her into the rotunda just aft of the bridge. The forward dorsal airlock opened onto it, as well as the companionways. Nobody on a starship, not even the captain, used the wrong set of stairs. That was true even—indeed, especially—in an emergency, when people tangled in the tubes which were the only ways to get from one level to another would make disaster certain.

Until Adele entered Cazelet, sitting at the astrogation console, was alone on the bridge. He was checking the communications intercepts which Adele had set her equipment to make in her absence. She supposed that was as useful as anything else the watch officer could do under the current placid conditions, and it was more Cazelet’s taste than reviewing crew discipline records or the rate of water usage during the past thirty days.

“Mistress?” he said. Cazelet wasn’t much better than Adele herself in following protocol when addressing his fellows aboard the corvette. Like her, he was a well-born civilian who had not gone through the Academy. “There’s something interesting going on in orbit.”

At the same moment, a sidebar on Adele’s display pulsed with a message in purple from Cory in the Battle Direction Center: Communications sweep indicates freighter being attacked in orbit, with an icon which would take her to the same input as the icon Cazelet had put on her sidebar after alerting her verbally.