The Sea Without a Shore (6 page)

BOOK: The Sea Without a Shore
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Mon grimaced as he thought. “Well, one is the
Golgotha Dancer
,” he said. “She’s the one I’d recommend. Twelve hundred tons, two antenna rings, of course, but I just replaced her High Drives. Right now she’s in Portola”—on the East Coast—“loading a cargo of fusion bottles for Chateaubriand. But we can land them back on the dock in six hours, that’s no problem.”

“She’s just the sort of ship I have in mind,” said Daniel. He’d need to look over any offer before deciding, but he trusted Mon implicitly on the freighter’s soundness. “And the other?”

“She’s the
Kiesche
, right over here in the end berth,” Mon said. He gestured forward and set off down the track around the pool. “Twelve hundred tons, two antenna rings again, but she turns like a cat. I’ve never seen a ship so handy. In civilian service, of course.”

Warships had large crews, which made them handier than merchant ships even with the same rigging, and generally warships mounted more masts than civilian vessels also. A starship’s rigging was fully automated, but anyone who expected thousands of valves and pulleys to work perfectly in service was a fool.

Ships lifted and landed on pillars of plasma, and they passed through atmospheres which had their own corrosive possibilities. Without riggers on the hull, a ship would soon become mired in the Matrix and eons away from anywhere her captain wanted to be.

“What
is
her crew?” Daniel asked. What must be the
Kiesche
came in sight at the edge of the inlet channel to Lake Xenos. His first thought was disappointment—the freighter had a rusty, bedraggled look. But that again was a matter of crew size: much of a warship’s exterior maintenance was busywork to keep the crew occupied when the vessel wasn’t in the midst of a battle.

“I run her with ten,” Mon said. “Well, nine most of the time, if I’m honest. You can sling hammocks for twenty easily enough.”

They were approaching from the bow, so the nose turret with its single plasma cannon was visible. Daniel nodded toward the gun and said in a neutral tone, “What does she mount?”

“A fifty-millimeter high-intensity piece,” Mon said. “From an Alliance pirate chaser originally, I’d guess, but I took her off a freighter out of Trobriand that I was scrapping.”

He pursed his lips and looked at Daniel. “Look, sir—I know that’s a popgun, but this is a civilian ship, and that’s all her frames’ll take in real use. You won’t find a freighter under five thousand tons which can handle as many as a dozen rounds from a four-inch gun without starting all her seams.”

Daniel laughed. “Much as I’d like you to be wrong, Mon,” he said, “I know that you’re not. And I’m trying to look inconspicuous on this business, so fitting destroyer armament would be a bad idea even if we could.”

Now that they were standing on the dock alongside, the
Kiesche
had a sharp, eager appearance. Sure, her hull was streaked with rust, but her rigging was taut and her antennas were straight, with no signs of kinks which would keep the sections from nesting properly within one another.

“Say, there’s one more thing,” said Mon. “You remember the
Milton
—why sure you do! You captained her in her last fight, so sure you do! Well, she was scrapped right here when she got back to Cinnabar. I put her command console in the
Kiesche
when I was refitting her. A heavy cruiser’s console is really too big for a twelve hundred-ton freighter, but the price was right.”

Daniel had started down the catwalk to the ship’s own boarding ramp. He stopped, put his foot back on the quay, and turned. “You don’t bloody say!” he said. “You don’t
bloody
say!”

Mon, startled by Daniel’s vehemence, said, “Well, the console was first-rate even if I hear that the ship was an abortion, eight-inch cannon on a cruiser hull.”

“You didn’t hear me say the
Millie
was an abortion!” Daniel said. “Why, she slugged it out with a battleship, and it was the
Millie
who sailed home!”

He caught himself. Sailed home, yes; but under a jury rig and missing her hull aft of Frame 260. She was scrapped when she got home because that was the only option which made economic sense.

“Never mind, Mon,” Daniel said. “I’ll take the
Kiesche
.”

He cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Pardon if I sounded a bit heated. I’m, well … As you say, the
Millie
was my command. And—”

He beamed at the freighter.

“—a cruiser console may cramp the bridge somewhat, but it has full controls and display on the aft side. And
that
will be the perfect location for my communications officer!”

CHAPTER 5

Xenos on Cinnabar

Adele had paused in her transcriptions to sip from her glass of beer. Beer from the Mundy estate—bitters, actually, brewed with germander rather than hops—had been the table beverage at the townhouse while Adele was growing up.

She had never considered the choice as child: what was, was, as with most children in most situations. As an adult, she supposed the beer was to show voters that Lucius Mundy was a Man of the People, despite his rank in society.

The doorman ushered a visitor into the hallway on the ground floor. Adele heard only the murmur of voices through the open door of the library where she was working. She took another sip of beer.

Her mouth was very dry. Forgetting to eat wasn’t a real problem, but she shouldn’t let herself go so long without drinking, especially with a glass at her hand.

Tovera stood at the stairhead. “It’s Miranda Dorst,” she said quietly. “She came to see you.”

“Send her up,” said Adele. What she was doing wasn’t important.

Her lips hinted at a frozen smile.
No human activity is important. Everyone dies, everything dies; the Cosmos dies
.

If you are part of a family, however, you have family obligations. Adele had spent her first thirty-one years alone, though until she was sixteen she had lived in Xenos with her parents and sister. When she met Daniel, she had joined a family: she had become a Sissie, a member of the crew of the corvette
Princess Cecile
, and through that fellowship a part of the vastly extended RCN family.

Adele much preferred her current situation, and no one had ever accused the Mundys of avoiding their obligations.

Besides, Adele liked Miranda. She was intelligent and was grounded in the real world: Miranda and her mother had lived in straitened circumstances since the death of her father, an RCN captain. Furthermore, Miranda was extremely tough, though there was nothing in her appearance to suggest that.

Adele’s mouth quirked again, perhaps with a hint of regret. Toughness wasn’t the first attribute strangers thought of on meeting Adele Mundy, either.

Miranda came up the three flights of stairs ahead of Tovera. It was an unusual display of Tovera’s favor that she did not interpose herself between her mistress and an approaching visitor.

“Good afternoon, Miranda,” Adele said. “Put those chip files on the floor—”

Or she could hold them in her lap as Daniel had. It was all one to Adele.

“—and sit down.”

Miranda entered, looking about with her usual bright interest. She wore a pantsuit of brown tweed under a short cape which was either tan or gold, depending on the angle of the light. She wore her perfectly tailored garments with grace, as she had done all things of which Adele was aware.

Adele knew that Miranda and her mother, Madeline, continued to make their own clothing. She had never asked whether that was whim or a philosophy on the Dorsts’ part. It certainly wasn’t a matter of necessity anymore. Daniel was a notably openhanded man, and he wasn’t stinting his fiancée and her mother.

“Thank you for receiving me, Adele,” Miranda said. She placed the files on the floor and sat without touching the chair with her hands. “I realize that you’re always busy.”

Adele shrugged. “I’m transcribing logbooks,” she said. “I will often find useful information in primary sources which isn’t carried over into compilations. I need to skim the contents as I copy the logs, however, so that I have an idea of what is in each one. In a crisis, the real index is in my mind.”

She smiled faintly. She saw no reason to pretend to Miranda that she wasn’t good at her job.

Then she said, “What do you want from me?”

Miranda looked blank for a moment, then clapped her hands in delight. She began to laugh.

Adele’s lips stiffened.
I was too abrupt
. Well, people who knew her didn’t visit for small talk.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Miranda gasped through her gust of laughter. “Please, please—”

The laughter got the better of her again. She stood and unexpectedly took Adele’s hands. Her firm grip was a reminder of Miranda’s comment that she played field hockey at school.

Miranda straightened and released Adele’s hand. “I apologize,” she said. “I realize that was very impolite, but I’ve …”

She backed into her chair again without taking her eyes from Adele’s. “Adele,” she said, “that’s the first time I’ve laughed in, well, since Master Sand came to Bantry in a flurry. I’ve been trying to pretend everything was all right so that Daniel wouldn’t worry about me and I’d make it worse.”

She swallowed, then gave Adele a transfiguring smile. “And then I came here,” Miranda said, “and you were
you
, and I didn’t have to pretend anymore. About anything. It was such a relief.”

Adele supposed she’d just been complimented. Others might not feel it was a compliment, but—she smiled as broadly as she ever did—that was rather the point of the statement, wasn’t it?

“I can generally be expected to be me,” Adele said. “But since that wasn’t what you came expecting to learn, my question still stands.”

“Is there anything I can do that will help Daniel with whatever he’s preparing to do?” Miranda said primly. “I’m not asking where he’s going or what he’s doing or, or—”

She was losing her careful calm. She paused, swallowed, and resumed, “Or anything I shouldn’t know about. And I came to you, because you’ll tell me the truth.”

“Yes,” said Adele as she considered the situation. “You have to remember that most of Daniel’s previous experience with women—”

All his previous experience, so far as Adele had seen.

“—has been with the type who struggle every day in deciding which color earrings to wear. He knows that you’re different, but when he’s busy he is probably operating by rote rather than thinking.”

Miranda smiled toward her clasped hands, then looked up at Adele. “At parties I’ve met some of Daniel’s previous acquaintances,” she said. Her voice was soft with good humor. “They’re lovely, very lovely. Which explains how their genetic material survives in the human species.”

“I’ve had similar thoughts,” Adele said. Miranda was a
remarkably
levelheaded person. “As for your question, I don’t know anything you can do for Daniel. Beyond what you’re doubtless doing already, of course. However—”

There had been a hint of disappointment in Miranda’s expression. It vanished at the qualifying “However—”

“—since you’re here, there’s something you can do for me. I’d like to analyze a situation I’m involved in in front of an intelligent neutral party. I don’t care about your opinion.”

“All right,” said Miranda. Her expression was alert; but then, it usually was. “If it’s all right for you to speak to me. Security, I mean.”

“In my experience,” Adele said, “‘security’ is a word people use to conceal information. I’m a librarian. I was trained to make information available to others.”

She felt her lips quirk toward a smile. “If my superior decides she cannot accept the way I handle information,” Adele said, “she can discharge me. Or call me out, I suppose. I’ve seen no indication to date that she feels any concern about my behavior.”

Miranda smiled very broadly, but she did not speak.

“I expect to visit the Ribbon Stars in the near future,” Adele said. She had emptied her glass. She reached for the pitcher, then thought of her guest and said, “Would you like some beer? Or, well, anything—I’m sure the pantry is well stocked.”

The Shippers’ and Merchants’ Treasury rented the use of the second floor of Chatsworth Minor for meetings in a private setting. They stored various entertainment paraphernalia—like wine and liquor—in the cellar against need. While Captain Leary was on Cinnabar, he had the use of the Treasury’s space, which he thought he was renting from Adele directly.

“Beer would be fine,” Miranda said, “if there’s—oh!”

Tovera stepped through the open doorway and handed Miranda a tall glass like Adele’s.

Adele poured. “Ah,” she said.

Adele had no reason to be embarrassed—her visitor was unexpected and would take what she was offered. Still. “I should warn you that this is bitter beer from Owsley County. From Chatsworth Major, in fact, though the estate is no longer in the Mundy family.”

“Thank you,” Miranda said. She sipped, then drank deeply. She didn’t say how delightful the taste was, or how she had always liked bitter, or any one of a dozen other brightly false statements that Adele expected. She just drank.

“Don’t blame Daniel too much, Miranda,” Adele said, speaking what she had just thought. “You’re easy to underestimate.”

She refilled her own glass and said, “The oldest human settlement in the Ribbon Stars is Pantellaria, a First Tier colony. After the Hiatus—”

The thousand-year break in interstellar travel which resulted from the war fought with diverted asteroids by Earth against her original colonies. The wonder was not that the war had ended human star travel but rather that it hadn’t ended the human species.

“—Pantellaria planted colonies of her own in the cluster. One of them, Corcyra, was found to have rich veins of copper.”

Miranda nodded, but she didn’t speak. She was carrying Adele’s statement that her opinion wasn’t desired to the point of not saying anything.

I’ve overreacted again,
Adele thought.
I’m
not
a monster that people have to be afraid of!

And as Adele thought that, she realized that it wasn’t true, that she had killed scores, probably hundreds of people, mostly with head shots. She
was
a monster by the standards of most people.

“Pantellaria was forcibly annexed to the Alliance eighteen years ago,” Adele said. “That set off the most recent period of war between ourselves and the Alliance, the one which just ended with the Treaty of Amiens. Pantellaria regained its independence with the treaty, but there were quite a few citizens, including most of those who had become leaders during Alliance rule, who weren’t happy with the independent government.”

Adele let her eyes travel around the room. She almost never
looked
at the library’s familiar disorder, though she spent at least half her waking hours in the room. Because Miranda Dorst faced her expectantly, Adele noted that the grain of the bookcases matched that of the moldings of the walls; the wood for both came from Chatsworth Major, and the work had probably been done by the same woodwrights when the townhouse was first built.

The glass fronts were dusty. Everything in the room was dusty. The cleaning staff had been directed not to touch Adele’s books and files, but something had to be done.

“Would you like me to clean while you’re gone?” Miranda said.

She’s reading my mind!
But of course she wasn’t doing anything of the sort. Miranda was following Adele’s eyes and probably reading her expression, then coming to the logical conclusion from the evidence.

“I don’t mean ‘straighten up,’ which would be horrible,” Miranda said, “but to remove dust with a very small vacuum. A static broom would be worse than straightening, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Adele. “Careful cleaning would be helpful.”

She remembered the cleaner—he had been male; after the fact Adele realized that he probably
never
listened to anything a female employer said—who had carefully interfiled chips from two separate files to bring them into order by date. It hadn’t occurred to him that Adele was moving chips from one pile to the other after she had processed them.

“Adele, is something wrong?” Miranda said.

What must my face have looked like?
Adele thought. She said, “Not now, thank you. I was talking about Pantellaria. A number of Pantellarians on the losing side politically fled to Corcyra, taking as much movable wealth as they could. There was unrest on Corcyra anyway—the colonists thought far more of the planetary income was going to the homeworld than was justified.”

“Were they correct?” Miranda said. The discussion of cleaning seemed to have put them back on the more equal basis that Adele preferred. So long as the younger woman didn’t decide that her own opinion should matter to Adele.

“Taxation—levies generally—were high while Corcyra was part of the Alliance,” Adele said. “The newly independent Pantellarian government wasn’t showing any sign of reducing them. On the other hand—”

She shrugged.

“—Corcyra might well have gained a reduction by measures short of war. And I don’t know of a historical example of a colony or client state which didn’t think it paid more than a fair proportion of its wealth in taxes or tribute.”

Miranda nodded agreement but didn’t speak aloud.

“With the exiles supporting independence, Corcyra revolted from Pantellaria last year,” Adele said. As she had hoped, the situation on Corcyra was coming into clearer relief in her mind, just as the library had to her eyes. “And three months ago a Pantellarian expeditionary force landed to recover the planet.”

“I’ve always understood that it’s difficult to transport an army from one planet to another,” Miranda said. She sat upright, her hands crossed in her lap, like an obedient student. “How many soldiers did Pantellaria send?”

Adele nodded crisply, a stern teacher acknowledging a student’s intelligent question. She said, “The expeditionary force is of two thousand troops with light armor. They’re accompanied by a naval force of six destroyers, whose crews could provide another thousand personnel if used as ground troops. And an uncertain number of Corcyrans are supporting the Pantellarians as a sort of militia.”

Adele paused to smile thinly, then realized it would be a good time to take a drink. She half filled her glass—all that remained in the pitcher. Before she could put down the empty pitcher, Tovera took it and replaced it with a full one.

Two house servants hovered nervously down the hall, holding trays with more beer and glassware. When Adele glanced toward them, they snatched their eyes away.

“The more difficult question is the strength of the defenders,” she said. “All settlement is along the River Cephisis. The mining region, the Southern Highlands, appears to be entirely hostile to Pantellarian control, though that doesn’t mean all miners are ready to pick up a weapon and march down the river to attack the expeditionary force, which landed near the mouth. Still, there are about thirty thousand miners. Based on similar historical situations—”

BOOK: The Sea Without a Shore
5.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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