Some Golden Harbor Read online

  SOME GOLDEN HARBOR

  by David Drake

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by David Drake

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN 10: 1-4165-2080-5

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4165-2080-1

  Cover art by Stephen Hickman

  First printing, September 2006

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Drake, David.

  Some golden harbor / David Drake.

  p. cm.

  "A Baen Books original"—T.p. verso.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-2080-1

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-2080-5

  1. Leary, Daniel (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Mundy, Adele

  (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Space warfare—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3554.R196S66 2006

  813'.54—dc22

  2006015234

  Printed in the United States of America

  BAEN BOOKS by

  DAVID DRAKE

  The RCN Series

  With the Lightnings

  Lt. Leary, Commanding

  The Far Side of the Stars

  The Way to Glory

  Some Golden Harbor

  Hammer's Slammers

  The Tank Lords

  Caught in the Crossfire

  The Butcher's Bill

  The Sharp End

  Paying the Piper

  Independent Novels and

  Collections

  The Reaches Trilogy

  Seas of Venus

  Foreign Legions, edited by David Drake

  Ranks of Bronze

  Cross the Stars

  The Dragon Lord

  Birds of Prey

  Northworld Trilogy

  Redliners

  Starliner

  All the Way to the Gallows

  Grimmer Than Hell

  Other Times Than Peace

  The Undesired Princess and The Enchanted Bunny

  (with L. Sprague de Camp)

  Lest Darkness Fall and

  To Bring the Light

  (with L. Sprague de Camp)

  Killer

  (with Karl Edward Wagner)

  The General Series

  Warlord with S.M. Stirling (omnibus)

  Conqueror with S.M. Stirling (omnibus)

  The Chosen with S.M. Stirling

  The Reformer with S.M. Stirling

  The Tyrant with Eric Flint

  The Belisarius Series with

  Eric Flint

  An Oblique Approach

  In the Heart of Darkness

  Destiny's Shield

  Fortune's Stroke

  The Tide of Victory

  The Dance of Time

  Edited by David Drake

  Armageddon

  (with Billie Sue Mosiman)

  The World Turned Upside Down

  (with Jim Baen & Eric Flint)

  DEDICATION

  To Barry Malzberg

  A friend of many years,

  with whom I live in the Land of Science Fiction

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Dan Breen, my first reader, continues to catch clerical errors that I'd missed at least twice. Not infrequently he'll also ask a question like, "How did she get from there to here?," which is even more valuable.

  Oh, boy, did I kill computers this time. The score was four or five, all for different reasons and all within a period of weeks. The prize was when I decided to change my pattern and bought a brand new Compaq, which gave splendid service before dying on Day Five (yes, taking with it my day's work; but that was my fault). Compaq instantly sent a new hard drive, which solved the problem. (And I redid the work. Hey, nobody's shooting at me.)

  Keeping me going with expertise, parts, and labor were Mark Van Name, my wife Jo, and most particularly my son Jonathan. And I should mention that in the course of my frustration, Allyn Vogel taught me to disconnect the Insert key, which has been a thorn in my side ever since I had to switch to the Windows operating system. My life would be much darker without family and friends.

  Dorothy Day checked continuity for me during the writing, and my webmaster Karen Zimmerman dug up bits of desired information. (For example, finding the lyrics to Morgenrot, which I then translated in a rough-and-ready fashion for a throwaway scene.) Both of them also archived my texts as I completed them. (See above. This was a really good book to archive in distant parts of the country.)

  Dorothy and Evan Ladouceur then went over the completed manuscript for mistakes that'd survived my first two passes. (And believe me, I caught my share of stupid errors.)

  Besides picking up replacement keyboards (yes, two of them) and the like and feeding me superbly, my wife Jo provides someone to whom I can burble about the plot problem I'm facing or the neat thing I've just learned. This is enormously helpful.

  Even though Some Golden Harbor is a solo novel, it would be significantly less good if I didn't have a support structure which you literally couldn't buy. This is a blessing whose full extent can be appreciated only by those few who are similarly fortunate.

  —Dave Drake

  david-drake.com

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  I've based the setting of Some Golden Harbor on political and military events taking place during the early fifth century BC in Southern Italy (Aricia, Cumae, and the Etruscan federation). All right, that's a little obscure even for me, but I found the discussion of Aristodemus of Cumae in an aside by Dionysius of Halicarnassus to be an extremely clear account of the rise and eventual fall of an ancient tyrant.

  There's more real information here than in the lengthy, tendentious, and generally rhetorical disquisitions on Coriolanus (a near contemporary, by the way). I suspect that's because Aristodemus is unimportant except as a footnote to Roman history, whereas Gaius Marcius Coriolanus provided one of the basic myths of Rome. The real Coriolanus and the real events involving him are buried under a structure of invention, but nobody had a reason to do that in regard to Aristodemus.

  While the basic politico-military situation comes from ancient history, I took most of the business on Dunbar's World from the South during the American Civil War and the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. I've enormously simplified what went on in both cases.

  Every time I really dig into a period I learn that what a secondary history gave two lines to was an incredibly complex business that could've as easily gone the other way. I'm pleased when I meet people who know any history at all, but I do wish that people who've read only secondary sources (or worse, have watched a TV show on the subject) would keep in mind that there's a lot beneath the surface of any major historical event. I want to scream every time I hear someone say something along the lines of, "What really caused the Roman Civil War was—"

  No, it didn't. Nothing that complicated has a single, simple causation. When somebody frames his statement in those terms (those doing so have invariably been male in my experience), he proves that he doesn't know enough to discuss the subject.

  The scattered human societies I postulate for this series would have many systems of weights and measures. Rather than try to duplicate that reality and thereby confuse readers without advancing my story, I've simply put Cinnabar on the English system while the Alliance is metric. I don't believe either system will be in use two millennia from now, but regardless: my business is storytelling, not
prediction.

  —Dave Drake

  And some are wilder comrades, sworn to seek

  If any golden harbor be for men

  In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of Doubt.

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Prefatory Sonnet to "The Nineteenth Century"

  CHAPTER 1

  Xenos on Cinnabar

  "This way, mistress," said the hostess of Pleasaunce Style, dipping slightly at the knees before turning to lead Adele Mundy into the restaurant. "Your luncheon companion is waiting. Ah . . .?"

  She turned, a look of question if not concern on her perfectly formed face. "Your companion requested a table in the Sky Room where you'll be seen by all. You were aware of that, mistress?"

  The hostess was slender and had been tall even before she'd teased her brunette hair up on stiffeners of mauve feathers that matched her dress. The coiffeur formed a curtained cage in which an insect the size of Adele's thumb sat and shrieked. That would've been irritating enough by itself, but all the waitresses were wearing similar hairdos. The insects sang in stridently different keys.

  "I didn't know that," Adele said, trying not to sound snappish, "but it doesn't matter."

  "Of course, mistress," the hostess said and resumed her smooth progress into the restaurant.

  Adele supposed the question had been a criticism of her suit, light gray with a thin black stripe. Though as expensive as the clothing of the other diners, it was conservatively cut. The hostess might've preferred rags—which could've been a cutting-edge fashion statement—to Adele's muted respectability.

  Adele smiled thinly, wondering if she might be able to convince the hostess that she was really a trend-setter; that in the past several weeks her severe garments had become the rage on Bryce and Pleasaunce, respectively the intellectual and political centers of the Alliance of Free Stars. She very possibly could—she could ape a Bryce accent flawlessly—but it'd be a pointless thing to do.

  Given that life generally appeared to be pointless, though . . . She'd see whether the idea continued to appeal to her after she'd met with Maurice Claverhouse.

  The hostess led Adele up a sweeping staircase to the mezzanine hanging over the middle of the regular dining area. People on the main floor followed them with their eyes. Under other circumstances that would've irritated her, but this meeting was work. Adele was a signals officer in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy and an agent for Mistress Bernis Sand, the Republic's spymaster. Both appointments had put her in situations more uncomfortable than lunching in a trendy restaurant.

  "Watch your step," the hostess warned, gesturing toward the flared landing at the top of the stairs. It joined the mezzanine proper on a thin curved line: the Sky Room must rotate. Though the floor had a cloudy presence when viewed from below, it was clear when Adele looked down.

  There were only six tables in the Sky Room, arranged to put the diners on display. A reservation here obviously required more than money, making Adele wonder again why Claverhouse had chosen this venue for their meeting. Several of those present were dressed in fashions as extreme as those of the servers, though they didn't have insects in their hair.

  Adele permitted herself a minuscule grin. Not deliberately, at any rate, and in this company the likelihood of lice was slight compared with the sort of places in which poverty had forced Adele to eat and sleep for many years.

  The Mundys of Chatsworth had been among the wealthiest and most powerful nobles on Cinnabar, but their property'd been confiscated when they were executed for treason during the Three Circles Conspiracy seventeen standard years ago. Adele, then sixteen, had survived because she was on Bryce to continue her education in the Academic Collections there. The director, Mistress Boileau, had acted as Adele's protector as well as mentor, but she herself wasn't wealthy.

  Adele kept a straight face as she glanced past the man at the adjacent table wearing diaphanous garments trimmed with what seemed to be random patches of fur. If it hadn't been for the Three Circles Conspiracy, Adele Mundy would've had a circle of acquaintances who'd keep her abreast of current fashions like those. She'd continue to manage to live with her ignorance, however.

  The hostess stopped beside a table whose present occupant, a man in what looked at first glance like a uniform in gold braid and puce, rose to greet her. "Little Adele," he said. "Still the studious little girl, I see."

  "Good day, Maurice," Adele said. What was proper etiquette in greeting a man who'd been old when you last met him as a child? "I'm still studious, yes. And probably as girlish as I ever was."

  Which meant not girlish at all, as people generally defined such things. Adele'd been quiet and serious from as far back as she could remember. Her best friends had always been books and the knowledge books brought her. Her little sister Agatha, though, had liked dolls and people and games. When Agatha was ten years old, two soldiers had identified her as a Mundy and therefore a traitor; and they'd cut her head off with their knives.

  The hostess drew a chair out for her. Adele found such displays of empty subservience irritating, but objecting would simply delay matters and might offend the man from whom she hoped to glean current information about the situation on Dunbar's World.

  Why had Claverhouse picked a place like this to meet, though? Adele didn't care, but she'd have thought he'd have been more comfortable in Chatsworth Minor, now her townhouse and a familiar resort for Claverhouse in the days when her father, Lucius Mundy, led the Popular Party.

  The old man sat back heavily. The years had weighed on him. He wasn't overweight in the usual sense, but flesh seemed to hang in soft masses from the rack of his bones. He wheezed slightly as he said, "Little Adele. I was more surprised than I can say to hear from you as soon as I arrived back on Cinnabar after all these years. I hadn't realized that you—"

  He paused, meeting Adele's eyes; his breath caught again and his hand tightened on his glass. He'd been waiting long enough—though Adele was precisely on time—to have gotten a drink layered in liqueurs of differing colors.

  "—survived. If you don't mind an old man saying so."

  Why don't the layers mix? As the question popped into her mind, Adele reached reflexively for the personal data unit she carried in a pocket specially sewn into the right thigh of every pair of trousers she owned. The little unit probably held the answer. Even if it didn't, she'd coupled it to every major database here in Xenos—including those whose access was supposedly restricted.

  Some people said that knowledge was power. To Adele Mundy, knowledge was life itself.

  But the knowledge she'd come to gather had nothing to do with drink preparation, so she managed to restrain her hand. Smiling to herself, she said, "I was off-planet during the Proscriptions. Your assumption would've been correct for the other members of the family, however."

  Maybe the smile was the wrong expression under the circumstances. Claverhouse looked stricken and gulped down half the contents of his tall glass.

  Adele grimaced, wishing she were better at social interactions. She never seemed to say or do the right thing. For pity's sake, he'd brought the subject up!

  "I was surprised to see the name of an old acquaintance—"

  Should she have said "friend"?

  "—when I was checking records of recent arrivals from Dunbar's World, Maurice," she said, plowing ahead because she couldn't think of any better way to proceed. "I've been assigned to assist Commander Leary—I'm an RCN officer myself, warrant officer that is—in his mission to Dunbar's World, so I need information on the present situation there. The invasion by Pellegrino, that is."

  "You said as much when you asked for a meeting," Claverhouse said heavily. "Among the other surprises that gave me was was learning that Lucius' elder daughter had joined the Navy."

  "Navy" was the civilian term for what anyone in the service called the RCN. Adele didn't correct him—the old man was a civilian, after all—but her smile was a touch stiffer than it might otherwise have been. Claverhouse had reminded her
how much she'd had to change because the world into which she'd been born had changed.

  The odd thing was, the thing that Adele would never have believed at the moment she learned that the heads of her parents and most of their friends were displayed on the Speaker's Rock in the center of Xenos, was that the change was largely for the better. Better by the terms in which she judged things now. The RCN had become more of a family than her blood relatives would ever have been, and she had a remarkably close friend in Daniel Leary.

  Even though his father, Speaker Leary, was the man whose proscriptions had ended the Three Circles Conspiracy and most of the Mundy family.

  "Would mistress like a drink before her meal?" asked a waitress. This one's fine blond hair gave Adele a better view of the caged bug. It had six legs, large, clear wings, and a thoroughly unpleasant voice.

  Daniel would be interested: he liked both natural history and pretty young blondes. As well as pretty young brunettes, pretty young redheads, and any other variety of pretty young woman.

  "Yes," said Adele, taking the wine list and indicating the first offering under the heading White Wines. She didn't care, not even a little bit, but she'd long since learned that saying, "I don't care," to a waiter would only create more delay. "A glass of that. Thank you."