The Road of Danger Read online

  “Indeed I will, Captain,” the admiral said. His smile was that of a man who is looking at the opponent he has just knocked to the floor, judging just where to put the boot in.

  * * * *

  Adele Mundy liked information — “lived for information” might be a better description of her attitude — but she had learned early that she preferred to get her information secondhand. Life didn’t always give her what she wanted, but she had tricks for dealing with uncomfortable realities.

  At present, for example, she was imagining that, while seated at her console on the bridge of the Princess Cecile, she was viewing the admiral’s office in hologram. That way she could treat what was being said simply as data, as information with no emotional weight.

  For Adele to display emotion here would compromise her mission and would — more important — embarrass her friend Daniel. She therefore avoided emotion.

  “Maybe you think I don’t know why your noble friends at Navy House sent the information by your yacht instead of a proper courier ship?” Cox said. His face was growing red and he gripped the edges of his desk hard enough to mottle his knuckles. “Is that it, Leary?”

  The phrase “noble friends” settled Adele’s data into a self-consistent whole. Cox’s father had been a power-room technician and a member of a craft association which provided education for the qualified children of associates. Cox had excelled in astrogation training; then, at a time of great need during the Landsmarck War thirty years ago, he had transferred from merchant service to the RCN.

  That Cox had risen from those beginnings to the rank of admiral was wholly due to his own effort and abilities. It wasn’t surprising that he felt hostile to a highly regarded captain who was also the son of Speaker Leary — one of the most powerful and most feared members of the Senate. Cox had no way of knowing that Daniel had at age sixteen broken permanently with his father by enlisting in the Naval Academy.

  “Sir,” Daniel said carefully. He would have probably have preferred to remain silent — there was nothing useful he could say, after all — but Cox’s phrasing didn’t permit him that option. “I believe the Board may have taken into account that the Princess Cecile was fully worked up, having just made a run from Zenobia. I honestly don’t believe that a courier — the Themis was on call — which hadn’t been in the Matrix for thirty days could have bettered our time from Xenos.”

  Adele wondered if commissioned officers could be charged with Dumb Insolence or if the offense was only applied to enlisted spacers. She would like to look up the answer with her personal data unit.

  She would like very much to escape into her personal data unit.

  “I’m supposed to believe that it was all for practical reasons?” Cox said in a hectoring voice. The design inlaid on his wooden desktop showed men with spears — and one woman — fighting a giant boar. It was very nice work. “That your father didn’t have dinner with Admiral Hartsfield and say that his son should be sent to the Macotta Region to burnish his hero image?”

  “Sir,” said Daniel stiffly. His eyes were focused out the window over the admiral’s shoulder. “I truly don’t believe that my father has any connection with the Navy Board. I myself haven’t spoken with him for years.”

  For a ship to make a quick passage between stars, it had to remain in the Matrix and take advantage of variations in time-space constants varied from one bubble universe to the next. Most vessels returned to the sidereal universe frequently, in part to check their astrogation by star sightings but also because humans do not belong outside the sidereal universe. The pressure of alienness weighed on crews, affecting some people more than others but affecting everyone to a degree.

  Daniel had spent nearly all the past month in the Matrix, and most of that time out on the Sissie’s hull. That had allowed him to judge every nuance of energy gradients and adjust his course to make the quickest possible passage.

  It was discourteous for Cox to abuse a man who had just undergone that strain. It was dangerous to do so in front of the man’s friend, who had undergone the same strain and who had killed more people in the past few years than even her own fine mind could remember.

  Admiral Cox drew his head back slightly and pursed his lips. The new expression wasn’t welcoming, but Adele found it an improvement on the angry glare which he had worn until now.

  “Well, that doesn’t matter,” Cox said gruffly. “The orders say that you’re to put yourself and your ship under my command during the operation. That’s correct, isn’t it?”

  Perhaps he had recognized how unjust he had been. And perhaps he had considered some of the stories he’d heard about Officer Mundy.

  Daniel took a needed breath. “Yes, sir!” he said brightly. “If I may say so, I believe Officer Mundy’s — ”

  He nodded toward Adele with a smile.

  “ — information-gathering skills — ”

  “That’s enough, Leary,” Cox snapped, returning the atmosphere in the office to the icy rage of moments before. “I’ve heard about your tame spy. . . .”

  He made a dismissive gesture toward Adele. His eyes followed his hand for a moment but as quickly slid away from Adele’s still expression. She had been sure that her face was expressionless, but apparently she had been wrong about that.

  Where did he get the idea that I’m tame?

  “Anyway, I’ve heard about her,” Cox said more quietly, looking at Daniel and then to the holographic display skewed toward him from the right side of his desk. “In my judgment, my regional Naval Intelligence Detachment is quite capable of sweeping up these supposed plotters on Tattersall without help from outside. I’m therefore — ”

  Commander Ruffin was grinning.

  “ — going to assign you and your corvette to a matter of great diplomatic concern, Leary. I’m sending you to Sunbright in the Funnel Cluster to remove the Cinnabar citizen who’s reported to be leading a revolt there. Ruffin will give you the details.”

  “Sir?” said Daniel, more in surprise than protest. “Sunbright is an Alliance base, isn’t it? Why — ”

  Cox slammed his left palm down on the desk. Papers and small objects jumped; Adele noticed that the display became an unfocused blur for a moment. Even a ground installation should be better insulated against shock than that.

  “I said, Ruffin will take care of you!” Cox said. Less harshly, he continued, “Ruffin, brief them in your office and then get back here. We’ve got a lot of work to do on this Tattersall business.”

  “Sir,” said Daniel. He saluted and turned to the door, reaching it before Commander Ruffin did.

  Adele followed. She decided to feel amused, though she didn’t allow the smile to reach her lips.

  She had started to pull out her data unit when Cox referred to Sunbright. That would have been not only discourteous but even an offense against discipline, likely to cause trouble for Daniel as well as herself. She had therefore controlled her reflex.

  But that restraint made it all the harder to avoid using the other tool which Adele used to keep the universe at bay. It would have been even more troublesome to have drawn her pistol to shoot dead the regional commandant and his aide.

  CHAPTER 2

  Holm on Kronstadt

  Daniel supposed that he should have waited for Commander Ruffin to usher them into her office, but she was behind Adele, and Daniel really wanted to get his friend out of the admiral’s presence before something happened. He was thinking tactically, not what he’d expected when they entered the headquarters building.

  An RCN officer must always be ready to deal with a crisis. Daniel grinned.

  He swung Ruffin’s door back and waved Adele through with a flourish. Ruffin, close behind Adele, stiffened with irritated surprise.

  Daniel’s grin broadened and he repeated the gesture. “After you, please, Commander,” he said.

  Ruffin paused, then stepped through without looking at Daniel until she had reached her desk and sat down behind it. He closed the door behind h
im, standing with his back against the jamb. Adele was already seated at one of the severely functional chairs in front of the desk. The data unit was live on her lap.

  Adele served Cinnabar not only in uniform but also as an agent of the Republic’s intelligence service. Daniel knew of the association and had even met — socially — Mistress Bernis Sand, who directed those operations.

  Daniel was a patriot as well as an RCN officer, and he would help his friend Adele in any fashion that she requested. That said, the whole idea of spying struck him as grubby and unpleasant. He accepted that it was necessary, and he had used information which Adele provided without looking too closely at how she had come by it; but the admiral’s reference to “your tame spy” had filled Daniel with as much disgust as anger.

  He could only guess how Adele had reacted to the gibe. That guess, however, was the reason Daniel had been in such a hurry to get his friend out of the admiral’s office.

  Ruffin’s desk and console were RCN standard, no different from the units in the outer office; the three chairs and the filing cabinet for hard copy were equally utilitarian. The multi-paned window, however, was framed by pillars of gorgeous wood which had been turned in spiral patterns.

  Daniel had to restrain himself from walking over to examine the orange and black grain more closely. Is the wood local?

  Instead of speaking immediately, Ruffin brought her console display live and began sorting information with a touch pad. It wasn’t clear whether she was being deliberately insulting or was just flustered.

  Cheerfully, Daniel said, “I wonder, Commander? Did you originate the plan to send us to Sunbright or did Admiral Cox devise it on his own?”

  Ruffin looked up with a furious expression. “Your arrival allows the Macotta Squadron to concentrate on the crisis on Tattersall!” she said. “Instead of sending elements off to the Funnel Cluster on what isn’t properly an RCN matter anyway.”

  She cleared her throat. “Now if you’ll sit down,” she said, “we’ll proceed with the briefing.”

  “I believe I’ll stand, Commander,” Daniel said. There were advantages to being fobbed off on an aide of lower rank. “I think I’ll absorb information better this way.”

  Daniel had very little personal experience of bullying. As a boy he’d grown up with his mother on Bantry, the family estate on the west coast, while his father spent his time in Xenos, ruthlessly pursuing money, power, and bimbos. Hogg, now Captain Leary’s personal servant, had been the child’s minder and male role model.

  Daniel thought back to those days with a wry grin. He had been what his mother described as a high-spirited boy; others had found harsher terms. Nobody was going to bully the young squire, but neither were the sons of freeborn tenants going to be pushed around by a pipsqueak kid.

  Therefore Daniel had had the living daylights whaled out of him more than once. He gained respect on the estate because he kept getting up; but he kept getting knocked down again too, until Hogg decided it was time to end each fight by hauling his charge off to be cleaned up to the degree possible.

  Goodness knows how Hogg explained the damage to Mistress Leary, but fortunately she spent most of her life in a gentle reverie. She probably hadn’t paid much attention to her son’s cuts and bruises.

  At the Academy, the system itself was designed to crush cadets into RCN discipline. That, like the give-and-take of Bantry, was simply part of life. Occasionally someone would be singled out for personal attention, but not Daniel: he didn’t behave like a victim; his father, estranged or not, was powerful and famously ruthless, and Hogg, while his deportment lacked a good deal of what was expected of an officer’s servant, projected the cheerful air of a man who had garroted rabbits and was more than willing to garrote men who tried to harm his master.

  Cox and his flunky, however, were using RCN authority to display their pique rather than to serve the Republic. Daniel would obey the lawful orders of a superior officer — but when the superior officer was a prick abusing his authority, a Leary of Bantry didn’t roll onto his back and wave his legs in the air. And as for the prick’s lower-ranking toady . . .

  Daniel grinned. His native good humor made the expression a great deal more cheerful than it might have been on another man’s face. Let alone on Adele’s . . .

  Ruffin flushed angrily to see the smile, though the gods alone knew how she was interpreting it. She said, “Sunbright is an Alliance world in the Funnel Group, which to the Alliance is a separate administrative unit from the Forty Stars. They’re both part of the Macotta Region to us, to Cinnabar, so that’s why Xenos has handed this nonsense to us. The External Bureau has! This has nothing properly to do with the RCN.”

  The outburst proved Commander Ruffin was capable of umbrage at someone other than the captain and the signals officer of the Princess Cecile. As for who properly should have been handling a given duty, however . . . the External Bureau was the Republic’s diplomatic hand, and the RCN was the sword which gave point to the Republic’s diplomacy. If the diplomats chose to offer a job to the armed service, Daniel’s feeling was, “So much the better!”

  A starship vented steam in a shriek that only slowly tapered back to silence. Daniel instinctively glanced out the window behind Ruffin, but the back of the building here faced away from the harbor. Chances were that one of the squadron had built up calcium in a cooling line, and the pre-liftoff test had nearly burst the tubing before a technician managed to open a valve.

  “Four years ago,” Ruffin said, “a rebellion broke out on Sunbright. They grow rice on the planet, a fancy variety and quite valuable, but the planet hadn’t attracted much attention. Five years ago, however, Fleet Central on Pleasaunce decided it was a good location for a staging base in case we tried to threaten Alliance holdings in the Funnel.”

  “Was there any chance of that?” Daniel said, drawn back into professional speculation as his personal irritation cooled.

  Ruffin’s snort showed that what Daniel remembered of the region was correct. “Bugger all!” the commander said. “Xenos keeps us starved for parts and crews here in the Macotta, and as for the ships — ”

  She threw up her hands. “The Warhol is old, and the Schelling was launched when my grandfather was in service. I don’t think there’s an older battleship in the RCN. We’re no threat to the Funnel.”

  She cleared her throat and added, “Though we can see off that cruiser squadron from Madison easily enough. They’re Marie Class and haven’t been first-line ships for a generation.”

  “How does a rebellion on Sunbright become an RCN problem, then?” Daniel prodded gently. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the flickering of the control wands which Adele preferred to other input methods. She had doubtless called up all the available information on the situation and could have briefed Daniel with a few quick, crisp sentences.

  Though it would be informative to see how Ruffin framed the data. Often you learned as much from how people told you things as you did from the content.

  “Well . . . ,” said Ruffin, glaring at her own display. “Well, the rebel leader uses the name Freedom, but he claims to be a Cinnabar citizen and to have backing from the Republic. This was fine during the war, of course, but since the Truce of Amiens . . .”

  Ruffin grimaced and cupped her empty hands upward.

  “Anyway, Pleasaunce complained to Xenos,” she said, “and Xenos handed the whole business here to the Macotta Regional Headquarters. Without any extra resources, I might add!”

  Brightening, she added, “Until you arrived, that is. You let us get on with the real crisis and still satisfy those pansies in the External Bureau.”

  “I see,” said Daniel. He expected he would see a great deal more as soon as he and Adele could talk freely outside Macotta Headquarters. Her wands had continued to flicker without slowing since the moment she had seated herself in a corner of Ruffin’s office. “Do you here in the region have any suggestions about how to carry out the task?”

  “Any way y
ou please, Captain!” Ruffin said. She stabbed an index finger into her virtual keyboard and straightened with an air of accomplishment. “According to your reputation, you’re quite the miracle worker. Perhaps you can work another one here. Whether you do or not, that reputation is just the sort of window dressing that we need to get Xenos off our backs while we fix Tattersall.”

  She gestured to her display; from Daniel’s side of the desk, the hologram was a blur of color which averaged to gray. “I’ve sent all the information we have to your ship, the Princess. You can access it at your leisure. I don’t have anything else to add.”

  “Then we’ll leave you to your business,” Daniel said. Out of common politeness, he tried to keep the disgust out of his voice.

  He nodded, then turned and opened the office door; Adele had put her data unit away in the thigh pocket a tailor had added to her second-class uniform.

  Adele will certainly have something to add.

  * * * *

  “I’d like to sit for a moment before we return to the Princess Cecile,” Adele said as she and Daniel left the outer office. “The benches around the fountain in front of the building should do.”

  In her own ears the words sounded like those of a prissy academic. Which of course she was, but the fact didn’t usually irritate her so much.

  “Right,” said Daniel with a smile and a nod. “You know, it seemed nippy as we were walking up the avenue, but now the breeze feels like a good thing. Our reception warmed me considerably.”

  He really did seem to be in a good humor, though how that could be after the interviews with Cox and Ruffin was beyond Adele’s imagination. Daniel saw the world just as clearly as she did, but somehow he managed to put a positive gloss on the same bleak expanse of arrogance, incompetence, and greed.

  Adele walked around the fountain and settled, facing back toward the headquarters building. The statue of the cherub in the center would spout water straight up in the air through its trumpet when the fountain was operating, but the pool had been drained for the winter.