"The Sundering" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter Jon)

FOUR

AfterCorona had finished a pair of high-gee turns around Hone-bar’s sun and another of the system’s gas giants, and after Martinez had reduced his squadron’s acceleration to 0.8 gravities in order to aid the repairs of the two ships that had suffered damage, Martinez was invited to dine in the wardroom by his lieutenants. When he entered the small room with its cramped cherrywood table, his three officers rose and applauded.

“Congratulations, my lord,” Dalkeith said. She had a broad smile on her face, and Martinez wasn’t surprised—the successful action had almost certainly guaranteed her the promotion that had eluded her for the last fifteen or twenty years, all in despite of the fact that her sole contribution to the battle had been to watch from Auxiliary Control and wait for Martinez to die.

He thanked her and sat at the table, and the lieutenants followed suit. The wardroom steward—a professional chef acquired during Captain Tarafah’s regime, and who had stayed in his post while Martinez’s own chef fled—laid down the first course, a savory soup flavored with bits of smoked duck.

By all rights Martinez should have been exhausted, not having slept in twenty-five hours, almost a full day. But instead of yawning over his soup he felt himself coursing with energy, and his brain bubbled with ideas. He felt a ravenous appetite. The lieutenants were exhilarated as well, and the mood sometimes caught even Shankaracharya, who certainly had reason enough to be cast down.

Some of Martinez’s enthusiasm had been prompted by a message from Sula that had arrived mere hours after the battle, a message featuring her elegant formula for fleet maneuvers. Martinez brought the formula with him to the dinner, hoping to stimulate his officers’ thought. To this end—after the dinner was over, and the last toast drunk—Martinez suggested inviting Cadet Kelly, who had participated in the original officers’ discussions that had led to the new tactical ideas.

Such a suggestion, under the circumstances, was something akin to a command. Kelly came into the wardroom with her brilliant smile blazing. She had spent the entire battle in her pinnace, ready to be launched into space alongside a barrage of missiles. Martinez, for his part, had never for a moment considered launching either of his pinnace pilots into the hell of raging antimatter.

Kelly was brought up to speed with a couple glasses of the wardroom’s excellent wine, and Martinez unveiled Sula’s formula. Shankaracharya considered it carefully, tested it a few times with variables drawn from the day’s battle, and pronounced it worthy of further investigation. The officers were discussing tactical applications when Martinez’s sleeve button gave a discreet chime.

He answered, and on the sleeve display saw the face of Warrant Officer Roh, who had been left in charge ofCorona while his superiors were roistering in the wardroom.

“Message for you, my lord. It’s just been deciphered.”

“Transmit, then.”

A look of caution entered Roh’s eyes. “Perhaps you might want to receive this in private, lord elcap. It’s personal to you, from the Fleet Control Board.”

Martinez excused himself from the wardroom and stepped into the corridor outside. “Go ahead and transmit, Roh,” he said.

The message, from the secretary of the Control Board, was brief and to the point. In his musical Cree voice the secretary informed him that the board had decided, on receipt of Lieutenant Captain Martinez’s last communication, that Light Squadron Fourteen should from receipt of this message be placed under the command of its senior officer, Lieutenant Captain Kamarullah.

A burble of astounded laughter escaped Martinez’s lips. He was far too astonished to feel resentment at this outrageous usurpation.They’re going to really feel silly when they hear about what just happened here, he thought. He wondered if they would change their minds.

No. Of course they wouldn’t. They’d never admit they’d made an error in judgment.

And in any case the order needed to be obeyed. “Message, personal to Captain Kamarullah,” Martinez dictated, and tried to suppress any sign of inebriation as he spoke into the silver button-camera on his cuff.

“Orders have just come from the Fleet Control Board placing you in command of Squadron Fourteen. Naturally I will endeavor to comply with any instructions you see fit to issue toCorona. I will immediately inform the other ships of…” He hesitated, having almost saidmy command. “Of the squadron,” he finished. “Message ends.”

He had the message sent, and spent a few moments assembling the words he would use to his other captains.

“My lords,” he transmitted finally, “I must inform you that the Fleet Control Board has decided to place the squadron under the command of Captain Kamarullah. It has been a privilege to command Light Squadron Fourteen during the last month, and to have led you in an engagement which has done great service to the empire. I believe we may view our accomplishments with great satisfaction. I will be honored to serve alongside you under Captain Kamarullah’s command, and I hope that in the future we may score an even greater success against the enemy.”

Not that this was very likely under Kamarullah, Martinez thought, but the sentiment seemed worth expressing. He sent the message, and then paused for a moment outside the wardroom door, as he considered the new dynamics of the squadron.

Kamarullah’s wish had been granted, and he now was in command. But Martinez, his rival, had just won a bloodless victory over the enemy, and more than justified the confidence that Do-faq had placed in him. He’d brought all his captains through the fight without harm, and earned their trust. He could expect decorations and possible promotion, and Kamarullah could not. Kamarullah had just replaced a man who had made history, a commander who had won a great victory and who had earned fame and the thanks of the empire. Kamarullah’s victory could only turn to bitter ashes in his mouth.

The Fleet Control Board had just made Kamarullah an object of ridicule.

Cheered by this thought, Martinez returned to the wardroom, and accepted Dalkeith’s offer of another glass of wine.

The lord secretary of the Fleet Control Board was a Cree, and he spoke in rounded musical tones like the chuckling of a spring.

“…I call to Your Lordships’ attention,” he read, “Lieutenant Captain Lord Gareth Martinez, commander of Light Squadron Fourteen, who as the first squadron commander on the scene developed the plan of battle which his squadron and mine together followed. I earnestly hope that Your Lordships will consider Lord Gareth worthy of promotion or some other distinction.

“I also call to Your Lordships’ notice the following officers, whose service has been exemplary, and whose contribution to the victory at Hone-bar was by no means negligible…”

Lord Chen listened to the list of names as relief sighed through his bones. Captain Martinez had achieved distinction in the action at Hone-bar, something that would make Lord Chen’s own dealings with Lord Roland Martinez less open to question. In addition to securing the victory, Martinez had saved theClan Chen, which made Chen’s pocketbook less empty and his sense of gratitude more personal.

“Your Lordships’ most recent instructions,” the lord secretary continued, “required me to leave two ships at Hone-bar in order to secure the system and the Hone Reach. As the recent victory has lessened the threat to Hone-bar, I hope my decision to leave only theJudge Qel-fan will meet with Your Lordships’ approval. I will bring the rest of my ships to Zanshaa at the most expeditious possible speed.”

Lord Chen suppressed a smile. In fact the board’s instructions in regard to the defense of Hone-bar had been erratic, and tended to change from moment to moment depending on the persuasive power of those members with interests in the Hone Reach. From one day to the next Do-faq had been ordered to defend Hone-bar with his entire command, with his squadron alone, with a single four-ship division, and with a number of ships ranging from one to five. No wonder Do-faq had decided to take matters into his own decisive hands.

The lord secretary’s voice burbled on.

“I regret to report that I have ordered Captain Dix of the Investigative Service to inquire into the breakdown in communication that permitted the Naxids to surprise us at Hone-bar. Wormhole stations should have observed the approach of the rebels many days in advance, and though the captain of Hone-bar’s ring attempted to pass off the breakdown as the fault of a negligent tech, the explanation defies reason, and an investigation should be undertaken if only to clear those officers now under suspicion. I trust that this order meets with Your Lordships’ approval.

“In the eternal light of the Praxis, I remain…Lord Pa Do-faq, Squadron Commander, etc.”

The lord secretary looked up from his reader. “Shall I repeat any of the message, my lords?”

“That will not be necessary,” Tork said, answering for them all. His round eyes, mournful in his pale, fixed face, gazed around the broad table. “I am sure we are all aware of how this victory lessens our anxieties. I suggest that the lord secretary be ordered to write a congratulatory reply to the lord squadron commander, and that we all append our signatures.”

There was a murmur of assent. The lord secretary glanced down at his display and got busy with his stylus.

Lady San-torath, who represented Hone-bar in convocation, spoke first. “I’m delighted to congratulate Do-faq on his victory, but I wonder if he’s not gone too far ordering an investigation of what seems to be a simple communications error. Hasn’t the squadcom exceeded his authority?”

By which Lord Chen knew that the lapse hadn’t been a communications error at all. Hone-bar understood its own strategic importance as well as its own vulnerability, and probably at least some members of the elite were aware of the scale of the defeat at Magaria. They had seen the Naxid fleet coming, and had been prepared to make their own peace with the rebels.

Unfortunately the conspirators hadn’t been able to count. They’d known that Faqforce was on its way, and should have known that Faqforce outnumbered the Naxids. That they hadn’t cooperated with Do-faq, who after all had the greatest number of missile launchers, did not speak well for their intelligence.

Chen wondered how much Lady San-torath knew of Hone-bar’s plans. Enough at least to know that she might be compromised by any investigation.

“Better the Investigative Service,” said Lord Pezzini, “than the Legion of Diligence.”

There followed a significant silence that allowed Pezzini’s audience to shudder. Neither the IS nor the legion were infallible, but the legion’s mistakes tended to be a lot more lethal, as were, for that matter, its triumphs.

Pezzini was telling Lady San-torath to shut up and hope for the best. Nictating membranes deployed over her orange eyes, and she fell silent. Chen wondered how much Pezzini knew. Possibly a great deal, since Pezzini’s interests also lay in the Hone Reach.

“Should we not send a congratulatory message to Captain Martinez as well?” asked Lord Convocate Mondi. “He was at least technically in independent command.” Lord Mondi’s diction was very precise, without the lisp common in a Torminel.

Pezzini scowled. “We could make too much of Martinez,” he said. “We’ve already heard far too much of him.”

Chen sighed inwardly, and went to work to earn his stipend. “Surely Captain Martinez deserves more than a congratulatory message,” he said. “Even Squadron Commander Do-faq admits that it was his strategy that won the battle.”

“It was nothing more than any Peer could have done,” said Pezzini.

“That does not eliminate the fact that Martinez was the Peer who did it,” said Lord Chen.

Mondi scrubbed with the back of his hand the gray fur beneath one eye. Humans had a tendency to think of Torminel as very large round-bottomed plush toys, a perception of harmlessness reinforced by the lisp common to so many of Mondi’s species. Millions of human children slept each night with a stuffed Torminel beside them. Torminel, who were actually nocturnal, predatory carnivores who liked their meat raw, rarely understood why humans so persistently underestimated them.

“I don’t see why Martinez shouldn’t be congratulated,” Mondi said. “In fact he should be promoted and decorated.”

“It is Do-faq who should be promoted,” said Pezzini. “He was the senior officer. And Kamarullah should be promoted as well—it was he the board placed in command of the light squadron, not Martinez.”

“Why promote Kamarullah?” asked a bewildered Lady Seekin, the other Torminel member of the board. “What didhe do?”

“The Board’s decisions must be upheld!” Pezzini snapped. “Martinez has had enough! Kamarullah was our choice for command!”

“And now,” said Lord Chen, smoothly interceding, “comes our opportunity to rectify that…embarrassment.” He had argued against the supercession, but been outvoted. The professional members of the board, those who served with the Fleet, had insisted on the importance of seniority in maintaining discipline, and a couple of the civilians had been impressed enough by their arguments to fall in line.

“We could promote Martinez to captain,” Chen continued, “which would automatically put him over Kamarullah. It wouldnot counter this board’s earlier decision,” he said to Pezzini’s glare, “but reinforce the principle of seniority that this board considers so crucial to the order of the Fleet.”

“That seems simple enough,” said Lady Seekin. She was one of the civilian members of the board, from Devajjo in the Hone Reach, and the intricacies of military culture often confused her.

“No member of his family has ever risen as high in the service as Martinez,” Pezzini said. “Now the Board proposes to break precedent again and promote Martinez tocaptain?” Exasperation entered his voice. “Should we place his ancestors on a plane with ours? Should our descendants compete with his for places in the Fleet? It’s bad enough that the Convocation awarded him the Golden Orb, and that we now have to salute him.”

“One Peer is the equal of all others,” said Fleet Commander Tork. His chiming Daimong voice took on the harsh, dogmatic overtones the other members of the board had learned to dread. “And we do notcompete. Not with one another.” He paused for effect while Pezzini tried and failed to suppress a gesture of frustration.

“Still,” Tork said, “it is not good for one Peer to be favored so publically above others. If Martinez is to be promoted, let it be after his return to Zanshaa. Captain Kamarullah may enjoy command of the squadron until that time.”

“Martinez will have to leaveCorona if he is promoted,” Mondi observed. “A frigate is a lieutenant-captain’s command.”

“Perhaps we should give some thought to his next assignment,” Lord Chen said. He didn’t want to be the one to suggest that Martinez should have another squadron, perhaps one of those now building in the distant reaches of the empire, but he would not object if someone else made the proposal.

“Next assignment?” Pezzini said. “Do you know how many captains are on the list, waiting for commands? We can’t jump some junior captain over their heads!”

“He’s a verysuccessful junior captain,” Lady Seekin remarked.

“It will not do to be seen favoring one officer, however worthy,” Tork said. “Captain Martinez has already achieved honor enough for one lifetime. There are many posts worthy of an officer of talent, and not all of them involve ship duty.”

Lord Chen concealed his dismay. He would have to do some lobbying among the other members of the board.

Lord Roland would expect nothing else.

“How shall we announce the victory?” Mondi asked. “Shall we mention Martinez’s contribution as well as Do-faq’s?”

Tork raised his long, pale, expressionless head. A whiff of rotting flesh floated on the air as he raised an arm. “I beg the board’s indulgence,” he said, “but I do not believe an announcement should be made at all.”

The others stared at him. “But it’s avictory, ” said Lady Seekin. “It’s what we’ve all been waiting for. It’s what theempire has been waiting for.”

News of a victory would give heart to loyalists everywhere, Chen knew. The news would also discourage those inclined to make peace with the Naxids, such as whoever had suppressed those communications at Hone-bar.

“I do not wish the enemy to learn of their defeat at Hone-bar, at least not yet,” Tork said. “If they learn that a force exists at Hone-bar sufficient to destroy their squadron, then they learn also that this forceis not defending the capital at Zanshaa. It might inspire them to attack ushere, while we are weak. I beg that the board not release this information until such time as the elements of Faqforce arrive here at Zanshaa.”

“But wouldn’t the Naxids already know?” asked Lady San-torath.

“Not unless some traitor at Hone-bar told them,” said Tork. “But if there is treason there, it appears to be at the top. If it hasn’t infected the wormhole relay stations, then no messages will go to Magaria or any other rebel stronghold. To the rebel high command it will seem as if their squadron vanished. They may not even see anything wrong with that—they know they don’t control communications. It may be some weeks before they grow anxious. And before they know for certain that Kreeku’s force was destroyed, I want Faqforcehere, and guarding the capital.”

Lord Chen took a discreet sniff of his perfumed wrist as Tork’s vigorous gestures propelled the scent of rotting meat into the room.

“Very well reasoned, my lord,” he said. “I agree that the release of the information should be delayed.”

That would give Chen a little time to work on the other members of the board in the matter of Martinez’s promotion and assignment. Perhaps he could contact his sister Michi and ask for suggestions.

In the meantime, however, the board occupied itself with totting up numbers. Kreeku’s ten heavy cruisers could be wiped from the Naxid column of the ledger.

At the moment, Zanshaa was protected by Michi Chen’s seven heterogeneous ships from Harzapid, the six bruised survivors of the Battle of Magaria, and several hundred decoys—missiles configured to resemble a large vessel on radar, and which might absorb at least some of the enemy’s offensive power before being blown to bits.

But the six battered ships from Magaria were at the moment practically useless, since they needed to dock with Zanshaa’s ring station in order to undergo repairs, to replace their depleted missile batteries, and to take aboard Lord Eino Kangas, the new fleet commander the board had finally appointed after much wrangling. Even thenBombardment of Delhi was probably too damaged to fight without spending months in dock. That was why Faqforce was crucial: Do-faq’s fifteen ships would more than double the capital’s defense. But of those fifteen, Martinez’s eight ships of the light squadron had likewise expended most of their ammunition at Hone-bar, and would likewise have to decelerate, dock, and replenish.

Once that was done, the defenders would have twenty-five ships—or twenty-six, if you countedDelhi — still decisively outnumbered by the thirty-five ships last seen at Magaria. The odds against the loyalists were even worse if the eight Naxid ships last seen at Protipanu joined the Naxid main body—and why wouldn’t they? Zanshaa was the whole war. Once the Naxids were in command of the Zanshaa system, the government on the ground would have no choice but to capitulate under the threat of antimatter fire rained from above.

“Wemust win,” Mondi muttered, and drew snarling lips back from his fangs.

Lord Chen felt weariness seep into his mind like spring meltwater into the soil, slowing and chilling his thoughts. They had been over these figures meeting after meeting. “This business of replenishing ships’ missiles takes far too long,” he said. “A month or more to decelerate, time in dock, a month or more to get up to speed so that you’re not a sitting duck when the enemy shows up.”

“At least the enemy is under the same handicap,” Mondi said.

“The Fleet is not designed for this sort of war,” said Tork. Despair edged his chiming tones.

The Fleet was designed to sit in space and bombard helpless populations, or to make overwhelming surprise attacks on barbarians whose level of technology was lower than that of the empire. The Fleet hadnot been designed to fight another fleet with the same technology and tactics, let alone one with advantage in numbers.

“Why can’t we just load up a big cargo ship with missiles?” Chen asked. “Accelerate it and just keep it in orbit around the system? Any ship needing a supply of missiles could rendezvous with it and resupply. They wouldn’t have to drop their velocity to zero to dock with the ring.” He thought ofClan Chen burning its way toward Zanshaa, just ahead of Faqforce. “I can even supply the ship,” he said, then mentally added,Lord Roland permitting.

“I’ve considered this,” Tork said. “The enemy will be on our necks before the ship could be modified, loaded, and accelerated to useful velocities.”

“We’ll have your tender ready in time for thenext war,” Pezzini added, teeth biting down on his sarcasm.

“What if the enemy doesn’t come on schedule?” Lady Seekin asked. “What if they attack and we beat them? Wouldn’t it be useful to have missile reloads ready at hand, so that we could pursue them?”

Tork’s long, mournful face remained, as always, expressionless, but there was a profound silence before he raised his head to gaze at the others. “I can’t help but think that this war will change the way the Fleet operates. After this war, I don’t see that our ships will spend so much of their time in dock, where they’re vulnerable to rebellion and mutiny. Some of them, certainly, must be kept in orbit, where they can be useful in an emergency. And these tenders could be a part of that scheme, even if they’re completed too late for the decisive battle of this war.”

“We needwarships, ” someone said. “If we’re going to spend imperial funds, let’s buy something that will kill Naxids.”

“When a warship is in dock taking on supplies it isn’t able to killanything, ” Lady Seekin said. “I think this could work.” She looked up at Lord Chen. “Thank you, my lord, for a very useful idea.”

Lord Chen was calculating how much of this work he could shift to the Martinez family shipyards at Laredo. Not many—they were already stuffed with government contracts.

He’d consult with Lord Roland.

And then he’d speak to some other friends. People who might be very grateful for a contract or two.

Kamarullah issued few commands to the squadron over his first few days. When repairs were completed on his two damaged ships, he increased acceleration toward Zanshaa. Orders for minor course changes came after the wormhole transition.

The first attempt by Martinez to make use of Sula’s formula, with ships simulated inCorona ‘s computer and programmed to make use of Sula’s tactics, succeeded only in crashing the display. Shankaracharya gave the opinion that this wasn’t Sula’s fault, but the fault of the program, which wasn’t flexible enough to absorb Sula’s innovations.

Another attempt was made: Martinez, Vonderheydte, Shankaracharya, and Kelly each commanded a ship in a simulation, battling a squadron commanded by Dalkeith and using conventional tactics. The four ships using Sula’s tactics had their course changes programmed in by hand rather than by running it through the simulator. This approach showed promise, and the battle was beginning to look interesting when Vonderheydte’s ship vanished from its place in the simulation and reappeared clean on the other side of the virtual “universe,” having made an unscripted transition of a sort that was not, so far as was known, permitted in nature. The participants had barely recovered from this surprise when Shankaracharya’s ship made a similar leap.

The simulation software seemed to have a good many more limitations than anyone had suspected.

“We’ll have to try it with actual ships,” Vonderheydte said.

Martinez looked down at his supper, one of Alikhan’s casseroles a bit the worse for gravity. Macaroni stood up to high gees very well until the point when you cooked it.

“I no longer command the squadron,” Martinez pointed out.

“There’s another problem,” said Dalkeith. “Whoever heard of a fleet maneuver in which the outcome wasn’t determined in advance? No commander’s going to call for such a thing—they’d look like idiots if the wrong side won.”

In silence they contemplated the enormity of a senior officer calling for maneuvers this radical, and the colossal loss of dignity that would result when things didn’t go as expected. Dalkeith’s seemed a conclusive argument.

“Well,” Kelly said, musing on her glass of wine, “what if we don’tsay it’s a maneuver? It can be called an ‘experiment.’ The wholepoint of experiments is that no one knows for certain how they’ll turn out.”

Martinez blinked. Stale olive oil wafted to him from his plate. “Worth a try,” he judged.

He sent a message to Do-faq, along with Sula’s formula and a description of the limitations of the standard tactical simulation. He also suggested that an experiment, rather than a maneuver, would be the best way to test the innovations. Do-faq sent a polite reply saying that he and his tactical officer would review the innovations, and Martinez assumed it would end there.

Martinez also sent a copy of the message to Kamarullah. Kamarullah did not reply beyond a routine acknowledgment from his comm officer.

Five days into his tenure, Kamarullah finally called for a maneuver—a maneuver out of the old playbook, the ships flying closely together and linked by laser into a shared virtual environment. Martinez shrugged and assumed that his theories, and Sula’s, would remain in obscurity until one or both of them reached flag rank. But no sooner had the maneuver started than Do-faq’s ships, some ten light-minutes behind and visible on the navigation displays, began to separate, one division maintaining a rigid formation while the other formed in a looser group at a distance, a group in which the relative positions of the ships were constantly shifting.

“Screens,” Martinez told his sensor operators, “I want that maneuver—thatexperiment — recorded.”

Martinez didn’t believe for a moment that this was spontaneous. Do-faq was proving even more devious a service infighter than Martinez had suspected. Do-faq had waited for Kamarullah to call a maneuver—he must have partisans within the light squadron, among the captains—and then he’d called his own for the same moment. His staff must have been working overtime to put this together, to show Do-faq’s commitment to tactical innovation while Kamarullah was putting his squadron through the same old stodge.

Do-faq had placed his bet in history’s sweepstakes, and the bet was on Martinez.

Martinez felt the glow in his heart for days.

As if the Battle of Hone-bar had somehow liberated the frigate from a month-long jinx,Corona performed flawlessly in Kamarullah’s maneuvers. The glow in Martinez’s heart brightened.

Reviewing the recordings of Do-faq’s experiment, Martinez felt the pulse of triumph along his nerves, a sense that this might be the start of something sensational, that might in fact be perfectly brilliant. Squadron Commander Do-faq obligingly sent Martinez a recording of his maneuver, one that included tracks of the virtual missiles the ships had “fired” during the exercise, and recordings of the equally virtual defensive laser and antiproton fire. Even though the firing had been simulated, they seemed to suggest that the looser, flexible formation gave a decided advantage to the side that used it.

Immensely cheered by this, Martinez turned his mind to another set of recordings entirely, the recordings he’d made of Kamarullah’s communications during the battle, those in which he questioned Martinez’s judgment and tried to take command of the squadron. There were a number of things Martinez could do with the recordings. He could, for instance, send them to the Fleet Control Board along with a complaint, which he was reasonably certain would result in the end of Kamarullah’s career.

He could erase the messages, which would be the generous thing to do. Kamarullah was already an object of hilarity as the man who superceded a successful commander in the hours after a battle: was it quite so necessary for Martinez to push him over a cliff as well?

Or he could simply leave them where they were, in the recordings of the battle that he would in time turn into Fleet Records Office. The messages would become part of the official record, where they would be found by anyone interested in the battle and with the proper access. There might well be repercussions for Kamarullah’s career at some point, but Martinez’s finger wouldn’t be so conspicuously on the trigger when Kamarullah went down.

Martinez debated the matter with himself for some time. He didn’t like Kamarullah, but he told himself to put personal feelings aside.

Though personal feelings aside, hestill didn’t like Kamarullah.

If he sent the messages on to the Fleet Control Board, that would be a deliberate act aimed at finishing Kamarullah for good and all. Kamarullah would remain in the service—officers were desperately needed—but he’d be stuck in a desk job somewhere and he’d never see promotion. Martinez couldn’t help but be satisfied at the picture.

But what would happen to Martinez? He would become known as the sort of officer who blew up other officers’ careers. Kamarullah might have friends or patrons in the service who would be in a position to take revenge on his behalf.

On the other hand, if he erased the recordings, would Kamarullah be grateful? Would he use his influence to help Martinez advance in the service?

Martinez thought not. If Martinez erased the recordings, Kamarullah would continue in command of Light Squadron 14, though it was likely that—if Do-faq’s report offered anything like justice—Martinez would be promoted out of the squadron, either to another ship or to a squadron command of his own, and then he wouldn’t have to worry about Kamarullah again.

Martinez looked at his options, his uncertainty tipping the balance one way, then another.

And then he asked himself the question: If we were in combat, would I feel safer if Kamarullah were in charge?

The answer to that question came very quickly, with a chill and a start of horror.

He would keep his ammunition against Kamarullah in case it looked as if Light Squadron 14 might actually engage the enemy under Kamarullah’s command.

But otherwise he would make no move. He would see what developed in reaction to his success at the Battle of Magaria.

And, until then, he would enjoy Kamarullah’s silence.

It was four days before Kamarullah ordered another maneuver, and during that time both he and Martinez were privileged to witness a series of daily experiments by Do-faq’s squadron. Again Kamarullah’s maneuver was a standard exercise out of the textbook. AgainCorona distinguished itself with a flawless performance.

It was afterward that Kamarullah dropped the bombshell. In a message to the captains of his squadron, Kamarullah in a toneless voice read an order from the Fleet Control Board, requiring all ships to Zanshaa to dock at Zanshaa’s ring, at which point both officers and enlisted would debark and be replaced by fresh crews.

“Are theyinsane?” Martinez wanted to shriek. To replace the only crews in the whole fleet with experience of victory and replace them by people who knewnothing? Admittedly the squadron’s crews were beaten down from their month of acceleration, but the Control Board was throwing away all his men had learned.

And they were throwing awayMartinez! The only officer who had given them a victory! What could those people be thinking?

On receipt of the message, Martinez stalked to his office and sat in seclusion with a bottle of brandy, but two swallows made him realize he was too angry to spend his time wallowing in misery. He locked the bottle back in its cabinet and instead dictated and sent an angry letter to his brother, Roland.

He doubted it would do any good, but Roland was at least a safe custodian of his rage.

“And here are the two affidavits testifying to my identity,” said Sula. She produced the documents, written as law required on special stiff paper that would remain legible in the archives for at least a thousand years. She handed the papers to Mr. Wesley Weckman, the glossy young man who managed the trust department of the bank where Lady Sula’s funds had been kept since the execution of her parents.

Now that she had reached her majority at the age of twenty-three, it would normally require only a signature and a thumbprint to release the funds, but the pad of Sula’s thumb had been burned away during an accident with one of theDelhi ‘s heat-exchange pipes shortly after the Battle of Magaria. Testament from higher authority was therefore required.

Weckman glanced at the signatures. “Your commanding officer,” he said, “and…” His eyebrows lifted. “Lord Durward Li. Well, they should know you if anyone does.” His eyes turned to Sula. “Of course, it’s a bit redundant after all your appearances on video.”

Bombardment of Delhihad at last returned to Zanshaa after fifty long days of deceleration. On docking with the ring station, the old crew had been relieved while a new crew trooped on board, most of them trooping right off again when it was clear to the new officers thatDelhi was in as bad a state as the old crew had been reporting all along. Under a skeleton crew,Delhi pushed off from the ring station and began an acceleration burn for Preowyn, where it would undergo a complete rebuild before rejoining the fleet.

The old crew, leaving the ship, wearily said their farewells and then dragged themselves into their dens like wounded animals. Each had been given a month’s leave. Sula spent over an hour drowsing in a hot bath, then ten hours collapsed on a bed in the hostel the Fleet maintained for officers in transit. The next day, her body still staggered with its good fortune in avoiding high gravities for so long, she dropped down the skyhook to the surface of the planet, where she took the shuttle to the capital. Another dormitory room had been reserved for her in the Commandery, where she was to receive a decoration from Fleet Commander Lord Tork as soon as she could replace her borrowed jumpsuits with proper uniforms.

Arrangements had been made with a tailor ahead of time, the tailor originally introduced to her by Martinez and who had once replaced a set of uniforms that had been sent off to Felarus without her, and which had presumably been blown to bits along with most of the Third Fleet. The tailor had all Sula’s measurements from the previous visit and the uniforms awaited only the final fitting. Sula was amused to discover that her chest measurement had increased, a result of the extra muscle packed around her ribs to help her breathe against the force of increased gravities.

For the actual ceremony she stood in the Commandery’s Hall of Ceremony, braced at attention in her new viridian full-dress uniform. Lord Tork hung about her neck the Nebula Medal with Diamonds, while she fought to keep her face properly stoic as the stench of rotting flesh came off the fleetcom in waves. A pair of Lai-own aides replaced her sublieutenant’s shoulder boards with those of a full lieutenant. The citation was vague in its description of the circumstances in which she had destroyed the five enemy ships—no one was yet admitting that, her own actions aside, the Battle of Magaria was a hideous defeat.

As if people hadn’t long since drawn their own conclusions.

Because live heroes were rare in this war, the video of the medal ceremony had been repeated almost hourly on all video channels since, and Sula, on her walk to the bank this morning, had received a number of curious looks and a few congratulations from total strangers. If she presented affidavits to the trust manager, it was because the law required it.

While Weckman tapped silently at the glowing characters in his desk, Sula sat in the deep green leather bank chair and inhaled the delicate scent of old money growing even older.

“What will you want done with the balance?” Weckman said. “Unless of course you intend to take it all in cash.”

Sula looked at him. “Havepeople been withdrawing their funds in cash?”

Weckman raised an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised at the names.”

Converting their fortunes into convertible things, Sula thought, misquoting herself. Taking their assets to the more shadowy parts of the empire to await the bright sun of peace.

She wondered if Lord Durward Li was one of those carrying a fortune in his pillowcase. When she’d visited the Li Palace the day before to pay a condolence call on the death of his son and to ask him to provide the affidavit, she’d found he had discovered a need to visit family properties in the Serpent’s Tail, and was closing his house.

“I don’t need the cash just yet,” Sula said. “But I’d like the money available.”

“Standard account, then.” Weckman’s fingers tapped the glowing surface of his desktop. “We have other accounts that offer higher rates of interest, should you wish to commit the money for longer periods of time.”

She offered him a slight smile. “I don’t think so.”

He nodded. “You’d know better than I. Personally I’m hoping that my application for a transfer to Hy-Oso comes through within the next few days.”

“Hy-Oso’s a long way out,” Sula commented.

“Bankers must go where the money goes. And a lot of the money is leaving Zanshaa.” He touched the desktop, and new lights burned in its surface. “To open the new account we’ll need your signature, a password, and the print of yourleft thumb.”

Sula complied and bade Wesley Weckman a pleasant farewell. As she left the bank and stepped into the bright spring sunshine, she felt the tension that had followed her for years fall away from her like a long wave.

For she was not, of course, the real Caroline Sula. Lady Sula had died in murky circumstances on Spannan years ago, and another, a girl named Gredel, had stepped into her place hoping that the circumstances would remain forever murky.

And that other, having burned away the thumbprint that threatened to betray her identity, was now in possession of the real Lady Sula’s money.

And now the woman called Caroline Sula, decorated and celebrated and now of modest fortune, passed down the sloping street. The touch of the sunlight caused her to smile, and the fresh air of spring, so unlike the canned air of theDelhi, to exult.

Sula walked along the Boulevard of the Praxis, past the famous statue of The Great Master Delivering the Praxis to Other Peoples. Over the prow-shaped head of the Shaa, his arm thrusting out a tablet with the text of the Universal Law graven upon it, was an accidental halo, the thin silver arc of Zanshaa’s accelerator ring, brilliant in the dark green sky, the same viridian shade as Sula’s uniform tunic.

Sula continued past the statue to the ornate mass of the Chen Palace, all mellow beige stone and the strange winged gables of the Nayanid style, separated from the street by a narrow, geometrically perfect formal garden. Sula rang the bell, then gave the footman her name and asked for Lady Terza Chen. Sula waited in a drawing room and examined an exquisite porcelain swan while the footman queried to see if Lady Terza was present.

Lady Terza, the daughter and heir of Lord Chen, had been engaged to Lord Durward’s son and Sula’s captain, Lord Richard Li, killed at Magaria. The Li family had once been clients of the Sulas, but after the fall of Lord Sula had become clients of the Chens instead. Both the Lis and the Chens had been kind to Sula, presumed a penniless, friendless Peer who had endured disgrace and the hideous execution of her parents.

She turned at the sound of a quiet step, and saw Terza enter. The heiress of Clan Chen was tall and slim, with wide almond eyes and beautiful black hair that poured past her shoulders like a lustrous river of sable. She wore soft gray trousers and a pale blouse, and over that a short dark jacket with white mourning ribbon threaded among the frills and fringe.

Terza walked toward Sula with an unhurried grace that spoke of centuries of quiet breeding, and reached out a hand to clasp Sula’s own.

“Lady Sula.” Her voice was low and liquid, and it floated in the air like a soothing incense. “It’s wonderful that you’ve come. You must be so busy.”

“I’m on leave, actually. I wanted to express my condolences over the death of Lord Captain Li.”

There was a subtle shift in Lady Terza’s eyes, and her mouth tautened slightly. “Yes,” she said, “thank you.” She took Sula’s arm. “Shall we go to the garden?”

“Certainly.”

They walked over echoing marble floors. “Shall I ring for tea? Or wine?”

“Tea please.”

“Oh—” Terza was startled. “I forgot you don’t drink. Sorry.”

“That’s all right.” She patted the arm that held hers. “No need to remember everything. That’s why we have computers.”

The garden was in the center of the great quadrangle that was the palace, overhung by the winged gables of the main building and featuring a gazebo of glittering crystal facets. Spring flowers—tulips, tougama, lu-doi—were arranged in bright patterns and rows, separated by neat ankle-high hedges. The still air was heavy with the scent of blossoms. Since the day was warm, Terza avoided the gazebo and chose a table that consisted of a single long strand of brass-colored alloy artfully woven into a series of spirals. She and Sula sat on chairs similarly constructed: Sula found hers springy but comfortable. Terza ordered tea with her personal communicator.

Sula looked at her and wondered where to begin.I saw your fiancé die, though typical of her style, was nonetheless an awkward opening. Fortunately Terza knew a more suitable way into the conversation.

“I’ve saw you on video,” she said. “I know my father wanted to be present at the ceremony, but there was an important vote coming up in the Convocation.”

“Tell him I appreciate the thought.”

“And let me offer my congratulations as well.” Her cool eyes glanced at the Nebula ribbon on Sula’s tunic, with its flashing little diamond. “I’m sure it’s well deserved. My father tells me that what you did was actually quite spectacular.”

“I was lucky,” Sula said, shrugging. “Others weren’t.” Then, feeling she’d been too blunt, she added, “At least death is quick, in battle. No one onDauntless would have felt a thing. I saw it happen and…well, it was fast.”

And that, too, was too blunt, though Terza seemed to take it well enough.

“I heard from Lord Durward that you called to give him your condolences,” she said. “That was good of you.”

“He was kind to me.” She looked at Terza. “So were you.”

Terza dismissed the compliment with a wave of her elegant hand. “You were Richard’s friend from childhood. I did nothing, really, but welcome you as one of his friends.”

But for someone, like Sula, who for so many years had no real friends—and who was not in any case the same human being Lord Richard remembered from childhood—the gesture had called forth astounded, unforgettable gratitude.

“Lord Richard was good to me as well,” Sula said. “He would have given me a lieutenancy if he could—and maybe I’m not wrong if I think that was your idea.”

Terza glanced toward a spray of purple blossoms near her right hand. “Richard would have thought of it if I hadn’t.”

“He was a good captain,” Sula said. “His crew liked him. He looked after us, and he talked to everybody. He was very good at keeping the crew cheerful and at their work.”And his eyes crinkled nicely when he smiled.

“Thank you,” Terza said softly, her eyes still cast down. A servant came with the tea and departed. The scent of jasmine floated from the cups—venerable Gemmelware, she noticed, centuries old, with a pattern of bay leaves.

“How is Lady Amita?” Terza asked, referring to Lord Durward’s wife.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her.”

“She’s prostrate, I understand. Richard was her only child. She hasn’t been seen since his death.” Terza looked away. “She knows that Lord Durward’s father will expect him to divorce her and remarry, so that he can father another heir.”

“He could hire a surrogate,” Sula said.

“Not in a family that traditional. No. It would have to be a natural birth.”

“That’s sad.”

There was a moment of silence while Sula looked with appreciation at the cup and saucer as she raised them in her hands. Jasmine rose to her nostrils. She tasted the tea, and subtle pleasure danced a slow measure along her tongue.

“The Li family is leaving Zanshaa,” Sula said. “Going into the Serpent’s Tail.”

“To be safe, I suppose,” Terza said simply. “A lot of people are going. The summer season in the High City is going to be dull.”

Sula looked at her. “You’re not leaving?”

Terza gave a movement of her shoulders too subtle to properly be called a shrug. “My father has taken a little too…prominenta part in resisting the Naxids. He knocked down the Lord Senior, you know, in Convocation. He threw rebel Naxids off the Convocation terrace. I’m sure the Naxids have already decided what’s going to happen to him—and to me.”

Sula looked in surprise into Terza’s mild brown eyes.

“If Zanshaa falls,” she said, “my father will die, probably very badly unless he cheats them through suicide. I may die with him—or I might be disinherited, as you were, or otherwise punished. There’s no point in fleeing, because if Zanshaa falls we lose the war and the Naxids will find me sooner or later.” She gave a little shake of her head. “Besides, I want to be here, with my mother. She’s…a little too high-strung for all of this.”

Sula’s heart gave an uneasy lurch as Terza, in her calm, low voice, so easily spoke of her own possible annihilation. It bespoke a kind of courage that Sula had not expected—in her former life, as Gredel, she’d known such courage only in criminals, who accepted their own deaths as an inevitable result of their profession. Like Lamey, she thought, Lamey her lover, who was certainly dead by now at the hands of the authorities.

It was not as if she herself hadn’t looked at her own death. Everything she’d done since she’d stepped into the soft leather boots of the real Lady Sula had qualified her for nothing but the garrotte of the executioner tightening slowly around her throat. She had publicly claimed the Sula name at Magaria, as she destroyed five enemy ships. “It was Sula who did this!” she’d transmitted.“Remember my name!” If the Naxids won the war, theywould remember. Sula could expect no more mercy than could Lord Chen. The only difference was that she could expect to die in battle, in a blaze of antimatter fire. After all the years of suspense, all the years in which she’d wakened in the middle of the night, clutching her throat in a dream of suffocation, simple extinction was something she didn’t fear.

What Terza said next surprised her even more.

“I’ve admired you,” she said, “for the way you’ve managed to do so well, even though you have no money and no connections. Perhaps—if I’m disinherited instead of killed—you’ll have a few tricks to teach me.”

Admired.Sula was staggered by the word. “I’m sure you’ll do well,” she managed.

“I don’t have any useful skills like you,” Terza judged, and then she smiled. “I could make a living as a harpist.”

She played the harp very well, at least insofar as Sula judged these things. “I’m sure you could.” And then, more practically. “Your father could give some money to one of his friends—a safe friend—for you to use later. I think that’s what my parents did for me, or perhaps their friends just got a little money together and set up a trust.”

Terza gave a solemn nod. “I’ll suggest that to my father.”

“You’ve discussed this?” Sula asked. A macabre little conversation over evening coffee, perhaps. Or a chat in the kitchen, while Lord Chen brewed up some poison so that he could cheat the public executioner.

“Oh yes,” Terza said. She took a deliberate sip from the Gemmelware cup. “I’m the heir. I’ll probably be in the Convocation sooner or later, if the war goes well. I have to know things.”

And Lord Chen, Sula knew, was on the Fleet Control Board, and knew how the odds favored the Naxids. For over a month he had been staring every minute at his own death and the extinction of his house, the lineage that went back centuries, and then gone about his business.

There was courage there, too. Or desperation.

There was a step behind on the gravel path, and Terza glanced up from her cup. As Sula rose from her chair and turned, her heart gave a leap, and then she realized that the tall man behind Lord Chen wasn’t Gareth Martinez after all, but his brother Roland.

“My dear Lady Sula,” Chen said as he stepped forward to take her hands. “My apologies. I so wanted to go to the ceremony yesterday.”

“Terza explained that you had an important vote.”

Chen looked from Sula to Roland and back. “Do you know each other?”

“I haven’t met Lord Roland, though of course I know his brother and sisters.”

“Charmed,” Lord Roland said. He strongly resembled his brother, though a little taller, and he wore his braided, wine-colored coat well. Like Martinez, he retained a strong provincial accent. “My congratulations on your decoration. My sisters think very highly of you.”

But not the brother? For a moment bleak despair filled Sula at the fact that Martinez hadn’t mentioned her name. And then the hopelessness faded, and she found herself thankful that Martinezhadn’t told the story of their last encounter, where they had danced and kissed and Sula, thrown into sudden panic by the arrival of a deadly memory, had fled.

“Tell your sisters that I’ve been thinking of them.”

“Would you pay us a call?” Lord Roland suggested. “We’re having a party tomorrow night—you’d be very welcome.”

“I’d be happy to attend,” Sula said. She considered her next comment for a moment, then said, “Lord Roland, have you heard from your brother lately?”

Roland nodded. “Every so often, yes.”

“Has something happened, do you know?” Sula asked. “I get a message from him now and then, and—well, the last few messages have been heavily censored. Most of the contents were cut, in fact. But nothing seems to have gonewrong — in fact he seems lighthearted.”

Lord Roland smiled, and exchanged a glance with Lord Chen.

“Somethinghas happened, yes,” Chen said. “For various reasons we’re not releasing the information yet. But there’s no reason to be concerned for Lord Gareth.”

Her mind raced. It wasn’t a defeat they were hiding, so just possibly it was a victory. And the only reason to hide a victory was to keep the Naxids from finding out, which meant that behind the scenes, somewhere away from Zanshaa, ships were moving, and battles were in the offing, or had already been fought.

“I wasn’t concerned, exactly,” she said. “Lord Gareth seemed too merry. But the whole business seemed…curious.”

Chen gave a satisfied smile. “I venture to remark that very soon there may be another award ceremony, and that Lord Gareth may be in it. But perhaps even that’s saying too much.”

A victory, then. Joy danced in Sula’s mind. Perhaps Martinez had used the new tactics—hertactics—to crush the enemy.

“I’ll be discreet about the news,” Sula said. Who would she tell?

Chen and Lord Roland made their excuses and went to do business. Sula spent an agreeable hour with Terza in the garden, then said farewell and went out into the sun of the High City. Her footsteps took her to the La-gaa and Spacey Auction House, where she spent a few pleasant hours looking at the displays.

The collectible business was booming. People were turning their wealth into, as she’d once put it, convertible things. Jewelry and portable, durable objects—caskets, small tables, paintings and sculpture—were all doing very well.

Porcelain, by contrast, seemed to be dropping in price. Perhaps people considered it too fragile for the uncertain times ahead.

One pot caught Sula’s eye: Ju yao ware of the Sung dynasty, a pot four palms high, narrow at the base, broad at the shoulders, and a small central spout. Sula’s hands lusted to caress the fine crackle of the blue-green glaze. The factory that created the pot existed in Honan for only twenty years before a Tatar invasion wiped it from the Earth. Sula pictured the pot fleeing south before the invaders, packed in straw in a bullock cart, ending in Yangtze exile a thousand li from its place of origin.

The pot had flown much farther in the years since, and was now part of a collection being dispersed. In the current falling market Sula might be able to purchase it for twenty-five thousand zeniths, a sum amounting to perhaps eighty percent of her current fortune.

It would be absurd for her to spend that much. Insane. And itwas breakable. The luck that carried it safely from the Tatars, and through the Shaa conquest of Terra, might be run out by now.

But what, she argued with herself, did she have to spend the money on other than herself?

In the end, reluctantly, she withdrew. Sula had decided to be practical.

For the next several days she went hunting for an apartment. So many were fleeing the High City that rates were almost reasonable, and she paid a month in advance for a third-floor place just under the eaves of an old converted palace. The furniture was the bulky, ornate, and ugly Sevigny style, but Sula figured she could live with it till her next posting. The apartment came with a Lai-own fledgling to do the cleaning, and a cook would do meals for an extra few zeniths.

The building was just down a side street from the Shelley Palace, where the Martinez family was staying.

Sula was thinking about Martinez a great deal. Being near him seemed desirable. Having a convenient place where they could retire, a place that was neither a Fleet dormitory nor a palace filled with a gaggle of inquisitive sisters, seemed only practical.

She attended the Martinez’s party, and was greeted with cries of welcome. Sula was a celebrity now, a decorated hero, and her presence made the party an occasion. She reacquainted herself with the family—the ambitious Lord Roland, the two formidable older sisters, Vipsania and Walpurga, and the youngest, vivacious sister Sempronia with her absurd fiancé, PJ.

With all their gifts, none of them seemed a patch on the brother who was absent.

That night she lay in the huge Sevigny bed and wondered what it would be like, after all this time, not to be lonely.

The next day, a polite officer from the Courts of Justice delivered the subpoena to her door.