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

FIVE

Martinez welcomedCorona ‘s new captain with all the grace he could muster, which wasn’t much, and then went through the formalities of turning over his captain’s key and various other codes. He wanted very much to say, “Try not to get my ship killed,” but he didn’t. Alikhan had his belongings already packed.

He declined the new captain’s civil offer of a dinner, claiming he had an appointment on the planet’s surface—and for that matter, he did.

He was going to meet with his brother, his sisters, the Martinez clan’s patron Lord Pierre Ngeni—anyone, if necessary, up to the Lord Senior of the Convocation, and he would lobby them incessantly until he received an assignment that placed in him command of a ship.

For after a month’s leave to recover from the rigors of the journey, Martinez had been told to report to a training school for sensor operators in Kooai, in Zanshaa’s southern hemisphere, where he would take command of the post.

Atraining school. The message was infuriating. A warrant officer could do the job as well, probably better.

Martinez intended to get himself into a ship again, if he had to personally hector and lobby everyone going in and out of the door of the Commandery. If he had to personally grab Lord Saïd by the throat and shake him until the old man gave way.

Martinez had already said his farewells to his officers and crew, so when he leftCorona ‘s airlock umbilical he just kept on going. Alikhan had procured him a car and driver, which meant he wouldn’t have to wait for one of the trains that rolled along the upper level of Zanshaa’s accelerator ring. The car took him to the Fleet Records Office, where he delivered the data foil that contained the log ofCorona ’s journey. The foil contained as well the recordings that might well explode Kamarullah’s career, that is if anyone bothered to view them.

Perhaps no one would. Certainly no one seemed very interested inCorona ‘s journey—news of the Battle of Hone-bar had yet to be released to the public, and the dull-eyed Torminel petty officer who took the data foil seemed far from excited to be meeting one of the Fleet’s heroes, and indeed seemed about to drop into slumber as he handed Martinez the receipt.

Martinez, fury warring with his body’s pain and great weariness, stuffed the receipt into a pocket and stalked through the translucent automatic doors that led to the anteroom.

And there she was.

The impulse at first was to stare, and then to stagger forward and wrap his arms around Sula’s slim body like a shipwrecked mariner clinging to a mast. Fortunately for the dignity of his rank she wasn’t receptive to an embrace: she was braced at the salute, shoulders thrown back, chin lifted to expose the throat, the sign of subordination enforced throughout their empire by the Shaa.

He paused for a breathless moment to absorb her beauty, the erect body, the silver-gilt hair worn shoulder-length, framing the face with its pale, translucent complexion and its amused, glittering green eyes. Then he raised the heavy baton of the Golden Orb, topped with its sphere of swirling liquid, and bobbed it in her direction, acknowledging her salute.

“Stand at ease, lieutenant,” he said.

“Thank you, my lord.” Her brilliant smile showed a degree of conceit, her own smug amusement at the way she’d surprised him. “You met me, once, when I returned to the Zanshaa ring. I thought I’d return the compliment.”

“It’s appreciated.” His bodily weariness had vanished under a surge of blood, but his thoughts were still torpid and his skull was filled with cotton. He was painfully conscious that she stood before him, brilliant and rested and desirable, and that anything he said to her was likely to be stupid beyond all credence.

“Shall I join you on your ride to the surface,” Sula asked, “or do you have more business here?”

“My family is expecting me,” he said. Stupidly.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been in touch with them. They told me when you were arriving.”

He and Sula were hovering behind the doors of the Fleet Records Office, blocking traffic, and then Martinez remembered that he was the senior officer and that it was customary for him to walk through the doors first. He did so. Sula followed.

Alikhan was already standing by the car, shadowed by the door flung up like a wing. “To the skyhook,” Martinez said. There was a knowing smile beneath Alikhan’s curling mustachio as he handed Sula into the car next to Martinez.

Alikhan and the driver sat in the front, separated by a barrier that one of them tactfully opaqued. Martinez’s nerves tingled with the awareness of Sula’s perfume, a scent that urged his blood to surge a little faster. Sula looked at him as they settled into their seats. “The rumor—which is pretty well official, I’ll have you know—says that you did something spectacular, and are about to be decorated. But we’re not allowed to know what it was that you did.”

Martinez gave a snarl. “It’s satisfaction enough to know that I’ve served the empire faithfully,” he said.

Sula laughed. “I’ve worked out that you blew up a bunch of Naxids, and that our superiors don’t want the enemy to know it.”

“You’d think the Naxids would have worked it out by now,” Martinez said.

“How many enemydid you annnihilate, by the way?”

Confident that she would not be broadcasting to the enemy anytime soon, he told her. She raised her golden brows as calculation buzzed behind her eyes. “Interesting,” she said. “That means our cause isn’t necessarily lost.”

“Not necessarily,” he said, still glowering with resentment. Sula gave him a curious look.

“Why don’t you tell me how you did it?”

So he did. When he finished, he sensed a degree of disappointment behind her congratulations.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“I hoped you’d be able to use my formula.”

“Well. As tothat …” He raised his left arm. “Set your display to receive. I’m about to violate another security regulation.”

Martinez beamed her the records of Do-faq’s series of experiments. “Analyze them to your heart’s content,” he said, “and let me know what you think.”

Sula looked at her sleeve display and smiled. “Yes. Thank you.” She gave him a searching look. “You should be pleased as hell about all this, but you’re not. So who’s pissed in your breakfast?”

A reluctant grin tugged at his lips. “I’ve lostCorona. That’s no cause for joy. And then there’s my next assignment.” About which he enlightened her.

She seemed startled. “What happened? Did you steal some fleet commander’s girlfriend?”

“Not that I know of,” Martinez said, and then found himself wondering if Kamarullah was by some chance a fleet commander’s girlfriend. The mental image caused him to smile. He turned to Sula.

“Andyour next assignment?”

She gave him an annoyed look. “I’m dealing with the ghost of Captain Blitsharts.”

Blitsharts had been responsible for their first meeting: Martinez had planned, and Sula executed, a perilous rescue of the famous yachtsman. Who, when rescued, had turned out to be dead.

“Blitsharts?”he said. “Why Blitsharts?”

“The Fleet Court of Inquiry determined his death was accidental. But his insurance company insists it was suicide, and there’s a civil trial coming up. I’m to give a deposition, and the Fleet has extended my leave till then.” She looked up at him. “After which I will be free. Just in case some celebrated captain wants to request me for his next ship.”

Which was an invitation to kiss her if anything was, and he put his arm around her and was about to lean in close when the car came to a halt and the doors popped up with a hydraulic hiss.

Damn. All he had got was a taste of her dizzying perfume and a tingling awareness of the warmth of her skin.

She gave a rueful smile as he withdrew. When he rose from the car, a score of Fleet pulpies snapped to the salute, throats bared. Anyone in uniform—even the Lords Convocate themselves—were required to salute the Golden Orb, which was why Martinez had chosen to carry it. He’d hoped to relieve his feelings of anger and resentment by abusing his privileges with as many senior officers as he could find.

Now the orb was a dreadful inconvenience. He was going to have to spend the day trying not to walk into stiff, braced figures murmuring “Stand at ease” and “As you were,” and attracting far more attention to himself and to the beautiful and celebrated Lady Sula than he wanted.

Sula and Alikhan following, Martinez progressed through the stone-stricken mass of Fleet personnel to one of the cars of the train that would take them to the ring station’s lower level—a lower level that, just to make things confusing, was actually above Martinez’s head.

The Fleet areas of the ring, resolutely unattractive but functional with their docking bays, storage facilities, barracks, schools, and shipyards, tended to obscure the fact that the accelerator ring was one of the great technological miracles of all time. It had been drawing a sun-silvered circle about Zanshaa for nearly eleven thousand years, a symbol of Shaa dominion visible from nearly everywhere on the planet. The lower level of the accelerator ring moved above the planet in geostationary orbit, tethered delicately to the world of Zanshaa by the six colossal cables of the planet’s skyhooks. Built atop the lower level was the ring’s upper level, which rotated at eight times the speed of the lower in order to provide its inhabitants with normal gravity.

Eighty million people lived on Zanshaa’s ring, housed for the most part in areas considerably more attractive than the Fleet districts, and there was room for hundreds of millions more. To these denizens of the upper level, pressed by centrifugal force to the outside of the station ring, the lower level was actually above them. In order to ascend, they boarded a train that was then accelerated down a track in time to be scooped up by a massive ramp and track that dropped with exquisite timing from the geostationary level. Once there, humming electromagnets braked the train to a stop, and the passengers, bobbing in one-eighth gravity and aided by a series of handrails, made their way along a series of ramps to the giant car that would soon drop through Zanshaa’s atmosphere to the terminal on its equator.

Without shame Martinez barged into the compartment reserved for senior officers—it was the Golden Orb, not Martinez’s modest rank, that provided access. The hoped-for privacy did not materialize. As Martinez entered he saw the baleful look given him from over the shoulder of the other passenger already strapped into his couch, and his heart gave a lurch as he recognized the hawk-nosed visage of the lord inspector of the Fleet, one of the most feared men in the empire.

“Forgive me if I don’t stand,” said Fleet Commander Lord Ivan Snow in a sandpaper voice. “I don’t fancy unwebbing right now.” He was in the first row, with a brilliant view through the huge glass window that made up most of the outside wall.

“That’s quite all right, my lord,” Martinez said. Ducking beneath the low ceiling, he and Sula took couches as far removed from the feared lord inspector as the modest compartment permitted.

“The day isn’t working out well,” Sula murmured in Martinez’s ear as she bent over his couch.

“Part of a ongoing pattern,” Martinez answered softly.

“It may interest you to know,” said the chief of the Investigative Service, “that the cause of the breakdown in communications that occurred at Hone-bar has been discovered. At the same time thatyou, Captain Martinez, are being decorated and promoted in two days’ time, seven traitors will die screaming.” Martinez could hear the quiet satisfaction in the lord inspector’s voice. “Die screaming,” Lord Ivan repeated pleasantly. “I arranged the timing myself.”

Martinez was for a moment at a loss for speech.Promoted? Finally he managed words.

“Congratulations on…a successful investigation, lord inspector,” he said.

“And congratulations to you, lord captain, on a timely and successful combat.”

Promoted?He had known about the decoration, but this was the first time a promotion had been mentioned.

Then Martinez felt his ire rising. The training school in charge of a full captain was even more absurd than in the hands of an elcap.

He wondered if he dared mention the matter to the lord inspector. The wordsdie screaming returned to his mind, and he decided he didn’t.

“There’s not a lot of point in our talking,” Sula said quietly, as the huge elevator car was locked onto the cable. “Why don’t you sleep? You look about dead.”

“I feel…” He was about to say “fine” but he realized that the ease of low gravity, and the comfort of his couch, were about to make a liar out of him. So instead he said, “Good idea,” and closed his eyes.

He was asleep before the car dropped out of the accelerator ring and into brilliant sunlight. The growing acceleration that pressed him into his couch was much less than he’d been enduring for the last two months and it failed to wake him. Below, the land blazed with color: brown mountains tipped with white, the light green of the land contrasting with the deeper, more profound green of the sea. The atmosphere was a faint blurring on the edges of the world. The whirlwind of a tropical storm, its white gyre of cloud edged with blue, was thrashing southward from the equator.

Calculations spinning through her mind, Sula watched Do-faq’s tactical experiments on her sleeve display.

Martinez woke, his mind fresh, just as the car settled feather-light into its terminal, and the couch swung into its rest position, inverted from where it had been at the start of the journey. He and Sula stepped onto what had, when they’d boarded, been the ceiling, and let the fleet commander precede them from the car. He nodded civilly as he passed.

“And congratulations to you as well, Lady Sula,” he said.

“Thank you, my lord.”

Martinez, as he followed the old man from the car, suspected that the congratulations may not have had anything to do with Sula’s decoration.

Reunited with Alikhan and Martinez’s baggage, they took another train to the shuttle terminus, where they boarded the supersonic for the city of Zanshaa. Martinez traded the ticket he’d already reserved for an entire four-seat first-class compartment. Alikhan retained his original seat in second class.

With the Golden Orb, which like a device out of a fairy tale had the power to turn others to stone, Martinez marched to his compartment, installed himself and Sula, and drew down the shades.

Privacy at last.

He sat next to her and tried not to melt beneath the gaze of those green eyes. Martinez took her hand.

“I’m afraid to speak,” he said.

She tilted her head. “Why?”

“Because I’m not at my best right now, and I might say something wrong. And then…” He sought for words. “And then everything would be spoiled, and you’d walk out of this compartment and I’d never see you again.”

He saw the blood rise in her translucent pale skin. Her perfume whirled through his senses. “I forgive you,” Sula said. “In advance.”

He kissed her hand, her palm, her wrist. He leaned close to kiss her lips, then hesitated.

“I’m not running away,” she said.

He laid his lips to hers for the space of three heartbeats. She raised a hand to lightly cup the side of his head. He kissed her again, then had to break away because he realized he’d been holding his breath, and that his dizziness wasn’t entirely a result of Sula’s nearness.

“What is that perfume?” he asked.

Her lips turned up in a smile. “Sandama Twilight.”

“What’s so special about twilight on Sandama?”

She ventured a little shrug. “Some day we’ll go there and find out.”

He inhaled deliberately. “I wonder how many pulse points you’ve applied it to.”

Sula tilted her head back and with her hand swept a strand of golden hair from her throat. “You’re welcome to find out,” she said.

He feasted on her throat for a long, luxurious moment. A shiver ran along her frame. He kissed a path to her ear—bright and flaming—and reached up a hand to lazily undo the top button of her viridian tunic.

Martinez heard the low chuckle as he kissed the hollow of her throat. “Make the most of it,” she said. “I think that’s the only button you get to open today.”

He drew back and looked at her at close range, so close that her long lashes fluttered against his. “Why? It’s such a promising start.”

Her speech warmed his cheek. “Because you’ve already admitted that you’re not at your best. And I deserve the best.”

“That’s fair,” he admitted, after consideration.

“And besides,” she said practically, “I see no point in losing my virtue in a train compartment when I’ve gone to all the trouble of acquiring such a nice large bed.”

Martinez laughed, then kissed her again. “I’ll look forward to the bed. But in the meantime I hope to convince you that train compartments have their advantages.”

She smiled. “You’re welcome to try.”

He caressed her with his lips, brushing her cheek and mouth and throat. The train began a smooth acceleration, without bumps or lurches, that would take it to supersonic speed on its way to the capital. His hands floated over her body, and he was rewarded with a sudden intake of breath, a shuddering gasp, and she clutched his hand with her own. And then, as they lay side by side with the warmth of her white-gold hair soft against his cheek, he felt tension enter her body.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

She turned away, took his hand, and lay against his shoulder, placing his hand around her waist. Through the window he could see improbably green equatorial countryside blur past. “Forgive me,” she said. “I’m very nervous. I thought if I could meet you and…sort of take charge—”

“It would be easier?”

“Yes.”

Martinez nuzzled her hair. “Take your time. I don’t want you to run out that door.”

She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. “That’s not it. I promise I won’t run again. But I’ve realized that youare going to have to take charge sooner or later, because I’m not going to know what to do.”

His start of surprise was so violent that she sat up and turned to him. “You’re a virgin?” he said.

“Oh no.” Her tone was amused. “But it’s been years. A very long time since I had a…”

“A man?”

“A boy.” Sadness entered her eyes. “A boy I didn’t love. I think he’s dead now.” She slowly turned away from him, and settled back against his shoulder. He caressed her hair.

An intuition flashed along his nerves. “You were drinking then?” he asked. On their last disastrous outing she’d told him that she once had a problem with alcohol.

There was a hesitation before Sula answered. “Yes,” she said. “There are things in my past that I’m not proud of. You should know that.”

Martinez kissed the top of her head and contemplated her history and his own responsibilities. Her parents had been executed—skinned alive—when Sula was on the verge of adolescence, her family’s homes and wealth confiscated by the State, and Sula herself had been fostered out on a remote provincial world. Certainly any one of these incidents constituted a traumatic enough shock to send her reeling toward the erratic solace of alcohol and sex. It was a tribute to her character that she’d been able to draw herself out of the sink of despair into which she’d been swept.

But that meant that her only knowledge of love was confined to drunken adolescent couplings, perhaps with boys who had deliberately made her drunk for the particular purpose of coupling with her. Sula had apparently never known the ease and pleasures of bed, the give and take, the gift of laughter and the fire of a proper caress…

Did not know love at all, he realized.

And the boy, she said, was probably dead. So even that attachment, whatever it was, had ended badly.

Martinez took a long breath. Shedid deserve his best. He would have to try to give it to her, in that big bed of hers.

And then a realization struck him and he laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Sula asked.

“I’m just realizing that I’ve lost one of my chief weapons,” he said. “I can’t slip you a few drinks to get you relaxed.”

Her laughter rose bright in the air. He kissed her ear, and they sat for a while, her head on his shoulder, while mountains rose on the other side of the window and danced jagged along the horizon, then fell away again. They chatted of entertainments, of a video they had shared, the comedian Spate inSpitballs! They laughed over their memories of Spate’s famous Mushroom Dance, and rejoiced in their mutual taste for low humor.

Martinez ordered a meal, and the attendant arrived to set the small table in place, adding white linen, silver, a small vase with flowers, and—to judge by Sula’s expression—some rather inferior porcelain. Sula sat opposite Martinez, her tunic properly buttoned. With the meal, Martinez shared Sula’s bottle of mineral water.

The train raced on, through forests and over broad rivers; its flanges, placed with precision along its flanks, pulsing out interfering sound waves that canceled its sonic boom. More mountain ranges rose and then fell behind, and the train began slowing as it approached its destination.

Sula and Martinez embraced, kissed, and watched as Zanshaa’s Lower Town, the huge expanse radiating on all sides of the High City, sped past the window. After the machine came to a halt in the station, Martinez folded Sula in his arms one last time before leaving the privacy of the compartment.

The terminus was within easy walking distance of the funicular railway that took them to Zanshaa’s acropolis. As they rose to the High City, Martinez looked through the funicular’s transparent walls at the blue stained-glass dome of the old Sula Palace, lost now to the Sula heir, and wondered what passed through Sula’s mind when she viewed it.

“Why don’t you take me home in your taxi?” Sula suggested. “That way you’ll know where I live.”

If Martinez hadn’t been so weary, he probably would have thought of that himself.

To his delight, Martinez found that Sula lived just behind the Shelley Palace, the colossal old pile his family rented in the capital. He suspected that was not an accident.

“When you have a free moment,” Sula said, “come up and see the bed.”

She kissed him quickly on the cheek and slid from the taxi before he could put his arms around her. Martinez restrained the impulse to lunge after her, and instead let the Cree driver swing around the corner to halt in front of the Shelley Palace, where Martinez’s family were waiting.

Martinez’s brothers and sisters had realized that he would be exhausted, and hadn’t planned anything more elaborate than a simple family supper for the night of his arrival. Roland, his older brother, placed Martinez at the head of the table, in the place of honor. He was pleased to be wearing civilian dress for the first time in months. Vipsania and Walpurga, handsome and impeccably dressed even on this informal occasion, sat next to each other on Martinez’s right hand, one in a red gown, the other in sea-green. The youngest sister, Sempronia, sat next to Roland on the left.

At the far end of the table, next to Sempronia, was her fiancé PJ Ngeni, a cousin of Lord Convocate Ngeni, whose family represented Martinez interests. PJ was suspected of having lost his money in a series of debaucheries, and his engagement was a stratagem on the part of Clan Ngeni to relieve themselves of an expensive and useless relation. One stratagem deserved another, Martinez had felt, and had devised a plan of his own. Sempronia and Lord PJ were engaged, to be sure, but the engagement would be along one—there would be no marriage as long as Sempronia stayed in school, and Sempronia would be in school for as many years as was necessary for the Martinez family to use the access granted by the Ngenis to wedge themselves into Zanshaa’s highest strata of Peers. And once that happened, PJ would be returned to whence he came, there to remain a debit on the ledgers of his clan.

PJ had not yet realized, apparently, that the engagement was nothing more than a ruse, and throughout supper he paid Sempronia a series of elaborate courtesies, courtesies to which Sempronia replied with a graceful inclination of her head and a kind, condescending smile, a smile that vanished whenever she glanced down the table at Martinez.

Sempronia hadn’t forgiven Martinez for shackling her, even temporarily, to this human debacle. Especially when her affections appeared to be genuinely engaged by Nikkul Shankaracharya,Corona ‘s former lieutenant.

Martinez found himself uninterested in Sempronia’s problems. She, after all, only had to put up with one imbecile. He had the whole Fleet Control Board.

“You’ll be decorated and promoted in two days’ time,” Roland said. “At the same time your victory at Hone-bar will be announced throughout the empire.” He gave a sardonic smile. “It’ll be Do-faq’s victory officially, and he’ll be promoted and decorated too—but the people who matter will know who’s really responsible, and since Do-faq is still with his squadron,you’ll be the one seen on video in the Hall of Ceremony….” Roland gave a pleased nod. “After that, we can start pressing to get you a command. It will seem special pleading until everyone realizes you’re the only officer in the Fleet to be decorated twice for actions against the enemy. Then giving you a real job will only seem good sense.”

Martinez, who personally thought that the special pleading should have started ages ago, nodded as if he agreed, and then realized that his brother had no post whatever within the Fleet or the government, and shouldn’t be aware of any of these details at all.

“How do you know this?” he asked.

“From Lord Chen. He and I have been…associated in an enterprise.”

Martinez looked at his brother. “So how porousis the Fleet Control Board?”

Roland shrugged. “Everything’sporous. If you’re on the inside, you can find out anything you want.”

“And you’re on the inside now?”

Roland looked down at his plate and drew his knife delicately across his filet. “Not quite. But we’re getting there.”

“If you’re so well connected,” Martinez said, “perhaps you can let me know why I don’t have a new commandnow. ”

Roland paused with his fork partway to his mouth. “I haven’t bothered to inquire. But I imagine it’s the usual story.”

“Which is?”

“You’re better than they are.” While Martinez stared in surprise Roland popped the filet into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “You know the tale—Peers are supposed to be, well, peers. Equals. When one stands out above the others it demonstrates that there’s something wrong with the system, and the people in charge of the system don’t care for that. Remember, the nail that gets hammered down is the one that sticks out.

“You see,” reaching for the wine and refilling Martinez’s glass, “while you were at the academy preparing for your career as a hero, father and I put our heads together and worked out why he failed whenhe came to Zanshaa. And the answer seemed to be that he was too rich and too talented.”

“He’s richer now,” Martinez pointed out.

“He could buy the whole High City and barely notice the loss. But it’s not for sale…tohim. ” Roland gave his brother a significant look. “He was the nail that stuck out. He got hammered, and the people here dusted their hands of him and forgot that he ever existed. So now his children are here, and we’re being a lot more quiet about our gifts than he was.” Roland filled his own glass and raised it, glancing over the dining room. “We could have our own palace here, a brilliant house built and decorated in up-to-the-instant tastes, first-rate all the way. But we don’t, we rent this old heap.”

He gave Martinez a penetrating look. “What we need to avoid aren’t so much errors of judgment, but of taste. We could have a ball every week, and sponsor concerts and plays at the Penumbra, and I could wear the latest cravats and our sisters the most extravagant gowns, and we could get into the yachting circuit and sponsor charities and…well, you know the sort of thing.”

“I’m not sure I do,” Martinez said. “I’m only the nail that sticks out.”

Roland smiled thinly. “But you’re sticking out in wartime—andthat, I think, is all right. The family can move fast now, because the war is so big that no one’s paying attention to the likes of us. And when the war is over, we’ll be a part of the structure here, and that will be all right, because we’ll have got in without anyone noticing us at all.” He frowned. “There may be a backlash after the war, of course. We’ll have to be prepared to ride that out. That’s why you’ll want all the rank and honor you can achieve now, while they still need you.”

Martinez glanced down the table at PJ, who was as usual paying elaborate court to Sempronia, and presumably unable to hear the low conversation at the opposite end of the table. “Clever of you to use Sempronia the way you did,” Roland said in Martinez’s ear. “And PJ is, well, soperfect in his way…”

PJ apparently heard his name spoken, and he looked up—long-headed, balding, dressed with perfect taste, and on his face an expression of amiable vacuity. Roland smiled and raised a glass.

“So glad you could come tonight, PJ,” he said.

A bright smile flashed across the table, and PJ raised his own glass. “Thank you, Roland! Happy to be here!”

Martinez raised his own glass and pretended he couldn’t see the face that Sempronia was making at him.

It was Sempronia who took his arm just after he’d excused himself and began trudging up the main stair to his bed. He turned to her with pleasure: she was his favorite sister, with fair hair and gold-flecked hazel eyes, features so unlike the dark hair and brown eyes of the rest of the family. She was lively and outgoing, unlike her sisters, who had adopted a premature gravity that made them seem older than they were.

“Haven’t I been good to PJ tonight, Gare?” she asked. “Haven’t I been a good girl?”

Martinez sighed. “What do you want, Proney?”

She looked at him brightly. “Can’t you take PJ off my hands tomorrow?”

He looked at him. “I’ve just got back from awar, for all’s sake. Can’t you get someone else to do it?”

“No, I can’t.” Sempronia leaned close to him and spoke in a whisper. “You’re the only one who knows about Nikkul.He just got back from a war, too, and I want to be with him.”

Through his weariness he managed a glare. “What if I have an assignation of my own?”

She gave him a look of amazement.“You?” she asked.

No man, Martinez reflected, is a hero to his sister.

“You just lost points, Proney,” he warned.

“Besides,” Sempronia said, “PJwants to see you. He admires you.”

“Enough to give up an afternoon of your company?”

She squeezed his arm. “Just once, Gare. That’s all I ask.”

“I’m very, very tired,” Martinez said. Which was why, in the end, Sempronia beat him down. A few minutes later, he called PJ’s number from his room and left a message asking if PJ would like to join him tomorrow afternoon for, well, whatever.

“I was so glad you called,” PJ said cheerfully. “I’d been hoping to speak to you, actually.” He and Martinez were dining in the Seven Stars Yacht Club, one of the three most exclusive yacht clubs in the empire.

The club was the sort of place that would almost certainly have blackballed Martinez had he attempted to join, but which accepted PJ without question even though he’d never once flown a yacht. In the foyer was a glass case containing mementoes of Captain Ehrler Blitsharts, the yachtsman that Martinez and Sula had attempted to rescue—hadrescued, though Blitsharts was dead by the time Sula finally grappled to hisMidnight Runner. Among the pictures, trophies, and oddments of clothing was a studded collar belonging to Blitsharts’ celebrated dog, Orange, who had died with him.

The club’s restaurant was famous, fluted onyx pillars supporting its tented midnight-blue ceiling, its surface perforated by star-shaped cutouts behind which gold lights shimmered. Scale models of famous yachts hung beneath the side arches and gleaming trophies sat in niches. The waitron, a Lai-own so elderly she shed feathery hairs behind her as she walked down the lanes between the tables, visibly shuddered at the sound of Martinez’s barbarous accent.

“I thought seriously about becoming a yachtsman,” Martinez told PJ, glancing at the gleaming silver form of Khesro’sElegance as it rotated beneath the nearest arch. “I’d qualified as a pinnace pilot and was doing well in the Fleet races. But somehow…” He shrugged. “It never seemed to happen.”

“I’d put you up for membership if you ever changed your mind,” PJ said. “That would have to be after the war, of course. No races being held at present.”

“Of course,” Martinez said. He doubted any amount of heroism and celebrity could offset the disadvantages of his provincial birth. If he couldn’t even impress awaitron …

He looked at PJ. “So how did you become a member? You haven’t raced yachts, have you?”

“No, but grandfather did, ages ago. He put me up for membership.” PJ sipped his cocktail, then swiped at his thin little mustache with a forefinger. “And it’s useful, you know,” he nodded, “if you like to wager. Listening to the conversation in the club room, you can pick up a lot of information about which pilot is off his game or who’s having a run of luck, who’s just had his maneuvering thrusters redesigned…”

“Did you make a lot of money that way?”

“Mmm.” PJ’s long face grew longer. “Not much, no.”

The two contemplated PJ’s financial state for a moment, one gloomy and the other lighthearted, and then the elderly waitron brought their plates, the meal that would have been called “dinner” on a ship but was “luncheon” here. The summery flavor of a green herb—Martinez didn’t know which one—floated up from his pâté. The waitron departed, leaving behind a cloud of floating hair.

PJ dipped into his soup, then brightened and looked at Martinez.

“I wanted to say that I think you’re just the most brilliant person,” he said.

Martinez was surprised by this declaration. “That’s good of you,” he said, and put a bit of the pâté on a crust of bread.

“You’ve done wonders in the war, right from the first day. From the first hour.”

Martinez straightened a little as vanity plucked up his chin. Praise from an ignoramus was, after all, still praise.

“Thank you,” he said. He popped the bread into his mouth. The colossal fat content of the pâté began to melt thickly on his astonished tongue.

PJ sighed. “And I’d like to be a part of it somehow. I’d really like to do my bit against the Naxids.” He looked at Martinez, his brown eyes wide. “What do you think I should do?”

“You’re too old for the service academies, so the Fleet’s out,” Martinez said, hoping very much that this was true—the thought of PJ in the Fleet was too alarming. They’d probably give him command of a ship or something.

“And I’m not qualified for the civil service,” PJ said. “And the civil service isn’t exactly on the front lines of the war, anyway. I thought for a moment about becoming an informer…”

“A what?” Martinez was thunderstruck.

“An informer.” Fastidiously, as he dabbed his mustache with a napkin. “You know, the Legion of Diligence is always urging us to inform on traitors and subversives and so on, so I thought I’d join a subversive group and try a bit of the informing line.”

Martinez was enraptured by the idea of Lord Pierre J. Ngeni, Secret Agent. “Have youtold anyone of this plan?” he asked, smearing sauce on bread.

“No I worked it out myself.”

“I thought so.” He scooped up pâté. “The idea has all the hallmarks of a incomparable mind.”

PJ was pleased. “Thank you, Lord Gareth.” A frown intruded onto his face. “But I ran into a problem. I don’tknow any traitors, and all the traitors seem to be Naxids anyway, and since I’m not a Naxid it would be difficult to join any of their groups, wouldn’t it? So the plan hasn’t worked out.”

Martinez chewed thoughtfully through this, then swallowed. “Oh. Sorry.”

There was a moment of silence, and then PJ asked, “You wouldn’t know any subversive groups I could join, would you?”

Other than the Martinez family, you mean?“ I’m afraid not,” Martinez said..

“Too bad.” PJ was downcast. “So I’m still looking for something to do, to help with the war.”

Martinez reflected that he’d been on a ship for the whole war and had no idea what it was that civilianswere doing, and so he asked.

“Well, we’re urged to Uphold the Praxis and Repel Seditious Rumors,” PJ said. “And Ido. I repel rumors like anything.”

Martinez drew a feathery hair off his plate. “Very commendable,” he said.

“And we’re told to Enhance War Production and Conserve Precious Resources,” PJ continued, “but I don’t really have anything to do with production or resource management, so there’s nothing I can do in that line, I’m afraid.”

Martinez considered urging PJ to acquire some resources and then conserve them, but that didn’t seem to be the sort of thing PJ was aiming at.

“I want to domore, ” PJ said. “It’s—these arecritical times, they call for…” He flapped his hands. “Foraction. ”

“Well,” Martinez said, “you could sponsor a benefit show at the Oh-lo-ho or the Penumbra. Proceeds going to Fleet Relief or somewhere useful.”

PJ looked abashed. “I’m afraid—well, the current state of the finances does not permit that sort of thing.”

Martinez had suspected they might not. “Perhaps a jumble sale,” he said. “Urge your friends to clear out their attics for a good cause.”

PJ seemed to be considering this for a moment, and then shook his head. “It’s useless, isn’t it?” He slumped. “I’museless. Here we are in stirring times, and I can’t contribute a whit.” He looked at Martinez, and genuine desperation shimmered in his eyes. “I want to prove myself worthy of Sempronia, you see. She’syour sister, and that makes it hard. She’s used to having heroes loitering around the house, and whenI’m loitering instead ofyou, I’m sure she can’t help but make comparisons.”

Martinez listened in astonishment.Worthy of Sempronia? What, he wondered, could have prompted this? Had the poor sap actually fallen for his sister?

His sister, who at this very moment was loitering, if the word could be said to apply, with one of the heroes of Hone-bar?

“Ah. Well,” said Martinez. “Perhaps you could consult with Lord Pierre.” Referring to Lord Pierre Ngeni, who was handling Clan Ngeni business on Zanshaa while Lord Ngeni was serving as governor of Paycahp.

“What’s the use?” PJ cried. “The only thing I’m good for is buying Fleet officers lunch.”

“It’s appreciated,” Martinez said. He tried to sound as cheerful as possible, but he feared he was unable to succor, or for that matter much care about, PJ’s agony of spirit. He was more worried, given that discretion had never been one of Sempronia’s prime attributes, about the Ngenis finding out about Sempronia’s attachment to Shankaracharya.

“Sorry to bother you with all this,” PJ apologized. “But I thought perhaps you might have some suggestions. Or connections you could bring into play.” He brightened. “Maybe I could serve on your next ship, as, I don’t know, a volunteer or something.”

Martinez tried not to recoil in horror from this suggestion. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. You’d have to go through one of the training academies first.”

“Ah.” PJ shook his head. “Thanks anyway.” He sighed. “I appreciate your talking to me like this.”

“I’m only sorry,” Martinez said, “I haven’t been able to help.”

Afterward, walking home, he passed by an antique store, hesitated, and stepped inside. After tapping it to find if it had a satisfactory ring, he purchased a broad-mouthed porcelain vase, creamy and translucent, with a light relief of chrysanthemums, which he sent to Sula at her apartment.Here’s a vase for your flowers, he wrote on the card.

Then he went to a flower shop and sent to Sula a huge spray of gladioli.Here are some flowers for your vase.

The next hour was spent with a skilled Torminel masseur, having some of the pains and kinks of two months of acceleration poked, squeezed, and beaten out of him. Exhausted but with his skin aglow, he returned to the Shelley Palace and to his bed.

He was awakened by the chiming of the comm. He opened his eyes.

“Comm: voice only. Comm: answer.”

“Where’s the picture?” came Sula’s voice. “I wanted to show you your flowers.”

Martinez swiped gum from his eyelids. “I’m trying not to send you screaming for the exit.” He rolled over, reached to the bedside table, and aimed the hood of the comm unit in his direction. “But if you insist…Comm,” he commanded. “Video and audio both.”

The flowers sprang into life on the screen—oranges and reds and yellows—and with them Sula’s smiling face. Her eyes widened as she took in Martinez’s bed, tousled hair and undershirt, then a skeptical tone entered her voice.

“You thoughtthis would send me screaming?”

He swiped again at an eye. “It hasn’t failed yet.”

“At least I get to see whatyour bed looks like.”

“Feast your eyes.” He looked at the screen, at the pale, golden-haired figure. “And I’ll feast mine,” he added.

Even on the small screen he saw the flush mantle her cheeks. “I see you’re still on ship time,” she said, a bit hastily.

“Somewhat.” The Fleet’s twenty-nine-hour day contrasted with that of Zanshaa, which was 25.43 standard hours. If the twenty-nine-hour day imposed on the empire by the Shaa corresponded with that of any planet, the planet had yet to be discovered.

Sula looked at the vase. “How did you know I liked Guraware?”

“Innate good taste, I suppose. I saw it in a shop and thought it should belong to you.”

“If you ever feel a similar impulse, don’t restrain yourself. This is some of the best porcelain ever made on Zanshaa.” She ran the pads of her fingers over the curves of the vase, and Martinez felt a shiver run up his spine at the sensuality of the protracted caress.

“I’m getting decorated and promoted tomorrow,” Martinez said. “09:01, Zanshaa time, at the Commandery. Will you come?”

She returned her attention to the video. “Of course. If they’ll let me in.”

“I’ll add your name to list of guests. I’ll be in the Hall of Ceremony.”

“It’s a nice room.” She smiled. “You’ll like it.”

“There will be a celebration tomorrow evening here at the palace. Will you come?”

“Your kind sisters already invited me, though I wasn’t aware of the party’s purpose.” She looked thoughtful. “I hope you don’t think I’m greedy, but…”

“You want a matching vase.”

“Well,yes. ” She laughed. “What I meant to ask was whether you were free tonight.”

“I’m not. Sorry. And besides…” He looked into her green eyes. “I’m not yet at my best.”

She held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. “And tomorrow night?” she asked.

“You be the judge.”

At that moment the thick teak door thundered open and Sempronia entered screaming.“What did you do to him?”

Martinez turned to Sempronia and tried to speak around the heart that had just leaped into his throat. “What?” he said. “Who—?”

Anger flushed Sempronia’s cheeks and fury blazed in her eyes.“I’m never going to forgive you for this! Never!”

“Well,” came Sula’s cautious voice from the display, “I can see you’re busy…”

Martinez’s attention whipped from Sempronia to Sula and back, in time to avoid being brained by his own Golden Orb, which Sempronia had just flung at him. He cast Sula a desperate look.

“See you later.”

“Comm,” said Sula, “end transmission.” The orange End symbol flashed on the screen, and then it darkened. By that time Martinez was on his feet, fending off a hairbrush, his shaving kit, and a bottle of cologne, objects that Sempronia found atop the bureau and sent his way.

He snatched the cologne out of the air and dropped it to a soft landing on the bed.

“Will you tell me what this is about?” he shouted in an officer’s voice calculated to freeze a member of the enlisted class in his tracks.

Sempronia was far from frozen, but at least she ceased to throw things.“What did you do to Nikkul!” she cried. “What did you do to him, you rat!”

Martinez knew precisely what he had done to him. Into Shankaracharya’s record he had written:

This officer possesses great intelligence coupled with imaginative gifts of a high order. He has demonstrated an ability to solve complex technical problems, and would be of outstanding utility in any position requiring expert technical or technological knowledge, or any position in which abstract reasoning or scientific skills are required.

This officer participated as communications officer in the Battle of Hone-bar. Based on his performance therein, it is not recommended that this officer be employed in any capacity in which the lives of Fleet personnel depend on his effectiveness in action against an enemy.

Shankaracharya had frozen in action not once but twice, first at the initial sighting of the enemy, and second when the first missile barrage had gone off and spread its hellfire plasma through the reaches of space. Martinez hadn’t given him a third chance.

It was possible that Shankaracharya would have overcome his shock and surprise and given exemplary service for the rest of the battle, his career, and his life. But Martinez, with the lives of hundreds of people under his immediate care, had not been able to take that chance.

After the battle, in the days that followed, he had asked himself the same sort of question he’d asked concerning Kamarullah: Would I feel safe knowing that I had to depend on Shankaracharya in combat?

With Martinez’s comments on his record, Shankaracharya would be put in charge of a supply depot or a laundry or a data processing center till the end of the war, and then his career would be over.

“Whathappened, Proney?” Martinez shouted in reply. “Can you just tell me what happened?”

Sempronia clenched her fists and shook one of them in Martinez’s direction. “Nikkul had it all arranged! Lord Pezzini arranged it for him—he had a place on one of the new cruisers they’re building in Harzapid. He and the other officers were going to leave in twelve days’ time. And this afternoon the captain called him and told him that his services would no longer be required, and that his place was going to someone else!”

She narrowed her eyes. “Nikkul said his captain must have read your report. Sowhat did you write in it to wreck Nikkul’s career?”

“What didNikkul say was in it?” Martinez countered.

“Hewouldn’t say, ” Sempronia raged. “He just said you’d done the right thing.” Her lower lip trembled. Tears began to fill her eyes. “He wasashamed. He turned away. I think he was crying.” Anger returned, and again she brandished a fist. “You were his hero! He pulled strings to get on your ship!” Tears burst out again, and her voice became a wail. “You promised to look after him.You promised. ”

“He shouldn’t have pulled strings,” Martinez said softly. “He shouldn’t have got Pezzini to put him over the heads of more experienced officers. He was too young and he wasn’t ready.”

Her voice was a soft, anguished keen. “You said you’dhelp him. You should havehelped him.” Sempronia took a step toward Martinez, but her knees wouldn’t support her and in slow motion she coiled down onto his bed, turning away, her fair hair falling into her face. Sobs shuddered through her. Martinez, his mouth dry, put out a hand to touch her shoulder. She shook it off.

“Oh, goaway, ” she said. “Ihate you.”

“It’s my room,” he pointed out. “If anyone leaves it’s you.”

“Oh shut up.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Martinez decided that he wasnot going to shut up. “Shankaracharya is a good man,” he said. “But he’s not an officer. He can succeed in any path but the one he’s chosen. Help him choose another path.” He made a helpless gesture. “Youhave to help him now. I can’t.”

Sempronia rose to her feet and ran for the door, hurling over her shoulder one last blaze of anger. “You bastard! You’re souseless!” And then the heavy door slammed shut behind her.

Martinez stood for a moment in the sudden thundering silence, then sighed.

He looked at the bed. He decided it was unlikely that he was going to get back to sleep, so he put on his shirt and trousers and civilian jacket, and the half-boots that Alikhan had polished to a mirror gleam just that morning. With proper military concern he tidied the objects that Sempronia had flung about, then went downstairs to the ground floor.

The parlor and drawing room were deserted. Perhaps everyone was in a back room discussing Sempronia’s explosion.

In the parlor Martinez poured some Laredo whiskey into a crystal tumbler, and he sipped it as he continued his search. He found Roland just outside his office, dragging a piece of furniture down the hall toward a storage room.

Martinez looked at the specialized couch that would hold two humans comfortably enough but which was better adapted to a reclining four-legged body the size of a very large dog.

“You’ve just had a visit from Naxids?” Martinez asked in surprise.

Roland looked up. “Yes. Give me a hand with this, would you?”

Martinez set down his drink on the ancient, scuffed parquet floor and helped Roland carry the couch to the storage room at the end of the hall, where it was placed with other furniture adapted to the specialized physique of the various species living under the Praxis. Then he and Roland carried a second couch from Roland’s office, after which they replaced the Terran-scaled furniture that had been taken from the office for the convenience of Roland’s guests.

“I could have the servants do this, I suppose,” Roland said, “but they’d gossip.”

Martinez got his drink from the hall, returned to Roland’s office, and made a note of the private entrance that led to the alley on one side of the palace, a discreet way for members of the empire’s most suspect species to pay confidential calls.

“Why are you seeing Naxids?” he asked.

Roland gave him an amused look. “I’m not conspiring against public order, if that’s what you suspect. These are perfectly respectable Naxids, Naxids that the conspirators never told about their rebellion, and who were as surprised about it as we were.”

Martinez sipped his drink as he considered this. “And that doesn’t make themless trustworthy?”

“I’mnot trusting them. I’m just helping them do their business.” Roland, eyeing Martinez’s glass, stepped to the glass-fronted cabinet behind his desk, opened it with a key, and poured himself whiskey. “Freshen yours?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Crystal rang against crystal as the decanter touched the lip of the tumbler. “Naxids have been so cut out of the picture since the rebellion,” Roland said, “that they and their clients have really begun to suffer. All the money that’s going into military contracts and supply contracts for the Fleet—the Naxids are seeing it go right past them.”

“Good,” Martinez said.

The whiskey flooded his tongue with its peaty flavor. Roland returned the decanter to the cabin and locked it securely. “Naxids like my guests—Lord Ummir, Lady Convocate Khaa—are prepared to live under suspicion for the rest of the war,” he said. “They understand that’s inevitable, and their families have the resources to survive the downturn. But the position they’re in makes it hard for them to get business for their clients, and their clientsaren’t all Naxids. ”

Martinez gave a slow nod. “Ah. I see.”

Roland smiled. “We’re getting the Naxids’ clients a share of all the good things, the things they’d be getting anyway if it weren’t for their patrons’ unfortunate racial affiliation.”

“And in return?”

Roland shrugged. “We’ll turn a profit, but mainly it’s for after the war. I want to earn the Naxids’ gratitude.”

Martinez felt anger flare. “And why should we want the Naxids to be grateful to us?”

“Because after we win the war they’ll be allowed a share of power again, and that power can be turned to good use. And also…” He stepped close, and touched Martinez’s glass with his own. As the chime of the crystal faded, Roland said, “If welose the war, their gratitude just might keepyou from being executed. Not to mention the rest of us.”

Martinez, his defused anger thrashing in the void, followed his brother out of his office to the parlor, where Vipsania had begun to make cocktails.

The evening’s guest was Lord Pierre Ngeni, who arrived at the appointed hour, neat in the wine-colored uniform tunic of a lord convocate. He was a young man with a round cannonball head and a powerful jaw, and in the absence of his father represented Martinez interests in the capital.

In manner Lord Pierre was the opposite of his cousin PJ, being businesslike and a bit brusque. “I’ve been speaking with people in hopes of getting you an appointment,” he told Martinez. “I’ve prepared the ground. Tomorrow’s announcement will provide some impetus. And if necessary”—he looked uncomfortable—“I can raise the matter in open Convocation. The Control Board declining to give the Fleet’s most decorated captain a meaningful postingshould be a matter for discussion.”

Thoughyou’dhate to be the one who sticks his neck out by bringing it up, Martinez read.

“With any luck it won’t come to that,” Roland said. He turned to Martinez. “One of the members of the board is very much with us on this matter. Tomorrow’s announcement should give his arguments some extra weight.”

And that was all that Lord Pierre and Roland had to say concerning Martinez’s plight. They had much to say about other business, though—it appeared there were many other schemes afoot, contracts to be awarded, leases to be signed, delivery dates to be met. Vipsania and Walpurga arrived as Roland and Lord Pierre began to get into details, and seemed as familiar with the subjects as Roland. Martinez was surprised by it all, and a little bewildered—I wonder if Lord Pierre knows about Lady Khaa and Lord Ummir.

If he did, Martinez concluded gloomily, he’d probably be far from outraged, just demand a share of the spoils.

That was how it seemed to work.