Daniel, wearing utilities like the rest of the detachment and cradling a stocked impeller, stood on the tractor's right fender with his buttocks braced on the roll cage. Sun with a sub-machine gun was on the left side.
" 'She was poor but she was honest!' "
bellowed Hogg from the driver's seat. He had a good bass voice, though roughened by the carloads of doubtful liquor he'd put down over the years.
" 'Victim of a rich man's whim!' "
the Sissies on the flatbed sang, a few at first but all twenty by the end of the verse. On the way from the harbor on their commandeered vehicle, Hogg had started off "The Bastard King of Georgia," "Seven Old Maids" and "A Gentleman of Leisure." Woetjans had alternated with him to lead the detachment in a series of chanteys.
Locals stared in amazement from buildings, around corners, or out of door alcoves. Daniel hadn't noticed any group of more than three—a woman holding two young children by the hand as she sprinted down an alley—but evidence of large mobs was everywhere. Ground-floor windows were either shuttered or smashed, bullets had pocked building fronts, and on the two-mile route to Manco House the Sissies had passed at least a score of wrecked vehicles.
"First he fucked her,"
the Sissies sang, "then he left her!"
Each verse ended in a full stop. This wasn't—Daniel smiled—a trained chorus, but the singers' enthusiasm drowned out the jangle of track pins and cleats on the pavement. They were chewing up the street, no mistake, by driving cargo-shifing apparatus at top speed through the middle of the city.
Two men, each carrying a length of pipe and a bottle, stood on the steps leading into an apartment block. Sissies waved and called cheerfully. They were in good humor, but everybody in the detachment had an impeller or a sub-machine gun. The locals backed up the stairs, not running exactly but not wanting to have that many gunmen watching them either.
Manco House came in sight to the left, a brown stone column. "Here," Daniel said, then realized Hogg might not be able to hear him. He banged on the woven wire side of the driver's cage, then pointed to the tall structure. Hogg nodded.
Manco House didn't have windows on the ground floor, only a steel door wide enough to pass a large truck; the second-floor windows were narrow slots. One of the latter and two of the larger—barred—windows on the third floor had been broken out, but it didn't look like there'd been a serious attack. No reason there should've been, of course; but then, mobs don't need much reason.
"Shall I take us in, master?" Hogg shouted as they jangled toward the vehicular entrance.
"No, just turn around and I'll go in through the wicket," Daniel said. The pedestrian door, also steel, was in a separate alcove instead of being inset in the larger valves. "I don't expect to be long."
Hogg pulled the tractor and lowboy in a sweeping curve, then shut down the big ceramic diesel. As Daniel hopped down, Hogg slid out of the cage and faced the Sissies on the trailer.
"Me and the master's going in!" Hogg said. Daniel pressed the call plate, a flush crystal disk in the wall. "You can keep the wogs from stealing the truck while we're gone, I guess."
"I'm coming!" said Woetjans, and pretty much all the others shouted the same thing. It sounded rather like a frog pond after an evening rain.
"None of you are coming!" Daniel said. Holding his impeller at the balance, Daniel tossed it to Hogg with a straight-armed motion. "I don't need you tramping around while I talk to my colleague."
"You hope you don't, you mean," Hogg muttered, but he wasn't seriously objecting.
Daniel grinned as he turned again to the door, still shut. They might even have agreed with him, but they understood from his tone that there wasn't going to be more discussion.
"Yes?" said the plate in a clipped, sexless voice. "Who's there?"
"Open up, Luff," Daniel said, his anger suddenly rising. "You don't have to worry about a mob breaking in if you open the door while my crew's down here, but you bloody well do have to worry if you don't open it!"
It was probably only a few seconds before the latch clicked and the door swung inward, but it was a little longer than Daniel was happy with. He grinned and shook his head as he stepped through. He supposed he was feeling the strain himself; he ought to be used to this sort of thing.
Luff stood in the entrance corridor. He wore a long beige robe with soft slippers, and his hair was disordered.
"I don't have a soul left here!" he blurted as he turned to the lift shaft. "Not one! My employees all left me to whatever the mob decides to do. And none of the Councilors will talk to me either!"
"I don't think there's much danger at present," Daniel said as the lift rose. Luff seemed to be taking him up to his sixth-floor office, probably the best choice from Daniel's viewpoint. That's where the communications gear would be. "Though if you'd like, we can carry you back with us to the Princess Cecile."
Which'd be a great deal less safe than anything likely to happen in Charlestown, but it wasn't the time to say that.
"I can't do that!" the agent snapped. "There's critical trading information here, matters of the greatest import! If I should abandon my post, why, I'd be ruined!"
If you really think the locals are going to lynch you from a lamppost, thought Daniel, then I'd say there were other jobs than being a flunky in Ganpat's Reach.
The lift stopped. Luff bowed him forward, then pursed his lips in sudden irritation. He'd treated his guest with the courtesy due a superior, then remembered that Daniel was an officer in the RCN rather than a Bennarian Councilor.
Concealing his flash of anger, Daniel said, "As I say, things have quieted down a good deal." Shrugging he added, "And this is quite a strong building, a fortress. If you've got a few gas bombs or—"
"Oh, nothing like that," Luff said, a sneer in his voice. They entered his office. He'd drawn the drapes, and the only light was from a small fixture on the desk. "I'm a gentleman, you know."
"Ah," said Daniel, nodding sagely. There were various ways to take the agent's comment, but he found viewing it as humor the best and most natural response for him. Daniel very much doubted that his father'd killed anyone personally, but he was quite sure that in similar circumstances Corder Leary would've been standing in the doorway with a gun and the complete determination to use it on the first prole who came at him.
The agent sat at his desk and hunched forward. "They'll be back as soon as it gets dark," he muttered into his hands. "They burned Layard House the first night, you know? He'd taken all his guards out of the city with him. They attacked Waddell House first, but Waddell left most of his guards here and they drove the mob off with gunfire."
Luff shivered. "I can't shoot. I'm alone and I can't do anything," he whispered.
"On the contrary, Master Luff," Daniel said heartily, "you're in a position to aid Cinnabar greatly. I need the use of one of the barges belonging to Manco Trading to transport cargo upriver."
"What?" said Luff, raising his head. "Give you a barge for personal use? And at a time like this! Why, I moved them north of the city for safety sake, you know."
Instead of responding immediately, Daniel stepped to the outside wall; Luff twisted to watch him. In place of curtains, a polarizing screen darkened the window. He threw the switch in the corner to turn the wall into a single clear panel looking out over Charlestown. A haze of smoke hung over a complex of buildings to the northwest, perhaps Layard House.
Daniel walked back to face the Manco agent across the desk; he remained standing. "Master Luff," he said, crossing his hands behind his back, "I'm not asking you to do anything for me personally. I need the use of the barge to carry out an RCN mission."
"To help Corius, you mean!" Luff said like a dog snapping in fear.
"To prevent Port Dunbar from becoming an Alliance base, sir!" said Daniel, not shouting but certainly intending to be heard. "Because the Alliance personnel attached to the Pellegrinian forces have already started preparations for that. The Manco family may not be enthusiastic about Councilor Corius gaining greater influence on Bennaria, but I'm quite sure that they'll be even less happy about an Alliance squadron across their trade routes."
"What?" Luff said. He jerked against the back of his chair, not straightening so much as putting another few inches between himself and Daniel. "That can't be true! The war's purely a matter between Pellegrino and Dunbar's World."
"It most certainly is true," said Daniel. "We've captured Alliance personnel and stored data which lay out the Alliance plan in great detail."
That was technically correct, but the information had to be pieced together from bits and pieces; even then it required a great deal of interpretation. The conclusion required absolute confidence in the analysis Adele had done while the Rainha was en route to Dunbar's World. Daniel—all the Sissies—had that confidence, and so presumably did Adele's other employer. People who didn't know her well might question it, however.
"Oh my God," Luff said. All the bluster'd gone out of him, but he continued to stare at Daniel instead of lowering his head again. His mouth dropped slightly open and his lower lip trembled. "Oh God."
"I'm not here to threaten that you'll be executed for treason, Luff," Daniel said, deliberately softening his tone. "You'll have no problem with your employers or with the Senate, so long as you act in line with your duties as a Cinnabar citizen."
This whole business was a calculated performance, the sort of thing he'd seen his father do many times. Daniel hadn't understood the nuances when he watched it, but the knowledge was there nonetheless for when Corder Leary's son needed to bully someone into action without raising a hand.
"I'm quite confident we can thwart the Alliance designs," Daniel continued. "So confident that I'm staking my life and my ship on it. But I need you to order a barge to the Princess Cecile in Charlestown Harbor ASAP."
"You realize I'm ruined, ruined or dead, if I do that, don't you?" Luff said bitterly. "Whatever you or Senator Manco do to me, Waddell will see to that!"
Daniel pursed his lips. "Come here, Luff," he said, walking around the desk again. He gestured. "Come here to the window, man."
He stretched out his hand, thinking for a moment that he'd have to grab the fellow by the shoulder and lift him. Luff rose of his own accord before they touched, though with a grudging expression.
"What is it then, Commander?" Luff said. He sounded tired and disgusted, nothing more. "Is it my salvation, do you think?"
"No sir, the reverse," Daniel said. "Look out there. Do you see Councilor Waddell? Do you see any sign of the power you believe he has?"
"He'll be back!" Luff said.
"Will he?" Daniel demanded. "And even if he is, Luff, he's a fat foreigner and you're a Cinnabar gentleman! What do you care what Waddell thinks? He didn't have the balls to stay in his own city with a fortress to live in and three hundred men to defend him! He went scuttling off!"
"If Corius wins, that won't help either," Luff said. It was a statement, not a protest. "I've had it regardless."
"Buck up, man," Daniel said, hearty again. He put his arm around the Manco agent's shoulders. "The RCN is going to put a spoke in the Alliance's wheel, and when we've done that it won't matter who's in power in Charlestown. Whoever it is'll have a healthy respect for Cinnabar citizens, because they know the RCN'll hand 'em their heads if they don't."
He patted Luff on the back and stepped away. "I'd say it was your best choice, my good fellow," Daniel said with a broad grin. "But the truth is, it's the only choice you have that won't result in you being condemned as a traitor. What do you say?"
Luff shuddered. He closed his eyes, then turned away and wiped them fiercely with the back of his right hand.
"What do you want, then?" he whispered. He seated himself back at his desk, already reaching for the integral phone pad. "A barge? All right."
"Just that," Daniel agreed. His face remained impassive, but in fact what he'd just done made him queasy. It'd been necessary; but it made him aware that many of the things he despised his father for might've been necessary also.
"Dorlitus, I need you to bring A79 back to the harbor," Luff said, his face intent. Daniel had heard the voice on the other end of the line only as a narrow crackle; the agent was using an in-ear plug. "It'll take you less than an hour, won't it?"
The air crackled again.
"No, I don't think it is too dangerous," Luff said, sounding brusque and professional. "I think it will be tonight, though. That's why I want to get the contents of the strong room in Warehouse 12 aboard the freighter Pomponio immediately. There's three million florins in jewels and furs, all of it easily disposed of if the rioters get their hands on it. We can't take the chance."
Crackle.
"All right, I'll expect you inside the hour at the company pier," Luff said. "Till then."
He thumbed off the phone switch and glared at Daniel. "There," he said harshly. "Are you happy? Just take your gang to Manco Pier and wait for the barge to arrive."
"What did you mean about the strong room?" Daniel said in puzzlement. "We might be able to carry some cargo, but—"
"There's no cargo!" Luff said. "There's nothing, just you and your men waiting on the pier. Dorlitus wouldn't have returned to the harbor simply because I told him to; but he'll come to steal three million florins in goods. Which will be blamed on the mob, of course. And besides, what does he care?"
Luff shrugged. "You'll have to persuade him to do what you say when you get aboard," he added. "I assume you can manage that, can't you? You've assured me how resourceful the RCN is, after all."
"We can persuade him, yes," Daniel agreed quietly. "Thank you, Master Luff."
"Oh, don't thank me," Luff said. He gave a brittle laugh. "I have it on good authority that it's no more than my duty as a Cinnabar citizen. Now you'd better get out of here, Commander. You have work to do, I'm sure."
Daniel opened the office door but paused. "Luff," he said. "Come with us. I won't tell you it's going to be safe, but you'll be with friends."
"Thank you, Commander," Luff said with surprising dignity. "But I believe I'll stay here. It's my post of duty, after all . . . and I'm not a Bennarian to abandon it."
Daniel waited for a further moment, then threw the Manco agent a salute before striding for the lift. It wasn't according to protocol: the fellow was a civilian and therefore not authorized to receive the salute of an RCN officer.
But it felt right anyway.
Hogg's water taxi had remained at the Mazeppa. The Infantan who'd just ferried Adele and Tovera between ships knocked on the library door and said, "Lady Mundy to see you, lord."
"Send her in, Pyotr!" the Landholder called. "My dear Mundy, a great pleasure to see you again."
The servant opened the door and stepped back. Adele made a tiny gesture with her left index finger. Having her bodyguard present would set the wrong tone for the interview with the Landholder.
Even so slight a motion had sent a dull ache all the way up to Adele's left shoulder. The Medicomp had repaired the physical damage; even the bruising was nearly gone. Some nerve pathways had been rerouted, though, and for the moment they were registering neutral inputs as pain.
That would pass in time, the Medicomp had assured Adele. All it meant for now was that the pistol had moved from her left to her right tunic pocket.
Tovera shrugged; Adele started down into library. Before the door closed behind her, she heard Tovera say, "Is there a place a girl could get a drink around here, spacer?"
While still aboard the Princess Cecile Adele'd seen Tovera take a Drytab which would metabolize alcohol in her stomach. She didn't know whether her servant ever drank for pleasure, but she was very definitely at work now.
Landholder Krychek waited at the bottom of the stairs. To Adele's surprise, he had a striking blond woman on his arm. Both beamed at her.
Adele almost missed the last step. "Master Elemere?" she said.
"Just Elemere, milady," the blonde said, dipping in a graceful curtsey. Her—well, his—dress was gold with shimmers of green and purple as the light changed. "You and Commander Leary gave me not only life but a reason to keep on living."
"Here, sit," said Krychek, ushering Adele to the chair where she'd sat before. "I set out the Vaclos. You liked the vintage, I believe?"
Adele remained standing. She nodded to Elemere to make it clear she wasn't snubbing him, but she returned her eyes to Krychek. "This isn't a social call, I'm afraid, Landholder," she said. "I'm here to negotiate with you. And with . . . Elemere, that is, as a matter of fact."
"So, we negotiate," Krychek said calmly, offering her the long-stemmed glass he'd just filled with wine. "But we negotiate as friends, do we not? And we can sit as we negotiate, surely?"
Adele seated herself, feeling uncomfortable. She smiled—mentally, at least, because she didn't feel the humor touch her lips—at herself. She knew that this business would involve some stressful passages. She'd have preferred that the Infantan treat her with professional courtesy rather than the kindness of a friend, given that they might not be friends at the end of it.
Krychek sat opposite her with a glass of brandy. He raised an eyebrow. Elemere remained standing, his fingertips resting on the Landholder's shoulder.
Setting her wine untasted on the adjacent table, Adele said, "Master Leary intends to steal a Bennarian destroyer and with it drive a Pellegrinian cruiser off Dunbar's World."
Krychek laughed, though the sound was initially muffled because he'd clamped his lips over a swallow of brandy. "Ho!" he said when he got the liquor down. "He doesn't half have dreams does he? I'd say you meant steal a cruiser to fight a destroyer, but the Bennarians don't have any cruisers."
"Is that possible?" said Elemere, frowning. "It doesn't sound possible."
"Well, dear one," the Landholder said as he patted the hand on his shoulder, "let's say that it's an ambitious aim, even for the redoubtable Commander Leary."
His face sobered as he returned his gaze to Adele. "I do not mean that in mockery, Lady Mundy," he said. "I have the highest regard for your captain's abilities. What you outline is, however, a daunting task indeed."
"Daniel is well aware of that," Adele said, using the given name deliberately. "Nevertheless, his mission requires it, so there's no choice."
She touched her thigh pocket but left the data unit where it was. She'd have liked to have the wands between her fingers, but that too would send the wrong signal.
"He wishes to hire you and your retainers, Landholder," she went on. "To have any chance at all. It will, of course, be very dangerous. Your reward, if we succeed, will be in keeping with the risk."
Krychek had been raising his glass for another drink. He paused and put it down very carefully on the table.
"Mundy . . .," he said, and paused to clear his throat. "Lady Mundy, I regret, I very much regret to refuse you. Yet I must."
"But Miroslav, it's the commander who—" Elemere said.
"Not now, dear one!" said Krychek. "This is men's business!"
He stood up, desperate to move rather than gaining a height advantage over Adele. Understanding that, she remained seated. It struck her—without either amusement or anger—that the Landholder was implicitly classing her as a man and Elemere as a woman. Though if it was worth distinguishing by gender—this did almost cause her to smile—that was probably an accurate assessment.
"I suggested this course to Master Leary," she continued, "because I recalled you saying you wished to enter service with Headman Ferguson. It's my hope that you'll be willing to follow a better man in a better cause."
"Lady Mundy!" Krychek said, forcefully enough to sound threatening to someone easier to threaten than Adele. Besides, she didn't think that was his intent. "I owe you and I owe Commander Leary a debt of honor, a very great debt. But I am a man of honor, milady! I am Landholder of Infanta and cannot join the Cinnabar navy, whatever I think of the worm Porra who rules from Pleasaunce today. I am not a traitor!"
"If you were not a man of honor, milord," Adele said, "Master Leary wouldn't have made this offer. We depend on it, because only a man of honor can recognize honor in another."
For effect she took her glass from the table and sipped the wine. She found it easy to keep her voice calm and her words clipped; indeed, it was hard to do anything else.
"Of course you wouldn't serve the RCN, Landholder," Adele said. "But will you serve a Leary of Bantry?"
"What?" said Krychek, startled out of his anger. "What? But that's the same thing, surely? Leary of Bantry is Commander Leary."
"Not in this instance," Adele said firmly. "The Princess Cecile is a private yacht, her crew are spacers hired by Bergen and Associates—a firm owned by the Learys privately. And the Sibyl, when we've stolen her, will certainly not be an RCN ship."
Krychek's brow furrowed. From his expression he might be furious, but Adele suspected he was thinking about what she'd just said.
"You may be a pirate, of course," she added, "subject to hanging if captured by any civilized power. But you won't be an RCN officer."
Krychek guffawed and turned to the tantalus. He lifted the decanter and drank from it.
"The Pellegrinians call me a pirate already," he said, lowering the square crystal bottle, "and who knows? It may be that they are right. Faugh, I spit on them!"
He did spit, a long, accurate pitch into the presumably false fireplace across the compartment.
"But even if I were willing, how would this happen?" he said. He looked at the decanter, scowled, and set it back on the secretary. "My ship cannot lift, even to orbit, until the thrusters are replaced. That will take time, and there's no chance of the work being started until the riots subside."
"I'm afraid the Mazeppa will have to be abandoned," Adele said. "As you note, it can't be moved in its present condition. Perhaps it'll be possible to salvage it later, but that can't be expected."
She shrugged. "Of course if you die, as seems likely," she said, "that won't matter anyway."
The Landholder looked at her in delighted amazement, then burst out laughing again. "Oh!" he said. "So Leary thinks I'm one of those death or glory boys he can trick into following him by saying how dangerous it is, yes?"
"Yes, that's correct," Adele said, sipping more wine. She looked over the top of her glass. "You are, of course. And so is Master Leary, as I'm sure you realized since you've looked into his record."
Krychek began laughing so hard that he had to bend over. The decanter in his right hand tapped the floor twice; Elemere bent gracefully and swept it away from him before it shattered.
"Ho, you're clever devils, you Cinnabars!" the Landholder said when he'd gotten his breath. "Crooked as corkscrews, every one of you. So crooked you're straight! So!"
He hugged Elemere, then seated himself and eyed Adele. "The Mazeppa is a clapped-out old whore, no loss," he said, shrugging. "My collection of tobacco pipes, that I will regret. Still, I have lost much in the past and at my present age I must look to the future. Your Daniel Leary will make us whole, you say?"
"Daniel will do very much better than that," Adele said. "If he survives, of course."
"Of course," said Krychek. "Of course. . . ."
Then in a thoughtful tone he repeated, "So. We accept. What are we new Leary retainers to do, milady?"
"A few of you will join the crew of the Princess Cecile," Adele said. She put down her glass empty. "Most of you'll be taken to the Squadron Pool, by barge because there's no proper ground transportation system here."
"You have numbers?" Krychek said, becoming businesslike. "How many the corvette, how many to Squadron Pool, I mean?"
"I don't, no," Adele said. Elemere'd filled her glass. She'd almost waved him off, but her mouth was still dry and she found the wine pleasantly astringent. "You'll have to discuss that with Daniel when he returns from arranging the transportation."
"And the Bennarians will give us a destroyer?" Krychek said, raising an eyebrow. "Or we will have to fight our way in, which? Either is acceptable."
Adele's lips suddenly felt parched. Nonetheless she set down the glass and crossed her hands in her lap as she met the Landholder's eyes squarely.
"That brings me to my other request," she said. "Daniel has determined that it wouldn't be practical to fight our way into the base—not if we intend to fly out in a destroyer, that is. Entry will require very specific authorization by Councilor Waddell, and to gain that I need the help of Elemere."
She looked up at the entertainer. "I want you to visit Waddell's estate in company with me and my servant Tovera," she went on. "The business will be extremely dangerous, but while it entails risk I can assure you that there will be no dishonor."
She smiled coldly. Almost the only way I do smile, I suppose, she thought. Aloud she said, "On my honor as a Mundy."
Elemere stood transfixed. Krychek looked up at him and said, "I don't think—"
Elemere silenced the Landholder with a curt gesture; his eyes were locked with Adele's. "You say there will be no dishonor," Elemere said. "How will you ensure that?"
"If things go wrong," Adele said calmly, "Tovera or I will kill you. Even if that means we're captured ourselves."
"Lady Mundy, I can't allow—" Krychek began.
"Be quiet, Miroslav," Elemere said as a mother might speak to a child. He continued to look at Adele. "I didn't object to the danger. This is my business. Lonnie is my business."
A slow smile spread across Elemere's face. He was really quite attractive, though the matter was of no greater importance to Adele than the color of his dress. "What do you need from me?" he asked.
Adele shrugged. She'd finished the second glass of wine also, she found. "Only your presence," she said. "And—"
She transferred her eyes back to Krychek.
"—from you, Landholder, the aircar in Hold Three. It's the only way we'll be able to get to Waddell's estate in time to make this work."
"How do you know about the aircar?" Krychek said, his face again a glowering mass of furrows. "I've never let anyone on Bennaria see it!"
Probably because you were planning an illegal last-ditch measure which required an aircar, Adele thought. This man wasn't the sort who'd quietly starve with his retainers because the local power structure resented him.
Rather than describe the extent to which she'd penetrated the Infantans' systems, she said, "Well, it's time for them to see it now. We'll return with Elemere to the Princess Cecile. Just us—Tovera can drive the aircar."
She rose from her chair. "We won't actually leave the Sissie until it's fully dark, but I have a great deal to prepare."
Krychek got up. Elemere kissed him but slipped out of his grasp before his arms could close. To Adele, Elemere said, "Should I change clothes?"
"I'd rather have the extra time aboard the Sissie," Adele said. "We'll have clothing there for you."
Elemere offered Adele his hand. "All right," he said. "We can go now."
He looked over his shoulder. Krychek stood as though waiting to be shot. "Don't worry, dearest," he said to the Landholder.
As Elemere and Adele started up the stairs he said, "I thanked you for what you and the commander did for me, Lady Mundy. Now I'd like to thank you on behalf of Lonnie also."