Death's Bright Day: Chapter Six

Cuvier Harbor on Jardin

    “Opening main hatch,” Vesey warned over the PA system. Daniel, at the back of the boarding hold, squeezed Miranda’s hand and released it. Landings on distant worlds were part of his normal routine, but this was the first time his wife had been off Cinnabar.

    The bolts locking the main hatch into the Sissie’s hull withdrew with as much racket than they had made when ringing home. When dogged shut, the hatch was a stressed portion of the corvette’s frame. Now the ship sighed, shaking herself as the hatch pivoted slowly downward to become the boarding ramp.

    Steam and ozone sucked into the hold; Miranda flinched slightly. Exhaust from the plasma thrusters was quenched in the harbor when ships made normal water landings, but in still air a miasma of steam and ions hung about the vessel for as long as an hour. The atmosphere was safe within a few minutes of landing so ships rarely waited more, but the first experience of plasma-laced steam and harbor sludge was — literally — breathtaking.

    Normally the liberty party would have cheered, but today the Sissies packed in the hold were showing their company manners — Daniel smiled — for Six and his lady. Miranda no more needed to be coddled than Adele did, but the crew was erring on the side of courtesy. That was always proper behavior.

    Woetjans and four riggers carried the extendable boarding bridge down the ramp while it was still lowering. Jardin’s triple moons were too small for their gravity to matter, but solar tides raised and lowered the harbor surface by as much as six feet.

    The quays of most ports provided ladders to deal with tidal variations. The sort of passengers — and yacht owners — who visited Cuvier were provided with stone steps rising to the top of the quay so that they didn’t get their hands and clothing slimy. Even the non-skid surfaces of the steps couldn’t protect the soles of their shoes from filth, but there were probably mats at the top for cleaning them.

    The Sissie’s boarding bridge was a roll of light-metal pontoons which the crew inflated. It connected the ramp with the floating stage attached to the quay by a track. Two members of Woetjans’ team bounced across the bridge while it was still filling and clamped the free end. They trotted up the steps and waited on the quay.

    Daniel grinned and murmured to Miranda, “They’re showing off.”

    “They have a right to,” she replied. “They’re better than acrobats to be able to do that without falling into the water.”

    “They’re riggers,” he said. “If they make a mistake in the Matrix they have worse trouble than getting wet.”

    He didn’t add, “Regulations aside, riggers don’t wear safety lines. You’ll drift for all eternity if you get separated from your ship.” Miranda probably knew that already, from her brother or her brother’s friends.

    “The liberty party is –” Vesey’s voice began.

    “Hold up a bloody minute!” Woetjans called from the edge of the ramp. She was used to shouting over the noise of a dockyard; the Sissies in the hold could hear her easily. The spacers going on liberty had begun to surge forward in anticipation of release, but they settled back now.

    “This isn’t like the usual landfall!” the bosun said. “You’re not working for the RCN now, you’re working for Six himself. If you show your asses, you embarrass Six and you embarrass me.”

    She paused, letting her words sink in. “Nobody’s saying you can’t have fun,” Woetjans said. “I’m going to get outside a couple jars of good liquor and find a man who’s drunk enough that he don’t mind looking at me. But — no problems, you got that? You may think Six is a soft-hearted git who won’t go at you too hard, and maybe that’s true; but I’m not. You embarrass me and we’ll discuss it, understood? And it won’t be going on the charge sheet, it’ll be personal.”

    The bosun grinned. To call her plain would be undue praise at the best of times, but her expression now was terrifying.

    “Now the liberty party is released!” she said.

    Cheering, the spacers filed out of the hold and across the boarding bridge two abreast. Ribbons with ships’ names and landfalls fluttered from the seams of their liberty suits.

    “I’ve split the liberty parties into three at fifteen minute intervals,” Daniel explained. “I’m giving liberty to everybody but the anchor watch, and they’ll go as soon as the first group returns to replace them. These are the senior people.”

    “Why split them if they’re all going shortly?” Miranda asked.

    “So that the five of us –” Daniel said, nodding past her toward Adele who stood a little apart with Hogg and Tovera “– had room to breathe before the first tranche disembarked.”

    The liberty party stopped at the marquee over the base of the quay. Four young women were processing the spacers through without undo delay. A pair of husky men stood behind the marquee, but they weren’t armed even with truncheons.

    Daniel frowned. He reached toward the bellows pocket of his tunic where he’d slipped a pair of RCN goggles. They had all the functions of a commo helmet’s faceshield, so he could magnify the scene to get a better idea of what was going on.

    “The authorities use facial recognition software on all visitors,” Adele said, correctly interpreting Daniel’s expression. “Anyone whom their database thinks is a threat to good order is denied entry. And if you’re wondering, there’s an emergency response squad on alert at all times. They’re quite heavily armed.”

    “We could handle them,” Tovera said straight-faced. “Even without the turret guns.”

    Miranda burst out laughing and hugged Daniel with the nearer arm. She obviously knew Adele’s servant well enough that Tovera’s dry humor didn’t bother her.

    Daniel wasn’t sure humor was quite the word. Tovera created humor by studying what ordinary people thought was funny, much as she based her actions on what Adele did. The latter seemed to be an adequate substitute for the conscience which Tovera lacked.

    “I think we can start off,” Daniel said, having judged the rate at which the liberty party was moving through the marquee. “Then Vesey can send the second section down.”

    They were all in civilian clothes; Daniel wasn’t even wearing the saucer hat that would mark him as a ship’s officer. His dull yellow tunic and trousers were loose-fitting with many pockets. Miranda’s outfit was similar but in a shade of pale green printed with a chain-link pattern.

    They were as clearly not uniforms as Daniel could find without going to colors so bright that he would stand out, since he didn’t want that either. Adele and Tovera were in suits of cream and tan respectively, and Hogg wore blue slops instead of the garish finery that was really to his taste.

    At the boarding bridge Daniel looked at Miranda and said, “If you’d like to go ahead?”

    “There’s room for both of us,” she replied, squeezing closer but breaking her stride so that their feet syncopated one another instead of landing in unison.

    Daniel nodded mentally in approval. He had seen a bridge undulate when a squad of soldiers marched over it — halfway over, because it had flung them off. Miranda didn’t have personal experience of spacefaring, but she had read and listened to those who did — and she was very smart.

    A heavy ground-effect ship had been running its engines up in the separated harbor for planet-bound transport. Now it moved forward, its speed building from a crawl. The nose lifted as the craft came onto the first hull step, and by the time it had reached the outer mole it was on the second step and still accelerating. The trailing edges of its short, broad wings curved down to boost the craft the rest of the way into full ground effect.

    “Do you know where it’s going?” Miranda asked, her eyes following the big vessel. “It’s a passenger ship, isn’t it?”

    Daniel glanced over his shoulder. “Adele?” he said.

    “It’s the dedicated coach to Paradise Beach,” Adele said, “though the management calls it a conveyance. It’s carrying a party of ten from Tabriz, plus their luggage and seventeen personal servants. And a pair of deogales, which are…”

    Her words paused. She was having a little trouble manipulating her control wands accurately as she walked.

    “Deogales are six-legged omnivores from Humara,” Daniel said. “The Swiftsure ported there on my training cruise. They’re as much at home in brackish water as they are on the shore. They’re affectionate little things to their masters. but –”

    He felt himself frowning without meaning to.

    “I hope they’re not a mated pair,” he said. “Without grillards –” Six-legged carnivores; the young ate sprats and insectoids, the yard-long adults preferred deogales if they couldn’t get domestic cats “– to keep them in check, they could spread over the whole planet.”

    “Paradise Beach is an island,” Adele said. “At what the Khan of Tabriz is paying the Bruckoff family for this vacation, they can sterilize and replant.”

    Daniel winced. He knew Adele was correct; most of the outlying leisure compounds on Jardin had already been sanitized for their guests’ comfort. That was good business…but he had grown up in the forests and marshes of Bantry under Hogg’s tutelage. The discomfort — the itching, the thorn pricks, the bites and kicks and occasional real danger — had made him a part of nature, of life.

    But this wasn’t Daniel’s world or even Cinnabar’s world; and few Cinnabar citizens would have agreed with Daniel anyway.

    They had reached the marquee and the smiling attendants. On the boulevard beyond was a rank of ground vehicles, but at least half the initial liberty party was crossing to the strip of bars and clubs facing the harbor.

    A natty looking young man approached the marquee from the street side. The male attendants saw him first and jumped to attention. The fellow was dressed in Pleasaunce fashion — a suit with narrow, broken, vertical stripes in tones from yellow to russet.

    “Just step to the footprints in front of the barrier, sir,” the professionally perky woman at the nearest counter said to Daniel. She and her colleagues weren’t as young as he had thought from a distance, but they were extremely attractive. There were four passages through the line of counters, each with a crossbar.

    “Captain Leary, isn’t it?” called the well-dressed young man. The female attendants stiffened just as their male colleagues had done a moment before. “And that would be Miranda Dorst Leary, would it not?”

    “Sir…?” said the woman who had spoken to Daniel. She turned her head and torso but kept her feet where they were planted. “Are these friends of yours, sir?”

    “They are indeed, friends and guests of the daSaenz family,” the young man said. “I think we can dispense the formalities, can’t we, girls.”

    Without waiting for an answer — if he had even been asking a question; Daniel hadn’t noticed one in his voice — the man lifted the bar and stepped through. The attendants remained at attention.

    “I am Timothy daSaenz,” the man said, clasping Daniel’s forearm with his own in Pleasaunce, and more generally Alliance, fashion. “My mother Carlotta sent me to greet you and bring you to the house.”

    “Pleased to meet –” Daniel said. Before he could complete the phrase, daSaenz had turned to Miranda, clicked his heels — his calf-high boots were of pebbled leather — and bowed at the waist.

    If I tried that, Daniel thought, I’d fall on my face.

    Then he thought, And I’d deserve to for acting like a prat.

    “I’ve brought the aircar,” daSaenz said, turning and lifting his right hand to shoulder level. His index finger gestured forward. “Please come with me. Mother was insistent that you be shown the caves at once.”

    “Ah, Master daSaenz…” Daniel said. He led Miranda between the counters but then put a hand possessively on her waist when there was room enough to walk abreast again. “Thank you very much for the offer, but we’re staying in the Ultramarine here in Cuvier. We’ll be happy to join you after we’ve settled in, but –”

    “Nonsense,” daSaenz said. “I can’t possibly allow you to go to a public hostelry. That would be an insult to my mother and to my family.”

    He stopped at a small aircar at the end of the row of ground vehicles. Its body shimmered between blue and silver. There were two comfortable seats in the back and a driver’s cockpit in the front.

    “Master daSaenz,” Daniel said. He was used to bumptious young aristocrats. I rather was one myself.

    A mental grin broke his mood. Instead of going on as he had been about to, Daniel said, “We’ll be back as soon as we’ve freshened up and I’ve taken care of some of the ship’s business here. We really appreciate –”

    “Come,” daSaenz said with a smile. “Mother has closed the caves for you and your bride. You look particularly lovely, Mistress Leary –”

    He clicked his heels again, but at least he didn’t bow.

    “– and I assure you that the glowworms will not complain about your toilet.”

    “My business –” Daniel said.

    “Captain Leary,” Adele said. “Your officers can handle the business, I’m sure. You’ll recall that I am one of your officers.”

    “Ah, Miranda…?” Daniel said, looking at her.

    “It’s entirely up to you, Daniel,” she said. “But I’ve never looked forward to a hotel room, and I’ve dreamed of the Starscape Caves all my life.”

    “There’s only two seats,” said Hogg. The words were neutral, but nobody who heard him would have thought he was happy about the situation.

    DaSaenz frowned slightly. To Daniel — he didn’t look at Hogg — he said, “I’ll arrange ground vehicles for your servants, though of course they won’t be necessary at the manor.”

    This is not what I want to do, Daniel thought. He hoped his irritation didn’t show on his face.

    “Mother isn’t feeling quite well this morning,” DaSaenz said. “And of course she’s seen the caves many times. She’s sure she’ll be ready to greet you after a brief rest, however, and she looks forward to doing so after I’ve guided you through the caves.”

    It is what Miranda wants to do, and that’s why we’re on Jardin to begin with. Of course Adele could by herself handle the initial meeting with their prospective employers…and from her comment, it sounded like she would prefer to do so.

    “I think we’ll be all right without you for the time being, Hogg,” Daniel said, meeting his servant’s eyes. “You can follow in a cab if you like, or you can spend the afternoon on your own. I’ll be back by evening to check on matters, regardless of where Miranda and I decide to sleep for the next few days.”

    He looked at daSaenz. “You can arrange that, I trust?” Daniel said.

    “Yes, of course,” daSaenz agreed. “I’ll put a car and driver at your disposal for as long as you stay on Jardin.”

    “I guess I’ll check out one a’ these bars,” Hogg said. He wasn’t happy, but he knew better than to argue. He slouched away.

    Adele nodded crisply and with Tovera started back toward the Princess Cecile. Daniel wasn’t sure whether or not she had already arranged a meeting with General Storn or his agents.

    She was probably right in believing it was better that the initial contact be in her hands. Spies made Daniel uncomfortable. He got along with Adele by consciously ignoring that other aspect of her life.

    “Very well, Master daSaenz,” Daniel said. “We’ll be pleased to accompany you.”

    He took Miranda’s hand and helped her step into the rear of the aircar — there were no doors. Miranda didn’t need help, but if Daniel hadn’t done so their host would have offered his arm.

    And Daniel wasn’t going to have that.

    The store — The Compass Rose, Rare Manuscripts — was nestled between a high-end dress shop and a jewelry store with a uniformed concierge whose eyes had seen a great deal. He and Tovera traded glances as she followed Adele into the bookstore.

    The shop was empty except for the fat man behind the counter. He looked up from a handwritten ledger and smiled. Glazed shelves resting on map drawers covered the sidewalls. There was a door into the back beside the counter.

    “I’m told you have an original Thomas Middleton manuscript?” Adele said.

    “Yes, ma’am,” said the proprietor. He was mostly bald, but his fringe of hair and small moustache were black. “Go through to the viewing rooms, please.”

    He gestured to the door. “It’s laid out in the room to the right.”

    Adele entered the back; the shopkeeper had returned to his ledger. Tovera stepped in front of her and opened the door. A bundle of stained paper, written on in spiky age-browned ink, was open on the table; above it was the faded ribbon with which it had been tied.

    The stocky man who had been looking at the document nodded to Tovera, then to Adele when her servant retreated to the short hallway. Adele closed the door.

    “Is that really a Thomas Middleton manuscript?” she said.

    “Apparently,” the man said. “Jardin isn’t thought of as an intellectual center, but there’s a great deal of money here. There are whimsical collectors of all sorts, passing through as well as among the First Families themselves.”

    He was probably in his late twenties, but he looked scarcely out of boyhood when he smiled, as he did now. “I’m Mikhail Grozhinski,” he said.

    Adele set her data unit on the table, being careful not to disturb the manuscript. She began checking the name against her files.

    “Your records will indicate that I’m a major in the 5th Bureau, Lady Mundy,” Grozhinski said calmly. “They may or may not tell you that I am the son of General Storn, whom you know. In this instance I’m acting as his envoy.”

    “They didn’t tell me the relationship,” Adele said, entering new information in the file. When she delivered her report to Mistress Sand, the addition would be part of it. Without looking toward Grozhinski she said, “Are you here in your official capacity?”

    “I am not,” said Grozhinski. “Lady Mundy, your participation in this affair has been cleared at the highest levels of your government — not of course that you’d be safe if things went really wrong. I am acting as a traitor to my own government, though in turn I’ll be a hero if we succeed. If you succeed.”

    He plucked his loose-fitting tunic. It was a darker blue-gray than his gray-blue trousers. “I’m here on vacation with my friend Stephen,” he said. “He’s in a bistro, now, while I’m doing something boring. Stephan has nothing to do with my work — ” a wry smile ” — or any work, if it comes to that. But he amuses me.”

    “If things go really wrong, as you put it,” Adele said, “I would expect to be dead. Political embarrassment is farther down my list of concerns.”

    The risk of death had never concerned her very much. Personal failure concerned her a great deal.

    She looked up at Grozhinski. “Why is General Storn unofficially involved in the Upholder Rebellion?” she said.

    “The 5th Bureau’s Diocese Three has extended jurisdiction over about half the Tarbell Stars, including Peltry, the capital,” Grozhinski said. “Diocese One oversees the remainder of the cluster, including Ithaca, the center of the rebellion. Our brief — the Bureau’s brief — is to put down anti-Alliance feeling in the Tarbell Stars but not to involve ourselves in the cluster’s internal politics.”

    Adele listened as she compared the words with the information in her files. She didn’t really have to look at the files; she had absorbed the important points before the Princess Cecile lifted from Cinnabar. She preferred the feeling of viewing a situation through an electronic filter, though, to getting the data first hand.

    “Krychek is aiding the Upholders, however,” Grozhinski said. “My father suspects he’s actually behind the rebellion.”

    “This is why Porra divides regions for observation, isn’t it?” Adele said. She entered the new information as she spoke. “Why hasn’t General Storn simply reported the situation instead of involving himself –”

    She looked at Grozhinski again, this time for effect.

    “– in treason?”

    “General Storn…fears, I think, rather than actually suspects,” Grozhinski said, speaking for the first time with obvious care. “Fears that Krychek has mentioned his intention to the Guarantor and has not been prevented from going ahead.”

    “If the Alliance were to absorb the Tarbell Stars,” Adele said. “It would be a clear violation of the Treaty of Amiens.”

    “It would if the Cinnabar Senate were to view it as such,” Grozhinski agreed. “It is not certain –”

    If he had been circumspect in suggesting that Guarantor Porra might know what Diocese One had under way, he was doubly that now.

    “– that the Guarantor fully appreciates how badly the prolonged state of war with Cinnabar has strained our economy. The risk of complete economic and political collapse might not weigh as heavily on him as it does on my father. Collapse of both Cinnabar and ourselves, of course.”

    “I see,” Adele said as she entered more information.

    For the first time Adele understood why Mistress Sand had encouraged her to get involved in this mare’s nest. Like Storn, Mistress Sand was concerned about the political effect of renewed war. The Republic had come very close to breaking up in class conflict before the Treaty of Amiens; and if Cinnabar itself lost cohesion, the planets it now ruled would go off in a hundred different directions.

    That said, Cinnabar agents meddling in a region which was clearly within the Alliance’s sphere of influence constituted a cause of war also. Sand wanted Krychek’s plotting to fail, but not if that meant the Republic’s obvious involvement. She must be hoping that a corvette in private registry — and her crew — would not be enough to catch the attention of Pleasaunce.

    Grozhinski set an eight by four inch case on the table; it was less than two inches wide. “These are the log chips of a hundred and thirty ships trading in what is now Alliance space,” he said. “My father said you collect such things, so you might like them. The oldest is that of the Wideawake, which is pre-Hiatus.”

    Adele set her wands down and opened the case. The chips were of varying sizes and appearance. The case must have been purpose-built, as each pocket precisely fitted the log in it.

    “These aren’t copies,” Adele said.

    “Father returned copies to the archives,” Grozhinski said. “But yes, these are the originals.”

    He cleared his throat. “There is additional material — the background on matters we discussed here — at the end of the Wideawake log,” he said.

    Adele closed the case, then put her personal data unit away. “Thank you,” she said, “and thank your father. I do indeed like them.”

    She swung toward the door, then stopped and met Grozhinski’s eyes again. “If I may ask,” Adele said. “What is it you expect us — Captain Leary and I and the Princess Cecile — to do?”

    “I haven’t the faintest notion,” Grozhinski said. “And if my father does, he’s kept it from me. What he said –”

    Again the young man’s voice became careful.

    “– is that though he has no idea of what can be done, he has seen ample evidence of Lady Mundy’s resourcefulness and that of her naval friend.”

    Adele sniffed as she went out. A mare’s nest, she thought.

    But a flattering appraisal nonetheless.