Martinez called up hyper-tourney on the desktop computer and tried to lose himself within a game of strategy and abstract spacial relationships.
He played both sides, and lost.
'I have always found tragedy to be the most human of the arts,' said Senior Captain Lord Gomberg Fletcher. 'Other species simply don't have a feeling for it.'
'There's Lakaj Trallin's The Messenger,' said Fulvia Kazakov, the first lieutenant.
'The choral parts are magnificent, as one might expect with the Daimong,' the captain admitted, 'but I find the psychology of Lord Ganmir and Lady Oppoda underdeveloped.'
Captain Fletcher's dinner stretched the length of the ship's long afternoon. Every plate, saucer, cup, goblet, and salt cellar on the long table was blazoned with the captain's crest, and the table itself sat in the midst of painted revelry. The walls were covered with murals of banquets and banqueters: ancient Terrans wearing sheets and eating on couches; humanoid creatures with horns and hairy, cloven-hoofed legs roistering with wine cups and bunches of grapes; a tall, commanding youth, crowned with leaves, surrounded by women carrying phallic staves. Statues stood in the corners, graceful seminude women bearing cups. A solid gold centerpiece crowned the table, armored warriors mysteriously standing guard over piles of brilliant metal fruits and nuts.
The captain was a renowned patron of the arts, and as an offspring of the eminent, preposterously rich Gomberg and Fletcher clans, he had the money to indulge himself. He had ornamented Illustrious with a lavish hand, sparing no expense to create a masterpiece that would be the envy of the Fleet. The hull had been painted in a complex geometric pattern of brilliant white, pale green, and pink. The interior was filled with more geometric patterns broken by fantastic landscapes, trompe l'oeil, scenes of hunting and dancing, forests and vines, whimsical architecture and wind-tossed seascapes. Most of these works had been created in a graphics program, run off on long sheets, then mounted like wallpaper, but in the captain's own quarters the murals had been painted on, and were subsequently maintained, by a pudgy, graying, rather disheveled artist named Montemar Jukes, who Fletcher had brought aboard as a servant and promptly rated Rigger First Class.
Jukes dined in the petty officers' lounge: no one present at the captain's dinner was anything less than an officer and a Peer. All glittered in their full dress uniforms, but that wasn't unusual, as the captain's wish was that all meals aboard Illustrious be formal, whether they were a special occasion or not.
Lady Michi, the guest of honor, sat at the head of the table, with the rest below in order of precedence. She was a stocky woman with greying dark hair cut in straight bangs across her forehead. She was the aunt of Martinez' wife Michi, and as part of the marriage compact, arranged by the families, had agreed to take Martinez as her tactical officer, to replace a lieutenant who had died of injuries.
Fletcher and Martinez sat beneath Lady Michi, and below Fletcher was the first lieutenant, Fulvia Kazakov, her hair elaborately braided and tied into an elaborate knot behind her head, then transfixed with a pair of gold- embroidered chopsticks of camphor wood.
On Martinez' elbow was Chandra Prasad, her knee pressed familiarly to his. Below them were ranked the other four lieutenants, the ship's doctor, and the cadets
'There's Go-tul's New Dynasty,' Michi said. 'A very moving tragedy, I've always thought.'
'I consider it flawed,' said Captain Fletcher. He was a thin-faced man with ice-blue eyes that glittered from deep sockets and silvery hair set in unnaturally perfect waves. His manner combined the Fleet's assumption of unquestioned authority with the flawless ease of the high-caste Peer.
He was a complete autocrat, but perfectly relaxed about it.
'New Dynasty concerns a provincial Peer who travels to Zanshaa and comes within an ace of taking her place in elite society,' Fletcher continued. 'But she fails, and in the end has to return home. She ends the story in her proper place.' He gave Lady Michi a questioning look. 'How is that tragic? Genuine tragedy is the fall of someone born into the highest place and then falling from it.'
Chandra's hand, under the table, dropped onto Martinez' thigh and gave it a ferocious squeeze. Martinez tried not to jump.
'Which is more tragic, lord captain,' Chandra asked, her voice a little high. 'A provincial who rises above her station and fails, or a provincial who rises and succeeds?'
Fletcher gave her a sharp look, and then his expression regained its accustomed poise. 'The latter, I think,' he said.
Chandra dug her claws once more into Martinez' thigh. He could sense the anger vibrating in her. The other officers stiffened, their eyes on the drama being played out between Chandra and the captain. They were all aware that she and Fletcher were lovers, and they all could see that the relationship might explode right at this moment, in front of them all.
It was like watching an accident, Martinez thought. You couldn't stop it, but you couldn't turn away.
'So provincials shouldn't try to rise in the world?' Chandra asked. 'Provincials should stay on their home worlds and let the High City families deal with affairs? The same families that nearly lost the empire to the rebels?' She looked at Martinez. 'Where would the Fleet be if Captain Martinez had followed that advice?'
Though Martinez had to agree that the Fleet was improved by his presence, he preferred not to be used as an example. He knew perfectly well that his every word, uttered in his thick Laredo accent, condemned him as a provincial. He knew perfectly well that the Martinez clan were parvenus who hade elbowed their way into marriages with the highest strata of Zanshaa High City. He knew as well that despite his success the captain considered him a freak of nature, something on a par with a bearded lady or a talking dog.
He knew, but he didn't particularly feel like rehashing it all at Michi Chen's birthday dinner, particularly since nothing he said or did would ever alter the captain's mind.
'How much worse would our situation be without Captain Martinez, I'd like to know?' Chandra insisted.
'Captain Martinez,' said Fletcher easily, 'isn't a tragic hero, so far as I know. We're discussing theater, not real life.' He gave a graceful inclination of his head toward Martinez. 'Were a figure like Captain Martinez to appear on stage, it would be a tale of high adventure, surely, not the fall of the great.'
Chandra gave Fletcher a smouldering glare. 'The great have abandoned Zanshaa and are running like hell from the enemy right now,' she said. 'Do you think there'll ever be a tragedy about that?' Her lip curled. 'Or will it be a farce?'
'I think-' Michi began firmly, with the obvious intention of ending the discussion, but at that moment there was a respectful knock on the door. Martinez looked to see a detachment of the cruiser's senior petty officers clustered in the doorway.
'We beg your pardon, my lady squadcom,' said Master Weaponer Gulik. 'We would like to make a presentation on the occasion of your birthday, if we may.'
'I would be honored, master weaponer,' Michi said.
Gulik-a small, dour, rat-faced man-squeezed into the room past one of the cup-bearing statues and approached Michi's seat. He was followed by Master Engineer Thuc, a massive, muscled, slab-sided Terran with the goatee and curling mustachios of the senior petty officer. Behind these came the senior machinist, electrician, signaler, and the other petty officers in charge of the ship's departments.
'We wish to present you with this memento of your time aboard Illustrious, my lady,' Gulik said.
The memento was a scale model of the Illustrious, with the green, pink, and white of Fletcher's paint scheme minutely and exactly detailed. The model was mounted on a brass base built in the cruiser's workshops.
Michi thanked the deputation, and led the officers in a toast to the department heads. The deputation left, and the dinner resumed, one course after another, each reflecting the genius of Fletcher's personal chef, each course marked by toasts and compliments.
Martinez was aware of Chandra smouldering next to him, her leg jigging up and down with impatience.
'You might have stood up for yourself,' she told Martinez as he walked to his cabin after the feast.
'No one was attacking me,' Martinez said. 'The worst anyone said was that I wasn't a tragic hero, and I hope to hell that's true.'
'Fletcher's said a lot of things about you,' Chandra said.
'Yes,' Martinez said. He opened his cabin door, then turned to her. 'But I'm not supposed to know that, am I? Because I'm not supposed to be on intimate terms with the captain's girlfriend, am I?'
He closed the door on the mask of thwarted fury that had replaced Chandra's face, made his way to his desk, and sat down. From around his neck he removed the disk of the Golden Orb, the empire's highest decoration, and
