then opened the buttons on his dress tunic.
After the four-hour formal meal he felt like a bird stuffed and trussed for roasting.
The winged children on the walls looked at him hungrily.
Chandra walked into Martinez' office in the middle of the afternoon watch and slid the door closed behind her. She looked at the game of hyper-tourney being played on Martinez' desk top and said, 'Well, I'm free of the bastard at last.'
Martinez looked up at her, his mind still filled with the intricacies of velocities and spacial relationships. 'Congratulations,' he said.
The color was high on Chandra's cheeks, and her eyes burned with fury. She paced back and forth in front of Martinez' desk like a tigress whose feeding was arriving half an hour late.
'I finally asked him!' she proclaimed. 'I asked him if he'd get me promoted-and he said he wouldn't!'
'I'm sorry,' Martinez said. The words came reluctantly. He didn't want this scene taking place in his presence, and he didn't want to know any of the details of her relationship with the captain.
Doesn't she have any friends among the lieutenants? he found himself thinking. Doesn't she have anyone to talk to on this ship?
'Captains can't promote lieutenants,' he said.
'This one can.' Chandra said savagely. 'You know how those High City officers stick together-all he'd have to do is trade a favor with one of his cousins, Fletcher promotes the cousin's cadet nephew in exchange for me getting my step.'
All that was true enough-Fletcher could have traded a favor with someone. That was how the high-caste Peers kept everything in their small circle.
'Bastard wants me to stay in my place,' Chandra said fiercely as she paced. 'Well, I won't. I just won't.'
'I didn't understand how you got together with Fletcher in the first place.'
Chandra stopped her pacing. Her eyes gazed into her own past, a gaze thick with contempt. 'I'm the only officer on the ship who wasn't Fletcher's choice,' she said. 'He had someone else picked for my place but he didn't get to Harzapid before the war happened. When the squadron shipped out I got sent aboard. I didn't know anyone and-' She shrugged. 'I tried to make myself agreeable to my captain.' Her mouth drew up in a sneer. 'I'd never met anyone like him. I thought he had an interesting mind.' She barked out a laugh. 'Interesting mind! He's as dull as a rusty spoon.'
They looked at each other for a few brief seconds. Then Chandra took a half-step closer to Martinez' desk, her fingertips drifting over the black surface, cutting through the holographic display of the hyper-tourney game.
'I could really use your help, Gare,' she said.
'I can't promote you, either. You know that.'
An intense fire burned in Chandra's eyes. 'But your relatives can,' she said. 'Your father-in-law is on the Fleet Control Board and Michi Chen is his sister. Between the two of them they should be able to work an overdue promotion for a lieutenant.'
'I've told you before,' Martinez said. 'I can't do anything out here.'
She looked at him levelly. 'Some day,' she said, 'you're going to need a friend in the service, and I'm going to be that friend. I'm going to be the best and most loyal friend an officer ever had.'
Martinez had his doubts: Chandra's friendship seemed to come at a very high price. Though, professionally speaking, could think of no reason why Chandra shouldn't be promoted.
Other than the erratic and impulsive behavior, of course, and the chaotic love life.
But how bad was that, really? he asked himself. Compared with some of the captains he'd known, Chandra was practically a paragon.
Chandra, misunderstanding his silence, leaned forward and took his hand. Her fingers were warm in his palm. The hologram gleamed on her tunic.
'Please, Gareth,' she said. 'I really need you now.'
'I'll speak to Lady Michi,' Martinez said. 'I don't know how much credit I've got with her, but I'll try.'
'Thank you, Gareth.' She rested her hip on the desk and leaned across to kiss his cheek. Her scent flared in his senses. He stood, and dropped her hand.
'That won't be necessary, lieutenant,' he said.
She looked at him for a moment out of her long eyes, and her look hardened. She straightened and regained her feet.
'As you wish, captain,' she said. She braced, her pointed chin held high. 'With the captain's permission?'
'You are dismissed,' Martinez said. His mouth was dry.
She went to the door and slid it open.
'I meant what I said,' she said, 'about being your friend.'
She was gone, leaving the door behind her. Someone walked past-Lord Shane Coen, Michi's red-haired signals lieutenant-and Coen cast a curious glance into the room.
Martinez nodded at him in what he hoped was a brisk, military fashion, and sat down behind the game of hyper-tourney.
It was a while before he could get his mind on the game.
Three watches ticked by, with nothing for Martinez to do but sleep, spend his time at hyper-tourney, check the tactical display to see if anything had changed, and stare at Terza's picture in the surface of his desk. No one invited Martinez to dine. He considered asking the lieutenants to an informal cocktail party, an alternative to the full-dress dinners Fletcher had imposed on the cruiser, but he then reflected that he'd have to invite Chandra, and decided against it.
Martinez glanced up at the sound of purposeful footsteps, and looked up to see Captain Lord Gomberg Fletcher standing in the door of his office. Fletcher wore his full dress uniform, with white gloves and the ceremonial sickle- shaped knife at his waist.
Martinez jumped to his feet and braced. 'Lord captain!' he said.
Fletcher looked at him from his deep-set eyes. 'I'd be obliged if you'd join me, Captain Martinez.'
'Certainly, my lord.' Martinez began to walk around the desk, then hesitated. 'Should I change into full dress, my lord?'
'That won't be necessary, lord captain. Please come along, if you please.'
Martinez left his office and joined the captain, who was accompanied also by Lord Sabir Mersenne, the fourth lieutenant, and Marsden, the captain's short, bald secretary, both also in full dress. Without another word, Fletcher turned and began walking down the corridor, the others following. Martinez wondered if he should have worn full dress when eating breakfast by himself, or at least should be embarrassed that he hadn't.
Fletcher's silver-embossed scabbard clanked faintly on the end of its chain. Martinez had never seen the captain wear his knife, but then he'd never accompanied Fletcher on an inspection before. Perhaps the extreme formality was a part of the captain's style.
The party went down two decks, leaving behind officers' country and the haunts of the enlisted. The captain marched to a hatch and knocked with a gloved hand. It was the hatch, Martinez knew, that led to the engine spaces.
The hatch was opened by Master Engineer Thuc, whose towering figure nearly filled the doorway before he stepped back to reveal the engine control room. Behind the line of acceleration cages, beneath murals showing strong-thewed characters working with huge levers and winches on some impossibly antique machinery, the control room crew were lined up, braced, and spotlessly turned out.
Apparently Captain Fletcher had asked Martinez to accompany him on one of his frequent inspections.
The captain was a demon for inspections and musters, and usually inspected some part of the ship every day that Illustrious wasn't engaged in crucial military business. Today was the engine division's turn, but Martinez could imagine no reason why he had been invited along. He wasn't a line officer, but staff, and not in Fletcher's chain of command-the state of Illustrious' engines was really none of his business.
So while he watched Fletcher and his two subordinates crawl over the engine control room, passing white- gloved fingers over the glossy surfaces, Martinez wondered why he had been summoned to observe this ritual, and paranoia soon began to scuttle through his mind on chitinous insect legs. Surely this had to do with Chandra Prasad.
