A Grand Tour

hangers to Nessler. 'They worked from pictures of you when you was a midshipman.'

'Good God!' Nessler said. 'Royal Manticoran Navy dress blacks!'

'Close enough, Captain Nessler Sir,' Beresford said with a smirk. He turned to Mincio. 'And for you—'

'I'm not a naval officer,' she protested.

'You are now, Commander Mincio,' Beresford said as he handed over the second uniform. 'What's a ship as don't have a second in command, I say?'

Mincio rubbed a sleeve of her uniform between thumb and forefinger. The cloth was of off-planet weave but clearly hand-sewn as Beresford said. Nessler stared at his collar insignia.

'Those started out as Gendarmerie rank tabs,' the servant explained. 'A little chat with a barracks servant and a little work with a file, that's all it took.'

A three-note signal pinged from the command console. 'All systems ready, Sir,' Harpe said.

'Then I'll have my little ceremony,' Nessler said. He started to drape his uniform over the back of a seat; Beresford took it from his hand instead.

Nessler rang a double chime, then touched a large yellow switch. Mincio heard carrier hum from the intercom speaker above the hatch.

'This is the Captain speaking,' Nessler said. His voice boomed from the intercom but it didn't cause feedback. The Colonel Arabi 's internal communications system worked flawlessly again. 'In a moment we'll get under way, but first I wish to take formal possession of this vessel for the Star Kingdom of Manticore.'

He took a 100-milliliter bottle from the breast pocket of the jacket he was wearing. 'With this bottle of wine from the Greatgap Winery,' he said, 'I christen thee Her Majesty's Starship Ajax. '

He flung the bottle to smash on the steel deck. The intercom managed to pick up the clink of glass.

'May she wear the name with honor!' Harpe cried.

There was frenzied cheering from neighboring compartments. From the volume, most of it must be coming from the Melungeons.

'The course is loaded,' Nessler said. 'Get us underway, Bosun.'

Nessler looked a little embarrassed as he walked over to Mincio at the rear bulkhead. There should probably be a squad of officers at the empty consoles; instead the two of them, Beresford, and Harpe with a pair of Melungeons were the entire bridge crew. In a dozen other compartments enlisted personnel did work that officers would normally have overseen….

Though on the Colonel Arabi, perhaps not overseen as closely as all that. The present crew was up to the job, of that Mincio was sure. A Melungeon had already sponged up the splash of wine and thin glass without being told to.

'I was never much of an astrogator,' Nessler muttered.

'If Orloff can find Hope,' Mincio said, 'then you can find Air. You've got proper spacers aboard, besides. A few of them.'

'You know,' said Nessler, 'that's an odd thing. The Melungeons are working harder than I've ever seen spacers do. I think they're trying to prove to the fancy folk from Manticore that they're really good for something. And our people are working doubly hard to prove they are fancy folk from Manticore, of course.'

The Ajax shuddered as systems came on line. An occasional drifting curse, and clangs that might be hammers on balky housings, indicated that not every piece of equipment was being cooperative. Nevertheless, a panel of lights on the main console was turning green bit by bit.

Beresford walked over to them. 'Shall I hang the Captain's uniform in the Captain's cabin?' he said.

'I… yes, that would be a good idea,' Nessler said. To Mincio he added, 'We should probably sit down. This may be a bit rough. That—' He gestured at the console across the bridge. '—is the First Officer's station while cruising. Though I don't suppose it matters.'

'Of course,' Mincio said. She wondered what a First Officer did. Wear a black uniform, at any rate.

'I was wondering, Nessler,' she said aloud. 'How did you happen to pick that name for the ship? Ajax, I mean.'

'Well, actually, I'd been given orders to take up the sixth lieutenancy aboard Ajax when I got word of my father and sister,' Nessler said without meeting her eyes. 'Instead I resigned my commission, of course.'

He cleared his throat. Still looking at the deck he continued, 'Three weeks later Ajax was lost with all hands. Funny how things work out, isn't it?'

A bell rang three slow peals. Mincio strode to what was apparently her station, the new uniform in her hands. 'Yes, isn't it?' she said.

And wondered if Fate was planning to pick up the last of the former Ajax 's crew, along with all his present associates.

* * *

The Plot Position Indicator showed the Ajax in close conjunction with Air, at least if Mincio understood the scale correctly. Harpe and her Melungeon aides muttered cheerfully as they adjusted controls on a console with a curved bench seat holding three, and Nessler himself was whistling as he eyed the various displays with his hands in his pockets.

In theory the crew of the Ajax was at battle stations, but ever since the vessel entered the Air system Beresford had been leading a stream of Melungeons through the bridge to gape at the optical screen. Mincio knew she was of less use in a battle than the Melungeons were, so she felt free to stroll over to Nessler and say, 'I'm not an expert, but it seemed to me to be a nice piece of astrogation.'

'Yes, it rather was,' Nessler said, beaming. 'I'm leaving the pilotage to Harpe and her team, though. The largest craft I've piloted was a pinnace, and my deficiencies then didn't encourage me to try my luck with a cruiser.'

He chuckled, embarrassed at being so proud of the dead-on positioning he'd achieved as the Ajax reentered normal-space. 'It may have been luck, my failures cancelling out those of the equipment, of course.'

'Stop that, Mr. Nessler!' Mincio said. 'You'll find no lack of people to criticize your performance unjustly. You should not be one of them.'

Nessler straightened and smiled faintly. 'Yes, tutor,' he said.

A large warship filled the main optical display. Even Mincio could identify the ominous row of gunports and extrapolate from them to the serious weaponry within the hull. The Melungeon crewmen continued to babble to one another at the clarity of the image even as Beresford shooed them out to make room for another group of sightseers.

'Have they never seen a ship?' Mincio said. Surely they'd at least have seen the Colonel Arabi from the lighters that ferried them aboard….

'The software for this screen was misinstalled,' Nessler explained with a grin. 'It had never worked until Rovald fixed it — in about three minutes. The equipment is actually brand new and very good, though not of quite the most current design.'

He cleared his throat and added, 'I hope Rovald's having equal fortune with the artifacts. That's really more important, of course. I've made arrangements for our findings to be returned with her in the event…'

Mincio nodded to the optical screen. 'I gather we're still out of range?' she said.

'Oh, goodness no!' Nessler said. 'But we can't attack them within the Air System — that's League sovereign space and would be an act of war against the League.'

'But they attacked L'Imperieuse here!'

'Of course they did.' The chill smile Nessler gave her belied the lazy humor of his tone. 'But no one knows they did, you see. By now, they have to assume Harpe and all her people are as dead as the rest of L'Imperieuse 's crew. They didn't planet on Air, after all, and their pinnace's life support would be long since exhausted. In fact, that's probably why they massacred the survivors in the first place — to keep them from making any embarrassing allegations about violation of League neutrality. I doubt they'll try anything this close to the planet, though. If they do—' he twitched a shrug '—our defenses are all