More Than Honor

Nessler watched the little man leave the compound. 'I'll be damned,' he muttered to Mincio as he finally got out of the vehicle. 'There's actually a chance this might work!'

The two ranks of Manticoran spacers in the Singh courtyard looked more professional than they had the last time Mincio had seen them. It wasn't just that they were well-fed and rested; those who'd lost their clothing with the L'Imperieuse had now turned local fabric into garments closely resembling the issue uniforms their fellows wore.

'This is a private venture,' Nessler said in a carrying tone. 'In a moment I will ask those of you who volunteer to board the Colonel Arabi with me to take a step forward.'

He spoke with the exaggerated precision that Mincio knew meant her pupil was nervous. It was easy even for her to forget that Sir Hakon Nessler, the self-assured youth with all the advantages, had never really felt he belonged anywhere except in his dreams of the distant past.

'I can't order anyone to come,' Nessler continued, 'because so far as I know my reserve commission is still inactive. Also, I'd like to say that we were going to Air to sort out the Peeps who murdered your fellows, but I can't honestly claim I see any great likelihood of success. The ship at our disposal is in wretched shape and has been virtually disarmed besides.'

Nessler cleared his throat. The spacers were silent and motionless, their faces yellowed by the courtyard lighting. Naval discipline, Mincio knew, but it still gave her a creepy feeling. It was like watching Nessler declaim to a tray of perch at a fishmonger's.

'Still,' Nessler said, 'a gentleman of Manticore does what he can. I'll make arrangements for those of you who choose to stay and—'

'Attention!' Harpe said from the right front of the double rank. 'On the word of command, all personnel will take one step forward!'

'Wait a minute!' cried Nessler, taken completely aback. 'Harpe, this has to be a free choice.'

'And so it is, Sir,' the Bosun said. 'Mine, as senior officer of this contingent until we put ourselves under your command.'

She turned to the spacers. 'Now step, you lousy bastards!'

Laughing and cheering, the thirty-six spacers obeyed. Harpe stepped forward herself, threw Nessler a sharp salute, and said, 'All present and accounted for, Captain.'

'Begging your pardon, Sir,' said a brawny spacer. 'But what did you think we were? A bunch of fucking Peeps who were going to argue about orders?'

'No, Dismore,' Nessler said as if he were answering the question. 'I don't think that at all.'

'All right, ten minute break!' Beresford called from the adjacent compartment. 'You're doing good, teams. Damned if I don't think I'll be buying beer for both lots of you come end of shift!'

Nessler slid out from beneath a console which he'd been discussing with a Melungeon and a Manticoran yeoman who'd crawled under from the opposite side. Mincio had to hop clear. She was standing nearby in a subconscious attempt to seem to have something useful to do. In fact she didn't know the purpose of the console, let alone what problem it was having.

'Mincio, do you know where Rovald is?' Nessler said as he noticed her. His face and clothing were greasy; there was a nasty scratch on the back of his left hand. 'The damned intercom system doesn't work, of course.'

'I don't—' Mincio began.

'Fetch her here, will you?' Nessler continued without waiting for an answer. 'I think she's in Navigation Two. All the levels check, but there's no damned display!'

Mincio nodded and trotted into the passage, thinking of the curt way she'd acted toward Rovald during the card game. Nessler was focused on putting the Colonel Arabi in fighting trim for perhaps the first time since the vessel was delivered to the Grand Duchy of Melungeon. He didn't have time for what anybody else might want.

Work parties—generally a group of Melungeons under the direction of one or two survivors of L'Imperieuse–were busy all over the ship, readying her for action. Beresford had no naval or technical experience, but he'd proven to be a wonder in these changed circumstances. Not only was he acting as personnel officer, he'd formed unassigned Melungeons into teams to clean up the vessel's squalor.

Rovald's help was even more crucial. Third-rate navies like the Grand Duchy's train their personnel to use their ship's equipment, but they don't as a general rule care whether anybody understands that equipment. First-rate navies like that of the Star Kingdom do train their people to understand it so that they can do more than by-the-book maintenance, but no fleet has time to train its personnel to understand everyone else's equipment. In a ship like the Colonel Arabi, where so much was jury-rigged and none of it was of standard Manticoran design, Rovald's ability to troubleshoot unfamiliar systems was invaluable.

Mincio had no useful skills whatsoever. She'd thought of joining Beresford's custodial teams, but she decided that she wasn't ready to humble herself completely to so little purpose. She couldn't convince herself she'd be much good at wiping oily scum off the walls.

She stepped aside for six spacers grunting under the weight of a three-meter screwjack. All the cruiser's countergrav rings were down at the pylon site. Nessler hadn't sent for them because he didn't want to discuss with Orloff what he knew about the desertion of the entire enlisted complement of the Colonel Arabi and the sabotage of the Melungeon air car.

'Have you seen Ms. Rovald?' she called to the Manticoran rating at the head of the gang.

'Navigation Two!' the man shouted back. 'Next compartment to port!'

Which didn't mean 'left' as Mincio assumed; it meant 'left when you're facing the ship's bow' which she was not, but she found Rovald by a process of elimination. The technician sat crosslegged in front of a bulkhead. Before her an access panel had been removed to display a rack of circuitry. The compartment felt cold and musty; the air was still.

'Good day, Rovald,' Mincio said. 'Sir Hakon needs you in, ah . . . I'll lead you.'

Rovald didn't stir. Mincio blinked and partly out of curiosity said, 'You're fixing the environmental system here?'

'I can't fix that,' the technician said in a dead voice. 'They used the power cable for the laser, and it's still on the ground at the Six Pylons. Five Pylons.'

'Well,' Mincio said. 'Sir Hakon—'

Rovald sucked in a great gulp of air and began to cry.

Mincio knelt beside the older woman. 'Are you . . .' she said. She didn't know whether to touch Rovald or not. 'That is . . .'

'I'm not a soldier, Ma'am!' Rovald sobbed. 'I don't want to die! He doesn't have a right to make me be a soldier!'

'Ah!' said Mincio, glad at least to know what the problem was. 'Dear me, Nessler had no intention of taking you with him to Air,' she lied brightly. 'You'll be landed as soon as he's ready to, ah, proceed. No, no; you're to continue your work on Alphane books. If worse comes to worst, our names as scholars will live through your work, you see?'

'I don't have to come?' Rovald said. Her tears had streaked the dirt inevitable on anybody working aboard the Colonel Arabi. 'He just wants me while we're in orbit here?'

'That's right,' Mincio said. That would be true as soon as Nessler learned how the technician felt. She stood and gestured Rovald up. 'But I think there's some need for haste now.'

'Of course,' said Rovald as she rose. 'They'll be in Generator Control, I suppose.'

She stepped briskly off the way Mincio had come to fetch her. Mincio followed, thinking about people. It was easy to understand why Rovald would want to avoid this probable suicide mission. It was much harder to explain why Mincio planned to go along. . . .

'The pinnace just docked, Sir,' Harpe said. 'She'll be dogged down in five minutes, and then we're ready.'