The Service of the Sword

all but name. All of it, for the past week—the superdreadnought captains had demanded the recall of every ship on patrol. Genevieve Chin and her people had been under the equivalent of a prison lockdown, with two ferocious State Security SDs standing guard over them while everyone waited for the young new warden to show up.

'Do you know anything about him, Yuri?'

Yuri Radamacher, the People's Commissioner for Citizen Commodore Jean-Pierre Ogilve, pushed himself away from the door. 'Personally, no. But I did find this record chip in Jamka's quarters. It's a personal communique from Saint-Just.'

Ogilve stiffened in his chair. 'You took that? For God's sake, Yuri—'

Radamacher waved him down. 'Relax, will you? Now that Jamka's dead, I am the highest-ranked StateSec officer in this task force—in the whole sector, as a matter of fact, even if the captains in command of those two SDs aren't paying any attention to my exalted rank. The fact that I searched Jamka's quarters after his body was found won't strike anyone as suspicious. In fact, suspicion would have been aroused if I hadn't.'

He pulled a chip from his pocket. 'As for this . . .' Shrugging: 'I'll have to destroy it, of course. No way to just put it back without leaving too many traces. But I doubt its absence will be noticed, even if Saint-Just thinks to enquire.' Radamacher made a face. 'Not only was Jamka a slob, but after anyone studies more than ten percent of the chips scattered all over his quarters they'll realize . . .'

He shrugged again. 'We all knew he was a vicious pervert. Let Saint-Just's fair-haired boy'—motioning to the holopic with the chip—'wallow in that muck for a bit, and I don't think he'll be worrying about a missing private message from Saint-Just.'

Yuri slid the chip into the holoviewer. After a moment, the image of the officer was replaced by another. The same officer, as it happened. But this was not a formal pose. What began playing was a recording of an interview between the officer and Saint-Just himself, which had apparently been made in Saint-Just's office recently.

'I'll give the kid this much,' murmured Radamacher. 'He's StateSec through-and-through, but he doesn't seem cut from the same cloth as Jamka. Watch.'

Fascinated, Admiral Chin leaned forward. The sound quality in the holoprojection was as good as the images themselves—not surprising, given that Saint-Just would have had the very best equipment in his own office.

The first thing that struck Admiral Chin was that the head of Haven's State Security seemed a smaller man than she remembered. Genevieve hadn't seen Saint-Just in person for many years, and then only at a distance at a large official gathering. On that occasion, Saint-Just had been positioned behind a podium on an elevated dais, at quite some distance from Genevieve. He'd looked like a big man to her, then. Now, seeing him in a holoprojection sitting behind the desk in his own office, he simply seemed a small, unprepossessing bureaucrat. If Chin hadn't known that Oscar Saint-Just was perhaps the most cold-bloodedly murderous human being in existence, she would have taken him for a middle-aged clerk.

That accounted for some of it. But Genevieve knew that, for the most part, the reason Saint-Just seemed much smaller to her was purely psychological. The last time she'd seen Saint-Just she'd hated and feared him, and had been wondering whether she'd still be alive by the end of the week. She still hated Saint-Just—and still wondered how much longer she'd be alive—but the passage of years and the slow rebuilding of her own self- confidence as she'd forged La Martine Sector into an asset for the Republic had drained away most of the sheer terror.

The door to Saint-Just's office opened and the same young StateSec officer whose face she'd been staring at earlier was ushered into the office by a secretary. The secretary then closed the door, not entering the room himself.

The young officer glanced at the two guards standing against the far wall behind Saint-Just. The Director of State Security was seated at a desk near the middle of the room, studying a dossier open before him.

Chin was impressed by the officer's glance at the guards. Calmly assessing, it seemed—just long enough to assure himself that the guards were not particularly concerned about him. Their stance was alert, of course. Saint-Just wouldn't have tolerated anything else from his personal bodyguards. But there was nothing visible in that alertness beyond training and habit; none of the subtle signs which would have indicated that a man about to be arrested or secretly murdered had just been ushered into Saint-Just's presence.

Chin knew she couldn't have maintained that much poise herself, in that situation, even with her advantage of many more years of life and experience. The StateSec officer was either blessed by a completely secure conscience, or he was a phenomenally good actor.

The officer marched briskly across the wide expanse of carpet and came to attention in front of the Director's desk. Genevieve noted that he was careful, however, not to get too close. The officer was not a particularly big man himself, and as long as he stayed out of arm's reach of Saint-Just, the bodyguards wouldn't get nervous. He would already have been thoroughly checked for weapons. It was quite obvious that neither of the two guards—much less both together—would have any difficult subduing him if he suddenly went amok and tried to attack the Director. The guards were not precisely giants, but they were very big men. Admiral Chin had no doubt both of them were experts in close-quarter combat, armed or unarmed.

Which the officer standing at attention before the desk didn't seem to be, from what Genevieve could tell. He had a trim and well-built figure, yes; she could detect the signs of a man who exercised regularly. But Genevieve was an accomplished martial artist herself—had been, at least, in her younger days—and she couldn't detect any of the subtle indications of such training in the officer's stance.

Then, noticing something else, she cawed laughter. 'They've removed his belt and shoes!'

Radamacher smiled sourly. 'After Pierre was killed, I doubt if Saint-Just is going to overlook any possible danger.' He paused the recording and studied it. Then, chuckled. 'Is there anything sillier-looking than a man trying to stand at attention in his socks? It's a good thing for him the Committee of Public Safety did away with the old Legislaturalist custom of clicking your heels when coming to attention, or that youngster would look like a pure idiot.'

But the humor was as sour as the smile. Idiotic or not, Saint-Just's new version of the Committee of Public Safety had Haven and its Navy by the throat. And young men like the officer standing at attention before him were the fingers of that death-grip.

Yuri started up the recording again. For half a minute or so, the three people in the room watched Saint- Just simply ignore the young man standing before him. The Director of State Security—now also Haven's head of state—was perusing the dossier spread out on the desk before him. The personal records of the officer himself, obviously.

Chin took the time to study that young officer. And, again, was impressed. Most young subordinates in that position would not have been able to disguise their anxiety. She knew perfectly well that Saint-Just was dragging out the process simply to reinforce that he was the boss and that his subordinate was completely at his mercy. A word from Saint-Just could destroy a career—or worse.

But from this youngster . . . nothing. Just an impassive face and stance, as if he possessed all the patience in the universe and not a trace of its fears.

Something indefinable in the expression on Saint-Just's face, when he finally raised his eyes from the dossier and studied the officer, let Genevieve know that Saint-Just's petty little attempt at intimidation had fallen flat—and Saint-Just knew it. For the first time, words entered the recording, and Chin leaned forward more closely.

'You're a self-possessed young man, Citizen Lieutenant Cachat,' Saint-Just murmured. 'I approve of that—as long as you don't let it get out of hand.' 

Cachat simply gave Saint-Just a brisk little nod of the head.