for an extra few zeniths.
The building was just down a side street from the Shelley Palace, where the Martinez family was staying.
Sula was thinking about Martinez a great deal. Being near him seemed desirable. Having a convenient place where they could retire, a place that was neither a Fleet dormitory nor a palace filled with a gaggle of inquisitive sisters, seemed only practical.
She attended the Martinez’s party, and was greeted with cries of welcome. Sula was a celebrity now, a decorated hero, and her presence made the party an occasion. She reacquainted herself with the family—the ambitious Lord Roland, the two formidable older sisters, Vipsania and Walpurga, and the youngest, vivacious sister Sempronia with her absurd fiance, PJ.
With all their gifts, none of them seemed a patch on the brother who was absent.
That night she lay in the huge Sevigny bed and wondered what it would be like, after all this time, not to be lonely.
The next day, a polite officer from the Courts of Justice delivered the subpoena to her door.
FIVE
Martinez welcomedCorona ‘s new captain with all the grace he could muster, which wasn’t much, and then went through the formalities of turning over his captain’s key and various other codes. He wanted very much to say, “Try not to get my ship killed,” but he didn’t. Alikhan had his belongings already packed.
He declined the new captain’s civil offer of a dinner, claiming he had an appointment on the planet’s surface —and for that matter, he did.
He was going to meet with his brother, his sisters, the Martinez clan’s patron Lord Pierre Ngeni—anyone, if necessary, up to the Lord Senior of the Convocation, and he would lobby them incessantly until he received an assignment that placed in him command of a ship.
For after a month’s leave to recover from the rigors of the journey, Martinez had been told to report to a training school for sensor operators in Kooai, in Zanshaa’s southern hemisphere, where he would take command of the post.
Atraining school. The message was infuriating. A warrant officer could do the job as well, probably better.
Martinez intended to get himself into a ship again, if he had to personally hector and lobby everyone going in and out of the door of the Commandery. If he had to personally grab Lord Said by the throat and shake him until the old man gave way.
Martinez had already said his farewells to his officers and crew, so when he leftCorona ‘s airlock umbilical he just kept on going. Alikhan had procured him a car and driver, which meant he wouldn’t have to wait for one of the trains that rolled along the upper level of Zanshaa’s accelerator ring. The car took him to the Fleet Records Office, where he delivered the data foil that contained the log ofCorona ’s journey. The foil contained as well the recordings that might well explode Kamarullah’s career, that is if anyone bothered to view them.
Perhaps no one would. Certainly no one seemed very interested inCorona ‘s journey—news of the Battle of Hone-bar had yet to be released to the public, and the dull-eyed Torminel petty officer who took the data foil seemed far from excited to be meeting one of the Fleet’s heroes, and indeed seemed about to drop into slumber as he handed Martinez the receipt.
Martinez, fury warring with his body’s pain and great weariness, stuffed the receipt into a pocket and stalked through the translucent automatic doors that led to the anteroom.
And there she was.
The impulse at first was to stare, and then to stagger forward and wrap his arms around Sula’s slim body like a shipwrecked mariner clinging to a mast. Fortunately for the dignity of his rank she wasn’t receptive to an embrace: she was braced at the salute, shoulders thrown back, chin lifted to expose the throat, the sign of subordination enforced throughout their empire by the Shaa.
He paused for a breathless moment to absorb her beauty, the erect body, the silver-gilt hair worn shoulder- length, framing the face with its pale, translucent complexion and its amused, glittering green eyes. Then he raised the heavy baton of the Golden Orb, topped with its sphere of swirling liquid, and bobbed it in her direction, acknowledging her salute.
“Stand at ease, lieutenant,” he said.
“Thank you, my lord.” Her brilliant smile showed a degree of conceit, her own smug amusement at the way she’d surprised him. “You met me, once, when I returned to the Zanshaa ring. I thought I’d return the compliment.”
“It’s appreciated.” His bodily weariness had vanished under a surge of blood, but his thoughts were still torpid and his skull was filled with cotton. He was painfully conscious that she stood before him, brilliant and rested and desirable, and that anything he said to her was likely to be stupid beyond all credence.
“Shall I join you on your ride to the surface,” Sula asked, “or do you have more business here?”
“My family is expecting me,” he said. Stupidly.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve been in touch with them. They told me when you were arriving.”
He and Sula were hovering behind the doors of the Fleet Records Office, blocking traffic, and then Martinez remembered that he was the senior officer and that it was customary for him to walk through the doors first. He did so. Sula followed.
Alikhan was already standing by the car, shadowed by the door flung up like a wing. “To the skyhook,” Martinez said. There was a knowing smile beneath Alikhan’s curling mustachio as he handed Sula into the car next to Martinez.
Alikhan and the driver sat in the front, separated by a barrier that one of them tactfully opaqued. Martinez’s nerves tingled with the awareness of Sula’s perfume, a scent that urged his blood to surge a little faster. Sula looked at him as they settled into their seats. “The rumor—which is pretty well official, I’ll have you know—says that you did something spectacular, and are about to be decorated. But we’re not allowed to know what it was that you did.”
Martinez gave a snarl. “It’s satisfaction enough to know that I’ve served the empire faithfully,” he said.
Sula laughed. “I’ve worked out that you blew up a bunch of Naxids, and that our superiors don’t want the enemy to know it.”
“You’d think the Naxids would have worked it out by now,” Martinez said.
“How many enemydid you annnihilate, by the way?”
Confident that she would not be broadcasting to the enemy anytime soon, he told her. She raised her golden brows as calculation buzzed behind her eyes. “Interesting,” she said. “That means our cause isn’t necessarily lost.”
“Not necessarily,” he said, still glowering with resentment. Sula gave him a curious look.
“Why don’t you tell me how you did it?”
So he did. When he finished, he sensed a degree of disappointment behind her congratulations.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“I hoped you’d be able to use my formula.”
“Well. As tothat …” He raised his left arm. “Set your display to receive. I’m about to violate another security regulation.”
Martinez beamed her the records of Do-faq’s series of experiments. “Analyze them to your heart’s content,” he said, “and let me know what you think.”
Sula looked at her sleeve display and smiled. “Yes. Thank you.” She gave him a searching look. “You should be pleased as hell about all this, but you’re not. So who’s pissed in your breakfast?”
A reluctant grin tugged at his lips. “I’ve lostCorona. That’s no cause for joy. And then there’s my next assignment.” About which he enlightened her.
She seemed startled. “What happened? Did you steal some fleet commander’s girlfriend?”
“Not that I know of,” Martinez said, and then found himself wondering if Kamarullah was by some chance a fleet commander’s girlfriend. The mental image caused him to smile. He turned to Sula.
“Andyour next assignment?”
She gave him an annoyed look. “I’m dealing with the ghost of Captain Blitsharts.”
