password waiting for her.
She leaped up from her chair to give a shriek of exultation. Then she deaccessed the Records Office and bounced joyously around the apartment, tidying the breakfast things.
Macnamara returned from his errands and walked into the apartment carrying a bag of provisions. “No messages,” he reported. Then, seeing Sula’s state, he asked, “Something happened?”
“I’ve become the Goddess of the Records Office,” Sula said.
Macnamara thought about this for a moment, then nodded. “Very good, my lady,” he said, and went to the refrigerator to put away the groceries.
TWELVE
Lady Michi’s dining room was large enough for the formal dinner parties that were part of the service life of a squadron commander, and was made to seem larger by ornate mirrors fashioned out of highly polished nickel-iron asteroid material, and by the murals that made the room seem to open up into a series of other rooms, each with windows that looked onto a distant horizon.
Martinez wore full dress—which he would have done in any case—and found the squadcom dressed likewise. From her table, set for two, she looked up at Martinez with an expression of relief.
“Oh, good,” she said, rising. “I wanted to be the first to invite you to a meal, so that I could warn you that they’re all formal here.”
“Lord Captain Fletcher told me.”
“You spoke to him, then? Please sit down, by the way.”
Martinez placed his gloves on a side table, then sat in the chair that one of Lady Michi’s servants held for him. “I encountered the captain, along with one of the lieutenants, Lady Chandra Prasad.”
A private smile touched the squadcom’s lips. “Yes. Well. I’m somewhat less formal than the lord captain, but he sets the style on the ship, so I thought you should be warned.” She looked up at the servant, an older, dignified, broad-faced woman. “Could you bring in the cocktails, Vandervalk?”
“Yes, my lady.”
After Vandervalk made her way out, Lady Michi leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “I should let you know about Prasad, by the way. In normal circumstances I’m not one to repeat gossip, but I wouldn’t want you to put a foot wrong here. It’s reported that Lady Chandra and the captain are, ah, intimates.”
The sensations produced in Martinez were dominated by relief. “Ah—thank you, my lady. Not that I would, in any case, be…” Martinez paused as he tried to work out exactly how to tactfully reassure Lady Michi that he had no intention of cheating on her niece with the captain’s mistress, or indeed with anyone else.
This road of virtue was proving a frustrating one, and not simply in the matter of continence. When interviewing servants, he’d found a young woman machinist who would have been perfect for the post, and he had been on the verge of taking her into his entourage when he realized that she was quite attractive and that everyone would assume he’d brought her along as his lover. With ill grace he had passed her over in favor of Ayutano.
“Quite so,” Lady Michi said. “I just wanted to give you a warning just in case the…undercurrents…became a little troublesome.”
Martinez knew all too well how troublesome the undercurrents around Chandra could be, and he was grateful for the news. “I thank you. And—as it happens—I have news of the family.”
Lady Michi was delighted to discover that Terza was pregnant, and when Vandervalk returned with glasses and the cocktail pitcher, she was the first to offer a toast to the new Chen heir.
Over dinner they talked of family and other innocuous matters. Martinez knew that Lady Michi was divorced, but not that she had two children at school in the Hone Reach, children whose liberty had been guaranteed by the Battle of Hone-bar. She drew out of Martinez a description of the fighting, and her questions were shrewd enough so that Martinez began to believe that here, at least, was a commander who knew her job.
“And apropos the war,” Michi said at the end of the meal, “I may as well acquaint you with your duties.” She called up the wall display and flashed onto a map of the empire, Zanshaa in the center with the wormhole routes woven like lace around the capital.
“As you’ve probably guessed,” she said, with a sidelong look, “the Fleet has adopted what I believe is now being called the Chen Plan.”
Martinez tried not to sigh too heavily. “Naturally, my lady,” he said, “I support the plan fully.”
Michi smiled. “My brother Maurice sent me an early copy of the plan,” he said, “when it still had your name on it—yours and Lady Sula’s, I recall. How is she, by the way?”
“We’ve lost touch.”
The squadron commander raised an eyebrow, but chose not to pursue the matter. “Maurice tells me, by the way, that it was Lord Tork who insisted on changing the name of the plan. Lord Tork seems to think that you’ve gained more celebrity than is proper for someone of your station.”
Martinez attempted without success to restrain his indignation. He protested to himself that he didn’t evenknow Lord Tork. He’d only met Tork briefly, at an awards presentation. Why the hell had the chairman of the Fleet Control Board taken against him?
Martinez spoke through clenched teeth. “Has Lord Chen any idea why Lord Tork has…has—”
“Lord Tork is a person of fixed ideas and strong prejudices,” Michi said. Her tone combined amusement and sympathy.
Martinez looked at her. “Does your ladyship have any notion how I might improve in his lordship’s opinion?” he asked.
Lady Michi’s amusement grew. “Avoid any distinction for the rest of the war, I suppose,” she said.
Martinez decided not to pursue this annoying topic, and he turned to the wormhole map displayed on the wall.
“And our part of the plan, my lady?” he asked.
Lady Michi suppressed her smile and turned to the map. “Once the Naxids are fully committed in the Zanshaa system,” she said, “Chenforce will leave Seizho by the Protipanu wormhole gate for raids into enemy rear areas, destroying commerce and any warships we encounter.”
Protipanu. This was the destination Martinez had suspected when he’d heard that Chenforce was still decelerating after detaching from the fleet. Aside from being the place where the hitherto obscure Exploration Service Warrant Officer Severin had physically moved the wormhole out of the path of a Naxid squadron, Protipanu was an old brown dwarf with a highly reduced solar system: the shrunken state of the system’s gas giants made slingshot maneuvers and changes of course more difficult, and maneuvering in the system would require low initial velocities.
“What’s the rest of the fleet going to be doing while we’re raiding?” Martinez asked.
“That information is secret, even from me,” Michi said, “but from the hints I’ve been receiving from my circle of acquaintances, I believe your old Squadron Fourteen will be on a raid similar to ours. I’ve received no indication that Do-faq and Kangas are going on the offensive, so possibly they won’t be doing anything other than keeping between the Convocation and the Naxids.”
Under the table, Martinez clenched a fist. If only the Control Board hadn’t insisted on his leavingCorona, it would be he who led Squadron 14 against the enemy.
“The Control Board has allowed me a remarkable degree of latitude,” the squadcom said. “I’m not to go near Naxas, Magaria, or Zanshaa, but otherwise I’m permitted to choose my own targets.” She spoke a few words to the video display, and a route traced in red along the wormhole map. “This is the preliminary route I’ve chosen. I would appreciate your comments when you’ve had a chance to study it.”
“Very good, my lady.” Martinez’s eyes were already busy tracing the route. Protipanu, Mazdan, Koel, Aspa Darla, Bai-do, Termaine…the first three systems were obscure or underinhabited, but the route then debouched into a series of highly industrialized, heavily populated systems. Aspa Darla’s wealth came from two small, dense, heavy-metal-rich planets and equally rich asteroids; Bai-do’s accelerator ring had huge shipyards that were probably adding to the strength of the Naxid fleet; Termaine produced…well, Martinez wasn’t sure exactlywhat it produced, his astrography lessons were long ago, but he knew the system was rich.
“Based on these targets, I’ll want you to create exercises…no, I believe the word is now ‘experiments.’” Michi gave him a conspiratorial smile, and Martinez felt a rising exaltation. Michi reached for her cup of coffee. “We
