truth that lay in those samples of human DNA in the Peers’ Gene Bank, and the truth that had been in the print of her right thumb before she’d burned it off—the truth that her name had once been Gredel, and that she’d grown up on Spannan, in a prefabricated apartment building just like this one, where she had lain in the dark and listened to violence thunder against the fragile wall between herself and her own fear.
The next day she left to meet her team at the other local, communal apartment. As she stood on her building’s stoop blinking in the morning light, she heard a suggestive voice at her elbow.
“Hello, beauteous lady.”
She turned to find a young man lounging against the wall of the building, a catlike smile on his face and a crumpled velvet hat on his head. He had the most brilliant, liquid, suggestive black eyes she had ever seen, and she decided there was no reason she shouldn’t bask in their attention for a few moments more.
“Hello, yourself,” she said.
He straightened slightly. “I haven’t seen you here before, beauteous lady.”
“I’ve just come down from the ring.”
“You lost your home then, hey?” He sidled toward her and stroked her hand in what was supposed to be sympathy. “You need One-Step to show you around Riverside, don’t you? I’ll take you to all the nice places, buy you some pretties.”
“You’ve got a job, then?” Sula asked.
One-Step narrowed those remarkable black eyes and held out both hands in protest. “I’ll spend my last minim on you, beauteous lady. All I want is to make you happy.”
“Why’s this neighborhood called Riverside? I haven’t seen a river.”
The young man grinned and tapped the pavement with one platform sole. “River’s under our feet, beauteous lady. They built the neighborhood over it.”
Sula thought of cold, slow water moving in shadow beneath her feet, dead things rolling in pale silence on the turbid bottom, and she gave a shiver. If she’d known about the river she might well have heeded her team’s doubts about the neighborhood.
One-Step sensed her change in mood, and once again stroked her hand. “You’re from the ring, hey, you don’t have any rivers up there, I understand. Don’t worry about falling in the water, everything’s safe. Flood happens, they blow the tocsin.”
Sula smiled and liberated her hand. “I’ve got an interview,” she said.
“Well hey, I’ll walk you to the train.”
“I know where the train is.” She spoke the words with a smile, but with finality. One-Step gave up his attempt to recapture her hand.
“Good luck with the interview, then, hey,” he said. “You want me to show you around, just come here to my office any time.” He threw out his hands to indicate his piece of pavement.
“I will. Thanks.”
Sula felt herself relaxing as she moved down the streets that had become almost familiar.You can disappear into a neighborhood like this. She could disappear into what she had once been, and forget the long, grinding impersonation that had been her life.
Early on Martinez’s first morning aboardIllustrious Perry arrived with a breakfast of salt-cured mayfish, fruit pickled in a sweet ginger sauce, and a fresh muffin. He had worked out an arrangement with Lady Michi’s cook: the two shared the squadcom’s kitchen and the duties of cooking for both officers. As he lingered over his coffee, Martinez called up the tactical computer and began creating an exercise for Chenforce based on encountering an enemy force at Aspa Darla.
The exercise, run the next day, was a success. However obscure the workings of his mind, Fletcher knew his job:Illustrious performed throughout with efficiency and precision, and so did the rest of the squadron. Martinez found himself envying Chenforce’s trained, disciplined crews, and wished he’d had these people aboardCorona when he was in command.
Of course, Chenforce was composed of crews that had already won a victory, on the day of the rebellion, in the vicious battle waged at point-blank range with antiproton beams by ships mostly in dock. It gave the crews a certain grim esprit, and a confidence that whatever they encountered next, it couldn’t be as bad as what they’d already overcome.
Chenforce also employed the new looser tactical formations that Martinez had developed, and with apparent success. Do-faq, Michi Chen confided, had sent her a complete recording of the experiments he had conducted, and she’d begun experimenting with them on her own.
Buoyed by this expression of confidence, Martinez created a more elaborate experiment for the following day. Chenforce again performed well. The third day there was no exercise, since Captain Fletcher chose the day for a personnel inspection so comprehensive that it took most of the day. Martinez, who was not under Fletcher’s command, was not subject to the captain’s keen eye; but that night, with his meal, he received a report from Alikhan, who had been present when his own compartment was visited by the captain.
“The lord captain’s quite an enthusiast for musters and inspections, my lord,” Alikhan said. “Illustriousis given a full inspection every six or seven days, and one department or other is mustered and examined on a daily basis.”
“Does the lord captain find much?” Martinez said.
“A surprising amount, my lord. Dust in corners, untidy personal gear, bits of his murals getting chipped off… he’s very thorough.”
“I imagine the chipped murals must annoy him.”
Alikhan was quite expressionless. “He keeps a painter on his staff, my lord, to make repairs.”
“Upholding his dignity,”Martinez muttered to himself.
Alikhan raised an eyebrow. “My lord?”
“Nothing,” Martinez said.
The fourth day, after another successful exercise, Martinez was the supper guest of the wardroom. The lieutenants were eager for a description ofCorona ‘s escape from the Naxids on the day of the rebellion, and of the Battle of Hone-bar, and Martinez—who’d had a degree of experience in these anecdotes by now—obliged. Fulvia Kazakov, with a new pair of ivory chopsticks thrust through the knot of hair behind her head, was a meticulous hostess, satisfying her lieutenants’ curiosity without giving Martinez the sense he was being overwhelmed by a pack of eager juniors. Chandra Prasad, to Martinez’s surprise, was quiet—he remembered her as boisterous in gatherings. When he permitted himself to look at her, he saw her studying him with her long dark eyes.
Toward the end of the supper, Chandra received a page from Lord Captain Fletcher, and quietly excused herself. There followed a moment of awkward silence, in which the lieutenants scrupulously avoided one another’s eyes, and then the conversation continued.
When he and Chandra had met, Martinez reflected later, they had shared the same problem: neither had any patronage in the Fleet. Martinez had found himself benefactors in the Chens, but he suspected Chandra hadn’t found anyone to take this role—no one, perhaps, except Senior Captain Lord Gomberg Fletcher.
While there was no outright regulation against relations between a captain and one of his officers, service custom was dead against it. Aside from concerns about sexual exploitation, everyone dreaded a captain who played favorites among his subordinates, and a sexual relationship was favoritism of a particularly tangled kind. If an officer couldn’t do without companionship for the length of a voyage, he or she was usually at liberty to bring a comely servant on board for the purpose.
Well, Martinez thought charitably, perhaps it was love.
He decided to forego video and wrote letters to Terza daily. In order that she might know what to expect at her destination he wrote his reminiscences of Laredo, whereEnsenada was bound, along with descriptions of his parents, their homes, and the history of his family. He hadn’t seen Laredo in nearly twelve years, but the memories rose to his mind with surprising clarity: the summer home Buena Vista on the lower slopes of the Sierra Oriente, surrounded by the maples that turned to flame in the autumn; the palace of white and chocolate marble in the capital, with its water gardens; and the tall fieldstone home set in the subtropical delta of the Rio Hondo, where the family spent its winters, and its magnificent alley of massive, twisted live oaks on which Martinez climbed as a child. His father, an exuberant man with a collection of custom aircraft and cars, and his mother, who read romantic poetry aloud to the family at night.
