dressed Terran, braided lapels and fashionably pleated trouser front, stepped out of the club and glanced left and right as he made a minor adjustment to his cuffs.
The door closed behind him. His mouth gaped under its narrow little mustache.“Lady Sula!” he gasped.
She stepped forward, took his arm, and steered him down the street. Macnamara, suddenly alert, kept a wary eye behind.
“You’re dead!” the man cried.
“For all’s sake, PJ,” said Sula, “you don’t have to make such a fuss about it.”
THREE
“Laredo is too far,” said Fleet Commander Tork. His melodious voice sounded like wind chimes, and it took a modest effort to separate content from melody. “A message would take eight days each way to Chijimo, and ten to Zanshaa. We are Fleet Control Board; we must remain near the Fleet.”
Lord Chen had no desire to join the fleeing Convocation on Laredo, the home of his bumptious in-laws. He had no desire to accept the hospitality of Lord Martinez, and face the daily reminders of his dependent status. He had no wish to see his daughter Terza surrounded by the members of the parvenu family to whom he had sold her.
On the other hand, he was less than enchanted with what Lord Tork seemed to be proposing, if for no other reason than it offered fewer opportunities to escape Tork’s company.
The eight members of the Fleet Control Board were traveling together on theGalactic, a sumptuous passenger yacht the Fleet maintained in order to ferry dignitaries from one system to another. ThoughGalactic was a large vessel, it was stuffed full of evacuees from Zanshaa—a large staff of secretaries and communications staff, members of the Intelligence Section and the Investigative Service, bureaucrats from the Ministry of Right and Dominion, servants of the board members…all people who existed to serve the lords of the Fleet, and who Lord Chen was finding it difficult to escape.
Lord Chen was trapped on a small ship with his job, and he wasn’t enjoying himself. At Tork’s insistence, the board had followed the rules it had laid down for everyone else, and so Lord Chen was permitted only a single servant, and family members were forbidden to accompany—and in any case Lady Chen, who had strongly disapproved of the arrangement by which her only child and heir was married to a Martinez, would never have consented to visit Laredo. Since boardingGalactic, Lord Chen’s sole diversion had been frequent communication with his daughter Terza, who was on the Martinez yachtEnsenada, traveling a few days ahead.
“What do you have in mind, my lord?” he asked Tork.
A waft of air brought Lord Chen the scent of Tork’s decaying flesh, and he took a discreet sniff of the cologne he’d applied to the inside of his wrist. The Control Board met in a room that had been intended as guest quarters for important Fleet dignitaries. It was bright with mosaics that showed ships dashing through wormholes; but now a long table crowded the room and the air was rather close.
The Daimong turned his round black-on-black eyes on Chen and chimed again. “We will divert to Chijimo and remain with the Home Fleet until the time comes for the recapture of Zanshaa.”
Lord Chen could not imagine Lord Eino Kangas, who commanded the Home Fleet, being very pleased at the idea of his superiors hovering over him that way.
“My lord,” said Lady Seekin, “shouldn’t we remain with the Convocation? We may need to contribute our expertise on important matters, and of course our votes.”
Lady Seekin, a Torminel, was one of the civilian members of the board, and a convocate. Her comprehension of Fleet matters was imperfect, but she understood the political dimension of her career very well.
“The important votes have already been taken,” Tork said. “Policy has been set and allocations have been made. It is our duty to make certain that the proper policy is implemented, and that no mistakes are made with regard to Fleet deployments and tactical doctrine.”
Kangas was going tolove this, Chen thought.
“I confess to reservations,” he said. “Aren’t we better employed being Lord Eino’s advocate with the Convocation? Few of the Lords Convocate have our experience in—”
“We are best employed by ensuring the destruction of the rebels and the restoration of the Praxis to the capital!” Tork declaimed. His voice took on the harsh, clanging, dogmatic overtones that others on the board had learned to dread. Lord Chen tried not to wince as the discord clashed in his skull.
Junior Fleet Commander Pezzini, the other Terran member of the board, gave a convulsive sneeze. Perhaps he’d gotten too strong a whiff of the chairman.
“My lord,” he said, “if we sit on top of Fleet Commander Kangas that way, it’s going to look as if we don’t trust him.”
“We will be ensuring the correct employment of the Home Fleet!”Tork said. His voice was like a razor blade shredding Chen’s nerves. Chen took another whiff of cologne.
“We have entrusted Lord Eino to make those deployments,” Pezzini said. His voice was firm. “It’s not our task to second-guess him.”
“We must not take chances!”In the small room the voice sounded like a blaring fire alarm.“The Fleet has been undermined by subversive activity and unsound doctrines!”
“The Fleet,” Pezzini said patiently, “will be undermined by a crisis of confidence if we spend months looking over Lord Eino’s shoulders.”
Lord Chen cast Pezzini a grateful look. He and Pezzini were often on opposite sides of board disputes, but at least Pezzini had been a serving officer, and understood how such a preemption of authority would look.
Tork, who had also been a serving officer, had either forgotten or never knew in the first place.
“Kangas must not be permitted any latitude!”Tork cried.“He must adhere without question to the ways of our ancestors!”
Lord Chen took a long breath. As Fleet recruits gradually built up a resistance to high gees, he and the others of the board had gradually steeled themselves against the chairman’s outbursts.
“Fleet Commander Kangas is not a child,” Chen said. “He does not require a nursemaid standing over him, particularly a nursemaid in the form of a committee.” As Tork turned his pale, frozen face to reply, Lord Chen slapped the table with his hand, making a sound like a gun crack. The others jumped.
Tork, Chen thought, wasn’t the only one in the room who could make a sonic attack.
“We must obey the dictates of the Praxis!” he said. “The Praxis states that there must be a completely clear chain of command, from the Fleet Commander to the lowliest recruit. For the Control Board to interfere in that relationship is a violation of theempire’s…fundamental …law!”
He slapped the table again on each of the last three words. Glasses of water and tea jumped. Tork gazed at Chen with his expressionless face, his gaping mouth and round eyes giving the impression of perpetual surprise.
“So can we please go to Laredo?” asked Lady Seekin, her voice a bit plaintive.
Of course they compromised. In the end the decision was taken to go to Antopone, where the board could hover between Laredo and Chijimo, and also supervise the three cruisers that were being constructed on Antopone’s ring.
At leastGalactic would berth on the ring, and Lord Chen knew he would have some time away from his colleagues. He had friends who had fled to Antopone from Zanshaa, and he could count on a gratifying reception from them.
He therefore wouldn’t have to put up with Laredo or the Martinez clan, with their rude accents and barbaric manners. And he would have at least a few hours of liberty from Tork and the others. He could look forward to Antopone with satisfaction.
But unfortunately Terza would not be staying with him. Her calm presence was the last reminder of his old life on Zanshaa, the days before Naxids and the Martinez clan became such oppressive presences in his life.
During the weeks it took to reach Antopone, the press of business never slackened. Tork, whatever his other faults, was a peerless organizer: somehow he managed to keep in his gray, bald head the details of recruitment and training, ship building and repair, logistics, and support for the entire Fleet. He read reports and dictated memoranda. He ordered supplies to be shipped from one location or another. He supervised the deployment of recruits from the training camps, and deployed officers to the ships building in the yards.
Lord Eino Kangas, reasonably free of interference, remained orbiting the Chijimo system with Home Fleet, which had lost not only its home but most of its ships. The Home Fleet proper had been reduced to the five
