any genuine opposition since Protipanu, at the very beginning of their raid. If the Naxids analyzed the raiders’ maneuvers, then reasoned backward to find what the tactics were intended to prevent, they would be able to see that Michi Chen and her squadron was concerned about a missile barrage fired at relativistic velocities.
If the tactic hadn’t yet occurred to the Naxids, Chenforce might now be handing them the idea.
But that was a worry for another day. For the present it was enough to see that the ranging lasers were finding nothing, that more and more of the system was being revealed without an enemy being found, and that Chenforce was as safe from attack as it was ever going to be.
Eight hours after they entered the new system, Martinez finally asked permission from Michi to secure from general quarters, andIllustrious dropped to a lower level of alert. He returned to his paperwork, but it was all he could do to avoid calling the officer of the watch every few minutes to make certain the squadron wasn’t flying into jeopardy.
Days passed. Martinez conducted regular inspections to learn his ship and crew and to confirm the information reported on the 77-12s. He dined in rotation with Lord Phillips, who was scarcely more talkative than at their previous meeting; with Lieutenant Lady Juliette Corbigny, whose nervous chatter was a contrast to her silence in the presence of the squadcom; and with Acting Lieutenant Lord Themba Mokgatle, who had been promoted to the vacancy left as Chandra shuttled to Michi’s staff.
Late one day, as Martinez sipped his cocoa and gazed at the painting of the woman, child, and cat, he realized that there was another figure, a man who sat on a bed opposite the fire from the woman and her baby. He hadn’t noticed him because the painting was dark and needed cleaning, and the man wasn’t illuminated by the fire. One moment he wasn’t there, and the next Martinez suddenly saw him, head bent with a stick or staff in his hands, appearing like a ghost from behind the painted red curtain.
He couldn’t have been more surprised if the cat had jumped from the picture into his lap.
The dim figure on the canvas was the only discovery Martinez managed during that period. The killer or killers of Captain Fletcher remained no more than a phantom. Michi grew ever more irritable, and snapped at him and Garcia both. Sometimes Martinez caught a look in her eye that seemed to say,If you weren’t family …
In time, after the first breathless rush of taking command was over, he was reminded that there were too many captains’ servants on the ship. He had Garcia take Rigger Espinosa and Machinist Ayutano into the Constabulary, with the particular duty of patrolling the decks on which the officers were quartered. Buckle the hair stylist was sent to aid the ship’s barber. Narbonne was taken onto Martinez’s service as an assistant to Alikhan, a demotion that Narbonne seemed to resent.
That left Baca, the fat, redundant cook that no one seemed to want, and Jukes. Baca was eventually taken on as an assistant to Michi’s cook, a post he wasn’t happy about either, and that left Martinez with his own personal artist.
Martinez called Jukes into his office to give him the news, and the man turned up in Fleet-issued undress and managed to brace rather professionally in salute. Martinez decided that tonight he must have gotten to Jukes before Jukes got to the sherry.
“I’ve been playing with a design forIllustrious, ” Jukes said. “Based on folk motifs from Laredo. Would you like to see it?”
Martinez said he would. Jukes downloaded from his sleeve to the wall display, and revealed a three- dimensional model of anIllustrious, covered with large, jagged geometric designs in violent shades of red, yellow, and black. Nothing more unlike Fletcher’s subtle, intricate pattern of pink, white, and pale green could be imagined.
Martinez looked in surprise at the cruiser, which was rotating in the display, and managed to say, “That’s very different.”
“That’s the point. Anyone looking atIllustrious is going to know that Captain Martinez is on station, and that he’s a bold skipper who’s not afraid to stand out from the common run of officers.”
Martinez suspected that he already stood out more than was good for him. He knew that Lord Tork, head of the Fleet Control Board, was not about to forgive him for achieving such prominence so quickly, not when the Fleet’s whole style was based on letting family connections quietly work behind the scenes to further elevate those who had been already elevated from birth. As far as the board was concerned, any further glory won by Martinez would only be at the expense of more deserving Peers, that he should have taken his promotion and decoration and been happy to return to the obscurity from whence he’d come.
Flying that gaudy red and yellow design anywhere within Tork’s domain would shriek his presence aloud in the ears of a superior who never wanted to hear his voice again. It would be like buying media time to advertise himself.
But Tork was already a lost cause,Martinez thought. A little advertising wasn’t going to change anything. So why not?
“Have you considered interiors?” he asked.
Jukes had. Martinez looked at designs for the office and dining room, both as brazen as the exterior designs, one dominated by verdant jungle green and the other by dark reds and yellows that suggested sandstone cliffs standing over a desert.
“Keep working along these lines,” Martinez said. “And if another theme occurs to you, feel free to work it out. We’ve got a lot of time.” It would be ages beforeIllustrious saw a dock or underwent a refit—the raid into Naxid space would last at least another couple months, and then the Fleet would have to reunite to retake Zanshaa.
There was a whole war betweenIllustrious and any new paint job.
Still, Martinez saw no reason not to plan for a grand triumph and its aftermath, in which he could decorateIllustrious as if it were his private yacht. For the odds were that either he would experience a grand triumph or be blown to atoms, and for his part, he’d rather assume the former.
“I should mention at this point, my lord,” Jukes said, “that Captain Fletcher was paying me sixty zeniths per month.”
“I looked up the captain’s accounts, and he paid you twenty,” Martinez said. “For my part, I propose to pay you fifteen.”
As Martinez spoke, Jukes’s expressions went from smug confidence to chagrin to horror. He stared at Martinez as if he’d just turned into a creature with scales and fangs. Martinez tried not to laugh.
“I don’tneed a personal artist,” he explained. “I’d rather have a rigger first class, but I don’t expect I’ll get one.”
Jukes swallowed hard. “Yes, my lord.”
“And I was thinking,” Martinez said, “that when things become a little less busy, you might begin a portrait.”
“A portrait,” Jukes repeated dully. He didn’t seem to be thinking very well through his shock, because he asked, “Whose portrait, my lord?”
“The portrait of a bold skipper not afraid to stand above the common run of officers,” Martinez said. “I should look romantic and dashing and very much in charge. I shall be carrying the Golden Orb, andCorona andIllustrious should be in the picture too. Any other details I leave to you.”
Jukes blinked several times, as if he’d had to reprogram part of his mind and the blinks were elements of his internal code.
“Very good, my lord,” he said.
Martinez decided he might as well pay Jukes a compliment and take his mind off his misfortunes. “Thank you for changing the pictures in my cabin,” he said. “The view is now a considerable improvement.”
“You’re welcome.” Jukes took a breath and made a visible effort to reengage with the person sitting before him. “Was there a piece you particularly liked? I could locate other works in that style.”
“The one with the woman and the cat,” Martinez said. “Though I don’t think I’ve seen any painting quite in that style anywhere.”
Jukes smiled. “It’s not precisely typical of the painter’s work. That’s a very old Northern European piece.”
Martinez looked at him. “And North Europe is where, exactly?”
“Terra, my lord. The painting dates from before the Shaa conquest. Though I should say theoriginal painting, because this may be a copy. It’s hard to say, because all the documentation is in languages no one speaks anymore, and hardly anyone reads them.”
“Itlooks old enough.”
