survivors of Magaria, all heavy cruisers, to which had been added an additional seven heavy cruisers of Faqforce, the Lai-own divisions commanded by Squadron Commander Do-faq. These twelve vessels were hardly a match for the nearest enemy, the forty-three Naxid ships known to be at Zanshaa.
If the enemy advanced, Kangas would have no choice but to fly before them, surrendering any systems the Naxids chose to threaten. But the Naxids didn’t seem to be interested in advancing. They remained at Zanshaa, guarding the capital while their government sank its roots into the soil below. They seemed confident that the remaining loyalists would surrender.
But the loyalists had no intention of surrendering. More than half the loyalist fleet, Chenforce under Michi Chen and Light Squadron 14 under the Torminel Squadron Commander Altasz, plunged on separate raids into rebel-held systems, there to demonstrate that while the rebels might have the capital, the rest of their domain wasn’t safe.
The strategy of abandoning the capital and defending nowhere while building forces and raiding into enemy territory was referred to as the Chen Plan. In fact the plan had been developed by Captain Martinez and Lady Sula, but neither of them were sufficiently important or free enough from controversy to deserve having the Fleet’s strategic aims named after them. So Lord Chen, who had first presented the plan to the board, had his name appended to it, and his career would rise or fall with its success.
While Tork managed the business of the Fleet, while Kangas orbited Chijimo with his outnumbered force, while warships were building on many worlds, while the representatives of the Investigative Service bickered over fine points of interpretation with their rivals in the Intelligence Service, while the Naxids occupied the capital and Lord Chen’s sister and son-in-law advanced with their squadron into the unknown, Lord Chen occupied himself sending messages to his friends on Antopone.
It would be such a relief to see them again.
So much for my clever disguise,Sula thought. Blond hair dyed black, green eyes turned brown, pale skin darkened, and she couldn’t even fool someone of PJ Ngeni’s…extremely localized intelligence.
PJ had recovered his equilibrium somewhat, and the reflexes of a man of fashion came to the fore. “You must let me give you dinner at my club,” he said.
Sula dropped PJ’s arm and indicated her gray coveralls. “We’re not exactly dressed for it, PJ,” she said.
He touched his little mustache. “We’ll order in, then.”
Sula felt a nervous giggle flutter like a butterfly in her abdomen. The jolt of adrenaline that had followed PJ’s blurting of her name was followed by an equally powerful impulse to break the tension with laughter.
“I don’t think you should be seen with us,” Sula said through her breaking smile. “We’re wanted by the Naxids. If you’re caught with us, you’ll be tortured and killed.”
PJ waved a hand. “Oh,” he said,“that.”
Lord Pierre J. Ngeni was a tall, slim, elegant man, not quite middle-aged, with a long balding head and clothes of a modish cut. It was generally believed he’d wasted his inheritance on the usual dissipations available to members of his class, and now—for a Peer—he was poor, and living largely on the charity of his clan.
Sula knew PJ because he’d once been engaged to Gareth Martinez’s sister Sempronia. This, Martinez had clearly explained to her, had been a sham engagement, yet another of Martinez’s attempts to clamber from his obscure provincial origins into the cream of Zanshaa society. An engagement to a member of his patron clan, the Ngenis, would guarantee access for Martinez and his siblings to the highest levels of the city. After Martinez and his family had won access, Sempronia would be at liberty to discover, to her horror, that PJ had led a scandalous life, and then break the engagement.
The chief fault of the plan was that PJ Ngeni, himself, had never realized his engagement was a travesty. He’d fallen in love with Sempronia, who in her turn had rebelled at the very idea of a burlesque engagement and run off with one of Martinez’s lieutenants. The resulting scandal had threatened to unhinge the relationship between the Ngenis and Clan Martinez, and another sister entirely had been offered as a family sacrifice. PJ traded a farce of an engagement for a mockery of a marriage.
Since the Martinez family had sensibly cleared out before the Naxids arrived, as had the Ngenis, the fact that the new bridegroom had been left behind did not speak well for PJ’s conjugal condition.
“We’ll bring in a nice dinner,” PJ continued amiably, “and open a bottle of wine. Oh—sorry—I forgot you don’t drink.”
“PJ,” Sula said, “what are youdoing here?”
PJ shrugged. “I volunteered to stay behind and guard the family’s interests on Zanshaa,” he said. “Not that there are very many interests left, barring some property. But we still have clients here, and some old servants that we’ve pensioned off, and I’m doing my best to look after them.” He looked at Sula, then glanced over his shoulder at Macnamara. “Do I know your friend?” he asked.
“I don’t believe so. Call him Starling.” Which was Macnamara’s code name.
PJ was amiability itself. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Starling.”
Macnamara gave a terse nod. “My lord.”
PJ hesitated as he peered along the street. “If I’m going to give you dinner,” he said, “we should be walking in the, ah, theother direction.” He pointed the way they had come.
“You’re staying in the Ngeni Palace?”
“The palace is closed. The servants have been dismissed, and the pensioners sent to our place in the country. I’m in a guest cottage.”
“No cooks? No servants?”
“Someone from an agency comes in to clean. And I either eat at one of my clubs or call for delivery from a caterer.”
Sula looked at Macnamara, who gave her an equivocal look.Up to you, Sula read.
“It sounds safe enough,” she ventured. She turned to PJ. “Go ahead of us, please. If we walked together it would look odd.”
PJ was bemused but led the way. He passed his smoking club again and then crossed the boulevard, where he led them past the Makish Palace. Sula tried to amble casually along, and as she passed the palace she paused to shift her toolbox from one hand to the next. She paid as much attention to the abandoned palace next door as she did to her target. From the name inscribed in a sunburst over the doorway,Orghoder, Sula assumed the empty building had been built by a Torminel clan.
The Ngeni Palace wasn’t on the Boulevard of the Praxis, but several streets behind, backed against the gray cliffside for a stunning view of the Lower Town. The palace itself was tall, faced with veined pink marble, and nearly a cube, with a huge glass-fronted, barrel-vaulted hall visible from the street. PJ didn’t enter the palace, but took them around by a side entrance, then past a huge old banyan tree that looked as if it might have been standing on the High City since the dawn of time.
His “cottage” was three stories tall and probably had twenty rooms, but PJ seemed only to be living in a small part of it. He ushered his guests into a parlor, one with a view of the flagstone terrace that overlooked the Lower Town. PJ went to the comm unit concealed in a dramatic commode of arcule wood, ordered dinner for three from a caterer who seemed to know him, then closed the commode and turned to his guests.
“Well!” he said brightly. “So you’re alive after all, Lady Sula!”
“Yes.” The laugh that had been struggling to escape from her finally broke free, and she indulged it. “I hardly expected to see anyone I knew.”
“That’s lucky, isn’t it?” PJ seemed pleased. “I’m glad I’m able to be of service.” He reached for the drink trolley. “What may I give you to drink? Whisky, Mr. Starling?”
Sula looked at him. “Whatever you’ve got that doesn’t have alcohol. And what did you mean ‘service’?”
PJ looked at her. “You’re obviously in, ah, straitened circumstances. You can stay here with me, of course, and I’m good for any tailor’s bills you may run up.” He patted his pockets. “Do you need any ready money?”
Sula’s laugh rose again, unstoppable, and went on for some time. PJ hesitated, a half-hurt expression coming over his face. Sula controlled the laughter.
“PJ, you’re wonderful!” she cried, and his expression turned from hurt to pleased. “We don’t need money,” she told him. “We’re just dressed this way because, well, we’re just taking a look around, and we don’t want people to look atus. ”
PJ nodded, then hesitated again. A massive, startling thought worked its slow way across his face. “Oh!” he
