The Shadow of Saganami

but there was a cool reserve behind those gray eyes. He made absolutely no effort to enter the conversation until Ragnhild and Aikawa had exchanged handclasps with Leo. Then those manly lips curved in a polite, distant smile.

'D'Arezzo, Paulo d'Arezzo,' he introduced himself, and extended his hand to Helen, who happened to be closest.

'Helen Zilwicki,' she replied, shaking it with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. Something flickered in the backs of his eyes, and she hid a mental grimace. Her accent was too pronounced to disguise even if she'd been inclined to try, and it seemed to have affected him very much as his too-beautiful face had affected her.

The other two newcomers introduced themselves in turn, and he greeted each of them with exactly the same, exactly correct, handshake. Then he nodded to Leo.

'You guys obviously already know each other,' he observed, manifestly unnecessarily, 'so I imagine Leo is better placed than I am to bring you up to speed.'

He gave them another polite smile and withdrew back into his book.

Helen looked at Ragnhild and Aikawa, then raised her eyebrows at Leo. The auburn-haired midshipman twitched his shoulders in a very slight shrug, then waved at the bunks.

'If this is all of us, and I think it is, we've got three extra berths. Paulo and I have already staked out two of the bottom berths-first-come, first-served, and all that-' he gave them a toothy grin '-but you three just go right ahead and divvy up the remainder however you like. Try not to get any blood on the decksole, though.'

'Some of us,' Helen observed, 'are capable of solving interpersonal disputes without violence.' She sniffed audibly and looked at the other two new arrivals. 'And in the name of settling any possible disputes amicably,' she said, 'I think it would be wise of you both to accept that one of the two remaining lower berths is mine.'

'Settle them 'amicably,' indeed!' Ragnhild snorted. 'You figure you'll get whatever you want just because you were an assistant unarmed combat instructor, and you know it.'

'Me?' Helen looked at her innocently. 'Have I issued a single threat? Have I suggested even for a moment that I might be willing to tie anyone else up into a pretzel?'

'As a matter of fact, yes,' Aikawa replied. She looked at him, and he waved one hand. 'Oh, not right this instant, perhaps, but all of us know you, by reputation, at least. We know what a brutal, intimidating person you can be, Helen Zilwicki. And we aren't going to be intimidated any longer, are we?'

He looked appealingly at the other middies. Ragnhild looked up at the deckhead, whistling tunelessly, and Leo chuckled.

'Don't look at me,' he said. 'I played soccer. And I kept as far away from unarmed combat as the instructors would let me. I never sparred with Helen, but I've heard about her. And if you think I'm going to piss off someone who taught some of the instructors , you're out of your mind.'

Everyone else laughed, including Helen, but there was a cold core of ugly memory under her laughter. She loved Neue-Stil Handgemenge , the judo derivative developed on New Berlin several centuries earlier, and she'd been fortunate enough during the time she and her father had spent on Old Earth to study under sensei Robert Tye, who was probably one of the galaxy's two or three most experienced practitioners of the Neue-Stil . She was intensely grateful for the discipline, physical and mental, and the sense of inner serenity the Neue-Stil had given her, and her workouts and training katas were like a soothing, graceful dance. But she had also used that same training to kill three men with her bare hands before she was fifteen T-years old, defending not simply herself, but also her adopted sister and brother.

'Well, since we've settled everything so democratically and all,' Aikawa said to Ragnhild after the laughter had faded, 'suppose you and I cut cards to see who gets the other lower berth?'

* * *

Helen had just finished unpacking her toiletries when the com terminal chimed softly. D'Arezzo, still reading his book, was closest to the unit and pressed the acceptance key quickly.

'Midshipmen's Berth, d'Arezzo speaking,' he said crisply.

'Good afternoon, Mr. d'Arezzo,' a soprano voice said as an attractive, red-haired woman's face appeared on the display. 'I'm Commander Lewis. I understand all of your fellow midshipmen have now arrived. Is that correct?'

'I think so, Commander,' d'Arezzo replied, just a bit cautiously. 'There are five of us present, at any rate, Ma'am.'

'Which is our complete complement,' Commander Lewis said with a nod. 'I've just heard from Commander FitzGerald that he's going to be delayed for another several hours. Under the circumstances, he's asked me to formally welcome all of you aboard. Would it be convenient for you to join me on the bridge?'

'Of course, Ma'am!' d'Arezzo replied instantly, without so much as glancing at his fellow midshipmen. It was the first thing about the too-pretty midshipman of which Helen unreservedly approved. A 'request' from a full commander, however politely phrased, was a direct command from God as far as any midshipwoman was concerned.

'Very well.' Lewis reached out, as if to switch off her com, then paused. 'Excuse me, Mr. d'Arezzo,' she said. 'I'd forgotten for a moment that you've all just reported aboard Hexapuma . Should I send a guide, just until you learn your way about?'

'No, thank you, Ma'am,' d'Arezzo said politely. 'I'm sure we can find our way.'

'Very well, then,' Lewis repeated. 'I'll see you on the bridge in fifteen minutes.'

'Aye, aye, Ma'am.'

This time, she did cut the circuit, and d'Arezzo looked up to see all four other middies looking at him rather intently. Something like a ghost of a smile twitched at his firmly formed lips, and he shrugged.

'What?' he asked.

'I hope you know what we're doing,' Ragnhild said dryly. 'Because I know I don't have a clue how to find the bridge from here.'

'Oh, I feel confident we could find it even from a cold start, if we had to,' he replied. 'As it happens, however...'

He slid his book viewer out into the center of the table, and Ragnhild bent over it. Then she chuckled suddenly and turned the viewer so the others could see it. It was a schematic of Hexapuma , and Helen felt her own mouth twitch in an unwilling smile. She still didn't care too much for the way d'Arezzo had buried himself in the viewer, ignoring everyone else, but at least what he'd been perusing so intently made more sense than the novel she'd assumed he was reading.

* * *

'As you know,' Commander Ginger Lewis said, sitting very upright in the chair at the head of the table in the captain's briefing room immediately off of Hexapuma's bridge, 'it's traditional for midshipmen and midshipwomen on their graduation cruises to be formally welcomed aboard their ships. Usually, that duty falls to either the executive officer or to the assistant tac officer, since she's normally the one who will serve as their officer candidate training officer for the deployment. Unfortunately, at the moment Commander FitzGerald, our XO, finds himself detained dealing with the yard dogs, and our ATO hasn't reported aboard yet. And so, Ladies and Gentlemen, you find yourselves stuck with me.'

She smiled with a curious blend of impishness, sympathy, and cool command.

'I find myself at something of a disadvantage, in some ways,' she continued, 'because I never attended the Academy. I was directly commissioned, and they put me through OCS aboard Vulcan . As a result, I never made a snotty cruise, so this particular rite of passage is outside my direct personal experience.'

Helen didn't move a single muscle, but she found herself studying Lewis much more intently. The commander looked young for her rank, even in a society with prolong. And now that Helen was paying attention to the medal ribbons on the breast of the Engineer's space-black tunic, she was impressed. They were headed by the Osterman Cross. The Osterman was about one notch below the Manticore Cross, and, like the MC, it could be awarded only for valor. Unlike the MC, however, it could be awarded only to enlisted personnel or noncommissioned officers. The Conspicuous Gallantry Medal kept the OC company, as did the red sleeve stripe which indicated the commander had been wounded in action and the additional stripe which indicated someone who had been mentioned in dispatches.