Adele's taxi clanked to a halt in front of a building larger though no better kept than the rest of those on the twisting street. The driver switched off the turbine of her little tractor; it slowed with a ringing sound that might've been normal and with an unpleasant keen of rubbing metal that probably wasn't.
"The palace of Lord Purvis!" the driver said to Adele with a flourish of her arm. A dozen men and a few women squatted in the strip of shade against the front wall of the building. One of the women appeared to be a tailor with a hand stitcher; she was sewing cuffs of contrasting material on the shirt of the fellow waiting bare-chested beside her.
The location agreed with the address given for Commander Adrian Purvis in the Admiralty Records in Government House . . . to the degree that The palace of Prince Pedro Sforza, in the Timber Merchants' Quarter was an address. It was a better address than the Cluster's Admiralty Records were records, certainly. Good God, these people's idea of a filing system was the electronic equivalent of throwing papers in a drawer! If Adele hadn't been very good at information retrieval, she'd never have been able to—
Adele slid the data unit away in its pocket as she got out of the wagon, shaking her head in self disgust. She was very good at information retrieval; and if she hadn't been, that would be her fault and not that of whatever passed for archivists here on Todos Santos. Besides, from what Daniel had muttered as he surveyed the Cluster fleet, the Admiralty was all of one sad piece with its records and the addresses of senior fleet officers.
"Twenty-five Cinnabar florins, gracious lady!" the driver said, getting off the bucket seat of her vehicle and bowing low. She ignored Tovera who stood at the back of the wagon, covering both traffic in the street and the idlers in front of the palace with alternate quick glances. "A pleasure to serve so great a personage as you!"
Adele hadn't seen any aircars in San Juan. Ground transport was eclectic and mostly of off-planet manufacture. The taxi she'd hired was a tractor running on continuous belts, which pulled a wooden cart whose pair of high wheels were almost certainly meant for a bicycle.
There were any number of other styles and ages of vehicles, often with a body of wood or wicker on ancient running gear. The closest thing to public conveyances were larger versions of the tractor-drawn cart Adele had ridden in, but though they followed more-or-less fixed routes, they didn't appear to keep any schedule.
"The correct charge is thirty piastres," Adele said, withdrawing a coin from the dispenser in her belt pouch. "A Cinnabar florin is worth about fifty, but I recognize that you'll have to exchange the coin for your local scrip; and there's the matter of the tip as well, so I won't require that you give me change."
When Adele called her cousin to set up the meeting, she'd asked what the proper fare from the harbor was. She'd refused his offer of an escort. While she wasn't hiding her presence in San Juan, neither did she want the sort of pomp that would convince even ordinary Alliance merchants and spacers in the city that she was more than a casual visitor. Letting people mistake her for a spy would be as damaging—and as dangerous—as if they identified her for valid reasons.
"What!" shouted the driver. "You insult me—"
She turned to engage the idlers in her harangue.
"—and you insult my planet!"
The palace was a courtyard building with three stories and a further false front along the street. The ground floor had no openings except a gate. The small windows of the second story and the larger ones of the third had iron lattices which seemed more functional than ornamental. The walls were mostly brick from which cream-colored stucco had flaked in large patches, but every six feet or so there was a tie course of pinkish stone.
One of the iron-bound gate-leaves was open. Guards lounged in the shade of the tunnel beyond, silhouetted against the bright courtyard where servants were hanging up laundry.
"Do you foreigners think you can come to Todos Santos and rob her hardworking citizens?" the driver cried.
Vehicles were moving slowly enough in the narrow street that passengers turned their heads to listen. The idlers were interested also. One man got to his feet, glowering. The woman beside him dug a stone out of the packed dust before she rose. Tovera shifted slightly.
Adele strode briskly to the half-open gate. An idler whose striped garment had been sewn from one piece of cloth shifted to block her, then saw what glinted in Adele's hand half out of her pocket. He jumped back and muttered to his fellow without taking his eyes off Adele.
"A Mundy is threatened!" Adele called to the lounging guards. Her voice rang through the arched tunnel and into the courtyard beyond. "Will a Purvis let her be beaten at his doorstep?"
The guards jumped to their feet, their equipment clattering. There were six armed men wearing scarves in the orange-and-blue Purvis colors. A dozen others, mostly women, were either spouses or house servants relaxing with the guards. A boy cooked skewered vegetables on a miniature gas grill in the corner of the closed gate leaf and the wall.
"What's this?" demanded a man with pistols holstered on crossed bandoliers instead of a shoulder weapon like the other guards. From his accent he'd been born on Cinnabar, a crewman from the Aristoxenos. The rest of the guards appeared to be locals.
"I'm Mundy of Chatsworth, Commander Purvis' cousin!" Adele said. "This scum and her henchmen—"
She pointed at the taxi driver, now standing open-mouthed with a blank expression. She'd backed against the saddle of her tractor.
"—have attempted to rob me!"
"Clear 'em away!" the guard commander said, drawing his pistols. "Bloody hell! Clear 'em away now!"
He stepped into the street but waited beside Adele against the gate leaf. His men rushed out, swinging impeller butts at anybody they could catch. The hangers-on followed, wielding belts, staves, and what looked like a pair of circular knitting needles.
The victims fled instead of trying to resist. Adele presumed that the guards would've opened fire as blithely as they clubbed their weapons if anybody'd been fool enough to object to a beating.
The driver lay sprawled in the street. Tovera had remained on the other side of the wagon, out of the way. Now she leaned over the tractor and grasped the driver by the collar. With a strength surprising in her slight form to anybody who hadn't seen it before, she dragged the woman over her saddle and left her dangling there.
Blood smudged the yellow dust; an impeller butt had smashed the driver's nose and cheekbones. Twenty-five florins—twenty-four, really—wasn't so very much, but the honor of a Mundy was worth life itself. . . .
Tovera switched on the tractor's turbine, then dropped it into gear and stepped back. The vehicle trundled awkwardly away, down a street which had emptied when the trouble started. Tovera walked over to Adele, the attaché case under her left arm and her right hand resting lightly on it.
The commander of the guard holstered his pistols, then wiped his brow with the corner of his neckscarf. His men and their entourage were trooping back into the gateway, chattering merrily. One woman was showing her companion a necklace of perforated coins and uncut stones that Adele remembered the tailor having worn.
"Sebastian!" he said to a soldier wiping the butt of his impeller clean on his shirt tail. "Take Lady Mundy to see Himself. And don't be daft enough to ask her for a tip or you'll get worse than the dogs just did."
"With me, mistress," Sebastian said, bowing low. His finger was through his impeller's trigger guard; the muzzle waggled in a broad sweep that would've included Adele's head if she hadn't ducked. He turned and swaggered into the courtyard.
"Very nicely done, mistress," Tovera murmured in Adele's ear as they followed the soldier. "If I'd dealt with them myself, they'd probably have declared us enemies of the state and had the army kill us."
She giggled. "Not that I care, of course," she added. "But you would."
"Yes," said Adele. "I suppose I would."
They crossed the courtyard. A balcony screened by a carved lattice projected from the upper—the second—floor of the wing directly opposite. Guards sat beneath the woven mat strung over the base of the outside staircase. They got up as Sebastian and his charges approached.
"The Chief says these two go to see Himself at once!" Sebastian said to another former Cinnabar spacer, this time a tired-looking woman with a chain of alternating hearts and RCN monograms tattooed around her throat.
"Yeah, well, that's for me to say, ain't it?" the woman said. She touched the communicator clipped to her epaulette.
Before she could speak into it, one of the sections of lattice pivoted up and a familiar face peered down. "Adele, is that you already?" called Adrian Purvis. "Come up, come up! We've been discussing the situation ever since you called."
And lest Adele wonder who her cousin meant by "we," another section of lattice raised. She recognized that face also, from images she'd studied in preparation for the present mission. She hadn't met Admiral O'Quinn before in the flesh.
Daniel had released the starboard watch, the riggers from the port watch, and all the officers save himself, Pasternak, and Vesey. Woetjans and the regular crewmen were gone, cutting a swathe through the nearest bars and brothels, but the other officers save Adele—on business of her own, nothing Daniel needed or wanted to know about—and the Purser, Stobart, watched solemnly from the outriggers as Daniel and the Chief Engineer inspected the thrusters. Even Stobart was gone only because he had to arrange for stores to replace those used up on the voyage out from Cinnabar.
Daniel sat in the inflatable raft which mechanics holding ropes on both outriggers steadied. Pasternak stood in front of Daniel with his head in a thruster nozzle.
After a moment he lowered the laser micrometer and said, "Down three millimeters is all, and the throat's as smooth as a baby's butt. Sir, I could turn these into a quartermaster's store as unused if I waited for Monday morning and got a clerk with a hangover!"
"By God, didn't I bloody tell you, Betts?" Sun said, clapping the Chief Missileer on the back. "There's no jinx with Mr. Leary in command. Why, when he was captain before, not even Mr. Mon could bugger our luck!"
"Bridge watch to Six," Vesey called. "Sir, there's a crowd coming this way. Maybe it's a parade, but there's soldiers at the front and what looks like a little tank or something. Over."
"Bridge, I'll meet them on the dock," Daniel said, frowning. "Killian, haul me over to your side; Pachey, loose your line. Lively now, we've got company coming!"
Sun got a hard expression and climbed the outrigger's telescoping strut instead of bothering with the ladder to the main hatch. He'd been a motorman working on High Drives before his rating made him the Sissie's acting gunner. Betts was older, heavier and probably never as active, but he mounted the ladder with similar grim haste.
"Don't do anything obvious with the weapons!" Daniel shouted as the two warrant officers disappeared into the hull. He jumped to the outrigger himself. Instead of boarding, he trotted to the cable which moored the corvette to the quay. Over his shoulder he added, "Mr. Pasternak, check the High Drive on your own, if you will!"
Daniel hopped over the funnel-shaped rat-guard midway along the cable—they didn't stop rats either, that he'd seen—and stepped to the stone quay. He was wearing utilities—a clean pair since he wasn't going to be working on the drive units, just observing the inspection—and a billed cap. Apart from the single stars embroidered in black on his lapels, he could've passed for one of the common spacers. It wasn't the outfit in which to greet an official delegation, and that was definitely what was coming along the quay toward the Princess Cecile.
There were soldiers, all right, but the six in the front rank were playing instruments of orange thermoplastic extruded into trumpet shapes. The amplified music was loud, stirring, and—except for crackles of static from one of the trumpetoids—perfectly in tune.
The troops behind were armed to the teeth, generally with laser packs rather than electromagnetic impellers, but this clearly wasn't an attack. The vehicle—Vesey's "little tank or something"—was a utility tractor with steel sides welded onto the rear bin. An automatic impeller was mounted on a pintle there, but for this event the gun was aimed skyward. Patterned fabrics draped the sides.
Maybe they're coming for the Count, Daniel thought. A Novy Sverdlovsk flag, yellow silk blazoned with a red eagle, hung from the tip of the mast which was extended over the quay, but the Klimovs had gone into San Juan as soon as the slip cooled down enough for Daniel to open the hatches.
He'd sent ten crew under a petty officer as the Klimovs' escort. The assigned spacers escaped maintenance duties and might be able to relax some themselves, depending on circumstances.
Lamsoe and Tulane were on guard at the main hatch as part of the anchor watch. They joined Daniel on the quay, holding their sub-machine guns so that they were ready but not threatening. They didn't look worried, but they obviously weren't happy with the situation. No spacer is happy with a surprise, even if it's a fresh meal twenty days out.
The tractor stopped. The statuesque, gorgeously-dressed woman in the box glanced over the corvette and the three spacers on the quay. She settled her gaze on Daniel, and said, "Daniel Leary, son of Corder Leary, of Bantry? Governor Sakama Hideki sends his greetings and says he'll be pleased to accept your visit at once."
Three servants who'd walked behind the vehicle set the boarding ladder they carried against the side of the box. "If you'll mount," said the woman, "we'll be off immediately."
"Yes," said Daniel. There were quite a lot of things he could've said, all of which would've been a waste of time and breath. "Ship—" cueing his commo helmet "—this is Six. I'm calling on Governor Sakama. Mr. Chewning is in charge until I return. Six out."
He looked at the two spacers, then pointed to the flag hanging limp from the mast eight feet overhead. "Lamsoe?" he said. "Can you and Tulane get me that flag now? Don't hurt it any more than you need to."
"Roger," Lamsoe said, slinging his weapon over his neck. Tulane, a beefy man who'd won squadron trophies for all-in wrestling when he was younger, laced his fingers into a stirrup. Lamsoe settled his foot into it and said, "Go!" Tulane hurled his partner onto the mast.
Lamsoe locked his legs around the tube and snicked out the blade of his multitool. The lanyard was of woven boron monocrystal, nothing an ordinary knife would cut. Two quick strokes left the grommets still reeved to the line and the corner-cropped flag fluttering down into Daniel's hands.
Daniel tied the vivid silk as a sash around the waist of his mottled gray fatigues. The Governor probably meant to put him off-balance by not giving him time to dress for a formal reception. That was a clever move of its kind; as a tactician himself, Daniel could respect the subtlety of the mind which had devised it. But an RCN officer ought to be able to teach wogs a thing or two about field expedients!
"I'm very glad for the chance to meet his excellency the Governor," Daniel said as he strode to the boarding ladder. He mounted, glancing over his shoulder at the Princess Cecile.
Only someone very familiar with the corvette would have noticed the change from ten minutes earlier. The dorsal turret was still aligned with the ship's axis, but the twin plasma cannon were minusculely elevated from their locked position. In the best tradition of the RCN, Sun had his guns ready for whatever happened next.