Текст книги "Tripoint "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

… civilized powers couldn't keep the Mazianni out of them, and the Military had dismantled the stations.

So they said.

"Tink. " He felt stupid asking, at this late date. "Where are we going?"

"Tripoint. Just Tripoint to Viking."

So mundane it shook him, after the giddy speculation he'd just made. He wasn't even sure he'd have believed it, if it hadn't come from Tink.

"Where's the Fleet connection?" he asked. It was just the three of them in the galley, Tink, Jamal, himself.

And a silence.

Then: "Tripoint," Tink said. That was all. The silence outweighed curiosity, reminding him Tink wasn't innocent. Saby wasn't. Nobody on this ship was. Now he wasn't, because he'd voluntarily come back aboard.

He'd been in a position, while he was free, to do everything Marie would have done—whatever it might have cost him. But he hadn't. Hadn't wanted to—thinking about himself. Then Tink. Then Saby, after which… he guessed now he was where he wanted to be, scared, lost—queasy at the stomach as the burn kept up, getting them up to the vPell would let them carry in its inner zones.

And very, very lonely, just now. Cut off from everything and everyone he'd grown up with. From everything he'd been taught was right and wrong, good and bad.

Burn cut out.

"That's about 10 kips," Tink said. "Out andaway from Downbelow's pull. We're outbound now."

"How long have we got? Days? Hours?"

"Four hours inside the slow zones," Jamal said. "Two meals to two shifts, fast as we can turn 'em, and all the resupply at the posts. You make coffee?"

"I can learn. " He stood away from the wall, steady on his feet. Movement was starting down the corridor, a drift of mainday crew past the tables… "Serving line's not open yet,"

Jamal yelled out, which roused no complaint, but faces were grim-Ship, he heard. People weren't happy, and it didn't have to do with the line not being open. While Jamal and Tink hauled the serving-pans out and settled them on the counter, he opened up the cabinet and got out the coffee and the filters, listening all the while.

Something about a ship following them.

Marie? he asked himself. His heart skipped a beat, two, recalling what Austin had said, that Marie might come here.

Then he heard another word. Mazianni. And he stopped cold, asking himself what in hell was going on, that Corinthianhad to worry.

Didn't they supply the Fleet? Weren't they on the same side?

He looked at Tink. Tink looked grim, too.

"Aren't they friendlies?" he asked Tink. "What are they talking about?"

"Dunno," Tink said. "But, no, they ain't, all of' em. Not by a long shot."

—ii—

"I DON'T FEEL SORRY FOR YOU," Austin said, for openers. "Not one damn bit. Am I going to hear you whimper, or what?"

"You don't get to hear anything," Christian said, and sank into the well-worn interview chair. "You're not interested. Do I get to go back to the bridge now? We've got a ship pulled away from dock. You might be interested."

"You have a seriously maladjusted psyche, Mr. Bowe."

"I have a seriously warped sense of values, captain, sir, that would indicate to me the captain might have advised me, rather than leave me and the second chief navigator outside the information loop. I hope you enjoyed your joke. I hope you enjoyed it a lot. Because thanks to our rattling around back there on Pell docks, that's a Mazianni spotter behind us. That's a ship called Silver Dream, based at Fargone, if you haven't noticed before this."

"Let me recall how, also leading to this event, we had a deal with an Earth-bound ship that I didn't authorize. Let me recall…"

"Let me recall we're not talking about a personal matter. If Family Boy and cousin Saby want to screw each other blue in lower main, fine, that's their judgment, I'm glad they had a good time while we were turning the bars upside down and knocking on every door on Pell. So that's all right, they're in a room somewhere on your credit, thanks ever so much—but the burning question's still that ship back there. I'm sorry I blacked brother's eye, just for God's sake pay attention to what I'm saying."

"Attention? Did I hear the word, Attention?"

"Listen to me! Damn you, will you just one time listen to me?"

"Mister, I have the most shocking revelation for you. Your discoveries of the universe are twenty years behind mine, your insights and your wisdom do not overreach my own, your outrage at the situation does not outmatch mine, and I am moved at this moment to leave this chair and explain to you physically the same rules my father explained to me the week I made my own most egregious mistake, except that I swore that I'd lean a bit heavier on communication and a little less to the fist. WhichI do, in consequence.—So what was it you had to say?"

"I said… " He fought for self-control. And quiet in his voice. "I said, We should lay back in Pell system, go slow… this guy's not hauling, I'll lay you money he's not hauling. He's certainly armed with more than the ordinary. Capella says… he's some different faction of the Fleet."

"Welcome to the real universe. Different factions of the Fleet. I'm amazed."

"Be serious, dammit."

"I am. Very serious. Decades of seriousness. " Austin rocked his chair back, crossed his leg over his knee, folded his hands on his stomach. "Has it ever struck you, Christian, this fragmentation, this stupid factionalization of the Fleet that should have defended civilization,—says something about the human condition? That enemies are much more essential to our happiness than friends? That our rivals shape our ethics, and our failures define our goals? Seems so, from the business on our own deck. Screw Mazian. And Mallory. But what a miserable, stupidend it comes to."

"It's one damn ship out there! Quit talking about endings and give me some of that experience you claim to have."

"Scared, Mr. Bowe?"

"Screw you!"

"If you can't mate with it, eat it, or wear it, it's no good? I thought that was your philosophy. Maybe it can do something about the ship back there."

"Cut it out! You've made your point. Let's talk about that ship, let's talk about what to do—"

"Shoot at it, maybe? Or stall us insystem? I think that was Capella's advice. Fine for her. But not for us."

"You're running scared! You're more scared of Marie Hawkins than—"

"Than that spotter? No."

"Then, damn you, quit joking. I don't know when you're listening."

"You could ask."

"I could take it for granted, if you weren't such a bastard."

"Never take anyone's listening for granted. Children teach you that. Any other divine revelations? Human insights? Moderately wise notions?"

Christian set his hands on the chair arms, to get up. "That I've got things to do. I've had it. I'm through. I'm not listening, after this."

"Oh, give me some news. This isn't it."

"Damn you, pay attention to something but your ego! Capella says the other faction wants her—with the navigational data she has in her head. She's saying they'd go after us to get her."

"Ah. Information. Finally."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

Austin shrugged. "I'll let you know."

"What kind of an answer is that?"

"Exactly that. Go see to your own business. I'm offduty, you're on, good luck, good night, stay out of trouble. Meanwhile, consider that the woman you're sleeping with might just possibly have motives of her own."

"Oh, that's right, drive a wedge, plant suspicion—"

Austin rocked his chair back. "God, this is boring. Wake me when you have a thought."

"Damn you!"

"Still waiting."

God, he wanted to get up, walk out… he hatedAustin in this damned, superior mode, this smug, condescending spite. He'd interrupted. He knew the pose.

"Father, sir,– whatwere you about to say?"

"Ah. About Capella? Her advice to stay in port… was better for her than for us."

"Because we'rerunning from the Hawkins ship?"

"Because we can't keep this ship sitting at dock running up charges, boy, basic economics."

"Your real reason, damn you."

"Through putting words in my mouth?"

"Yes, father. " Through clenched jaw. "Please."

"Because that ship is going to sit out there at Tripoint and wait as long as we can wait. Very simple. We can't avoid it. We can't outwait it. I'm afraid your friend Capella would like to stay at dock simply because there's a chance of a ship coming in that she can skip to, quietly, so when Corinthiandoes meet with trouble… she won't be on it."

"Forgive me, but I don't read her that way."

"I used to be that naive."

A biting remark was on his tongue. He didn't vent it. "Can we talk about the ship, sir? It's going to overjump us. I agree it's going to be waiting for us when we get there. It's going to read our entry shock and it's going to fire on it,"

"Yes."

"Then what do we do?"

"If they know precisely where we're going, not damn much we can do. We hope that's not the case. We've got til our wave reaches them and their response, whatever it is, reaches us. We hope that's a long distance, that's what we do."

"That can't be all! They could be sitting right onour drop-point—"

"Why would they want Capella?"

"Because she knows a lotof Fleet drop points. Not just this one. Because they don't want to blow up the ship she's on."

"Possibly. Also—possibly because she knows the Tripoint drop and they don't. It's a lot of space to search, for something the size of a freighter. You can bet the dissident factions have tried to find it and you can hope they've failed. If they need her, we'll have whatever advantage she can give us. And she's not anxious to die. Or fall into their hands. So I do trust Capella—that she'll do what she does very well."

"So what do you want me to set up for you, on the boards? Any changes in config? In defaults, in display?"

"No. Nothing unusual."

"Dammit, this isn't a game."

"You've seen that. Good. This is not a drill. In the event of this actual emergency… we'll hand off thirty minutes before jump. Meanwhile, I need my nap."

"You're not actually going to sleep."

"I think so. I'll have my dinner. Catch an hour or so. See you. Good luck. Don't screw things too badly."

"God, I hate you."

Humor left Austin's expression, ever so briefly. And returned, like a mask. "You used to say that when you didn't get your way. Sorry, this one depends on that ship out there. I say again, don't screw it."

There was silence. He got up, slowly, and walked out. The door hissed shut.

He stood outside, against the wall, for some few moments, telling himself calm down, actually confusedly sorryabout that parting shot, for the way Austin had looked for half a heartbeat. He'd never scored on Austin like that. Never gotten Austin's real expression in an argument. In retrospect, maybe that was what scared him. As if Austin was somehow and for a moment wide open to him—as if, maybe Austin wasn't expecting to come out of this mess.

But, hell, Austin had been in the War, Austin had shepherded Corinthianthrough fire and mines and stray ordnance, only a couple of times taken damage, Austin had gotten them out of far worse, while he'd shivered inside the pillow-padded storage bin where Saby hid with him, Saby swearing it was going to be all right, the ship was going to move hard for a while, Austin and Beatrice were doing it, don't be scared, Chrissy, don't be scared—while Saby shivered, too, and half-broke his bones when the g-force built, and you didn't know when it would stop, or when it did, you didn't know why, or what could hit you, or when.

Never forgot those years. The nerves had still been there when he was sixteen, worse, maybe, that he'd only heard later what was going on, never so that he could pin this sensation to that movement… impressions all muddled up in a three-year-old's memory, a five-year-old's terror.

For sixteen, seventeen years he'd been spooked by jump, by the g-forces, by the whole feeling of a ship doing what a ship did. But Capella had laughed him through his terrors, Capella had snared him in other sensations, taught him to enjoy the craziness, to see the dimensions as other than up and down and falling. Austin was wrong about her—Capella had come to him on the docks, not the other way around: he hadn't thought of that argument against Austin's suspicions, he always thought of the telling ones after the door was shut.

He could trust her. Trust her with his life, absolutely.

With his half-brother—hell, cancel that. Don't think about it. Elder brother was stronger, faster, smarter, any adjective you wanted, he was also god-awfully clean-minded, noble, true, and honest. A thorough-going bore.

Dance, she'd said, light flickering around her, the music drowned in the drum-beat, the equation of a different space glowing below the bracelet, and no damn guarantee the enemies she was avoiding weren't going to walk through that door.

They'd been in mortal danger. He hadn't thought about it. Capella had been waiting for it. Wanting, maybe, a chance at it on the dockside, where her enemies were much more vulnerable.

Or… maybe keeping Austin guessing, whether she'd board or not. And making Austin know he might force her to board—but work for him?

God. God, he'd been blind. Focused on the wrong problem. Again. He had to get the pieces together, hadto pull it out, if Austin was sinking into some self-destructive funk… Austin and Beatrice were feuding, you could feel it in the way the ship moved; the ship could lose more than trade, it could lose, out there in the dark, where if they didn't make that pick-up, they couldn't guarantee there'd be another. And if an enemy found that supply dump… they couldn't guarantee anything, either. Not even their getting out alive.

Capella sat on main crew, this trip. Had to. He was supposed to set things up… and no changes in routine, Austin said?

When they were running into ambush, and Austin knew it?

Had to talk to Michaels, that was what. Had to be sure that capped switch was thrown and the guns were up when they made the drop at Tripoint. Elder brother and that matter… didn't matter, in that context. A non-issue, until they got to Viking. If they got to Viking.

—iii—

RUMORS MULTIPLIED ON LOWER deck once mainday tech crew had hit the galley line in numbers, and the incoming detail gathered form as informants from various ops posts got together at the tables and fact and speculation intersected: Fact: the ship out there was Silver Dream, it was a closed-hold hauler, you couldn't tell whether or what it had in its holds. Fact: it had a large engine pack, which was always suspicious on a non-Family ship. Observation: Christian and the second chief navigator were uneasy about it, and: Speculation, were sure it wasn't hauling, and when they cleared the slow zones they were going to light out of Pell like a bat.

That much, Tom picked up just passing around the tables, refilling table coffee and tea pots. Heads were together, the galley was uncommonly quiet, voices were subdued and urgent. Dockers clustered apart from the techs, at their tables at the end of the galley zone… the questions in that corner were slightly different, no less urgent: What are we going to do, skip through the Point? And the answer: Can't offload. No way we can offload.

Somebody wondered, then, whether they'd still get their pay, in that event. The rest, apparently old hands on Corinthian, said Shut up, don't be a fool, being alive to spend it was the issue, and the captain would make it up, the captain never shorted you for what wasn't your fault.

Tom collected plates, grabbed them as fast as they emptied, folded up the tables and the seats, fast as he could. Heard names like Mallory, and Porey, and Edger, names of captains of the dismembered Fleet. Talk about ambushes. And a dump, whether v-dump, meaning whether they were going to slow down, or supply dump… it sounded like the latter. Rendezvous, of some kind? he asked himself.

"What do we regularly doout there?" he asked Tink. "Level with me. What's the ordinary scenario?"

"There's a place," Tink said, but someone came near, just then, and Tink didn't feel comfortable talking, it was clear. Jamal frowned at both of them.

"Tink, get some help, that cart's ready for the bridge, Medical's ready to roll."

"Yeah, I'm on it," Tink said, grabbed a couple of offduty maintenance techs and dragooned them into cart-transport, while he folded tables and secured safety latches, wanting not to think about Mazianni weapons bearing down on them.

Mazianni operating at Pell, free and open, for God's sake? And following them out of port?

Where did they get undock clearance? Who assigned them dockers to get them out that fast, to follow Corinthian? Nothing fit with what he knew unless it was Mallory on their tail… but Mazianni didn't above all describe Mallory, who did operate out of Pell. Mallory was semi-legitimate. Had total station cooperation—it could be some ship working for her, and Pell authorities, to arrest them… or get evidence on them, but there were warrants for that, easier to do at dock.

"Tom!"

Tone of a man who'd been trying to get his attention. He looked at Jamal, blank of what the man had been saying.

"Hell, I'll get it," Jamal said. "No damn brain on duty anywhere. Stay here! Pull the delivery slips, check it off. If you screw up, Hawkins, somebody's without trank. Can you manage that?"

"Got it. " He went back to the paperwork desk, laid Jamal's handheld on the communication plate, punched the requisite code for the deliveries, DDAT, to transfer, 1 plus T, no mystery in the software. The handheld registered File Complete, meaning it had read an end-of-file,—and a furtive, stupid thought sprang up. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he said to himself, system's guarded, all kinds of partitions. He looked longingly at that console, then, hell, shook his head and let it alone.

He'd done the checklist when Jamal came back with what looked like the stuff from Medical. Jamal took the list he'd vetted, left, with: "Stow everything behind doors. Don't trust counter-mounts. We don't know what we're into. Turn the water off, under the sink. Lock the drain down. You know how to do that?"

"Yessir," he said. Tink was still out on deliveries. He flipped the lever to dismount the mixer and the processor, stowed them below, secured oven latches, washers, cabinets, put the pans behind solid doors and latched them in. Got the water shut off, put the anti-vacuum lock on the drain. He'd never used one, but he'd heard about whole sections voided of air through a pipe breach.

Cast another, longing look at the computer. Looked at the door. Edged closer, then flipped it on just to see what program would come up.

Screen showed: MES>94.

He hit 01, keyed: Your message software's a dinosaur. I could access. I didn't. T. Hawkins.

Austin had a lot else on his mind. The whole ship rang with urgency. Stupid to do. Distracting to Austin. To… God knew who… but, dammit, things were happening up there he didn't have a clue to judge. He had skills he wasn't using. Somebody was after them, and he had to sit down here, being shot at, keeping pans from falling out of cabinets, getting rumors from the walk-ins… his stomach was in a knot.

It might make Austin knowhe restrained himself. Might get him at least access physically where he could access electronically. Software wasa dinosaur. God knew what other was.

But, damn, no, ship was at risk. Wasn't a time for personal stuff. He ran a delete. Flipped the switch. Killed it.

Could be the militia after them. And here he was. Wrong side of Marie's quarrel. Wrong side of everything.

The ship was growing so quiet. He'd never heard anything the like on Spritebefore they went to jump. On Spritethere were so many Family, there were so many kids running up and down, people yelling information at each other. Here… just quiet. Somebody walked outside the partition that divided the galley from general passage. Somebody shouted, far off in the ring. Somewhere, sounding sections away, a cart rattled. He made himself move away from the console, get to work, the last few table-seat units to fold up, thunderous, appalling crashes in the silence.

Jamal came back, started running checks on the cabinets. "You're L14."

"Yes."

"Left your stuff there. Trank and all. You ever get sheets?"

"I… no. I didn't. " Sheets were the farthest thing from his mind. "I can do without. It's all right. " In the crisis at hand, he regretted his protestations to Saby about his own quarters. Didn't want to be alone. Desperately didn't want to be alone, but he'd taken that position… didn't see how to talk to her now.

"Freeze your ass off," Jamal said. "I tossed some blankets in. Put your trank on the bunk. Sheets are down in Medical, you got to do that yourself."

"You didn't have to do that."

"Yeah, well, it's a crazy trip. Hope we see the other side of it."

Cart rattled and thumped somewhere, growing closer. Tink coming back, he thought, and Jamal said, "We're shut down here. You want to go get those sheets? I'll sign you out."

"Yeah," he said. "Thanks. " Jamal was down furnishing his quarters while he was sneaking access on the galley computer. Didn't make him feel better. He went for the exit toward lower main, dodged Tink and the inbound cart.

"We done?" Tink asked cheerfully.

"Seems so," he said. He tried cheerfulness. It didn't take.

But Tink bumped him on the arm with a tattooed fist. "Hey. We're all right. Seen us sail through the damnedest stuff. Pieces rattling off the hull. We come through. We always come through. Can't scratch this ship."

"You been aboard that long?"

"Oh, yeah," Tink said. "You just belt in good. Hear? Hope you secured those cabinets, or we'll have pans clear to Engineering."

He laughed a little. He truly wanted to laugh. "Yeah," he said. It made him feel better as he went his way down to Medical. Check out the sheets, yeah, pillow, too, got the blankets, already, sir, no problem, got the trank, yeah, I'm on the roster, I'm on galley duty, Jamal said he saw to it.

He got the sheets, he went to lonely L14 and checked out the accommodation. It wasn't quite a closet. It had plumbing. He remembered what Austin said about turning the water on. He tried it and it was off. But the outbound pipe needed shutting. He got down to locate it, found the cutoff labeled, and turned it.

The first of the acceleration warnings sounded, then. He banged his head on the cabinet getting out, his heart going like a hammer. He heard Christian's voice, at least he thought it was Christian: "We'll clear Pell slow zones in ten minutes. At that time we'll start our acceleration toward departure. We're releasing non-ops personnel to quarters to secure premises. Please secure all pipes and unplug all but emergency equipment. Area chiefs please check compliance and all vacant compartments. As you are aware, we have a follower. We do not know the ship's intentions, but we are on condition red alert. Double check all secure latches, secure all non-essential items."

Damn, he thought, palms sweating. Canned speech. Christian was reading—he couldn't be that calm and collected. But Christian had something to do besides imagine. He didn't. The walls seemed to close in on him.

"Be doubly sure of your belts. If you detect any belt malfunction, pad up with all available materials and secure yourself in the smallest area of your compartment. All personnel, review your emergency assignments. "

There wasn't a 'smallest area. ' The compartment was it. He got up off the deck and tested the belts. They worked. The emergency procedures all seemed unreal to him, more extreme than any drill he'd ever walked through, precautions against maneuvers he wasn't sure Spritehad ever had to make, at the worst of the War. They'd sat the bad times out in port.

Pieces rattling offthe hull. Hell.

The door opened, without a by-your-leave. "Looking for a room-mate," Saby said.

He was glad. He was incredibly, shakily glad of that offer—welcomed Saby's arms around him, held to her as something solid, against the suppositions.

"Yeah," he said. "Good. Fine with me."

—iv—

"EVERYTHING IN PARAMETERS," Christian said, on the hand-off. Austin lowered himself into the chair, scanned the console, found the routine settings. "Anything else?"

The boy was always touchy. You never knew, unless you'd deliberately hit the button.

"No," he said. "Belt in, stay tight, this one's going to be interesting."

"We're going to skim it, right?"

Shoot right through Tripoint with no v-dump. Accumulate vat the interface and come into Viking like a bat out of hell…

Certainly it was one solution. But they were loaded heavy. Hellof a mass.

"You run the calc?"

"'Pella and I did. It's on your number two, all the options I figured. She says she can put it in margin. I say it's dicey."

"Very."

"They always short you in the cans. Absolute mass is 200k less. Saby says."

"That's nice."

"Nice. Hell. " Christian was keeping his voice down, standing right by his chair. "What arewe going to do? We're notstopping."

"Maybe."

"God in—"

"Shush, shush, shush, Mr. Bowe, a shade less emotional, if you please."

"You damn, grandstanding… bastard, no, forget I said it, you haven't anything to prove to me, I know you can do it, let's just not try, all right?"

"I'm perfectly serious—as a possibility. I trust you calc'ed that with the rest."

"It's on there."

"It had better be. It had better be right, mister. Bet our lives it's right."

Christian's mouth went very thin. "Yes, sir," he said, and went forward, said a word to Beatrice, stopped for another to Capella, who wasn't standing down at shift-change.

Capella listened, frowned, nodded to whatever it was. Christian bent and, definite breach of regulations, kissed the second chief navigator on the forehead.

The second chief navigator grabbed his collar, gave him one on the mouth that went on. And on. Christian came back straightening his collar and headed, clearly, past, without explanation.

"Inspiring the crew?" Austin said.

"Just for God's sake listento her."

"Emotion, emotion. Get some rest."

Christian left. The sort-out of shift-change was mostly complete.

"You know," Michaels said, stopping by his chair, to lean on the arm and the back and deliver a quiet word to his ear, "the boy said, hit the sims, first thing; said, stay on 'em, said don't even ask you, just push the arming button last thing when we go up."

"Did, did he?"

"Whole list of orders, yours, his, identical down the line. Just thought you'd like to know."

He gave a breath, a laugh, couldn't say what. Michaels patted his arm, went on for a word to Beatrice. Felt all right, it did. There was hope for the brat, give or take what he'd stirred.

No way their tagalong was Mallory's. The Pell militia wouldn't chase you from Pell docks into jump. If Pell wanted you, you'd have hell getting undocked. They'd have agents out to blow something essential while you sat at dock, no question, they'd learned their lesson the hard way about quarrels with ships.

So, granted it wasn't the law, it was clearly a ship with a mission, and it was clearly on the Tripoint heading. If guesses were right, at worst-case, those holds were empty, and their lighter mass was going to give Silver Dream'sbig engine-pack a hype to send it right past Corinthian. In terms of v, realspace negligible. In terms of position in space-time… ahead of them. Waiting for them, when hyperspace abhorred their energy-state out again at Tripoint.

But bet they wouldn't use nukes, not if they wanted to board and take the second chief navigator for themselves. They'd use inerts: simple mag-fired rifle balls, in effect—hoping to cripple Corinthian'sjump-capacity; and they'd have to launch those afterthey'd picked up the wavefront of Corinthian'sarrival.

"Nav."

"Sir."

"Are you comfortable with what you have, with data?"

"Yes, sir, more than adequate. "

He keyed up the alternatives. Found the one he wanted. The supply dump. "Nav, receive my send. How close can you put us?"

"Sir. May I talk privately?"

"Come ahead."

Capella left her chair, came and leaned an elbow against his console. "Sir," Capella said. "If you want honestly to leave it to me, give me leave to dump at any point, I'll guarantee you best of two alternatives."

"What two?"

"We find this sumbitch far enough out we can make that dump or close enough in we take my bet and skip through to Viking. We can dump down. Swear to you."

You looked in Capella's eyes when she was off duty, you learned nothing. You looked there now and you got the coldest, clearest stare.

"I believe you, second chief navigator. Are you saying leave that choice to you? Mypriorities involve the economics of this ship. Involve keeping a contract, with entities I believe you represent. Can you set us next our target, if ourproblem isn't within, say, three hours light? Can you assure me… we can stay emissions-neutral?"

"Hell of an accuracy, sir."

"Can you do it?"

Capella when that grin cut loose was the devil. The very devil. You didn't know.

"Maybe."

"I'd suggest you figure it, second chief navigator."

"You are one son of a bitch, captain, sir."

"Yeah. I am. How good areyou?"

"Damn good."

"Then do it."

"Yes, sir. "

Never a way in hell he could have gotten that berth within the Fleet—point of fact, there hadn't been a way in hell he'd have wanted one, in his adult life, when they were losing ships faster than they could reckon what they'd lost, and attitudes inside the Fleet were responsible for that trend. He could still name a couple of the captains he'd have shot as soon as deal with, and the feeling was still, he was sure, entirely mutual.

He'd never truly known where Capella fit in that mosaic, until just now that he'd nudged Capella into action: Don't question me, second chief, just obey the order. And that straight look and that 'sir' out of their nameless navigator…

Satisfying, that he could get 'sir' out of this woman, who'd had the career that had slipped away before he was old enough to chase it, in any sense that the War could be won or that there was time left to reconstitute the old order. He'd seen nothing past the impending debacle, once upon the omniscience of his youth, seen nothing worth obeying or believing, fool that he'd been; and now his son was staring into another Götterdämerung, nothing of fire and fury, just a niggling increase of regulations—he could see that from where he sat, watching anachronism on her way to the navigation console.