David Drake - When the Tide Rises

Adele's face didn't show anything, but she immediately changed the search she was performing as she sat in the dusty office. "Admiral Leary has no wish to cripple Binturan Brothers. He understood-"

This was a complete lie. Adele noted that it didn't bother her to lie when it was necessary as part of her duties to Mistress Sand or to the RCN. Odd; she hadn't been aware of her skill at deceit until her job changed a few years before in a burst of gunfire.

"-that the demands of the expedition were being spread more widely among the shipping companies in Morning City."

"Did he?" Hu said bitterly. "Well, you can tell him that he's not the only one who noticed that my family's not from Pelosi and that I don't have citizenship. It didn't matter while the Alliance was in charge-oh, the governors were all crooks, but they robbed everybody! It's our newBagarian ministers, Hewett and Dean, who put it to me that the only way I could prove I was loyal was to offer my whole fleet!"

"I see," said Adele calmly. She shut down her data unit; she'd gathered more information than she could process quickly, and this wasn't the time to spend in processing anyway. Without quick action, there'd be no need for analysis.

She rose nodding to Hu. "Mistress," she said, "I'll inform the Admiral of the present situation. If he finds you've been telling the truth-"

"By the Gods, I wish itwasn't the bloody truth!" the shipper snarled with the first animation she'd shown since Adele unmasked the fact of her transaction with the Fleet.

"If that's the case," Adele continued stolidly, "I'm confident he'll direct us to find some other arrangement for protecting the independence of the cluster. Good day to you."

She twitched her right index finger to the door. Tovera opened it, looked hard at Mistress Hu, and preceded Rene into the warehouse proper. Adele brought up the rear and closed the door behind them.

"Adele?" Rene said.

She nodded curtly and said, "Outside, if you will."

Binturan Brothers wasn't the sort of business which put eavesdropping apparatus in the light fixtures-indeed, the cavernous warehouse was noticeablyshort of light fixtures-but it might have been. Adele did things properly not so much for practical reasons but rather because she preferred to be proper. She felt more comfortable.

One of the three sliding doors in the front of the warehouse was open; a turbine was rocking slowly along an overhead trackway toward the ten-wheeled truck waiting to take it. Workers in dungarees made from coarse local fibers turned to watch Adele and her companions stride past and out the door.

Tovera rotated her head toward the workmen and outside, back and forth. Adele's lips tightened momentarily, but there was nothing to say that'd change the situation. Expecting attack from every quarter wasn't paranoia in Tovera; it was a part of life, like breathing.

And every once in a while, Tovera was right.

The warehouse faced Morning Harbor across the broad but unpaved seafront boulevard. Similar warehouses were scattered among spacers' hotels, taverns, and shops specializing in cheap clothing. Motorized buses-three or more open cars pulled by a tractor with a diesel or electric motor-ran a schedule of sorts throughout Morning City, but the four-wheeled taxi Adele had hired to bring them to Binturan Brothers was waiting down the street as directed.

The problem was that it couldn't go in two opposite directions at once.

"Rene," Adele said. She'd made the decision simply by laying out the choices in neat mental columns. There wasn't a perfect solution; there wasn't even a good solution. Therefore she picked the least bad option. "You'll take the taxi-"

She nodded.

"-to theLadouceur immediately and warn Admiral Leary that the ministry is about to move on Skye. This is too major a policy decision not to affect us, though at present I don't know in what way."

She'd been too busy with financial questions since their return from Conyers to keep abreast of the government's activities. That was a mistake: during the time she and Daniel were off Pelosi, the government had turned on an internal rival with a speed and ruthlessness it was incapable of displaying toward the common enemy.

Adele had made a mistake; but it would've been a mistake to put off raising funds to pay theLadouceur 's crew. Time would probably show that she'd failed to deal with other absolutely critical matters as well, every one of which had been necessary for the successful completion of the mission. They would fail because Adele Mundy hadn't done her job adequately.

She'd go on, of course. She known from as far back as she could remember that she'd never be good enough to meet her own standards. But she'd go on.

"Tovera and I will find another taxi-"

"Mistress, that may be difficult around here," Tovera protested.

"Then we'll walk until we find one!" Adele said, letting her self-loathing flare out at her servant. "We'll find one and take it to the Skye Benevolent Society offices."

"Adele, we could call," Rene said, hefting his personal data unit. "I've linked into several commercial repeater grids."

"Do you trust the person who'll take the call either on theLadouceur or in the Skye offices not to be an agent of the ministers?" Adele sneered. "Idon't. And if you do, you're a fool."

"Mistress, sorry," Rene muttered.

"But the boy could deal with the other business while we return to the ship," Tovera said quietly.

"They wouldn't believe him," Adele said. "The permanent secretary knows me. He'll get word to Radetsky, I think in time."

She took a deep breath; her mouth worked, trying to squeeze out a sour taste. "We owe Radetsky something. We can't save him-Dean and Hewett are in league with the Alliance forces on West Continent. Between them they'll crush the present Skye government. But Radetsky can get himself and his family off-planet to Conyers. They'll be safe there with Chatterjee."

A red haze covered Adele's eyes momentarily. It cleared; Rene was still looking at her with concern.

"Get on with it, boy!" she said. "How much time do you think there is?"

Rene nodded and got into the taxi. It pulled off almost immediately.

"Let's go, Tovera," Adele said. All the emotion was burned out of her. "The sooner we take care of this, the sooner we return to the ship ourselves."

How much time is there? had been a good question. Probably not enough, the way things seemed to be going. She'd made mistakes…

But she'd go on. Until she died.

The call plate beside Daniel's bunk buzzed. He slapped it and said, "Six, go ahead, over."

The room was dark. Daniel didn't know where he was, and he wasn't really awake: his conscious mind was watching from an indefinite distance as his body communicated by rote with whoever was on the other end of the circuit. He was already wearing utility trousers and an undershirt; he began pulling on his boots by reflex as he spoke.

"Sir, this is Liu on the bridge," the plate said.

Lieutenant Liu is officer of the watch. I'm in my space cabin, dead tired and catching a few minutes' sleep before Adele returns and the watch awakens me according to my instructions so that I can talk with her.

"Captain Hoppler's here and he's got orders from the Ministry, he says, over," Liu said. He sounded concerned, probably afraid that he was mixed up in something too big for him. More likely it was a request that Admiral Leary turn in the ammunition expenditure forms that were by now so badly overdue… but it was just possible that Hoppler was bringing at least a portion of the crew's back pay.

"Roger, Liu," Daniel said. "I'm on my way."

He'd gotten his boots on the correct feet; now he pulled a utility jacket over the undershirt and sealed its closure also. He hoped it was presentable, but he didn't have time to check. It'd be good enough for Hoppler regardless, but if the Newbernian were coming with pay, Daniel would like to display a reasonable regard for the proprieties.