“I’m sorry about this,” he said. “But something’s happened.”
“Is the Patrol looking for you?”
“I don’t know.” His mouth gave a little twitch. “Bourdelle was arrested yesterday. It was the Legion of Diligence who arrested him, not the Patrol, so that means they’ve got him for something serious, something he could be executed for. We’ve got word that he’s bargaining with the prefect’s office.” His mouth twitched again. Linkboys did not bargain with the prefect, they were expected to go to their punishment with their mouths shut.
“We don’t know what he’s going to offer them,” Lamey went on. “But he’s just a link up from me, and he could be selling me or any of the boys.” He paused in his pacing and rubbed his chin. Sweat shone on his forehead. “I’m going to make sure it’s not me,” he said.
“I understand,” Gredel said.
Lamey looked at her. His blue eyes were feverish. “From now on, you can’t call me. I can’t call you. We can’t be seen in public together. If I want you, I’ll send someone for you at Caro’s.”
Gredel looked up at him. “But—” she began, then, “When?”
“When…I…want…you,”he said insistently. “I don’t know when. You’ll just have to be there when I need you.”
“Yes,” Gredel said. Her mind whirled. “I’ll be there.”
He sat next to her on the bed and took her by the shoulders. “I missed you, Earthgirl,” he said. “I really need you now.”
She kissed him. His skin felt feverish. She could taste the fear on him. Lamey’s unsteady fingers began to fumble with the buttons of her blouse.You’re going to die soon, she thought.
Unless, of course, she paid the penalty instead, the way Ava had paid for the sins of her man.
She had to start looking out for herself, she thought, before it was too late.
When Gredel left Lamey, he gave her two hundred zeniths in cash. “I can’t buy you things right now, Earthgirl,” he explained. “But buy yourself something nice for me, all right?”
She remembered Antony’s claim that she whored for money. It was no longer an accusation she could deny.
One of Lamey’s boys drove Gredel from the rendezvous to her mother’s building. She took the stairs instead of the elevator because it gave her time to think. By the time she got to her mother’s door, she had the beginnings of an idea.
But first she had to tell her mother about Lamey, and why she had to move in with Caro. “Of course, honey,” Ava said. She took Gredel’s hands and pressed them. “Of course you’ve got to go.”
Loyalty to her man was what Ava knew, Gredel thought. She had been arrested and sentenced to years in the country for a man she’d hardly ever seen again. She’d spent her life sitting alone and waiting for one man or another to show up. She was beautiful, but in the bright summer light, Gredel could see the first cracks in her mother’s facade, the faint lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth that the years would only broaden. When the beauty faded, the men would fade too.
Ava had cast her lot with beauty and with men, neither of which were reliable in the long term. And Gredel knew if she remained with Lamey, or with some other linkboy, she would be following Ava’s path.
The next morning she took a pair of bags to Caro’s place and let herself in. Caro was asleep, so far gone in torpor that she didn’t wake when Gredel padded into the bedroom and took her wallet with its identification. Gredel slipped out again and went to a bank, where she opened an account in the name of Caroline, Lady Sula, and deposited three-quarters of what Lamey had given her.
When asked for a thumbprint, she gave her own.
“My lord?” said Cadet Seisho. “I’m looking at a transmission, and Recruit Levoisier says something about the captain that I’m not sure about…”
Martinez glanced at his sleeve display, which showed the cadet’s smooth-cheeked face. “Does she say that she’s going to kill the captain, maim him, assault him, or disobey the captain’s orders?”
Seisho blinked. “No, my lord. It’s…more personal than that.”
Morepersonal? Martinez wondered. Then he decided it was better not to know. “If it’s not assault, death, disobedience, or sabotage, it’s not treason,” he said. “Pass it.”
Seisho nodded. “Very good, my lord.”
“Anything else?”
“No, my lord.”
“Then good-bye.”
The sleeve returned to its normal mourning pallor. Martinez turned back to his own work—or rather, Koslowski’s. The senior lieutenant was off with the team practicing, and Martinez was standing Koslowski’s watch as well as his own.
Pulling together with the team involved more than just standing watches. Martinez had been put on a hellish number of boards and other collateral duty assignments. He was the Library and Entertainment Officer, the Military Constable Officer, and the Cryptography Security Officer—at least cryptography was more in his line of specialty. He was on the Wardroom Advisory Board and the Enlisted Mess Advisory Board. He audited the accounts for the officers’ and general mess, which called for accounting skills he didn’t possess. He was on the Hull Board and the Weapons Safety Board, as well as the Cadet Examination Board, the Enlisted Examining Board, and the Cryptography Board.
He was on the Relief Board, intended to help people in distress, which meant that enlisted personnel were constantly hounding him with their hard-luck stories in hopes of getting money.
And lastly, he was also officer in charge of censoring the ship’s mail, a job he was happy to shovel onto Seisho and a couple other cadets.
In fact the cadets and some of the more reliable warrant officers were getting as much of his work as he could safely unload, though he kept anything involving equipment or money in his own hands.
At the moment he was puzzling over wardroom funds. The three lieutenants were required to contribute sums to their mess, intended for the most part to be spent on liquor and delicacies, though some money vanished as under-the-table payoffs to maintain the style of the wardroom steward—in civilian life a professional chef—and large sums seemed to be employed for the purposes of gambling on football games. SinceCorona had a successful season, and most of the bets were winners, this didn’t appear to be a problem.
What disturbed Martinez most was inventory. The wardroom mess had paid for a good many items that were no longer in stock. It was possible that enlisted personnel were somehow pilfering, though it seemed unlikely, given that wardroom supplies were kept separately under lock and key. It was likewise possible that the wardroom steward, who had a key, was skimming. But since most of the items seemed to have vanished sinceCorona had been docked at Magaria’s ring station, Martinez suspected that the officers themselves were taking the stuff away, perhaps to give as presents to woman friends in Magaria’s ring station or skyhook towns.
But in that case, why didn’t the officers simply sign for the items? They’d paid for them, after all.
Martinez had verified with his own eyes that the items had existed. He had signed for them. And now they were gone.
He drummed his fingers on the edge of the display. This might be another good moment to schedule a talk with Alikhan.
His left cuff button chirped again, and Martinez, assuming another query from Seisho, glared as he told the display to answer the call.
“Martinez. What is it?”
The face that appeared on his sleeve answered his glare with an apologetic look. “This is Dietrich at the airlock, my lord. The military constables are here with three of our liberty people.”
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