Walter Williams - The Praxis

Dietrich was one of the two guards on duty at the port to the ring station. “Are they drunk?” Martinez asked.

Dietrich’s eyes cut away, outside the frame of the camera, then back to Martinez. “Not at the moment, my lord.”

Martinez restrained the impulse to sigh. “I’ll be there in a minute and sign for them.”

Such were the joys of the designated Military Constabulary officer.

He put the wardroom accounts back in their sealed password file and rose from his chair.Corona was moored nose-on to the ring station, which meant the forward airlock was “up” from Command, where Martinez was standing watch. In dock, a continuous belt elevator—essentially a mobile stepladder—was rigged in a central tunnel, and Martinez stepped onto this for the ride toCorona’s forward airlock.

Rigger/First Dietrich was waiting just inside the airlock, his sidearm, stun baton, and handcuffs on his wide scarlet waist belt, and the red elastic Military Constabulary band on his arm. “Zhou, Ahmet, and Knadjian drunk and disorderly. Busted up a bar in the course of getting themselves thrashed by a gang from theStorm Fury. ”

Zhou, Ahmet, and Knadjian. Martinez hadn’t been on the ship long, but he already knew better than to feel sympathy for these three.

He went up the long umbilical to the station and found the three handcuffed recruits with their torn clothing, blackened eyes, and cut lips. Knadjian seemed to have had a fistful of hair torn from his scalp. AfterStorm Fury ‘s recruits finished with them, the Naxid constables who had broken up the fight had probably got in a few licks as well. The miscreants had spent the night in the local lockup, and they smelled about as good as they looked.

The Fleet’s enlisted personnel were known with varying degrees of affection as hardshells, holejumpers, or—from the hard gees they pulled—crouchbacks, pulpies, or pancakes. Whatever they were called, they tended to fall into certain well-defined areas on the military spectrum. Zhou, Ahmet, and Knadjian were in the part of the spectrum that involved brawls, floating dice games, drunkenness, the plunder of military supplies, and intrigues with women of low character. If their roles hadn’t been so well-defined and traditional, Martinez would have been more annoyed at the three than he was. Instead he was aloof and amused.

Martinez read the charges given him by the constable/ first, who stood braced as far back as a Naxid could rear. He signed the charge sheet, presented in electronic form on the constable’s overlarge datapad, and then the other document accepting custody of the prisoners, and as he did so, he sensed the Naxids twitching at the presence of something behind him. He turned.

Squadron Commander Kulukraf, Fanaghee’s flag captain, was marching along the ring with a pack of twenty or so of his officers. Martinez figured that the Naxid MCs were twitching as they tried to restrain the impulse to grovel in the face of someone so senior.

Martinez sent electronic copies of the documents to his station onCorona, then handed the datapad back. “You can take off their handcuffs, constable,” he said.

“Very good, my lord.”

The crouchbacks, released from restraint, rubbed their wrists and eyed the MCs sidelong, as if tempted by the idea of clouting them now that their fists were free. Martinez decided to cut this dangerous thought off with some ideas of his own.

“You have twenty minutes to shower, clean up, and present yourselves to Rigger Chaves for fatigues. The captain will hear your wretched excuses and award punishment in the morning. Get moving.”

The recruits moved. Martinez smiled, and considered which toilets needed cleaning and which brassware most needed polishing.All, he decided.

He turned back to the head constable. “Thank you, constable. You may—”

He noticed that the constable was braced at the salute facing into the ring, and the other constables with him. Martinez whipped around and braced.

Squadron Commander Kulukraf had moved closer and was pointing atCorona’s hatch with one dark-scaled hand. The Naxid officers looked from Kulukraf toCorona, then to their sleeve displays and back to Kulukraf again. Red patterns on their chests flashed complex patterns at one another, the chameleon-weave jackets transmitting the color shifts of the beaded scales beneath. None of them spoke.

Kulukraf ignored Martinez and the others braced at the docking tube, then made his way onward, fast-moving feet beating at the rubberized surface of the ring station’s main thoroughfare. Martinez watched him go, then relaxed.

“Thank you, constable,” he repeated. “You may go.”

“Very good, my lord.” The constables braced briefly, turned, and thrashed deck after Kulukraf.

Curious, Martinez looked after Kulukraf. The Naxid squadcom and his officers had stopped at the next docking tube on the station, that of the light cruiserPerigee, and were going through the same routine, pausing and staring and making notes.

“The squadcom was here yesterday with a different bunch,” Dietrich volunteered.

“Was he?” Martinez looked at him. “Do you know what he’s up to?”

“No idea, Lord Lieutenant. They just flashed at each other, like today.”

Martinez wondered if there was some kind of big surprise inspection scheduled. But only a total swine of a fleetcom would schedule an inspection two days before the Festival of Sport.

Right, he thought. And Fanaghee wasn’t exactly known for dripping sweet compassion over her subordinates, was she?

Martinez decided he’d better have a quiet word with the warrant officers who ran each of the ship’s departments. And, while he was at it, make sure his own communications rigs, both the primary and auxiliary, were immaculate, and his subordinates at their most presentable.

“May I speak with you privately?”

Lord Richard Li was the only person at the reception besides Sula who was wearing dress whites, and Sula only wore her uniform because she didn’t have anything elegant or expensive enough for this company. Lord Richard, she presumed, had some other reason.

“Privately?” Sula looked at him in surprise. “Yes, of course.”

It was Terza Chen, Lord Richard’s fiancée, who had invited her to this function at the ornate Chen Palace, but Terza had glided off in her elegant way, and left Sula with Lord Richard.

He took Sula’s arm and led her to a library off the front hall, dark wood carved with a pattern of holly, and ancient leather-bound books sealed behind glass, their delicate contents preserved by a mixture of rare gases. The sight made Sula want to lunge for the cabinets, pop the seals, and indulge in an orgy of reading.

On the desk was a small fountain, water trickling over small stones, that gave the air a slight scent of brine. Lord Richard gazed at the fountain for a moment, then turned to face Sula.

“Lord Richard?”

“I heard about theMidnight Runner verdict,” he said. A Fleet Court of Inquiry had just proclaimed Blitsharts’s death an accident, the result of a faulty water intake coupling.

“Unfortunately it’s only thefirst Midnight Runner verdict,” Sula said. “There’s going to be a lawsuit before the insurance company will part with any money. They’re going to say that Blitsharts damaged the coupling intentionally. So I’ll be stuck here giving depositions for years, unless I can get ship duty.”

A smile crossed Lord Richard’s chiseled features. “Well, as to that,” he said, “I’ve just returned from the Commandery. That’s why I’m in uniform. The announcement won’t be made for a few days, but I’ve been informed that I’ll have command of theDauntless when it comes out of refit. We’ll be joining the Second Cruiser Division, Home Fleet.”