David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

"Which was the only time I got us caught, Mr. I've-Got-the-Record-in-Black-Marks-Cornered. You, on the other hand-"

"Dwelling on the past is the mark of a small mind," he informed her.

"Yeah, sure it is!" She snorted again, then tugged her locker back into motion, following the guide strip through the crowded concourse.

Aikawa trotted along beside her, towing his own locker, and she did her best to look unmoved by his presence. Not that she was fooling anyone, especially him. He was probably her best friend in the entire universe, although neither of them was prepared to express it quite that way in so many words. There was nothing remotely sexual about their friendship. Not because either of them had anything against sexual relationships. It was just that neither was really the other's type, and neither of them was prepared to risk their friendship by trying to turn it into anything else.

"So who else caught Hexapuma ?" he asked.

"What?" She looked at him with mock amazement. "The Great Kagiyama, Master of Grapevines, doesn't know who else is assigned to his ship?"

"I know exactly who's assigned to Intransigent . And until this morning, that was my ship. What I don't know is who's assigned to your ship."

"Well, I'm not entirely sure, myself," Helen admitted. "I do know Ragnhild is, though. She's ticketed for the same shuttle to Hephaestus as I am-well, both of us, now, I guess."

"Really? Outstanding!" Aikawa beamed. "I wonder what possessed them to put all three of the Three Musketeers on the same ship?"

"An oversight, I'm sure," Helen said dryly. "Of course, from the way you're talking, they didn't have all three of us assigned to Hexapuma initially, now did they?"

"A point. Definitely a point. So Ragnhild is the only other one you know about?"

"No, Leopold Stottmeister caught the morning shuttle up because he was going to have lunch with his parents at Dempsey's before he reported aboard. I know about him and Ragnhild for certain. But there may be one or two more."

"Stottmeister…" Aikawa frowned. "The soccer jock?"

"Yeah. I had a couple of classes with him, and he's a pretty sharp cookie. In the Engineering track, though."

"Oh." Aikawa looked up at her and their eyes met with the same expression. Both of them were in the Tactical track, traditionally the surest way to starship command. There was nothing wrong with someone who was more interested in hardware than maneuvers, of course. And God knew someone had to keep the works wound up and running. But neither of them could quite understand why someone would deliberately choose to be a glorified mechanic.

"So," Aikawa said after moment, his lips pursed, "with you and me, that makes four in Snotty Row? Two each of the male and female persuasions?"

"Yeah," Helen said again, but she was frowning slightly. "I think there's one more, though. I didn't recognize the name-Rizzo or d'Arezzo." She shrugged. "Something like that."

"Paulo d'Arezzo? Little guy, only four or five centimeters taller'n I am?"

"Don't know. Far as I know, I've never even met him."

"I think I have, once," Aikawa said as the two of them turned down another hallway and the crowd got even denser, packing tighter together as the corridor narrowed. "If he's who I think he is, he's an electronics weenie. Pretty good one, too." Helen looked a question at him, and shrugged. "I only met him in passing, but Jeff Timberlake worked a tactical problem in the final sims last term with d'Arezzo as his EW officer. Jeff said he was a damned good EWO."

"Sounds promising," Helen said judiciously.

"So that's it? Five of us?

"Counting you," she agreed as they squeezed their way along. "And as far as I know. But the assignment list wasn't complete when I got my orders. They told me there'd be at least one more snotty, but they didn't know who at that point. I guess that's the slot they dropped you into. Speaking of which, how did you get your assignment changed?"

"Hey, I was telling the truth for once!" he protested. "All I know is that Herschiser called me into her office this morning and told me my orders had been changed. I think they actually swapped me out with someone else who was assigned to Hexapuma ."

"Oh?" She cocked her head at him. "And do you happen to have any idea who 'someone else' was? I hope it wasn't Ragnhild!"

"As a matter of fact, I do know. And it wasn't Ragnhild," Aikawa said, and she looked down at him sharply. His voice sounded much less amused than it had, and he shrugged as she frowned a silent question at him. "That's why I was asking who else was assigned," he said. "'Cause I didn't bounce anybody you just mentioned. Unless my usual sources fail me, the guy I did bounce was Bashanova."

"Bashanova?" Helen grimaced, as much in irritation at herself for repeating Aikawa like some witless parrot as anything else, but she wasn't sure she cared for the implications of that name. Kenneth Bashanova wasn't exactly beloved by either her or Aikawa. Or, for that matter, by at least ninety-nine percent of the people unfortunate enough to know him. Not that he cared particularly. The fourth son of an earl and the grandson of a duke had no need to concern himself with all of the little people clustered about his ankles.

If Aikawa's last-minute reassignment to HMS Hexapuma had saved her from making her midshipwoman's cruise trapped aboard the same ship as Kenneth Bashanova, she was devoutly grateful. He was poisonous enough with anyone, but his sort of aristocrat despised Gryphon Highlanders-like Helen-as much as Highlanders despised them, and he'd gone out of his way to step on her… once.

But whatever she thought of him, and however grateful she might be for his departure, Bashanova wasn't the sort of person who was involved in random last-minute changes. If he'd been reassigned to another ship, it was because someone had pulled strings to make that happen. Which might explain why the midshipman assignments to Hexapuma had been "incomplete" last night. And it also posed an interesting question. Had he been shifted to Intransigent because of some special opportunity waiting for anyone fortunate enough to make her snotty cruise aboard her? Or had he been shifted to get him away from Hexapuma ?

"You haven't heard anything about Hexapuma that I haven't, have you?" she asked after a moment, and Aikawa chuckled.

"Two great minds with but a single thought, I see." He shook his head. "Nope. First thing to cross my mind was why the Noble Rodent had wanted out of Hexapuma , so I asked around."

"And?"

"And I couldn't find out anything to explain it. Heck, for that matter, I'd think even Bashanova would have wanted to stay put!"

"Why?" Helen asked, and Aikawa.

"Don't you have any 'informed sources'?"

"Hey, I'm the one who knew who else was assigned aboard her, smartass! And just because the 'faxes broke the story about my old man, don't go around thinking I'm some kind of spook. One spy per family's enough, thank you. Although, come to think of it, Lars is showing some signs of interest. Berry and I certainly never did, though!"

"Then how come she wound up up to her… eyebrows in all that business on Erewhon and Congo?" he demanded.

"Torch, not Congo," she corrected. "Congo's the system name; the planet is Torch. And I still haven't figured out how all that worked. But I'll tell you this much-it wasn't because Berry was playing spy!" Her snort of disdain was little short of magnificent. "Berry's the sanest person in the entire Star Kingdom. Well, was, anyway. No way was she playing Junior Spook with Daddy-as if he'd've let her, even if she'd wanted to! I'm sure one of them will get around to explaining that whole business to me one of these days, but I already know that much."