The Praxis (20 page)

Drinks arrived. Lord Pierre raised his glass to his lips, then hesitated. “I say, Lord Chen,” he said, “what's your interest in Roland Martinez?”

Lord Chen spread his hands. “Just that he seems a very…
thorough
young man. He's looked into a number of schemes that have got jammed up one way or another, what with uncertainty and inertia and the death of the Great Masters. Including the station at Choy-on, which should have been expanded to a full-scale antimatter ring ages ago.”

Lord Pierre's pebble eyes gazed unblinking at Maurice Chen. “You have shipping interests at Choy-on,” he said.

“And I also have ships that could be leased long-term to help settle Chee and Parkhurst.”

“Ah.” Lord Pierre took a long, deliberate swallow of his drink, and seemed to chew it on the way down. “Since you've taken such an interest in Clan Martinez,” he said, “I wonder if you might consider helping Lord Gareth.”

“Lord Gareth needs help?”

“Lord Gareth needs promotion. I really don't have any family remaining in a position to help him, not since my great-aunt retired.” His lips tightened in what might have been a smile. “But
you
, I seem to remember, have a squadron commander in the family.”

“My sister, Michi.”

“And your daughter is marrying a captain, I seem to remember.”

“But Lord Richard can't promote anyone to command. He has no command himself, at present.”

“Your sister can, and does.”

“
Possibly
my sister can,” Lord Chen qualified. “I'll inquire and see what she can do.”

“You'll have my gratitude.”

“And you already have mine. For letting me bore you with this subject.”

“Not at all.”

Later, as he left the lounge, Maurice, Lord Chen reflected on the conversation and decided that things had, for a change, gone very well.

Now if only he could get out of Oceanographic and Forestry and into something more useful.

 

S
ula raised her glass to the newly commissioned Sublieutenant Lord Jeremy Foote, and toasted his good fortune. Foote had insisted on filling the glass with champagne despite her protests. She moistened her lips with the wine and put the glass down.

“Thank you,” Foote said. “I appreciate you all turning up for my farewell dinner.” He unleashed a bright white smile. “I wonder how many of you would have shown if I hadn't been paying for it.”

Sula allowed herself to smile as the predictable laughter rolled from the guests.

It would have been impolite to refuse Foote's invitation. The Fleet hadn't found her employment, other than to run messages in the Commandery, which put her in the cadets' lounge every day. After a few straightforward attempts to get her into bed, and some equally unsuccessful tries at bullying her into doing his work, Foote seemed to accept the fact that she wasn't interested in playing his games, and then treated her with a brotherly familiarity calculated to annoy her. But they had survived the time in the cadets' lounge without actually plunging daggers into one another, and Sula supposed that was worth a toast or two, especially as she'd never have to toast him again.

She had to admit that Foote looked fine in his new white uniform with its dark green collar and cuffs, his sublieutenant's narrow stripe bright on his shoulder boards. He hadn't actually done anything so unfashionable as to pass his lieutenants' exams: his uncle, as a senior captain commanding the
Bombardment of Delhi
, was allowed to raise two cadets to a lieutenancy every year provided he had vacancies in his own ship, and Foote had long been marked for one of these. Tomorrow Foote would take up his post as
Delhi's
navigation officer, where well-trained subordinates and a computer would doubtless assist him in not diving the heavy cruiser straight into the nearest star.

Foote had thrown a splendid party. He'd rented a private dining room in the 1,800-year-old New Bridge restaurant in the High City, and provided entertainment as well, a raucous six-piece band that had the floorboards throbbing beneath Sula's feet. The food arrived in fourteen courses—Sula counted—and the drinks were unending. Cadet Parker seemed to have ordered up a woman to go along with the food and drink—at least, Sula hadn't yet met any woman who dressed that way for free—and Sula wondered if Foote was paying for that as well.

After Foote started grabbing his guests and shoving them under the long table so they could sing the “Congratulations” round from
Lord Fizz Takes a Holiday,
Sula slipped from her place, opened one of the tall doors, and stepped out onto the balcony. Drunken chanting echoed behind her as she braced her arms on the wrought-iron and polished brass rail and gazed down at the night traffic. Peers walked or drove on their usual evening round of parties and dinners and meetings; servants slumped along to the funicular that would take them to their homes in the Lower Town; and groups of young people half danced their way to a night of adventure.

It had been a while since she'd been part of such a group, on her way to such an adventure. She wondered if she missed it.

Sometimes, she decided. Sometimes she missed it very much.

She had spotted Martinez once, at the Imperial, at a performance of
Kho-So's Elegy
, which was about the most exciting sort of entertainment permitted in the month following the Great Master's death. Sula had been in the Li family box with Lady Amita and some of her friends, and saw him in the stalls below in the company of a woman with an astounding hourglass figure and glossy dark hair.
So that's the kind he likes
, she sneered, and immediately sensed the injustice of her thought—Martinez had seemed to like her well enough until she'd ruined everything.

She didn't think he'd seen her at the theater. She'd stayed in the box through intermission, chatting to Lady Amita, and delayed their departure as much as she could.

A pair of arms encircled Sula from behind. She found herself relaxing into them, then Foote spoiled the illusion by talking.

“You looked lonely,” he said. “This party isn't your sort of thing, is it?”

“It was, once,” Sula said. “Then I turned seventeen.”

“There's been talk about you.” Foote nuzzled her hair to one side and spoke at close range into her ear. “We've been wondering if you're really a virgin. I bet the others that you aren't.”

“You lose,” Sula said. She detached his arms from her, turned to face him, and felt a fierce inward satisfaction as she thought,
Good. Open season on you, then
.

Foote brushed invisible lint off his new tunic, then glanced out at the city. “That's your old home by the funicular, isn't it? The one with the blue dome.”

Sula didn't look. “I guess it must be,” she said.

He looked at her. “I know about your family. I looked it up.”

She affected surprise. “Don't be silly.
You
—actually looking something up? You just paid someone to do it.”

Foote looked nettled, but he let it go by. “You really should be friends with me. I could help you.”

“You mean your uncle the yachtsman could.”

“He would if I asked him. And
I
could, eventually. I'll get promoted as fast as it's legally allowed—the next few steps are already worked out. Then I'll be able to help people. And you don't have any patronage in the Fleet, so you've got to have friends or you'll be a lieutenant forever.” His look softened. “You're the head of one of the most senior human clans. Eminent as my own. It's unjust that someone with your ancestors shouldn't be promoted to the highest ranks.”

Sula smiled. “So how many times do I have to join you in the fuck tubes for this injustice to be corrected?”

Foote opened his mouth, closed it.

“Would six times a month be enough?” Sula went on. “We could put it in a contract. But you'd have to do your part—if I don't make lieutenant at the earliest legal opportunity, you could pay a fine of, say, ten thousand zeniths? And twenty thousand if I don't make elcap, and so on. What do you say—shall I take it to my lawyer?”

Foote turned to face the party on the other side of the tall glass doors and leaned back against the iron rail with his arms crossed. His handsome profile was undisturbed. “I don't know why you talk this way.”

“I just think everything should be clear and understood right from the beginning. It only makes sense to put a business arrangement in a contract.”

“I was just offering to help out.”

Sula laughed. “I get offers of that sort every week. And most of them are better than yours.”

A massive exaggeration, but one she decided was justified under the circumstances.

Sula also decided she should exit before Foote regrouped. She gave his sleeve a pat of mock consolation and strolled through the open door into the dining room.

Except for Parker and his companion, the guests had climbed from beneath the table. The band was making a lot of noise. Sula sat at her place, reached for her sparkling water, and discovered that someone had spiked it with what seemed to be grain alcohol.

These youngsters and their hijinks, she thought wearily.

For a moment she thought about downing the drink and chasing it with her untouched champagne. The idea had a certain attractive gaiety to it. She remembered the person she'd been the last time she was drunk and smiled. These people wouldn't like that person at all.

The problem was, she wouldn't either.

She put the glass back on the table, and a moment later knocked it and its contents into the lap of the person next to her.

“Oh, so sorry,” she said. “Would you like a match?”

 

“S
ignal from Flag, my lord,” Martinez said. “
Second Division, alter course in echelon to two-two-seven by one-two-zero relative, and accelerate at two-point-eight gravities. Commence movement at 27:10:001 ship time.
”

“Comm, acknowledge,” Tarafah said. He sat in his rotating acceleration couch in the middle of the command center.

The padded rectangular room was unusually quiet, with the lighting subdued in order not to compete with the glowing pastel lights of the various station displays, green and orange and yellow and blue. Through the open faceplate of his helmet Martinez could smell the machine oil that had recently relubricated the acceleration cages, all mixing with the polymer plastic scent of the seals of his vac suit.

From his couch behind the captain's, he observed that Tarafah's body was so rigid with tension that the rods and struts of the acceleration cage vibrated in sympathy with his taut, quivering limbs.

“Yes, Lord Elcap,” Martinez said, using the accepted shorthand for Tarafah's grade, which came more easily than “Lieutenant Captain” to a Fleet officer in a hurry.

Tarafah stared at his displays, one muscle working in his cheek, visible because he hadn't put on his helmet, a breach of procedure permitted in a captain but scarcely anyone else. Gazing at his displays, he had the attitude of a footballer deep in concentration on an unfamiliar playbook. Martinez figured that Tarafah was desperate not to wreck the assigned maneuver, which was a greater possibility than usual since so many of his top petty officers—the noncommissioned officers who were the backbone of his crew—were useless dunces.

Fortunately, Martinez had only one such dunce in his own division, Signaler First Class Sorensen, otherwise known as
Corona's
star center forward. It wasn't that Sorensen wouldn't learn his official duties—he seemed cheerful and cooperative, unlike some of the other players—but that he seemed incapable of understanding anything the least bit technical.

No, Martinez thought, that wasn't exactly true. Sorensen was perfectly capable of understanding the complex series of lateral passes that Tarafah had built into the Coronas' hard-charging offense, and all that was technical enough—and besides, Martinez took his hat off to
anyone
who could understand the intricacies of custom, interpretation, and precedent that made up the Fleet League's understanding of the offside rule. It was just that Sorensen couldn't understand any complexities beyond football, to which he seemed dedicated by some unusually single-minded force of predestination.

All that wouldn't have mattered so much if Sorensen hadn't been promoted past Recruit First Class. But Tarafah had wanted to boost his players' pay beyond the hefty under-the-table sums he was doubtless handing them, so he'd promoted eight of his first-string players to Specialist First Class. No doubt he would have promoted them to Master Specialist if that rank hadn't required an examination that would have exposed a complete ignorance of their duties.

Leaving aside the senior lieutenant, Koslowski, who despite playing goalkeeper seemed a competent enough officer, there were ten additional first-string players, plus an alternate—the second alternate being an officer cadet fresh from a glorious playing season at Cheng Ho Academy. To these were added a coach in the guise of a weaponer second class, all of which made up a lot of dead weight in a crew of sixty-one.

Thus it was that Martinez discovered what Captain Tarafah meant when he said he wanted the entire ship's company to pull together. It meant that everyone else had to do the footballers' jobs.

He could have coped easily enough if it meant covering for the genial but inept Sorensen. But because Tarafah was consumed with football, and the Premiere, as well, he had to do much of Koslowski's work, and even some of the captain's. And sometimes stand their watches as well as his own. And this during a period in which football wasn't even in season. Martinez dreaded the time when the games actually started.

He envied
Corona's
second officer, Garcia. A small, brown-skinned woman, she wasn't a suitable footballer, and she spoke with a provincial accent almost as broad as his own, but she'd got herself in with the captain as, in effect, First Fan. She'd organized the nonfootballer crew to attend and cheer for the Coronas at the games, and made up signs and banners and threw parties in the players' honor. Thus, she had worked her way into the captain's circle, though she was also obliged to keep her own watch and do her own work, and probably a little of the premiere's as well.