Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER FOUR

_Adele sat on a bench in the huge forecourt and took out her
personal data unit. The upper court with six banks of theater-style seating for a few hundred worshippers was to her right. Beyond it rose the gilded eighty-foot image of the Redeeming Spirit, framed rather than shielded by a conical roof supported by columns. Those structures on the very crown of the hill were the only portions of the complex really given over to religious uses; and that only rarely, when representatives of the Senate and the allied worlds gave formal thanks for the safety of the Republic.

Adele smiled, half in humor. In another way the whole Pentacrest was a religious edifice, dedicated to the faith that Cinnabar was meant to rule the human galaxy. Daniel certainly believed that, though he'd be embarrassed to say so in those blunt words.

And Adele Mundy? No, she didn't believe it and she didn't imagine she ever would. But not long ago she'd believed in nothing but the certainty she would die, and today she was convinced of the reality of human friendship as well. Perhaps someday Daniel would manage to convert her—by example; Daniel was no proselytizer—into a Cinnabar chauvinist as well.

Adele felt, as she always did when walking out of a library, that the sunlight was an intrusion. Still, she hadn't wanted to call up her messages within the Celsus; not after the meeting with Mistress Sand. Contact with intelligence personnel always made her feel both unclean and paranoid, uncomfortably aware of how easily she could be observed within the confines of a building.

Adele was an intelligence agent herself now. That made her feel more, not less, uncomfortable. Perhaps the paranoia would prove a survival trait, but she wasn't sure she wanted to live if she had to worry this way in order to do so.

Most of the messages she'd downloaded were of no consuming interest—RCN information, updating her status; or even less significant queries from people who wanted to sell her things. Adele had gained a great deal of attention from publication of the list of those entitled to a share in the proceeds of the Princess Cecile whenever the government of the Republic got around to paying. She found it quite amazing that so many people thought she wanted to buy real estate, an aircar, or companionship.

She permitted herself another smile. Companionship of the sort those folk offered had never interested her, even as a matter of scientific curiosity. Daniel was the naturalist, after all. Mind, Daniel's interest in companionship couldn't be called scientific, though the way he hooked and netted each night's quarry showed the same tactical acumen that had turned the tables on the Alliance at Kostroma.

A short block of information was encrypted. Adele entered the day's key; even with the wands, the hundred and twenty-eight characters took some time.

The message was from Tovera, Adele's servant insofar as that intelligent, highly trained sociopath could be said to serve anything except her own will. Tovera knew she wasn't fully human: that there were things which human beings felt that she would never feel. Her strategy for coping with her lack was to attach herself to a human who understood what she was, and who didn't care.

Every time Adele looked at Tovera, she thought of the boy she'd killed fifteen years before; and the others. How many more lives could Adele Mundy end with a four-ounce pressure of her trigger finger, before her eyes were just as empty as those of her servant?

The message was simple: Adele's bank had called regarding the drawing rights she had established against the award of prize money for the Princess Cecile. They would like her to meet with them at her earliest convenience, giving an address.

It wasn't the address of the office where Adele had set up the account, but that was only to be expected. It was on the north slope of Progress Hill, however; easier to walk to than to take a car.

It was also only to be expected that something was wrong with her account. Well, she'd known poverty before; she could learn to skip meals again.

She set off through the archway beneath the upper court. It was unadorned concrete, the lighting muted but functional. This passage wasn't meant for show but merely for the use of visitors coming from the north to the Celsus or to offices in the complex.

Ahead of her walked a noble with a small retinue. A group of minor bureaucrats passed from the other direction, one eating the last of a roll-up and others carrying part-filled mugs. They were talking about a construction project and speculating on how much the contractor would pay for permit approval.

Adele felt her senses focus down: locking faces in her memory without appear to stare, catching intonations and freezing the precise phrasing of the discussion. She caught herself and rubbed the impulse—though not the series of impressions—from her mind.

The Xenos municipal government wasn't paying her to root out graft. Still, Adele had spent her life learning to gather and integrate information. The past months with Daniel—and Mistress Sand—had led her to consider other forms of information to remain alive, but she couldn't let that get out of hand if she were to stay sane.

She grinned. Her sanity was perhaps an unwarranted assumption.

There was nothing in the call from the bank that required encryption. Besides, if someone did want to know about it, the original message had certainly been in clear. Tovera had relayed it in secure form because Tovera sent all messages to her mistress in code, so that data which was of crucial importance wouldn't stand out because it alone was encrypted.

Tovera did everything by plan because she lacked the instincts on which normal humans operated most of the time. Guarantor Porra's Fifth Bureau had trained her well . . . and now Tovera did as Adele directed her, just as the pistol in Adele's left jacket pocket would do: no scruples, no hesitation—only action when the trigger is pulled.

Adele stepped out of the tunnel. She'd checked the address against a map reference but hadn't bothered to call up an image of the building. It was of five stories and, though quite new, had a pillared facade which echoed the architecture of the complex on the hill's reverse slope.

The small brass plate beside the door read SHIPPERS' AND MERCHANTS' TREASURY; its air of understated elegance would have been anathema to the populist pretensions of Adele's parents. She stopped dead when she read it.

Adele hoped she had few pretensions, and she'd lived as an impecunious member of "the common people" for too long to find anything in the concept to be idealistic about. Nonetheless, she'd gone to the People's Trust to set up a drawing account. This wasn't her bank, and if somebody thought to play games of that sort with a Mundy of Chatsworth . . .

She didn't follow the thought through, because she could thus far only visualize a pinkish blur instead of a real face over the barrel of her duelling pistol.

A doorman bowed politely as he ushered her into the lobby, an unexpectedly small room. A tree with a fan of broad leaves at the top grew from an alcove, lighted by a shaft to the roof high above; beneath it was a receptionist at a desk of age-yellowed ivory.

The two teller's cages were unoccupied. Closed doors along the back wall gave onto rooms which provided greater privacy for clients.

"I was directed to Office E," Adele said to the receptionist, wondering if her face showed the anger she was trying to suppress till she was sure of her facts.

The receptionist touched an unobtrusive button and rose with a smile. "Yes, Mistress Mundy," he said. "Will you come this way, please? It won't be a moment."

He opened a door into a drawing room appointed in muted good taste. The only apparent exception was the desk, a dense plastic extrusion. In this context it was almost certainly an antique dating from the settlement.

The door in the opposite wall opened for a plumpish, severely dressed woman of Adele's age. The banker would never pass for beautiful, but if she showed more tendency to smile she might have been pretty. Not that Adele was the one to cast stones in that regard.

"Please sit down, mistress," the banker said. Instead of stepping behind the desk, she went to one of the pair of chairs in front of it.

"Thank you, I'll stand," Adele said. She'd never met the woman, but there was a tantalizing familiarity to her nonetheless. "My account is with the People's Trust. Why have you summoned me here?"

"We bought your account from the People's Trust this morning, Mistress Mundy," the woman said. "The new arrangements are among the things I'd like to discuss with you. I should begin by saying—"

They bought my account? How do you buy—

"—that my name is Deirdre Leary. I believe you know my younger brother."

Oh.

Adele remained stiffly erect, ignoring the hand Daniel's sister offered her. "Mistress Leary," she said, "I am leaving now. If you wish any further communication with me, it should be through our seconds arranging a meeting."

"Please Mistress Mundy," Deirdre said. She didn't withdraw the outstretched hand. "Please, this will be to your benefit and that of my brother. On my honor as a Leary!"

Adele remained frozen, trying to understand the situation. Daniel spoke of his sister with respect if not warmth. Deirdre had followed their father into business and perhaps soon into politics as well. She appeared to be a paragon of moral virtue besides; which Daniel was the first to admit he himself was not.

Adele didn't have enough information to analyze what was going on. She smiled like a sickle, though the grim humor was directed at herself rather than the woman in front of her. Obviously, she needed to gather more information.

"I've known your brother long enough to value the honor of a Leary," Adele said. She took Deirdre's hand and shook it; the banker's grip was firm though the flesh of her hand was soft.

Seating herself on the offered chair she continued, "Now, if you can give me an explanation of why I'm here, Mistress Leary, I'd be pleased to hear it."

"You're aware that my father and brother parted on very bad terms, I'm sure," Deirdre said, sitting as well. The chairs were side by side instead of facing, so that the two women looked over their shoulders at one another. "They've had no contact since."

"Daniel's mentioned that, yes," Adele said. It had frequently occurred to her that testosterone was responsible for more than a few of the world's troubles.

Deirdre's moue suggested her opinion of the matter was much the same as Adele's own. "I informed Father of my intention," she said, "but I wouldn't want you to think that this contact was at his suggestion, let alone behest. On the other hand, he didn't attempt to forbid me either."

"Perhaps you should tell me precisely what your intentions are," Adele said, keeping her tone emotionless. What it appeared to be was an attempt to get at Daniel through his friend; and if that was the case, Adele was going to be more angry than she'd ever been before in her life.

"My sole intention, already effected," the banker replied in a voice as dry as a fresh brick, "is to decrease the discount on the sums you draw from twenty percent to seven percent. Seven percent is a better rate than a stranger who walked in off the street might expect, but we at the S&M trust the government to pay its obligations."

Adele digested the information, what Deirdre implied as well as the explicitly stated. "The discount I've been charged by my parents' bank is excessive, then," she said.

They must have seen me coming! 

"I won't speak for the management of another firm," Deirdre said with a cold smile that suggested she'd be perfectly willing to do that if she weren't sure Adele already understood. "If one of my subordinates were to offer that contract to a naval officer, however, he'd be looking for another job. Outside the banking sector, because I'd blackball him as well as terminating his employment."

Adele, as the only surviving member of her family, knew very well how ruthless Speaker Leary was. It appeared that his daughter had inherited some of that personality.

"Before you blame yourself for allowing yourself to be taken advantage of, mistress," Deirdre continued, "I should mention that my brother made an even worse deal for his share of the prize money. Banking involves as much specialized knowledge as astrogation or archival research do."

"You bought Daniel's account also, then?" Adele said; hoping against hope that the answer would be "No," because Daniel's reaction would be—

"Good God, no!" Deirdre said. "I won't claim to understand my brother, Mistress Mundy, but I can guess how he'd react to that sort of interference. The S&M cultivates a genteel atmosphere, and the presence of a young naval officer threatening to demolish it stone by stone wouldn't fit in with that at all."

Adele choked when an indrawing breath met a jolt of laughter going the other way. She'd just had an image of a detachment from the Princess Cecile arriving at the Shippers' and Merchants' Treasury with axes and pinch bars.

"Yes, I agree with your assessment, Mistress Leary," she said. She stood because she had work to do, absorbing information on Strymon. If the banker had more to say, it was time to say it.

Deirdre rose also. "Since you raise the matter, however," she said, "it would be to Daniel's financial advantage to transfer his account to the S&M."

Adele suddenly remembered the first time she'd heard the details of her sister Agatha's abuse and murder. "I won't pledge my honor to induce Daniel to take any action whatever regarding the Leary family, mistress," she said. Her voice was as thin as stressed piano wire.

"Nor would I expect you to, mistress," Deirdre said, as little moved by Adele's anger as granite is by the rain. "But I am pledging my personal honor to you that no ill would result to my brother as a result of any dealings he might have with the S&M."

This woman has as much stiff-necked pride as a Mundy! Which was no surprise, because the families had been poured from the same crucible of Cinnabar politics.

"I noted when I reviewed your file," Deirdre said, looking off at an angle, "the irregular way that a portion of your family properties were restored after the Edict of Reconciliation. I suspect there was collusion between the court and the cousin claiming to be the closest surviving relative. Such a miscarriage of justice could be righted even now."

Adele smiled faintly and extended her hand. "Good day, mistress," she said. "I believe that the past is often better forgotten, however I'll keep that information on hand against later need."

She walked out of the bank; beside the building was a stop for the east-west loop of a car line. She'd go back to her apartment and from that privacy assemble the information she'd need. The first sweep, that is, to enable her to focus more accurately for the next pass.

She wouldn't say anything to Daniel about her meeting today; either meeting. It would merely make him uncomfortable to know about Mistress Sand, and as for his sister—

Adele wasn't going to mention Deirdre until she herself had a better notion of what to think.

Daniel Leary sat at the civilian desk, furnished when he rented the apartment, and switched off the phone on which he'd called Lt. Mon. The view from his window looked down the hillside over three- and four-story apartment houses similar to his own. Because most of them had roof gardens, the effect was more similar to Bantry, the Leary country estate, than a major city.

Hogg came in with a flimsy in one hand and a bleak scowl on his face. "Your new Dress Whites aren't going to be ready inside a week unless I squeeze Sadlack harder than I've done so far," he said. "Have we got a week, do you figure?"

Hogg was shortish, plumpish, and balding, although he was only in his forties. He was neither a gentleman's valet nor the typical naval servant, an enlisted crewmen who looked after one of the officers for an additional stipend paid from the officer's purse.

"A week?" Daniel repeated. Ordinarily it might take a week or even longer for sailing orders to make their labyrinthine way through the Navy Office, but the brusque certainty of Daniel's own appointment suggested there was nothing ordinary about this business. "Not a chance, Hogg. I've just told Mon to have the Sissie ready for liftoff in six hours if possible. It'll take two days to gather a crew, but that's the only delay I expect. I suppose I'll have to make do with my grays."

Hogg had watched over Daniel while he was growing up on Bantry. Nurses and tutors had come and gone. Mother was a gentle presence in the background, and Corder Leary made flying visits from the city to dispense commands, punishment, and occasional praise before returning to the things he found important.

Hogg was always there, teaching what he knew: about wildlife and women and cards, about how to hold your liquor and when to hold your tongue; about loyalty and courage and the history of the Learys of Bantry. As much as anyone can teach another, Hogg had taught Daniel how to be a man.

"Naw, I'll just lean on the snooty bastard a little harder," Hogg said, sounding more pleased than not. He was a countryman who'd learned city ways well enough to profit by them—in Hell, Hogg would probably win all the pitchforks with the three-card trick—but who would never lose his distaste for tradesmen with polished accents. "You'll not be going out on your first permanent command without a dress uniform, Master Daniel."

Daniel wondered exactly what "lean harder" meant in this context. He decided he didn't want to know. He needed Dress Whites to replace the set he'd lost on Kostroma—and he too had found Sadlack, Gentleman's Outfitter, to be a snooty bastard. If the fellow was going to tailor 1st Class uniforms for officers of the RCN, then he could damned well work the way naval officers did: all the hours the clock had, until the task was accomplished.

Hogg went back to his own room whistling cheerfully. Daniel lifted the handset again and jumped down the address rota to Adele's personal number. He pressed SEND and waited, looking out the window at the greenery.

Daniel had a naval command helmet on which he could make calls more easily than with the civilian instrument which was now less familiar to him. He didn't because of the view out the window: it would be disconcerting to use the helmet but see verdure instead of a gray-surfaced bulkhead in front of him.

Hogg returned, checking the action of a folding skinning knife. He dropped it into his side pocket.

Daniel's call brought no response until it cycled automatically to Adele's apartment phone. There was a click of connection but the screen stayed blank. Naval phones didn't waste bandwidth on visuals; Mon had been only a voice when Daniel spoke to him a moment before. In the case of Adele, or rather her servant, the emptiness was a matter of choice.

"Yes?" said Tovera, her voice as flat as a machine's. It wasn't a receptionist's greeting, but Daniel wasn't the one to complain. Hogg was as apt as not to say, "And who's this that's calling, then?" when he answered the phone.

"Tovera, please let your mistress know that we'll be getting sailing orders very shortly," Daniel said. "That is, the Princess Cecile will shortly be sailing under my command. Also I'd like her help in putting together a crew. She'll be able to get me real discipline records on spacers I don't know personally, the information I won't learn from their present captains."

"Ms. Mundy is out, Lieutenant," Tovera said, "and I don't know her whereabouts. I'll give her your messages as soon as possible."

The second of those three parts was almost certainly a lie, but Daniel was equally certain that torture wouldn't get any more definite response from Tovera. She wasn't a servant who'd suit everybody, but Adele seemed happy with her. That was good enough for Daniel.

"Thank you, Tovera," he said and broke the connection. The sooner he got off the line, the sooner Tovera would be able to contact her mistress. Besides—and he'd never say it to Adele, not in a million years, because it was none of his business—the pale young woman made Daniel's skin crawl.

"Supper'll be late," Hogg said, reaching for the doorknob, "but first things first. If you're afraid you'll starve, then I guess you can find somewhere they'll feed you."

"I dare say I can," Daniel said, wondering what his father's valet would say if he'd heard that exchange. On the other hand, the valet hadn't—and wouldn't—put his life on the line for Corder Leary, and Hogg had done that and more for the son. Daniel didn't need mincing subservience; he did need Hogg.

The door chimed, making both men jump. Hogg glanced at Daniel. Daniel nodded, wondering what to do with his hands as he always did at times like these. Hogg opened the door for a servant in puce livery with feathers along the arm and leg seams and a ribbon-tied scroll in his hand.

Daniel realized he was more interested in the feathers—he'd bet the bird wasn't native to Cinnabar—than he was in the document. The latter, after all, would explain itself momentarily while in all likelihood neither the servant nor the tailor knew where the feathers had come from. They were just accents to most people.

"Lord Delos Vaughn sends greetings to Lieutenant the Honorable Daniel Leary!" the fellow said with an accent more cultured than you'd ordinarily hear at one of Deirdre's urbane soirees. "The favor of a reply is requested."

He handed the scroll to Hogg, then bowed to Daniel. Hogg bounced the document—it looked like real parchment—in the palm of his left hand, then grinned and drew the knife. He used the gut-hook on the back of the blade to pull the ribbon off.

"It says you're invited to a party at the Anadyomene Water Gardens tomorrow afternoon from two till six," Hogg read, spreading the parchment with his left thumb and forefinger so that he could keep the knife open for the servant to goggle at. "Says you can bring a guest, too. Interested?"

That was playacting for the servant's benefit; normally Hogg would merely have grunted after opening the invitation and tossed it to Daniel. The poor messenger's face was nearly the same shade as his livery.

Daniel ran through the sequence of business which needed to be done before the corvette could lift. He should have his portion complete by mid-morning. The crew would begin reporting as soon as officers of the day read the proclamation to their companies at morning formation. And it would be read, however little other captains liked it, because it had been issued in the name of Admiral Anston personally.

Former Sissies would be enrolled as a matter of course. Any of the warrant officers could handle that. The only question for Daniel would be the handful of positions still open when all the Sissies on Cinnabar had decided whether or not to rejoin; that wouldn't be determined till after six, anyway.

"Yes, all right," Daniel said. "My guest and I would be pleased to attend."

The servant bowed again and backed hurriedly out the doorway open behind him. His eyes didn't leave the point of the skinning knife until he turned to scuttle down the staircase.

"Well, this ought to be interesting," Daniel said, rubbing his hands together. Of course he'd take Adele, who was far too good a friend for Daniel ever to think of her as a girl. It was the sort of gathering sure to be stocked with friendly young things who loved a uniform. Adele would sheer off and give him clear running, while if he'd brought a real date he'd feel honor bound to go home with her.

"It'll be formal dress, is what it'll be," Hogg said. "I'll be back with your whites, but better not wait up for me."

Quite apart from the women, Delos Vaughn was interesting . . . and interested in Daniel, which meant Daniel had best learn more about him. Speaker Leary's son didn't have to be taught politics that basic.

Back | Next
Contents
Framed

Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER FOUR

_Adele sat on a bench in the huge forecourt and took out her
personal data unit. The upper court with six banks of theater-style seating for a few hundred worshippers was to her right. Beyond it rose the gilded eighty-foot image of the Redeeming Spirit, framed rather than shielded by a conical roof supported by columns. Those structures on the very crown of the hill were the only portions of the complex really given over to religious uses; and that only rarely, when representatives of the Senate and the allied worlds gave formal thanks for the safety of the Republic.

Adele smiled, half in humor. In another way the whole Pentacrest was a religious edifice, dedicated to the faith that Cinnabar was meant to rule the human galaxy. Daniel certainly believed that, though he'd be embarrassed to say so in those blunt words.

And Adele Mundy? No, she didn't believe it and she didn't imagine she ever would. But not long ago she'd believed in nothing but the certainty she would die, and today she was convinced of the reality of human friendship as well. Perhaps someday Daniel would manage to convert her—by example; Daniel was no proselytizer—into a Cinnabar chauvinist as well.

Adele felt, as she always did when walking out of a library, that the sunlight was an intrusion. Still, she hadn't wanted to call up her messages within the Celsus; not after the meeting with Mistress Sand. Contact with intelligence personnel always made her feel both unclean and paranoid, uncomfortably aware of how easily she could be observed within the confines of a building.

Adele was an intelligence agent herself now. That made her feel more, not less, uncomfortable. Perhaps the paranoia would prove a survival trait, but she wasn't sure she wanted to live if she had to worry this way in order to do so.

Most of the messages she'd downloaded were of no consuming interest—RCN information, updating her status; or even less significant queries from people who wanted to sell her things. Adele had gained a great deal of attention from publication of the list of those entitled to a share in the proceeds of the Princess Cecile whenever the government of the Republic got around to paying. She found it quite amazing that so many people thought she wanted to buy real estate, an aircar, or companionship.

She permitted herself another smile. Companionship of the sort those folk offered had never interested her, even as a matter of scientific curiosity. Daniel was the naturalist, after all. Mind, Daniel's interest in companionship couldn't be called scientific, though the way he hooked and netted each night's quarry showed the same tactical acumen that had turned the tables on the Alliance at Kostroma.

A short block of information was encrypted. Adele entered the day's key; even with the wands, the hundred and twenty-eight characters took some time.

The message was from Tovera, Adele's servant insofar as that intelligent, highly trained sociopath could be said to serve anything except her own will. Tovera knew she wasn't fully human: that there were things which human beings felt that she would never feel. Her strategy for coping with her lack was to attach herself to a human who understood what she was, and who didn't care.

Every time Adele looked at Tovera, she thought of the boy she'd killed fifteen years before; and the others. How many more lives could Adele Mundy end with a four-ounce pressure of her trigger finger, before her eyes were just as empty as those of her servant?

The message was simple: Adele's bank had called regarding the drawing rights she had established against the award of prize money for the Princess Cecile. They would like her to meet with them at her earliest convenience, giving an address.

It wasn't the address of the office where Adele had set up the account, but that was only to be expected. It was on the north slope of Progress Hill, however; easier to walk to than to take a car.

It was also only to be expected that something was wrong with her account. Well, she'd known poverty before; she could learn to skip meals again.

She set off through the archway beneath the upper court. It was unadorned concrete, the lighting muted but functional. This passage wasn't meant for show but merely for the use of visitors coming from the north to the Celsus or to offices in the complex.

Ahead of her walked a noble with a small retinue. A group of minor bureaucrats passed from the other direction, one eating the last of a roll-up and others carrying part-filled mugs. They were talking about a construction project and speculating on how much the contractor would pay for permit approval.

Adele felt her senses focus down: locking faces in her memory without appear to stare, catching intonations and freezing the precise phrasing of the discussion. She caught herself and rubbed the impulse—though not the series of impressions—from her mind.

The Xenos municipal government wasn't paying her to root out graft. Still, Adele had spent her life learning to gather and integrate information. The past months with Daniel—and Mistress Sand—had led her to consider other forms of information to remain alive, but she couldn't let that get out of hand if she were to stay sane.

She grinned. Her sanity was perhaps an unwarranted assumption.

There was nothing in the call from the bank that required encryption. Besides, if someone did want to know about it, the original message had certainly been in clear. Tovera had relayed it in secure form because Tovera sent all messages to her mistress in code, so that data which was of crucial importance wouldn't stand out because it alone was encrypted.

Tovera did everything by plan because she lacked the instincts on which normal humans operated most of the time. Guarantor Porra's Fifth Bureau had trained her well . . . and now Tovera did as Adele directed her, just as the pistol in Adele's left jacket pocket would do: no scruples, no hesitation—only action when the trigger is pulled.

Adele stepped out of the tunnel. She'd checked the address against a map reference but hadn't bothered to call up an image of the building. It was of five stories and, though quite new, had a pillared facade which echoed the architecture of the complex on the hill's reverse slope.

The small brass plate beside the door read SHIPPERS' AND MERCHANTS' TREASURY; its air of understated elegance would have been anathema to the populist pretensions of Adele's parents. She stopped dead when she read it.

Adele hoped she had few pretensions, and she'd lived as an impecunious member of "the common people" for too long to find anything in the concept to be idealistic about. Nonetheless, she'd gone to the People's Trust to set up a drawing account. This wasn't her bank, and if somebody thought to play games of that sort with a Mundy of Chatsworth . . .

She didn't follow the thought through, because she could thus far only visualize a pinkish blur instead of a real face over the barrel of her duelling pistol.

A doorman bowed politely as he ushered her into the lobby, an unexpectedly small room. A tree with a fan of broad leaves at the top grew from an alcove, lighted by a shaft to the roof high above; beneath it was a receptionist at a desk of age-yellowed ivory.

The two teller's cages were unoccupied. Closed doors along the back wall gave onto rooms which provided greater privacy for clients.

"I was directed to Office E," Adele said to the receptionist, wondering if her face showed the anger she was trying to suppress till she was sure of her facts.

The receptionist touched an unobtrusive button and rose with a smile. "Yes, Mistress Mundy," he said. "Will you come this way, please? It won't be a moment."

He opened a door into a drawing room appointed in muted good taste. The only apparent exception was the desk, a dense plastic extrusion. In this context it was almost certainly an antique dating from the settlement.

The door in the opposite wall opened for a plumpish, severely dressed woman of Adele's age. The banker would never pass for beautiful, but if she showed more tendency to smile she might have been pretty. Not that Adele was the one to cast stones in that regard.

"Please sit down, mistress," the banker said. Instead of stepping behind the desk, she went to one of the pair of chairs in front of it.

"Thank you, I'll stand," Adele said. She'd never met the woman, but there was a tantalizing familiarity to her nonetheless. "My account is with the People's Trust. Why have you summoned me here?"

"We bought your account from the People's Trust this morning, Mistress Mundy," the woman said. "The new arrangements are among the things I'd like to discuss with you. I should begin by saying—"

They bought my account? How do you buy—

"—that my name is Deirdre Leary. I believe you know my younger brother."

Oh.

Adele remained stiffly erect, ignoring the hand Daniel's sister offered her. "Mistress Leary," she said, "I am leaving now. If you wish any further communication with me, it should be through our seconds arranging a meeting."

"Please Mistress Mundy," Deirdre said. She didn't withdraw the outstretched hand. "Please, this will be to your benefit and that of my brother. On my honor as a Leary!"

Adele remained frozen, trying to understand the situation. Daniel spoke of his sister with respect if not warmth. Deirdre had followed their father into business and perhaps soon into politics as well. She appeared to be a paragon of moral virtue besides; which Daniel was the first to admit he himself was not.

Adele didn't have enough information to analyze what was going on. She smiled like a sickle, though the grim humor was directed at herself rather than the woman in front of her. Obviously, she needed to gather more information.

"I've known your brother long enough to value the honor of a Leary," Adele said. She took Deirdre's hand and shook it; the banker's grip was firm though the flesh of her hand was soft.

Seating herself on the offered chair she continued, "Now, if you can give me an explanation of why I'm here, Mistress Leary, I'd be pleased to hear it."

"You're aware that my father and brother parted on very bad terms, I'm sure," Deirdre said, sitting as well. The chairs were side by side instead of facing, so that the two women looked over their shoulders at one another. "They've had no contact since."

"Daniel's mentioned that, yes," Adele said. It had frequently occurred to her that testosterone was responsible for more than a few of the world's troubles.

Deirdre's moue suggested her opinion of the matter was much the same as Adele's own. "I informed Father of my intention," she said, "but I wouldn't want you to think that this contact was at his suggestion, let alone behest. On the other hand, he didn't attempt to forbid me either."

"Perhaps you should tell me precisely what your intentions are," Adele said, keeping her tone emotionless. What it appeared to be was an attempt to get at Daniel through his friend; and if that was the case, Adele was going to be more angry than she'd ever been before in her life.

"My sole intention, already effected," the banker replied in a voice as dry as a fresh brick, "is to decrease the discount on the sums you draw from twenty percent to seven percent. Seven percent is a better rate than a stranger who walked in off the street might expect, but we at the S&M trust the government to pay its obligations."

Adele digested the information, what Deirdre implied as well as the explicitly stated. "The discount I've been charged by my parents' bank is excessive, then," she said.

They must have seen me coming! 

"I won't speak for the management of another firm," Deirdre said with a cold smile that suggested she'd be perfectly willing to do that if she weren't sure Adele already understood. "If one of my subordinates were to offer that contract to a naval officer, however, he'd be looking for another job. Outside the banking sector, because I'd blackball him as well as terminating his employment."

Adele, as the only surviving member of her family, knew very well how ruthless Speaker Leary was. It appeared that his daughter had inherited some of that personality.

"Before you blame yourself for allowing yourself to be taken advantage of, mistress," Deirdre continued, "I should mention that my brother made an even worse deal for his share of the prize money. Banking involves as much specialized knowledge as astrogation or archival research do."

"You bought Daniel's account also, then?" Adele said; hoping against hope that the answer would be "No," because Daniel's reaction would be—

"Good God, no!" Deirdre said. "I won't claim to understand my brother, Mistress Mundy, but I can guess how he'd react to that sort of interference. The S&M cultivates a genteel atmosphere, and the presence of a young naval officer threatening to demolish it stone by stone wouldn't fit in with that at all."

Adele choked when an indrawing breath met a jolt of laughter going the other way. She'd just had an image of a detachment from the Princess Cecile arriving at the Shippers' and Merchants' Treasury with axes and pinch bars.

"Yes, I agree with your assessment, Mistress Leary," she said. She stood because she had work to do, absorbing information on Strymon. If the banker had more to say, it was time to say it.

Deirdre rose also. "Since you raise the matter, however," she said, "it would be to Daniel's financial advantage to transfer his account to the S&M."

Adele suddenly remembered the first time she'd heard the details of her sister Agatha's abuse and murder. "I won't pledge my honor to induce Daniel to take any action whatever regarding the Leary family, mistress," she said. Her voice was as thin as stressed piano wire.

"Nor would I expect you to, mistress," Deirdre said, as little moved by Adele's anger as granite is by the rain. "But I am pledging my personal honor to you that no ill would result to my brother as a result of any dealings he might have with the S&M."

This woman has as much stiff-necked pride as a Mundy! Which was no surprise, because the families had been poured from the same crucible of Cinnabar politics.

"I noted when I reviewed your file," Deirdre said, looking off at an angle, "the irregular way that a portion of your family properties were restored after the Edict of Reconciliation. I suspect there was collusion between the court and the cousin claiming to be the closest surviving relative. Such a miscarriage of justice could be righted even now."

Adele smiled faintly and extended her hand. "Good day, mistress," she said. "I believe that the past is often better forgotten, however I'll keep that information on hand against later need."

She walked out of the bank; beside the building was a stop for the east-west loop of a car line. She'd go back to her apartment and from that privacy assemble the information she'd need. The first sweep, that is, to enable her to focus more accurately for the next pass.

She wouldn't say anything to Daniel about her meeting today; either meeting. It would merely make him uncomfortable to know about Mistress Sand, and as for his sister—

Adele wasn't going to mention Deirdre until she herself had a better notion of what to think.

Daniel Leary sat at the civilian desk, furnished when he rented the apartment, and switched off the phone on which he'd called Lt. Mon. The view from his window looked down the hillside over three- and four-story apartment houses similar to his own. Because most of them had roof gardens, the effect was more similar to Bantry, the Leary country estate, than a major city.

Hogg came in with a flimsy in one hand and a bleak scowl on his face. "Your new Dress Whites aren't going to be ready inside a week unless I squeeze Sadlack harder than I've done so far," he said. "Have we got a week, do you figure?"

Hogg was shortish, plumpish, and balding, although he was only in his forties. He was neither a gentleman's valet nor the typical naval servant, an enlisted crewmen who looked after one of the officers for an additional stipend paid from the officer's purse.

"A week?" Daniel repeated. Ordinarily it might take a week or even longer for sailing orders to make their labyrinthine way through the Navy Office, but the brusque certainty of Daniel's own appointment suggested there was nothing ordinary about this business. "Not a chance, Hogg. I've just told Mon to have the Sissie ready for liftoff in six hours if possible. It'll take two days to gather a crew, but that's the only delay I expect. I suppose I'll have to make do with my grays."

Hogg had watched over Daniel while he was growing up on Bantry. Nurses and tutors had come and gone. Mother was a gentle presence in the background, and Corder Leary made flying visits from the city to dispense commands, punishment, and occasional praise before returning to the things he found important.

Hogg was always there, teaching what he knew: about wildlife and women and cards, about how to hold your liquor and when to hold your tongue; about loyalty and courage and the history of the Learys of Bantry. As much as anyone can teach another, Hogg had taught Daniel how to be a man.

"Naw, I'll just lean on the snooty bastard a little harder," Hogg said, sounding more pleased than not. He was a countryman who'd learned city ways well enough to profit by them—in Hell, Hogg would probably win all the pitchforks with the three-card trick—but who would never lose his distaste for tradesmen with polished accents. "You'll not be going out on your first permanent command without a dress uniform, Master Daniel."

Daniel wondered exactly what "lean harder" meant in this context. He decided he didn't want to know. He needed Dress Whites to replace the set he'd lost on Kostroma—and he too had found Sadlack, Gentleman's Outfitter, to be a snooty bastard. If the fellow was going to tailor 1st Class uniforms for officers of the RCN, then he could damned well work the way naval officers did: all the hours the clock had, until the task was accomplished.

Hogg went back to his own room whistling cheerfully. Daniel lifted the handset again and jumped down the address rota to Adele's personal number. He pressed SEND and waited, looking out the window at the greenery.

Daniel had a naval command helmet on which he could make calls more easily than with the civilian instrument which was now less familiar to him. He didn't because of the view out the window: it would be disconcerting to use the helmet but see verdure instead of a gray-surfaced bulkhead in front of him.

Hogg returned, checking the action of a folding skinning knife. He dropped it into his side pocket.

Daniel's call brought no response until it cycled automatically to Adele's apartment phone. There was a click of connection but the screen stayed blank. Naval phones didn't waste bandwidth on visuals; Mon had been only a voice when Daniel spoke to him a moment before. In the case of Adele, or rather her servant, the emptiness was a matter of choice.

"Yes?" said Tovera, her voice as flat as a machine's. It wasn't a receptionist's greeting, but Daniel wasn't the one to complain. Hogg was as apt as not to say, "And who's this that's calling, then?" when he answered the phone.

"Tovera, please let your mistress know that we'll be getting sailing orders very shortly," Daniel said. "That is, the Princess Cecile will shortly be sailing under my command. Also I'd like her help in putting together a crew. She'll be able to get me real discipline records on spacers I don't know personally, the information I won't learn from their present captains."

"Ms. Mundy is out, Lieutenant," Tovera said, "and I don't know her whereabouts. I'll give her your messages as soon as possible."

The second of those three parts was almost certainly a lie, but Daniel was equally certain that torture wouldn't get any more definite response from Tovera. She wasn't a servant who'd suit everybody, but Adele seemed happy with her. That was good enough for Daniel.

"Thank you, Tovera," he said and broke the connection. The sooner he got off the line, the sooner Tovera would be able to contact her mistress. Besides—and he'd never say it to Adele, not in a million years, because it was none of his business—the pale young woman made Daniel's skin crawl.

"Supper'll be late," Hogg said, reaching for the doorknob, "but first things first. If you're afraid you'll starve, then I guess you can find somewhere they'll feed you."

"I dare say I can," Daniel said, wondering what his father's valet would say if he'd heard that exchange. On the other hand, the valet hadn't—and wouldn't—put his life on the line for Corder Leary, and Hogg had done that and more for the son. Daniel didn't need mincing subservience; he did need Hogg.

The door chimed, making both men jump. Hogg glanced at Daniel. Daniel nodded, wondering what to do with his hands as he always did at times like these. Hogg opened the door for a servant in puce livery with feathers along the arm and leg seams and a ribbon-tied scroll in his hand.

Daniel realized he was more interested in the feathers—he'd bet the bird wasn't native to Cinnabar—than he was in the document. The latter, after all, would explain itself momentarily while in all likelihood neither the servant nor the tailor knew where the feathers had come from. They were just accents to most people.

"Lord Delos Vaughn sends greetings to Lieutenant the Honorable Daniel Leary!" the fellow said with an accent more cultured than you'd ordinarily hear at one of Deirdre's urbane soirees. "The favor of a reply is requested."

He handed the scroll to Hogg, then bowed to Daniel. Hogg bounced the document—it looked like real parchment—in the palm of his left hand, then grinned and drew the knife. He used the gut-hook on the back of the blade to pull the ribbon off.

"It says you're invited to a party at the Anadyomene Water Gardens tomorrow afternoon from two till six," Hogg read, spreading the parchment with his left thumb and forefinger so that he could keep the knife open for the servant to goggle at. "Says you can bring a guest, too. Interested?"

That was playacting for the servant's benefit; normally Hogg would merely have grunted after opening the invitation and tossed it to Daniel. The poor messenger's face was nearly the same shade as his livery.

Daniel ran through the sequence of business which needed to be done before the corvette could lift. He should have his portion complete by mid-morning. The crew would begin reporting as soon as officers of the day read the proclamation to their companies at morning formation. And it would be read, however little other captains liked it, because it had been issued in the name of Admiral Anston personally.

Former Sissies would be enrolled as a matter of course. Any of the warrant officers could handle that. The only question for Daniel would be the handful of positions still open when all the Sissies on Cinnabar had decided whether or not to rejoin; that wouldn't be determined till after six, anyway.

"Yes, all right," Daniel said. "My guest and I would be pleased to attend."

The servant bowed again and backed hurriedly out the doorway open behind him. His eyes didn't leave the point of the skinning knife until he turned to scuttle down the staircase.

"Well, this ought to be interesting," Daniel said, rubbing his hands together. Of course he'd take Adele, who was far too good a friend for Daniel ever to think of her as a girl. It was the sort of gathering sure to be stocked with friendly young things who loved a uniform. Adele would sheer off and give him clear running, while if he'd brought a real date he'd feel honor bound to go home with her.

"It'll be formal dress, is what it'll be," Hogg said. "I'll be back with your whites, but better not wait up for me."

Quite apart from the women, Delos Vaughn was interesting . . . and interested in Daniel, which meant Daniel had best learn more about him. Speaker Leary's son didn't have to be taught politics that basic.

Back | Next
Contents
Framed