The young servants offered the next batch of refilled tumblers to the newcomers. Daniel sipped from his own goblet. The beer was dark and more bitter than he was used to, but an RCN officer didn’t look alcoholic gift horses in the mouth.
Falassa was the habitable planet of star S2. The Selma pirates had generally operated as a loose sodality which chose its leader in common, with the Council Hall here on Dalbriggan as the seat of government. As the Sailing Directions made clear, there was nothing new about a ship, a squadron, or one of the three planets going its own way for a time, however.
Massacre rather than reconciliation was the preferred method of repairing divisions. Daniel smiled faintly. The Princess Cecile had other important business before it, but he’d hoped when he received his orders that his mission might involve fighting pirates. He could scarcely complain about having his wishes granted, could he?
“My name’s Slayter,” said the balding forty-year-old leader of the spacers brought in for display. “I’m captain and owner of the Pretty Mary out of Rohaska.”
Several of the Sissie’s crew had been born on Rohaska. It was a Cinnabar protectorate with a long spacefaring tradition.
Slayter took a deep draft of his beer. He and his fellows were starting to relax at the sight of Daniel in his RCN dress uniform. Though the spacers seemed to have been fed well enough, Daniel could imagine that the chance of being shot on a pirate’s whim must have been a matter of realistic concern to them.
“Was captain and owner,” Slayter said. “We were on route to Strymon with a cargo of fuel cells when three cutters hit us when we came out of the Matrix.”
He tried to drink again, but his hands had started trembling. “They shot my mate,” he said into the trembling cup. “He was trying to hide his private cargo in a mast, not that it would’ve mattered. They took the Mary.”
Slayter pressed his arms to his chest and seemed to get control of himself again. “I thought they were going to kill us all, shoot us or just space us, but they put us on our lighter and dumped us here. They said to tell all the siblings on Dalbriggan that unless they want to starve on the scraps Kelburney lets them have, it’s time for a new Astrogator.”
Kelburney waved Slayter to silence. He said to Daniel, “Captain Aretine doesn’t think our treaty with Cinnabar was a good idea, Leary. She calls herself Overlord of Falassa and she’s got most of the captains based there agreeing with her. They were always a flighty, foolish lot.”
An officer midway down the table spat ringingly into a spittoon against the back wall. He appeared to be underscoring his Astrogator’s judgment of the Falassans.
“Now, I don’t know what there may be available in ship chandleries on Falassa,” Kelburney continued, “but I figure a twenty-three hundred ton freighter like the Mary—”
He cocked an eyebrow toward Slayter. The Rohaska captain jumped as though he’d been jabbed with a cattle prod. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Twenty-three hundred tons and as clean—”
Kelburney waved his hand; Slayter fell instantly silent. Daniel kept his face still, but he didn’t like to see a man being trained like a dog.
“The masts from a freighter of that size ought to be just the ticket to put your corvette in apple pie order,” Kelburney said. “And Slayter here would be more than happy to offer them to his savior.”
“Oh, yes,” said Slayter. “Oh, if you’ll just get my ship back, sir, anything.”
“You know where the Pretty Mary is held, then?” Daniel asked. He lifted his goblet and swirled it, watching patterns in the remaining bubbles while his mind spun skeins of action.
“Aye,” said Kelburney, “she’d be at Homeland on Falassa along with Aretine and the crews who back her. Aretine’s gathering ships from Horn—”
Horn was the planet orbiting S3. The three stars of the Selma Cluster were within four light-years of one another and followed a common trajectory.
“—besides those from Falassa, and I shouldn’t wonder if she had some Dalbriggan captains wondering if she didn’t have the right idea.”