Lt. Leary, Commanding by David Drake

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 from 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?”