Daniel had two eighths of the prize money coming to him. That would be months or years in the future, but his bank was more than happy to advance him funds against the event. Daniel didn’t have the expense of a wife, and he did have a great personal interest in meeting young women who might be impressed by a dashing naval officer. Leaving the full-time duties to Mon gave both officers what was best suited to their circumstances; an idyllic situation so far as Daniel was concerned.
“A trim ship,” Uncle Stacey repeated, “and very well found.”
In his present state of health, Stacey hadn’t been able to walk the telescoping antennas and yards, so now he locked a pair of naval goggles down over his eyes to use their electronic enhancement to view them. They determined the position, attitude, and expanse of sails of charged dielectric fabric which created imbalances in Casimir radiation and drove the vessel through the Matrix.
Raising the goggles, the old man looked up at his nephew again. “Are they going to give you command again after she’s commissioned, lad?” he asked.
Daniel shrugged. Civilians assumed the answer was obvious: of course the Hero of Kostroma would be returned to command. An RCN officer, however, knew there was much more to the question.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I performed well, but there’re many skilled officers senior to me.”
He smiled at a sudden thought. “Lieutenant Mon among them.”
It was a grim joke, of course, because Mon would never have a command of his own. He didn’t have the interest of a senior officer nor the sort of family money that would allow him to cut a figure socially and call attention to his undoubted abilities.
Worst of all, Mon had bad luck: he’d always been at the wrong place when there were prizes or honors to be won nearby. And there he differed from Daniel Leary, who’d been sent to Kostroma with no interest and no money, but whose good fortune had handsomely made up for those lacks.
“Short of Admiral Anston,” Adele said dryly, “there’s no better-known officer in the RCN today. You won’t be the wonder of Cinnabar forever, but I think you still have some of your nine days left.”
Daniel grinned, but he said, “That’s not an unmixed blessing, you know, Adele. There’ll be some who think I’ve carried myself a little higher since my return than an officer so junior ought to do. And they may be right.”
Uncle Stacey nodded, his lips pursed. “You’re young, Daniel, you’re young, and they’ll understand that. But still . . .”
“You carried yourself here with the same well-justified confidence that you showed on Kostroma,” Adele said, raising her voice slightly. Her words had the precision of the teeth of a saw cutting timber to the proper fit. “The reason we’re not in an Alliance prison—or dead—is that you never let any of us doubt that you were going to get us free. I have far too much respect for the organization of which I’m now an officer—”
She touched a fingertip to the rank flash on her collar with a thin smile.
“—to doubt that those in charge can also see the merit of a more extroverted personality than mine when the task involves leading others into battle.”
A plume of steam expanded from a berth halfway across the port. The ground trembled for several seconds before the roar of a ship lifting off reached Daniel’s party through the air. He slipped his goggles down to protect his eyes—the optics blocked UV completely and filtered white light to a safe intensity—and looked toward the event.
In truth, Daniel was glad to have an excuse not to respond. He was comfortable with the praise of his peers and generally amused by the compliments of civilians who hadn’t the least notion of what they were talking about. Adele’s words were disconcerting, though. He couldn’t equate her cold analysis with the confused bumbling he remembered going through; to ultimate success, agreed, but that was due less to Daniel’s own efforts than to luck and the expert assistance which Adele and so many others provided.