Daniel wasn’t under any illusions about Vaughn’s instinct to dominate, but it wasn’t something that put the man outside the pale in the mind of an RCN officer. More important was the fact that the young nobleman controlled his impulses. Whatever Vaughn might have been at the core, his intellect made him a civilized man who operated within the norms he found around him; and it was intellect, after all, that divided men from beasts.
“Let’s say tomorrow evening then, Lieutenant,” Vaughn said with a smile, bowing as crisply as a punch notching a ticket. “The twelfth hour, as they calculate things here on Sexburga; and at the Captal da Lund’s residence outside Spires. I will expect you.”
He turned and strode to the companionway, nodding in friendly acknowledgment to the midshipmen. The interchange with Daniel had restored Vaughn’s poise: he walked with none of the stiffness and doubtful balance that had hampered him when he entered the bridge.
Adele stepped to Daniel’s side. In a low voice she commented, “The hormones that emotions release do wonderful things for a person’s physical condition, don’t they? I wonder if I’ve been wrong all my life in thinking people would be better off without emotion?”
Daniel looked at his friend sharply, not quite certain that she was joking. Deciding he didn’t want to ask a question that might have the wrong answer, he said, “Yes, it seemed to me as well that more was going on than a party invitation. But I wonder why?”
He glanced sidelong at Adele and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged and said, “I truly don’t know, Daniel. It’s no affair connected with . . . me or mine, to the best of my knowledge.”
In the glum pause that followed, Tovera turned her palm up. The slight movement called attention to her. Daniel started: it was like a magician’s illusion. Poof! and Adele’s servant stood where his mind hadn’t registered anything a moment before.
“I wonder, mistress?” Tovera said. “Will I be going with you today?”
In place of the coveralls she’d worn during the voyage, she’d donned baggy gray slacks and a beige shirt that would have hung to her knees if it hadn’t been belted at her waist. The loosely bloused fabric could conceal any number of weapons or other devices—and probably did.
“I don’t believe I’ll need you, no,” Adele said, her words as careful as the taps of a gem-cutter. “You’re welcome to come, but if you’d rather be off on your own . . . ?”
“Spires gets all sorts of people,” Tovera said. She smiled; the expression belonged on a bird of prey. “Some of them may enjoy the same things I do.”
She took a ring of dark hematite with a simple gold inlay from a purse hidden under the drape of her blouse, then slid it on her left little finger. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. At this hour?”
“Yes, that will be fine,” Adele said. “If I need you sooner, I’ll . . .”
She tapped the personal data unit that she used for communication. Tovera might have a mastoid implant for all Daniel knew, though a simple pager the size of a pea would be sufficient.
“Thank you, mistress,” Tovera said as she walked away. Daniel shook his head in wonderment. It was like seeing the shadow of death thrown on the corridor bulkhead.
“And before you ask,” Adele said in a bleak voice, “I don’t have the faintest notion of what she means.”
Daniel hadn’t had the least intention of asking. He put his hand on Adele’s shoulder and squeezed it, reassuring both of them that their truths remained.
Adele looked at the image Daniel had called up on the attack console. The gangplank was an internally braced structure that could unfold an entire twenty yards if necessary, though Daniel had brought the corvette much closer than that to the concrete slip. The Princess Cecile’s crew, bright and fluttering in their liberty dress, crossed in loose formation. The crew from the anchor watch who’d just extended the gangplank watched their singing, laughing, fellows without expression.
Daniel sighed. Well, that was why he was aboard himself. A captain had to be willing to carry out unpleasant duties occasionally, if he expected his crew to obey when he ordered them to do things they’d rather not. Which, after all, covered most of the activities aboard a warship.