“Why, under other circumstances I’d be delighted to show you about the Princess Cecile,” Daniel said with a smile of regret. “I’m afraid I have other commitments, however.”
Uncle Stacey was trembling with fatigue; Adele, thank goodness, was easing him down into the wheelchair. The officers in Vaughn’s own party didn’t look pleased at the notion of being upstaged by a junior lieutenant. And as a matter of RCN regulation, not to mention fairness, the officer commanding the Princess Cecile was—
“Lieutenant Mon, the present captain, will be more than happy to do the job, though,” Daniel continued, gesturing toward the corvette. “As for myself, I’m on half pay at the pleasure of the Navy Board for now.”
Vaughn chuckled, then bowed to put a period to the discussion. “Perhaps I can hear about your adventures at some other time, Lieutenant,” he said, allowing Captain Wenslow’s slow movement to ease him toward the catwalk. “It’ll have to be soon, though, I’m sure. The chiefs of your navy will never permit an officer of your demonstrated abilities to remain unemployed for long.”
Adele started the wheelchair briskly toward the waiting jitney; it looked rather forlorn among its larger, flashier fellows. Daniel glanced over his shoulder as he took the wheelchair’s handles himself a little farther down the apron. Vaughn was negotiating the catwalk with aplomb, but one of his aides and two Foreign Ministry officials had frozen at the edge of the dock like a trio of statues.
“The poor devil’s an exile, I suppose,” Uncle Stacey said as they neared the jitney. “Brought here as a hostage for his father’s good behavior. Strymon isn’t as bad as the Selma Cluster next door to it—the Pirate Cluster, you know—but his life still wouldn’t be worth a zinc florin if he tried to go home now.”
“He seems a personable fellow,” Daniel offered as he paused for Adele to open the door. He might have to hand his uncle into the vehicle; meeting the delegation had been as much of a strain on Stacey as the whole rest of the outing. “I wonder why he wanted to see the Princess Cecile, though?”
“Mr. Vaughn didn’t strike me as a man who’s often bored,” Adele said without emphasis as she walked around to the other side where she could help if needed, “or one who gathers information without a good reason. Which is a good reason for me . . .”
Uncle Stacey lurched onto the bench seat without touching the arm Adele crooked for him to grip. Daniel began folding the wheelchair to set in the roof cargo rack.
” . . . to learn what I can about Mr. Vaughn, I think,” Adele concluded.
Chapter Two
A monorail car stopped within moments to carry Daniel and his uncle in the direction of Xenos West, but Adele Mundy would have thirty minutes on the platform before a car arrived for her. City Center wasn’t a popular destination for those leaving Harbor Three by public transportation. Laborers and ships’ crewmen stayed either in barracks near the port or in tenements ranged on the city’s outskirts. Senior officers, let alone dignitaries like Delos Vaughn’s party, arrived and left the harbor in personally owned monorail cars if they even used the system rather than aircars.
The wait wasn’t a hardship. As soon as her companions had departed on the rising whine of an electric motor, Adele drew out her personal data unit and started to learn what could be known about Delos Vaughn.
Until very recently the only parts of Adele’s life she would’ve called happy were those she’d spent finding and organizing information . . . which to be sure was more time than she devoted to any other pursuit. The place Adele’s body slept had never been of much concern to her, and since the Proscriptions she hadn’t had a home outside her head.
A heavy starship lifted from the pool in the center of the harbor, shaking everything for miles around as its thousands of tons rose from a plume first of steam, then the flaring iridescence of hydrogen ions when the plasma motors no longer licked the water’s surface. Adele was barely conscious of the event, adjusting her control wands in the precise patterns that guided her search.