“Sir,” Ran said toward the bulkhead in front of which Kneale paced, “what we did, we did for the . . . honor of Trident Starlines.”
“What you did,” Kneale snarled, “you did because some stupid bastard thumbed his nose at you, and you decided to boot his ass through his shoulder blades to teach him a lesson.”
Unexpectedly, the commander smiled. “Which I suppose is as good a definition of honor as we’re going to find,” he said. “Since we’re all human.”
Kneale muttered something to the AI. The surfaces of his cabin flashed back to holograms of the Empress’s ports of call. The views weren’t precisely restful, but they proved that the commander’s mood had changed—or that a level had come off the emotional onion.
“Look,” Kneale continued, “you went charging in without any plan, just hoping you’d get away with it And you did. But it was a lousy idea, and it could have embarrassed the company seriously. Don’t do it again.”
“Sir,” Ran said, meeting Kneale’s eyes, “they didn’t have time to plan anything either. The snatch had to be set up after von Pohlitz disembarked. He could make a call to a buddy in the area, but this wasn’t—”
He smiled.
“—Grantholm’s Seventeenth Commando. Except on our side.”
“If all Grantholm troops are as good as the Streseman kid,” Wanda Holly said to no one in particular, “then Nevasa doesn’t have a prayer. I followed him in, and there were six bodies in that first room.”
She swallowed. “I think six.”
“It’s the fact that Streseman was along that permits me to trust your judgment,” the commander said. “I’d like to think that you wouldn’t have tried something like this if you hadn’t had a wire to the top levels of the Grantholm government.”
“The girl was our passenger, sir,” Ran replied softly. “It’s not our war. But she’s our passenger.”
“So she was,” Commander Kneale agreed with a wry smile. He gestured toward the door. “Go on, go on,” he said. “Trident Starlines doesn’t thank you, because the company isn’t going to know a thing about this if we’re lucky. But I’m proud of you.
“Only the next time . . .” he went on, “I hope you’ll let me in on the business.”
Kneale’s smile had changed into something that an impala might have noticed on the face of the last lion it ever saw.
SZGRANE
“Ah, sir . . . ?” Ran Colville said as he looked cautiously from the Szgranian guard of honor to Commander Kneale. “I should be going on duty in ten minutes.”
Here on their own planet, the Szgranians’ accouterments included plasma dischargers, massive tubes that were crew-served weapons in human military forces.
The twenty guards escorted a closed palanquin the size of a boat, the same vehicle which had awaited Lady Scour when the Empress of Earth docked. It was carved from ivory which a glance suggested was all one tooth. That didn’t seem likely, but the Szgranian ecosystem was in the portion of the hynogogue course which Ran still hadn’t finished.
“I know what the duty list looks like, Colville,” Kneale said with pointed calm. “Trust me to take care of that end, won’t you? Our docking here has gone more smoothly than I’d have expected at Sonderburg on Grantholm—in peacetime. That’s because of the personal intervention of Lady Scour. I’d say that if the lady wants to show you the town, Trident Starlines should accommodate her. Don’t you think so too?”
The city of Betaniche climbed the crags above the combined space- and riverport. Two starships were already on the ground when the Empress dropped into the system from sponge space: a small freighter of Grantholm registry, and the private yacht of a merchant stocking his gallery with Szgranian carvings. They had been hastily moved to the edge of the field to give the larger vessel sufficient room.
“Ah,” said Ran. “Yes sir.”
An earthen levee restrained the river. Flowers covered the inner face of the embankment and the mudflats separating it from the land baked and blasted by magnetic motors. The Empress dug craters three meters deep beneath each nacelle when she landed with only four tugs, but the port authorities were too busy greeting Lady Scour to show any concern over the damage.