laminated wrought iron and cast steel plate, Center went on. radically inferior to face-hardened alloy. Which both the Land and the Republic were using for their major warships.
None of the battleships looked ready for sea. Less excusably, neither did the scout cruisers tied up three-deep at the naval wharves, or the torpedo-boat destroyers. Or even the harbor’s own torpedo boats, turtle-backed little craft.
On the other hand . . . “Well, the fleet certainly looks in good fettle,” Jeffrey said diplomatically.
So they were, painted in black and dark blue with cream trim. Sailors were scrubbing coal dust off the latter even as he watched. He shuddered to think of the amount of labor it must take to repair the paintwork after a practice firing. If they did have practice firings; he had a strong suspicion that some Imperial captains might simply throw their quota of practice ammunition overboard to spare the trouble.
“Thank you for your courtesy,” he said formally to the Imperial commodore.
At least he’d learned one thing. Bragati wasn’t the sort of man he wanted to recruit into the stay-behind cells he and John were setting up. Too brittle to survive, given his high rank.
* * *
“Damn, I hate dying,” John said as the scene blinked back to normalcy.
Or Center’s idea of normalcy, which in this scenario was a street in a Chosen city—Copernik, to be specific—during the rainy season. There was no way to tell it from the real thing; every sensation was there, down to the smell of the wet rubberized rain cape over his shoulders and the slight roughness of the checked grip of the pistol he held underneath it. Watery rainy-season light probed through the dull clouds overhead, giving a pearly sheen to the granite paving blocks of the street. Buildings of brick and stone reached to the walkways on either side, shuttered and dark, frames of iron bars over their windows.
John looked down for a second at his unmarked stomach. There hadn’t been any way to tell the impact of the hollowpoint rifle bullet from the real thing, either—Center’s neural input gave an exact duplicate of the sensation of having your spleen punched out and an exit wound the size of a woman’s fist in your lower back. The machine had let the scenario play through to the final blackout. His mouth still felt sour and dry. . . .
“Do you have to make it quite that realistic?” he muttered, sidling down the street, eyes scanning.
“For your own good, lad.” Raj’s voice was “audible” here. “Priceless training, really. You can’t get more rigorous than this; and outside, you won’t be able to get up and start again.”
“I still—”
A sound alerted him. He whirled, drawing the pistol from the holster on his right hip and firing under his own left arm, into the planks of the door. His weight crashed into it before the ringing of the shots had died, smashing it back into the room and knocking the collapsing corpse of the Fourth Bureau agent into his companions. That gave John just enough time to snapshoot, and the secret policeman’s weapon flew out of a nerveless hand as the bullet smashed his collarbone. . . . . . blackness.
The street reformed. “I still really hate dying. One behind me?”
correct. Center did not bother with amenities like speaking aloud. scanning to your right as you entered the room was the optimum alternative.
“I hated it, too,” Raj said unexpectedly.
The street scene faded to the study where they’d first . . . John supposed “met” was as good a word as any. Raj puffed alight a cheroot and poured them both brandies.
“Hunting accident—broke my neck putting my mount over a fence,” he said. “Quick, at least. I was an old, old man by that time, and the bones get brittle. Still, I had enough time to know I’d screwed the pooch in a major way. The real surprise was waking up—” He indicated the construct. “I was expecting the afterlife, the real afterlife.” He frowned. “Although this isn’t precisely my soul, come to think of it. Maybe I’m in two heavens . . . or hells.”