“I don’t think they care much about the capital,” Mon said, rolling his palms upward. “The Count says he wants to do some hunting, and his wife studies people that never got back into space after the Hiatus. The relict societies, she calls them. You know, wogs with bones through their noses who’ll cut out your heart and eat it because the Great God Goo tells them to. It’s her life, I guess.”
“Scholars, then,” Daniel said. “I don’t think the Commonwealth controls a tenth of the worlds that’d been settled in the North before the Hiatus, and ‘control’ is stretching it to describe the government anyway. The planets pretty much run their own business, and the Commonwealth fleet supports itself by extortion when it isn’t straight piracy.”
By a combination of treaty and threat the ships of Cinnabar and her allies were exempt from the abuses, at least in cases where there might be survivors to bring back word of what had happened. But all vessels trading into the Galactic North went armed, even though guns and missiles reduced their cargo capacity.
“Yeah, well, it’s still a damned fool way to waste time and money,” Mon said. “But they’ve got money, the Lord knows they have. And that’s the rub, Leary. When they learned the Sissie’d be going on the block, they decided to buy her themselves for their tour. And they want me to captain her, at a lieutenant commander’s salary!”
“Why Mon, that’s wonderful news!” Daniel said, rising in his seat to reach over the table and grasp Mon’s shoulder. “And they couldn’t have a better man and ship for the job! Why, good God, man, you had me thinking there was something wrong!”
If the Klimovs could afford to crew the corvette, she was an ideal choice for a long voyage into a region which was unexplored where it wasn’t actively hostile. The Princess Cecile was a fast, handy vessel. Though light for a warship in a major fleet, she was far more powerful than the pirates and Commonwealth naval units (where there was a difference) she’d meet in the North.
Mon would have to resign his commission, but under the circumstances the Admiralty would grant him a waiver so that he could rejoin at some future date at the same rank. All he’d lose was seniority on a day-for-day basis—and his half-pay, just under a quarter of what the Klimovs were offering for his services.
As for the Sissie—well, she wouldn’t be a warship any longer, but she wouldn’t be a scow running bulk supplies to asteroid miners either. Good news for the ship, good news for her acting captain—and good news for Daniel Leary, two recent weights off his back!
“There is something wrong!” Mon said miserably. “Sir, what am I going to do for a crew? With the peace treaty signed, all the trading houses will be hiring spacers. I’ll have nothing but drunks and gutter-sweepings—for a voyage to the North, and not to the major ports either.”
While Daniel thought over what Mon had just said, he sipped his shandy. Good grief! it was dreadful. He supposed he’d drunk worse . . . well, realistically, he knew he’d drunk worse; but he certainly hadn’t been sober while he was doing it.
“Well Mon . . . ,” he said, resisting the urge to swab his mouth and tongue with something clean or at any rate different. “I should think based on what the Klimovs offered you, they’d pay something better than going wages for seasoned spacers. In fact, I’d expect most of the Sissie’s current crew would sign on with you. She was always a happy ship—and lucky in her officers, if I may say so.”
A middle-aged man came in with a younger woman, moderately attractive but respectably dressed—a second wife, perhaps, but not a whore. “Hey Bert,” the man said to the barman as they headed for the end booth. “The usual for me and Mamie.”
“Coming up, Lon,” the tapster said as he set a pair of glasses on the bar.
“Luck!” Mon said bitterly into his empty glass. “That’s the problem. On the voyage home we had a dozen breakdowns. Mostly the damned High Drive—Pasternak finally figured out that the gauges they’d replaced in Tanais were off, so we were feeding eight percent more antimatter to the motors than he thought. We had half the motors go out, eaten through by the excess. Plus two of the masts carried away in the Matrix. We didn’t lose a rigger, but we would’ve if Woetjans hadn’t grabbed him without a safety line and then caught a shroud with her free hand.”