Through the dissipating steam Adele could see an all-terrain ground vehicle, a bug of a body supported on four huge knitted-wire wheels, waiting on the quay. The front bench was open except for a roll cage mounting an automatic impeller, but the back was enclosed; the fenders bore stenciled Cinnabar markings.
“Ready, master?” said Hogg, resplendent in pantaloons, a ruffed shirt, and a broad silk sash, in contrasting colors. He didn’t carry a weapon openly—they were going to meet Cinnabar officials, not the benighted locals, after all. Except Adele knew the term in Hogg’s mind was closer to “fucking wogs.”
Tovera was in an off-white pants suit. It sounded conspicuous, but the creamy fabric didn’t glow even in bright sunshine and in the shade looked like a splotched wall. She carried her attaché case for no better reason than Daniel checked the set of his saucer hat: it was what you did when you left the ship.
“Yes, I think we are,” Daniel said, grinning at Adele. Hogg swaggered down the gangplank in a mixture of pride and truculence.
They’d done great things in the North, but that was in the past; now they must deal with the present. The ordinary machinery of the RCN was concerned with the way things were accomplished as well as what the things were. Hogg, for all his blustering countryman’s appearance, had a sophisticated awareness of the distinction: he’d have been hanged long since if he hadn’t.
Daniel strode toward the quay ahead of Adele as befit his rank. Tovera was last of all, the secretary too commonplace to notice—especially with Hogg in front to draw attention. The two made a good team, as good as Daniel and Adele did in their different fashion.
Tovera understood the risks of doing the right thing the wrong way as clearly as Adele did, but neither of them cared enough about their own lives for that to matter. Daniel, on the other hand, loved life and pleasure as much as any other soul aboard the Princess Cecile. If all went well he’d be relaxing tonight just as his spacers did, with enough liquor to float the corvette and one or more air-headed bimbos to share it with him.
But if Daniel knew with absolute certainty that doing the right and necessary thing would cause him to be executed by his own government, he’d do what he thought was right and necessary. Hogg would be beside him, muttering that the master was a damned fool, and all the Sissies would be following.
The car’s driver got out as soon as Adele and Daniel started across the gangplank. At their approach he opened the door to the rear compartment.
Hogg turned and raised an eyebrow toward Daniel. The driver said, “Why don’t you servants ride up front with me, eh?”
“Why don’t you button your lip till we hear what the master wants, eh, boy?” Hogg said. His tone was pleasant enough despite the words.
Adele glanced into the back of the vehicle. Cushioned seats faced one another in pairs; Lieutenant Wilsing sat in the middle, bending forward to look at them.
“Come on up front with me, Hogg,” Tovera said in an unusually loud voice for her. “I’ve met the gentleman. Mistress Mundy can handle any trouble that he causes.”
Daniel nodded smilingly to Hogg, then handed Adele into the seat and went around to the other side himself. The car started off as soon as he closed the door behind him. The tires made a ringing hum on the pavement.
“Captain,” Adele said, “this is Lieutenant Wilsing. You may remember him from when the Princess Cecile was fitting out in Harbor One.”
Adele had sent a coded report to the Kapila when she found a receiver to handshake with hers. She hadn’t been certain until then that Mistress Sand’s organization was participating in this operation, but she wasn’t at all surprised that it was. This was clearly more than an RCN initiative.
“Yes, I do,” Daniel said in a distant tone that showed he not only remembered, he understood. “Good morning, Wilsing.”
“I’m an aide to Captain Carnolets, who’s head of the RCN Ground Detachment here,” Wilsing explained. “We’ve only been here two days, so matters are still being sorted out. Count Klimov arrived in Xenos on a Cinnabar freighter from Todos Santos, telling of how you’d located an Alliance squadron on Radiance. The Count had recovered the Earth Diamond here in the North, which proved he couldn’t be entirely a crackpot.”