She drank, her eyes holding Adele’s over the glittering crystal arc. She set the tumbler down and continued, “I have reports that Alliance personnel are building a modern naval base on Gehenna, the only satellite of Radiance. If the Commonwealth government were to reconquer the Ten Star Cluster with Alliance support, the ramifications for the Republic would be very serious.”
“I can see that,” Adele said carefully. “What I don’t see . . .”
As she chose her words, she let her eyes rove slowly over the ranks of glass-fronted bookshelves. She couldn’t read the spine stampings from where she sat, but it was obvious that this was a real collection rather than yea-many books by the yard that one often found in households whose noble residents chose to affect erudition instead of sporting prowess or a taste for the graphic arts.
A space captain with a real affection for literature had ample time and opportunity to pursue his hobby. Carnolets was apparently one of those captains. Adele felt a surge of warmth toward a man—or woman; she had no way of knowing—whom she’d never met.
” . . . is why you sent for me,” she continued, locking her gaze with the spymaster’s. “If there’s a naval base on Gehenna, then it’s a matter for the whole RCN. Not for me.”
“The Senate doesn’t want a war,” Sand said bluntly. “And the shipping firms, from the largest to captain-owned tramps, really don’t want a resumption of hostilities. The Cinnabar ambassador to the Commonwealth, Train of Lakeside, believes the base on Gehenna is still years from completion. If he’s correct, then there’s no need for precipitate action on our part.”
Sand drank. Lowering the tumbler she went on, “I can’t prove Train is wrong, but I will say that if that good gentleman said the sun would rise in the east I’d want a second opinion. I want you to determine the actual progress on the base.”
Information cascaded across Adele’s holographic display under the direction of her control wands. Gehenna was fully a third the diameter of its primary, Radiance, but it was uninhabited, cold at the core, and lacking a significant atmosphere. A great deal of water was trapped within the mantle, though, offering reaction mass for the plasma thrusters that lifted starships into hard vacuum where they could use their antimatter High Drive motors.
Gehenna would make a very suitable naval base for someone who was willing to trade a degree of discomfort for nearly complete secrecy.
“Are you going to send a ship to the Radiance system?” Adele said. She’d almost said, “—send the Princess Cecile?” but that would never happen again.
She continued to scroll through data. The best way to learn what you needed to know was simply to study what had been published, correlating the bits in your mind and noting the anomalies. When things didn’t fit it meant that somebody was lying, and the mere fact of the lie would often show you the truth behind it.
“The Commonwealth embargoed Radiance to foreign naval vessels three years ago,” Sand said, her tone bleak with suppressed anger. “Ambassador Train was quite angry about it, because he’d been intriguing to have his private yacht declared an RCN warship so that its crew and maintenance would come out of the naval appropriation. It didn’t cross his mind to report the matter through official channels, however.”
“How, then?” Adele said, looking up from her display for the first time in minutes. Had some Commonwealth magnate expressed a desire for a trained librarian?
“Count Klimov and his wife Valentina from Novy Sverdlovsk plan a private expedition to the Galactic North,” Sand said. “They’re quite real—they have no connection with either me or Cinnabar more generally. But they’re buying the Princess Cecile and have hired Lieutenant Mon as her captain. I want you to go with them as signals officer.”
“Ah,” Adele said. She shut down her data unit and crossed her hands on the table. Her eyes were unfocused; her mind spun as she dealt with the implications of the spymaster’s simple statement. A plum job like that made it obvious why Mon had been so excited when he came looking for Daniel . . . but that was the only part of the business which was obvious.