Two more cars pulled up behind the one they’d ridden. Both were full of spacers and the same assortment of civilians as the ones who’d accompanied Daniel and Adele. The remainder of the Princess Cecile’s crew already stood in four loose ranks on the quay in front of the corvette.
An officer in grays was seated behind a portable table with an enlisted clerk, flanked by a pair of Shore Police with sub-machine guns. The pay chest, still locked, waited on the table.
“Daniel, the civilians?” Adele whispered.
“Some are wives,” Daniel murmured in her ear. “Well, spouses. The others are crimps or their agents, making sure that their advances are covered before the rest of the pay is drunk up. If there’s any remaining, of course.”
Lieutenant Mon, wearing his dress uniform like Daniel, stood at a little distance from both the paymaster and the crew. He brightened noticeably when he saw Daniel approaching, but he still looked haggard.
“Mr. Mon, might I have a word with you please?” Daniel called. In an aside he added, “This concerns you in a way also, Adele, so I’d appreciate it if you joined us.”
Mon threw a glance over his shoulder, then came toward them at a quickstep; the newly-arrived spacers passed him in the opposite direction to fall in with their fellows.
Adele judged Mon had been looking at the strangers who were watching from the open hatches of the Princess Cecile’s bridge, forward on A Deck—the uppermost of the corvette’s four levels. Several wore RCN uniforms, but two were civilians. The woman was dressed in a medley of garish colors; the man’s black-and-white suit was cut to slant toward his left shoulder, making him look as though he were about to fall over.
“The Klimovs are aboard with the dockyard representative and a survey party from the Navy Office,” Mon muttered, making explicit what Adele had already assumed. He wrung Daniel’s hand. “Sir, I . . . I’d be very grateful for anything you can bring yourself to say to the crew.”
“Before I address the crew, Mon . . . ,” Daniel said. “I have a proposition for you.”
It seemed to Adele that he was being unusually formal with his old shipmate. Daniel hadn’t been the sort of captain who maintained a psychic distance between himself and those whom he commanded.
“Sir?” said Mon, straightening instinctively. His expression was too blank to be described as puzzled.
“You may know that I’ve become heir to my uncle’s controlling interest in Bergen and Associates,” Daniel continued with the same smooth formality. “I’ll need a yard manager, as I myself will be off-planet much of the time even if the present state of peace lasts. Which is unlikely unless the Almighty shows Guarantor Porra the path of righteousness before the RCN has to do it again.”
His smile was that of a senior taking a junior into his confidence to the extent of a mild joke. Adele marveled strait-faced to watch her friend become a kindlier version of his own father. At this moment the two lieutenants had ceased to be fellow officers: they were patron and client, and she saw exactly where the interview—it wasn’t a discussion—was going.
“I want you for my yard manager, Mon,” Daniel said. “I can’t tell you precisely what the conditions of employment will be—I made a brief call to my sister Deirdre this morning and she’s working out the details—but there’ll be profit participation. I told her to set the percentages so that the manager is initially paid at the level of a full commander. If the yard flourishes, so of course will the manager. Uncle Stacey wasn’t healthy enough for the past several years to keep things going at their best.”
“Good God, captain,” Mon said. “Good God!”
“Will you accept, Mon?” Daniel said, raising his eyebrows. “I can’t think of a man I’d rather have in the position.”
“Sir,” Mon said. He stepped forward and wrung Daniel’s hand hard. “Oh, bless you, sir, I. . . . You won’t regret this, I swear!”
He sobered and started to look over his shoulder, then caught himself. “Ah, what about the Klimovs, sir?” he said quietly. “I haven’t signed the articles, I couldn’t until the ship passed to their ownership, of course. But they’re expecting me, you know, to . . .”