“Marina Rolfe,” Adele said. She remembered the face screaming, its features distorted by rage and fear but not, Adele was sure, attractive on their best day. “Marina Casaubon Rolfe.”
“Right, and she could roast like a chicken for anything I cared,” Hogg said, “but damned if Tovera didn’t go in after her. Said she mustn’t die.”
The second lowboy whirred and clanked into place. The tractor ran on caterpillar treads, but the trailer was supported by four full-width pneumatic tires like bolsters. The Klimovs started to walk across where the lowboy was about to back into position, but the naval official stopped them in time.
“Well, hell,” Hogg said. “She’s just a little thing, Tovera is—”
Adele managed not to blink at the description. It was accurate enough in the sense that viruses are small, weasels are small, and the pistol in Adele’s pocket was quite a small one. . . .
“—and I went in to fetch them both.” He brushed his fingertips over the back of his left wrist with a sour expression.
“Are you all right, Hogg?” Adele said, irritated that she hadn’t said something sooner. While he didn’t look or sound as bad as Tovera, he’d obviously had a harrowing time himself.
He chuckled. “Bless you, mistress,” he said. “I’ve looked worse than this plenty mornings after an oyster roast back at Bantry. And been hung over.”
Reaching in a baggy countryman’s side-pocket, he brought up a sparkling handful. The settings were ugly, but some of the gems were very fine indeed. “Besides, there were compensations,” Hogg said.
He sobered suddenly. “But I want you to know that Tovera didn’t do anything wrong,” he went on. “She’s the only reason that woman’s alive. Left to her own devices, they’d be combing her bones outa the rubble when it cools enough tomorrow or the next day.”
“Didn’t do anything wrong,” was a matter of definition, of course; but in this particular case, Hogg’s definition and Adele’s own were quite similar.
“Thank you, Hogg,” she said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She looked at the short, stocky man; middle-aged and no more prepossessing than the fellow who’d just maneuvered the lowboy into position. “And thank you for your services to the Mundys of Chatsworth as well. I won’t forget that.”
Hogg laughed. “Oh, mistress, you’re as much a Leary now as I am,” he said, “for all my name’s Hogg. But this one, well, let’s just say I take it personally when somebody litters the master’s street the way that lot did.”
He sauntered up the catwalk, whistling a jig. The powered cart remained where it was, abandoned rather than parked, Adele supposed.
“Count Klimov!” Daniel called as he started down the shrouds bracing the antenna. He wore riggers’ gloves, but even so he must be risking tearing his forearms as he swung and slid. “Countess! I’ll meet you on the bridge and we’ll go over the route!”
Adele smiled at a memory. If Hogg said she was a Leary now, who was she to argue?
* * *
Daniel signed the articles—Daniel Leary, son of Corder, of Bantry; Lt (Res) RCN—and handed them to Count Klimov with a flourish. “Well sir,” he said, “you’ve hired the finest crew a vessel this size ever shipped; and you’ve hired me as well.”
Diamond saws and the snarl of arc welders vibrated through the Princess Cecile as yard workmen converted her into a yacht with quarters suitable for a pair of aristocrats. Star travel couldn’t be made comfortable, but a stateroom in place of half the missile magazine would give the Klimovs more personal volume than an admiral could boast.
The question of comfort aside, star travel couldn’t even be made safe when it involved the sort of destinations the Klimovs fancied. Well, again the Sissie and her crew should suit them as well as they could be suited.
“That your crew should be excellent is no coincidence, Captain,” the Countess said. “We’ve been talking with the guest-friends we’re staying with here in Xenos, the Collesios, and hearing what a great hero you are. They’re impressed that we were able to hire you. You are a coup for us, you see?”