“Well, what was the choice, you stupid cow?” Estaing shouted. He raised his hand; Adele, blank-faced, reached into her pocket.
“Mr. Estaing, sit down and be silent!” Adrian snapped. “Now, by God!”
Estaing didn’t sit, but he grimaced and drew back from Tetrey. A pig, Adele thought, drawing another deep breath as her hand came out of her pocket empty.
“Sirs and ladies,” she said, all eyes on her again. “I don’t say that there’s no chance of you returning to Cinnabar, just that the question has nothing to do with the arrival of the Princess Cecile on Todos Santos. I, ah, know some persons of influence in Xenos. When I’m next on Cinnabar, I’ll make discreet inquiries if you’d like me to. But I can tell you nothing now beyond what you probably know already.”
She cleared her throat. “If you’d indulge my curiosity?” she went on. “I don’t understand precisely why you’d want to return. Your present situation—”
She let a sweep of her eyes take the place of a gesture.
“—appears comfortable, and at best . . . well, I’m sure you know that your property in the Republic was confiscated. In honesty, I can’t imagine much of it would ever be returned; and even if it were, I doubt it would allow you to live in palaces like this one.”
“Aye, Corder Leary doesn’t have a palace like mine,” Admiral O’Quinn said, seating himself heavily on the bench. He raised his mug reflexively, then remembered it was empty. He took the carafe by its handle, found it empty too, and glared. For a moment Adele thought the admiral was going to hurl one or the other across the room, but instead he relaxed and grinned at her sadly.
“I don’t need a palace,” he said. “Not here in the Cluster, anyhow. I want to go home, Mistress Mundy . . . and it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Not unless I want my head to decorate the Speaker’s Rock.”
“We’re RCN!” Estaing said. “They won’t humiliate us that way!”
“We were RCN,” Adrian Purvis said. “Now we’re pirates. And if it comes to that, I don’t want to be hung at a formal ceremony in Harbor Three, either.”
He turned to Adele. “Thank you for your candor, cousin,” he said. “I . . . hope we’ll have an opportunity to talk about old times later during your visit to Todos Santos; but not, I think, this afternoon.”
“No,” Adele said. “Good day, Adrian.”
She nodded to include the other officers in her leave-taking, then opened the door and backed onto the stairway again. The bright sun struck her, but she was shivering as she started down toward the silent, watchful Tovera.
The officers of the Aristoxenos lived like princes—now. But the ruler who’d welcomed them was dead, and the battleship whose power they’d wielded was rusting away. Even if the Alliance didn’t support the Commonwealth, there’d soon come a time when the wealth granted in former days was worth more to the new Governor than the support of a band of fat, aging foreigners.
“Mistress?” said Tovera, following in echelon as Adele strode for the gate.
“I don’t know how we’ll get transportation back to the ship,” Adele murmured quietly, “but I didn’t want to ask them for help. The less association we have with them, the better.”
They walked through the archway. The guards rose, and the RCN spacer in charge doffed his cap to Adele.
“It was like being in a tomb,” Adele said. She wasn’t sure even Tovera could hear her. “It was a tomb. They’re just not quite dead, yet.”
* * *
Daniel, standing on the east-facing balcony of the Governor’s Palace, felt the roar of a ship lifting in the harbor behind him. The Sissie’s Chief Engineer said over the commo helmet, “I think Converter Three’s performing below spec, sir. It’s brand new or anyway was when we lifted from Tanais Base, but it’s only running at 88%. Over.”
The balcony overlooked a canal; beyond a tugboat pushing a line of barges toward the harbor, the city of San Juan rose in irregular terraces. None of the buildings were very high, but three lofty aqueducts fell from the hills and marched across the city to the water plant near the palace.