As head of the Navy Board he kept the RCN out of politics and kept politicians of every stripe out of the RCN. Everybody knew that naval contracts were awarded to the suppliers who best benefited the RCN and that ships and commands were allocated according to the needs and resources of the Republic—as determined by the head of Navy Board.
Anston was a florid man in his mid sixties. He ate and drank with the same enthusiasm he had fifty years earlier when he was a midshipman running up and down the rigging of his training battleship. Some day he’d die. That would be a worse blow to the RCN and the Republic than anything the Alliance had managed in the past century of off-and-on warfare.
But Anston was alive now, the most important man in the RCN and one of the most important in all Cinnabar; and he’d come to Commander Bergen’s funeral.
“Good morning, Admiral Anston,” Daniel said. An analytical part of his mind watched the proceedings dispassionately. It noted that Daniel’s voice was pleasant and well modulated, and it marvelled at the fact. “Uncle Stacey is greatly honored to see you here.”
“Is he?” said Anston, grinning grimly at Daniel—one spacer talking to another. “Well, I wouldn’t know about that, boy; I leave those questions to the priests. I do know that I used the route Lieutenant Bergen charted through the Straw Pile to reach the fullerene convoy from the Webster Stars before it met its Alliance escort. The profits paid the RCN’s budget for a year and didn’t do me personally so badly either, eh, Maggie?”
He beamed at his wife, as near a double to him as their different sexes would allow. Her pants suit was covered with lace and ruffles—but all of them black, so from any distance she was merely a pudgy older woman instead of the clown she’d have looked in contrasting colors. “Josh, don’t call me Maggie in public!” she said in a furious whisper.
Anston clapped her on the buttock. Lady Anston affected not to notice, but the admiral’s aide—a lieutenant commander of aristocratic bearing—winced in social agony.
“What was Semmes saying to you?” the admiral demanded in a lowered voice. “He came calling at my office—for courtesy, he said. I was out and I’ll damned well be out any other time he comes by!”
“Nothing that matters, your lordship,” Daniel said. Behind him, Hogg grunted agreement with the admiral’s comments. “He met Uncle Stacey on Alicia, when the Alliance expedition under Lorenz arrived just after the government had signed a treaty of friendship with the Republic.”
“I guess he wouldn’t forget that,” Anston said with an approving guffaw. “They had no idea we were operating within ten days Transit of there—and we wouldn’t have been except for your uncle’s nose for a route where nobody else could see one.”
“Josh, we’re holding up the line,” Lady Anston said, glaring at Daniel as though he and her husband were co-conspirators in a plot to embarrass her.
“Well, Commander Bergen isn’t complaining, is he?” the admiral said in a testy voice. Then to Daniel he continued, “Listen, Lieutenant. The Senate doesn’t want a war with the Alliance so it pretends there won’t be one. I don’t want a war either, but I know sure as the sun rises that war’s coming. Coming whenever Guarantor Porra decides it’s in his interest, and that won’t be long. You needn’t worry about being put on half pay—you’re the sort of young officer the RCN needs even in peacetime. And when it’s war, you’ll have a command that’ll raise you up or use you up, depending on the sort of grit you show. On my oath!”
The admiral passed on into the church, guided to the front by one of the corps of ushers provided by Willams and Son. The rhythms of his wife’s harangue were intelligible even though the words themselves were not.
“A navy warrant officer,” said the undertaker’s prompter. Then, testily, “She should have been directed to the gallery via the back stairs!”
“Hello, Adele,” Daniel said, gripping Mundy’s right hand with his and clasping his left over it. “By God, I’m glad you could see this! They’ve turned out for Uncle Stacey, by God they have! He’d be so proud to see this!”