Adele strode through the outer office. No one spoke or tried to stop her. She turned right for no reason except that there were only two possibilities and she was too angry to attempt a rational choice.
She kept walking. She had no destination, but the adrenaline surging through her bloodstream had to be burned off somehow. Fight or flight . . .
“Mistress?” said a familiar voice. “Mistress Mundy?”
For the many minutes since she left Elphinstone’s office, Adele’s eyes had operated solely to keep her from walking into objects. She saw people and bulkheads with the same lack of distinction.
Her eyes and mind locked back into focus. She entered a large room with hatches along one wall—a docking bay like the one by which she’d arrived on the Rene Descartes. A number of sailors stood in groups, waiting for officers to return.
Woetjans had called to her. Barnes, Dasi, and a third Aglaia sailor whose name Adele didn’t know were with the petty officer.
“Have you been keeping well, mistress?” Woetjans asked. “We heard you were working on the minefield still.”
“I’m not all right now,” Adele said. Her face hardened. “Can you take me to Kostroma City? I need . . .”
She paused. If the interview with Elphinstone had cost her the ability to speak precisely, then she’d lost more than her life.
She smiled. “I very much want to get off this ship,” she said.
The petty officer had no readable expression for a moment. Then she said, “Yeah, sure.”
She gestured her three subordinates toward the nearest hatch. “Saddle up,” she said. “With luck we’ll be back before the quartermaster wants to leave.”
“He’s going to be really pissed if we’re not,” said the sailor Adele didn’t know by name.
Barnes knocked the man down.
In a furious tone that shocked Adele even more than the blow, Woetjans shouted, “Then I’ll answer to him, won’t I, Blessing? Your job’s to carry out the orders I give you!”
Others in the docking bay watched the unexpected tableau, but no one moved to intervene. Dasi walked over to the hatch controls. “Yeah,” he said. “And if you think you got problems with what just happened, Blessing, you better pray Mr. Leary don’t learn you tried to give the lady a hard time. They’ll probably make somebody else captain of the Princess Cecile, but until they do you’ll think you died and went to Hell.”
The hatch opened. It was the inner door of a large airlock holding a cutter. Woetjans gestured Adele through ahead of her.
Adele didn’t speak. There was nothing more to say; and anyway, her throat was too choked by emotion.
Captain Kryshevski was an hour later leaving his office than he’d thought even remotely possible. Mistress O’Sullivan’s establishment would be open till dawn, but the chances of getting a taxi at the back of the Elector’s Palace weren’t good.
Kryshevski could have a naval vehicle take him, but that would be impolitic at best. He might well meet other officers at the tables, but he’d be a fool to put his activities on record with those who weren’t themselves implicated.
Nothing illegal about gambling, of course. Nothing illegal about gambling for very high stakes. But questions might be asked, and Captain Kryshevski didn’t have a wealthy family to provide answers.
He returned the guards’ salute and stepped into the street. To his relief, there was a jitney waiting with its diesel ticking over. The driver, an older man, hopped down from his seat and opened the door to the rear compartment. He looked to be a scoundrel, but he bowed and said, “Where to, master?” in a polite tone.
Kryshevski wasn’t about to argue with what seemed better luck than he had any right to. Maybe it was an omen of the night’s play. He got in and said quietly so that the guards wouldn’t hear, “Stoneyard Street, beside the entrance to the gardens. You know where that is?”
“I sure do, master,” the driver said. He closed the compartment and boarded again. The light vehicle rocked with his weight over the single front wheel.
The jitney was already pointed in the correct direction. They started, and the rhythm of the wheels on the hard pavers began to soothe Kryshevski’s irritation at the problem that had held him in the office. It was impossible to find enough guard detachments from a squadron that hadn’t been intended as an occupation force.