She paused to throw back the wing of her cloak. The price of the suit she wore beneath it would have paid Adele’s apartment rent for a year. Sand brought an ivory snuffbox out of an inside pocket, offered it to Adele, and put a pinch in the hollow of her left thumb.
“The trouble with naval officers,” Sand continued, “is their confidence that the only way to an objective is through the direct application of force. Whereas civilians like you and me know—”
She snorted, pinching shut the opposite nostril, then sneezed violently. “Nothing like it to keep your head clear,” she said in satisfaction.
Sand met Adele’s eyes squarely. “Sometimes all you get from driving head-first into a situation is a headache, Ms. Mundy,” she said. “Which is what that fool Elphinstone has caused for me. I’m hoping that you’ll not let that prevent you from acting to your advantage and to that of the Republic.”
“I’ll give you the same answer I did him,” Adele said coldly. She felt silly to have the gun in plain sight, though it would be worse at this point to pocket it again. Sand didn’t use force, and she was much more dangerous than those who did.
“If I asked the same question, I’m quite sure you would,” Sand said. “And if you think I would ask the same question then I’ve misjudged your abilities of analysis.”
Adele laughed and put the pistol away: an apology for being foolish, understood and accepted by Sand’s nod of approval.
“It’s obviously to my benefit to help you,” Adele said. “I’ll do so if I’m able to with honor. But you should be aware that my honor is engaged in this matter.”
“Oh, no one has designs on your honor,” Sand said good-humoredly. “And there’s plenty of honor to go around in a victory as great as this one. Admiral Ingreit will get the formal thanks of the Senate for capturing Kostroma, and as for Lieutenant Daniel Leary, well, he’ll be a nine-days’ wonder, won’t he? The last thing a wise senior officer would do is to seem to be blackening the name of the hero of so brilliant an exploit.”
“Some people might not see it that way,” Adele said.
Sand snorted. “Some people are fools,” she said.
Her face, never particularly attractive, was suddenly that of a bulldog preparing to leap. “Let me assure you, mistress, that Admiral Ingreit is capable of taking good advice if it’s put in a form he can understand. My delay in visiting you was because I thought it desirable to discuss matters with the admiral first.”
Adele laughed. “I’d offer you a drink,” she said, “but I don’t have anything on hand. I don’t have very much at all, to be honest, including the next week’s rent.”
Sand nodded without comment. “Have you seen Lieutenant Leary recently?” she asked.
Adele shook her head. “Not since shortly after the fleet arrived,” she said. “I went to the command node to help with integration, and Daniel had his own duties. I believe he’s still aboard the ship we captured, but I didn’t care to bother him after I left the battleship.”
She half-smiled. “I was afraid I might be contagious, you see.”
Sand nodded again. She opened her belt purse and took from it a business card.
“I believe that a person with your natural abilities could be of enormous benefit to the Republic,” she said. “What some would think of as—please forgive me—your disabilities are in fact extremely good cover for a person of undoubted loyalty to Cinnabar.”
Adele’s smile was more wry than bitter. “I don’t think it would be difficult,” she said, “to find those who doubt my loyalty.”
Sand stood to place the business card on the desk. “I believe we’ve already discussed how easy it is to find fools, mistress,” she said. “I try very hard not to be one of their number.”
The front of the card read simply BERNIS SAND. Adele turned the card over and squeezed the diagonally opposite corners. A twelve-digit number appeared on the blank surface, then vanished when she released the pressure.
“When you’re next on Cinnabar you might call there,” Sand said. She stood and carefully returned the snuffbox to its pocket.