Mon’s skills as an officer were respected or he wouldn’t have a berth on a showpiece like the Aglaia; but he didn’t have interest, and he hadn’t had either the flair or the good fortune to get a command slot in other ways. Mon would be promoted, slowly but steadily, through a series of staff and ground positions till he retired . . . unless drink and bitterness led him to say something that the RCN couldn’t overlook.
Cassanos had a chance. Mon didn’t want the boy to lose it through the misfortune of aping a loser like himself.
A steward filled Daniel’s glass. The servants were from the Aglaia’s staff, attending this dinner through some arrangement Hogg had made with the purser. Hogg had provided the wine also. As usual he hadn’t volunteered information about his source of supply and Daniel had determinedly refused to ask. Daniel was scrupulous about the provenance of his normal fare, but this dinner was a matter of honor. If he knew that Hogg had raided Admiral Lasowski’s private stock, he’d have to do something about it.
“I served under Lasowski when she was captain of the Thunderer,” Lt. Weisshampl said. The wine in her refilled glass was the rusty color of a dried cherry; she stared with solemn intensity at the highlights on its surface. “A cautious officer. Not a person to trust a subordinate to do her job—but fair, wouldn’t invent a problem if there wasn’t one. Just cautious.”
Technically the Aglaia’s crew weren’t subordinate to Admiral Lasowski in the chain of command. The admiral and her staff were passengers on the RCS Aglaia, a vessel under the command of Captain Le Golif. Nobody who’d ever met an admiral believed that would be the reality, but Daniel knew the Aglaia’s situation was worse than most.
As Weisshampl said, Admiral Lasowski was a cautious officer—but she was also a person who used minutiae to settle her mind from the pressures of her real duties. Lasowski had the responsibility of satisfying Walter III with arrangements on which her honor would ride, but she knew also that the Cinnabar Senate would repudiate those arrangements if a majority of its members believed that was best for the Republic.
The Elector of Kostroma, an autocrat (albeit one who faced recall at gunpoint at any moment), would know only that Martina Lasowski had made untrue statements to him. Officers of the RCN, also an autocracy, were likely in their heart of hearts to view matters much the same way. Admiral Lasowski would have to resign, disgraced at the climax of a previously successful—if cautious—career.
“Being between the Senate and a dictator who needs money,” Daniel said aloud, “would make anybody pace the decks. They just don’t happen to be her decks, is all.”
The admiral was no particular friend of his. She’d made it clear that Lt. Leary had replaced her godson in the delegation by the decision of persons with whom she disagreed. For all that, she’d ignored Daniel rather than working at making his life hell. Daniel liked most people, and Lasowski hadn’t given him reason to add her to the short list of those he didn’t.
“The way to make that tinpot Kostroman see reason,” Lt. Mon said, “is to park a battleship in orbit over the palace until he decides there’s nothing he’d rather do than kiss our bum. God and all His saints! How long does Walter think there’d be a Kostroman merchant fleet if we declared him an enemy?”
“Now that,” Cassanos said, coming to life again, “would mean serious prize money!”
Daniel felt his eyes glaze with the thought of the sudden wealth that could accrue to even a junior lieutenant if hundreds of rich transports became fair targets before they could reach neutral ports. That was dream wealth, though; there’d never been any doubt that the Reciprocity Agreement would be renewed. Even if it weren’t, Kostroma wouldn’t become a hostile power.
“I was posted from the Hemphill to the inspections department at Harbor Three,” Mon recalled with morose savagery. “I hadn’t been off the books three days when the Hemphill took a transport trying to run four thousand tons of fullerenes into Pleasaunce. And then, instead of a combat tour I’m sent to squire around Admiral Pain-In-the-Ass Lasowski!”