The aircar bobbled back and dropped to the street. “Cancel that order!” Weisshampl roared. She started to get up, then turned to vomit so that the street’s slight camber would carry the ejecta away from her uniform.
Daniel nodded approvingly as he clung to the transom. Weisshampl was a real professional, no question about it.
He turned. The stewards were shepherding Cassanos and Whelkine down the stairs. The gentleness of the process was a positive commentary on the way the Aglaia’s ratings regarded the midshipmen. Lt. Mon walked behind them alone. He had a sort of funereal grace, holding a glass of brandy with the dignity owed a communion chalice.
Hogg eyed the debris of the party. There was no breakage except for the railing, some glasses, and a chair. The latter hadn’t been in good shape even before Daniel trampled it on his way to the balcony. “In twenty minutes we’ll have it clean as your mother’s parlor, sir,” he said judiciously. “That’s if we have a clear field, I mean.”
He quirked an eyebrow at Daniel to drive home the point that the master would be very much in the way of the clean-up.
The aircar’s crew had loaded Lt. Weisshampl onto the open vehicle’s middle seat. The midshipmen entered the street under their own power, though stewards were hovering nearby. Cassanos raised his foot to step over the car’s low side. He lost his balance, pirouetted on one foot, and fell backward into the rearmost section. Whelkine toppled directly on top of him.
Mon entered the middle section. His drink sloshed as he eased Weisshampl to the side. “Whee!” cried Midshipman Whelkine. “I’ve got brandy on my butt!”
The dinner might have loosened Whelkine up to a useful extent, Daniel thought. Assuming she didn’t hang herself out of embarrassment when she sobered in the morning.
“Home, James!” Weisshampl commanded from where she lay. The aircar skidded forward on surface effect, then rose in a turn with the fans screaming.
Petty officers would have to coddle the midshipmen who’d be nominally in command of the parties calling in leave-men, but that wouldn’t be either a problem or the first time. Daniel could remember the night only the grip of a husky rating on each elbow had kept him navigating the Strip outside Harbor #3, searching for no-shows who were a great deal less drunk than he was.
He returned his attention to the waiting servant. “I’m going to take a stroll down to the docks, Hogg,” he said. “I’ll watch the cutter lift, and then I’ll see if I can find some other entertainment. You needn’t wait up for me.”
Hogg pursed his lips in whiskery concern. “You’ll be alone, then, sir?” he asked. “One of the stewards here—”
“I’ll be alone,” Daniel said, just as firmly as Weisshampl had spoken before she toppled into the street, “until I find that other entertainment. Carry on, Hogg!”
He strode toward the staircase with a martial stride; and, because Hogg snatched the remains of the chair out of the way, Daniel didn’t trip and plunge down those stairs nose first.
The gardens behind the Electoral Place were unlighted except for the lamp hanging in front of the shelter where a dozen guards chewed tobacco and complained of being bored. They watched Adele pass without concern. If she’d been trying to enter the palace they might have challenged her; and again, they might not. Boredom created apathy, and apathy swallowed first initiative and then life itself.
Adele smiled. She’d always found whatever she was doing to be extremely interesting. Her experience didn’t include standing in one place and expecting nothing to happen, but there was no lack of other ways to spend one’s existence. The guards would probably say that their duties were better than having a real job, but Adele was by no means sure they were correct.
First initiative, then life . . .
The vast black mass of the palace was between her and the vehicles arriving for the other guests, but even so she had a hint of the pomp of the leavetaking. Most of the foreigners and a good third of the Kostromans at the banquet came and left in aircars, either personally owned or hired for the event. Their lights swam across the sky in temporary constellations, multicolored and blinking. Even the guests who used ground vehicles or canal boats appointed like yachts made the air waver with searchlight beams to advertise their importance.