Domenico grinned like an earthquake in a rocky cliff. “That won’t be much of a cull,” he said. “Riggers, or . . . ?”
“Riggers if you’ve got them, but take them from the hullside if you need to,” Weisshampl said. “I’ll clear it with the Chief of Ship.”
“Aye aye, sir,” the bosun said. He tapped his forehead in salute and walked out of the office. His voice was booming names even before he reached the stairs.
“I’ll lay on an aircar to ferry you to shore,” Weisshampl said to Daniel. “Any particular spot?”
“We’ll pick up Hogg at my quarters,” Daniel said. “Then the Elector’s Palace. Before I forget, could you break this out of petty cash?”
He brought out the hundred-florin piece and handed it to the duty officer.
Weisshampl looked at the coin in surprise. “This is a special minting,” she said.
“It’s legal tender,” Daniel said defensively. “It’s, well, it was minted the day of my birth. I was given it to, well, carry, you know. Right now I’m a little short of ready cash and—”
“I’ll break it for you myself,” Weisshampl said, taking out her purse. “If it got into ship’s funds, it might be harder to find when you wanted it back.”
She put the lucky piece in an inner pocket of the purse, then shoved ordinary coins across the desk in three neat stacks. “I really respect Commander Bergen,” Weisshampl said. “The only thing he needed was the willingness to go for the throat.”
“I love my uncle,” Daniel said as he rose. “I really appreciate your help, Maisie.”
He turned and started out the door. Domenico had probably assembled the detail by now.
“You must have gotten the killer instinct from your father,” Lt. Weisshampl said to his back.
“For proper proportions over that span . . .” said Mistress Bozeman, looking at the sketch Adele had made, “the shelves have to be seven-eighths of an inch higher. Now, we could get the same effect by reducing the length by about four inches.”
The library bustled. It hadn’t been this busy since the day Adele arrived and half the palace staff had wandered in for a look at the foreign intellectual. At least half of the assistants assigned to her were here today and many of them seemed willing to work, at least in a desultory fashion.
“Work” for the moment meant carrying boards up three flights of helical stairs that were architecturally breathtaking. They were also about as badly suited to transporting long shelves as any design Adele could imagine, so she was both pleased and surprised that so many of her staff stuck with the task.
“Now you see . . .” the master carpenter said. She put the end of a fabric measuring tape against the masonry of the outer wall and handed the reel with its spring tensioner to the only journeyman present; the other was down in the cabinet shop, directing library assistants to the boards they were to carry.
Ms. Bozeman wasn’t being obstructive. For perhaps the first time in a decade she wore a real working costume, a many-pocketed apron over sturdy clothing. The trouble was that she simply couldn’t understand that aesthetic design had to give way to efficient use of space in the present circumstances.
Adele needed shelves that would hold the maximum number of logbooks, routing directions, and similar works in twenty-centimeter size that had been standard aboard starships since before the Hiatus. She didn’t need an inch and a half of clearance above the volumes, and she certainly didn’t want banks of shelves separated by a four-inch gap that would be absolutely useless for any purpose she could imagine.
Mistress Bozeman didn’t understand. If Adele had been asking her to set the shelves without vertical supports, the words would have made equal sense to the master carpenter.
Adele drew a deep breath as she considered which different words to use in what increasingly seemed to be a fruitless attempt to get her ideas across. “Excuse me, Ms. Mundy,” said a voice behind her. “I must request that you grant me a brief private interview.”
“Go a—” Adele began. She recognized the voice. She turned, the shelving forgotten for the moment.