“No Leary on record joined the RCN,” Daniel said as he watched. “Till me. The Bergens, though, my mother’s family—they were spacers as far back as the end of the Hiatus. And never a greater one than my Uncle Stacey, either.”
Additional bodies of marchers followed the first. Some of them played musical instruments; all wore finery and carried banners or symbols of their craft. A cylindrical float, colored silver in contrast to the gold of the slowboat, was being wheeled toward the stands where it would be introduced into the line of march.
“My father made Uncle Stacey manager of the repair yards at Bantry when he retired,” Daniel said. “Stacey brought some of his retired warrant officers to run the hands-on work and the business side, but he did the testing himself. Every spacer’s heard of Commander Stacey Bergen, even the ones who never got out of the Cinnabar system. The yard does three times the business under Uncle Stacey than it had before him.”
Adele wondered whether this personable young man had known anyone he could talk to since he joined the navy. There were more ways to lose your family than in the slaughter of a proscription.
The cylindrical “starship” was moving into place before the grandstand. “The Second Landing,” Daniel read. “3381 Anno Hejira.”
Then he added in the same tone of cool reportage, “Mind you, Father never ceases to say that only his charity saves his wife’s brother from begging on the street. There could be some truth to that. Uncle Stacey isn’t much of a businessman.”
“This is quite real,” Adele said, scrolling up her display. “A secondary colonization from Topaz, under the Princess Cecile Alpen-Morshach. And there was a Hajas . . .”
Daniel touched a control on the frame of his goggles. “Emilius Hajas, Commander of the Royal Bodyguard,” he said. “Who it appears is personally laying out the site of Kostroma City. How did there chance to be a Hajas in both the first and second colonies, do you suppose?”
“According to the list of crew and colonists,” Adele said dryly, “Emilius Hajas was a rigger with a series of disciplinary charges pending. He apparently deserted on Kostroma.”
“To the great relief of his watch commander, I shouldn’t wonder,” Daniel said. “A colony ship must be hell on crew discipline. A training ship’s bad enough, full of recruits who don’t know one hand from the other.”
He raised his goggles again to look at her. “That’s all in your little handset?” he said, nodding to the data unit on Adele’s lap.
“I’m linked to the library unit,” she explained. “And through that to the whole net. There’s a transmission lag since signals in both directions have to go through the satellite constellation, but I’m so used to this . . .”
She smiled at the little computer. She knew the expression was warmer than anything living had seen on her face for many years.
” . . . that I almost prefer it to using the big unit directly.”
A band of children in Hajas silver-and-violet followed the second float. They were graduated by height. Adele wasn’t sure she’d be able to judge how old they were even with the goggles’ magnification, but those in the back looked extremely small.
Each child clung to a rope twined with flowers running from front to back of the file. The last few rows were tied to the rope, not just holding it. Stern-faced adult minders in livery marched at the corners of the group, carrying batons.
“You know,” said Daniel in a tone of gentle musing, “it’s as well that I’m up here and not down on the street. I guess they’ll be using those sticks by the end of the procession when the little tykes are tired.”
“It’s a charity home for orphans,” Adele said, reading off her display. They’d been scheduled for earlier in the line of march; she supposed there’d been difficulty getting such small children into position. “I think that’s what they are, anyway.”
Daniel took off his goggles and put them in his lap. He rubbed his eyes. “Colder than space, charity can be,” he said in the same soft voice.