“What kind of navy?” Daniel repeated. Adele finally had to admit silently that the Cinnabar lieutenant hadn’t been acting after all.
Considering that his fury was directed at a gross lapse of professionalism, Adele found herself inclined to agree.
Daniel punched the last of eight digits into the keypad on the door of Warehouse 12 and stepped back. The lock clicked. Woetjans thrust a short prybar into the door seam instead of struggling with the recessed handle. She pulled and Dasi, the huskiest man in the detachment, shoved on the back of the bar.
The door jerked sideways as though blown along its track. Several ratings grabbed the edge while it still had rolling inertia and slammed it all the way to the stop.
Hogg had the truck angled so that the headlight shone into the warehouse. Miscellaneous junk was piled in the aisle at the front of the building just as it had been at Warehouse 44, but Bell hopped nimbly over the obstruction and cried, “Here’s the ration cartons!”
Adele had gotten out of the truck. She walked over and stood beside Daniel as he watched in satisfaction. He grinned at her as he called to the ratings, “Just one layer of boxes to cover the floor. You’re packed tight enough already.”
The Cinnabars now wore Kostroman utility uniforms, loose red shirts and blue trousers. They were barefoot as well, a problem for feet not hardened to it but necessary if they were to avoid comment. For an officer to wear the wrong kind of shoes meant little or nothing; a rating with any footgear at all was instantly noticeable.
“Is there liquor stored in the compound?” Daniel asked. “Can you find it?”
Adele looked surprised, but she squatted without comment. She leaned her back against the warehouse wall so that she could balance the little computer on her knees.
The gear piled in the doorway was bedding. Instead of simply tossing it aside, the Cinnabars cleared their path by stacking the pads and blankets in a side bay. The result was neater than the situation the Kostromans themselves had left.
Daniel grinned in quiet pleasure. He was an officer of the RCN in command of a naval detachment. Even if he died before he became captain of a starship, he had this.
“Building Fifty,” Adele said. “It’s listed as paint in the manifest, but it’s in a triple-locked warehouse along with high-value electronics, not with the rest of the paint in Thirty-one and Thirty-two.”
She looked up at Daniel. With a careful lack of emphasis she added, “Are you sure the liquor’s a good idea?”
Daniel chuckled. “Oh, good God, it’s not for us,” he said. “Not—”
He felt himself sober. Two ratings had jumped into the back of the truck. The remainder of the detachment formed a chain to pass heavy cartons of ration packs, all in metal cans, from the warehouse to the vehicle.
“—that I’d worry about this crew drinking itself incapable while there was a job to be done. I want it for trading material.”
Adele switched off her computer and slid the control wands into their recess, but she didn’t return the unit to the pocket of her trousers. She straightened, raising an eyebrow to Daniel in further question.
“We need to hide,” he explained. “We’ll either have to fight or barter our way off the island.”
He felt a little diffident about verbalizing his plan. Growing up under Corder Leary instilled a feeling that if you stated an idea, someone in authority would ram it down your throat to prove they were in authority. The Navy School had done very little to counteract that impression.
Adele nodded understanding. Daniel grinned. “Being a civilized person,” he continued, “I prefer to barter. Not to mention the fact we don’t have proper weapons.”
“Three more cases!” Woetjans called from where she viewed the loading. “Then lock the place. We don’t need to leave tracks.”
“L’ven is one of the northern islands, isn’t it?” Adele said. Daniel followed the line of her eyes south toward the city. An APC, a bug at this distance, crawled across a backdrop of rosy flame.
“Right, there’s an amazing colonial shellfish that lives around the shoreline there,” he said. “They’re called castle clams. They build towers that actually siphon the tide through the entire colony. The augmented flow means they can live in water as much as five hundred feet deep.”