With the Lightnings (36 page)

Daniel shrugged. "There might have been a problem getting off the ground," he said, "though it's all pretty automated."

Adele turned her head to look at him. "I suppose if you'd thought it was really dangerous," she said, "you'd have been aboard yourself."

Daniel grinned. "I didn't think it was dangerous," he said, avoiding the direct answer that would have made him sound like he was trying to be a hero. The ratings expected an officer to share their dangers; to avoid doing so would be unprofessional.

Likewise, it would be unprofessional for an officer to involve himself in the common dirtiness of naval life, washing dishes or scrubbing grease from hydraulic control systems. That was where the extreme democrats went wrong. Though . . .

He'd now gotten to know the surviving representative of the Mundys of Chatsworth, the family who according to Corder Leary were the life and breath of radical democracy on Cinnabar. Adele wasn't what Daniel would call a radical democrat.

Perhaps there'd been some misrepresentation on both sides of the question. That was pretty generally true in politics, he supposed.

Daniel glanced higher into the wedge of sky visible past the overhanging trees. "Someday I'd like you to help me with the constellations from here," he said. "The Kostromans do name their constellations, don't they? I guess I was just assuming they do."

"What?" said Adele. "I have no idea, but I'll find out."

She sat on the ground and brought up her little computer. Daniel hadn't meant Adele to dig into the problem immediately. "Someday" meant to him "when things have settled down."

Realistically, things weren't going to settle down while he was on Kostroma. Though for his own sense of well-being he had to pretend this was an aberration in the life of a naval officer, that the normal routine would soon return.

Daniel squatted beside Adele, his arms wrapped around his knees and his buttocks slightly above the ground. Not that he could get much muddier . . .

"The trick would have worked just as well if we'd done it in all truth," he said. "Tying live prisoners under a fungus bubble and letting the beetles kill the first one or two if they didn't talk."

The note of the APC's fans changed from a pulse to a whisper; the ratings had landed on the other island to retrieve items salvaged from the wreck. The APC had more carrying capacity than the little liferaft, and using it provided hands-on experience in a leisured environment.

"Perhaps," said Adele, "but we'll never know."

She put her wands down and looked over at Daniel. "People like us will never know. But
our
way worked."

A hand-sized crustacean scuttled from the muddy bank, extended a pair of tentacles to seize a ration can the Kostromans had flung down, and ran back the way it had come. Each segment of the creature's jointed back had a stalked eye at the midline. They twisted like flowers in a rainstorm to watch the humans.

The crustacean vanished into the water with its prize; the can gave a
plop!
as water filled it. The little creature was probably after a home rather than food, but Daniel didn't know enough about the local biota to be sure.

"There are constellations, yes," Adele said. "They seem to be named for geographical features of Topaz, where the colony originated. Would you like to see the display?"

She offered the data unit. Daniel shook his head, smiling his thanks. "Not right now," he said.

He pointed to the trail the crustacean's many feet had wriggled into the mud. "I was going to put the prisoners on a detail policing up the mess they'd made," he went on. "The local animals seem to be pleased with the chance to take care of it themselves. Besides, it's probably best to keep both lots hogtied until we're ready to leave. I don't want another slip-up."

The prisoners, Ganser's thugs and the surviving Alliance commandoes, lay like so many duffelbags at intervals along the opposite bank of the inlet. They were bound and anchored by the neck to rooted saplings. Two guards were with them, but the prisoners were visible to the Cinnabars on this side of the water also for additional safety.

They were gagged. A prisoner who moved more than a guard thought necessary was kicked, but that was a matter of casually brutal control rather than torture.

"You know," said Daniel, "if we'd dumped the gang off the end of the dock on Kostroma, we wouldn't have the APC and Alliance uniforms now. Funny how things work out, isn't it?"

Adele sniffed. "That had nothing to do with the decision," she said. "It shouldn't have anything to do with any similar decision either. Or are you suggesting that the Lord is with us because our hearts are pure?"

Daniel laughed loudly and got to his feet. "Your heart may be pure," he said, "but for my own part I've just been too busy. One of Ganser's little friends doesn't look half bad in the right light."

Adele rose beside him. He looked at her and, now that he'd defused her suggestion with a joke, said, "Adele, I don't think God will preserve Cinnabar. That's what the Republic has a navy for, after all. But I do think that the people with least on their consciences sleep better than others do. I like my sleep."

He thought about the little blonde with a snake's tail tattooed from her neck to reappear on her bare midriff, heading lower. In a return to his cheery tone, Daniel added, "And if God wants to throw us a bonus, that's all right with me."

Adele sat with her head out of the cupola as Barnes brought the overloaded APC down where the Cinnabar camp had been. Streams of plasma had considerably enlarged the clearing, but all signs of the shelters and goods salvaged from the yacht were gone.

Water sprayed as the vehicle settled. After the ions had burned long tracks of soil away, rain and seepage through the porous rock had filled the ruin.

Adele wondered if Daniel was dropping the Alliance soldiers here rather than on the beach to make a point. Daniel Leary was an extremely straightforward man, but she'd realized early after meeting him that he was quite subtle in his direct fashion—when he chose to be.

It was hard to remember that she'd met Daniel only a week before.

Barnes adjusted the drive fans to a whining idle. Without orders, Hogg and several of the sailors crammed into the troop compartment rolled the prisoners onto the ground. The Alliance troops were bound individually and roped to one another by their wrists as well.

Adele lifted herself up to sit on the folded-back cupola hatch. By leaning forward, she could see the Alliance troops as they writhed and splashed, cursing.

Daniel stood on the vehicle's side panel folded down into a ramp. He lifted a prisoner's face from the trench in which she spluttered and supported her until she squirmed into a position that was survivable if not necessarily comfortable.

"Shut the motors off for a moment, Barnes," Daniel said. "I want them to be able to hear what I have to say."

Sixteen of the Cinnabars, Adele included, wore commando uniforms including the communication helmets. She heard Daniel's voice clearly over the helmet intercom as well as a faint echo through the air.

The helmets were fine for now, but they'd have to switch off the radios well before reaching Kostroma City. Even if the Alliance forces were too busy to institute a comprehensive signals watch, chatter in Cinnabar accents over Alliance equipment would raise a red flag.

The rhythmic hum of the engines sank to a quiver. A squad of sailors dragged the prisoners, still linked, a few yards farther so they couldn't grab a landing skid as the APC lifted.

Daniel stepped to the ground and faced the naked prisoners. "There's enough food and water on this atoll to keep you forever," he said. "Also we're leaving most of the rations we brought from the naval stores, here and on the other island. If you don't like the division of supplies I've made between you and Ganser, you can go across and discuss the matter. Or you can join forces, of course."

He smiled at the Alliance lieutenant without humor. Adele knew Daniel well enough by now to recognize that he was angry; surprisingly angry, she thought, until she remembered what the plasma-ripped campsite meant to him.

"The last time I did something like this," Daniel went on, "I told the people I was marooning that I'd send them help in thirty days if they hadn't managed to get off the atoll themselves. I'm not saying that now. All you're getting from me is your lives . . . which is rather better than you were offering, isn't it?"

He stepped up into the troop compartment. "You can't leave us tied!" a soldier said. The one who spoke was the sergeant who'd first told what he knew about the
Aglaia
. "We can't survive unless you cut us loose!"

Daniel grimaced. "Hogg, throw him a knife," he said. "Barnes, take us up to a hundred feet and circle the area."

Hogg smashed a brandy bottle on the side of the hatchway. As the motors began to grunt under load, he tossed the jagged neck in the direction of the sergeant.

The sides of the troop compartment were hinged horizontally. They lifted halfway to form railings on either side while the compartment remained open to light and air. Adele slid back into the cupola seat as the vehicle rose.

Daniel touched her shoulder. "I'll trade places, if you don't mind," he said.

Embarrassed to have usurped his position—he was commander, of course; what had she been thinking of?—Adele squirmed out of the cupola and into the rear compartment. Sailors made way for her with quiet deference. She looked over the side.

At the specified altitude, the APC slowly circled the two islands and the reef joining them. An occasional pop in the helmet's integral headphones told Adele that Daniel was talking to one or more of the sailors on a separate channel. She could listen in if she wanted, but there wasn't any reason to do so.

The
Ahura
's lifeboat floated in the lagoon, turning slowly in the still water. A slick of pollen and bits of foliage drifted behind the boat. The Alliance soldiers were barely visible past the treetops as they squirmed to free themselves, while on the other island some of the Kostromans were already standing upright.

"Starboard watch," Woetjans ordered over the intercom. "Aim at the liferaft."

Sailors jostled one another in cheerful surprise, thrusting submachine guns captured from the commandoes over the railing. Adele remained at the rail but she didn't bother to draw her pistol. Sailors on the other side of the compartment complained good-naturedly.

"Open fire!"

Water exploded in a spray that completely hid the little boat. The air filled with ozone and ionized aluminum even though the troop compartment was half-open. The crackling gun mechanisms echoed like logs splitting.

"Cease fire!"

The raft was a tatter of flexible red plastic in the center of foam which spread a hundred feet in all directions. The sailors weren't marksmen—some must be amazingly bad shots, judging from where their rounds hit—and the light pellets weren't intended for work at this range. Nonetheless the target had been completely destroyed.

The APC pulled through a figure-eight that reversed its direction. "Port watch," Woetjans ordered, "aim at the yacht."

There were loud cheers. Most of the remaining sailors had already bent over their railing, hunched and squinting in a variety of distorted notions about how to shoot accurately. One of them—inevitably—jerked his trigger an instant before Woetjans said, "Fire!"

The upturned stern didn't vanish, but it began to crumble like a sand castle in the rain. Again Adele saw water spout thirty yards from the intended target, but a submachine gun with a 300-round magazine didn't require a crack shot to be effective.

"Cease fire!" Woetjans ordered. "
Cease
fire, Dasi, or I'll take the fucking thing away and feed it to you!"

There was a moment's silence. The plasma cannon roared. What was left of the
Ahura
erupted into an iridescent mushroom cloud. The APC rocked with recoil from the one-second jet of ions, each of infinitesimal mass but accelerated to the speed of light.

Adele heard the cupola hum as it rotated. Nevertheless the second spurt of plasma startled her. Steam and shimmering fire enveloped the remains of the lifeboat.

The lagoon danced briefly with fairy light as ions recombined to their normal atomic state. That passed, but vari-hued fish, scalded by the manmade hellfire, floated to the surface.

Daniel stepped out of the cupola. "Barnes," he ordered on a general channel, "follow the programmed course and speed to Kostroma City. Gambier will spell you two hours out."

He grinned at Adele and said—not using the intercom, "Communications Officer Mundy, take over and make sure we're not getting into something we don't expect. What we do expect is bad enough, right?"

Adele shrugged. "So far," she said, "it appears that it's better to be on our side than against us."

She settled herself on the cupola seat. The vehicle's extensive sensor and communications suites were arrayed in a ring attached to the hull below the cannon in the dome. Adele logged onto the Alliance military net, using the codes of a cutter hanging out of service aboard a destroyer in the Floating Harbor. As soon as she had access, she searched for any sign that the
Aglaia
's officers had been moved from cells in the basement of the Elector's Palace where she'd located them the night before.

She smiled as she worked, her touch certain despite the unfamiliar system. Communications Officer Mundy.

Adele Mundy. One of
us
.

"Tarnhelm, this is Mike X-ray Five Three Nine," Adele said with the formality of a scholar reading a script. "Over."

She
was
a scholar reading a script, Daniel knew, but he controlled his desire to wince. Adele might not sound like an officer tired after a long, boring mission, but she could put on a Bryce accent that wouldn't set off alarms the way Daniel might if it were him on the radio.

"Go ahead Mike X-ray Five Three Niner," the Alliance harbor control authority replied.
He
sounded bored, which was good.

If the military command had gotten concerned about why its commandoes hadn't reported back from dealing with the reported Cinnabar sailors, it might have careted the APC's number and identification transponder with harbor control. Daniel preferred to be one of the day's several hundred indistinguishable movements through the air about Kostroma City.