Which didn't mean "left" as Mincio assumed; it meant "left when you're facing the ship's bow" which she was not, but she found Rovald by a process of elimination. The technician sat crosslegged in front of a bulkhead. Before her an access panel had been removed to display a rack of circuitry. The compartment felt cold and musty; the air was still.
"Good day, Rovald," Mincio said. "Sir Hakon needs you in, ah… I'll lead you."
Rovald didn't stir. Mincio blinked and partly out of curiosity said, "You're fixing the environmental system here?"
"I can't fix that," the technician said in a dead voice. "They used the power cable for the laser, and it's still on the ground at the Six Pylons. Five Pylons."
"Well," Mincio said. "Sir Hakon—"
Rovald sucked in a great gulp of air and began to cry.
Mincio knelt beside the older woman. "Are you…" she said. She didn't know whether to touch Rovald or not. "That is…"
"I'm not a soldier, Ma'am!" Rovald sobbed. "I don't want to die! He doesn't have a right to make me be a soldier!"
"Ah!" said Mincio, glad at least to know what the problem was. "Dear me, Nessler had no intention of taking you with him to Air," she lied brightly. "You'll be landed as soon as he's ready to, ah, proceed. No, no; you're to continue your work on Alphane books. If worse comes to worst, our names as scholars will live through your work, you see?"
"I don't have to come?" Rovald said. Her tears had streaked the dirt inevitable on anybody working aboard the Colonel Arabi. "He just wants me while we're in orbit here?"
"That's right," Mincio said. That would be true as soon as Nessler learned how the technician felt. She stood and gestured Rovald up. "But I think there's some need for haste now."
"Of course," said Rovald as she rose. "They'll be in Generator Control, I suppose."
She stepped briskly off the way Mincio had come to fetch her. Mincio followed, thinking about people. It was easy to understand why Rovald would want to avoid this probable suicide mission. It was much harder to explain why Mincio planned to go along….
"The pinnace just docked, Sir," Harpe said. "She'll be dogged down in five minutes, and then we're ready."
Mincio completed the statement in her mind: Ready to depart. Ready to voyage to Air. Ready to die, it seemed likely. She couldn't get her mind around the last concept, but it didn't seem as frightening as she'd have assumed it would.
"Thank you, Bosun," Nessler said. "I'll hold a christening ceremony, then we'll set off."
As if he'd read her thoughts, Nessler turned to Mincio and said, "I don't think we'll have a great deal of difficulty with the drive and astrogation equipment. Orloff managed a much more difficult voyage than this little hop to Air, after all. The problem is that the closest thing to an offensive weapon aboard is a broken-down cutter that we've re-engined and hope will look like a missile to the Peeps."
"But there are missiles," Mincio said in puzzlement. "Two of them, at least."
"Ah, yes, there were," Nessler said. "But those we've converted to decoys since there weren't any decoys aboard. Have to think of our own survival first, you know."
He smiled.
If we were thinking of our own survival, we wouldn't any of us be aboard, Mincio thought; but perhaps that wasn't true. History was simpler to study than to live.
Beresford trotted through the armored bridge hatch, holding a suit bag high in his left hand. "Rovald's all happy and digging into them crystals with deKyper," he said cheerfully. "And the folks in Kuepersburg, they sent these up for you and Ms. Mincio. All the ladies in town worked on them with their own hands."
"You were supposed to stay on Hope too, Beresford," Nessler said in a thin voice.
"Was I, Sir?" said the servant as he opened the bag's zip closure. "Guess I musta misheard." He looked at his master. "Anyhow, I want to make sure these Navy types treat my wogs right. Since I recruited them, I figure they're my responsibility."
Mincio winced to hear the Melungeon spacers called wogs; but on the other hand, it was hard to fault the sentiment.
Beresford flicked the bag away from the garments within. "For you, Sir," he said, handing one of the hangers to Nessler. "They worked from pictures of you when you was a midshipman."
"Good God!" Nessler said. "Royal Manticoran Navy dress blacks!"
"Close enough, Captain Nessler Sir," Beresford said with a smirk. He turned to Mincio. "And for you—"
"I'm not a naval officer," she protested.
"You are now, Commander Mincio," Beresford said as he handed over the second uniform. "What's a ship as don't have a second in command, I say?"
Mincio rubbed a sleeve of her uniform between thumb and forefinger. The cloth was of off-planet weave but clearly hand-sewn as Beresford said. Nessler stared at his collar insignia.
"Those started out as Gendarmerie rank tabs," the servant explained. "A little chat with a barracks servant and a little work with a file, that's all it took."
A three-note signal pinged from the command console. "All systems ready, Sir," Harpe said.
"Then I'll have my little ceremony," Nessler said. He started to drape his uniform over the back of a seat; Beresford took it from his hand instead.
Nessler rang a double chime, then touched a large yellow switch. Mincio heard carrier hum from the intercom speaker above the hatch.
"This is the Captain speaking," Nessler said. His voice boomed from the intercom but it didn't cause feedback. The Colonel Arabi 's internal communications system worked flawlessly again. "In a moment we'll get under way, but first I wish to take formal possession of this vessel for the Star Kingdom of Manticore."
He took a 100-milliliter bottle from the breast pocket of the jacket he was wearing. "With this bottle of wine from the Greatgap Winery," he said, "I christen thee Her Majesty's Starship Ajax. "
He flung the bottle to smash on the steel deck. The intercom managed to pick up the clink of glass.
"May she wear the name with honor!" Harpe cried.
There was frenzied cheering from neighboring compartments. From the volume, most of it must be coming from the Melungeons.
"The course is loaded," Nessler said. "Get us underway, Bosun."
Nessler looked a little embarrassed as he walked over to Mincio at the rear bulkhead. There should probably be a squad of officers at the empty consoles; instead the two of them, Beresford, and Harpe with a pair of Melungeons were the entire bridge crew. In a dozen other compartments enlisted personnel did work that officers would normally have overseen….
Though on the Colonel Arabi, perhaps not overseen as closely as all that. The present crew was up to the job, of that Mincio was sure. A Melungeon had already sponged up the splash of wine and thin glass without being told to.
"I was never much of an astrogator," Nessler muttered.
"If Orloff can find Hope," Mincio said, "then you can find Air. You've got proper spacers aboard, besides. A few of them."
"You know," said Nessler, "that's an odd thing. The Melungeons are working harder than I've ever seen spacers do. I think they're trying to prove to the fancy folk from Manticore that they're really good for something. And our people are working doubly hard to prove they are fancy folk from Manticore, of course."