Sekka came to attention, almost cracking his skull on the overhead. "Thank you, sir. Two questions. Who are my other officers?"
"None, yet. You're the first one I've signed up."
"Mmm. Crew?"
"You have four yardbirds and one eager innocent. Assign them as you wish."
"Yessir."
"Lieutenant Sekka? I have a question. How'd you hear about this posting?"
Sekka lifted an eyebrow. "Why from the admiral's note in the current fleet proceedings, sir."
Sten covered. "Right. Not thinking. Thank you, Lieutenant. That's all. On your way out, would you ask Mr. Kilgour if he would report to me at his convenience?"
"Kilgour. You didn't."
"Ah did."
"How?"
"The typsettin' plant th' shitepokes who run tha' lyin't publication hae na in th' way ae security."
"So you blueboxed into it, and phonied the admiral's own column?"
"Is tha' nae aye harsh way't' put it?"
Alex, ever since his scam back on Hawkthorne and later with the prisoners, fancied himself quite the recruiter.
Sten changed the subject. "Is there any way he could trace who did it?"
"Trace me, lad? Th' man wha' solved a conspiracy again' our own Emperor?"
Sten put his head in his hands. "Mr. Kilgour. I know the navy is dry. But would there, by some odd chance..."
"By an odd chance, there is. Ah'll fetch the flask."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Alex liked some rain, like the nearly constant gray drizzle of his home world. But the tropical buckets that came down on Cavite tried his patience sorely. He counted unmarked alcoves down the narrow alleyway, found the correct one, and tapped on the barred door. From the inside his tapping probably sounded like a sledgehammer warming up.
"What is the word?" a synth-voice whispered.
"It's aye wet oot here, an Ah am lackit th' patience," Alex complained. Not particularly angry, he stepped back and rammed a metal-shod bootheel into the door.
The door split in half, and Alex pulled the two halves out of his way and entered.
He had time to notice that the inside of the brothel was quite nice, if one fancied red velvet and dark paintings, before the first guard came down the corridor at him. Alex batted him into the wall with one of the door halves. His mate came dashing toward Alex, was picked up, and went back up the corridor, in the air, somewhat faster than he had come down.
"Ah'm looki't for a Mister Willie Sutton," he announced.
"Do you have a warrant?" the synth-voice asked.
"No."
"Are you armed?"
"What kind of ae clot y' thinkit Ah am? A course."
"Please keep your hands in plain sight. There are sensors covering you. Any electronic emission which is detected will be responded to. You will be constantly in the field of fire from automatically triggered weapons. Any hostile act will be responded to before you could complete such an action."
Alex sort of wanted to test his reflexes against the robot guns, but he was trying to be peaceful.
"You will continue down to the end of the corridor, past the entrance to the establishment proper. At the end of the corridor, you will find stairs. Continue up them, and then down the hall to the second door. Enter that room and wait, while we determine whether a Willie Sutton is known to anyone on the premises."
Alex followed instructions. As he walked past, he looked into the whorehouse's reception area, fell in love twice, smiled politely at those two women, but continued on.
Kilgour was on duty.
The room was more red velvet and more elderly paintings, dimly lit by glass-beaded lamps. The furniture was unusual, consisting of three or four wide, heavily braced hassocks. Kilgour stood with his back close to one wall and waited.
The door on the other side of the room opened.
"Would my thoughts be correct in assuming you are interested in applying for work as my bodyguard?"
"Willie Sutton" waddled into the room. It was a spindar, a large—two meters, choose any direction—scaled creature that looked like an oversize scaly pangolin with extra arms. Since spindars' own names were not pronounceable by the Homo sapien tongue, they generally took on a human name, a name prominent in whatever field the spindar chose to excel in.
Kilgour had no idea who Willie Sutton had been, but he was fairly sure that the human had not been a philanthropist.
"Warrant Officer Alex Kilgour," he identified himself, not answering the question.
"You, then, are a deserter, as I am?"
"Na, Chief Sutton. But Ah hae consider't it."
"You are not from the military police. Certainly not, from your grimace. How might my establishment and myself be of service to you? I am assuming, for the sake of argument, that you mean me no harm."
"We want you to come back."
The spindar chuffed and sat back on its tail. "To the fleet? Hardly likely. During the years I served, I experienced enough courts-martial to find the experience irritatingly redundant."
Sutton was telling the truth. There probably had been no supply specialist in the Imperial Navy who had been tried so many times, almost always on the same offense: misappropriation of imperial supplies and equipment.
There also probably had been no supply specialist who had been promoted back up from the ranks so many times, again almost always for the same accomplishment: Due to the outstanding performance and support of (insert rank at time) Sutton, (insert unit or ship name) accomplished its mission well within the assigned limits in an exemplary fashion.
"We need a thief," Kilgour said.
The spindar chuffed twice more. Alex explained the problems that he and Sten faced.
The spindar, thinking, extruded claws from a forearm and raked part of the carpet beside him into shreds. Alex noted that the carpet was torn up in other parts of the room.
"What about the present charges that, shall we say, made it desirable for me to absent myself from my last duty station?"
Kilgour took two fiches from inside his shirt and handed them to Sutton. "Tha first's y'r real service record. Tha original. Consider tha a present."
The spindar scratched himself.
"Tha second's a new record, which, dinnae wish't' be't braggin't, Ah helped create. Couldnae be cleaner. You report back, and Ah'll hae tha in th' records in minutes."
"An entirely fresh beginning," the spindar marveled.
"M'boss say't there's a slight condition. If y' thinkit y' could be worryin't th' same scam on us, bad things c'd happen. About those, Ah'll say nae more."
"The mechanics of pandering and prostitution," the spindar said, almost to himself, "have become most predictable. You humans have such a limited sexual imagination. Return to duty." He chuffed. "What a peculiar proposition." Chuff. "Tell your commander I shall provide an answer by this hour tomorrow."
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sten lolled back in his chair. His feet were stretched out lazily, crossed at the ankles, measuring the width of his desk. Inside he was tense, coiled, waiting for the hammer to fall. Outside he was doing his best to appear to be the cool, uninvolved navy commanding officer.
Personally, Sten thought he probably looked like a damned fool. All he needed right now was a knock of urgency on his door to spoil the entire persona.
The door was knocked upon. The raps were urgent; equally urgently, the door slammed open. Sten nearly compacted his knees getting his feet off the desk. Wildly, he thought for an instant which face he should present—bored CO indifference or calm CO concern. There was no stop-action camera there, or time to show the twists in his face as Alex and the spindar, Sutton, burst in.