There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” he called. The door opened. He blinked: came to his feet. “Ah, and what can I do for you, Procurator?”
“A mmoment of your time if I may, sir?”
“By all means. Always a pleasure to be of service to the Basilisk. Have a seat?” Vassily settled down behind the desk, visibly uncomfortable. The shadow play of lights danced on the wall, thin blue smoke catching the red-and-yellow highlights and coiling lazily in midair. “Would this be the, ah, our state vector?”
For a moment Security Lieutenant Sauer considered hazing the lad; he reluctantly shelved the idea. “Yes.
Not that there’s much to be made of it, unless you’re interested in the topology of five-dimensional manifolds. And it’s only theoretical, until we arrive at the far end and relativistics come out with a pulsar map to confirm it. I’m trying to study it; promotion board ahead you know, once this affair is straightened out.”
“Hmm.” Vassily nodded. Sauer wasn’t the only Navy officer expecting a promotion to come out of this campaign. “Well, I suppose you could look on the bright side; we’re most of the way there now.” Sauer pursed his lips, raised his pipe, and sucked. “I would never say that. Not until we know the enemy’s dead and buried at a crossroads with a mouthful of garlic.”
“I suppose so. But your lads will take care of that, won’t they? Meanwhile it’s my people who have to come in afterward and do the tidying up, keep this sort of thing from happening again.” Sauer looked at the young policeman, maintaining a polite expression despite his mild irritation. “Is there something I can help with?”
“Er, yah, I think so.” The visitor leaned back. He reached into his tunic pocket and withdrew a cigar case. “Mind if I smoke?”
Sauer shrugged. “You’re my guest.”
“Thank you!”
For a minute they were silent, lighters flaring briefly and blue-gray clouds trailing in the airflow to the ceiling vents. Vassily tried to suppress his coughing, still not quite accustomed to the adult habit. “It’s about the engineer in the brig.”
“Indeed.”
“Good.” Puff. “I was beginning to wonder what is going to happen to him. I, er, gather that the last supply ships will be dropping off their cargo and heading home in a couple of days, and I was wondering if …?”
Sauer sat up. He put his pipe down; it had flamed out, and though the bowl was hot to the touch, it held nothing but white-stained black shreds. “You were wondering if I could sign him over to you and put you on the slow boat home with your man in tow.”
Vassily half smiled, embarrassed. “Exactly right, I’m sure. The man’s guilty as hell, anyone can see that; he needs to be sent home for a proper trial and execution — what do you say?” Sauer leaned back in his chair and contemplated the analytical engine. “You have a point,” he admitted.
“But things aren’t quite so clear-cut from where I’m sitting.” He relit his pipe.
“Nice tobacco, sir,” ventured Vassily. “Tastes a bit funny, though. Very relaxing.”
“That’ll be the opium,” said Sauer. “Good stuff, long as you don’t overdo it.” He puffed contentedly for a minute. “Why do you think Springfield’s in the brig in the first place?” Vassily looked puzzled. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? He violated Imperial regulations. In fact, that’s just what I’d been looking for.”
“Executing him isn’t going to make it easy for the Admiralty to convince foreign engineers to come work for us, though, is it?” Sauer sucked on his cigar. “If he was a spacer, lad, he’d have done the frog kick in the airlock already. I’ll tell you what. If you insist on dragging him home on the basis of what you found on him, all that will happen is that the Admiralty will sit on it for a few months, hold an inquiry, conclude that no real harm was done, court-martial him for something minor, and sentence him to time served — on general principles, that is — and leave you looking like an idiot. You don’t want to do that; trust me, putting a blot on your record card at this stage in the game is a bad move.”
“Ah, so what do you suggest, sir?”
“Well.” Sauer stubbed out his cigar and looked at it regretfully. “I think you’re going to have to decide whether or not to have a little flutter on the horses.”
“Horses, sir?”
“Gambling, Mr. Muller, gambling. Double or quits time. You have decided that this engineer is working for the skirt from Earth, no? It seems a justifiable suspicion to me, but there is a lack of firm evidence other than the disgraceful way she plays for him. Which, let us make no mistake, could equally well be innocent — disreputable but innocent of actual criminal intent against the Republic, I say. In any event, she has made no sign of wrongdoing, other than possessing proscribed instruments in her diplomatic bag and generally being detrimental to morale by virtue of her rather unvirtuous conduct. We have no grounds for censure, much less for declaring her persona non grata. And irritating though she may be, her presence on this mission was decreed by His Excellency the Archduke. So I think the time has come for you to either shit or get off the can. Either accept that Mr. Springfield is probably going to waltz free, or shoot for the bigger target and hope you find something big to pin on her so that we can overcome her immunity.”
Vassily turned pale. Perhaps it hadn’t really sunk in until now; he’d overstepped his authority already, rummaging in Rachel’s cabin, and either he must find a justification, or his future was in jeopardy. “I’ll gamble, sir. Do you have any recommendations, though? It seems like an awfully big step; I wouldn’t want to make any mistakes.”
Sauer grinned, not unpleasantly. “Don’t worry, you won’t. There’re others who want her out of the way and are willing to stick their necks out a bit to help. Here’s how we’ll flush her cover …”
Invitation To An Execution
A ragged row of crucifixes capped the hill overlooking the road to Plotsk. They faced the narrow river that ran along the valley, overlooking Boris the Miller’s waterwheeclass="underline" their brown-robed human burdens stared sightlessly at the burned-out shell of the monastery on the other bank. The abbot of the Holy Spirit had gone before his monks, impaled like a bird on a spit.
“Kill them all, God will know his own,” Sister Seventh commented mockingly as she turned the doorway to face the grisly row. “Not is what their nest father-mother’s said in times gone before?” Burya Rubenstein shivered with cold as the bird-legged hut strode along the road from Novy Petrograd.
It was a chilly morning, and the fresh air was overlaid with a tantalizingly familiar odor, halfway between the brimstone crackle of gunpowder and something spicy-sweet. No smell of roast pork: they’d burned the monastery after killing the monks, not before. “Who did this?” he asked, sounding much calmer than he felt.
“You-know-who,” said the Critic. “Linger not thisways: understand Fringe performers hereabout more so deranged than citywise. Mimes and firewalker bushbabies. Very dangerous.”
“Did they—” Burya swallowed. He couldn’t look away from the fringe on the hilltop. He was no friend of the clergy, but this festival of excess far outstripped anything he could have condoned. “Was it the Fringe?”
Sister Seventh cocked her head on one side and chomped her walrus tusks at the air. “Not,” she declared. “This is human work. But headlaunchers have herewise been seeding corpses with further life.