“The Reach must be protected,” Lord Chen said automatically. “We can’t let Hone-bar go.”
“We have no indication that the rebels are moving on Hone-bar,” someone pointed out.
“How would we know until it happens?” said Lady San-torath. “The rebels aren’t going to send us a message telling us where they’re going next.”
“They could capture Hone-bar with a single ship, and the Reach with a small squadron,” said Lady Seekin. “Surely we can spare a few ships for its defense, especially since Lord Commander Jarlath isn’t doing anything with them.”
It occurred to Lord Chen that Lady Seekin, the Torminel congregate, was from Devajjo, within the Hone Reach itself. He realized that he and she were natural allies, along with Lady San-torath.
Who else? he wondered. Who else can help us defend the Hone Reach?
Lord Commander Pezzini, he realized. The lord commander’s nephew, the current Lord Pezzini, was patron to at least one of Devajjo’s cities.
“I think we should require Lord Commander Jarlath to defend the Hone Reach,” Lord Chen said. “Particularly since he’s not going to attack Magaria anytime soon.”
Pezzini agreed, loyal to his family, though he brought no more of the board with him. Though four votes wasn’t enough to carry the nine-member board, Tork nevertheless agreed to carry the board’s concern to Jarlath.
“If the rebels detach ships to the Hone Reach, they weaken themselves at Magaria,” Jarlath pointed out. He spoke to Tork during a meal break, whenGlory’s acceleration had been reduced to.8 gravities, and relief warred in his body and mind with weariness and pain. He sat in a comfortable chair in his palatial dining room, eating in blessed solitude, a fine meal of lean meat with a side of liver and another of diced kidney, served warmed to body temperature in its own steaming blood.
Tork appeared in holographic form above Jarlath’s right shoulder, an annoying little wraith. Even more annoying was the three-minute time lag between Tork’s words and his own responses. He got to watch Tork fidget as Tork in turn watched Jarlath gobble raw meat. It wasn’t comfortable for either of them.
“The rebels may be weak at Magaria as it is,” Tork said. “Lieutenant Martinez came within an ace of hitting Fanaghee’s whole fleet with a missile. He may have caused critical damage to her.”
“There is no certain evidence of that.”
Tork didn’t wait to hear Jarlath’s reply before anticipating it and adding his own postscript. “Fanaghee’s force did not reply to Martinez’s attack for days. None of the ships undocked.”
“When they finally acted, they fired over two hundred missiles,” Jarlath said. “That isn’t the act of a crippled force.”
“It was only Fanaghee’s two original squadrons that fired. The captured ships weren’t ready.”
“We can’t assume they’re not readynow.”
By the time Lord Commander Tork’s answer came, Jarlath had finished his meal and gone on to dessert, some meaty marrow bones. He sucked out the contents and crunched the remainder with his back molars. His teeth were still strong, he thought; he had a lot of years left.
“Lord Commander Jarlath.” There was an ominous, discordant chime in Tork’s voice. “You must dosomething. I have served the Fleet for over forty years, and I understand your reasons even if I disagree with them. But the convocates don’t think as we do. They want actionnow, and if you don’t provide it, they mayorder it, and who knows what form their orders will take? The vulnerability of Hone-bar has some of them panicked, and I’m afraid that some of the people—even the people on the Board—may not be thinking straight. This afternoon they were within a single vote of ordering you to detach part of your fleet to guard Hone-bar.”
Tork leaned toward the camera pickups, his fixed, gray expression mournful, but his voice chiming with suppressed passion.
“Hone-bar may declare for the rebels out of sheer terror, and the Reach will follow if Hone-bar defects. For pity’s sake, detach a squadron to defend the Reach, or launch the attack on Magaria and trust yourPraxis — class ships to annihilate the enemy. I would prefer the latter, but I’ll leave it up to you.”
Jarlath considered this appeal as his molars crushed a particularly delectable marrow bone. The blessedly low gravity and fine meal had given him a feeling of well-being, and he thought he might as well leave Tork with the feeling he had accomplished something.
“I want to question Martinez myself about any damage he may have done,” he said. “In the meantime I’ll order a harder acceleration. If I’m going to Magaria, then I’m going to go infast.”
Jarlath gave the orders, unaware that he had just crossed an invisible line, the line between refusing absolutely to go to Magaria and a willingness to contemplate the attack.
Once he had crossed that line, Jarlath found it increasingly difficult to return.
THIRTEEN
Most ofCorona’s transit to Zanshaa was rather pleasant. There was some suspense at the start, when Martinez sent his report to the repeating signal station at the far side of the Paswal system and requested all the recent news. It was many hours before bulletins of the failed revolt at Zanshaa arrived, along with information that the Home Fleet still stood between the Naxids and the capital.
Coronahad a home to return to. Once he knew that, Martinez felt he could enjoy himself in his new command.
He set watches and kept the ship at partial gravity for the first six days, allowing everyone a chance to recover from the exhaustion of fifteen days’ desperate acceleration.
Except for the lonely crews of the two wormhole maintenance and relay stations, Paswal was an uninhabited system, dead planets surrounding a bright energetic star in the midst of a globular cluster. It had never been determined exactly where Paswal was in relation to anywhere else in the empire: wormholes could lead anywhere in the universe, and to practically any time. The video views of the outside were spectacular, the cluster’s million stars so closely packed that they looked like a shining wall of diamonds. Paswal didn’t experience anything like true darkness, only a kind of twilight, with the near stars great fiery gems amid the background of brilliants. Martinez sometimes slept with a virtual rig projecting the exterior view into his mind, so that falling asleep and waking were both marked by the blazon of the night, and a million stars walked through his peaceful dreams.
It was three days before he succumbed to the temptation to look at his confidential records. Tarafah’s key opened these, as well as those of everyone else, and it occurred to him that if he was to be the captain ofCorona, he should be familiar with the records of his crew. So, virtuously, he began with the cadets, then worked his way through the warrant and petty officers and on to the recruits. There were few surprises, though it did startle him to discover that Cadet Vonderheydte had been married and divorced twice in his brief service career, which barely added up to three years.
After this display of rectitude, Martinez called up his own records, and discovered that Tarafah had described him as “an efficient officer, diligent in his duties, though needing more polish in social situations.” The estimate nettled him. When had heever been in a social situation with the captain? he wondered. Where had Tarafah formed that judgment? He thought about erasing the last bit, then decided it was too dangerous. Someone might look at the time stamp and discover that the report had been modified on a date when Tarafah was in the hands of the enemy.
Vexed, he went on to Enderby’s report, which was longer and more detailed. “An officer of exceptional talent and ability,” it concluded. “He will have an excellent career if he can restrain his ambition from scheming for awards that would fall to him naturally in the fullness of time.”