Commodore (The David Birkenhead Series) Read online

  I nodded and smiled. Juri's book had been in Javelin's library, and while I hadn't had enough time to read it through I'd seen enough to be impressed. Clearly it wasn't the work of a mere dilettante. His Lordship had taken the time to study Field theory in some depth, which was no picnic for anyone. "And I suppose," I said when we finally came to the end of the display and I had enough time to work in a word edgewise, "that you're eager to see this one, too?" Then I unbuckled my sword and held it up so that he could examine the gem at eye-level.

  "Oh, yes!" he replied, gazing at it with a childlike smile. Which didn't surprise me; he'd been stealing glances from the moment I walked in. Lord Juri, Martijn had whispered in my ear, was rumored in palace circles to belong somewhere on the autism spectrum. No one was certain because the Hashimotos hid him away so thoroughly. Juri had never married and almost never left his modest home for any reason whatsoever. But I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the rumor was true.

  "That's an orange dodecahedron," he explained quite unnecessarily. "One of the most common varieties, though of course yours is magnificent for its sheer size. And the color is amazingly pure as well!" He shook his head in wonder. "It's absolutely perfect, David. A worthy reward for what you've done for us all." Juri smiled, suddenly very childlike. "I'm glad it went to such a worthy soul."

  I nodded again, then extended the scabbarded weapon further. "You wished to examine it in your lab?"

  He smiled again. "Yes, but… Are you certain it's quite all right? I mean…"

  "Please," I replied. "You're a scholar, sir, and warp gems are mysterious artifacts of a process none of us completely understand. I won't stand in the way of the furthering of science."

  He accepted the Sword, then bowed deeply in a way that nobles almost never did. "Your trust honors me, sir." A footbunny appeared almost as if by magic, then scurried off with my ceremonial weapon. I made sure to exchange a smile with him as he passed. "Come," Juri continued as the Rabbit vanished. "There are refreshments waiting for us in the next room."

  The 'next room' turned out to be Juri's office, which was clearly ill-kept and seldom used except to study warp gems. His Lordship served me a cup of not-too-bad tea with his own hands, then poured himself plain water. "Everyone always drinks whiskey," he complained. "Or gin, or sake, or cognac… It's a relief to have a visitor who's content to remain sober."

  I smiled back, but said nothing. That was my planned strategy, to say as little as possible while keeping my ears open wide. But it didn't work out that way; Juri was knowledgeable enough about Field theory and asked sufficiently intelligent questions that soon we were chattering away like old hens. It wasn't something I could help—perhaps I was a bit obsessive on the subject myself?

  "…still convinced that it's basically a matter of sustained resonance," he observed well into my third refill. "On the third or fourth order, or perhaps even higher. That'd account for the rarity. And for the observed fact that more often than not stones form in especially well-managed engines."

  "Well…" I hesitated. Then I went ahead and spoke the truth, even though I really shouldn't have. "We're deliberately resonating the control rods in certain ships now," I explained, not adding that so far Javelin was the only one. I wouldn't have told him this, except that we had reason to believe the Imperials were already aware of it. Or at least I don't think I would've. "Please, don't repeat this. It's still sensitive information. But, well… in less than a million hours of operation, we've detected traces of the beginnings of crystalline deposition at teardown."

  "Really?" Juri demanded, his mouth dropping open in shock. This was far too unlikely to be a mere coincidence. "I'm… I'm…"

  I nodded back. "Your theory is correct, I suspect. Of course it's not proven yet, and it'll be years before we can release anything into the public database. But I think you just may've beaten the eggheads to the punch on this one."

  His smile lit up the room like a second sun, and I could certainly understand why. Unless I was very mistaken, this shy old nobleman had without benefit of formal technical training achieved his dream of contributing something important to the sum total of human knowledge. By any objective measure, that made him a far more successful person than me. Ah, if only I'd been able to stick with engineering!

  "That's… That's…" he sputtered. Then with a smile he stood and practically danced, he was so pleased. "Ah, David!" he declared. "I'm so glad to have met you at last!"

  "And I you," I replied, meaning it. It was sort of strange, how I kept making friends in the most unexpected of places. Then I leaned back in my chair and sighed. "I just wish everyone here was as genuine and open as you've turned out to be."

  He shook his head and frowned, his moment clearly ruined. Then he turned and looked away. "I signed away my claim to the throne," he said eventually. "Because I'm too open and genuine, I guess. And because I like studying warp gems better than being in charge of stuff."

  My ears perked. He'd renounced his claim? That was certainly important news! "I've always seen doctors, as long as I can remember." he continued. "They say I don't understand other people very well. And I guess they're right, sort of. But…" He shook his head and scowled again, his hands now two fists. "I don't like people, mostly. They're nasty."

  "Me either," I agreed, noting yet another thing we shared in common. Then I reminded myself of my mission. "Who asked you to give up your claim?"

  "Uncle Hiro," he replied. By which he certainly meant Lord Hiro, head of the House. Who was probably under arrest back on Earth Secundus by now. "And Baron Munchen."

  I nodded again. Munchen was a Wilkes high-ranker I'd been briefed about. So, that was part of the deal—the Hashimoto and Wilkes Royal heirs both had claims so perfectly matched in terms of legitimacy that no one could honestly judge which was the better. So Hashimoto, the weaker of the two Houses, had given theirs up in exchange for… Something. Probably promises of preferential treatment later. Or… Had the Hashimotos been bullied somehow? That would explain how quickly they'd folded to what must've seemed an even greater threat, sure enough. But if so, how? And… Maybe they were still afraid? "Thank you for telling me that, Juri. It was very important indeed."

  He waved it off. "It's silly political nonsense. The less of it I have to waste my time on, the better." He sighed. "Though Lord Ise told me to be make absolutely certain that I told you." He looked down at his feet. "He always treats me like a child!"

  "I'm sorry," I answered. So that was why this meeting was taking place—everything else was clearly mere pretext. Lord Ise had wanted me to find out about the deal, but also hadn't wanted to betray an oath of confidentially made to a fellow nobleman. Now the slip could be blamed on the hapless Juri, who everyone involved knew couldn't help himself. Wheels within wheels within wheels… "You don't deserve it, in my book. No one who can untangle part of the warp-gem mystery is exactly a child, Juri."

  He smiled again, and once more it was if the sun had emerged from behind a cloud. "Thank you for letting me examine your orange dodecahedron, David. And thank you for one of the nicest conversations I've ever had. But most of all…" The smile intensified.

  "Thank you for trusting me."

  6

  And trust Juri I did, essentially. Or, rather I trusted the Hashimoto clan as a whole by leaving them in Martijn's capable hands without so much as a single marine left behind to back him up. It wasn't that I didn't want to leave my old friend a little help, but the truth was the more I thought about the Wilkes situation the more spooked I grew. The Hashimotos seemed almost relieved to have been confronted with such uncompromising and overwhelming force that they'd been forced to back down without a fight. This implied to me that Wilkes had strong-armed them into their near-coup to begin with. Yet… What was Wilkes's leverage?

  I feared that I already knew.

  Wilkes Prime and most of the Wilkes worlds were far nearer the Empire than Hashimoto's. Even worse, they were richer in Jump nodes than any other House's territory
. This was in part why Wilkes and Hashimoto—whose dominions many of the Wilkes hyperspace links intersected with—had chosen to base their economies on interstellar transport. The numerous Points gave them a significant natural advantage. While in recent years Wilkes had diversified into more advanced fields, the repeated wars were terrible for commerce. Far too many fleet engagements were fought in Wilkes space, four of her former worlds were now realms of the Emperor, and three more had been held only after terrible, destructive defensive battles on the planetary surfaces. It took a world a long time to recover from that sort of abuse—if the damage was severe enough, it might never recover at all.

  Perhaps the confidence of the House leadership had taken an equally terrible pounding? A pounding severe enough to, say, cause them to lose faith in ultimate victory and play both sides of the fence? No one outside of the Wilkes nobility could know for certain except the Hashimotos, and despite my most pointed questions they still hadn't been talking when I'd left. Cooperating in every other conceivable way, yes, or I'd not have left Martijn in such an exposed position without support. But the nobility took their blood-oaths seriously, and I suspected that more than one had been sworn in regards to this little affair. All the Hashimotos had volunteered was Juri's statement that he'd renounced his claim to the Royal Throne, which I considered one-hundred percent credible. Apparently the Hashimotos felt that this was all the information I really needed, and if anyone knew they would.

  So I sighed and paced and thought ahead as we spent the next nine weeks racing as quickly as the surface assault group would allow towards Wilkes Prime. We could've done it in seven, but I was worried enough to take an indirect approach whose final Point let out within two hours thrusting time of standard orbit around Wilkes Prime. "What if the Wilkes's are conniving with the Imperials?" I asked Nestor as I wore a hole through Javelin's deckplates with the soles of my sandals. "How will I be able to tell? And what should I do about it if they are?"

  He lowered his reader and shook his head. "You can't know until you know," he replied. "And you won't be able to figure out what to do about it until you have far more details in hand than you do now. This is a complex situation; no matter how many variables you plan ahead for there'll be factors involved you never dreamed of." He sighed. "I shouldn’t have to be telling you this, David. You're supposed to be the master strategist and tactician. Not me."

  I sighed and lowered my head. He was right, of course—in fact, he was practically quoting a lecture on flexibility in decision-making that I'd once given to the Rabbits of the fencibles when they were first forming up, oh so long ago. Back in the good old days…"

  Then I shook my head and commenced pacing again. The good old days? Now I was sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, and that was something new to worry about! "I'm a bundle of nerves, Nestor," I admitted.

  "I know," my friend replied, shutting down the reader entirely and setting it aside. "I've never seen you like this before, sir. Not even on Zombie Station."

  I nodded. "Back then it was all so simple," I explained. "I knew who the bad guys were, and wasn't afraid of dying. Everything was black and white, especially once the Rabbits volunteered and I didn't have to worry anymore about how to turn them over safely. All I had to do was fight. And commanding Richard—that was mostly a piece of cake too, except for when the local Rabbits came forward and saved us on Imperious. That was…" I let my voice trail off; neither Nestor nor I spoke about that very much. The memory was just too awful.

  "I know," Nestor replied softly.

  "But this," I continued, shaking my head. "It's not something at least relatively clean, like a battle. Instead everything's all backstabbing and grayness." I looked down at the ground. "Even worse, I'm as filthy as they are. So this time I'm not sure who the good and bad guys are anymore, at a certain level. I mean… We needed James on the throne, yes. For the greater good of all. I'm still quite certain about that, and I'd do it all over again. But…"

  He nodded and looked down as well. "I feel dirty too. It's why I read that Machiavelli book, you see. To try and understand all this against a broader backdrop, and make some sense out of it all. But… There just isn't any genuine sense to be made, I fear."

  I nodded and sighed. "When this is all over… Nestor, I'm thinking really hard about retiring. Just giving it all up and going back to my little estate filled with happy, smiling Rabbits." I scowled. "No one—not even James—will be able to claim I haven't done enough. No one!"

  There was a long, long silence. "You're wrong," Nestor replied at last. "I can think of someone."

  I spun on my heel. "Who would dare?"

  "You," he replied. "About a week after you hung up your Sword and realized how empty your future suddenly was and how much remains yet to be done."

  "Heh!" I laughed, shaking my head and sitting down in my desk chair. "You know me too well."

  "Maybe it's just that you don't know yourself well enough," he countered. "At any rate… Like I said, I read that Machiavelli book hoping it'd help me understand the world a little better." He lowered his ears. "I do that sort of thing a lot, you see. Because I know full well just how little I comprehend outside the kitchen and the little backstairs world of we Rabbits."

  "There are those who'd say you're adjusting extraordinarily well," I observed. "Including a lot of humans."

  "Maybe," he answered with a shrug. "But they've never seen me go rushing off in confusion to find a new book because it turned out that I was completely off-base about something I thought I'd mastered." He shook his head. "Sometimes, David, I fear giving you advice. Because of how ignorant and backwards I truly am."

  "It's worked out," I countered.

  "Maybe," he agreed with a shrug. "Anyway… Like I said, I've been reading Machiavelli to try and understand all of this better. But it seems to me that there's some things he didn't understand about politics, either."

  "Like?" I asked.

  "Like… Well, he never even so much as mentioned altruism as a motivator that I can recall. Or even just the pleasure that comes from doing the right thing. He assumes that everyone's ultimate goals are power and riches for themselves, and to hell with everyone and everything else." My aide sighed. "Maybe the masters really are all like that; I can't say for sure, though it seems to me that neither James nor his grandfather nor even Uncle Robert fit that mold. But…" He looked up and met my eyes. "We Rabbits are better, sir. Or at least at this point in our development we still are—based on what I've seen in myself and others I fear that it may be only temporary. Still, for the moment we're better." He smiled. "Which means that to the humans we're unpredictable. So… My advice is not to worry, sir, and do what's right when the time comes for action. Instead of what's merely expedient, I mean. They'll never see it coming."

  7

  Do what's right. I reminded myself of Nestor's suggestion over and over again during the last nervous half-hour before we made our last Jump into Wilkes space. Just do what's right, and all will be well. It sounded so simple; wistful, even. And heaven knew that after crawling through the filth for so long my heart ached for moral simplicity and certitude. I'd felt a bit lost ever since returning from my enforced exile at New Geneva; surely following Nestor's advice couldn't lead me any further astray than I already was.

  "Final permission to translate, sir?" Lieutenant Clarke asked from behind his oversized navigational console.

  "Yes," I agreed. Javelin was leading the way again, as in theory at least Wilkes Prime was located in friendly space. "Thank you, Charles."

  He smiled by way of acknowledgement, and I felt at least part of the little knot inside me relax a bit. Josiah had indeed taken Lieutenant Clarke under his wing and explained to him why I was so dissatisfied with his annoying manner of making reports on the bridge, and ever since then the man had been a model officer. Which he'd always been, I should've noticed beforehand, save for that one irritating habit. My first officer shouldn't have had to do my job for me and I felt more than a little
guilty about it; part of a captain's duty was to fine-tune his bridge crew until it hummed like a machine. Sure, I had plenty of distractions—there was the rest of my little fleet to manage, for example, and the endless worries that went hand-in-hand with the political aspects of my mission. The Second Space Lord had gone so far as to suggest to James that my workload was impossible and that I should either be made a commodore with a captain under me to command Javelin so that I could focus on the larger mission, or that I should be given a suitable civilian title and honorably retired from the navy altogether. But His Majesty had rejected both of these proposed solutions, and in my opinion with good reason. James's throne hung by a thread—for the moment at least—and what legitimate claim to power he had was largely based on the enthusiastic support of the navy. And there was no denying reality; the navy supported him largely because of me. So I could neither retire nor be promoted too meteorically, though it was universally taken for granted in the fleet these days that barring some sort of terrible mishap I was destined to someday command first the Main Battle Squadron and then the entire service as First Space Lord. In the meantime I had to walk a very narrow line indeed; my fellow officers would understand why I was getting so many of the career-advancing key missions and plum commands, but if I ascended too quickly or stepped on too many toes seniority-wise their feelings would be hurt.