“And then I got tied up in tangleweb,” Cecelia said, “and had to be handled like a holiday parcel.”
“Yeah, but the uniform,” Oblo said. “Not that I’m fussy or anything, you know me, but—” He touched the star on her shoulder. “That’s real.”
“That’s your Heris,” Cecelia said. “She needed a . . . er . . . bit more authority than she had. So . . . she suggested it. Jones here coached me.”
“She had the command presence already, when she wanted it,” Jones said. “All we had to do was get her to quit talking about everything in terms of horses.”
“It’s my cover,” Cecelia said.
“When did they promote her?” Oblo jerked his head towards Heris. “Why didn’t she tell us?”
“As for when, about twenty minutes ago, over at the headquarters of the school. As for why no crowd, she knew you were already over here, everyone she cared about, and even for a Serrano getting her star, they can’t do it in a bar. She was annoyed.”
“That sounds like her,” Oblo said. “She knows how it’s supposed to be.”
Cecelia looked at Methlin Meharry, and the young man beside her . . . “Is that a relative of yours?”
“My baby brother,” Meharry said. “Gelan. He was here when it started. He killed Bacarion.”
“Who?”
“She’d taken over the prison, the one where they had me and Oblo. If he’d listened to his big sister, he wouldn’t have gotten into that mess, but at least he remembered what to do about it.”
Gelan turned red. “Methi—”
“Methi,” Cecelia said. “Is that your nickname?” She waited for the explosion that seemed to be brewing.
“Even I don’t call her that,” Oblo said, in a tone of spurious virtue.
“See what you’ve done?” Methlin thumped her brother on the head. “Troublemaking scamp.” But she was grinning, the dangerous glint hiding again in those sleepy green eyes.
Heris leaned over Cecelia suddenly. “Methlin, good—you found your brother. I’ve heard good things about you, young man. Think you might want to do ship duty again someday?”
“Yes, sir! I’m hoping to be assigned with Lieutenant Serrano, sir.”
“Oh.” Heris looked startled. “Well, I suppose one Meharry is enough. Oblo, could you find the rest of the Vigilance survivors for me? It’s time.”
“Right, sir.” Oblo edged his way past her.
Heris leaned closer. “Cecelia, we have a little tradition for new admirals . . . I hope you’ll join in. You are, after all, a new admiral.”
“I knew this was going to get me in trouble,” Cecelia said.
“Oh, we’re in this together,” Heris said. “Come on, now—” She offered a hand.
“I’m not senile,” Cecelia said, struggling against the ever-thickening crowd. “Just old.”
“Good. We have to go outside.”
“Why? It’s raining, it’s cold, it’s—”
“Tradition,” Heris said. “And here—” She handed over a bag of something heavy and clinking.
“What is this? What’s going on?”
“If they’d done my promotion ceremony properly, we wouldn’t have to go through this, but they had to rush . . . it’s like this. You know—don’t interrupt, you do know, because I’m telling you—that after a promotion an officer owes a token to the first enlisted personnel who salutes the new rank.”
“Really? It sounds like the owner tipping grooms after—”
“Get your mind off horses, Cece. This is serious.”
It was serious if you didn’t tip grooms, too. Cecelia looked at the set of Heris’s jaw and said no more.
“Shipboard promotions, the newly promoted get a measure of drink chits to give out—same for each of the group being promoted. Dockside, they usually give cash tokens—even if most of the bars won’t take ’em and would rather charge a credit cube. Anyway, admirals are supposed to do a bit more. Now I took care of the food part, but we still have to get through the saluting part. These are tokens I had made up, not for this but for another purpose. They’ll do. How old are you, anyway?”
“How old am I?”
“Yes. See, admirals pay by the year. You have to take and honor as many so-called first salutes as years of your age.”
Cecelia thought fast. “On which planet?”
“Be serious. Never cheat your people.”
“I don’t honestly know. Eighty-something—maybe ninety by now . . . ?”
“Call it ninety. Your arm’s going to get tired.” Heris stopped and looked back. “You do know how to salute, don’t you?”
“No.” This was the most ridiculous of the many ridiculous things that had happened since the trim little woman in the purple uniform had appeared on Sweet Delight to start over as a yacht captain. “I do not know how to salute. I am, after all, in covert ops.”
“Not now, you aren’t. You’re about to get promoted and retired all in one night. Come on.”
Outside, the cold rain had stopped for the moment, leaving the pavements wet. Cecelia balked momentarily at the door. “I don’t see why we can’t do this inside . . .”
“Because it’s a bar,” Heris said. “Come on—it won’t take long.”
“Everybody’s inside,” Cecelia said. “It will take us hours to find ninety people to salute us.” They would be wet and cold and miss the whole party. Surely that wasn’t the right idea.
“Come on,” Heris said. “Admirals don’t loiter in doorways.”
Grumbling, Cecelia followed her down the sidewalk. Whatever they designed admirals’ uniforms for, it was not staying warm in cold windy rain. “Where are we going?”
“Far enough so I can show you how to salute without embarrassing you or the others.”
“What others?”
“I can tell you’re an admiral, Cecelia, because only an admiral gets to ask that many questions. Now watch.” Heris demonstrated. Cecelia tried it, and after a few repetitions, the motion seemed almost familiar. Almost.
“I’ll muck it up somehow,” she said.
“No, you won’t. It’s just the same old noblesse oblige with a hand movement.”
When they turned back, Cecelia could just make out a double row of figures standing in the cold rain. She shivered, not only from the cold.
“From Vigilance,” Heris said. “It’s their right.”
At first it felt awkward, ridiculous, like a travesty . . . Heris was the real admiral, the one to whom salutes should be given. She was just an old lady playing a game, trying to help out but not really what her uniform suggested. But Oblo didn’t play games; his salute steadied her. Methlin Meharry would not countenance a travesty, nor lead her brother to do so. Chief Jones was not ridiculous. Koutsoudas . . . others from Vigilance, and then the rest of the survivors from the Bonar Tighe. Cecelia felt more than rain stinging her face. She didn’t deserve this . . . but she had to live up to it.
Her arm was very tired when she handed out the last of the tokens Heris had given her, and they went back inside.
The toasts were just beginning. She could not identify the protocol that determined which toast would come next, but she could tell there was one. She slipped an antox pill under her tongue. At least she wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of what looked to be a very long night. The tables were packed now; so she edged toward the bar, where the man in the yellow jacket still held his place.
Oblo and Meharry moved up beside her and Oblo spoke to her. “How long’re we going to have to wait for the politician?”