Perfectly correct, perfectly formal, and completely wrong: she had said nothing yet about any message. Sassinak's experienced hackles rose. "Fine," she said. "What time shall we expect you?"
"Oh… sixteen hundred Fleet Standard; that's twenty-three fifty local."
Late, in other words. Late enough Fleet time that he wouldn't be going back to the Admiral's office afterwards; very late in local time.
"Very well. Fleet shuttle, or..
"Federation Insystem Security shuttle, Commander. Fleet has no dedicated planetary shuttles."
Oho, Sassinak thought. So Fleet personnel onplanet are isolated unless Security lets them fly? She asked for, and got, an identification profile, and signed off. When she looked around, her bridge crew had clearly been fastening.
"I don't like that," she said to Arly. "If - when - I go downside, I'll want one of our shuttles available, just in case.
Arly nodded, eyes twinkling. Sassinak knew she was thinking of the last shuttle expedition. And young Timran's unexpectedly lucky rashness.
"Weapons systems lockdown is supposed to include shuttle lockdown," Arly reminded her.
Sassinak did not bother to answer; Arly had had her orders. They understood each other. She hoped an unauthorized shuttle flight would not be necessary. But if it was, she trusted that Arly would arrange it somehow.
Lieutenant Commander Dallish, when he appeared in her office shortly after debarking from the Security shuttle, apologized for his earlier circumlocutions.
"The Admiral told me he considers you in a unique position to provide evidence against the planet pirates," he said. "For that reason, he warned me to take every precaution if you contacted his office. I don't really think that anyone there is a traitor, but with that much traffic… and one of them a Council bureaucrat… I decided not to take chances."
"Very wise," said Sassinak.
In person he looked just as he had on the screen: perhaps five years younger than she, professional without being stuffy, obviously intelligent.
"You asked about liberty for your crew. Frankly, you could not be in a worse place, particularly right now. You know the Grand Council's in session this year?"
Sassinak hated to admit that she had only the vaguest idea how the Federation Grand Council actually scheduled its work, and gave a noncommittal response. Dallish went on as if she'd said something intelligent.
"All the work gets done in the preliminary Section meetings, of course: the Grand Council's mostly a formality. But it does overlap the Winter Assizes; a convenience for delegates when a major intercultural case is on the schedule. As it is now. And that means the hotels are already filling up - yes, months early - with delegations from every member. Support staff arriving early. Your crew, since they've been involved in the case, will of course have to be debriefed by Fleet Intelligence and Federation Security. And if they go onplanet after that, they'll be harrassed by the news-media. "
Sassinak frowned. "Well, they can't stay locked up in the ship the entire tune. We're not going anywhere and there's not enough to do." In the back of her mind, she was running over all the miserable long-hour chores that she could assign, but with the weapons systems locked, and flight decks supposedly off limits, nothing but cleaning the whole environmental system with toothbrushes would keep everyone busy.
"My advice, Captain, would be to see if those who've been deposed, and whose testimony is at best minor, couldn't be released to go on long liberty over on Six. That's a recreational reserve: hunting, fishing, sailing, a few good casinos. Fleet has a lodge in the mountains, too. They'd have to go by civilian carrier, but at least they'd be out of your hair."
"I don't like splitting my crew." Without calling up the figures, she couldn't be sure just how far away Six was: days of travel, anyway, on a civilian insystem ferry, perhaps more. If something did happen… She shut that line of thought down. Better to clean the whole environmental system with toothbrushes. Preparedness, she'd noticed, tended to keep trouble from happening. And there were worse problems than boredom.
Chapter Four
"Darling boy!" Auntie Q, Ford thought, was the archetypal spoiled rich widow. She had sparkling jewels on every exposed inch of flesh: rings, bracelets, armlets, necklaces, earrings, and even a ruby implanted between her eyes. He hoped it was a ruby, and not a Blindeye, a medjewel. "You can't know how I've longed to meet you!" Auntie Q also had the voice his father had warned him about. Already he could feel his spine softening into an ingratiating curve.
"I'm so glad, too," he managed.
He hoped it sounded sincere. It had better. He'd spent a lot of time and money tracking Auntie Q down. Most of his immediate family had intentionally lost her address and her solicitors were not about to give her yacht's private comcode to a mere great-nephew by marriage serving on a Fleet cruiser. He had finally had to go through Cousin Chalbert, a harrowing inquisition which had started with an innocent enough question, "But why do you want to see her? Are you short of hinds, or anything like that?" and ended up with him confessing every venial and mortal sin he had ever committed.
Then he'd had to endure that ride on a tank-hauler, whose bridge crew seemed delighted to make things tough for someone off a cruiser. They seemed to think that cruiser crews lived in obscene luxury and had all the glory as well. Ford was willing to admit that hauling supplies was less thrilling than chasing pirates, but by the third day he was tired of being dumped on for the luxuries he'd never actually enjoyed.
Auntie Q gave him a glance that suggested she had all oars in the water, and turned to speak into a grill. "Sam, my great-nephew arrived after all. So we'll be three for dinner and I want your very best."
"Yes, ma'am," came the reply.
Ford wished he had a way out, and knew he hadn't. The tank-hauler's crew had insisted he share their mess and his stomach was still rebelling.
"You did bring dress things, didn't you?" asked Auntie Q, giving Ford another sharp look.
But he'd been warned. Some of his outlay had been for the clothes which Auntie Q expected any gentleman to have at hand.
"Of course… although they may be a little out of date…"
She beamed at him. "Not at all, dear. Men's clothes don't go out of date like that. All this nonsense of which leg to tie the ribbons on. That's ridiculous. Black tie, dear, since no one's visiting."
Auntie Q's favorite era of male dress had been thirty years back: a revival of 19th century Old Earth European. Ford thought it was ridiculous, but then all dress clothes were, and were probably intended to be. Fleet taught you to wear anything and get the job done. He thought of that, checking himself in the mirror in his vast stateroom. It was as big as Sassinak's Zaid-Dayan stateroom and office combined, fall of furniture as costly as her desk. His black tie, crisply correct, fitted between stiffly white collar points. Studs held the stiff front panels of his shirt together (buttons were pedestrian, daytime wear) and cufflinks held his cuffs. It was utterly ridiculous and he could not keep from grinning at himself. He shrugged on the close-fitting dinner jacket. Like his dress uniform, it showed off broad shoulders and a lean waist (if you had them) or an expanse of white shirt, if you did not. He already wore the slim black trousers, the patent-leather shoes. He looked, to himself, like a caricature of a Victorian dandy. A face appeared in the mirror behind him: haughty, willful, her graying hair piled high in elaborate puffs and curls, a diamond choker around her wattled neck. Her gown, draped artfully to suggest what she no longer had to display, was a shimmering mass of black shot with silver-gray. From the top of her hairdo three great quills stuck up, quivering in shades of green and silver. Ford blinked. Surely they weren't really…?