A dispatch rider came clattering up to Wellesley's tent with news of the Jacobin uprisings in Birmingham and Manchester, and a landing of the Irish rebels. The big beak-nosed man stood in the open flap of the tent as the dripping militiaman saluted clumsily and handed over the dispatches, blinking in the driving rain.
"The devil with it," he muttered, turning to the map-table within and unfolding the heavy wax-sealed papers. "It's too bad. If we'd won that last battle… if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Still, it was a damned near-run thing-a very near thing."
He looked up. "You are to inform His Majesty that he and the royal family must take ship for India immediately. These-" he extended the reports from his folding desk "-are for Viceroy Arnold in Calcutta."
I concede, the computer said.
"Of course," Simeon answered smugly.
He switched his primary visual focus from simulation back to the lounge and looked down at the big holotable. An excellent model for use in war-gaming, the map of England was scattered with unit symbols. Finer and finer detail could be obtained by magnifying individual sectors-right down to the animate models of soldiers and horses. Or tanks and artillery, for some of the other games. He focused: on a horse tiredly nipping at its neighbor on the picket line, on the stubbled gap-toothed face of a sentry yawning.
"SSS."
"What is that?" Simeon asked.
The answer floated up into his awareness from the peripherals; tightbeam signal, modulated subspace waves, picked up by one of the passive buoys out on the fringes of the system. A subroutine had flagged it as possibly interesting.
Hmmm, he thought. Odd. It might just be the last fading noise from a leaking mini-singularity about to go pop. The things tended to cluster in this area, which was full of third-generation stars and black holes, though this one tasted like a signal. The problem with that was that there was nothing much out that way; nothing listed as inhabited for better than two hundred lights. Certainly no traffic into the sphere of Space Station Simeon-900-X's operations. He would have to see if anything more came of it. Presumably if someone was calling, they would try again.
Idly, he ran a checklist of station functions. Life-support was nominal, of course; any variation of that was red-flagged. One hundred seventy-two craft of various sorts from the liner Altair to barge-tugs were currently docked. Twenty-seven megatons of various mineral powders were in transit, in storage, or undergoing processing in SSS-900-X's attendant fabrication modules. Two new tugs were under construction in the yard. A civic election was underway, with Anita de Chong-Markowitz leading for council-rep in station sector three, the entertainment decks. Death in the Twenty-First was still billing as most popular holo of the month. Simeon sneered mentally, with a wistful overtone. Historical dramas were impossible for a serious scholar to watch because the manufacturers would not do their research.
It was not necessary to investigate much more in detail. With the connectors, shellperson Simeon was SSS-900-X. Little awareness remained of the stunted body inside its titanium shell in the central column of the lounge. He was the station, and any weakness or failure was, like pain, intense and personal. As far as his kinesthetic sense was concerned, he was a metal tube a kilometer long, with two huge globes attached on either end.
The Altair was in. Simeon had docked the incoming ship with his usual efficiency but without his usual close scrutiny. He deliberately turned his attention away from disembarking passengers, refusing to study their faces, especially the faces of the women.
Radon's replacement as Simeon's brawn was on this ship, and all he knew was her work record and her name. Channa Hap. Probably from Hawking Alpha Proxima Station, Hap being a common surname for those born in that ancient and wealthy community. He wasn't entirely sure. He'd fought Radon's retirement too hard to have much personal interest in his replacement. All right, I was sulking, he told himself. Time to get with the program. He'd established a subroutine to trash the applications of replacements. That hadn't been personal, merely a ploy.
He hadn't wanted her, but they were stuck with each other now.
Liners docked at the north polar aspect of the two linked globes that made up the station. The tube was a kilometer long and half that wide, more than enough for the replenishment feeds and a debarkation lounge fancy enough to satisfy the station's collective vanity: twenty meters on a side and fifteen high, lined with murals, walled and floored with exotic space-mined stone, with information kiosks and everything else a visitor needed to feel at home.
"I'm Channa Hap," a woman said to one of the kiosks. "I need directions to Control Central."
So that's her. Long high-cheekboned face, medium-length curling dark hair.
"You are expected, Ms. Hap," the terminal said. It had a mellow, commanding voice synthed from several of Simeon's favorite actors, some of whom dated back to the twenty-fourth century. "Do you wish transportation?"
"If there's no hurry, I'll walk. Might as well get used to the new home."
"This way, please."
She nodded. Simeon froze the visual and studied her; tall, athletic. Dressed plainly in a coverall, but she had presence. Nice figure, too, if you liked subtle curves and rolling muscle. A fox.
In an amazingly short time the door-chime signaled a request for admittance. Feeling as nervous as he had when meeting his first brawn, Simeon said, "Come," and the door swished open.
Channa entered. He closed in on the viewer to what he thought of as normal conversational distance. That was an advantage sometimes, since softshells couldn't get to their psychologically comfortable distance with you. She had delicate, clear-cut features and earnest dark eyes, and the curly black hair was swept back from her face in a disciplined no-nonsense fashion. A vid-show heroine. Perfect! he thought. I'll get things off on the right foot. He switched on a screen with his own "face"-the way he'd imagined it, ruggedly handsome with a tan, a Heidelberg dueling scar, level gray eyes, close-cropped blond hair and a Centauri Jets fan cap-and spoke aloud:
"Hubba-hubba!"
The dark eyes widened slightly, "Excuse me?"
He laughed, "That's ancient Earth slang for 'sexy lady.' "
"I see."
The words were so clipped Simeon could almost hear them ping on the deck as they fell through a short silence.
Ah, geesh, he thought, this is going really well. "Um, I meant it as a compliment." Why didn't they send me a male brawn? he asked himself, conveniently forgetting his request form. Male bonding he knew about.
"Yes, of course," she said coolly. "It's just not a type of compliment that I'm particularly fond of receiving."
She's got a nice voice, Simeon thought uneasily. Pity she seems to be a bitch. "What sort of compliments do you accept?" he asked in a tone of forced jocularity which wasn't easy to manage through a digital speaker.
"I accept those that deal with my quick learning ability, and my efficiency, or that acknowledge I'm doing a good job," she said, moving further into the room and taking a seat before his column. Until she had finished speaking, she did not look directly at him.