Amity’s exec. The man who Senate infighting had succeeded in putting in as second in command, despite the record and obvious competence of Erin Kennedy.
The man who, unlike the rest of the ship’s officers and crew, had arrived barely twenty-four hours before the ship’s scheduled departure, too late to help with any of the pre-flight preparations.
The man who’d brought with him a personal file and psych profile that practically simmered with Tampy-hatred.
It was, unfortunately, the kind of politically-twisted logic that Roman should have expected. The Senate’s anti-Tampy faction would have demanded that Roman’s own pro-Tampy inclinations be balanced by an opposite bias in Amity’s executive officer, and it was clear from Kennedy’s own comments that such a demand had indeed been made and yielded to. Still, for the past few days he’d dared to hope that they might have given up that concession at the last minute; that the continuing border troubles would have convinced them that they could safely give Amity a fair trial without the need to stack the deck. Clearly, they hadn’t been interested in taking that chance.
And coming at the last minute like this, there wasn’t a lot Roman could do about it.
Keying the man’s file onto his display, he scanned it one last time to refresh his memory, then touched the intercom switch. “Is the exec there yet?” he asked the yeoman manning the outer desk.
“Yes, sir.”
Mentally, Roman braced himself. “Send him in.”
The door slid open and a young man stepped through, moving with somewhat less certainty and grace than had Erin Kennedy before him. Less experience with ships in low-rotation mode, Roman noted automatically, filing the datum away for possible future reference. “Welcome aboard, Commander,” he said. “I’m Captain Haml Roman.”
“Lieutenant Commander Chayne Ferrol,” the other identified himself, his voice formal, stiff, and cool. “I’m looking forward to serving with you, Captain.”
Ferrol had argued long and hard with the Senator and his friends about this assignment—had brought up a hundred reasons why it wouldn’t work, a hundred more why he didn’t want to serve under the man who’d come within a hair of nailing him and the Scapa Flow three months earlier. They’d assured him there would be no problem, convinced him he was the only man for the job… but now, standing there under Roman’s unblinking gaze, Ferrol wished he hadn’t given in.
Those eyes were far too intelligent, far too discerning, and for that first awful moment Ferrol was sure the captain somehow knew exactly who he was. He braced himself for the accusation as Roman opened his mouth—“We’re looking forward to having you aboard, Commander,” the other said.
The tightness in Ferrol’s chest eased, and he began to breathe again. So much for paranoia, he thought, annoyed with himself for jumping so easily to conclusions.
“Thank you, Captain,” he said. “My apologies for arriving at the last minute like this.”
Roman waved the apology aside. “I imagine the fault lies with those who sent you.” His eyes dipped to his desk display. “You’ll forgive me if I say that at twentyfour you’re a bit young for your rank.”
“The commission is honorary,” Ferrol said. That was technically supposed to be a secret, but Roman could hardly have failed to figure it out. “I have, however, had six full years in the merchant fleet, two of them as captain of a small ship of my own. I think you’ll find me fully capable of serving as Amity’s executive officer.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Roman said mildly. “It’s just that your file is oddly vague on these details, and I wanted to get some of them cleared up. The size of your former command, for instance.”
“It was a small interstellar tug with a crew of fifteen,” Ferrol told him.
Roman nodded. “I know the type. Close-knit crew, everyone friends, captain basically God—and everyone likes it or quits at the next port. There are a lot of people who think that’s the ideal starship size.”
His voice was casual, almost bantering… but his eyes were anything but. “It would probably save time, Captain,” Ferrol said evenly, “if you’d just go ahead and ask me why I’m here.”
Roman cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, I know why you’re here, Commander. What I want to ask is why you hate the Tampies so much.”
Even eight years later, the memory of it was still a hot needle beneath his skin.
“You have my file there,” Ferrol said, forcing his voice to remain calm. “You should be able to figure it out.”
Roman studied him. “I gather you’re referring to the Prometheus treaty.”
“Treaty?” Ferrol snorted. “That was hardly a treaty, Captain. It was an act of war.”
He nodded curtly at Roman’s desk display. “Read the official papers sometime, Captain, if you can manage to dig them out of the Starforce’s snowpile. Read the fairy tale about how the Tampies decided one day that they wanted Prometheus—never mind that we’d just spent three years working damned hard to build a colony there. Read how the Senate meekly agreed and sent the Defiance to forceably take us off.” His voice was starting to shake, and he took a careful breath to calm it. “I doubt you’ll be able to read that having their life’s goal kicked out from under them was what ruined my parents’ health and killed them two years later. Official papers don’t usually bother with trivialities like that.”
“I’m sorry,” Romans said.
Even through the blur of emotion Ferrol could tell the other meant it. “I’m not after sympathy, Captain,” he growled. “And before you get the wrong idea, I’m not after revenge, either. What I want is for the Cordonale to understand the Tampies the way I do.”
“And that is…?”
Ferrol locked eyes with him. “There’re two small facts that the official version conveniently leaves out. First, that it wasn’t the Defiance’s crewers who forced us out of our homes and off our world. It was a Tampy task force. A very efficient, very cold, very military task force. And second… that they forced us out a full four days before the date that’s on the treaty.”
For a moment Roman was silent. “You’re saying,” he said at last, “that the Tampies jumped the gun?”
“I’m saying,” Ferrol corrected grimly, “that they took unilateral action against us…
and that the Senate backed off and let them get away with it.”
Roman rubbed his thumb and forefinger together gently. “Is it possible you could have been mistaken as to the timing involved? After all, you were fairly young at the—”
“I was almost sixteen,” Ferrol cut him off. “Quite old enough to know the months and days of the week, thank you—and to know how to translate local dates into Earth Standard ones.” He glared at the other. “There’s no mistake, Captain. The public image the Tampies portray of themselves as peace-loving, passive friends of nature is a lie. I know it, the Senate knows it… and the rest of the Cordonale deserves to know it, too.”
“And how far do you intend to go to prove it?” Roman asked bluntly.
Ferrol took a deep breath, dragging his anger back under control. “You mistake my intentions, sir,” he said evenly. “I’m not here to goad the Tampies into showing their true character. I won’t have to—being locked up in close proximity to a shipful of humans for three months ought to do it for me.” He locked eyes with the captain. “I’m here only to make sure that that evidence doesn’t somehow get itself snowbound.”
“I see,” Roman nodded. If he was offended by the implied slur on his integrity, he made no sign of it. “Then there’s just one more question I have to ask: given your feelings about the Tampies, are you certain you’re willing to trust your life to them?”
Ferrol frowned. “In what way would I be doing that?”
Roman frowned in turn. “You didn’t know? The Amity’s a modified in-system freighter, without a Mitsuushi Star Drive. All interstellar travel will be via the space horse… and the systems we’ll be going to are all well beyond normal Mitsuushi range.”
Something cold settled into the pit of Ferrol’s stomach. “I wasn’t told that, no,” he murmured. All travel via their tame space horse… and only the Tampies able to control or communicate with the giant creature. “That seems… a bit foolhardy, sir,” he managed.