Chapter 2
“Elevation in social class must promote the Honor Standard. Deviations from the Honor Standard must result in lethal duels. In this way Peers will themselves prune the tree of nobility.…”
Legacy Mandate by Emperor Yung I
As the direct representative of Emperor Yung V on Battersea, Winter Yung generally amused herself in whatever way her jaded tastes permitted. She’d found, over many years of service to her great uncle, the recently deceased Emperor Yung IV (may he rest in peace…just as soon as she laid hold of his assassins), that her appetites usually produced more good intel than all the cloak-and-dagger methods at her disposal.
On this blighted day, unfortunately, her armored skimcar represented an almost-direct extension of the new Emperor’s will, wending its way over hills and through picturesque forests of the vast old Sinclair-Maru Family holdings. Her rarefied tastes did not steer her course, as they usually did. Corporal Standish steered the course, and the secretive family manor of the Sinclair-Maru drew rapidly nearer.
It felt like a voyage into history, and Winter Yung loathed history.
She sighed, crossing her elegantly clad legs and easing her platinum queue against the skimcar’s luxurious cushions. The small fortune of microelectronics crammed within her skull afforded a dynamic view, even when only boring fields and blue skies filled the panorama. A glowing path of ever-diminishing klicks stretched out before her, indicating the range and path to her destination, while a glance above displayed the status of the IMS Fury, her light destroyer escort, vigilant and invisible above the blue sky.
Though she lacked the characteristic “Yung” almond eyes, now known as “Imperial eyes,” her nondescript brown orbs concealed more than just a ruthless mind. Beyond her status as Imperial consul to Battersea, Winter ranked near the top of her Imperial Uncle’s intelligence service. That role granted her the latest in implanted Shaper tech, to provide godlike insights into the world around her. Her enhanced optic nerve projected a shifting User Interface constantly across her vision, not entirely unlike the UI most Vested Citizens of the Imperium enjoyed. Most such citizens, though, would find themselves baffled by the complexity of Winter Yung’s UI, and horrified by the sheer intrusive power of her specialized systems.
It had taken Winter nearly ten nauseating years to master the suite of tools that an agent of her status was now provided, tools lodged in implanted hardware within her brain. At times Winter had thought she might truly lose her mind before she conquered the barrage of overlays, data streams, and glowing reticles flickering constantly across her vision. In rare quiet moments, Winter sometimes thought she really had lost her mind back then. It would certainly explain a few things.
With the Imperium still reeling from the assassination, and the Ericson Cluster worlds forming a rebellion, Winter knew this trip’s importance, but nearly everything about the Sinclair-Maru family bored her to death. She had attended command school with Bess Sinclair-Maru—gods, it seemed a century ago! Winter frowned, furrowing her porcelain brow. Has it really been nearly eighty standard years?
Even then, when the Family still enjoyed the last flickers of their fading glory, the Sinclair-Maru bunch shared a certain odd reserve that left Winter clammy. Passion, emotion, heat; these characteristics appealed to Winter, and they often made her intelligence work so much easier to accomplish. But Bess and her legendary Family never seemed to realize that their antiquated addiction to the honor standard, which served the Family so well in wartime, became a positive liability during the centuries of peace. While the rest of the major Families of the Imperium plunged into court politics during the Pax Imperium of 5677 that Mia Maru and Devlin Sinclair helped secure, the Sinclair-Maru failed to change with the times.
When a Family’s loyalty to the Emperor became boringly consistent, appointments, contracts, lands, and other concessions flowed to other families who formed and betrayed various coalitions, backstabbed the occasional ally, and otherwise manipulated Imperial favor. The Sinclair-Maru never seemed to comprehend this.
The great Family, forged by Mia and Devlin in a time of blood and fire, withered in the shadows of a five-hundred-year peace, like some ancient, loyal watchdog. But that peace was gone now, and the loyal watchdog might have some use at last, withered and boring though it was.
Mostly boring, Winter amended to herself. This young man, Saef Sinclair-Maru, intrigued Winter for reasons not particularly germane to her mission. That he had fought seven recorded duels was not all that remarkable. Young Vested Citizens often dueled because it was fashionable. They generally clashed swords until someone obtained a cut severe enough to settle any question of honor, and hopefully leave a heroic-looking scar. For a few days those fights would populate the Nets and feed gossip.
No, the way in which Saef Sinclair-Maru deliberately (and very unfashionably) killed all seven opponents, this intrigued Winter Yung. It argued a great passion or—a tingle of pleasure flickered in Winter—a bloodthirstiness that was quite unlike Saef’s stolid family.
Winter briefly considered pulling up the vidstream collection from Saef’s Imperial Command College tests, but a glance at her augmented vision showed Lykeios, the old Sinclair-Maru family manor, drawing near. She required all her focus to capture any details on this foray. Imperial Security had recently begun wondering about the offensive and defensive capabilities Lykeios might have squirreled away. With blood flowing once again, every major Family fell under fresh scrutiny. This trip could serve as a rare opportunity to politely penetrate the twice-damned security, and it mustn’t be squandered.
Winter’s unlined face remained serene, but her pupils snapped open, like the twin muzzles of a weapon turret. As the skimcar descended from the forested hill, she took in everything.
The broad valley of the Lykeios Manor stretched before her sight, joined by a live, top-down view from the Fury perched directly above in the planet’s magnetic field. Reticles of glowing red and green generated by her analytics hardware overlaid her view, highlighting each notable feature and estimating capabilities on the fly.
A hilltop stand of trees pinged as a probable sensor array, while the large structure adjoining the manor house issued a nominal graviton signature, indicating an advanced House Combatives training area. Grain silos at the periphery of the manor park just happened to provide interlocking fields of fire—if they contained heavy weapons instead of grain, as she guessed they might. Winter’s expressions remained placid as they came through the low, thick curtain wall, but her eyes jigged from feature to feature.
The manor itself was constructed by Devlin Sinclair and his wife, Mia Maru, after most of their respective forebears were gunned down in the uprising of 5677. Together they founded the new Sinclair-Maru line at a bloody turn in history, and the construction of the Family seat displayed this in myriad ways.
Alerts flashed in Winter’s vision as her advanced Shaper hardware detected the barely visible pattern of emitters concealed around the circumference of the manor yard. Analytics estimated a sixty-five percent likelihood that huge energy-shield generators existed here, and Winter nearly jerked in surprise. Two generations of the Sinclair-Maru family aged without access to the prohibitively expensive Shaper rejuv treatments, yet some half-billion credits’ worth of Shaper shield technology lay at the heart of this ancient stone manor.
Winter could scarcely believe that in the centuries of peace since Mia and Devlin built the place, no one had sold the shield generators in exchange for youth. Now that war came roaring back, a little paranoia made sense, but it was a hell of a wait for a payoff.
Her gaze swept the grounds one last time as Corporal Standish pulled up to the entry. Her UI didn’t sing out, but Winter noted the two circular planters that undoubtedly housed pop-up emplacements to cover the gates. Also, she figured, a battery of heavy dampers must hide somewhere, completing the manor’s main defenses.
Her skimcar stopped and Winter stepped out, snapping her sword to her waist. “Wait here,” she commanded the corporal, stepping away before he could reply.
A man wearing the livery of a Sinclair-Maru servitor bowed his head respectfully. “Welcome to Lykeios, Consul,” he said. “You were not expected.”
It was the nearest to a rebuke Winter would likely hear. “Unavoidable, I fear,” she said.
The servitor’s eyes flickered, and Winter’s analytics snapped onto the telltales, informing her that he communicated via implanted UI with someone. Another surprise.
It was only then that Winter noticed the black wristband of a Vested Citizen on the servitor’s arm. The usual symbol of full citizenship, a sword, was impractical for those engaged in certain manual labor tasks, but most manual labor fell to inexpensive demi-cit laborers or dumb-mechs, not Vested Citizens.
Servitors with skull implants instead of inexpensive HUD lenses? Vested Citizens instead of demi-cits for the grunt work? Yet, the Sinclair-Maru family lacked the funds for any significant Shaper tech these days. Bizarre…or was it?
Since only Vested Citizens could be held to full accountability on oaths and contracts, any demi-cit worker represented a potential security breach, immune to any harsh penalties for oath-breaking.
“If you would accompany me, Consul,” the servitor said, leading the way through the broad, thick door into the manor house.
Winter noted the immense breadth of the stone walls, the positive air pressure, and the defensible entryway. Her UI chirped as it discovered shielded Nets frequencies. With a neural flick she directed it to ignore them. The House Intelligence might detect any signal hack, and take it personally.
“Consul Winter Yung,” a low feminine voice greeted.
Winter rotated to see an older, thicker, browner version of her old classmate, Bess Sinclair-Maru. Older and thicker, yes, but not as greatly touched by the decades as Winter might have guessed. There had been some old rejuv action at work, probably way back in Bess’s teens.
Winter’s analytics highlighted elongated earlobes, thickened wrist bones, and corded neck muscles: all indications of extensive high-grav training. A second flag provided the useful fact that Bess had fought only two known duels in her 102 years as an adult Vested Citizen, won both, killed neither of her opponents.
“Dame Sinclair-Maru,” Winter replied, hearing the contrast between her own youthful contralto and the drab notes from Bess. “It’s been some decades, but no time to chat about our school year, I fear.”
“The uprising. The Ericson Cluster,” Bess stated, her expression so unreadable that Winter’s analytics uttered no hints of deeper emotion.
“Yes, in part.” Winter gauged the stolid figure before her, the somber, uniform-like attire. “Do you speak for the Family, Bess?”
Bess nodded, slowly. “Let’s step into the study, if you don’t mind, Consul. Refreshment?” Bess led the way to another imposing door that silently opened as they approached.
“Nothing for me, thank you.”
The room they entered exuded premillennial charm, with bare wooden beams, actual pulp-fiber books in a shelf, and a fire on the hearth that Winter’s UI assured her was genuine burning wood. Winter loathed the entire room on sight.
Her UI highlighted a well-worn long rifle over the hearth, scrolled out range and damage estimates across her vision, then flashed a couple of historical images that really caught her attention. The historical images showed the well-known figure of Mia Maru standing beside her husband, Devlin Sinclair, an identical rifle cradled in her arms. In that famous image they stood in the smoldering rubble of Imperial City, both smudged with dirt and maybe blood, Devlin holding a sword loosely in hand.
That day’s action, defending Emperor Yung III, created all the dwindling wealth and power that surrounded Winter Yung now.
“Is that the rifle?” Winter asked.
Bess glanced up at its place above the mantel. “The very one.”
Winter nodded, pursing her lips as she strode slowly to a deeply inset window overlooking the immaculate old grounds. She turned back to find Bess gazing levelly into her eyes.
“The very rifle,” Winter said. “Long ago your ancestors defended the Emperor with that rifle.”
The door to the study opened to admit a nondescript man of average height and build. Winter’s UI went to work trying to match his face to known figures.
“Cabot Sinclair-Maru,” he said by way of introduction, and Winter’s UI immediately brought up a two-hundred-year-old image of Cabot Sinclair-Maru. He was of the older generation, back when their family resources had been much greater. He looked younger than Bess, without even a touch of gray in his dark hair…exactly as he appeared two centuries before.
Good, Winter thought, clear memories of faded glory should help.
“Pleased,” Winter said. “We were just speaking of this reliable old weapon that protected the Emperor long ago.”
Bess kept her gaze riveted on Winter’s face, and Winter’s analytics flickered telltales of probable suppressed anger. “The weapon is reliable and old,” Bess said quietly. “But, perhaps it has been neglected.”
Cabot said nothing, glancing from woman to woman before stepping to a refreshment dispenser and preparing a drink.
“Surely now,” Winter replied in her most refined contralto, “it rests in honor upon the wall, and that wall upon vast lands gifted by the Emperor. That hardly seems neglect.”
Bess’s eyes flashed, and Winter’s UI unnecessarily tagged it for anger and indignation. With difficulty, it seemed, Bess controlled her wrath. “Even the most reliable weapon needs a little…care, from time to time, Consul, if it’s to be ready for service someday.”
Now Winter felt her own anger flare. This backwater family owns a few pages of history, and they think the Emperor indebted to them?
Cabot finished preparing his drink and turned. “Perhaps we can speak plainly.”
Winter turned her focus from Bess to the blank slate of Cabot, where nothing at all was revealed. After a moment Winter said, “Assure complete privacy. No record. And I will share the Emperor’s mind.”
Bess barely glanced at Cabot before looking vaguely upward. “Hermes?” Bess inquired.
“Yes, my lady?” the House Intelligence of Lykeios responded, audibly for Winter’s benefit.
“Seal this room, please. Stop all monitoring until further notice.”
Winter’s UI instantly went crazy, flashing alerts, as all bands and frequencies fell suddenly silent. Winter suppressed an involuntary start; she hadn’t been separated from the Imperial Nets for years, except for those brief spells in transition during inter-system travel. She sent a terse plain text message on her quantum-entangled communicator: ALL WELL. FWD TO IMS FURY.
It wouldn’t do for Fury to panic at her sudden disconnection, and begin raining down Marines from above.
QE comm technology was known to many within the Imperium, though not at the scale that Winter operated. Nothing could stop or block a QE message, nor could it be intercepted, but messages could pass only between two mated comm units. The almost unbelievable fact that Winter carried a miniature QE comm in her skull was a matter of highest Imperial secrecy.
“We are secure,” Cabot said, sipping from his glass. He turned and stood looking out a window. “Please tell us how our family may assist the Emperor.”
Winter looked from Bess to the profile of Cabot.
Was he consciously evading her analytics? Did he have some hint of her “mind-reading” capabilities?
She turned back to Bess. “What I am about to share is a matter that must never be discussed again in the detail and breadth I offer.” Winter eased gracefully into a seat and Bess hesitated a moment before sitting across from her. Cabot swirled his drink, sipping as he continued to gaze out the window.
Winter flashed an irritated glance at Cabot but continued, her attention focused back upon Bess. “After centuries of talk, the Imperium faces three challenges at once.”
“The assassination of the Emperor, the Ericson Cluster uprising, and…?” Cabot said without turning.
Winter really began to dislike Cabot Sinclair-Maru. “Yes,” she replied. “But the rebellion may be tied to a larger issue, something that the Imperial counselors keep ignoring, something that we must uncover.”
“We?” Cabot said.
Winter ignored him. “We may have a rebellion within a rebellion; something that goes to the top, impacting even the delivery of Shaper tech.”
Winter’s analytics read shock and disbelief on Bess’s face.
“Fleet,” Cabot said, surprising Winter again.
“Yes.”
“But you must represent a faction, eh, Consul?” Cabot said, turning to look at her, finally. “So what’s amiss in Fleet politics that’s split the inner council into warring parties? Why stoop to this old Family, so far from all the court games?”
Winter felt the smooth planes of her face flash into jagged lines of anger, but she immediately reassumed the mask. She did not allow anyone inside the circles of her manipulation, too close to the truth to be twisted to her purposes. Damn it! Where has this man been for the last two hundred years?
She only said, “There are always divisions, you know that. But I do speak for the Emperor on this matter.” Winter’s analytics flagged hints of respectful acceptance in Bess’s face. Good. But Cabot remained an unreadable slate.
Winter looked from Cabot to Bess. “Fleet is run by admirals, commodores, and captains who have risen from the testing of command school and years of duty. They come from diverse clusters of the Myriad Worlds, but what group dominates the command structure?”
“As you just said,” Bess offered with confusion, “the command of Fleet is scattered among officers from many worlds. No one world or cluster dominates.”
Cabot hissed a breath, and for the first time Winter’s analytics found a purchase on his expressions: dawning awareness, shock. “Heavyworlders.”
“Yes,” Winter said, feeling suddenly, perversely attracted to Cabot as much as she had hated him a moment before. “Kush, Thorsworld, Ericson Two, Kabah, Al Sakeen, and the rest of the heavyworlds; they supply disproportionate numbers of Fleet officers, and always have. A majority of the Admiralty Board are heavyworlders, so you can see that if they were to join together…”
“Aside from heavy gravity, though, the heavyworlds have nothing in common. Not heritage, ethnicity, religion…nothing,” Bess said.
“Ill usage,” Cabot said. “They all feel shat upon.”
“So eloquently said,” Winter murmured. “Possibly correct, though.”
“Possibly? Nothing creates solidarity like shared suffering. Before the first Shaper armada, heavyworld child mortality stood over fifty percent. You fool yourself if you think they forgot that.”
“You preach to the converted,” Winter said.
“Very well,” Bess said, “let’s accept this theory. Now, how can the Sinclair-Maru assist the Emperor?”
“We need someone loyal in the command structure, someone who can perform some odd tasks for us—soon.”
“We weren’t the first Family you approached on this,” Cabot stated.
Damn him! “No,” Winter said without expression.
“How many before you came to this loyal old hound?”
Winter internally jumped at Cabot’s words, so closely mirroring her own uncomplimentary imagery. “You are the third,” Winter said, truthfully. She saw Bess flush with anger at this, but Cabot only nodded.
“The other two declined?” Cabot asked.
“No,” Winter said. “They died.”
“Died how?” Bess inquired, her voice schooled into an even tone, but Winter’s analytics yelped about anger, suspicion, and resentment.
“One duel. One mysterious hit.”
“And all this happened in the weeks since the Ericson uprising?” Cabot asked.
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“Perhaps you haven’t noticed,” Bess said in a voice dripping with resentment. “Our Family hasn’t anyone in Fleet command anymore. The toadies and heavyworlders seem to fill the command ranks, while our candidates are always frozen out.”
Winter had time for one puzzled grimace before Cabot said, “Saef. He must have done well on the Fleet command test.”
“I take it you hadn’t heard, then?”
“We’ve heard nothing from Saef,” Bess said. “Regardless, his command experience in Battersea’s System Guard was commended, but that’s never created much excitement in Fleet.”
Winter looked from Bess to Cabot. They really don’t know. Why hasn’t Saef contacted them?
“Well,” Winter said, smiling, “it’s a pleasure to be the bearer of even more good news.”
They both stared at Winter, their faces blank in that odd, unpleasant Sinclair-Maru way.
“As you have divined, your Saef performed…amazingly well on the command test. He achieved the highest command score on the record…by a far margin.”
“He has always tested well,” Cabot said in a mild voice, while Bess patiently awaited the implications.
“That’s a…substantial understatement in this case,” Winter said. “The previous record stood for nearly two centuries. Your Saef outperformed the previous record holder by a factor of three.”
The only reaction observed in her audience was a slight rising of Bess’s eyebrows, and a curl of Cabot’s lip that spoke of impatience.
“As the new record holder, Saef’s System Guard time will be credited as seniority in Fleet. He is eligible for captaincy, and an automatic cruise.”
Finally, Winter obtained a small reward as Bess leaned back, taking a deep breath.
“The question is,” Winter continued, “does Saef possess the additional qualities the Emperor requires?”
“That’s not the question at all,” Cabot said. “The question is, can the Family afford the outlay for a Fleet command position on such short notice?”
Bess ignored Cabot entirely, her gaze fixed upon Winter. “You undoubtedly sifted his file, and you’re here. It appears he must hold the qualities the Emperor requires.”
“He’s still a bit of a puzzle in some ways,” Winter said, feeling a warm stirring, as her appetites and her duty aligned for the first time of the day. “His physical scores ranked near the top. No surprise. It’s a rare candidate who formerly served as a ground warfare instructor. His other scores are unremarkable.” She paused, feeling a tingle of pleasure. “And then there is this bloodthirsty streak…”
“The duels?” Bess said. “No, we have a very complete brain scan record and psyche work-up since childhood. He’s not bloodthirsty at all.”
“Oh? Really?” Winter’s fires banked somewhat.
“Saef adheres very closely to the Legacy Mandate…very closely,” Cabot said.
Winter felt the remaining spark extinguish, and she tried to suppress the disdainful twist of her lips. “He’s…‘pruning the tree of nobility’ is he?”
“According to the words of your revered ancestor, yes.”
“Well…that’s reassuring,” Winter said, overwhelmed with that clammy Sinclair-Maru feeling, and wanting very much to leave. “Let’s get to business, then. Can your Family provide the necessary outlay for a light frigate captaincy?”
Winter did not need advanced analytic systems to detect the pure avarice in Bess’s eyes. “Yes, a half-million credits…with a few Imperial concessions.”
Cabot said nothing and his expression was unreadable by any means.
“What concessions?” Winter asked flatly. “For our purposes there can be no visible strings to the Emperor.”
“This will be quite invisible,” Bess said. “Leak us the top five Trade items requested by the incoming Shaper armada. We’ll reposition our inventories and get ‘lucky’ as we sometime have before.”
Winter mused momentarily. “I will leak you two of the top five items, three in the top ten, and you will have a fully equipped Saef Sinclair-Maru in Imperial City within ten days. I have a personal QE comm unit in my skimcar for him. He will receive his instructions and make his reports through that, as needed.”
“Agreed,” Bess said without looking toward Cabot.
Winter nodded, checking off various points in her mind. She thought of one lingering curiosity. “You must be very pleased with this young man, Saef. But tell me, how did he so surpass all records of the command test?”
“Refresh my memory,” Cabot said, unable to tap into the Nets with the room sealed to all signals. “What sort of test is it precisely, again?”
“The command test measures a subject’s ability to command a warship. It’s a simulator, complete with a normal bridge complement. As the test progresses, challenges increase and bridge officers are removed, one by one, leaving the subject to manage ship resources through command UI, solo. About half the candidates surpass the first phase, operating the simulated warship alone, with no bridge officers.” Winter paused, and her audience of two sat silently, without expression. Like conversing with rocks!
“The second phase simply increases the stress, step by step. Failing systems, hazards, attacks…that sort of thing. Only three subjects have ever managed to continue beyond the eight-hour mark before their simulated ship failed or they collapsed under the stress. The previous record holder lasted nearly twelve hours. Your Saef endured for nearly thirty hours.” Winter paused, looking for some reaction, but after a moment she sighed and continued. “At the end he was delirious, kept speaking of the path to the Deep Man. That’s not a term from command school curriculum. How’d he pull this off?”
Neither Bess nor Cabot answered for a moment, and Winter’s analytics flagged concealment and distrust on Bess’s face, but Cabot’s expression remained merely contemplative.
Just as the prolonged silence became uncomfortable Cabot answered, “We provide an advanced implant and UI to all Family members. Saef mastered a complex UI when he was very young.”
“He’s still very young,” Winter said.
“Thirty isn’t that young in this Family, Consul,” Bess said.
Winter frowned. Was that a rebuke because the Sinclair-Maru could no longer afford the extended youth of Shaper rejuv? Or did she refer to the famed, but secretive, training system of the Sinclair-Maru?
Winter said, “His earlier simulator scores were all high, but nothing like this, and what about this ‘Deep Man’ business? Does that mean anything to you?”
Bess glanced at Cabot, and Cabot pursed his lips before speaking. “Saef is very accomplished under pressure, as you see. And recall his meritorious service in the System Guard. He commanded several gunboats. But I’m afraid I must remain silent beyond that. The Legacy Mandate forbids discussion of House Combatives between Families.”
Winter shook her head. “You’re saying that House Combatives—dueling skills, really—have some great connection to commanding an interstellar warship?”
“That was the original intent by your honored ancestor, you may recall,” Cabot said.
Winter despised everything about her “honored ancestor,” Emperor Yung the First, except that he made her youth, her longevity, and her lavish lifestyle possible, but she especially loathed his damned book of preachy maxims: the Legacy Mandate.
Winter stifled a sneer and rose to her feet. “Very well. You’ll get your list of Shaper requests, and you get Saef to Imperial City. He needs to be on a shuttle off this rock within two days to make our schedule.” She nodded to Cabot. “I hope your vaunted House Combatives are up to the task. I want him to survive long enough to get where we need him.”
Cabot tossed back the remainder of his amber-hued beverage and said, “It seems likely we may already be too late on that score.”
Bess and Winter simply stared at him, but Cabot just nodded to himself and looked at his empty glass. “It’s been, what? Two days? Two days since the test, and we haven’t heard from Saef. That seems surprising, considering.”
Bess fumbled a touch panel, hailing the House Intelligence back into the room. “Yes, my lady?” the voice of Hermes inquired.
“Locate Saef Sinclair-Maru, please,” Bess said.
“Searching for Saef Sinclair-Maru. A moment, my lady.”
Winter felt her own connection to the Imperial Nets rush back into her skull as the House Intelligence unsealed the room. She immediately set her own Nets search in place, but before she could do little more than initiate, Hermes returned.
“My lady, Saef is listed as unavailable. Last location was his lodging at command school, Port City. Status was normal.”
“He’s not sending? He’s not on any public Nets?”
“No, my lady,” Hermes replied. “I do detect a potentially useful connection.”
Winter nodded in appreciation. These old House Intelligences accumulated so much Family pattern data over the centuries that they could be enormously useful, nearly prescient, but very expensive to develop.
“Proceed,” Bess said.
“Claude Carstairs also listed command school as his location twelve hours ago. He cancelled appointments today, with an ‘affair of honor’ as his stated purpose.”
“Saef’s dueling this Carstairs character?” Winter asked as her UI supplied an image of a somewhat vacuous-looking but handsome young man.
“No,” Bess said. “Claude is a childhood friend, likely serving as his second.”
“What do you wish to wager that Saef’s opponent is a heavyworlder?” Cabot said without expression. He set his empty glass down. “Would you care to dine with us, Consul? We should hear shortly if Saef survives, I would think. Or will that warship loitering above us become anxious?”
Winter nearly grimaced, wondering if Cabot shared his awareness of her orbital escort as an olive branch, or as some sort of threat. “I haven’t time to linger, sadly.” She fired a salvo of messages through her UI to her Port City agents. “We will just have to place our faith in the famous skill of your House, and hope for the best.”
Damn! They moved faster than I had thought! If Saef dies, this entire tedious day has been for nothing!