Free Conventions of War by Walter Jon Williams Page A

cups. A solid gold centerpiece crowned the table, armored warriors mysteriously standing guard over piles of brilliant metal fruits and nuts.
    The captain was a renowned patron of the arts, and as an offspring of the eminent and preposterously rich Gomberg and Fletcher clans, he had the money to indulge himself. He had ornamented Illustrious with a lavish hand, sparing no expense to create a masterpiece that would be the envy of the Fleet. The hull had been painted in a complex geometric pattern of brilliant white, pale green, and pink. The interior was filled with more geometric patterns broken by fantastic landscapes, trompes l’oeil, scenes of hunting and dancing, forests and vines, whimsical architecture and wind-tossed seascapes. Most of these works had been created in a graphics program, run off on long sheets, then mounted like wallpaper, but in the captain’s own quarters the murals had been painted on, and were subsequently maintained, by a pudgy, graying, rather disheveled artist named Montemar Jukes, who Fletcher had brought aboard as a servant and promptly rated Rigger First Class.
    Jukes dined in the petty officers’ lounge: no one present at the captain’s dinner was anything less than an officer and a Peer. All glittered in their full dress uniforms, as the captain’s long-established custom was that all meals aboard Illustrious be formal, whether they were a special occasion or not.
    He had established his rule before Martinez joined the ship, but Martinez had added his own unexpected contribution to the ritual. Since the dinners were, after all, full dress, he had worn his decorations—or, in the case of one particular decoration, carried it.
    The award in question was the Golden Orb, a baton on which was mounted a transparent globe filled with swirling gold liquid. It happened to be the highest award in the empire, given Martinez for stealing the Corona from under Naxid noses at Magaria, and every officer and crew, every lord convocate or government employee, was required to salute it.
    So the first time Martinez had arrived for one of the captain’s dinners, Captain Lord Gomberg Fletcher was obliged to jump up and salute him; and this had happened on every occasion since. The captain had been gracious about it—he was never less than gracious—but there was something in the set of the long, handsome face that suggested he had discovered a flaw in the arrangement of the universe. No Fletcher had ever before in history saluted a Martinez, and he resented the fact that he should be the first.
    Tonight, Lady Michi, the guest of honor, sat at the head of the table, with the rest below in order of precedence. Fletcher and Martinez sat beneath Lady Michi, and below Fletcher was the first lieutenant, Fulvia Kazakov, her dark hair braided and tied into an elaborate knot behind her head, then transfixed with a pair of gold-embroidered chopsticks of camphor wood.
    On Martinez’s elbow was Chandra Prasad, her knee pressed familiarly to his. Below them were ranked the other four lieutenants, the ship’s doctor, and the cadets. At the far end of the table was the one non-Terran aboard Illustrious, a Daimong cadet who had commanded a pinnace at the Battle of Protipanu and been absent from his ship, the frigate Beacon, when it was destroyed with all aboard.
    Like the other cadets, the Daimong maintained an intimidated silence in the presence of his superiors, so his views on the psychology of Lord Ganmir and Lady Oppoda went unrecorded.
    â€œThere’s Go-tul’s New Dynasty, ” Michi said. “A very moving tragedy, I’ve always thought.”
    â€œI consider it flawed,” said Captain Fletcher. He was a thin-faced man with ice-blue eyes that glittered from deep sockets, and silvery hair set in unnaturally perfect waves. His manner combined the Fleet’s assumption of unquestioned authority with the flawless ease of the high-caste Peer.
    He was a complete