Free The Sea Without a Shore by David Drake Page B

wasn’t what you came expecting to learn, my question still stands.”
    “Is there anything I can do that will help Daniel with whatever he’s preparing to do?” Miranda said primly. “I’m not asking where he’s going or what he’s doing or, or—”
    She was losing her careful calm. She paused, swallowed, and resumed, “Or anything I shouldn’t know about. And I came to you, because you’ll tell me the truth.”
    “Yes,” said Adele as she considered the situation. “You have to remember that most of Daniel’s previous experience with women—”
    All his previous experience, so far as Adele had seen.
    “—has been with the type who struggle every day in deciding which color earrings to wear. He knows that you’re different, but when he’s busy he is probably operating by rote rather than thinking.”
    Miranda smiled toward her clasped hands, then looked up at Adele. “At parties I’ve met some of Daniel’s previous acquaintances,” she said. Her voice was soft with good humor. “They’re lovely, very lovely. Which explains how their genetic material survives in the human species.”
    “I’ve had similar thoughts,” Adele said. Miranda was a remarkably levelheaded person. “As for your question, I don’t know anything you can do for Daniel. Beyond what you’re doubtless doing already, of course. However—”
    There had been a hint of disappointment in Miranda’s expression. It vanished at the qualifying “However—”
    “—since you’re here, there’s something you can do for me. I’d like to analyze a situation I’m involved in in front of an intelligent neutral party. I don’t care about your opinion.”
    “All right,” said Miranda. Her expression was alert; but then, it usually was. “If it’s all right for you to speak to me. Security, I mean.”
    “In my experience,” Adele said, “‘security’ is a word people use to conceal information. I’m a librarian. I was trained to make information available to others.”
    She felt her lips quirk toward a smile. “If my superior decides she cannot accept the way I handle information,” Adele said, “she can discharge me. Or call me out, I suppose. I’ve seen no indication to date that she feels any concern about my behavior.”
    Miranda smiled very broadly, but she did not speak.
    “I expect to visit the Ribbon Stars in the near future,” Adele said. She had emptied her glass. She reached for the pitcher, then thought of her guest and said, “Would you like some beer? Or, well, anything—I’m sure the pantry is well stocked.”
    The Shippers’ and Merchants’ Treasury rented the use of the second floor of Chatsworth Minor for meetings in a private setting. They stored various entertainment paraphernalia—like wine and liquor—in the cellar against need. While Captain Leary was on Cinnabar, he had the use of the Treasury’s space, which he thought he was renting from Adele directly.
    “Beer would be fine,” Miranda said, “if there’s—oh!”
    Tovera stepped through the open doorway and handed Miranda a tall glass like Adele’s.
    Adele poured. “Ah,” she said.
    Adele had no reason to be embarrassed—her visitor was unexpected and would take what she was offered. Still. “I should warn you that this is bitter beer from Owsley County. From Chatsworth Major, in fact, though the estate is no longer in the Mundy family.”
    “Thank you,” Miranda said. She sipped, then drank deeply. She didn’t say how delightful the taste was, or how she had always liked bitter, or any one of a dozen other brightly false statements that Adele expected. She just drank.
    “Don’t blame Daniel too much, Miranda,” Adele said, speaking what she had just thought. “You’re easy to underestimate.”
    She refilled her own glass and said, “The oldest human settlement in the Ribbon Stars is Pantellaria, a First Tier colony. After the Hiatus—”
    The thousand-year break in interstellar travel which resulted from the war