Free What Distant Deeps by David Drake Page A

briskly down the corridor. Several spacers were about their business in the compartments to either side; they murmured “Ma’am,” or bobbed their heads when they saw Adele.
    She paused at the hatch of what would ordinarily be the Captain’s Suite. On previous voyages, she had lived in the Captain’s Office, which had a fully capable computer though with a flat-plate rather than holographic display. She would be with the midshipmen until the Browns were delivered, and Daniel would live in his space cabin adjacent to the bridge.
    “I don’t know what you may have heard, Commissioner,” she said. “But as you’re already aware, most rumors are silly. And in any case, they have no bearing on my duties or our relationship while the Sissie—”
    She smiled coldly. “While the Princess Cecile, I should say, is under way. Forgive me for dropping into jargon.”
    “Your pardon, Officer Mundy,” Brown said. He looked miserable, at a loss in all possible fashions; but she’d had to say it. “I didn’t intend to give offense.”
    “Your quarters,” Adele said instead of replying directly. She found it best to let matters drop when they were embarrassing. “The stateroom here. The door to the right is the sleeping cabin, and on the left is the office, which now has a bunk as well. I gather there are three of you?”
    “Yes, Clothilde and Hester, our four-year-old, will accompany me,” Brown said sadly. “Clothilde wanted me to bring Hester’s governess along, but the wages Mistress Beeton demanded to come such a distance from Xenos were beyond my resources, quite beyond them. I told Clothilde that perhaps we could hire a governess when we reached Calvary, but she seems to believe that the inhabitants of Zenobia are all barbarians who might be expected to eat babies. The governess was of a similar opinion.”
    The Commissioner’s glumness seemed to be the mindset he—like others whom she had met—found most congenial. That puzzled Adele. She was bleak—how could any intelligent person view the universe and mankind without being bleak?—but there seemed neither pleasure nor profit in a negative attitude.
    And then there was Daniel’s example: an intelligent man who was also cheerful. Knowing Daniel had made Adele question the primacy of data and reason, the elements on which she built her life.
    She couldn’t do anything to change her attitude, of course, even if she were wrong about the pointlessness of life. And presumably Brown couldn’t help but be negative even if he had enough common sense to realize that his attitude was silly.
    “I think you’ll find the culture of Calvary on a level with that of most provincial cities on Cinnabar,” Adele said dryly. “And even in the countryside, I believe that the staple meat is goat rather than babies. Though my information is no doubt incomplete.”
    Brown looked at her in amazement, then realized that the comment had been ironic. He forced a smile.
    “Yes,” he said. “And I believe Clothilde knows better as well. I’m not sure Mistress Beeton did.”
    He crossed the stateroom and peered into the sleeping cabin. Rather than try to replace the single fold-down bunk into something suitable for a couple, Pasternak and the shipyard crew had left the bedroom as it was—for the child, presumably—and put a double bed in the office where the desk and terminal had been. That also required expanding the office some distance into the stateroom, but internal partitions were expected to be moved.
    “It’s very small, isn’t it?” Brown said sadly. “Clothilde won’t be happy. And such a long voyage, a month and a half.”
    “I doubt the Princess Cecile will take anywhere near that long on the passage,” Adele said. It was natural for her to keep her tone unemotional, but she felt a spike of irritation at Brown’s comment. What does the fellow expect? “But unquestionably, interstellar travel is uncomfortable.”
    She cleared her throat. She hadn’t