Free What Distant Deeps by David Drake Page B

researched the Browns’ backgrounds as thoroughly as she should have. “This is your first voyage, then?”  
    He turned and nodded as he walked to the refitted office. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve been on Xenos my entire career with the ministry. I’m an accountant, you see.”
    Brown smiled in embarrassment, though Adele couldn’t imagine why he should think an accountant had to apologize to a librarian. Both vocations were necessary to civilization, and both involved organizing data, making them—
    She grinned minusculely, but in her heart she believed it.
    —the highest forms of human endeavor.
    Adele nodded noncommittally. “If you’ve seen your fill of the suite,” she said, “we’ll go back down the corridor to the wardroom where you’ll be eating.”
    She wondered whether Brown had received any briefing from his superiors. She was beginning to suspect that he had not.
    “You can either bring along your own food, which will go in a storage locker on A Level   .   .   .   ,” she said, stepping back into the corridor, “or you can pay a subscription and mess with the officers. I suppose you’ll at least want to bring, well, whatever your child eats.”
    Or do four-year-olds eat adult food? That wasn’t a question Adele had previously considered; nor, she realized, did she need to do so now.
    The hatch to the wardroom was open. The hanging table was fast against the ceiling, so she gestured to call attention to it and said, “It will be lowered for meals, of course.”
    “I see,” Brown said sadly. “Thank you, ah, Officer.”
    “The purser can help you with questions of what stores you should bring,” Adele said. “He’ll be in Warehouse 73, I believe.   .   .   .”
    She took out her data unit and sat on the nearest of the chairs bolted to the deck plates. A few flicks of her control wands gave her the answer.
    “Yes, he’s there now,” she said with satisfaction. “Master Reddick. I can send a spacer with you as a guide, if you like?”
    “No thank you, Officer Mundy,” Brown said as though he were announcing the death of his mother. “The Bureau’s handbook gives extensive information on supplies for off-planet assignments and I’ve read it thoroughly.”
    “Well, then   .   .   .   ,” said Adele. “If you don’t have any more questions   .   .   .   ?”
    “I’d intended to stay in the accounting department until I retired,” Brown said. He was looking toward the holographic seascape on the compartment’s outer wall, but his eyes were on something far more distant. “Clothilde thought that I should be promoted more quickly, and of course promotion in Accounting isn’t very fast. We don’t have the casualties that you naval personnel do, you see.”
    Adele smiled; Brown smiled back shyly.  
    “I transferred to the Representational Service,” he said. “It was a two-step promotion, which made Clothilde very happy. The trouble is, accounts have to balance in life as well as finances. Now that Clothilde is beginning to realize what the higher pay grade cost, she isn’t so happy.”
    He smiled wider. The expression showed both misery and genuine amusement.
    “I think you’ll find the voyage more congenial than you now think, Commissioner,” Adele said truthfully. With that sense of humor, Brown might get along well after all.
     

CHAPTER 4
    Harbor Three, Cinnabar
    Daniel was familiar with the Sissie’s Power Room. He was the captain: he must have at least a working acquaintance with every aspect of the ship he commanded.
    Having said that, he always felt like an unwelcome visitor when he passed through the armored hatch which, unlike the ship’s other internal hatches, was always closed and dogged when not in use. Larger vessels even had airlocks between the Power Room and the rest of the ship, but a corvette like the Princess Cecile couldn’t spare the space.
    If the Sissie’s fusion bottle vented while someone was entering or