Praxis def-1 Read online

  “Are you sober enough for this task, Cadet Silva?”

  “Yes, lord!” Barley and hops outgassed from Silva’s lungs, but he didn’t sway, not even with his heels together and Martinez looming over him. Therefore he probably wasn’t so drunk as to bring complete disgrace onto himself, Martinez, and Enderby’s command.

  “The next shuttle for the skyhook leaves in half an hour, insect,” Martinez said. “That will give you just enough time to shower and change into suitable dress before going top-side.” A thought occurred to him, and he added, “You aren’t so drunk that you’ll upchuck on the elevator, will you, insect?”

  “No, my lord!”

  Martinez offered him the letters. “See that you don’t. Better put these in a waterproof bag, just in case.”

  “Begging my lord’s pardon?” said someone else.

  The speaker was Jeremy Foote, the big blond with the cowlick that disordered his hair on the right side, and though the cadet was braced when he spoke, he still managed to speak with something approaching his usual languid drawl. It was a voice he had probably spoken in the cradle, a voice that oozed breeding and social confidence, that conjured images of exclusive smoking rooms, fancy-dress balls, and silent servants. A world to which Martinez, despite his own status as a Peer, had no admittance, not unless he was begging favors from some high-caste patron.

  Martinez wheeled on him. “Yes, Cadet Foote?”

  “I may as well take the letters myself, my lord,” Foote said.

  Martinez knew Foote well enough to know that this seeming generosity masked an underlying motive. “And why are you being so good to Silva tonight?” he asked.

  Foote permitted a hint of insolence to touch a corner of his mouth. “My uncle’s the captain of theBombardment of Delhi, my lord,” he said. “After I’ve delivered the messages, the two of us could have a bit of breakfast together.”

  Just like him to cite his connections, Martinez thought. Well damn him, and damn his connections too.

  Until Foote had spoken up, Martinez had planned on letting the cadets off with a brief lecture on correct dress and deportment in the duty room. Now Foote had given him every excuse to inflict dread and misery on all of them.

  “I fear you’ll have to save the cozy family breakfasts for another time, Cadet Foote,” Martinez said. He jerked his chin toward Silva and once more held out the invitations.

  “Get up to the station, Silva,” he said. “And if you don’t make the next elevator, believe me, I’ll know.”

  “Lord!” Silva took the invitations and scuttled away, buttoning his jacket as he went. Martinez eyed the other three, one by one.

  “I have other plans for the rest of you,” he said. “I’ll oblige you to turn and look at the yacht race, if you will.”

  The cadets made precise military turns to face the display on the video wall-except for Chatterji, who swayed drunkenly during her spin. The wall display gave the illusion of three dimensions, with the six competing yachts, along with a planet and its moons, displayed against a convincing simulation of the starry void.

  “Display,” Martinez told the wall. “Sound, off.” The chatter of the commentators cut off abruptly. “Football, off,” he went on. “Wrestling, off.”

  The yachts now maneuvered in silence, weaving about the twelve moons of the ochre-striped gas giant Vandrith, the fifth planet in Zanshaa’s system. The moons weren’t precisely the object of the race: instead, each vessel was required to pass within a certain distance of a series of satellites placed in orbit about the moons. In order to avoid the race turning into a mere mathematical exercise best suited to solution by a navigational computer, the satellites were programmed to alter their own orbits randomly, forcing the pilots into off-the-cuff solutions that would test their mettle rather than the speed of their computers.

  Martinez maintained an interest in yacht racing, in part because he’d considered taking it up, not only because it might raise his profile in a socially accepted way, but because he thought he might enjoy it. He’d scored his highest marks in simulations of combat maneuvers, and as a cadet had qualified for the silver flashes of a pinnace pilot. He’d been a consistent winner in the pinnace races staged during his hitch aboard theBombardment of Dandaphis, and pinnaces were not unlike racing yachts-both were purposeful, stripped-down designs that consisted largely of storage for antimatter fuel, engines, and life-support systems for a single pilot.

  Martinez knew hemight be able to afford a personal yacht-he had a generous allowance from his father, which could be increased if he were tactful about it. The little boats were expensive beasts, requiring a ground crew and frequent maintenance, and he would also be obliged to join a yacht club, which involved expensive initiation fees and dues. There would be docking fees and the expense of fuel and upkeep. Not least was the humiliating likelihood that he would probably not be considered for the very best yacht clubs, such as those-for instance-sponsoring the race now being broadcast.

  So he had postponed his decision about whether to become a yachtsman, hoping that his association with Fleet Commander Enderby would serve his purposes equally well. Now that his gesture in aid of Enderby’s life seemed to have triggered nothing but Enderby’s loathing, perhaps it was time to reconsider the yachting strategy again.

  Martinez looked at the display, drank it in. The race, though broadcast “live,” was actually delayed by twenty-four minutes, the length of time the telemetry signals took to travel from Vandrith to Zanshaa.

  “Cadet Chatterji,” Martinez said, “can you elucidate the strategy displayed by racer number two?”

  Chatterji licked her lips. “Elucidate, my lord?”

  Martinez sighed. “Just tell us what the pilot is doing.”

  Racer Two’s craft-the display did not offer the name of the pilot, and Martinez didn’t recognize the flashy scarlet paint job on the craft-had just rotated to a new attitude and fired the main engine.

  “She’s decelerating, my lord,” Chatterji said.

  “And why is she doing that, Chatterji?”

  “She’s d-dumping delta-vee in order to-to-” She licked her lips. “-to maneuver better,” she finished lamely.

  “And what maneuver is this deceleration in aid of?”

  Chatterji’s eyes searched the display in desperation. “Delta-vee increases options, my lord,” she said, a truism she had learned in tactics class, and clearly the first thing to leap to her mind.

  “Very true, Chatterji,” Martinez said. “I’m sure your tactics instructor would be proud to know you have retained a modicum of the knowledge he tried to cram between your ears. But,” he said cheerfully, “our pilot isdecreasing delta-vee, and therefore decreasing his options. So tell mewhy, Cadet Chatterji. Why?”

  Chatterji focused very hard on the display but was unable to answer.

  “I suggest you review your basic tactics, Cadet Chatterji,” Martinez said. “Persistence may eventually pay off, though in your case I doubt it.You — worm there-” Addressing the cadet whose name he didn’t know.

  “Parker, lord.”

  “Parker. Perhapsyou can enlighten Chatterji concerning our pilot’s tactics.”

  “She’s dumping delta-vee in order to be captured by V9’s gravity.” He referred to Vandrith’s ninth moon, the innermost counting as number one. The Shaa didn’t go in much for naming astronomical objects in interesting or poetic ways.

  “And why is she entering V9’s gravity well, Parker?”

  “She’s planning to slingshot toward the satellite near V11, lord.”

  “And number four-that would be Captain Chee-” He recognized the blue and silver paint job. “Why is shenot dumping delta-vee? Why is she accelerating instead?”

  “I-” Parker swallowed. “I suppose she’s trying another tactic.”

  Martinez sighed deliberately. “Butwhy, worm, why? The display should tell you. It’sobvious. ”

  Parker searched the display in vain, then Cadet Foote’s languid tones interrupted
the desperate silence.

  “Captain Chee is accelerating, lord, because she’s intending to bypass V9 entirely, and to pass between V11 and the satellite to score her point. Since V11 possesses an atmosphere, she’ll probably try to use atmospheric braking in order to dump velocity and make her maneuver to tag the satellite at the last minute.”

  Martinez rounded on Foote and snapped, “I don’t recall asking your opinion, Cadet Foote!”

  “I beg the lord’s pardon,” Foote drawled.

  Martinez realized to his dismay that Foote had just succeeded in making himself the star of this encounter. Martinez had intended to throw a little justified terror into some wastrels caught drunk on duty, but somehow Foote had changed the rules. How had hedone that?

  In children’s school fiction, there was always the evil bully, tormenting the youngsters, and then there was the hero, who tried to stand between the bully and his victims. Foote had made a gesture to help Silva, and now had just rescued Parker.

  And I’m the bully,Martinez thought.I’m the wicked superior officer who torments his helpless underlings just to assuage his own pathetic feelings of inadequacy.

  Foote, Martinez realized, had him pegged just about right.

  Still, he thought, if he were going to be the villain in this little drama, he might as well do it well.

  “Parker should learn that you won’t always be there to rescue him from his own stupidity,” he said to Foote. “But since you’ve chosen to express an opinion, suppose you tell me whether Chee’s maneuver will succeed.”

  “She shan’t succeed, lord,” Foote said promptly.

  “Shan’tshe?” Martinez said, mocking. “Andwhyever shan she not? ”

  Foote’s tone didn’t change. “V11’s satellite has altered course, but Chee didn’t see it because it was on the far side of the moon at the time. She’ll be too late to correct when she finally sees her error.” Foote’s tone had grown almost intimate. “Of course, Captain Blitsharts seems to have allowed for that possibility. His acceleration isn’t as great, but he’s allowing himself more options.”

  Martinez looked at the number one boat and saw the famous Blitsharts glossy black paintwork with its ochre-yellow stripes. Blitsharts was a celebrated and successful racer, a glit of the first order, famous not only for his victories, but for the fact that he always raced with his dog, a black retriever named Orange, who had his own acceleration bed inMidnight Runner ‘s cockpit next to his master’s. Blitsharts claimed the dog enjoyed pulling hard gees, and certainly Orange seemed none the worse for his adventures.

  Blitsharts also had a reputation for drollery. He was once asked by a yachting enthusiast why he called the dog Orange. Blitsharts looked at the man and lifted surprised eyebrows above his mild brown eyes. “Because it’s hisname, of course,” he said.

  Oh yes, Martinez thought, there was rare wit in the yacht clubs all right.

  “You think Blitsharts will win?” Martinez asked.

  “At this stage, it’s very likely.”

  “I don’t suppose Blitsharts is a relative of yours, is he?” Martinez asked.

  For the first time, Foote hesitated. “No, my lord,” he said.

  “How generous of you,” Martinez said, “to mention his name in conversation,” and was rewarded by seeing the cadet’s neck and ears turn red.

  Chee crashed into V11’s atmosphere, her craft trailing a stream of ions as it cut through the moon’s hydrocarbon murk. She saw her target’s change of course too late, altered her heading and burned antimatter to try to make her mark. Her bones must have groaned with the ferocious gees she laid on, but she was a few seconds too late.

  Blitsharts, on the other hand, hit the atmosphere with his usual impeccable timing, burned for the satellite, and passed it without breaking a sweat. And then kept accelerating, his torch pushing him onward past his mark.

  “Perhaps, Cadet Foote, you will favor us with an analysis of Blitsharts’s tacticsnow,” Martinez said.

  “Of course, lord. He’s…” Foote’s voice trailed away.

  Blitsharts’s boat stood on a colossal tail of matter-antimatter fire and burned straight out of the plane of the ecliptic. Foote stared at the screen in confusion. Blitsharts seemed to be heading away from his next target, away fromall his targets.

  “Blitsharts is…he’s…” Foote was still struggling for words. “He’s…”

  “Shit,” Martinez said, and bolted for the door.

  TWO

  Operations Command wasn’t in the Terran wing of the Commandery, but Terrans were on duty at this hour, none aware of any emergency until Martinez burst through the door. The duty officer, Lieutenant Ari Abacha, lounged with his feet on his console, a perfect corkscrew apple peel falling from his paring knife onto the napkin spread over his lap, while the three duty techs dozed over the screens that helped them supervise the automated systems that routed routine traffic.

  Martinez batted Abacha’s legs out of the way as he rushed for an unoccupied console. The screw of apple peel spilled to the floor, and Abacha bent to pick it up. Footballers careened over a brightly lit field in one of his displays-he was a big Andiron supporter, Martinez recalled.

  “What’s the problem, Gare?” Abacha said from somewhere near the floor.

  “Vandrith Challenge race. Yacht’s out of control.” Martinez dropped onto a seat that had been designed for a Laiown and called up displays.

  “Yeah?” Abacha said. “Whose?”

  “Blitsharts.”

  Abacha’s eyes widened. “Shit,” he said, and leaped from his seat to look over Martinez’s shoulder.

  Telemetry fromMidnight Runner had been lost, so Martinez had to locate the yacht by using the passive detectors on Zanshaa’s accelerator ring. Blitsharts’s yacht had cut its main engine and started tumbling. From the erratic way the boat lurched, it appeared that maneuvering thrusters were still being fired. It was possible that Blitsharts was trying to regain control, but if so, he was failing. Any input from the thrusters just seemed to add to the chaos.

  And all this, Martinez reminded himself, had happened over twenty-four minutes ago, with the time-lag increasing asMidnight Runner raced toward galactic south.

  Martinez asked the computer to calculate how many gees the acceleration had inflicted on Blitsharts’s body. A maximum of 7.4, he found, deeply uncomfortable but survivable, especially for a yacht racer in peak condition. Blitsharts might still be alive.

  A communicator buzzed on Abacha’s console. He stepped toward it and linked it to the display on his uniform sleeve. “Operations. Lieutenant Abacha.”

  The voice came out of Abacha’s sleeve. “My lord, this is Panjit Sesse of Zanshaa All-Sports Networks. Are you aware that Captain Blitsharts’s yacht Midnight Runner is tumbling out of control?”

  “We’re working on that, yes.”

  Martinez was only vaguely aware of this dialogue. He told the computers to guess whereMidnight Runner would be in half an hour or so and to paint the area with low-energy ranging lasers aimed from the ring. That might make it easier for rescuers to track the boat.

  The reporter’s voice went on. “Whois working on it, my lord?”

  Abacha looked over Martinez’s shoulder at the displays again. “Right now we’ve got Lieutenant Martinez.”

  “Only a lieutenant, lord?”

  “He’s aide to Senior Fleet Commander Enderby.” Abacha’s tone showed impatience. A pair of Peers were dealing with the situation. That should be enough for anybody.

  Martinez called up a list of every ship within three light-hours of Vandrith. The closest to Blitsharts were the yacht racers, but they were still engaged in their race, and none of them were suitable as a rescue vehicle. While they’d almost certainly noted Blitsharts’s exit, they probably were too busy to analyze the meaning of his trajectory, beyond being pleased to have one less competitor. The large tender that had brought the yachts to Vandrith would need to recover the other yachts before it did anything, and it was built more f
or comfort than for maneuver and heavy accelerations. And it would take twenty-four minutes for Martinez’s request to reach them, during which time Blitsharts would continue south.

  Martinez scanned the display and found what he was looking for: Senior Captain Kandinski in theBombardment of Los Angeles, one of the big bombardment-class heavy cruisers. It had just finished a refit on the ring dockyards and was now accelerating at a steady 1.3 gravities toward the Zanshaa 5 wormhole gate, heading for the Third Fleet base at Felarus. For the next 4.2 standard hours a rescue boat launched from theLos Angeles could take advantage of at least some of the cruiser’s speed in its acceleration towardMidnight Runner. Not an ideal position for a rescue launch, but it would have to do.

  Kandinski was something of a yachtsman himself-Los Angeleswas a well-polished ship, shiny inside and out, with a white and powder blue paint job Kandinski had paid for out of his own deep pockets. Even the cruiser’s pinnaces and missiles had the same glossy light blue finish. Maybe he would feel an affinity for Blitsharts and his shiny yacht.

  Martinez reached for the communications console, linked it to his sleeve display. “Transmission to Los Angeles, ” he instructed. “Code status: clear. Priority: extremely urgent, personal to the captain.”

  “Identify?” the automated comm system wanted to know.

  “Gareth Martinez, lieutenant, aide to Lord Commander Enderby.”

  A brief moment’s pause, then, “Approved.”

  “Can you tell me what steps are being taken?” Sesse’s voice nattered in Martinez’s ear from Abacha’s sleeve display. Martinez ignored it.

  Another chime from the communicator; someone else needing to talk. “We’re very busy right now,” Abacha said. “Good-bye.”

  “Can you just let uslisten? ” Sesse said frantically.

  Martinez took a moment to run fingers through his dark hair, then twitched his collar to make certain it was in place. “Transmit, video and audio,” he said.