Republic—a comic opera that was far less funny once it had you in its jaws. The ceremonials, flags and Imperial logos splashed across every available surface, the uniformed flunkies, and elaborate pyramid of military etiquette, all suggested to Martin that taking this job had not been a good idea: the gibbeted dissidents hanging from the eaves of the Basilisk had confirmed it. Right now, he’d happily repay his entire fee just to be allowed to go home—were it not for the call of duty.
After a confusing tour of the station’s docking facilities and the warship’s transit tubes, he fetched up in the doorway of a crowded, red-lit, octagonal space, maintained in zero gee by a local relaxation of the laws of physics.
A squat, balding engineering officer was bawling out a frightened-looking teenager in front of an open access panel. “That’s the last bloody time you touch anything without asking me or Chief Otcenasek first, you bumbling numb-fingered oaf! See that panel? That’s the backup master bus arbitration exchange, there. And that”— he pointed at another, closed panel—“is the backup master circuit breaker box, which is what chief told you to check out. That switch you were about to throw—
Martin saw where the officer’s finger was pointing and winced. If some idiot conscript did something like that to him, he reflected, he probably wouldn’t stop at threatening to strangle him with his own intestines. Although if the idiot had started playing with the MBAX, strangling him would be redundant: it didn’t usually have much effect on a charred corpse.
“Engineering Commander Krupkin?” he asked.
“Yes? Who? Oh. You must be the shipyard mechanic?” Krupkin turned toward him, leaving the hapless rating to scramble for cover. “You’re late.”
“Blame the Curator’s Office,” snapped Martin. As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a bad week. What can I do for you?”
“Secret state police, hmm? Won’t get many of those around here,” Krupkin grunted, abruptly conciliatory. “You know something about this toy box, then?”
“MiG sells them. You keep them running. People break them. I fix them. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“That’s a good start.” Krupkin suddenly grinned. “So let’s try another question. What do you know about preferential-frame clock-skew baseline compensators? Specifically, this model K-340, as currently configured. Tell me everything you can see about how it’s set up.”
Martin spent the next hour telling him all the different ways it was out of alignment. After that, Krupkin showed him a real K-340, not a bodged test article. And then it was time for a working lunch while Krupkin picked his brains, and then a long working afternoon figuring out where everything went and going over change orders to make sure everything was where the paperwork said it was supposed to be. And then back to base for the evening …
Rachel Mansour stood naked in the middle of the handwoven rug that covered the floor of the hotel room she had rented two hours earlier, in the naval port city of Klamovka: even though it was expensive, it smelled of damp and dry rot, carbolic soap and firewood. She breathed slowly and evenly as she stretched arms and legs in ritual sequence, limbering up.
The curtains were drawn, the door locked, and her sensors stationed outside to warn her of intruders: for she was not inclined to explain her state to any hotel staff who might see it.
Rachel was not inclined to explain a lot of things to the people she moved among. The New Republic filled her with a bitter, hopeless anger—one which she recognized, understood to be a poor reflection on her professionalism, but nevertheless couldn’t set aside. The sheer waste of human potential that was the New Republic’s raison d’etre offended her sensibilities as badly as a public book-burning, or a massacre of innocents.
The New Republic
After a confusing tour of the station’s docking facilities and the warship’s transit tubes, he fetched up in the doorway of a crowded, red-lit, octagonal space, maintained in zero gee by a local relaxation of the laws of physics.
A squat, balding engineering officer was bawling out a frightened-looking teenager in front of an open access panel. “That’s the last bloody time you touch anything without asking me or Chief Otcenasek first, you bumbling numb-fingered oaf! See that panel? That’s the backup master bus arbitration exchange, there. And that”— he pointed at another, closed panel—“is the backup master circuit breaker box, which is what chief told you to check out. That switch you were about to throw—
Martin saw where the officer’s finger was pointing and winced. If some idiot conscript did something like that to him, he reflected, he probably wouldn’t stop at threatening to strangle him with his own intestines. Although if the idiot had started playing with the MBAX, strangling him would be redundant: it didn’t usually have much effect on a charred corpse.
“Engineering Commander Krupkin?” he asked.
“Yes? Who? Oh. You must be the shipyard mechanic?” Krupkin turned toward him, leaving the hapless rating to scramble for cover. “You’re late.”
“Blame the Curator’s Office,” snapped Martin. As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a bad week. What can I do for you?”
“Secret state police, hmm? Won’t get many of those around here,” Krupkin grunted, abruptly conciliatory. “You know something about this toy box, then?”
“MiG sells them. You keep them running. People break them. I fix them. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“That’s a good start.” Krupkin suddenly grinned. “So let’s try another question. What do you know about preferential-frame clock-skew baseline compensators? Specifically, this model K-340, as currently configured. Tell me everything you can see about how it’s set up.”
Martin spent the next hour telling him all the different ways it was out of alignment. After that, Krupkin showed him a real K-340, not a bodged test article. And then it was time for a working lunch while Krupkin picked his brains, and then a long working afternoon figuring out where everything went and going over change orders to make sure everything was where the paperwork said it was supposed to be. And then back to base for the evening …
Rachel Mansour stood naked in the middle of the handwoven rug that covered the floor of the hotel room she had rented two hours earlier, in the naval port city of Klamovka: even though it was expensive, it smelled of damp and dry rot, carbolic soap and firewood. She breathed slowly and evenly as she stretched arms and legs in ritual sequence, limbering up.
The curtains were drawn, the door locked, and her sensors stationed outside to warn her of intruders: for she was not inclined to explain her state to any hotel staff who might see it.
Rachel was not inclined to explain a lot of things to the people she moved among. The New Republic filled her with a bitter, hopeless anger—one which she recognized, understood to be a poor reflection on her professionalism, but nevertheless couldn’t set aside. The sheer waste of human potential that was the New Republic’s raison d’etre offended her sensibilities as badly as a public book-burning, or a massacre of innocents.
The New Republic
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