"Very good, my lord." Alikhan leaned over the desk to freshen Martinez's drink. "Anything else, my lord?"

Martinez looked at him. "What are they saying?"

Alikhan's tone was regretful. "I've been here all day, my lord, packing and so on. I haven't had a chance to speak to anyone outside the household."

"Right," Martinez muttered. "Thanks."

Alikhan withdrew. Martinez looked through the files newly unlocked by his captain's key and thumbprint, and sent Xi access to the fingerprint file. Perry arrived a few minutes afterward with his supper. Martinez ate left-handed, while his right hand worked with his stylus on the desktop, drawing up one list after another.

All things he needed to do or think about as he assumed command.

After Perry carried the dishes away, Martinez sent messages to all the senior petty officers, the heads of departments, ordering them to account for the movements of all their juniors for the critical hours of the morning. He thought it a job best done soon, while memories were still fresh. This done, he called Fulvia Kazakov, the first lieutenant.

"Are you on watch at the moment, Lieutenant?"

"No, my lord." She seemed surprised at the question.

"I'd be obliged if you'd stop by my office then."

"Of course, my lord." She hesitated, then said, "Which office would that be, my lord?"

Martinez smiled. "My old office. And yours too."

When he'd come aboard, as the third-ranking officer on the ship, he'd taken the third-best cabin, which turned out to be that of the first lieutenant. Kazakov had then displaced the lieutenant next junior to her, and each lieutenant shifted in turn, with the most junior having to bunk with the cadets. Tomorrow, he supposed, would be a relief for them all, with everyone restored to his proper place.

Except, of course, for Captain Fletcher, whose body was slowly crystallizing in one of theIllustrious freezers.

Kazakov arrived wafting a cloud of metallic perfume. She wore full dress, and the tall collar emphasized the long neck below the heart-shaped face. Mother-of-pearl inlay gleamed on the handles of the chopsticks she'd thrust through the knot at the back of her head.

"Sit down, my lady," Martinez said as she braced. "Would you care for wine? Or something else, perhaps?"

"Whatever you're having, my lord, thank you."

He poured from the bottle of wine that Perry had opened for his supper. She took the glass and sipped politely, then returned it to the desk.

"I am a very different person from Captain Fletcher," Martinez began.

Kazakov was unsurprised by this analysis. "Yes, my lord," she said.

"But," Martinez said, "I'm going to try very hard tobe Captain Fletcher, at least for a while."

Kazakov gave a thoughtful nod. "I understand, my lord."

Continuity was essential. Fletcher had commandedIllustrious for years, and his habits and idiosyncracies had become a part of the ship's routine. To change that suddenly was to risk disturbing the equilibrium of the vast organic network that was the ship's crew, and that network had been disturbed enough already by events of the last few days.

"I intend to continue Captain Fletcher's rigorous series of inspections," Martinez said. "Can you tell me if he inspected the different departments on a regular rotation, or if he chose them randomly?"

"Randomly, I think. I didn't see a pattern. But he'd call the department head before he left the office to let them know he was coming. He wanted the inspections to be reasonably spontaneous, but he didn't want to interrupt anyone in the middle of some critical work."

"I see. Thank you."

He took a sip of his wine. It tasted vinegary to him-Terza had shipped the best stuff to him from Clan Chen's cellars in the High City, but he didn't see what was so special about it.

"Can you give me a report about the state of the ship?" Martinez asked. "Informally, I mean-I don't need all the figures."

Kazakov smiled and triggered her sleeve display. "I actually have the figures if you want them," she said.

"Not right now. Just a verbal summary, if you please."

The state ofIllustrious, not surprisingly, was good. It had suffered no damage in the mutiny at Harzapid or the Battle of Protipanu. Food, water, and fuel stocks were more than adequate for the projected length of the voyage. Missile stocks, however, were down: between battle and the enemy shipping destroyed so far on the raid, the cruiser's magazines were depleted by two-fifths.

Which was going to be a problem if Chenforce were ever obliged to fight an enemy either more numerous or less cooperative than the Naxid squadron at Protipanu.

"Thank you, Lady Fulvia," Martinez said. "Can you give me a report on the officers? I know them socially, but I've never worked with them."

Kazakov smiled. "I'm happy to say that we have an excellent set of officers aboard. All but one of us were chosen by Captain Fletcher. Some of us were friends before this posting. We work together exceptionally well."

Being chosen by Fletcher wasn't necessarily a recommendation in Martinez's opinion, but he nodded. "And the one who wasn't chosen?" he asked.

Kazakov thought a moment before she replied. "There's no problem with the way she performs her duties," she said. "She's very efficient."

Martinez gave no indication that he understood this as a less than wholehearted endorsement. He liked the fact that Kazakov felt sufficient loyalty to the other officers not to put a knife into Chandra's back when she had the chance.

"Let's take the lieutenants one by one," he said.

From Kazakov's report, Martinez gathered that three of the lieutenants were Gomberg or Fletcher clients, following in their patron's wake up the ladder of Fleet hierarchy. Two, Husayn and Kazakov herself, had benefited from those complex trades of favor and patronage so common among the Peers: Fletcher had agreed to look after their interests in exchange for their own families aiding some of Fletcher's friends or dependents.

It occurred to Martinez that perhaps Kazakov thought that this genealogy of relationships and obligations was all that was required to explain the lieutenants to her new captain, or perhaps she was looking into the future and letting him know that her relations were ready to assist his friends in the same sort of arrangement they'd had with Fletcher. He was gratified, but insisted on knowing how well the officers did their jobs.

According to Kazakov, they did their jobs very well. Lord Phillips and Corbigny, the two most junior, were inexperienced but promising; and the others were all talented. Martinez had no reason to doubt her judgments.

"It's a happy wardroom?" Martinez asked.

"Yes." Kazakov's answer came without hesitation. "Unusually so."

"Lady Michi's lieutenants are fitting in? Coen and Li?"

"Yes. They're amiable people."

"How about Kosinic? Was he a happy member of the wardroom mess?"

Kazakov blinked in surprise. "Kosinic? He wasn't aboard for very long and-I suppose he agreed well enough with the others, given the circumstances."

Martinez raised his eyebrows. "Circumstances?"

"Well, he was a commoner. Not," Kazakov was quick to add, aware perhaps that she'd put a foot wrong, "not that being a commoner was a problem, I don't say anything againstthat, but his family had no money, and he had to live off his pay. So Kosinic had to take an advance on his pay in order to pay his wardroom dues, and he really couldn't afford to club together with the other lieutenants to buy food stores and liquor and so on. The rest of us were perfectly happy to pay his allotment, but I think he was perhaps a little sensitive about it, and he severely limited his wine and liquor consumption, and avoided eating some of the more expensive food items. And he couldn't afford to gamble-not," she added, catching herself again, "that there's high play in the wardroom-nothing like it-but there's often a friendly game going on, for what we'd consider pocket money, and Kosinic couldn't afford a place at the table."

Kazakov reached for her wine and took a sip. "And then of course the mutiny happened, and Kosinic got wounded. I think perhaps the head injury changed his personality a little, because he became sullen and angry. Sometimes he'd just be sitting in a chair and you'd look up and see him in a complete fury- his jaw would be working and his neck muscles all taut like cables and his eyes on fire. It was a little frightening. This is extremely good wine, my lord."

"I'm glad you like it. Do you have any idea what made Kosinic angry?"

"No, my lord. I don't think the wardroom conversation was any more inane than usual." She smiled at her own joke, and then the smile faded. "I always thought getting blown up by the Naxids was reason enough for anger. But whatever the cause, Kosinic became a lot less sociable after he was wounded, and he spent most of his time in his cabin or in the Flag Officer Station, working."

Martinez sipped his own wine. He thought he understood Kosinic fairly well.

He himself was a Peer, and blessed with a large allowance from his wealthy family. But he was a provincial, and marked as a provincial by his accent. He knew very well the way high-caste Peers could condescend to their inferiors, or deliberately humiliate them, or treat them as servants, or simply ignore them. Even if the other officers intended no disparagement, a sensitive, intelligent commoner might well detect slights where none existed.

"Do you happen to know how Lady Michi came to take Kosinic on her staff?" Martinez asked.

"I believe Kosinic served as a cadet in a previous command. He impressed her and she took him along when he passed his lieutenant exams."

Which was unusually broad-minded of Michi, Martinez thought. She could as easily have associated herself only with her own clients and the clients of powerful families with whom she wished to curry favor, as had Fletcher. Instead, though she came from a clan at least as ancient and noble as the Gombergs or Fletchers, she'd chosen to give one of her valuable staff jobs to a poor commoner.

Though it had to be admitted, in retrospect, that Michi's experiment in social mobility hadn't been very successful.

"Was Kosinic a good tactical officer?" Martinez asked.

"Yes. Absolutely. Of course, he didn't bring in a new tactical system, the way you did."

Martinez sipped his wine again. In spite of Kazakov's praise, it still tasted vinegary to him. "And the warrant officers?" he asked.

Kazakov explained that Fletcher had his pick of warrant and petty officers, and had chosen only the most experienced. The number of trainees was kept to a minimum, and the result was a hard core of professionals in charge of all the ship's departments, all of whom were of exemplary efficiency.

"But Captain Fletcher," Martinez said, "chose to execute one of those professionals he had personally chosen."

Kazakov's expression turned guarded. "Yes, my lord."

"Do you have any idea why?"

Kazakov shook her head. "No, my lord. Engineer Thuc was one of the most efficient department heads on the ship."

"Captain Fletcher had never in your hearing expressed any...violent intentions?"

She seemed startled by the question. "No. Not at all, my lord." Her brows knit. "Though you might ask..." She shook her head. "No, that's ridiculous."

"Tell me."

The guarded look had returned to her face. "You might ask Lieutenant Prasad." She spoke quickly, as if she wanted to speed through the distasteful topic as quickly as she could. "As you probably heard, she and the captain were intimates. He may have said things to her that he wouldn't have..." She sighed, having finally gotten through it. "...to any of the rest of us."

"Thank you," Martinez said. "I'll interview each of the lieutenants in turn."

Though he couldn't imagine Fletcher murmuring plans for homicide along with his endearments, assuming he was the sort of man who murmured endearments at all. Neither could he imagine Chandra keeping such an announcement secret, especially in those furious moments after she and Fletcher had their final quarrel.

"Thank you for your candor," Martinez said, though he knew perfectly well that Kazakov hadn't been candid throughout. On the whole he approved of the moments when she'd chosen to be discreet, and he thought he could work with her very well.

They ended the interview discussing Kazakov's plans for her future. Her career had been planned to minimize any possible intervention by fortune: in another one of those trades so common among Peers, a friend of her family would have given her command of the frigateStorm Fury, a plan that had been detailed when both the friend and the frigate were captured by the Naxids on the first day of the mutiny.

"Well," Martinez said, "if I'm ever in a position to do something for you, I'll do my best."

Kazakov brightened. "Thank you, my lord."

The Kazakovs seemed a useful sort of clan to have in one's debt.

After the premiere left, Martinez stoppered the wine bottle and gulped whatever was left in his glass. With his captain's key, he opened the personnel files, intending to look at the lieutenants' records. Then the idea struck him that Fletcher might have made a note in Thuc's file explaining why the engineer had been executed, and Martinez went straight to Thuc's file and opened it.

There was nothing. Thuc had been in the Fleet for twenty-two years, had passed the exam for Master Engineer eight years ago, and was aboardIllustrious for five of those years. Fletcher's comments in Thuc's efficiency report were brief but favorable.

Martinez read the files of the other senior petty officers and then went on to the lieutenants, looking through the files more or less at random. Kazakov, he discovered, had been fairly accurate in describing their accomplishments. What she hadn't known, of course, were the contents of the efficiency reports Fletcher had made personally. For the most part they were dry, terse, and favorable, as if Fletcher was too grand to dole out much praise, but instead dribbled it out tastefully, like a rich sauce over dessert. About Kazakov he had written, "This officer has served as an efficient executive officer and has demonstrated proficiency in every technical aspect of her profession. There is nothing that stands in the way of her further promotion and command of a ship in the Fleet."

A note that "nothing stands in the way" was not quite the same as Fletcher's endorsement that Kazakov would be a credit to the service or would do a fine job in command of her own ship; but carefully guarded enthusiasm seemed to be Fletcher's consistent style. Perhaps he hadn't thought that praise was necessary, given that his officers were so well-connected that their steps to command had been arranged ahead of time.

After the dry asperity of Fletcher's views of the other officers, Chandra's report came like a thunderbolt. "Though this officer has not demonstrated any technical incompetence that has reached her captain's attention, her chaotic and impulsive behavior has thoroughly befouled the atmosphere of the ship. Her level of emotional maturity is not in any way consistent with the high standards of the Fleet. Promotion is not indicated."

The curiously worded first sentence managed to insert the word "incompetence" without justifying its inclusion, and the rest was pure poison. Martinez stared at this for a long moment, then looked at the log to check the date at which Fletcher had last accessed the file. It had been at 2721 hours the previous evening, a mere six hours before he was killed.

His mouth went dry. Chandra had ripped apart her relationship with Fletcher, and after thinking about it for two days, Fletcher fired a rocket at Chandra with every intention of blowing up her career.

After which, some hours later, Fletcher was killed.

Martinez thought the sequence through carefully. For this to be anything other than a coincidence, Chandra would have had to know that Fletcher put a bomb in her efficiency report. He checked Fletcher's comm logs for the evening and found that he'd made only one call, to Command, possibly for a situation report before going to bed. Martinez checked the watch list and discovered that it hadn't been Chandra on watch at the time, but the sixth lieutenant, Lady Juliette Corbigny.

So there was no evidence that Chandra would have known the contents of her efficiency report. Not unless Fletcher had made a point of looking for her and telling her in person.

Or unless Chandra had some kind of access to documents sealed under Fletcher's key. She was the signals officer, after all, and she was clever.

Martinez decided that this theory had too much whisky and wine in it to make any sense, and he failed in any case to successfully imagine Chandra wrestling the fully grown Fletcher to his knees and then banging his head repeatedly on his desk.

He rose and stretched, then looked at the chronometer: 2721. At this exact time, Fletcher had made his last cold-blooded alterations to Chandra's fitness report.

The coincidence chilled him. He left his office and took a brief march along the decks, circling back to his own door. He passed the door of the captain's cabin, which was closed, then found himself turning back to it. It opened to his key. He stepped in and called for light.

Fletcher's office had been returned to its pristine state, the fingerprint powder dusted away, the desk dark and gleaming. There was a scent of furniture polish. The bronze statues were impassive in their armor.

The safe sat silvery in its niche. Apparently, Gawbyan had repaired it after his break-in.

Martinez passed into the sleeping cabin and stared at the bloody porcelain figure with its unnaturally broad eyes. He looked at the pictures on the wall and saw a long-haired Terran with blue skin playing a flute, a bearded man dead or swooning in the arms of a blue-clad woman, a monstrous being-or possibly it was a Torminel with unnaturally orange fur-snarling out of the frame, its extended tongue pierced by a jagged spear.

Lovely stuff to see at bedtime, he thought. The view dismaying.

The only picture of any interest showed a young woman bathing, but what might have been an attractive scene was spoiled by the creepy presence of elderly men in turbans who watched her from concealment.

"Comm," he said, "page Montemar Jukes to the captain's office."

Fletcher's pet artist ambled into the office wearing nonregulation coveralls and braced halfheartedly, in a way that would have earned a ferocious rebuke from any petty officer. To judge from Jukes and Xi, Fletcher was willing to tolerate a certain amount of unmilitary slackness among his personal following.

Jukes was a stocky man with disordered gray hair and rheumy blue eyes. His cheeks were unnaturally ruddy and his breath smelled of sherry. Martinez gave him what he intended to be a disapproving scowl, then turned to lead into Fletcher's bedroom.