WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(106)

The guards watched with interest just short of concern as Adele and the commando-uniformed Cinnabars exited one by one. Dropping the sides of the troop compartment might have looked provocative, and there was just a chance that a guard would notice that the five Cinnabars still aboard wore Kostroman naval garments.

Adele strode across the unrailed catwalk to the landing stage. Waves lifted the ship and the pontoon in differing rhythms; when the sailors tramped onto the light-metal ramp behind her Adele's balance problem got even worse.

Adele kept her eyes focused on the face of the bearded petty officer commanding the guards. Her own visage was grim, perhaps a more suitable expression than she'd have been able to arrange had she not been afraid of falling into the damned ocean.

"We're the relief for Lieutenant Wozzeck's platoon," Adele said coldly as she reached the landing stage. It too rose and fell, but without the twisting vibration. Did dignitaries never fall in the water?

"Wozzeck?" the Alliance sailor said. He'd been born on rural Leon from his dialect; Adele's statement puzzled him, but not her Bryce accent. "Sir, the navy took over here ten hours ago. This is the prize ship Aglaia."

"Of course it's the Aglaia," Adele snapped. "Vishnu and his Avatars! Where's Lieutenant Wozzeck?"

The guards looked at one another in worried puzzlement. One of them—speaking toward her petty officer, not Adele—said, "Wozzeck was watch commander on the duty sheet before Glanz took over, but that was last watch."

"All right, where's your damned command post?" Adele said with an angry grimace. She slapped her left thigh to add to the effect. "I'll try to raise somebody who can tell me what's going on."

She looked over her shoulder. Daniel had reached the landing stage. The rest of the Cinnabar sailors were strung out along the walkway or still on the pontoon because Adele hadn't left them room to go farther. They were nonchalant; probably more nonchalant than real soldiers would have been.

"Leary," Adele said, "you come with me. The rest of you stand easy until I get back with some information. And keep your mouths shut! This is supposed to be a nondisclosure mission."

"Nondisclosure mission" didn't mean anything that Adele knew of, but she'd been in and around bureaucracies most of her life. Nobody in a large organization knew everything that was going on, and this hint of mystery gave the sailors an excuse not to betray themselves by their accents.

The petty officer reached for the radio in a belt sheath, then quailed before Adele's stony glare. "Nawroos, take them to the bridge," he ordered abruptly.

An Alliance sailor handed his impeller to one of his fellows, then crooked a finger for Adele and Daniel to follow him into the Aglaia. He led them into one of the armored staircases off the entrance lobby.

Adele noticed that Daniel had started for the opposite set of stairs; he caught himself, she thought, before the sailor noticed. Familiarity with the Aglaia's regulations as a Cinnabar ship had almost caused a problem.

"The ship seems pretty big for a sixteen-strong guard detachment," she remarked to the guide ahead of her in the echoing stairwell. "Is that enough for the job?"

They wound past a door open to the next deck. The guide lifted his hands in unconcern. "All the Merks we captured are in Hold Two, sir," he said. He didn't bother to turn around, so dialect and reverberation blurred his words to the edge of understandability. "No light, no running water, and no fucking trouble for us."

Adele's submachine gun hung beneath her right arm on a short-looped sling. Her hand lay on the receiver to keep the gun from swinging, but she didn't really think of it as a weapon.

Her weapon rode, as usual, in the left side pocket of her tunic.

The guide stepped through the next door off the stairwell and turned left. They were in a hallway of some sort, lighted by surface-glow paneling. Daniel was a half step behind Adele, his head swiveling to observe points of distinction in what was to her a featureless landscape.

Offices to either side of the hall had been ransacked messily; drawers had been turned over on the floor. There'd been no attempt to clean up after the search, if it was anything as formal as a search. Looting was, perhaps, more likely.

"Hey, Lieutenant?" the guide called to the open door at the end of the hall. "Here's some soldiers that think they've got the duty here. Blaney sent 'em up to you."

The guide waved Adele and Daniel on and headed for the stairs by which they'd come. Obviously he felt no need to get into a discussion with his commanding officer. Adele strode through the door before any of the occupants decided to come out to meet her.

There were six tan-uniformed people inside a room with a great deal of built-in electronic equipment. None of the Alliance sailors looked particularly interested to have company. Two were playing a board game, not chess; another poured herself a cup of coffee from a carafe on a hotplate, and two watched an erotic recording on a holographic display.