WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(43)

"Your escort is a lucky man, Ms. Mundy," said the boy who'd just danced with her. She wished she'd caught his name. He'd apparently decided that he didn't have a chance at another dance so he might as well keep her company until the punch arrived. "Who is he, may I ask?"

"Lieutenant Leary of the Cinnabar Navy," Adele said. Her eyes automatically searched for Daniel as she spoke his name, but the chance of finding someone dressed normally in this assemblage of peacocks was vanishingly slight.

Her own Bryce-style party costume was a beige bodystocking with ruffs at the neck, wrists and ankles. She'd thought it might be extreme for Kostroma. She couldn't have been more wrong.

Of course, she'd also thought she'd be a wallflower here as she'd invariably been when she attended the frequent social functions at the Academy. Wrong again.

"Ah, of course," said the young officer. His fellows were bearing down on him and Adele again, elbowing one another in universal determination to be the first to offer her liquor that she wouldn't touch her lips to. "We provincials can't compete with you sophisticates from the great empires, can we?"

The crowd of Kostroman officers arrived, pushing with increasing enthusiasm as each shouted his particular merits. It was as bad as the mob of water taxis that had greeted Adele when she stepped off the transport that brought her to Kostroma.

"Gentlemen!" she cried in a tone like that her mother used to correct sluggish servants; democracy wasn't an ideal the Mundys pursued within their own home. "Step back, if you will!"

Several of them jostled her, pushed by others behind them, and Adele's former dancing partner had a glass of punch emptied over his back. Still, she hadn't been crushed against the wall behind her. That was the most likely result had she not started acting like a Mundy of Chatsworth.

"Please!" she continued in the same ringing voice. "I wish to continue my conversation with my friend here. Everyone who accepts the social conventions held on Cinnabar and Pleasaunce will permit us to do so."

She was taking a cue from the youth's comment about sophistication. It worked like a charm. The circle around them couldn't have widened faster if she'd announced she had leprosy.

The reason that Adele had this unwonted and utterly unexpected popularity was the fact she came from Bryce, one of the core worlds of the Alliance, and she knew the dance steps current there. That made her very nearly unique in this gathering. Though one of the more prestigious Founder's Day parties, the Admiral's Ball didn't attract recent visitors from "the greater empires" as her partner had put it.

A number of the officers' consorts were attractive—and probably highly paid—imports from Cinnabar and the Alliance, but none of them had been on their home worlds as recently as Adele. They looked daggers at her as they memorized her movements.

Adele smiled coldly. While she'd learned the steps as a necessary part of her academic routine, she lacked the interest to have become skillful at them. In this assemblage she literally couldn't put a foot wrong: her mistakes were assumed to be subtle variations. A dozen whores were already determinedly trying to copy her errors.

An overweight man beyond middle age stepped onto the dais with the help of an aide. His uniform was relatively simple; there seemed to be an inverse relationship between rank and the degree of florid dress.

Having said that, this fellow wore a gold sash as well as gold piping on his blue trousers and tailcoat. His chest was a clinking mass of medals.

"That's Grand Admiral Sanaus," Adele's sole companion explained in a respectful whisper. "Chief of the navy."

Sanaus spoke to the bandleader, then offered his hand to a doll-like blonde woman who clearly believed less was more when dressing to gain attention. Adele sniffed, but she had to admit the girl—she was no more than twenty-five standard years old—was impressive. Real muscles rippled beneath the smooth skin of her thighs and shoulders, too.

The band hit a low chord and sustained it while the assembly quieted. "My officers and honored guests!" Admiral Sanaus said in the relative silence. "It's my pleasure to greet you in the name of the navy of the Commonwealth."

Sanaus wheezed between words and the puffiness around his eyes was a sign of ill-health Adele wouldn't have wanted to see on anyone she cared about. That was few enough people, of course.

"It's my even greater pleasure to ask for a few words from the lovely lady who's deigned to accompany me tonight," the admiral continued.

He bowed to the blonde. The room broke into good-natured cheers. "Ms. Mirella Casque, the scion of Casque Trading and the representative of that famous house here on Kostroma!"