The rest she had invested more practically.

She gazed with pleasure at the pot for a few luxurious moments, then went to the bathroom to wash and prepare herself for bed. Then, because she couldn’t stand the merest hint of untidiness, she cleaned away the thin, soft layer of dust that lay over the room. After she used a duster to brush the dust reverently from theju yao pot, she retired to her bed.

In the morningResistance was everywhere: pasted to lampposts, sitting on tables at cafés, weighed down on doorsteps with scraps of iron or bits of crumbled old brick. She had a sweet red bean bun at a pastry shop and filled her mug of tea from the samovar that the customers used in common. Two women in line for the samovar were talking about the copy ofResistance they’d seen.

“NowI know what to do with that nasty Mr. Klarvash and his requests for data,” one said.

Exulting, Sula walked the short distance to the larger apartment, and saw that the pot in the window had been moved to the position that meantSomeone’s here, and it’s all clear. Even so, she entered via the back stairs, moving cautiously through the kitchen until she saw Spence sitting on the floor behind the little table, with the parts of the bomb spread out before her. Spence was staring at the video wall, and tears coursed unhindered down her cheeks.

Sula froze. “What’s wrong?” she said.

Spence turned her streaming eyes to Sula. “They’re shooting hostages. Fifty-five, eleven from each species. Because subversive literature was being distributed. And they’re shooting anyone they catch, and they say they’ve caught a number by now.” She reached for a handkerchief.“And it’s our fault!” she cried.

Get a grip,Sula wanted to suggest.What do you think that bomb you’re building is for?

Instead she stepped into the room and made soothing noises. “It’s not our fault. That’s all the enemy. It’stheir fault, not ours.We’re not shooting hostages.”

The video wall showed a group of Daimong being herded onto the execution ground.And if we’re lucky, Sula thought,if we’re really reallylucky, the Naxids won’t stop shooting hostages anytime soon.

“Ihave always found tragedy to be the most human of the arts,” said Senior Captain Lord Gomberg Fletcher. “Other species simply don’t have a feeling for it.”

“There’s Lakaj Trallin’sThe Messenger, ” said Fulvia Kazakov, the first lieutenant.

“The choral parts are magnificent, as one might expect with the Daimong,” the captain admitted, “but I find the psychology of Lord Ganmir and Lady Oppoda underdeveloped.”

Captain Fletcher’s dinner stretched the length of the ship’s long afternoon. Every plate, saucer, cup, goblet, and salt cellar on the long table was blazoned with the captain’s crest, and the table itself sat in the midst of painted revelry. The walls were covered with murals of banquets and banqueters: ancient Terrans wearing sheets and eating on couches; humanoid creatures with horns and hairy, cloven-hoofed legs roistering with wine cups and bunches of grapes; a tall, commanding youth, crowned with leaves, surrounded by women carrying phallic staves. Statues stood in the corners, graceful seminude women bearing cups. A solid gold centerpiece crowned the table, armored warriors mysteriously standing guard over piles of brilliant metal fruits and nuts.

The captain was a renowned patron of the arts, and as an offspring of the eminent and preposterously rich Gomberg and Fletcher clans, he had the money to indulge himself. He had ornamentedIllustrious with a lavish hand, sparing no expense to create a masterpiece that would be the envy of the Fleet. The hull had been painted in a complex geometric pattern of brilliant white, pale green, and pink. The interior was filled with more geometric patterns broken by fantastic landscapes, trompes l’oeil, scenes of hunting and dancing, forests and vines, whimsical architecture and wind-tossed seascapes. Most of these works had been created in a graphics program, run off on long sheets, then mounted like wallpaper, but in the captain’s own quarters the murals had been painted on, and were subsequently maintained, by a pudgy, graying, rather disheveled artist named Montemar Jukes, who Fletcher had brought aboard as a servant and promptly rated Rigger First Class.

Jukes dined in the petty officers’ lounge: no one present at the captain’s dinner was anything less than an officer and a Peer. All glittered in their full dress uniforms, as the captain’s long-established custom was that all meals aboardIllustrious be formal, whether they were a special occasion or not.

He had established his rule before Martinez joined the ship, but Martinez had added his own unexpected contribution to the ritual. Since the dinners were, after all, full dress, he had worn his decorations—or, in the case of one particular decoration, carried it.

The award in question was the Golden Orb, a baton on which was mounted a transparent globe filled with swirling gold liquid. It happened to be the highest award in the empire, given Martinez for stealing theCorona from under Naxid noses at Magaria, and every officer and crew, every lord convocate or government employee, was required to salute it.

So the first time Martinez had arrived for one of the captain’s dinners, Captain Lord Gomberg Fletcher was obliged to jump up and salute him; and this had happened on every occasion since. The captain had been gracious about it—he was never less than gracious—but there was something in the set of the long, handsome face that suggested he had discovered a flaw in the arrangement of the universe. No Fletcher had ever before in history saluted a Martinez, and he resented the fact that he should be the first.

Tonight, Lady Michi, the guest of honor, sat at the head of the table, with the rest below in order of precedence. Fletcher and Martinez sat beneath Lady Michi, and below Fletcher was the first lieutenant, Fulvia Kazakov, her dark hair braided and tied into an elaborate knot behind her head, then transfixed with a pair of gold-embroidered chopsticks of camphor wood.

On Martinez’s elbow was Chandra Prasad, her knee pressed familiarly to his. Below them were ranked the other four lieutenants, the ship’s doctor, and the cadets. At the far end of the table was the one non-Terran aboardIllustrious, a Daimong cadet who had commanded a pinnace at the Battle of Protipanu and been absent from his ship, the frigateBeacon, when it was destroyed with all aboard.

Like the other cadets, the Daimong maintained an intimidated silence in the presence of his superiors, so his views on the psychology of Lord Ganmir and Lady Oppoda went unrecorded.

“There’s Go-tul’sNew Dynasty, ” Michi said. “A very moving tragedy, I’ve always thought.”

“I consider it flawed,” said Captain Fletcher. He was a thin-faced man with ice-blue eyes that glittered from deep sockets, and silvery hair set in unnaturally perfect waves. His manner combined the Fleet’s assumption of unquestioned authority with the flawless ease of the high-caste Peer.

He was a complete autocrat, but perfectly relaxed about it.

“New Dynastyconcerns a provincial Peer who travels to Zanshaa and comes within an ace of taking her place in elite society,” Fletcher continued. “But she fails, and in the end has to return home. She ends the story in her proper place.” He gave Lady Michi a questioning look. “How is that tragic? Genuine tragedy is the fall of someone born into the highest place and then falling from it.”

Chandra’s hand, under the table, dropped onto Martinez’s thigh and gave it a ferocious squeeze. Martinez tried not to jump.

“Which is more tragic, Lord Captain,” Chandra asked, her voice a little high. “A provincial who rises above her station and fails, or a provincial who rises andsucceeds?”