‘Always there, in your engine room.’

Harry was a big, bluff man, with hands the size of a troll’s, it looked like, that belied a delicacy of touch when it came to his precious engines. ‘That’s about the size of it, Captain. Look, I know what you’re thinking. I’m a territorial asshole. It’s just—’

‘Not at all. It’s your domain. I need you to run this place the way you want to. And if Commander Feng is interfering with that we both have a problem. But on the other hand, Harry, he’s flown with ships of these new designs across twenty million worlds – that’s on the missions we’ve heard about, maybe more covertly. He ought to be a useful resource. And, look – you know how things are on the Datum, still. You have family there. Everybody knows how much assistance the Chinese have been providing. Medical supplies, food, even winter clothing.’

‘So it’s all geopolitics. The Chinese give us handouts and we all have to kowtow?’

‘No,’ she said sternly, ‘and if you use language like that, Commander Ryan, I’ll bust you down to grease monkey, so help me. Harry, we have to be gracious. That doesn’t make us any less as Americans. This is still your engine room, just as much as it’s still my boat. Look, get back to work, sleep on it, and just keep smiling. These things have a way of working out.’

He left, though not with particularly good grace.

Dissatisfied, that night she made a point of hanging around the crew lounges, allowing herself to be bought a couple of beers, watching the dynamics of the Chinese guests with the rest of the crew. Of course they were all different as individuals, one from the other, as people always were. But it was evident that the atmosphere wasn’t right.

The next morning she called in the senior Chinese officer on the ship, a Navy commander, and made a quiet suggestion.

By the morning after that she was speaking to Lieutenant Wu Yue-Sai. Wu was a bright thirty-year-old who had aspirations to be an astronaut, had acquitted herself well on the Chinese ‘East Twenty Million’ expedition – and in particular had done a good job in liaising with English-speaking guests on that mission. By the afternoon Wu had begun new duties in an ‘interface’ role in Harry Ryan’s engine room.

Maggie was gratified that she heard of no more tensions in engineering. And maybe the calm would spread out through the ship from that critical node.

Maggie was the kind of commanding officer who believed in letting issues surface and be resolved as naturally as possible, rather than by her diktat. Mostly it worked out. If any individual didn’t get the message, he or she could always catch a slow boat back home for reassignment.

But when Maggie’s Executive Officer, Commander Nathan Boss, asked to see her, it wasn’t anything to do with trolls, or relations with the Chinese. So Maggie’s cat warned her anyhow.

‘Then what?’

‘The most useful summary is – weaponry.’ Sitting on her desk in Maggie’s sea cabin, Shi-mi was ghost white. Her voice was liquid human feminine, though reduced in timbre by her small frame.

Weaponry? Maggie wondered what she meant by that. There were plenty of weapons aboard the Armstrong and Cernan; the two airships were military craft. She wanted to ask Shi-mi to expand – but time ran out, and Nathan’s soft knock sounded at the door.

Executive Officer Nathan Boss was a competent, solid officer who’d been with her for several years and was overdue for promotion; Maggie suspected he lacked an edge to his ambition. Whatever, she was glad he was on board with her now. Even if he did look disconcerted when he sat down and Shi-mi jumped on to his lap, purring loudly.

‘You ham,’ Maggie said.

‘Sorry, Captain?’

‘Not you, Nathan. What’s on your mind?’

What was troubling her XO was the presence of Edward Cutler as part of this expedition – not just part of it, he was Captain of the Cernan and answerable only to Maggie herself.

‘Look, Captain – there’s the question of morale. Whatever you might say about Captain Cutler, there are crew on this boat and the Cernan who were there that day in Valhalla five years back, when he cut loose of his moorings. Remember he tried to get permission to open fire on that crowd of civilians?’

Of course she remembered. ‘It was a rather extreme expression of patriotic duty, I agree.’

He hesitated. ‘Then, Captain, you let me go after the guy when he stormed off alone. You didn’t see what happened later.’

She’d read the reports, though. Cutler, enraged and frustrated, and completely baffled by the Valhallans’ non-violent Gentle Revolution, had finally, and quite without authorization, turned a weapon on unarmed American citizens. Nathan Boss had risked his own life, and indeed his own career, by tackling him with a play straight out of a college football manual. Nathan knew her report on the affair had been thoroughly approving in regard of his own actions; she needed to say nothing more about that aspect now.

‘The point is, Captain, plenty of the crew saw me take the guy out too. Fox, Santorini . . .’

‘You’re thinking of the effect on morale, Nathan. Of seeing a commanding officer behave that way.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘I think we have to trust our shipmates. And we have to give Captain Cutler a chance to grow into his role. Valhalla was five years ago.’

‘Yes, Captain.’ Now he looked uncomfortable. He even stroked the cat, to calm his nerves. ‘But that’s not all. Look, I know listening to the scuttlebutt is part of my job. You know I hate it, passing on locker-room bitching.’

She hid a smile. In a way Nathan was too straight-back for his complicated job. But then, she liked him that way. ‘Go ahead.’

‘There’s talk of what became of Captain Cutler after Valhalla. After the investigation he was suspended, he spent some time in a Navy hospital, and then he was transferred to Hawaii, Admiral Davidson’s base. The scuttlebutt says he received specialist training there. And that he got his commission for this mission because of some kind of special assignment.’

That was new. ‘By “special”, you mean secret from me.’

‘Uh – yes, Captain.’

Maggie said nothing, thinking that over quietly. It wouldn’t surprise her, if true. The modern Navy was as full of secrets as any other large, complex, budget-laden and weapons-rich organization. It did surprise her a little if it was true and the secret had managed to leak out.

‘Whatever the truth about Cutler,’ and she supposed she was letting Nathan into her confidence in admitting she didn’t know any more than he did, ‘we’re stuck with him, and we can’t let this have an adverse effect on morale. That’s where the harm will be done.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll make a joke of it. Sailors are always a gossipy bunch. Soon they’ll pass on to something new.’

‘Good. Thanks for bringing me this, Nathan.’

‘I hope I did right.’

‘You have good instincts. But if you do hear anything more concrete let me know. Anything else?’

‘No, Captain. Thank you.’

When he’d gone, Shi-mi jumped back on to the desk. The cat asked, ‘So what do you think of that?’

‘What do you think? I assume you know more than either me or Nathan about this.’

‘Not a great deal more, I assure you.’

‘So there’s something in it? Cutler has some kind of secret assignment – something Davidson is keeping even from me?’

‘Davidson himself may be acting under orders from above.’

‘Why did you say you thought Nathan wanted to talk about weapons? – Oh. You’re thinking of Cutler as a weapon?’

‘Well, isn’t he? A man with unshakeable beliefs and a profound loyalty. At Valhalla, suppose Davidson had had to order you to open fire on the peaceful crowds that day . . .’

‘Umm.’ Sometimes, in wakeful nights, Maggie had pondered that, among other unpleasant might-have-beens of her life. ‘I guess we would have obeyed his command. But Cutler—’