The Service of the Sword

And if Citizen Captain Gallanti had to fall by the wayside in the process, stabbed in the back by her newfound "friend" . . . 

Well, so be it. If a fanatic like Cachat had the courage of his convictions, it would be nothing but cowardice for Yuri to claim to be his moral superior—yet refuse to act with the same decisiveness.

As he waited for Gallanti to fall into the trap, Yuri probed more deeply into his conscience.

Well. Okay. Some of it's just 'cause I got the hots for Sharon and I will damn well keep my woman alive. Me too, if I can manage it. 

Gallanti fell. "S'a deal," she said, extending her hand. Yuri rose, bestowed on her his very best trustworthy smile and his very best sincere handshake—both of them top-notch, of course. All the while, measuring her back for the stiletto.

8

Yuri did, in fact, have an excellent record as a people's commissioner. He had routinely been given top marks throughout his career for his proficiency—at least, once he got out of the abstract environment of the academy and into the real world of StateSec fleet operations. The one criticism which Radamacher's superiors had leveled against him periodically, however, had been "slackness."

By some, that was defined in political terms. Yuri Radamacher's actual loyalty wasn't called into question, of course. Had there been any question about that he would have been summarily dismissed (at best) from StateSec altogether. Still, there had been some of his superiors, over the years, who felt that he was insufficiently zealous.

Yuri could not argue the matter. He wasn't zealous at all, truth be told.

But the charge of "slackness" had another co

"Baloney, Yuri!" she'd snapped in the course of one of his perso

Yuri had argued the matter, on that occasion. And had even managed, by a virtuoso combination of razzle-dazzle reference to his record and half a dozen charmingly related anecdotes, to get his superior to semi-relent by the end of the evaluation. Still . . . 

Deep down, he knew there was a fair amount of truth to the charge. Whether it was because of his own personality, or his disenchantment with the regime, he wasn't sure. Perhaps it was a combination of both. But, whatever the reason, it was just a fact that Yuri Radamacher never really did seem to operate, as the ancient and cryptic expression went, "firing on all cylinders." He did his job, and did it very well, yes—but he never really put in that extra effort to do it as well as he knew he could have done. It just somehow didn't seem worth the effort.

So he found himself amused occasionally, as the weeks went by, wondering what those long-gone superiors would think of his work habits now. Yuri Radamacher was still easy-going, and laid-back, and pleasant to deal with. But now he was working an average of eighteen hours a day.

He didn't wonder at the reason himself, though. With Yuri's love of classic literature, he could summon up the answer with any of a number of choice phrases. The one which best captured the situation, he thought, came from Dr. Johnson:

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. 

Granted, Yuri Radamacher had more than a fortnight at his disposal. But how much more, remained to be seen. So, he threw himself into his project with an energy he hadn't displayed since he was a teenager newly enlisted in the opposition to the Legislaturalist regime.

A fortnight came and went, and another. And another. And still another.

And Yuri began to relax a little. He still had no idea what the future might bring. But whatever it was, he would at least face it from the best position he could have created. For most of those around him, not only himself.

More than that, it was given to no person to know. Not in this world at least; and, StateSec regulations aside, Yuri really didn't believe in an afterlife.

"Give me a break, Yuri," Citizen Lieutenant Commander Saunders complained. "Impeller Tech Bob Gottlieb is the best rating I've got. He can practically make those nodes sit up and beg."

Yuri looked at him mildly. "He's also the biggest bootlegger on the ship, and he's getting careless about it."

Saunders scowled. "Look, I'll talk to him. Get him to keep it under cover. Yuri, you know damn good and well there's always going to be an illegal still operating somewhere on a warship this size. Especially one that's been kept from having any shore leave for so long. At least we don't have to worry about Gottlieb selling dangerous hooch. He knows a lot about chemistry, too—don't ask me how or where he learned, I don't want to know. He's not a stupid kid who doesn't know the difference between ethanol and methanol."

"His stuff's pretty damn tasty, in fact," chimed in Ned Pierce, who was lounging in another armchair in Yuri's large office.

Yuri turned the mild-ma

Yuri snorted. "I need something, people," he pointed out. "Cachat'll be back any time now. I've got a fair number of screw-ups and goofballs on display in the brig, sure. But that's pretty much old stuff by now. About a third of them have almost served their time. And I'm telling you: nothing will soothe the savage inquisitor like being able to show him a freshly nabbed, still-trembling si

"Aw, c'mon, Yuri, the SI's not that bad."

From the tight expression on his face, Citizen Lieutenant Commander Saunders did not agree with the citizen sergeant's assessment of Cachat's degree of severity. Not in the least.

Yuri wasn't surprised. Saunders had been present in the gym when Cachat personally shot six fellow officers of the Hector Van Dragen in the head. So had Ned, of course. But Pierce was a Marine, and a combat veteran. Personal, in-your-face mayhem was no stranger to him. Had Saunders been in the regular Navy, he might have encountered the kind of battering which capital ships often took in fleet encounters, where it was not uncommon for bodies to be shredded. But StateSec capital ships were there to enforce discipline over the Navy, not to fight the Navy's battles. That was undoubtedly the first time Saunders had seen blood and brains splattered all over the trousers of his uniform.

Citizen Major Lafitte cleared his throat. He and his counterpart, a StateSec citizen major by the name of Diana Citizen—her real name, that; not something she'd made up to curry favor with the regime—were sitting side by side on a couch angled next to Yuri's armchair. The two of them, along with Ned Pierce and his counterpart, StateSec Citizen Sergeant Jaime Rolla, constituted the informal little group which Yuri relied on to handle disciplinary matters on the superdreadnought. The SD's executive officer knew about it and had been looking the other way for weeks. The man was incompetent at everything except knowing which way the political winds were blowing. He'd quickly sized up the new situation and—wisely—decided that he'd be a nut crushed between Radamacher's skills and Captain Gallanti's temper if he tried to assert the traditional prerogatives and authority of a warship's XO.