The gas giant Vandrith, with its bands of cinnabar and ochre, loomed close on the overhead display, so vast it seemed just a little bit threatening. Some of its larger moons appeared as crescents, and the rest were brilliant dots, brighter than anything in the starry background.
The people below, dressed in finery and standing at the glossy, exquisitely appointed table, were slightly diminished by the grandeur over their heads.
“My lords and ladies,” said Lord Orghoder, as he raised a glass. “I give you the Vandrith Challenge Cup.”
Orghoder, thought Lord Gareth Martinez, had taken very good care with his diction and had avoided lisping around his fangs. Martinez preferred not to know what was in Orghoder’s glass, though he knew it would be served at the temperature of fresh blood. Because Torminel—squat, powerful, and furred—were descended from solitary carnivores and still liked their meat raw.
Martinez tried not to shudder as he raised his glass and drank. White wine of some sort. No doubt it was of the finest vintage, though it tasted to Martinez much like other white wine.
“My lords and ladies,” Orghoder said. “Please be seated.”
There was a general shuffle as everyone—racing yacht owners, pilots, race officials, relatives, friends—took their seats. Terrans, Torminel, Daimong, and Cree were each at separate tables, arranged in a rectangle beneath the ghostly holographic form of Vandrith. Lai-own, whose hollow bones couldn’t withstand high gravities, didn’t participate in yacht racing, and Naxids—those who had survived the rebellion—refrained out of discretion.
The dinner was being held on the transport Seven Stars, which was the property of the Seven Stars Yacht Club and carried its members’ racing yachts to competitions. For the last fourteen days, Seven Stars had been flying toward Vandrith in the company of three other transports belonging to the three other yacht clubs competing in the Vandrith Challenge race. Of the four clubs, Seven Stars, the Ion Yacht Club, and the Apogee Club were venerable institutions going back millennia, and with a membership drawn from the most exclusive families in the High City. In fact, the Apogee was so exclusive that it accepted only descendants of previous members whose genetics were verified by the Peers’ Gene Bank.
The fourth club, Corona, was a newcomer and had been entering races only for the past three years. Its membership was composed exclusively of those who would have been blackballed from the High City clubs if they had ever been so rash as to apply, and during the club’s brief existence the outsiders had made a substantial impact. First, because they existed at all.
And second, because they kept winning.
There were two barriers to anyone wishing to enter the world of yacht racing. The first was money, and the second was birth. And the Corona Yacht Club didn’t much care about either.
That was the way Gareth Martinez had intended it when he founded the club. He had plenty of money with his access to his family’s enormous wealth, and he was as unimpressed by the lineage of the High City Peers as they were impressed with each other.
Prior to the Naxid War, piloting a small, agile Fleet pinnace had often served as an entry to the world of yacht racing, and high-ranking Peers had competed for the few piloting slots available. The Fleet had held regular regattas and gymkhanas and developed excellent racing pilots. But during the war, casualties among pinnace pilots had reached something like 80 percent, and Peers for the most part decided to let the honor pass to lesser mortals.
Which was neither here nor there—the desire to avoid dangerous duty was not the sole province of Peers—but it did mean that there was a large well of expertly trained, experienced pinnace pilots who were either commoners or lower-status Peers, and who could be recruited by Martinez for his racing team.
The soup course arrived—some sort of squash, with a splash of white foam—accompanied by a different white wine that Martinez couldn’t tell from the first white wine.
“This is absolutely splendid, don’t you think?” said Lady Fitzpatrick. She sat on Martinez’s left; she was a large, hearty, white-haired woman, and a steward of the Apogee Club. “There’s just the right touch of nutmeg—and it’s so easy to overdo the nutmeg, don’t you think?”
Martinez murmured agreement.
“I wish we’d been able to get Boutros for the Apogee kitchens,” she said. “But Orghoder snatched him up from under our very noses.”
The clubs competed in cuisine as well as in racing, and their chefs were renowned. The trip from Zanshaa to Vandrith was one formal banquet after another, as each yacht club entertained the others in turn, and the presentation of a bad dish could be perilous to a club’s prestige.
Martinez had known better than to trust his own taste in finding staff for Corona’s kitchen, and so he’d relied on his sisters—the two who were still speaking to him—and his wife, Terza. The results had been more than satisfactory, if the praise of the other clubs’ members was to be trusted.
Martinez ate enough of the soup to reveal the club’s crest on the bottom of the bowl, and then the bowl was swept away, replaced with a small platter that featured three small ochoba beans ringed by a green sauce. Lady Fitzpatrick gave a sigh of pleasure at the sight.
They’re only beans, Martinez wanted to say.
Lady Fitzpatrick had never, so far as Martinez knew, piloted a racing yacht. The High City clubs were full of those who gained entry because of celebrity, amusement value, talent in some other sphere, or because some ancestor had won a race eight hundred years ago.
Possibly one of the qualifications for membership was proper appreciation of beans. Martinez couldn’t say.
Martinez ate his beans and waited for one of the waitrons to take his plate away.
“Gareth, dear,” his sister Vipsania called from across the table, to his right. Vipsania shared with Martinez the family genetic inheritance: olive complexion, dark hair and eyes, and—he liked to think—a vast, subtle, and flexible intelligence. Vipsania, though, had managed to polish away her native Laredo accent, and Martinez hadn’t, which made her considerably more acceptable in this company than he.
Vipsania wasn’t a racing captain but had been accepted into the club because Martinez was too frightened of her to keep her out.
“Yes?” Martinez said.
“I was talking to Lieutenant Lam here.” Lam was a fresh-faced young man whose jacket bore the badge of the Ion Club. “He’s on Fleet Commander Pezzini’s staff, and he says that the official Fleet history of the war is about to be released.”
Martinez raised an eyebrow. “Am I in it?”
Lam looked a little uneasy. Martinez’s part in the war was the subject of controversy, and he suspected that both Fleet Commander Pezzini and Supreme Commander Tork would write him out of the history if they possibly could.
The lieutenant made an effort to be tactful. “Your exploits on the Corona are mentioned, my lord, as is your part in the battle at Hone-bar.”
“Second Magaria? Naxas?”
“Well . . .” Lam flushed. “You served under other officers at those battles, my lord.”
Martinez smiled thinly. “So I did.”
“Since the war is now under review,” Vipsania said, “perhaps it’s time to release our own documentary on the Empire stations.”
“Ah.” Martinez considered this. “Perhaps you’re right.”
One of Vipsania’s achievements was her marriage to Lord Oda Yoshitoshi, the nephew and presumed heir of Lord Yoshitoshi. Clan Yoshitoshi owned a majority of Empire Broadcasting, seven channels viewed by the populations of eighty-odd planetary systems, and the family was content to let Vipsania run it. They thought being a media titan was an eccentric hobby for her, but they were willing to indulge her. That she’d increased profits every year since she’d taken over helped her case.
It was no surprise, then, that Empire’s two sports channels were being very thorough in their coverage of yacht racing, and they emphasized the challenge that the upstart Coronas were mounting to the established clubs. In fact, Empire reporters and cameramen were a constant presence on this trip, interviewing, analyzing, and reporting every possible variation and every possible outcome.
Nothing like blatant favoritism, Martinez thought, to boost one’s public profile.
Or to contradict a biased official history.
But, he thought, Vipsania was mentioning this possible documentary in public, in front of a member of Pezzini’s staff. Which meant she wanted Pezzini to know that Martinez’s sister was prepared to release her very own version of the war, particularly if the official history slighted a member of her family in any way.
After all, if you were an average citizen of the empire, would you rather read a dry official history, or watch a video documentary filled with action, heroes, villains, and a guaranteed happy ending, where peace and order were restored? With an emphasis, perhaps, on the handsome, brilliant, lantern-jawed young officer who had turned the tide?
And what could Tork, Pezzini, and the Fleet Control Board do about it? They ran the Fleet, not the Office of the Censor, and Vipsania was intelligent enough not to run afoul of the latter.
He supposed that the Fleet could forbid any of its officers from cooperating with the project, but that would merely give Vipsania more freedom to speculate—or simply to invent the stories she liked.
Indeed, Lieutenant Lam’s face was already showing a degree of alarm at the knowledge of Vipsania’s project. Martinez would be very interested to view the contents of Lam’s next transmission to his superior, but it wasn’t too hard to guess.
Martinez raised his glass to Vipsania. “I’ll be happy to cooperate, of course.”
She raised her glass in reply. Lieutenant Lam smiled weakly.
Martinez looked down and saw that his beans had been replaced by the paw of a sweet trynti, a fruit-eating nocturnal marsupial, adorable but edible, native to Zanshaa’s southern hemisphere. Trying not to think of the big-eyed plush trynti doll that slept with his daughter every night, he employed his knife and fork to remove the claws and ate the paw whole. Whatever fruit had sustained the trynti during its brief lifetime had given the flesh a distinct sweetish flavor, familiar but somehow elusive.
“Figs,” Lady Fitzpatrick said, sighing with rapture. “The trynti’s been fed exclusively on figs.”
“Quite,” said Martinez.
“My lord captain.” Martinez looked at the speaker, on his far left, whom he recognized as Lord Jeremy Foote. Foote was a tall, imposing blond specimen, with a distinctive cowlick on the right side of his head, and had been an annoying presence in Martinez’s life for years. The most annoying thing about him was that he was a very good racing pilot, the best the Apogee Club had.
“I wonder, Captain Martinez,” Foote went on, in his insufferable aristocratic drawl. “I wonder if the sight of Vandrith is a cause of nostalgia for you?”
Martinez didn’t understand the question and had the sense that Foote was luring him into some kind of trap.
“No,” he said. “Why would it be?”
“Because it was the occasion of your first step upon the public stage.” Foote turned to Lady Fitzpatrick. “Lord Captain Martinez commanded the attempted rescue of Ehrler Blitsharts, you know.”
“Ah yes.” Lady Fitzpatrick nodded. “A terrible tragedy. I knew Lord Ehrler well.” She shook her head. “His poor dog.”
Ehrler Blitsharts had been one of the most celebrated pilots of his day, always accompanied in races by his loyal dog, Orange, who was at least as popular as he was. During the Vandrith Challenge seven years ago, his yacht had inexplicably accelerated into the void on a day when Martinez happened to be on duty.
“I supervised the rescue from the Commandery,” Martinez clarified. “I was on Fleet Commander Enderby’s staff at the time.”
“Yes,” Foote said. “It was of course Lady Sula who performed the actual rescue. Blitsharts and the dog were dead, naturally, but that was hardly Lady Sula’s fault.”
Martinez tried to keep his face impassive. He hardly wanted to think of Caroline Sula at this moment, in this company.
“I knew her parents,” said Lady Fitzpatrick. “Quite lovely people, the handsomest couple imaginable. I was so surprised when they were arrested and executed in that dreadful way.”
“I served with Lady Sula briefly during the war,” Foote said. “A very sharp intelligence, and of course the most beautiful young woman I’d ever seen. Such a presence!” He smiled at the memory. “But rather a prickly personality—I wished to know her better, but she kept me at arm’s length.”
“Shows her good taste,” Martinez said, and plastered a completely false smile on his face as an indication to bystanders that he didn’t mean it.
Foote nodded in easy agreement. “Captain Martinez had better luck, I believe.” He turned to Lady Fitzpatrick and took a deliberate taste of wine. “During the war I had the duty of censoring the correspondence that Lady Sula had with Lord Captain Martinez—and such a passionate correspondence it was! Such fervor! A true meeting of minds.”
Lady Fitzpatrick gave Martinez a sidelong glance. “Indeed,” she murmured.
“But then of course the Chen heir lost her fiancé at First Magaria, and Captain Martinez maneuvered to secure the prize like the bold captain he is,” Foote said. He turned to Martinez. “Do you hear much from Lady Sula these days?”
The moment awkward, Martinez thought quickly. Foote had made him look like a complete unprincipled mercenary, deserting Sula for a richer, better connected heiress. As if Sula hadn’t walked out on him. As if she hadn’t—well, he couldn’t discuss that here, not without seeming a complete cad.
“You forget that Lady Sula and I served together,” Martinez said. “At Second Magaria, and Naxas.”
“But separate squadrons, though, eh?”
Not really, he wanted to say. Because though she commanded a light squadron and he served as tactical officer aboard another vessel, they had fought brilliantly together, their ships moving as if they were parts of a single organism. As if they were in telepathic contact. As if they were in some kind of mystical union.
Martinez feigned confusion. “I’m not quite sure what you mean,” he said. “We’re both captains—we can hardly serve on the same ship. Our appointments were ‘as the service requires,’ as we say.”
“Quite,” said Foote. He leaned back, content to have blackguarded Martinez in front of this select company. “And speaking of captains,” he added, “I’ve just been promoted to that august rank myself.”
Martinez murmured congratulations. Foote was among the exclusive breed of aristocratic officers whose career path had been determined long before they entered the academy, each promotion and posting arranged by relatives, friends, and clients in the service. The family had planned for him to ascend to fleet commander as soon as decency and Fleet regulations permitted.
But war had interrupted what should have been Foote’s smooth rise. The uncle who had taken Foote on as a sublieutenant had been killed at First Magaria, and various other patrons were killed, captured, or shifted away from posts where they could help him.
“I’m getting a command as well,” Foote said. “They’re giving me Vigilance, rebuilding at Comador, and attached to Light Squadron Eight.”
Vigilance was a light cruiser, Martinez knew. Foote, as a junior captain, would outrank the lieutenant-captains on the frigates that made up the rest of the squadron. Which meant that Foote would be a squadron commander, for all that he didn’t yet have the rank.
Apparently Foote’s inevitable rise to high command was back on track. Jealousy clawed at Martinez with adamantine talons.
“Congratulations, my lord,” he managed.
“Thank you, Lord Captain!” Foote said cheerfully.
And then somebody down the table, one of Foote’s many toadies undoubtedly, began to sing the “Congratulations” round from “Lord Fizz Takes a Holiday,” and everyone had to join in. Foote just sat back and beamed, accepting the commendation as if it was entirely his due—which, according to law and custom, it certainly was.
Soak it up, Foote. Because winning the Challenge Cup won’t be so easy for you, Martinez thought. Tomorrow, I’m going to fry the nose off your boat.
As the song died away Martinez felt a soft touch on his shoulder, and he turned to discover a tall Daimong looming over him, and behind him Lord Orghoder.
“Lord Captain,” said Orghoder. “May we speak to you privately for a moment?”
“I’m at your service.”
The conversation took place in a small salon off the banquet room, paneled and carpeted and made comfortable by aesa-leather furniture. There was a heavy smell of tobacco in the room, and cigar cutters, matches, and a hookah waited on a table, above which were placed the blazoned private humidors of the club’s members. The Daimong commandeered the wall display and brought up an image of a yacht blasting past a satellite, the latter a blazing beacon in the reflected light of the yacht’s streaming plasma tail.
Martinez had been trying to remember the Daimong’s name. Like all Daimong she was tall and cadaverous, hairless and with a fixed, round-eyed expression that a human might read equally as horror, surprise, or fury. Ichtha, Martinez thought. Lady Ichtha . . . Something. He knew she was one of the stewards of the Ion Club.
“I regret to say that the Apogee Club has filed a protest about the Crucible race,” Lady Ichtha said. Like all Daimong, her voice was sonorous, like chiming bells.
“The Crucible race was two months ago,” Martinez pointed out.
“Unfortunately, the Apogee is within their rights,” Orghoder said. “The protest involves your Captain Kelly, and the Apogee maintains they have only now discovered the violation.”
“The Apogee Club has nothing better to do than to obsessively examine recordings of past races?”
“I’m sure you have been viewing past races yourself, Lord Captain,” said Orghoder. “We all study our opponents’ tactics, do we not?”
Which was true, so Martinez turned to the display. “What does Apogee claim to have discovered?”
Lady Ichtha’s sonorous voice made the other club’s accusation sound like a song. “They say that Captain Kelly failed to properly tag Satellite 11.”
During the race, all the competitors had to speed past a number of satellites, and they were required to pass within a certain distance of them.
“That makes no sense at all,” Martinez said. “The satellite itself registered Kelly’s pass.”
“Apogee maintains that the satellite was in error,” chimed Lady Ichtha. “They have analyzed the parallax of the background stars in this video, and they claim that their computations show that Captain Kelly passed outside the allowable limit. We have reviewed their calculations and have found no”—she offered a diffident chime—“no error.”
“I protest this underhanded attempt to disqualify one of Corona’s captains,” Martinez said. “Has this method ever been used in the past?”
“It seems to be an innovation,” Orghoder admitted. “But the stewards and I will meet later this evening to review the data. Your protest is noted and will receive equal consideration with that of the Apogee Club.”
“Thank you,” Martinez said, as his heart began drifting toward his boots. He knew perfectly well what was going on—the upstart Coronas were being sabotaged by the established clubs. They were disqualifying Corona’s most successful captain at the last minute in hopes of causing chaos in the club’s organization and putting a less experienced captain in Kelly’s place.
If you can’t win, cheat. He really shouldn’t have expected anything else.
“In any case,” Orghoder continued, “I thought it only fair to give you warning, so that you could inform Captain Kelly that she may be scratched tomorrow. And you should also inform your next in line, ah—”
“Captain Severin,” Martinez said.
“Severin? Oh dear.” Orghoder shook his furry head. “Well, I understand he is very promising.”
Martinez eyed Orghoder narrowly. “He is. I would also like a copy of Apogee’s protest. I have friends who are astronomers and mathematicians, and I would like them to review this data.”
Orghoder hesitated. “Ah,” he said. “It would be a shame if this controversy were paraded before people outside our circle.”
I’m already outside your circle, Martinez thought. “If this protest succeeds,” he said, “you’ll have to release the data in any case. There are a dozen or more representatives from sports networks and the sporting press on this ship, and they’ll all want to know why one of the most successful captains was disqualified on the eve of the race.”
“Ah. Yes.” Orghoder licked his fangs. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” He gestured at Lady Ichtha, who sent a copy of the data to Martinez’s hand comm.
“Thank you,” Martinez said. And then he returned to the banquet room to make his grim preparations for the next day’s race.
He had no doubt that Apogee’s protest would be upheld.
His only consolation was that he planned to beat them anyway.
“My lords and ladies,” said Lord Orghoder. “I present today’s challenge course!”
Holographic displays flashed into existence above each of twelve tall, round tables, and a much larger hologram appeared overhead. Martinez looked at the course, then gestured at the image to tilt it at a better angle.
“Interesting,” said Kelly, as she leaned forward with her elbows on the table. She was a long-limbed, black-eyed young woman with a bright, blazing smile. Technically she was Lieutenant Lady Benedicta Kelly, but she disliked her forename and never used it. During the war, she had served as a cadet and pinnace pilot under Martinez. They had even been lovers, for at least an hour, during the breathless escape after Martinez had stolen the frigate Corona during the mutiny at Magaria. The proprieties had been restored shortly thereafter, but Martinez had retained an affection for Kelly that he hoped came across as completely disinterested. Still, when he’d heard that Kelly’s career had stalled due to her single patron having been killed in the war, he’d been pleased to recruit her as one of the Coronas.
She had more than fulfilled his trust, becoming over three seasons the best pilot in the club, and the captain most likely to win this year’s Captains’ Championship, as the pilot with the highest score.
Until, of course, the unfair disqualification, which had been duly reported that morning—the timing perfectly coordinated so Martinez couldn’t make an appeal before the race. Kelly had taken the news philosophically, and Martinez promptly snared her for his support team. For which he felt a pang of guilt, since Severin surely needed the help more than he did.
He cast a glance in Severin’s direction and saw the young officer frowning at his display, while the three members of his support team spoke animatedly around him. Shushanik Severin had done well in the races in which he’d been entered, but as he was also a captain in the Exploration Service, he’d been on active duty for part of the season and missed several races.
Well. Martinez would have to do the job himself, along with Lady Kosch Altasz, Corona’s third pilot in the race. Altasz was a Torminel from a provincial family whose Fleet career had stalled due to lack of influence. She was a ferocious competitor, though, and stood just behind Kelly in Corona’s rankings. Martinez could count on her to help punish the Apogees for their outrageous protest.
He turned his attention back to his own display. The rules allowed him to study the course for exactly one hour, and to plot his track along with the help of three members of his support team. This year’s Challenge Cup race would consist of three complete orbits of Vandrith, with the racers required to pass within range of a host of satellites placed around the gas giant. Each satellite had to be passed at least once. But the path from satellite to satellite was strewn with Vandrith’s twelve moons, which could either be obstacles or provide a gravity assist for acceleration or deceleration. And in order to make the whole business even more challenging, the satellites were programmed to maneuver randomly.
All of which was meant to keep the pilots alert and improvising.
Of course the colossal accelerations and decelerations did the opposite, exhausting the pilots and dulling their minds and reactions. Even the most skilled yachtsman could suffer a blackout or miscalculate a course, and this unpredictability—and inherent danger for the pilot—was why yacht racing had a vast audience throughout the imperium, even among people who had never left the planet of their birth.
He saw that the race would start and end at Vandrith’s twelfth moon, romantically named V12. So long as he tagged every satellite, his precise course was up to him. Mentally he threaded a path through the tangle of satellites—he dared not point, for fear someone on another team would be able to work out his plans.
“Oh look,” said Kelly. Her black eyes were shining. “V3.”
Martinez’s eyes traced a path to the moon.
“Ah,” he said. “I see.”
“Eleven-second warning!”
The call came just as Martinez’s racing boat Laredo flew out of the shadow of the moon and into the light of Shaamah. Ahead the sun winked off the skins of other racing yachts, all in an arc stretching around the moon.
The moon’s bright terminator scrolled beneath Martinez, black on one side, wispy green on the other. Displays flared around him. Calculations sped through his mind.
The twelve racing yachts, three from each club, were in orbit around Vandrith’s twelfth moon. They had been waiting for the eleven-second warning, which was triggered randomly in the Timekeeper’s boat by the unpredictable decay of a minute amount of radium-226 into radon-222. The yachts, which had been spaced evenly in their orbits, were now free to maneuver; but none could actually break orbit until the eleven seconds had expired and the race was officially on its way.
Impatience urged Martinez to add delta-vee, but he knew that he couldn’t just yet—it would risk breaking orbit too early and being forced to return to swing around V12 again.
In the rearward display he saw engine flares. Boats coming up from behind him.
Precious seconds ticked by while his own eagerness warred in his mind with calculation. Then, finally, he felt free to shove the throttle forward with his left hand, and he felt the kick of acceleration as antimatter flared into gamma rays and pi-mesons. The pale green atmosphere of V12 scrolled rapidly under him. He saw engine flares ahead.
A computer could have made the calculation for him, but those sorts of computers were forbidden in this kind of race. He and the other pilots would have to plot their courses on the jump, based on whatever plans they had made during the hour-long view of the course.
A tone sounded in his headphones. “The race is on! No false starts! No foul!” Kelly’s voice was loud in his earphones.
Martinez didn’t answer: his attention was focused on his next target and the acceleration that was dragging against his mind. His suit clamped down on his extremities to keep blood from draining from his brain, and his breath was laboring against the increasing weight that piled on his chest.
Laredo’s course was taking him across the orbits of four of Vandrith’s moons, to V6, a small moon with a meteor-scarred face and no atmosphere to speak of.
“You’re in sixth place,” Kelly informed him. He already knew that. Right in the middle of the pack.
Gravities piled on Martinez like smothering blankets of heavy wool, and his heart boomed in his chest as it fought against increasing acceleration. His breath came in deep grunts forced up from his belly. Three-quarters of the way to V6 he cut the engines and pitched the Laredo over—he panted with relief in the brief moment of weightlessness—then began a deceleration that would send him past the moon and on a steep curve toward his next objective, a satellite placed ahead of V6 in its orbit.
The deep craters of V6 flashed on his displays like yawning mouths reaching to swallow him, his periapsis so close that he was straining one of the very few safety features of the race—computer control of the yacht was forbidden unless the plotted course would result in actual collision with a planet, in which case the computer would take over and swing the yacht wide.
This time the computer did not intervene. Martinez used a reverse gravity assist to aid the braking, his torch burning the entire time, and skipped away from V6 and on toward the satellite, which was already maneuvering. His vision narrowed, turning dark around the edges. He adjusted his course and fought for consciousness.
“You’re overtaking Elmay,” Kelly reported. “Don’t let him burn you.”
Martinez overtook without colliding or bathing Laredo in Elmay’s antimatter tail, and that put him in fifth. The satellite scudded past, but by that point Martinez was already burning for V7, his next target.
“You are in fifth place,” Kelly said. “Lamanai is first. Altasz is in second.”
And Foote is third, Martinez thought. He had some catching up to do.
And so it went for nearly two orbits, gravities piling hard on Martinez’s body and mind as he fought for every objective. In a moment of inattention, Lamanai of the Apogee Club failed to anticipate the maneuvering of a satellite and missed her mark by a hand’s breadth; and though she was still technically ahead of the others, she’d have to detour to tag the satellite again on the final orbit, and that would take her out of the running.
Martinez used a gravity assist from the rocky moon V9 to add a burst of speed and jump one spot ahead. He was on Foote’s tail.
Lady Kosch Altasz, Martinez’s teammate, would inherit first place once Lamanai made her detour on the next orbit. Two other racing boats missed their targets and were out of the running. That left nine in the race.
“Where’s Severin?” Martinez asked.
“I’m . . . not sure,” Kelly said. “He’s in last place . . . I think. His track is wandering all over the place, I can’t work it out. His crew can’t figure out what he’s doing either.”
Martinez didn’t have the luxury of contemplating Severin’s course: he was engaged in a massive deceleration in order to swing around V5. His vision narrowed, and he had the sense that ocean breakers were crashing inside his skull, one thunderous boom after another . . .
The tawny bands of V5 swept past, and there was a moment of blessed weightlessness as he pitched the ship to its new heading. His moment, he thought, had just come.
His left fist slammed the throttle forward, and he dived toward V3. Now he was on the far side of Vandrith from Kelly and his transport ship Corona, and out of direct contact—communication would be routed through a satellite on this side of the gas giant, but it would add a three-second delay each way, and any news Kelly sent him would be out of date by the time it arrived.
The red-and-ochre mass of Vandrith completely filled his vision. Another engine flare burned close, and Martinez saw that it was Foote, aiming for V3 on a slightly different heading. That blond ninny had worked out the same trick Martinez planned to employ—or more probably he’d paid one of his crew to work these things out for him.
Martinez would just have to do the maneuver more precisely than Foote. After which the lead would be his.
Accordingly he maintained his burn for V3 even after he prudently should have rotated his ship and started a deceleration—clenching his teeth, fighting for every breath, his vision narrowed to a mere dot. He waited until he saw Foote cut his own engines, and then he held on for a couple more seconds before he cut power and spun the ship over. Unable to properly read the displays, he performed the maneuver by feel alone and then rammed the throttle forward again.
His vision slowly returned, and he saw Foote’s boat hovering in the display, its engines aimed at him like the barrels of a gun, and then Foote’s antimatter fire lit again, and gamma rays promptly fried every sensor on the forward part of Laredo.
Screens went black.
Martinez himself was safe: Laredo’s crew compartment was surrounded by thick slabs of antiradiation armor. And he could replace the sensors on the fly: yacht designers anticipated these problems. But he wouldn’t replace them for the moment, as any new sensors would be cooked as soon as they were deployed.
Fortunately Martinez didn’t need to look forward: he was flying stern-first, aiming for V3, the blue dot visible against the striped surface of Vandrith. He stared at V3 as his vision faded again, and his right hand on the joystick made minute adjustments to his course. This took him out of Foote’s gamma ray plume just as he jammed the throttle all the way forward and his vision faded completely beneath an avalanche of gees.
There was a crash and Martinez’s helmet snapped back against his headrest. It felt as if someone had just dropped a ton of boulders onto his solar plexus. He tasted blood. His stern sensors showed nothing but a brilliant flash of ions.
Laredo had just encountered the methane-rich blue atmosphere of V3. It wasn’t at a steep enough angle to dive through the methane to an impact with the planet—instead Laredo would skip off the topmost layer of the atmosphere. But contact with the atmosphere would brake the yacht, and also, since Martinez’s direction was opposite to that of the moon’s rotation, he would be slowed by a negative gravity assist.
Leaving a brilliant trail of ionized radiation across the blue surface of V3, Martinez bounced off the moon like a rubber ball, his momentum considerably reduced. That enabled him to safely cut the corner in the race for a satellite placed in the orbit of V7, a target that Altasz and the others were heading for directly, their boats standing on tails of flame as they decelerated the hard way.
In that moment of inspiration while looking at the course, Kelly had found a way for him to leap to the head of the queue.
Foote and his Cockerel, trailing ions, followed Laredo three seconds behind. Martinez cut his engines, replaced his burned sensors, and oriented his boat to nip close to the target satellite and then head on to the next via a slingshot at V8. Then, head swimming, he took a breath and shoved the throttle forward again.
“You’re in the LEAD you’re you’re LEAD LEAD the LEAD!” Laredo had just flown into direct communication with Corona again, and Kelly’s jubilant cry was echoed by the very same transmission chasing Martinez around the back of Vandrith.
Martinez flashed by the satellite a good fifteen seconds ahead of Altasz, but by then he was accelerating again, burning for V8. Foote was still a scant few seconds behind, and Martinez was pleased in the knowledge that this time it was his gamma ray tail that was cooking his rival’s sensors.
They were very near the end of the race. From here it was a straightforward burn to V8, then on to a satellite, then back to V12 and the finish line. Hardly challenging at all, except in terms of how much punishment the pilots could stand. It was no longer a test of maneuver and intelligence, but of stamina, conditioning, and physiology.
And Foote showed every sign of rising to the challenge. His engines burned at maximum thrust, and the gravities were piling on. Martinez matched Foote’s acceleration exactly, knowing that all he had to do was keep his lead, and that Foote’s loss of his forward sensors wasn’t going to help him much.
V8, with its ruddy atmosphere and drifts of carbon dioxide snow, loomed closer. Martinez’s thoughts crawled beneath the gravities weighing them down. He locked his track exactly where he wanted it and watched as blackness invaded his vision.
The encounter with V8 lasted only a few seconds and was in the direction of the moon’s rotation. The slingshot added a burst of acceleration, and Martinez slammed back in his seat and felt darkness smother his mind.
When he woke, he was in a weightless cabin. The throttle had slipped from his unconscious grip and snapped back to the neutral position, shutting off the engine. This new spring-loaded throttle was a reform that had come about as a result of the Blitsharts disaster, when Captain Blitsharts’s dead hand on the throttle kept his boat accelerating into the void for hours.
Martinez slammed the throttle forward again and was promptly punched into his seat. He had to take a few moments to orient himself with regard to his displays, and just as he found the target satellite and corrected his course, Foote’s Cockerel slipped past him.
“You’re in second!” Kelly called. “Damn damn damn!”
Not for long, Martinez thought, and clenched his teeth against gravity. There was no way he would allow one of the Apogees to snatch first place from him, not after their disgusting protest.
He passed out once more on the way to the satellite, but apparently so did Foote, and the relative position remained unchanged. Martinez came so close to the satellite that he almost obliterated it, and now he had V12 in his sights. Foote had taken a slightly different line and was now off Martinez’s bow, antimatter tail brilliant in the night.
This time Foote passed out first, and Martinez passed him in the seconds it took him to recover, only to lose the seconds all over again when it was Martinez’s turn to lose consciousness. And then, as he regained his vision and clenched his teeth in anticipation for the final acceleration, he saw something flash across his displays far ahead of him, something that looked like a star that had broken free and shot like a skyrocket for V12.
“What was that?” he managed, every word a battle against gravity.
Kelly was stunned. “That was—that was Severin. He just won! He’s in first!”
“How?” Martinez demanded.
“I don’t know! I don’t see how it’s possible! The stewards are conferring, but the computer says he won!”
Martinez came in third, with Foote ahead of him literally by a nose.
“What the hell just happened?” Martinez demanded.
Shushanik Severin had spent the first three-quarters of the race tagging satellites on a path uniquely his own, and to all appearances in a very inefficient way. The scoring computer had counted him in last place.
The point of all his wanderings was to end far from Vandrith at V11, from which he turned and then dove at full acceleration for the surface of the gas giant, tagging two of his last three satellites but accelerating almost the entire way. When he hit Vandrith’s atmosphere, he kept his engines lit, and his boat entered at such an angle as to form an aerodynamic projectile, which meant that—instead of braking—he actually gained speed. But more importantly, as he was traveling in the same direction as Vandrith’s rotation, he benefited from a gravity assist, and—as the gas giant exerted enormous gravitational force compared to its moons—the gravity assist was colossal. Severin was fired out of Vandrith’s atmosphere at an enormous velocity, as if from the empire’s most prodigious cannon.
Naturally Severin was rendered unconscious by the acceleration, but he recovered in time to tag the very last satellite on his way to the finish line at V12. He was traveling at such a velocity that it took him four and a half hours to decelerate and return to Corona, by which time the party had already started.
By this time Corona and the other transports were already on their return journey to Zanshaa, traveling at a steady one gravity so that plates would stay on tables and drinks in cups. Pilots, friends, and support crew roistered back and forth between the dinner tables. Vipsania’s camera crews dragged various people off for interviews.
Severin turned up looking a bit dazed. As he had all along, he wore his blue Exploration Service uniform, Martinez suspected because he really couldn’t afford the grand wardrobe displayed by most of the yacht captains present.
To be sure, Martinez hadn’t enjoyed being upstaged by Severin at the climax of the race, but after a few drinks he’d grown philosophical. The Corona Club’s pilots had taken three of the four top places at the finish, and even though Martinez hadn’t personally won the Vandrith Challenge Cup, the object itself would still look very good in the club trophy case for the next six years—for the Vandrith Challenge wasn’t held annually, but only when Vandrith’s orbit took it close enough to Zanshaa to make the trip conveniently short.
And if Martinez couldn’t win himself, he would just as soon the winner be someone he liked.
When Martinez saw Severin enter Corona’s banqueting hall, he rushed to hand him a glass and to shake his hand. Vipsania’s cameras caught everything. Severin’s face—high cheekbones, narrow eyes, straight black hair—shook off its befuddled look as the assembled company began the “Congratulations” round from “Lord Fizz,” and a grin slowly worked its way onto his features.
There followed the formal presentation of the cup by Lord Orghoder. It was a hideous thing, half a man’s height, solid gold, and with reliefs of allegorical figures like the Spirit of Competition, the Wings of Speed, and the Glory of Friendship. Severin offered polite thanks to Lord Orghoder and to his boat’s support staff and was then rushed off to be interviewed by one of Vipsania’s broadcasters.
Martinez sent one of the waitrons to take him some food. The poor man deserved to eat.
Martinez found Lady Fitzpatrick standing next to him. “Is it true,” she said, “that our new champion is a commoner?”
“He is,” Martinez said. “But at least he didn’t file a sneaky little last-second protest.”
Lady Fitzpatrick, the steward of the Apogee Club, gave him an accusing look. “It’s bad enough that you permit a commoner to compete. But to win?”
Martinez fought off an unjustified urge to apologize. “Who am I to refuse the man who shut off a pulsar?”
Lady Fitzpatrick’s eyes narrowed. She looked at the door beyond which Severin had vanished. “He is that gentleman?” she said.
“He is.”
She looked at him. “Clearly an original mind,” she snarled.
Exit, muttering, Martinez thought as she wandered off. Martinez took himself to the punch bowl for a refill, where he encountered Foote, whose fair flushed face suggested he had taken a fair-sized load of alcohol on board.
“I crossed ahead of you by one eight-hundredth of a second,” Foote said. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”
“I’d be happy to,” said Martinez, “so long as I don’t have to sing that damned song again.”
Foote seemed a trifle morose. “Your explorer friend has eclipsed us.”
“You’ll have to settle,” Martinez said, “for the glory of commanding Light Squadron Eight.”
The thought cheered Foote. “And what will you do by way of compensation?” he asked.
Martinez refilled his punch cup. “This,” he said, “for starters.”
He wandered back into the throng and found Severin heading for the buffet, having finally escaped Vipsania’s interviewers. “Thanks for sending dinner after me,” he said.
“How do you feel?” Martinez asked.
Severin’s hands probed his torso. “My ribs aren’t happy,” he said. “I’m trying to walk without bending over. And I’m seeing flashes in both eyes.”
“See the race doctor.”
Severin nodded. “After the puppet show.”
Martinez stared at him. “The puppet show,” he repeated.
“I was scheduled to perform tonight,” Severin said. “I’m just not sure where I fit on the revised schedule.”
Martinez looked at Severin in amazement. Severin—a commoner, promoted for his war service into a milieu to which he could not normally aspire—had found a unique way to enter a society for which he had not been prepared by either birth or training. He had devised a sort of career for himself as an entertainer, a creator of puppet shows for a sophisticated, adult audience. He had become the pet of a number of high-status Peers, mostly women, and performed his entertainments in their parlors, for a choice audience.
What other entertainments might follow, in certain bedrooms, were only rumored.
Whatever they were, his talent as a performer had gained him access to high-ranking society, and in a situation in which all parties could be comfortable. His status as an entertainer had not been the least of Severin’s achievements.
“Tonight,” Martinez said, “you’re the cynosure of all eyes. Your job is just to be at this party and enjoy yourself, and to accept the worship of your genius.”
“Oh? That would be all right, then?” Severin seemed genuinely curious.
“Yes,” Martinez said firmly. “You are completely forgiven.”
A few hours later, Martinez and Vipsania stood on one of the balconies above the dining room and watched their celebration roll on. The weak and faint of heart had long since fled, and the heavy drinkers had settled in for the long haul. A group was clustered in a corner watching a sports feed from Zanshaa, and another group was rewatching the race, stopping the replay every so often for analysis. Music rose from the grand stairway that led down to the ballroom, where a few aerobically fit diehards were still dancing.
No puppet show was in evidence.
Water cascaded from a nearby waterfall—Corona was celebrated for its elaborately engineered water features. The transports belonging to the other yacht clubs were museums of their heritage: their paneled walls displayed portraits or memorabilia of racing pilots who had died centuries ago, and their cabinets displayed trophies that had belonged to the club for millennia.
Martinez had known that Corona couldn’t compete with the others on the grounds of history, and so he had opted for practicality mixed with spectacle. The furniture wasn’t historic, it was merely well-made, comfortable, and stylish. The kitchen produced fine food, the bars fine vintages. The betting parlor featured a tote and the opportunity for interesting side bets. And water flowed in every public room, sometimes inhabited by rare and interesting fish.
Flowing water was a challenge on a ship that was required, on occasion, to experience zero gravity, but complex engineering enabled the ship, on receipt of a zero-gee warning, to rapidly swallow the water into its internal tanks, then regurgitate it when gravity was restored. And in case the system failed, Martinez had tried to waterproof as much of the ship as he could.
At the moment Martinez felt as if he’d been swallowed and regurgitated more than once. His body ached, his bones creaked, and his head felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton rags. He badly wanted everyone to leave so that he could go to bed, but he was the host here, and good form required him to stay with the party till the end.
“How did you do on the tote?” Vipsania asked him. “Did you lose much?”
“I don’t bet the tote,” Martinez said. “I make private bets with people from the other clubs, because nobody from that lot of snobs really wants to bet on the Corona Club, and I can get good odds.”
“So are you up or down?”
“I’m slightly in the black,” Martinez said. “I bet myself to win, and lost there, but I also bet myself to show in the top three, and there I won. I also bet the Coronas to place two pilots in the top three, and I got good odds there. Wish I’d put more money down.”
“Who bet on Severin, I wonder?”
“Whoever they are, they’re very happy.”
There was a moment of silence, filled only by the sound of water falling and some shrieking laughter from one of the partygoers.
“Well,” Vipsania said. “I’m for bed.”
Martinez yawned. “I’m envious.”
Vipsania shrugged without much sympathy and left in the direction of the trunk elevator that would take her to the living quarters. Martinez looked down at the revelers and saw the Vandrith Challenge Cup standing tall and gold on a table, where Severin had left it. Some energetic attendees were trying to fill it with wine so they could use it as a punch bowl.
Well, Martinez thought, maybe I’ll win it in six years.
His eyes turned to the group that was replaying the race. The vast tawny stripes of Vandrith filled the display.
Foote asked if this reminded me of Sula. The phantom thought strayed into his head from he knew not where.
Ridiculous, he thought. I haven’t thought of Sula in ages.
But the pang in his heart told him that his thought was a lie.