Purge. Purge happened. Parliament feared an independent navy, a navy with power over the trade that fed their purses. War would be the perfect time to clean out the Admiralty. If the loss of good sailors cost them a battle, well enough. A few defeats would silence the hawks and keep the navy from winning too much public love.

Falcrest had once, very briefly, possessed an army. It had been disposed of. Field-general was still slang for someone doomed to destruction.

“So.” Maroyad clicked the little guillotine she used to cut her cigarettes off the roll. “The real purpose of your work, Lieutenant Commander, is to find the agents on our side who are working to provoke war. Do you have a lead on any of those agents?

She should speak Baru’s name.

But if she did, Baru would be the next person she had to suasion.

She stood there helplessly, caught between two loyalties.

“Lieutenant Commander,” Maroyad sighed, “you’re such a lousy fucking liar that I can see you planning the lie out before you say it. Give me the name.”

Oh, Baru, please forgive this. Aminata looked at the floor, because if she looked at Maroyad she would see past her, to the sea and the birds, the memory of Baru.

“Abd did mention the former Imperial Accountant of Aurdwynn, Baru Cormorant.”

“Baru? Fuck her!” Maroyad snarled. “She drowned hundreds of Juris Ormsment’s people at Welthony. I saw what that did to Juris. Fuck. Ass fuck.” She kicked the fallen ashtray. It richocheted off her stately display of model ships and landed on the hardwood right at Aminata’s feet.

“Pick that up,” Maroyad ordered, breathing heavily.

“Mam?”

“Pick up the ashtray and hurl it, Lieutenant Commander.”

“Mam, I’m not sure that’s decorum—”

“Don’t you see?” Maroyad snapped. “Parliament wants to carve up Oriati Mbo into little colonies and suck them dry. If they get their way, you’re going to spend the whole war interrogating prisoners. You’ll die with your head full of screaming faces.”

Aminata stood there as the implications boxed her on the ears. She wasn’t going to get a ship, was she? No matter what happened, they would say, oh, Aminata isiSegu, she has excelled at extracting vital intelligence from her racemates.

Keep her on as a suasion expert. Forever.

She picked up the clamshell ashtray and hurled it overhand into the wall. “FUCK!” she roared as the clamshell shattered. “FUUUUUCK!”

“That’s the spirit.” Maroyad collapsed into her chair. “Now I have a mission for you, Lieutenant Commander. A very sensitive, very secret mission.”

“Anything,” Aminata panted, and regretted it at once.

“Take Captain Nullsin’s Ascentatic. Find Baru Cormorant. Learn who she’s working with—every last name. Bring her back here if you can.

“And if you can’t, remove her from play.”

4. Neath the Dead Dog’s Tongue

4

NEATH THE DEAD DOG’S TONGUE