Read Online The Sundering by Walter Jon Williams - Free Book Online Page A

cadets. Dalkeith censored the two lieutenants junior to her, and Martinez was left free of all responsibility but that of reviewing her messages only—a light task, as they consisted entirely of dull but heartfelt greetings to her family back on Zarafan.
    “Yes?” Martinez prompted. “Is there a problem?”
    “Not a problem, exactly.” Dalkeith lips twisted, as if searching for an entry point to this subject. “You know Vonderheydte has a lady friend on Zanshaa. Her name is Lady Mary.”
    “Is it? I didn’t know.” He rather doubted that the lady’s name was of any great relevance.
    “Vonderheydte and Lady Mary exchange videos, and the videos are of a…” She hesitated. “…highly libidinous nature. They exchange fantasies and, ah, attempt to enact them for the camera.”
    Martinez reached for his coffee. “You haven’t encountered this before?” he said. “I’m surprised.” When he was a fresh young cadet aboard ship for the first time, he had been deeply shocked by both the ingenuity and depravity of the holejumpers whose messages he’d been called on to review. By the end of the second month of this involuntary course in human nature, he’d become a cynical, hard-boiled tough, a walking encyclopedia of degeneracy, incapable of being surprised by any iniquity, no matter how appalling.
    “It’s not that,” Dalkeith said. “I just wonder at the persistence. They spend hours at it, and it’s all very elaborate and imaginative. I don’t know where Vonderheydte gets the energy, considering we’re under acceleration.” Her troubled eyes gazed into his. “There’s a relentless quality to it that seems unhealthy to me. You don’t suppose he’s doing himself actual physical harm, do you?”
    Martinez put down his coffee cup and paged through the mental encyclopedia of depravity he’d acquired as a cadet. “He’s not getting involved in, ah, asphyxiation?”
    Dalkeith shook her head.
    “Or use of ligatures? Around, say, vital parts?”
    Dalkeith seemed dubious. “Depends on how vital you consider hands and feet. Well, one hand actually.” She looked at him. “Would you like to see the next set of outgoing messages?”
    Martinez explained to his senior lieutenant that, however much she failed to enjoy watching a young man engage in acts of self-stimulation, he would enjoy it even less.
    “I don’t care what he’s doing so long as it’s on his own time, and so long as he remains undamaged,” Martinez said. And then he added, “You can fast-forward through it, you know. I very much doubt Vonderheydte is giving away state secrets during these interludes. Or you can have the computer make a transcript and review that.”
    Dalkeith sighed. “Very well, my lord.”
    Cheer up, he thought, the reading might be more fun than the watching. All fantasy, without the reality of Vonderheydte’s contortions.
    After that conversation, the rest of ship’s business had seemed very dull.
    A chime on the comm interrupted Martinez’s remembrance. He answered, and heard Vonderheydte’s voice through his earphones.
    “Personal transmission from the squadcom, my lord.”
    Since the revelations of the previous morning, Martinez had found that Vonderheydte’s voice, even carrying a perfectly innocent message, seemed filled with libidinous suggestion. The dread scepter of the squadcom that hovered over his head, however, drove all suggestive notions out of Martinez’s head. His imagination flashed ahead to a rebuke, as Corona had once again fumbled in the morning’s maneuver.
    “I’ll accept.” And as Do-faq’s head blossomed on the display, he said, “This is Captain Martinez, my lord.”
    Peg teeth clacked in Do-faq’s muzzle. “I have received an order from the Commandery, lord captain. Your squadron is to increase acceleration, part company from the heavy squadron, enter the Hone-bar system ahead of us, and return to Zanshaa at the fastest possible speed.”
    “Very good, my lord.” In truth,