Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Citizen Captain? May I come in?"

Theisman had finally stopped looking over his shoulder when addressed with that title. Now he looked up alertly at the man standing in the doorway.

"Of course," he said. What else could he do? He wasn't sure if his new commissioner was simply ignorant of naval protocol, or deliberately chose to flout it. The previous one had at least understood that it wasn't done to disturb the captain in his cabin without a serious reason. But this commissioner was made from a very different mould from Jennifer Runi. Runi had been a newly-risen Dolist, and in theory Theisman's equally deprived background should have made them in sympathy, but in practice she had enjoyed wielding power far too much to consider whether the people she had jumping through her hoops were human beings. Theisman had been relieved when urgent family matters called her back to Haven, confident that nobody who replaced her could possibly be worse, but that was before he realised how aggravating Denis LePic could be.

Theisman set the book-viewer aside, and LePic glanced at it with the insistent curiosity that was already driving half his officers crazy. Damn it, does the man have to monitor what I do to relax?

"Athens in the Stars?" LePic said, scanning the title. "I've read that."

It was a famous historical novel about the glory days of Haven, back four centuries ago when Haven's great culture had dominated the quadrant as a beacon of learning and civilisation. Theisman choked back a twinge of anxiety that his reading matter would condemn him for being inadequately revolutionary. But LePic merely sat down opposite him and said, "I liked the character of Luc. It's hard to imagine a man like him really existing, though, who would give away power once he obtained it, even at his own cost."

"I would have thought Simone would appeal to you," Theisman said, slightly tart. Simone was a semi-tragic figure whose zeal in routing out enemies of the Constitution ultimately led to her own destruction.

But LePic merely laughed. "Touché," he said. "A cautionary tale for StateSec, no doubt. Is that why you're reading it?"

Theisman raised an eyebrow. "It's an old favourite of mine. I read it before StateSec had even been conceived."

"Really?" LePic said. "It's what prompted me to study a bit of history before I wound up with law."

"You're--you were a lawyer?" Theisman said.

"I studied law, yes. Academically." A strange expression flickered over his face, half-timid, half-defiant, quickly masked by his usual calm. "I had a scholarship at the Lycée. But no patron. When Pierre pulled off his coup I finally found people who would take me seriously."

"I came up through the ranks," Theisman found himself saying in response to this unexpected confidence. He suddenly felt the same sense of strange kinship he sometimes felt in combat, when he was certain what his opponent was thinking and knew that although they were trying to kill each other, they were alike.

LePic nodded, then turned his inquisitive gaze to the rest of Theisman's cabin, but this time, Theisman found it bothered him a little less.