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same reason you aren’t sleeping, my Lord,” he replied. “There is plenty to go around, I fear. Thank you for coming to speak to the lads.”
    “It’s good they know what they’re fighting for here, Captain. Shall I?”
    O’Brian nodded, and Weatherby turned in the cramped cabin to address the wide-eyed youngsters present, thinking much the same as O’Brian with regards to their youthfulness. Those eager eyes, those unblemished faces…it was a sin to think how quickly they would be replaced by glassy dullness and hard lines. And Weatherby felt acutely that his own appearance would be an object lesson on the results of a life in service. His hair was grayed, his face lined with worry and wind, the two-inch scar on his cheek, gained ‘round Mars some thirty years past, a white ghostly line on leathery skin. Yet he could stand tall, walk briskly and hold fast, and his voice could still raise an entire ship to action with one bellow. He might have looked worried—and he was, for England was on the very brink of war—but he was, by no means, ready to bend.
    “Gentlemen,” O’Brian said, quieting the room immediately. “May I present Thomas, Baron Weatherby, Vice-Admiral of the White, Knight of the Bath, and commander of all Sunward forces of His Majesty’s Navy.”
    Weatherby shot O’Brian a look for that overly formal introduction, though he knew that listing his various titles and honors might lend additional weight to his words. Still, it seemed that if those in this cabin needed the additional weighting, there was little Weatherby could say that would move them from whatever strange mind-set they possessed.
    “Officers of HMS Thunderer ,” Weatherby began. “I should like to come to know each of you as well as I know your captain here, but I fear time and tide shall not allow it in these dark days. But I tell you this: You have in command of your ship one of the finest men with whom I have ever sailed sea and Void. I trust him with my very life. Follow his commands in both spirit and letter, and you will find naught but success, I promise you.
    “Now, your captain asked me to address you briefly, for many of you have had little word of England, or how our war fares with the damnable French. I should wish to report better news than I have…Napoleon has control of much of the Continent, and has recently taken Spain almost entirely unopposed.
    “I am happy to report that Wellesley and the army are holding fast to Yorkshire, and have even begun an effort to take Derbyshire and advance into northern Nottinghamshire. The French have sent reinforcements, of course, and the battles are hard fought. Their invasion force has dwindled—due in large part to the limited life-spans of their revenant soldiers. Apparently, these abominations can only be animated for three or four years before finally collapsing, allowing their poor souls at last the rest God intended. And with the rest of the Continent pacified, Napoleon’s alchemists have a lack of new…material…from which to create new troops.
    “Meanwhile, the victory at Trafalgar—may God rest Nelson’s soul!—has allowed our fleet to continue dominance of both sea and Void. We have kept the plague that is Napoleon’s army from spreading beyond the Continent. Elizabeth Mercuris is absolutely critical to this effort.”
    There was a whispering and a few chuckles from a corner of the room that caught Weatherby’s ear, and he spied a sandy-haired young lieutenant smiling from that direction. “You there,” Weatherby said, pointing. “Repeat what was just said, if you please.”
    At this the young man’s grin turned into a visage of abject panic, but he immediately stood ramrod straight and spoke clearly. “An opinion was stated, my Lord Admiral, as to the critical nature of Elizabeth Mercuris as anything other than…a whorehouse.”
    Weatherby could not help but smile slightly, as there were indeed several such establishments within the outpost.