Adding them was mostly a political decision. Woetjans wouldn’t care one way or the other: she was by no means stupid, but she regarded planning as something her betters—better born, better educated—did. Unless the plans involved clearing top-hamper after something disastrous happened to the rig, of course; or hand-to-hand fighting. You couldn’t find a better choice for clearing a path through a mob than Woetjans with a length of high-pressure tubing. Lieutenant Vesey, a slim, blond woman, was a more complex subject. She had come to the Princess Cecile as a midshipman on Daniel’s first voyage after the Navy Board confirmed his lieutenancy. From the beginning she had been an excellent by-the-book astrogator, and she had absorbed Daniel’s training—passed on from Uncle Stacy—in the art of the Matrix as no one he had met before or since. In all technical respects, Vesey was as fine an officer as one could ask for, and of course she didn’t lack courage. Daniel didn’t recall ever meeting an RCN officer whom he thought was a coward, though there had been no few whom he doubted could consistently put their shoes on the correct feet.
