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Americans had too. But neither rival had the food for their guns for a sea war, or any other war, against the British Empire.
    If Duke Malcolm had his way, they never would. This bungler would learn the hard way, that the navy, too, took orders from Duke Malcolm. And the navy saw that they were carried out. “Your ship was not on station, Commodore. You had your orders.”
    â€œWe were waiting on the tide, Your Grace,” said the commodore,stiffly. “We'd been told that the attack was scheduled for one hundred hours.…”
    â€œOr on the receipt of our signal,” interrupted Duke Malcolm. “Our informer let us know that submarine was due to depart earlier than scheduled. We needed you there and ready. Not three miles from where you were supposed to be.”
    The duke signed the order he had prepared. Folded it. Handed it to the naval officer. “Take that to Admiral Von Stael. You are dismissed.”
    The commodore opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind, saluted, and left.
    Duke Malcolm wondered how far down the hall he would get before looking at the order for his own court-martial.
    He tapped the brass communicator button set into the leather of his desktop.
    â€œYour Grace,” his secretary's tinny voice issued from the instrument's speaker. “Shall I send in the man from the Royal Academy of Sciences?”
    â€œIndeed, Miss Farthing,” said the duke. “I am waiting for him.” He put another of his long black Turkish cigarettes into the cigarette holder and lit it with his desk lighter, which was amusingly crafted like a cannon. He inhaled the aromatic smoke and waited.
    Professor Browne was rather different from the naval officer. For a start he was clever enough to be afraid, and to show it. And secondly, he actually did not need to be. He was a moderately competent scientist, according to the dossier, and he played the game of politics very well. That was unusual in a scientist.
    He was sweating copiously, and it was not a warm day. “Sit down, Professor,” said the duke with far more affability than he'd shown the Royal Navy officer. “Now, tell me, what do you have for Imperial Security about this Calland woman? So far we've only been responding to the Russians trying to remove her. The affair involves, plainly, science. Presumably something she knows about, thatcannot merely be duplicated from a formula. What is it, Professor? If we know the answer to that, perhaps we can step ahead.”
    The scientist rubbed his forehead with a large brightly coloured handkerchief. “It's difficult to guess just what she has discovered, Your Grace. It must, as you say, be something complex, that she has a grasp of, which makes it more difficult to guess, as her specialty was apparently synthetic dyes. But by researching the two Russian scientists she's been in correspondence with, we think it may possibly be an alternative to the Birkeland-Eyde process.”
    â€œEnlighten me, Professor Browne,” said the duke, sitting back and drawing deeply on the ivory mouthpiece of his cigarette holder, preparing to try to understand whatever scientific jargon the fellow came up with. Both the Russians, and now the Underpeople, the water rats that lived beneath London, had gone to great lengths for this Dr. Calland. She must know something very valuable, for the risks and effort and resources given to transporting her. Not just a new shade of maroon for King Ernest's pantaloons.
    It was easier to understand than he thought it was going to be.
    â€œIt is the process by which we make nitric acid,” explained the professor. “It's the feedstock for synthetic fertilizers and some explosives. As an alternative to naturally occurring nitrates like Chile saltpetre.”
    Now, a little too late, it all began to make sense, especially considering the slow bubbling war with Chile and Peru. No wonder the Russians wanted her! No wonder the Underpeople had