"No," Mari said. "There is some big part that detaches and can land here while the rest, including their main engines, stays above the world. Your Uncle Calu explained about the relative thing, right?"
"Yes," Kira said. "Relativity. Even though it took the ship ten years to get here, time passed at a different rate inside the ship because of the way it was traveling, so to them it only felt like a couple of months."
The coach came to a halt, the cavalry riding onward to join the nearby honor guard. Kira followed her mother and father out, to find Sien waiting for them.
Queen Sien of Tiae wore a uniform similar to that of her cavalry, sword by her side, but with a single bright emerald in a gold band on her brow instead of an armored helm. Kira stood by, feeling worried and unnecessary, while Sien greeted her old friends and allies.
"And you, Kira," Sien said, coming over to surprise Kira with a hug. "You look so much like your mother the first time I saw her."
Kira tried to smile politely and hide her frustration at the comparison. "Good morning, your majesty."
"So formal!" Sien said, then looked closely at Kira. "They told you?"
"Yes," Kira said, not surprised that Sien had been informed of her father's foresight, but also annoyed that yet one more person beside herself had been told.
"Good. If you need something and can't get to your parents, Tiae is at your side," Sien said.
Kira blinked in amazement. The Queen of Tiae had just promised her full backing. To her? "I…I promise I will not ask for that without the best reasons," Kira faltered. She looked around, trying to think of anything else to say. There were other groups of dignitaries nearby, leading figures from the various countries and independent cities, including a cluster in the unmistakable fine suits and uniforms of the Empire that ruled the eastern portion of the world. "Is that Camber?" Kira asked, startled.
"Yes," Sien said. "The Emperor's closest advisor. Only something like this could have brought him to Tiae. The Imperials are not happy that the Urth ship is landing here rather than in Imperial territory."
"The Imperials don't have the daughterness living there," Master Mechanic Alli remarked as she came up, grinning.
Kira caught the annoyed look from her mother and had to suppress a smile. "Hi, Aunt Alli. You know Mother doesn't like you calling her that."
"That's why I do it, to keep her head on straight when so many other people are telling her how great she is." Alli studied Kira. "How are you doing?"
"All right. Are you going to come by the place? There's a tree stump that needs blowing up. I could set the charge and do it myself, but it's more fun with you."
"Mari raised you right," Alli said. "Of course, I'm the one who taught you how to blow up stuff."
"And how to shoot," Kira said, grateful for the distraction from her thoughts about what might happen with the ship from Earth. "Will I ever get to fire a dragon killer?"
"Maybe the next time you're up in Danalee. Hey, Calu," Alli called to her husband. "Come say hi to Kira and these other important people."
All too soon, Mari and Alain beckoned to Kira. "We have to make some more courtesy calls," her mother said.
Kira balked when she saw where they were heading. "Do I have to meet the Imperials? You know they're going to want to talk about that again."
"Surely today they wouldn't—" Her mother made a face. "Who am I kidding? Since your first birthday they've been trying to get us to betroth you to a prince in the Imperial household. Of course they'll bring it up. Your Aunt Bev is over there. Why don't you go talk to her?"
"Thanks." Kira left her parents and walked quickly over to where Mechanic Bev was standing alone, as she often was, watching everyone else.
Bev smiled when Kira came up. "Hi, my favorite crazy honorary daughter. Not eager to talk to the Imperials today?"
"Was it that obvious?" Kira asked. "I've heard all about how advantageous it would be for me to become engaged to a prince of the Imperial court so that East and West could be bound together by ties of family and blood and blah, blah, blah. I know Mother and Father have never encouraged them to think I'd agree to be traded like some prize horse, but it's still so creepy."
"You'd probably work your way up to Empress," Bev observed with a wink.
"Yeah. Sure. Don't want."
"What's got you so tense?"
Kira bit her lip, looking around. "Something is supposed to happen."
"Foresight?" Bev's posture shifted, ready to protect Kira. "Some danger to you?"
"We don't know. But some Mages have been getting worrisome visions about the ship from Urth. Bev, a long time ago you told me there are no secrets between us. You didn't know about Father's vision before I was born? That something would happen involving me and Urth?"
"No. And right now I'm a little upset about that!"
Kira smiled with relief. "Ever since I was little you've been a bodyguard, and my self-defense teacher, and the sort of friend I couldn't find elsewhere because of being my mother's daughter. I would have hated it if you'd known and not told me."
"If I'd known," Bev said, a stormy look appearing on her face, "you wouldn't be within a million lances of this place."
That was why her parents hadn't told Bev, Kira realized. Bev had devoted her life to protecting kids from the sort of things that had been done to Bev when she was young, and she wouldn't have agreed with Kira running unknown risks. "Mother and Father will be keeping an eye on me."
"Just don't forget everything you've learned," Bev said, her gaze on Kira growing sharp. "Mages have had visions? What about you?"
"Me?" Kira asked, pretending that she didn't understand the question.
"Don't play dumb with me, girl. I'm one of the few who know you have minor Mage talents, remember?"
"I haven't—" Kira hesitated, uncomfortable. "I've never experienced foresight," she mumbled. "Why did this happen to me?"
"Everyone who knows would like the answer to that," Bev said, her eyes concerned. "Mage talents require seeing the world in a totally different way than Mechanics do. Not even traces of Mage talent should be possible alongside Mechanic skills. You having both is inexplicable and…"
"Scary," Kira finished. "One more example of me being a freak."
"You're not a freak."
"Then why are Mother and Father being so different the last few years? I can't explain it, but I can feel it. The way they look at me sometimes these days. It's like they think I'm a bomb that could explode at any time."
"I imagine most parents of teenage girls feel that way," Bev commented.
"Bev, I'm not her. I'm never going to change the world."
Bev sighed. "Everybody knows you're not Mari."
"No, I'm not!" Kira looked down at the grass, misery rising in her. "I'm sixteen. When my mother was sixteen she qualified as a full Mechanic. Youngest person ever. And when she was eighteen she qualified as a Master Mechanic. Youngest person ever. You know what everyone is already thinking. Every time they look at me and see her they think it. Soon they're going to start saying it. Asking me when I'm going to slay some dragons and raise an army and free the world like she did! Asking me what I'm going to do with my life that could match that!"
Bev looked down as well, grimacing. "You know that your mother and father never thought of themselves as heroes. Still don't. Your mother doesn't spend time remembering doing great things. She remembers her mistakes and the people who got hurt. The last thing she wants is for you to experience anything like that."
"I wouldn't know," Kira said, hearing the resentment in her voice. "She never talks about that stuff with me."
Bev's sigh carried a lot of weight. "Kira, it's hard to explain. There are some things that are very hard to talk about, even a long time later. Your mother still has nightmares."
"Yeah," Kira said, upset with herself. "I hear her sometimes at night. That's one of my earliest memories, waking up, hearing my mother crying out and wanting to help."
"I'm sorry. Being in
battles, having lots of people trying to kill you, seeing people die, that stuff doesn't just go away." Bev tapped her head. "It stays there, and sometimes it feels like it all just happened. Trust me on this. Your mother wants to tell you how it was. She can't. And she knows how being her daughter has made your life hard. She was really upset when we had to put you into private teaching when you were ten, but after we stopped that plot to blow up the school to get at you in order to hurt Mari, it was just too dangerous for the other kids to keep you there."
Kira nodded, catching a glimpse of new arrivals. "There's Mage Asha and Mechanic Dav."
Bev looked that way and waved. Asha, still dazzlingly beautiful, gave them a smile while Dav, leaning on his cane as he walked stiffly, waved back with his free hand.
"Aunt Bev?" Kira asked. "Why does my mother blame herself for Uncle Dav's limp? I've asked and all Mother will say is it was her fault."
Bev sighed again. "She thinks she's responsible. His pelvis couldn't heal right after he took an Imperial crossbow bolt in the hip. She and Dav were fighting legionaries on the deck of the Terror. They got the deck cleared, but he got hit, and your mother got him down below even though she had been hit, too."
"Mother?" Kira switched her gaze back to the figures of her parents where they were talking with the Imperial delegation. "Wounded? You're not talking about when she got shot at Dorcastle?"
"No, this was months before that. She got hit in the arm."
Kira covered her face with one hand. "That big scar. I saw it when I was little and I asked what it was and Mother said she'd gotten hurt once, like it was no big deal. Ever since then I've thought some piece of Mechanic equipment clipped her in an accident."
"What would you have wanted her to tell her little girl? That most of an Imperial legion had been trying to kill her and didn't quite succeed?"
"I'm not a little girl anymore."
"No," Bev agreed. "You're not. I'll talk to Mari. She needs to try to tell you a few things. I think that will help her as well as you. Look, whatever this thing with Urth turns out to be, you've got a lot of good women and men at your back." She looked around. "It's almost time. You'd better get with Mari and Alain. And tell them we're going to have words about that foresight I wasn't told about."
Kira hastened to rejoin her parents, once more feeling out of place as she stood by them. The small groups of dignitaries were forming into a row, each beside the others, Lady Mari and Master of Mages Alain making up their own separate group between Queen Sien on one side and the Imperials on the other.
People everywhere were gazing at the sky. Shouts erupted as a bright spot appeared, becoming a silvery object that seemed to be plummeting toward them and growing rapidly in size as it came nearer. Kira felt a surge of anxiety that it would hit them and turned to look at her mother.
Mari had a disdainful look as she gazed upward. "They're trying to throw us off balance, like one of those riders who charges up to you and swerves their horse aside at the last moment to make you flinch."
The ship, or the part of the ship that was landing, was shaped like a flattened sphere, the height of a three-story building and perhaps twice as wide, an eerily beautiful iridescent sheen playing over the silvery exterior. There was no external sign of whatever propelled it and allowed it to fly. It came to rest on the grass not more than twenty lances away from where Kira stood with her parents. She saw the ground beneath the ship compressing from its weight, forming a shallow bowl that held the craft steady.
Kira felt as if the entire world was holding its breath, waiting for something extraordinary, torn between hope and fear.
After a long pause, an opening the size of a large door suddenly appeared in the side of the ship near the ground. A ramp extended downward, and a figure came down the ramp.
Kira hadn't really known what to expect. But she had definitely not anticipated seeing a tall, thin woman in a black pantsuit. Something about her felt strangely uncomfortable to Kira, a sense that the legs were too long, the feet too small, the breasts too large, the face too finely chiseled. The woman stopped at the foot of the ramp, looking over the waiting people, then began walking straight toward Kira's parents. Kira felt her inner tension rise with every step the woman took toward them. The background noise from the crowd had vanished, everyone silent as they watched, the only sounds the faint sighing of the wind and a snort from one of the cavalry horses.
The woman stopped less than a lance length away. "You are Master Mechanic Mari? Good. The low-res faxes through your Feynman Unit didn't offer enough detail. But you're exotic. That's very good."
Kira saw her mother blink in surprise at the odd greeting. "I am Master Mechanic Mari. This is my promised husband, Master of Mages Alain, and our daughter Kira. You are…?"
"Oh. Talese Groveen, Senior Executive Vice President for Research and Development at Universal Life Systems."
"Universal Life Systems? That is part of the government on Earth?"
"No, no! ULS is the largest corporation in the Solar System. Now, since you run things here—"
"I am not in control of this world," Mari interrupted. "I only help resolve conflicts. These are the leaders of the governments on Dematr," she added, gesturing to either side of her. "Queen Sien of Tiae, whose land is where we are now. Camber, representing the Emperor who rules the Empire in the east. President Julan of the Bakre Confederation—"
"Yes," Talese Groveen said with a quick flash of a smile that Kira thought remarkably bright and insincere looking. "There will be plenty of time for introductions. I have people who will conduct interviews and collect information. Now, this Alain, your husband. He can perform actual magic? And your offspring? Does she have that gift as well?"
Kira stared at the woman, her tension momentarily forgotten in astonishment at the Urth woman's rudeness. She remembered what her mother had told her about the Senior Mechanics who had ruled their Guild and the world with iron fists. This woman from Urth seemed to share that level of self-assured arrogance.
Now the woman wasn't even looking at anyone, just gazing intently at a spot in space just before her face, her fingers held at waist height and moving slightly as if manipulating something unseen. "Do you mind if I do some scans?"
Kira's mother frowned. "I'd rather not agree to anything until I know what it involves."
"Oh, it's nothing. It would save time if we can get this done right away."
"Not now," Mari said, her voice taking on that steely quality that Kira knew from experience meant trouble.
Apparently that penetrated the woman's self-absorption. Looking annoyed, she said something inaudible to the air in front of her face, and a moment later other men and women came out of the ship.
Kira watched them approach, getting the same uneasy sense that they weren't put together quite right. Certain qualities of their bodies seemed to have been emphasized oddly while other features were lessened. Even worse, there was a disquieting sameness about many of them. Kira realized that those who looked to be about the same age all bore very similar physical characteristics.
Except for one—a teenage boy who looked haphazardly natural, right down to the sullen scowl with which he regarded the world of Dematr and every person in sight.
Like the first woman, most of those from the ship appeared to have their attention focused on something invisible just in front of their noses, their hands and fingers moving slightly at waist height. Kira tried not to stare as she wondered why someone visiting a new world for the first time would not look around at it.
"These are my people," Talese Groveen announced. "They'll begin their interviews while I continue to speak with you, um, Lady Mari, and your husband. Oh, your daughter. Jason!" The name came out like the crack of a whip.
The teenage boy shambled up to them, looking as if he was being dragged into a room full of torture devices. "Yeah?"
"This is my child, Jason," the woman said, flashing that meaningless smile again. "Perhaps your child could entertain him fo
r a few moments while we adults discuss important matters?"
Kira, already wondering at the restraint of the dignitaries around her, felt herself go into a slow burn at being dismissed as a child. At the moment she would have much preferred discussing marriage prospects with the Imperials to "entertaining" that boy. She looked at her mother, who returned a meaningful glance. Kira sent back a look of reluctant agreement paired with an implied expectation of reward for her sacrifice. "Certainly," Kira said in a bright, cheerful voice. "My name is Kira of Pacta Servanda."
Jason turned his sullenness her way, shifting to surprise and nervousness as he looked at Kira. "Uh, hi."
"Hi." Kira smiled politely at him and began walking off at an angle, moving slowly enough for Jason to catch up. Surely this wasn't what her father's vision had been about? That she would need to be here to keep a sullen boy occupied?
The boy from Urth stared around and at the ground as if he couldn't quite take in everything. Kira warmed to him slightly because his reactions seemed so natural. "Can we go that way?" Jason asked, pointing to an open area away from the ship.
"Sure." They walked off through the grass, staying away from where the crowds some distance off were held back by a double row of soldiers. Kira felt self-conscious again, knowing how many of those people must be staring at her as she and the boy walked their way. Grateful to be away from the odd woman from Urth, she also felt isolated from her parents and their friends. The bulk of the pistol under her coat did little for her peace of mind. Aunt Alli always insisted that weapons should be used only when absolutely necessary. This boy didn't walk with the assured movements of someone with much martial-arts training, so Kira had no doubt that she could take out Jason with her bare hands if need be. But what good would her pistol do against that ship from Urth?
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