She squirmed under the weight of the recollections, trying to sort meaning out of glances and gestures, tone and inflection: the way a finger curved with a thought, or a breath was held for a moment, or the way an eye narrowed and lips parted in the instant before speech. Yet the meanings were confused, unintelligible, and at last she ran her hands down her face, yawning and shaking her head as though to shake loose of a spell.
Huron glanced over as she scrubbed her eyes with one hand. “How are you doing?”
“Fine.” She stretched in the straps, looking forward as Nedaema’s primary again jerked free of the limb to trace its brilliant arc overhead, and asked a question that had been in her mind at the dinner but was now back and curiously insistent. “Huron, you knew Mariwen before, didn’t you?”
“Oh, so we’re asking personal questions now, are we?”
“Sorry,” she muttered, suddenly defensive. It was hard to make out his expression in the dim glow of the cockpit lights but then he chuckled. “No—I’m sorry. I was teasing you. Yes, I did know her. It was years ago. We were at college together.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Only for a year. University of California.”
“She said you were from Michigan,”
“I am.” He turned toward her and she could his smile. “But the Naval Advanced Warfare College is in California. It shares the UC campus so when I was there in the InfoOps program, I also took year at UC to finish up another degree.”
“What degree?”
“Ancient history. With a minor in oenology.”
“Eeni what?”
“Wine. And wine making.”
“Oh.”
“Part of the family business. My great grandfather bought the all vineyards in the Napa Valley, Sonoma and the Willamette Valley; most of those in Bordeaux, some in Burgundy and Spain and a few in Australia.” He glanced over, noted her total lack of comprehension. “He liked wine a lot.”
“Oh.”
“So what were you asking about Mariwen?”
Kris twisted her hands in her lap, flustered. “I just wondered how she knew you. She didn’t mention your being in school together.”
Huron gave a little half-snort. “Maybe it wasn’t that memorable.”
Kris did not know precisely what he meant by that but her instinct said not to pursue it. “You took classes together?”
“A few—I was at the grad school and she was still an undergrad.” She heard him pause, considering. “She majored in biology . . . or—no, I think it was biophysics. Got her graduate degree after I left. Did her thesis on modes of avian communication. Ravens mostly.”
“Ravens? You mean, like—birds?” Kris had grown up with a few chickens and for awhile they’d had a flock of big gray flightless geese. She was pretty sure she’d seen vids of ravens.
“Yeah. Birds. She speaks raven—pretty fluently too.” Huron looked over at her with an ambiguous smile but Kris, frowning at her lap, did not see it. “Didn’t she tell you that?”
“No, she didn’t mention it.” That unsettled her. “Was she different then?”
“Well, until this trip, I hadn’t seen her in years. But no, I wouldn’t say she was different, really. She’s amped it up, of course. She had just gotten into modeling then. Did a lot of nude work, as I recall.” Kris remembered the old flat-photo she signed for the crewman.
“Oh . . .” Then: “Did you like her?”
The question seemed to particularly amuse him. “Do you mean did I like her or did I like her?”
Kris felt her cheeks warm with a blush. When she said nothing further, Huron went on: “We are talking about the Mariwen Rathor here, Kris. She’s not the most imaged woman from here to the Horsehead for no reason.” He was silent a moment and she got the impression he was privately chuckling. “Yeah, I liked her and I like her too. Whatever you may hear, she’s a good person.”
“What would I hear?”
“Not easy to get a handle on—harder to keep a hold of. A bit ephemeral, some might say. And maybe . . .”
“Maybe what?”
Huron seemed to be reconsidering what he’d been about to say, and she thought he might not finish, but after a few beats he went on. “Mariwen’s in a cut-throat profession and she hasn’t just succeeded in it—she got to the very top, very quickly. And she’s stayed there, which is much harder. No one succeeds like that and keeps their position as long she has by letting things—or people—get in her way.”
“Okay.” Kris took out the thin plastic card—she assumed it was plastic anyway—that Mariwen had pressed in her hand as she left and cupped it in her palm. Mariwen had given it to her with a confidential smile and said, “Here’s my card. Call me—promise?” in a low voice and Kris had promised. It was about seven centimeters by five and featureless except for a small holographic image of a smiling Mariwen is one corner. She had handled it some that night but it didn’t do much; icons appeared but they were all gray or red. It didn’t seem to be activated and that was all Kris knew about it. Then she noticed Huron glancing down at it. He was smiling—a smile with a good deal of smirk in it.
“What?”
“You have a calling card.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think it means somebody likes you.”
She scowled at him. “I meant what does it do.”
“It’s a dedicated personal line.” He looked back at the forward screen as Nedaema’s primary went out of view to their left.
“Is this like a cel?”
“Sort of, but it works on a different principle. With a cel—or even a xel—you never know what you’re talking to. It could be a person, a chat bot—lots of things. With a calling card, you know you are talking to the person—it won’t work for anyone but the person it’s keyed to and it’s impossible to program it to accept a bot or connect it with a cloud or a hive. A calling card will only call another calling card and they all have a secure mode.”
“How’s it work?”
“No one actually knows. Something about quantum entanglement. It’s organic, not electronic. You clone them.”
“Weird.” She regarded the card dubiously. “Does that mean I have to feed it or something?”
Huron laughed—he had a very nice laugh. “Not usually. They’re good for a long time but if one ever gets feeble, just pop it in the microwave for about thirty seconds. That’ll perk it right up. Don’t leave it in there too long, unless you want to make more.”
“Weird,” Kris repeated.
“I’ll fix you up with one when we get downside. It’s a good thing to have.” He reached into the pocket of his uniform jacket and pulled one out. “By the way, here’s mine.”
“Does this mean you like me?” she asked as she took it, deliberately snide.
Huron laughed again. “Boy, is that a loaded question. Let’s just say I’ve taken an interest.”
“Thanks.” She slipped the card into her pocket with Mariwen’s and turned her head to hide the ghost of a smile.
Minutes later, Huron had asked, “You ready for the fun part?” and when Kris nodded and gave him a thumbs-up, he tapped the console, took the stick, and fired the retros. The console chimed and they dropped at a moderate 3.6 gees. Reentry was not as rough as she expected: the noise was the same—the howling rush of superheated air as they burned their way downwards—but the pinnace just quivered in a spirited fashion instead of the jarring or even violent bucking of the shuttles she was used to. At about thirty-thousand meters, Huron began to shave the vector and they flew in a long curve across a quarter of the planet toward the capitol city. ATC cleared them for landing and he brought them down smoothly onto a jetway of the military cosmodrome about fifty klicks or so outside Nemeton—so smoothly she could not even tell when the gear touched down.
When they had taxied off the apron onto the jet park, a groundcar was there to meet them, with a marine driver. They climbed out, Huron consigned the pinnace to the waiting ground crew and they
walked to the car. The driver opened the doors with a crisp salute that was returned in kind—no sloppiness here—and handed her into the back seat. Huron got in the back seat with her and as the door slid shut and sealed, he asked for her chit. She handed it over with a questioning frown.
“They will have arranged temporary housing for you. Let’s see what they picked.” He swiped the chit over his xel and Kris, glancing out the window, missed his look of mild distaste. He tapped a few brief lines into his xel. There was a moment’s pause. Huron approved the result and handed Kris back her card.
“Something not right?” she asked, wondering what had just happened. He turned and smiled at her. “Oh, no—you’re all set. It’s not palatial but you should be comfortable. It ought to have about everything you need but if it doesn’t, just ask.”
“Thanks.” Kris did not fully understand but couldn’t bring herself to inquire further. The things happening to her now were things she’d seen in vids, but never actually done. Being downside was disorienting and alien—something you did only for a brief stopover—and the thought of staying here was daunting. For starters, it involved so many weird details . . . “How many people?”
It took a moment for Huron to understand what she meant. “Just you. No one else.”
“You mean my own bunk?”
“I mean your own bed. In your own apartment.”
“Oh.” Unaccountably, that thought made Kris shiver. Alone? She’d never actually been alone—not that she could remember. Even back on Parson’s Acre. “Umm . . . Ok.”
Huron smiled and it was oddly, touchingly gentle. “You’ll do fine, Kris. And if you do need anything, you have my card. And Mariwen’s.”
He tapped the window and the driver pulled out. Kris looked up through the transparent port in the car’s armored roof at the alien stars shining through wisps of alien cloud in an alien sky. She swallowed hard. And said nothing.
Chapter Nine
Mare Nemeton
Nedaema, Pleiades Sector
The apartment was unbelievably huge; bigger than the dwellings on Parson’s Acre, bigger than almost any of the downside places they’d made brief stays at. It had two actual sleeping rooms, a large living area, a kitchen full of food that could automatically be prepared to order with an alcove to eat it in that was itself the size a small cabin, and another room that was just left over.
There were two heads—bathrooms, they called them here. Incredibly both had showers and one had an actual tub in it. She looked for the water ration and couldn’t find any. Everywhere she’d been had a water ration. Parson’s Acre had had a generous allowance and this being a Homeworld where they had actual tubs it had to be even better, but she still wondered how much it was. She assumed someone would tell her before she used it up, even though she thought that was pretty unlikely to happen.
There were beds and sofas and chairs and tables and knickknacks and decorations on the walls and a huge console. One of the sleeping rooms—bedrooms—had a few changes of clothes in an autovalet fancier than any she’d ever seen. And they had given her a xel and showed her how to call on the bots if she needed anything.
Kris wandered around feeling lost for half an hour. There was nothing to do. The console offered a truly bewildering array of options but she was just too tired to deal with it and recalling the news feeds, she shut it off. A little while later she was trying to figure out the environmental controls and the walls of the living space turned a pale peach. It actually made her jump.
“What the hell?” she muttered, recovering. She’d never seen that, not even in vids. She poked again and watched the walls fade to a pale sea green while the kitchen turned a nice sunny yellow. “Jeezus Christ.” A few pokes more and she realized what she was poking a palette control that would change the walls, ceiling, trim, and borders—even the carpet. After she turned the carpet a perfectly hideous pattern of garish bleeding rainbow colors, she decided enough was enough.
“Fuck’n weird!” Shaking her head, she reset everything to neutral. Then she walked over to the long couch and regarded it with the utmost suspicion. What did it do? Walk? Speak? Morph? Could she be confident it would remain a couch if she sat on it?
Unwilling to risk it, she sat on the floor and took out the calling card Mariwen had given her. Huron had showed her how they worked when he made her one of her own in the car. He had her press her thumb to the surface for about ten seconds and then it lit up with a soft glow. It didn’t need to be activated—it just didn’t work off-planet, he told her. “Not these anyway,” he added, implying that some did. Kris had put it in her pocket and noticed it felt slightly warm. It still did.
She tapped Mariwen’s card on her palm. Mariwen was back home now—back with her wife—back where she belonged—and there was no telling what sort of reception she might receive. But she had made Kris promise to call. And Kris had promised . . .
She put the card away and, not wanting the try to figure out the kitchen yet, ordered dinner and waited for it to arrive. Eating without tasting much (the lack of meat still annoyed her) she took out Mariwen’s card again and fidgeted with it. A few days spent together on the ship; a few more days in rehab. Pretty intense days but . . . did she really think she knew Mariwen at all?
She bit the head off an alien vegetable that tasted faintly of citrus. Kris knew very little about society off a slave ship, but she knew a great deal about playing games and playing roles and the people who did both. No slave survived long without gaining that knowledge—without being able to manipulate and detect manipulation. Kris had excelled at both of those on Harlot’s Ruse and yet she didn’t know what to think about Mariwen.
Mariwen was different but she didn’t know how she was different. Mariwen was paid vast amounts to assume a role and manipulate people’s feelings and everyone knew it and no one cared and they all went along with it, very happily. It was all false but it wasn’t. There was something—there seemed to be something—in Mariwen that made it all okay. Something essential and true. You couldn’t really touch it or get to know it, but it was there and when Mariwen was playing a role, however brazenly or subtlety, she also seemed to be saying: the real me is better. But there was no malice in it—no hurtful teasing. Not even conceit. It was just a condition—an essential fact that had to be accepted.
And yet . . . Kris stroked the little smiling holographic image in the corner and shivered slightly. There had been times on the ship—more than a few times—when Kris felt . . . no, when she could have sworn that she was talking to the real Mariwen—no roles, no games, no filters. Just Mariwen. Was that possible?
She tapped CALL.
Mariwen answered at once, her face radiating pleasure. “Kris!”
“Hi.” Kris’s voice faltered—she hadn’t been expecting a greeting quite that enthusiastic. “I . . . I promised I’d call. I hope I’m not interrupting,”
“Oh no! No. Of course not. I was so hoping you’d call. I didn’t know when they were letting you out.”
“Just this AM actually. Huron brought me down.”
An expression Kris couldn’t catch flickered across Mariwen’s face. “That was thoughtful of him. You got a place and everything?”
“Yeah. They assigned this . . . apartment to me.”
“Apartment?” Mariwen’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Not the short-term quarters then.”
“I dunno. Maybe not. It’s . . . big.” She laughed, self-conscious. “I don’t know my way around it yet. The walls change color. It has a tub.”
Mariwen laughed, eyes sparkling. “Of course, it has a tub.”
Of course? Kris could not help but grin. “Anyway, how are you? Everything going okay?”
Mariwen’s face fell into a sort of annoyed pout. “Well, things are certainly going. You’d think I came back from the dead or something. No one will leave me alone. And then there are these big hearings. Now they want me to testify—”
“Hearings? On what?”
Mariwen shook her
head, eyes rolling. “The slaving problem. They’ve been planned for—I don’t know—months. Grand Senators, the Archon—”
“Mari!” a woman’s voice called from the background. “Sweetie, are you forgetting we have to go in just a few minutes? They’ll be waiting.”
Mariwen’s face froze for a moment, then fell as she mouthed a single word. “Sorry. Just a—” She turned and as she did so, the line muted and Kris saw her speaking to the other woman. Kris didn’t know what she’d seen for a second in Mariwen’s face but she didn’t like it. Mariwen turned back to her. “Sorry—I do have to go. Look, I’ll be in touch, okay? Take care of yourself.” And she cut the line without waiting for Kris to respond.
Kris sat for a moment, unmoving, feeling that the bottom had just dropped out of her stomach. She slid the card onto a side table, got up, walked slowly into a bedroom and slammed the door.
* * *
Lora Comargo, inserting an earring, came and stood by Mariwen’s shoulder as the line dropped. “Who was that?”
“A girl I met on the ship.” Mariwen looked at the blank card for a few moments before putting it away. “She’s nice. Her name’s Loralynn.”
“Pretty.”
“Yeah. Unusual too.”
“I meant the girl.” Lora put her hand on Mariwen’s shoulder. “Is she sweet?”
“No.” Mariwen stood up, turned and gave Lora a quick hug. “No, I wouldn’t say she’s sweet. Exactly.”
Lora watched Mariwen as she went into the next room for her coat. “Exactly? How exactly?”
Mariwen came back, shrugging the coat on. It was almost floor length and the rich chameleon-silk brocade swirled about her beautifully. “She was the captain’s—” She paused to fumble with the buttons, her fingers clumsy. Lora came over and started to button it for her.
The Loralynn Kennakris series Boxed Set Page 10