Even with all her caution, she did not see Lady Cecelia until the king struck for order with his gavel. Her eyes checked the tables: there was Piercy, looking stuffy. There was Abelard, and Berenice, and . . . the back of a red head, a tall woman. The woman turned, and looked her in the eye . . . and smiled, a slow smile of absolute delight. Lorenza almost fainted; her fists clenched on the table before her. Cecelia. The bitch was not only recovered but rejuvenated . . . and she remembered.
She forgot the weapon she carried. She heard nothing the king was saying; in a scramble she grabbed her raincoat and rushed the door, pushing past the row of pages. "Madam!" she heard behind her; she shoved the tall door open and strode across the wide lobby, trying not to run. Behind her she heard the roar of upraised voices, cut off by the closing door. The guards, alert to stop intruders, did not move as she went out the glass doors of the building, down the rain-wet steps. She was on the street, drenched, before she remembered she was carrying a raincoat. She dragged it on over her wet dress and looked for the nearest transportation.
Cecelia half-rose when she saw Lorenza bolt; Heris grabbed her wrist. "Not now—she won't escape." Between Livadhi and Bunny, Lorenza would find no transportation farther than the stations. If she bolted that far, they might find out who her allies were.
"Right." The king was speaking, his voice sounding flat and tired. The ritual welcome, to which he had given some grace and humor in years past, sounded as stilted as it actually was. Piercy, at the Crown Ministers' Table, was staring at the door through which Lorenza had left with a worried expression. The moment the welcome ended, Bunny stood for recognition. He was very much Lord Thornbuckle in his formal suit.
"If you'll wait a moment," the king said. It was more plea than direction, and that lack of control released a buzzing hum of conversation.
"There is a Question before the floor," Bunny said.
"I know that," the king said. "But I have a preemptive announcement."
"May I request the floor when you have made it?" That was not so much question as command; the king nodded. Bunny sat down, stiffly.
"Members of Familias," the king said. A long pause, during which curiosity rose again, expressed as a crisp ruffle of subdued talk. "I wish to announce . . ." another pause. "My resignation. Abdication. I . . . am not able to continue."
"Why?" bellowed someone from the far right corner. "We don't want that."
"Yes, we do!" yelled someone else. Other voices rose, louder and louder, in argument. The king banged his gavel, and the noise subsided.
"I cannot—I have reason to believe . . . my last son is dead. In my grief—I am aware of failings that—" He laid the gavel down, shook his head, then put it down on his desk. Profound silence filled the chamber; Cecelia saw puzzlement, anger, and fear on the faces around her. Bunny stood again.
"I was promised the floor to address the Question, which all of you have been sent. The king has indeed preempted that Question, which called for his resignation. I move we accept it, without further inquiry."
"How can we vote, without a Chair?" someone asked.
Cecelia spoke up, without having meant to. "By putting your finger on the little button, the way you always do," she said loudly. A ripple of nervous laughter followed, circled the chamber, and returned. She pushed the voting button on her screen; others followed. The vote carried. She felt a sudden burst of compassion for the king. Had he meant any of the harm he had brought to pass? Probably not. She had not meant him any harm either, but she had been the means of destroying his reign.
After the vote, a long silence, and then confusion. The king—no longer the king, but a man whose Familia name nearly all had forgotten—sat immobile, staring at the desk in front of him. Cecelia watched the Crown Ministers' heads swaying from side to side as they whispered among themselves, exactly like pigeons on a roost. The sound of many voices rose, filling the chamber as if a vast river roared through it. Finally Bunny went to the Ministers' Tables and leaned over to speak to them. One of them rose and approached the ex-king. He looked up, then, and in his expression Cecelia saw a new resolution form. Stillness came as swiftly as the earlier noise. He stood.
"I yield the floor," Kemtre said. "To Lord Thornbuckle." He held out the gavel. And Bunny, grave, unsmiling, took the few steps necessary. The gavel passed between them, and Kemtre stepped down to meet Bunny on the level below the throne. Though his voice was quiet, unaugmented by the sound system, most heard what he said next. "I'm going back for Velosia. If she waits. Then home—" That would be the Familia estates, not the Crown ones. "I'm sorry, Bunny—I hope you have better luck. At least this gives you a chance—"
Then he came up the steps toward Cecelia; she felt Meharry and Heris tense on either side of her. "It's all right," she muttered; she might as well have tried to calm a pair of eager hounds with the game in view. If he meant her any harm, he was a dead man.
"I'm sorry, Cecelia," he said to her. "I cannot say how happy I am to see you recovered; it was not my plan, but I'm sure it was, in some way, my fault. You did me a good service and I did you a bad one."
Cecelia thought of the suffering of the months—almost two years, in local time—and gave him a stare that made him flush, then pale. "I can forgive you for myself," she said then, into the hushed silence of the chamber. "But the boys? I was never a mother, Kemtre, but I could not have done to anyone's child what you did to your own. How could you?" Before he could answer, her gaze swept the Tables. "Still—I don't blame you as much as Lorenza." Below her, Piercy flinched. "She's the one who poisoned me; I daresay she's poisoned others. She's the one I want."
That brought another uproar. Lorenza's aunt Lucrezia gave Cecelia a glare that should have ignited asbestos at a hundred paces. Bunny gavelled the noise down, and called Kevil Mahoney forward. "The king has resigned; we need not fall into disorder for that, Chairholders. We had a government before we had a king; we can have one now, with or without a king. Ser Mahoney has legal advice for us all; I ask your attention." As Kevil's practiced voice compelled the others to listen, Kemtre looked past Cecelia to Heris. She shook her head, offering no details; all he really needed to know was in that negation. Kemtre seemed to sag on his bones, and then turned away. Cecelia returned her attention to Mahoney, but Heris watched the former king climb slowly to the exit. No one greeted him; no one stretched out a hand to comfort him. She was not sure what she felt; she was only sure it was neither triumph nor pity.
The meeting went on for hours, never quite erupting into complete disorder. Piercy resigned. Two other Crown Ministers resigned. Cecelia's brother Abelard proposed a vote to restore the Speaker's position; Cecelia had not imagined he had that much initiative. The vote passed, which surprised her even more. She stayed, when she would rather have pursued Lorenza, caught up despite herself in the excitement, until at last the meeting adjourned for the day. She went home with Bunny, despite Berenice's plea . . . she wasn't ready to forgive Berenice yet, not until she'd had her vengeance on Lorenza.
* * *
No one on the noon shuttle paid any attention to Lorenza; their attention was on the news being shown on the forward viewscreen. The king's abdication, the surprise vote to abolish the monarchy and restore the Speaker's position, was enough to hold even the most jaded. Lorenza ignored it; she was fingering the pearls hidden beneath her dress and wondering how far they would take her. Although the Benignity owed her favors for her many useful acts, she had no illusions about them. They would do more for pearls or the other jewels than for old times' sake. She slipped into an uneasy doze, missing the interview with Lady Cecelia de Marktos, famous horsewoman and prominent member of her Family, whose miraculous recovery from a coma provided the news program's obligatory "good news" spot.
Rockhouse Major bubbled with rumors and excitement when she arrived. Lorenza put on her most demure expression and made her way to the office whose location she had long ago memorized but had never visited. A lady of her standing did not visit the kind of
therapist employed to counsel criminals. Now . . . now she needed to contact the Benignity's senior agent on the station.
She did not like the tall, handsome, self-assured woman in the pale-yellow silk suit. Liking didn't matter, of course, but she felt abraded by the woman's appraising eye, as if she could see through the rejuvenations to her real age, through her carefully groomed exterior to her inner self. She introduced herself with the code words she'd been given long ago. The woman smiled.
"Of course. We'll have to hide you until a suitable ship comes. Come with me, please." She had no choice, really. "Do you have any luggage? Any—I presume you don't want to use your credit cubes—anything to contribute toward expenses?" Lorenza didn't protest.
"Only this." She started to open the jewel case, but the woman took it from her, then smiled.
"You needn't worry—the Benignity is scrupulously honest."
Of course, but why not let her carry her own jewel case? Lorenza had no time to think about it; she was being hurried through back passages, past little cubicles with chairs and mirrors in them, like changing rooms at dress shops.
"This one," the woman said, opening a door at the end of the row. "No one will bother you here. I'll get you something less conspicuous to wear. You might want to take off that raincoat—you must have been seen in it." Under the raincoat, her dress was still damp from the rain. The woman clucked sympathetically. "Get that wet thing off before you catch a chill; I'll get you a warm robe." She went out, the raincoat over her arm, and shut the little door behind her.
Lorenza looked at herself in the mirror: damp, haggard, her gold hair rumpled to one side by that nap on the shuttle. Terrible. She raked at her hair with her fingers. A draft brushed her damp shoulder; she looked up and realized that the walls in this little cubicle went all the way to the ceiling. There shouldn't be any draft . . . but there was, with a whiff of something acrid in it. She grabbed the door handle; it came off in her hand, leaving a slick metal panel. The mirror—as she looked, the upper half blurred, no longer reflective. An image formed; the therapist, with a handful of Lorenza's jewels.
"You ruined it, Lorenza," the woman said, shaking her head. "The Benignity is scrupulously honest, but it doesn't tolerate mistakes."
Lorenza gasped, finding it difficult. "I—please—I still have these—" and she tore at her dress, pulling out the pearls. Their lustrous surface turned a dirty green; she could feel them crumbling.
"Damn!" said the woman. "You had pearls, too! That gas ruins pearls."
"I'm terribly afraid we may have damaged some of your . . . er . . . property," Heris said. She had had no trouble getting an appointment with Spacenhance; at the moment, anything Lady Cecelia wanted was hers to command.
The senior partner looked as if something were crawling over his skin. "Yes . . . ?"
"Some . . . er . . . pets, I suppose."
"Pets?"
"Yes. Unfortunately, they've been somewhat of an embarrassment to us. During a crisis, a medical team member spotted . . . well, let's just say evidence of their presence. They recommended we contact Environmental Control to fumigate the ship—"
He paled; Heris was afraid he might faint. "You told them . . . ?"
"No . . . I decided they represented no present hazard. We could dispose of them appropriately." So they had, she thought with wicked glee. Sirkin, Brun, Meharry, and Oblo had ensured a most unpleasant surprise for a certain therapist they blamed for Yrilan's death. With any luck at all, the discovery of illegal biologicals in her possession would lead to full investigation of all her activities.
His flush was as pronounced as the pallor had been. "Ahhh . . . thank you, Captain."
"No need. It would have benefited neither of us for Environmental Control to come down on you." Heris smiled. From his expression, her smile was not reassuring; she hadn't meant it to be.
"Benefited . . . ?"
"Come now—it's clear to me what you do with those . . . er . . . insects. That is, I presume, an industrial secret of some worth to you. So the benefit to you of my silence is obvious. The benefit to me—" She leaned forward, savoring his uneasiness. "You know, the ship still needs redecorating. The deposit paid to you has been earning you interest all this time—I think you owe me—and Lady Cecelia—a very fast, very special redecoration."
"But—but Captain Serrano—"
"Very fast," Heris emphasized. Then she opened her hand, where an egg case lay. "Don't you?"
He gave in, as she had known he would. "As planned before, or do you have something else in mind?"
"Here are the specifications," Heris said, handing him a datacube. She and Cecelia and the crew had discussed it. "Except for one thing." She dropped the egg case on his desk. "This time, make sure you get all the bugs out."
Winning Colors
Dedication
This one's for Mary Morell, who introduced me to science fiction in the ninth grade, and then insisted the wonderful (!) stories I wrote in high school were lousy. (She was right.) And for Ellen McLean, who refused to be my friend in the first grade, only to be a better friend later than anyone could ask. And for all the horses, from the horse next door to the little bay mare who presently has her nose in my feed bucket, who enriched my life with everything from (a few) broken bones to the feel of going at speed across country.
Chapter One
Twoville, Sublevel 3, on the planet Patchcock,
in the Familias Regnant
Conspirators come in two basic flavors, Ottala thought. The bland vanillas, usually wealthy, who meet in comfortably appointed boardrooms or dining rooms, scenting the air with expensive perfumes, liqueurs, and good food. The more complex chocolates, usually impoverished, who meet in dingy back rooms of failing businesses or scruffy warehouses, where the musty air stinks of dangerous chemicals and unwashed bodies. The vanillas, when they cursed, did so with a sense of risk taken, as if the expletives might pop in their mouths like flimsy balloons and sting their tongues. The chocolates cursed without noticing, the familiar phrases embedded in their speech like nuts in candy, lending texture. The vanillas claimed to loathe violence, resorting to it with reluctance, under the lash of stern morality. The chocolates embraced violence and its tools as familiar and comforting rituals. No wonder, since when the vanillas chose violence, they employed chocolates for it.
Ottala much preferred luxury herself; she considered that a long leisurely soak in perfumed water was the only civilized way to begin the day. She too felt the little shock of surprise when she heard the expletives come out of her own mouth with no immediate punishment. Her skin preferred the sensuous touch of silk; her taste buds rejoiced during elaborate dinners created by talented cooks. But she could not confine her sensuality to the bland end of the spectrum. Vanilla was not enough. In her own mind, she considered her taste for chocolate an expression of unusual sensitivity.
What she tasted at the moment was the sour underbite of processed protein extruded into pseudo-sausages nested in pickled neo-cabbage. She sat on a hard bench, elbow-to-elbow with the rest of Cell 571, munching the supper that preceded the evening's entertainment. Or so she called it; she was aware that her fellow conspirators considered it more important than anything else they did with their lives.
Her friends would not have recognized her. Her normally bronze skin had the pallor associated with the underbellies of cave-dwelling amphibians; her dark eyes were masked with blue contact lenses, which also gave her red-rimmed lids, the better to fit in with the locals. She wore the same dark, ill-cut coveralls and had the same fingertip calluses as the others; she had held a real job on the assembly line—with faked papers, which wasn't that unusual—for the past two months.
It was all a great adventure. She knew things about her family's company that she had never imagined; she would have incomparable tales to tell when she went back topside. Meanwhile, she could eat sour pseudo-sausage, drink cheap wine, use words her parents didn't even know, and find out for herself if the reputation of
Finnvardian men was deserved. So far she wasn't sure. . . . Enar had ranked only average on her personal scale, but if Sikar would only look at her . . .
She finished her supper, as the others finished theirs. Odd, how the same custom held at tables high and low—everyone tried to finish at the same time. Across the room, Sikar stood, and silence spread around him. He was the contact from higher up, the man whose respect they all wanted. Even in the baggy dark clothing, he had presence. Ottala couldn't analyze it; she only knew that she felt his intensity as a pressure under her rib cage. She wanted that pressure elsewhere.
As usual, Sikar began speaking without preamble. "We, the young, serve the old," he said. "And the old can live forever now, and they expect us to serve forever. We will grow old and die, but they will not. Is this right?"
"NO!" the room vibrated to that angry response.
"No. It was bad before, when the old rich first set their hands against the gate of death, but a hundred fifty years is not forever. That is why our fathers and grandfathers submitted; they hoped to afford that process for themselves, and it was limited. But now—"
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