She swallowed hurriedly. “Um, sorry, your—highness. I didn’t realize.”
“It’s nothing.” The girl waved the apology off. “I’m nobody much.”
Yeah right, Kris thought, running quickly through the catalog of names Huron had mentioned for a probable match and wishing she’d had a chance to wipe her fingers. “Niece?”
“Fifth Daughter, actually”—identifying herself as a royal princess: the second youngest of Titus’s offspring. “I saw Uncle Aimery talking to you, so I thought I’d come and say hello. He can be a little . . . old-fashioned.”
Uncle Aimery? So that was Titus’s brother she’d just given the brush-off to? Fucking wonderful. Damn that briefing packet anyway.
“Not at all. It was an—honor to, um, talk to him.”
“I’m glad. Do you like the truffles?” She gestured at the deep-laden dish.
“Yeah. They’re great. What are they?”
“A fungoid. There is something like them on Old Terra; a real fungus, I’m told. That’s where the name comes from. They use specially trained dogs to find them in the wild—or they did once. I understand that pigs were better at it, but the pigs always ate them.”
“Really?”—not having any idea what else to say and biting into the quiche for cover.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying them. Some people find them an acquired taste.”
Kris wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but she smiled anyway. “Are they your favorite?”
“Oh, I like them. But they’re not exactly my favorite.” She pointed stealthily to a pagoda-like structure at the table’s far end. “What I really like is the cheesecake.”
“Oh. Here. Let me.” Kris finished the last of her quiche, stepped to the end of the table, removed two slices and offered the princess one. The girl paused for a moment, then with the briefest glance around, tugged one long glove off with her teeth and accepted the small plate. But she was clearly puzzled as to what to do with the glove, so Kris took it and tucked into the cobalt sash she wore.
The princess giggled.
“What?” Kris wondered what new faux pax she’d just committed.
“Truly, it’s nothing,” she replied, delicately nibbling the wedge of cheesecake. “It’s just that beaus used to do that as a token for special ladies. It’s the old-fashioned way—nobody does it now. See?”
She indicated the crowd before them with a twitch of the cheesecake. Kris, briefly surveying the couples, who’d graduated from waltzes to a more complicated evolution known as a mirror dance, saw that the custom was indeed nowhere in evidence. It did seem a quaint bit of gallantry, much in keeping with what she’d observed, and Kris wondered why it had lapsed and what might have replaced it. She also noted that Huron and Princess Zenobia were still dancing together and, by all indications, enjoying themselves immensely.
Princess Rebeka followed her gaze. “You’re so lucky.” Her highness sounded more than a little wistful and Kris looked over, thinking the princess also had domestic arrangements on her mind. It was kind of disappointing. But then the princess said, “You get to do something.”
“Do something?”
“They let you fight.”
Kris abruptly shifted mental gears to hoping the girl didn’t harbor some childish notion that turning other human beings into superheated plasma was the acme of personal or professional accomplishment, no matter how richly they deserved it.
“Can you imagine all the things Halith could have done?” Rebeka continued with a somber frown, thankfully unaware that Kris had no need to imagine them. “And none of us could’ve done anything about it! If those things were going to happen to me, I’d want to be able to try to do something about it.”
Faced with this unassailable logic, Kris could do no more than nod and ask, “What are those purple things?”
The princess accepted the change of subject gracefully, replying, “Violet mousse. They’re okay. Have you tried the petits fours yet? The chocolate ones with the lavender centers are really good.”
They went on to make serious inroads on the petits fours and then demolished another tier of cheesecake. The princess, growing bolder—Kris had begun to wonder why they were the only ones who seemed to be eating—imbibed the contents of a number of the little flutes (with a commentary on each), and was coming out in a rosy glow that complemented the peach of her gown.
This went on until, at a pause in the proceedings, she leaned close to Kris and whispered, “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but y’know those Shibari truffles? They’re grown in horseshit! Get it?” followed by an explosive giggle.
A moment later a severe, matronly woman glided over and bowed. “Your ladyship?”
The princess looked at Kris with an exaggeratedly round expression and mouthed Oops! Then she faced the interloper with her features composed in a mask of regal serenity.
“I’ll be along in moment, Aunt.”
The matronly woman bowed again, but did not retreat.
“It’s been delightful talking with you, Lieutenant,” the princess said, turning back. “We owe you so many thanks.”
“No more than duty, your royal highness,” answered Kris with a deeper bow, and as Princess Rebeka dipped her head in acknowledgement and made to leave, she added, “Your glove?”
The princess smiled back over her shoulder. “Keep it.”
* * *
With their jump to the Kepler Nexus computed and locked in, Huron leaned back from the controls of his custom-built Altair-class starclipper, and looked over at Kris in the second chair. He’d already explained Lord Aimery’s failure to introduce himself: it was a mark of respect, so the other person could converse without being oppressed by the royal presence. She’d also learned why they’d been left to themselves at the buffet. Alesian aristocrats thought it necessary to put out elaborate spreads of costly food at these functions to display their wealth and taste, and then ignore them to show they were above such things.
“That’s fuckin’ ridiculous,” had been Kris’s judgment, delivered in a scathing tone. Huron, much better acquainted with the eccentricities of aristocratic privilege, had merely shrugged. “I imagine the servants like it,” he reflected. “It’s a tradition among the nobles to distribute most of it to the less fortunate.” But he had absolved her of taking food from the mouths of the poor, though not entirely of corrupting the morals of their youth.
Looking at her with that off-kilter grin of his, he said, “Y’know, Kris, when I said to think of yourself as an ambassador for right-thinking, I’m not sure starting a revolution was exactly what I had in mind.”
“What’dya mean?” Kris asked, suspicious of what lay behind that grin.
“Well, I got note from Zenobia the day before we left. It seems your princess is forming an underground society to agitate for allowing women in the armed forces, and giving them a greater role in public affairs in general. Zenobia’s the principle secretary or executive officer or something. They’re calling it Loralynn’s Resistance.”
When she got done laughing, Kris inquired, “So you think this is a bad thing?”
“Not at all—splendid thing, from our point of view, though Titus may get some sleepless nights out of it. Rebeka’s only Fifth Daughter, y’see, so she’s not high up in the marriage queue. That means she has some years to explore other avenues, shall we say. Zenobia’s mother is well connected and her father, while down in the pecking order, is quite rich. Zenobia herself controls significant funds, and like your princess, she’s a very sharp girl, though maybe not quite so ambitious. I suggested to her they may not want to hit the military option too hard just yet, but concentrate more on getting women into the merchant fleets—astrogation, navigators, pilots. That sort of thing. Titus has been angling for increased cooperation in trade matters, so we have an in to send some advisers to help them modernize their operations.”
“Female advisors?”
“Mostly. This is all going to take quite a while, but if they can build
up a cadre of female pilots and astrogators over the next few years, it’ll be very hard to keep them out of the Service.”
“And we like this.”
“We do. Alesia wasn’t always a backwater. Once they controlled most of Deneb. That wasn’t necessarily ideal, especially in the view of the other systems, but the current situation is worse. We’ve been encouraging them to set up some sort of concordat organization—for mutual defense, if nothing else, though they really need to get rid of their trade barriers—but old feelings die hard. A charismatic young royal princess with wings on her collar could go a long way toward changing those attitudes.”
“You don’t ever stop strategizing, do you?”
The grin broadened as Huron detected a certain look in Kris’s eye. “Gotta take Fortune by the forelock, Kris. Hate to waste a good opportunity.”
Kris’s eyes flicked back the chrono. They were due to translate in just under half an hour, and she’d discovered not long ago how best to heighten the rare and idiosyncratic reaction she experienced to that event.
“Speaking of opportunities,” she said, getting out of her chair and sliding into his lap, “we got another one coming up here. If you’re done with politics for now.”
“We do have a long trip ahead of us”—moving his hands strategically.
“Nothin’ much to do”—settling deeper into his lap as the seals of her jumpsuit began to yield.
“Good point”—his hands sliding cunningly along her ribs.
“So what’dya think?”—running a finger suggestively across his lips. “Cabin light, no light, or starlight?”
The observation deck allowed the overhead, bulkheads and deck to be suppressed, giving the appearance of floating in an endless night, which tended to freak out 99.9 percent of humanity. But Huron was happily in that other tenth of a percent. And the vast gossamer spectacle of the Meutara Nebula lay just astern, casting an infinitely hued ghost-light.
His hands moved north, found twin peaks, erect and demanding, crowning the soft swell of each liberated breast, and tested the response. “Think we can make it to O-Deck?”
Her breath coming short, Kris gave him a deliberate squeeze. “I’ll give it shot if you will.”
He stood, lifting her easily, in the full gee they were still under—it wouldn’t start to fall for another twenty minutes.
“Starlight, then.”
~ ~ ~
176 Days earlier
Seaforth Heights, Pascal Quadrant;
Phaedra, Fomalhaut zone
Phaedra shared with the Belt the distinction of being a Homeworld without a world. While the Belt was absolutely world-less, although it had moons aplenty and some might come close to qualifying, Phaedra had a world—just one nobody could live on. Phaedra, the planet, was similar to Venus in its primordial state, but Venus raised to the power of several. Like primordial Venus, it had an extremely thick, radically corrosive atmosphere, but unlike Venus, taming that atmosphere would not improve the habitability to any significant degree.
What made Phaedra uninhabitable was the same thing that attracted settlement in the first place: it boasted the richest concentration of super-heavy elements yet found, especially uranium and thorium. It was radioactive heating, more than the atmosphere, that kept the surface temperature at near a thousand degrees Kelvin. Much of the surface was a boiling stew of outrageous compounds, in which floated red-hot mats of volcanic ash and semi-molten islands of metal. The richest deposits lay below this, in an environment where even the toughest robotic mining equipment found it difficult to operate. Difficult, but not impossible, and these riches were the foundation of Phaedra’s economy.
More incredible still, the planet teemed with life, mostly short-lived and chaotic—new species seemed to appear suddenly out of nowhere and go extinct just a quickly. These extremophile forms inhabited the seas, the scraps of “land” and drifted about placidly in the atmosphere. Xenobiologists flocked there to study them, and medical researchers came to investigate the exotic chemicals that allowed life to thrive under such conditions.
The combination gave Phaedra a cosmopolitan society, enhanced by the exotic nature of the locale, and the nature of the Homeworld itself: if people could not live on Phaedra, they could live about it. The planet was girded with a slender necklace, orbiting thirty-six thousand kilometers from its surface, and it was on this that Phaedra’s population resided. It was by no means a solid body, or even a chain, in the sense of the elements being physically linked. Tidal forces set a practical limit on the extent of any rigid body, and the innumerable units were kept in station by electrostatic buffers, while an extraordinary system of orbital trams allowed free movement between them.
Overall, this ring provided a surface area equal to about nine percent of Terra’s habitable landmass, sufficient for a large population, especially one not inclined to waste space. This frugality was apparent in the domiciles of even the most elevated members of Phaedran society, as was evident when the former Speaker called on Phaedra’s senior grand senator.
Gareth Fitzwilliam answered the call from entry system himself, and ushered his old political adversary in with a cordial greeting. The former Speaker had come alone, to make it clear he was surrendering home-field advantage wholly to Fitzwilliam, to set the latter at ease about his intentions. And it was for this reason that both men, neither of whom were given to idle chat, were nearly silent as Fitzwilliam showed his guest to the main living space. It was the remarkable domicile, combining a welcoming solidity with an airiness that was almost fey, and as they traversed it, unexpected vistas appeared without warning. Even Belter architects, Huron Sr. thought, did not excel the Phaedrans in creative use of space, and that was a primary reason he enjoyed his visits here so.
Settling themselves comfortably at last, the grand senator offered drinks, which his guest—still obeying his chief physician’s orders—politely declined. Duty satisfied, Fitzwilliam relaxed in his chair. Like most Phaedrans, he was quite tall and lankly built, with deeply bronzed skin and light hair and eyes: slivery-white hair in his case and pale green eyes that had something feline about them. Folding his long-fingered hands over his knee, he broached the topic of the meeting in a resonant baritone, familiar to all who had followed the deliberations of the Grand Senate for the past twenty years.
“I can’t say I was wholly surprised to hear from you, Leon. Bertie has been making a good deal of private noise about Hazen, as I’m sure you are aware.”
“Certainly. He came to see me.”
“I thought as much. He’s become enough of a nuisance I began to suspect he’s acting as a stalking horse for someone—I don’t mean to imply you, Leon—clumsy words there—but now I’m inclined to think he’s merely trying to align with the breeze.”
“Quite reliable in that way, is Bertie. But tell me, is the vox populi truly in full cry against Hazen?”
“I think not. But you are being jocose. There are murmurings certainly and good deal of discontent, and it will latch onto this one or that one as it may, but as for a concerted—”
Here, a thin shrill cry from up a spiral staircase interrupted them. “Dad! Shabash got loose again!”
Indeed, even as the cry died, an astonishing creature floated into the room, propelling itself with pulsations of a bell-like skirt it appeared to extrude at will. The semi-transparent membrane enclosed a galaxy of lights, some mere points sparking in and out; others, glowing swathes and pools that rippled and spun, radiating every color of the spectrum. It seemed to take stock of its new surroundings, and promptly sailed up to take residence in the room’s least accessible corner. Conforming to a sphere, it was roughly the size of a football.
The grand senator heaved an audible sigh. “Excuse me, Leon.” Then he lifted his voice. “Yes, Callista. He’s down here.” Getting to his feet, he took a device that looked something like a harmonica, but when he set it to his lips, it produced ripples of light, not sound. Shabash replied—if that was the word—with s
imilar ripples and spatters of light, but did not relinquish his station. With a muted grumble, Fitzwilliam went to a cabinet and from it took a small aerosol bottle.
“Callista!” he called up the stairs, and a childish pipe answered, “Coming, Dad!” followed by the child herself—slim, elfinly pretty, and perhaps five or six years old—bouncing down the steps carrying a tent-like object. “Wait there.” Her father indicated a spot. “Are you ready?”
The child nodded gravely.
Nodding in return, Fitzwilliam sprayed a fine mist into the air. Shabash perked up at once, and began a spiraling descent. Distending himself improbably to envelop the cloud, warm colors flashed across his membrane, conveying the distinct impression he was giggling. Fitzwilliam applied another judicious mist to his membrane, and Callista came forward with the tent-thing, enclosing Shabash and sealing it.
“Be more careful,” her father intoned. “You know it isn’t good for him to be out for long.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Now run along. Your aunt will be back in an hour or so—with your siblings.”
“Yes, Dad.” And she scampered back up the stairs with the captive Shabash.
“Apologies, Leon”—resuming his seat.
“Oh no, I would not have missed that for the world. Is that—he?—a Shelouwa?”
“Have you seen one before?”
“Not in the—flesh? No.”
“Fascinating creatures. They inhabit the upper cloud layer—can tolerate our atmosphere for a time, but it’s not good for them—tends to make them bloat. They’re colonial, rather like Terran jellyfish, but more complex. They have a considerable degree of intelligence, though what that degree is, is hotly debated. Myself, I find them rather cat-like.”
“I was not aware they were kept as pets.”
“It’s not terribly usual.” He directed a glance upstairs. “We have three.”
“Do you, now?”
“Yes. Shabash, Leila and Jock.”
“Do they actually have a gender?”
“Oh no—not physically. It’s personality. Shabash is the most adventurous.”
Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit Page 7