by neetha Napew
“I remember your father,” Auntie Q said. “Hardly more than a boy, he was then. Seemed afraid of me, for some reason. Very stiff.”
Ford gave her the smile that had worked with other women. “If I’d been a boy, you’d have frightened me.”
“I doubt that.” She snipped the needle free and threaded a length of blue. “I know what your side of the family thinks of me. Too rich to be reasonable, too old to know what she’s doing, troublesome. Isn’t that right?” Her eye on him was as sharp as her needle’s ‘
;. Ford grinned and shrugged. “Spoiled, overbearing, r arrogant, and tiresome, actually. As you, without doubt,
already know.”
^ She flashed a smile at him. “Thank you, my dear. Honesty’s best between relatives, even when, as so .often, it is inconvenient elsewhere. Now we know where we stand, don’t we? You didn’t come to see a spoiled,
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overbearing, arrogant, tiresome old lady for the fun of
“Not for the fan of it, no.” Ford let himself frown. “It was actually curiosity.”
“Oh?”
“To see if you were as bad as they said. To see if you were as sick and miserable as you said. To see what kind of woman could have married into both Santon and Paraden and then gotten free of them.”
“And now?”
“To see what kind of woman would wear Ryxi tailfeathers to dinner. How could anyone resist that?”
“I can’t tell you what you want to know,” she said, sombre for an instant. “I can’t tell you why. But, never mind, I can tell you about the Ryxi.”
Ford was not surprised to notice that Madame Flaubert was back in the room, cooing to her dog, which had spent the interim curled on her chair.
“Even the Ryxi are fellow beings searching for the light,” said Madame Flaubert. “Ridicule damages the scoffer ...”
“I’m not scoffing,” said Auntie Q tardy. “I’m merely telling Ford where I got these feathers.”
She plunged into the tale without looking at Madame Flaubert again; her voice trembled at first, then steadied. Ford listened, amused by the story. He could have predicted it, what a high-spirited rich young wife might do at one of the fancy balls when her “incorrigibly stuffy” husband tried to insist that she be discreet. Discretion, quite clearly, had never been one of Auntie Q’s strong points. He could almost see her younger (no doubt beautiful) self, capering in mock courtship with a Ryxi in diplomatic service ... a Ryxi who had let himself get overexcited, who had plucked the jeweled pin from her turban, and crowed (as Ryxi sometimes did, when they forgot themselves).
He could imagine her shock, her desire to do something outrageous in return. When the Ryxi had gone into the final whirling spin of the mating dance, she had yanked hard on his tailfeathers. By the time the whirling Ryxi could stop, screeching with mingled pain and hu-
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initiation, she had run away, safely hidden by her own wild crowd. Ford glanced at Madame Flaubert, whose mouth was pinched into a moue of disgust. He could almost hear her mental comment: vulgar. Ford himself agreed, but not with any intensity.
Most of what he knew about the wealthy and powerful he considered vulgar, but it didn’t bother him. He certainly didn’t bother about the degrees of vulgarity they might assign to one another’s actions. Tenuous as the family connection might be, he would pick Auntie Q over Madame Flaubert anytime. His aunt had finished her story, with a challenging, almost defiant lift of her chin. He could imagine her as a spoiled child, when she would have had dimples beside her mouth. He grinned as much at the memory as at her story.
“Didn’t he file a protest?” asked Ford.
His aunt bridled. “Of course he did. But I had filed a protest, too. Because he still had my jewel and he’d made a public nuisance of himself by losing control and going into the mating sequence. It’s quite unmistakable even if you’ve never seen it.”
“I have.” Ford fought to keep his voice under control. It must have been the spectacle of the year, he thought to himself.
“So there was a lot of buzzing around. My husband’s attorneys got involved and eventually everyone withdrew charges. The Ryxi ambassador himself sent a note of apology. Everyone insisted I do the same. But both of us kept our trophies. I had to agree not to display Aem then—not in public, you know—but that was years back, and this is my own private yacht.”
It sounded as if she expected an argument; another fiance at Madame Flaubert suggested with whom. Ford Iwt protective, but realized that Auntie Q expected {and trained) her menfolk to feel protective. ••>. “It’s a wonderful story,” he said, quite honestly. “I wish I’d been there to see it.” He meant that, too. .Formal diplomatic functions with multiple races were osually painfully dull, kept so by everyone’s attempts not to break another culture’s rules of etiquette. Fleet officers stuck with attendance expected to spend long
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hours standing politely listening to civilian complaints while all the good-looking persons of opposite sex enjoyed themselves across a crowded dance floor. He remembered Sassinak telling him about a little excitement once, but that was all.
His aunt leaned over and touched his cheek. “You’d have enjoyed it, I can tell. You might even have helped me.”
“Of course I would.”
His stomach rumbled, loudly and insistently, and he felt himself flush. His aunt ignored die unmentionable noise, turning instead to Madame Flaubert, who was staring at Ford’s midsection as if she could see into it.
“Seraphine, perhaps you could find the cube with die newsstories from that event?” Her tone made it more command than request; Madame Flaubert almost jumped, but nodded quickly and set her lapdog back down.
“Of course.”
But even as she rose to comply, Ford’s stomach clenched, and he realized he was about to be sick. He felt cold, clammy, and his vision narrowed.
“Excuse me, please,” he said, between gritted teeth.
Auntie Q glanced at him politely, then stiffened. “You’ve gone quite green,” she said. “Are you ill?”
Another pang twisted him, and he barely whispered, “Something I ate on the tanker, perhaps.”
“Of course. I’ll have Sam find you some medicine.” She rose, as imperious as she had been after dinner. “Come, Seraphine.”
They swept out as Ford groped his way to the door. He was perversely irritated that she had seen him lose control, and at the same time that she had left him to find his own way back to his stateroom. He didn’t want to throw up on her elegant silver and rose carpet, but if he had to wander far. . . .
He had hardly taken a few steps down the corridor when a strongly-built man in chefs whites (another uniform unchanged through the centuries) grasped him under the arm and helped him swiftly back to his quarters.
He had been very thoroughly sick in the bathroom,
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losing with regret that delicious dinner, hardly noticing the silent, efficient help of the cook. When he regained his sense of balance, he was tucked into bed, his dress clothes draped across a chair, and the cold clamminess had passed into a burning fever and aching joints. What a beginning to a social inquiry, he thought, and then lapsed into unrestful sleep.
He woke to a foul taste in his mouth, the sour smell of sickness, and the suspicion that something was very wrong indeed. He had had bad dreams, full of dire symbolism (a black Eyxi dancing around his aunt’s casket waving her two stolen plumes in macabre triumph? Commander Sassinak handing him a shining medal that turned into a smoking fuse when he pinned it to his uniform? A scaly, clawed hand tossing a handful of Fleet vessels, including the Zaid-Dayan, like dice onto a playing board whose pieces were planets and suns?).
He was quite sure that Madame Flaubert could “explain” them all, in ways that would make him responsible if he didn’t reform, but he felt too weak to reform. Even to get up. Someone tapped on his door, and he croaked a weak answer.
“Sorry, sir, to be so l
ate with breakfast.”
It was the man in white, the cook. Sam, he remembered. He had not expected anyone, but if he’d thought, he’d have expected the servant who served dinner. Sam carried a covered tray; Ford thought it probably smelled delicious, but whatever it was he didn’t want it. He shook his head, but Sam brought it nearer anyway, and set it on a folding table he had had in his other hand.
“You’re still not well. I can see that.” Off came the tray cover, revealing a small plate with crisp slices of toast, small glasses of fruit juice and water, and a tiny cut-glass pillbox. “This may not sit well, but at least it’ll give me an idea what to try next . . .”
“I don’t want anything.” That came out in a hoarse voice he hardly recognized for his own. “Something on the tanker ...”
“Well, I didn’t think it came out of my kitchen.” That barely missed smugness, the certainty of a master crafts-
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man. “Did you get a look in that tanker’s galley?” Sam held out the glass of water, and Ford sipped it, hoping to lose the taste in his mouth. It eased die dryness in his throat, at least.
“They told me, boasted in fact, that they didn’t have a galley. Cooked their own food, mostly just heated up whatever came out of the synthesizer.”
“And didn’t clean the synthesizer coils often enough, I daresay. It’s not easy to make great meals from basic synth, but it doesn’t have to be sickening, either.” As he spoke, Sam offered the toast, but Ford shook his head again.
“Just the water, thanks. Sorry to cause you any inconvenience.” Which was a mild way of apologizing for the night before, when he had done more than cause inconvenience. And what was he going to do now? In Auntie Q’s circle, he was sure that one did not inflict one’s illnesses on hosts. But he had no place to go. The Zaid-Dayan was on her way to FedCentral; the nearest Fleet facility was at least a month’s travel away, even if the yacht was headed that direction, which it wasn’t.
“Not at all, sir.” Sam had tidied away the toast, replacing the tray’s cover, while leaving the cold water on his bedside table. Ford wished he would go away soon. He no longer felt nauseated, but he could tell he was far from well. “Bowers will be in later, to help you with your bath. I will inform Madame that you are still indisposed; she inquired, of course.”
“Of course,” Ford murmured.
“She regrets that her personal physician is presently on vacation, but when we reach our destination, she will be able to obtain professional assistance for you from the local community.”
“I shall hope not to need it by then.” That had a double meaning, he realized after it came out. The cook—not quite what he would have expected from Auntie Q’s cook, barring the expertise—smiled at him.
“Taking that the best way, sir, I hope not, too. We do have a fair assortment of medicines, if you’re prone to self-medicate?”
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“No thanks. I’ll wait it out. These things never last long.”
At last the cook was standing, tray in hand, giving a last smile as he went out the door. Ford sagged back against his pillows. What a bad start to his investigation! He was sure that Auntie Q liked him . . . that she would have told him all about her connection to the Paradens . . . but she would not be the sort to waste her time nursing a nastily sick invalid. He hoped the virus or whatever it was would be as brief as most such illnesses. Leaving aside his mission, he wanted to try more of Sam’s marvelous cooking.
Two days later, after surviving a light breakfast with no aftershocks, he made his way to the dining room, once more clad in the formal daytime dress of a nineteenth century European. (He thought it was European— something Old Earth, and the Europeans had been dominant that century.) Auntie Q had sent him a couple of ancient books (real books, with paper leaves) for amusement, had inquired twice daily about his welfare, but otherwise left him alone. He had to admit it was better than having someone hovering, whose feelings be would have had to respect.
Auntie Q greeted him with restrained affection; Ma-dame Flaubert inquired volubly about his symptoms until Auntie Q raised a commanding hand.
“Really, Seraphine! I’m sure dear Ford doesn’t wish to discuss his shaky inner organs, and frankly I have no interest in them. Certainly not before a meal.” Madame Flaubert subsided, more or less, but commented that Ford’s aura seemed streaky.
Luncheon, despite this, was another culinary masterpiece. Ford savored every bite, aware that Sam had done a great deal with color and texture, while keeping the contents easy on a healing stomach. Auntie Q led the conversation to curiosities of collecting, something Ford knew nothing about. He let her wrangle amiably with Madame Flaubert over the likelihood that a certain urn in the collection of the Tsing family was a genuine Wedgwood, from Old Earth, or whether it was
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(Madame Flaubert’s contention) one of the excellent reproductions made on Caehshin, in the first century of that colony.
They came up for air with dessert, as Madame Flaubert passed Ford a tray of pastries and said, “But surely we’re boring you . . . unless this touches your fancy?”
Ford took the pastry nearest him, hoping from the leak of rich purple that it might be rilled with dilberries, his favorite. Madame Flaubert retrieved the plate, and set it aside; his aunt, he noticed, was dipping into a bowl of something yellow. He bit into the flaky pastry, finding his hope fulfilled, and swallowed before he answered.
“I’m never bored hearing about new things, although I confess you lost me back where you were arguing about pressed or carved ornament.”
As he had half-hoped, his aunt broke in with a quick lecture on the difference and why it was relevant to their argument. When she wanted, she could be concise, direct, and remarkably shrewd. No fool, and no spoiled idler, he thought to himself. If she appears that way, it’s because she wants to—because it works for her. Except for the two hours that Auntie Q spent lying down “restoring my youth,” they spent the afternoon in the kind of family gossip they’d missed the first night. Auntie Q had kept up with all the far-flung twigs of her family tree, many of them unknown to Ford, including the careers and marriages of Ford’s own sibs and first cousins. She thought his brother Asmel was an idiot for leaving a good job at Prime Labs to try his fortune raising liesel fur; Ford agreed. She insisted that his sister Tara had been right to marry that bank clerk, although Ford felt she should have finished graduate school first.
“You don’t understand,” Auntie Q said for the third time, and this time explained in detail. “That young man is the collateral cousin of Maurice Quen Chang; he was a bank clerk when Tara married him but he won’t be one in ten years. Maurice is by far the shrewdest investor in that family. He will end with control of two
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key industries in the Cordade Cluster. Didn’t your sister explain?”
“I didn’t see her; I got this in the mails, from Mother.”
“Ah yes. Your mother is a dear person; my old friend Arielle knew her as a girl, you know. Before she married your father. Very upright, Arielle said, and not at all inclined to play social games, but charming in a quiet way,” Ford thought that was a fair description of his mother, although it left out her intelligence, her wit, and her considerable personal beauty. He had inherited her smooth bronze skin, and the bones that let him pass in any level of society. True enough, even if his mother had known that the bank clerk was someone’s cousin, she would not have approved of such calculation in one of her daughters. Auntie Q went on, “I’m sure, though, that any daughter of your mother’s would have had a genuine affection for the young man, no matter what his connections.”
“Mother said so.” Interesting, too, that Mother had never mentioned knowing a friend of Auntie Q’s, all those times his father had talked about her. Had she known that Arielle was Auntie Q’s friend? Or not cared? He tried to puzzle it out, aware of a growing fuzziness in his head. He blinked to clear his vision, and realized that Auntie Q was peering at him, her mouth pu
rsed.
“You’re feeling ill again.” It was not a question. Nor did he question it: he was feeling ill again. This time the onset was slower, more in the head than the stomach, a feeling of swooping and drifting, of being smothered in pale flowers.
“Sorry,” he said. He could see in her eyes that he was being tiresome. Visiting relatives were supposed to be entertaining. They were supposed to listen to her stories and provide the material for new ones she could tell elsewhere. They were not supposed to collapse ungracefully in her exquisitely furnished rooms, fouling the air with bad smells.
He realized he had fallen sideways off his chair onto the floor. A disgrace. She did not say it aloud and he did not need her to say it. He knew it. He lay there remembering to breathe, wishing desperately that he
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McCajfrey and Moon
were back on the Zaid-Dayan, where someone would have whisked him to sickbay, where the diagnostic unit would have figured out what was wrong, and what to do, in a few minutes, and a brusque but effective crew of Fleet medics would have supervised the treatment. And Sassinak, more vivid in her own way than Auntie Q at her wildest, would have come to see him, not walked out of the room in a huff. He remembered, with the mad clarity of illness, the jeweled rosettes on the toes of Auntie Q’s shoes as she pushed herself from her chair, pivotted, and walked away.
This time he came to himself back in bed, but with the feeling that some catastrophic conflict was happening overhead. He felt bruised all over, his skin flinching from the touch of the bedclothes. The space between his ears, where his mind should have been ticking along quietly, seemed to be full of a quiet crackling, a sensation he remembered from five years before, when he’d had a bout of Plahr fever.