by Audrey Faye
There were undertones to what she was saying, but they were muddy and unclear. I did what I should have done at the front gates and let my Talent unfurl a little. Passive mode only, but it would help me catch the nuances. “I’m happy to listen.”
“I want you to do more than that.” Her tone was clipped, quick, and final—the words of a woman used to having her commands followed. “You’re about to enjoy the legendary hospitality of the Lovatts. In exchange, I expect the courtesy of being informed before you take any actions that might unduly affect members of my household.”
That was blunt—and impossible. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. My freedom to act as I see fit is enshrined in Council covenant.” The Warriors of Karma had been very thorough.
She raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t ask to control your actions—only to be notified of them in advance.”
A questionable distinction, and a meaningless one. “You didn’t ask.”
My Talent buzzed an unnecessary alert—Evgenia’s temper was easy enough to read on her face. “This is my home, Singer, and you’d do well to remember that.”
My own temper snapped. Enough. I sang a sharp staccato trio, this time letting the notes be clearly audible. A warning—and a bit of a threat. No one leaned on a Singer, not unless she was under orders to let it happen.
Evgenia’s eyes clouded with disdain, even as they widened a little. “I’d have thought you were above that sort of parlor trick.”
I’d been accused of worse. “It’s only a parlor trick if I can’t deliver.”
That got rid of some of the disdain. “I don’t like you, Singer.”
Oddly enough, that wasn’t ringing true in my harmonics. “So long as you respect my Talent and my right to be here, that will be enough.” It wouldn’t be—I didn’t like getting kicked at any more than the next person, and I fully intended to hold a grudge—but it was the kind of politic answer that a representative of KarmaCorp was expected to give.
She snorted, but a decent amount of the wind had gone out of her sails. “Stick with threats. You’re a damn poor liar.”
I wasn’t here to be one. “Fortunately, I’m a much better Singer.”
“We shall see.” Evgenia stared down her nose at me. “However, whatever else Yesenia may have sent us, I don’t think you’re a pushover.”
It was good we’d gotten that much straight.
“Ah, here you are.”
I turned to watch the arrival of the person who belonged to the smooth and powerful voice. He moved out of the shadows of the entry portico, a tall man with dark hair, dark eyes, and the stride of someone who knew he walked on lands he ruled.
He was also a man with excellent timing. I held out my hands, palms up, and slid into full diplomatic mode. “Greetings, Inheritor. I deeply appreciate the hospitality of you and your family while I’m here.”
He smiled and cast his wife a long glance. “I trust it won’t involve too many more detours before we’ve managed to get you a bed and a decent meal or two.”
I was very glad I wasn’t standing any closer to Evgenia—her eyes looked ready to light things on fire. “We were just talking about Director Mayes, Inheritor. She sends you her best wishes, and those of KarmaCorp as well.”
The Inheritor chuckled. “She did no such thing. And I would be pleased to have you call me Emelio, as every citizen of this planet does.”
The waters of this assignment just kept getting murkier. I needed to change that, and if Evgenia and her thorns were any indication, I needed to do it pretty damn fast. I took a steadying breath. “Thank you, Emelio. I appreciate the warm welcome, and I’m glad to have a chance to speak with you about why I’ve been sent here.” The reasons on his radar, anyhow.
“To a lowly colony planet, you mean?” Evgenia’s eyes were sharp, her voice sharper. “Don’t underestimate the citizens of Bromelain III, Singer. We’ll be eligible for Federated status in three more years, and I intend to see that we get it.”
She fired a last seething glance at her husband and moved off in a storm of stomp and fury, immediately pulling a young woman in uniform garb into animated discussion. All while staying close enough to hear exactly what was said next.
I pondered, and looked at the man standing beside me. Federation membership was the Holy Grail for colony planets, and it wasn’t handed out lightly. “Will you get status?”
He tilted his head slightly and smiled. “Evgenia will be on the warpath if we don’t.”
I raised an eyebrow. Strong men didn’t usually hide behind their wife’s skirts, even as a conversational gambit. “And you?”
“I will abide by the Council’s decision.” His face gave nothing away.
Fortunately, I had better sensors—and my Talent said he wanted membership in the Commonwealth at least as much as his wife. Which explained why they’d asked for me. The Council liked new member planets to be neat and tidy, and a marriage of the colony’s two most powerful families would tidy this one up considerably.
That’s why I’d been requested. However, I doubted it was actually the reason I’d been sent. StarReaders didn’t get involved over the fate of a backwater planet, not unless it sent some serious ripples elsewhere.
Ripples I didn’t need to understand, at least not today. I was tired, annoyed, and I wasn’t here to practice my diplomatic waltzing, a class I’d barely passed as a trainee in the first place. Some Fixers navigated the political waters of their assignments with ease, but I wasn’t one of them. In the immortal words of one of my instructors, I tended to work like a kid who had grown up on the business end of a drill bit. Success had earned me some politer descriptors, but I still tended to be sent on missions where it was decently likely I would need to throw a punch.
Hopefully, that wasn’t going to happen on this one—Emelio’s nose looked pretty hard. I studied his face as he guided us out of the rose garden and back into more populated areas, and recalled one of his wife’s carefully aimed thorns—the one where she had called my boss by her first name. “How do you know Director Mayes, Inheritor?”
His eyes got careful and distant. “I met her when she worked in the field.”
I blinked—Yesenia had been a Traveler. As far as I knew, none of her assignments would have been in the current timeline.
Emelio waved at someone off in the distance. “And no, I won’t answer any further questions about that. Neither, I imagine, will she.”
Yesenia didn’t tend to answer questions, period. “Fair enough. How about a new question, then—why am I here to help two grown adults fall in love?”
He didn’t move, but his face sharpened with interest. “Why don’t you tell me how much of the answer you’ve already worked out?”
That was neatly done, but I imagined he was a pro at ducking questions he didn’t want to answer. “You’ve got a planet with two families that could call the shots. I don’t know yet whether you coexist reasonably well, but I imagine that worries the Federation bureaucrats.”
That earned me my first unscripted smile. “You’ve been busy.”
“Just doing my job.” I was pretty sure that if he’d wanted that information buried, it would have been a lot harder to find. Then again, so far BroThree hadn’t struck me as a place where anyone was used to being muzzled. “So, do you and the Brookers play nicely together in the sandbox or not?”
He raised one shoulder in a classically Gallic shrug. “Any society with two ruling powers is inherently unstable.”
That was a central tenet of the political theory that had given rise to the Inheritor model. One decently capable boss, less planetary strife. “So you’re going to solve the problem by merger?” Not a totally dumb idea—it happened a lot in the old-school fantasy novels I drank like water.
A chuckle again. “Nothing nearly so businesslike, my dear. I’m a romantic at heart. I hope my son finds true love.”
It came off as a throwaway line, but my Talent heard the quiet harmonics of truth underneath. Emelio Lovatt was
ambitious, canny, concerned about his wife’s machinations—and he wanted his only son to be happy.
That was why he had asked for a Fixer. He wanted his son to walk willing, or even eager, into a marriage that would keep the natives content, the Federation appeased, and his wife off the battlefield. My job was to smooth the way and nudge the two dominos that would tip the rest into place.
I hid a grin. Janelle would not appreciate any part of being compared to a domino. Which, even if it made my job significantly harder, I had to respect.
It was a good thing I liked improvising—this mission had already blown the usual operating manual all to hell. But at least I was beginning to assemble information.
What I needed to know next was how Devan fit into this picture. With two powerhouse parents, I assumed he was either a browbeaten son who said yes to everything or a dilettante who had abandoned responsibility altogether. Most rich and powerful families had a steady supply of both.
I turned toward the Inheritor, careful to keep my external demeanor impassive. “I’d like to meet your son.”
He flashed me a charismatic, sexy smile. “That’s what all the pretty girls say.”
The man had more masks than the planet Venetia during Carnivale. He’d also managed to make sure I was well informed in less than five minutes, within earshot of his wife. And he’d convinced Yesenia to send me here in the first place. Definitely not a man to underestimate. He’d pissed me off by calling me pretty, though. “Including Janelle?”
“Janelle Brooker is a lovely young lady.” He was as smooth as Tee’s silk hankies. “She and Devan have been good friends for a lifetime, and I’d be most pleased at the chance to welcome her into our family.”
I looked over to where Evgenia stood, regal, annoyed, and clearly listening. “And how do you feel about Janelle, Madame Inheritor?”
Her sniff was probably audible on BroThree’s twin moons. “Any woman would be lucky to have my son.”
In other words, she was a biased mama miffed that Janelle hadn’t fallen at Devan’s feet.
I wondered if it mattered to either of them what Janelle wanted. I felt my Song buzz a quiet harmonic of sisterhood, and cut it off. I wasn’t here to be sympathetic. In the end, I might not be able to care that much about what Janelle Brooker wanted either.
“You’ve asked some very direct questions, Singer.” Emelio’s words were polite, his eyes reflecting only casual interest. “Perhaps you will permit me to ask one or two as well.”
Not happily, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t an answer he heard very often. “Certainly, although I retain the right not to answer.”
The gleam in his eye said he didn’t hear that very often either. “Tell me about your last assignment.”
That sounded more like the beginning of a job interview than a question. “I was sent to one of the new greenhouse biomes. A small splinter group was on the edge of revolt.” Which probably wouldn’t have merited a Fixer’s attention except the biome produced a couple of vital medical ingredients, and one of the splinter group members had been pretty handy at building things that exploded.
Emelio inclined his head like he’d heard my unspoken words as well. “And why the rebellion?”
Mostly reasons I couldn’t give him. “A handful of people couldn’t handle the wide-open spaces.” The new greenhouse planets had them in abundance.
He nodded sagely. “Inner-planet volunteers, I take it.”
He’d managed to keep the disdain from his voice, but my Talent heard it anyway. And he wasn’t wrong. Seeding colonies was art, not science, and the failure rate, even with the help of the KarmaCorp Anthros, was still high enough to make Federation bureaucratic types cringe. The psychs could run all the tests they wanted, but in the end, they were only guessing—the only sure way to tell if someone from an overcrowded cage of an inner planet could handle a view of the unencumbered sky was to let them see it.
Emelio had paused in a corner of the compound that gave a convenient and impressive view over much of the grounds. “And your role was to calm the revolt?”
Something like that. “I’m good at my job, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He smiled. “It’s one of the things I’m asking.”
The man could charm the scales off a fish. “You expect me to be calming a revolt here, do you?”
His laugh rang out through the compound. “You’ll do, Singer. It appears Yesenia did good work in sending you.”
Evgenia sniffed audibly in the background.
I had no idea why she hadn’t simply joined us at this point, but it didn’t matter. They might have very different opinions of me, but both Lovatts clearly supported my mission’s intended outcome. Which was good news—allies didn’t have to be friendly ones. “I hope I’ll have the opportunity to meet your son soon, Inheritor.” Whatever bigger forces were in play, my job was here on the ground.
Emelio looked past my shoulder, his eyes lighting with pleasure and welcome. “You’re about to get your wish.”
I assumed the Inheritor Elect was home, and gathered my Talent. Time to let Devan Lovatt make his first impression. Harmonics in place, I turned, ready to collect data.
He wasn’t hard to find. Devan was the spitting image of a younger Emelio, with added hints of Evgenia’s fire. Tall, wiry muscle, he moved into the rotunda with the spare grace of a space pilot and the friendly exuberance of a man who had once been a boy running these grounds.
And then he was a man on the run.
I scanned the direction he was charging and winced, seeing the impending collision just before it happened. A young boy flying across the lawn, looking back over his shoulder—and half a step away from running headlong into an older girl carrying a stack of holobooks.
I could hear the collective intake of breath as the crash happened. The girl landed in an ungraceful lump, holobooks spraying out over several meters. The boy arced through the air and plowed face-first into the grass, followed a moment later by the crash landing of a toy cubesat just past his outstretched fingers.
A frozen moment, and then ten people arrived on the scene all at once. Hands reached out to dry the girl’s tears, collect up her belongings, soothe her scraped knees.
There were a few glances at the boy crawling over to cuddle his smashed toy. Enough to verify he wasn’t hurt—and to communicate their collective exasperation with the reckless child who hadn’t taken enough care.
My heart squeezed. I’d been him, so damn many times. I wanted, badly, to do something. To say something. To remind all those people that reckless hearts bruised too.
And then Devan Lovatt was there, scooping up a small boy and his smashed toy and settling both into his lap. A dozen people bustling, fixing, managing—and the Inheritor Elect of Bromelain III sat down on a patch of grass, hugged a small boy’s head, and touched gentle fingers to the sad, dangling solar wings of a busted model cubesat.
Offering comfort. Lamenting a wounded treasure.
The scene on the lawn changed. The brusque busyness around the girl shifted and a couple of friendly faces crouched down by Devan and the boy in his lap. One offered a gentle rub on the child’s knee. Another dug into her pockets and came out with a wrapped sweet and a tube of instaglue. Finding their kindness, their empathy for a small boy who didn’t look before he leaped.
Following the lead of the man who would one day lead them. The man who had, in the space of a few seconds, made a very intentional choice to stand for one small boy—and to nudge those around him without ever saying a word.
I could feel my brain noting the data, tracking what my harmonics were reading, stashing the observations for later. Which was good, because the rest of me was barely managing to stay inside my skin. My hands were clammy, my forehead was hot, and my chakras had melted into an auric puddle of goo.
Or as Tee would have put it, my hormones had just lit up like a Galactic Peace Day light show.
I knew I was in big trouble. My Song was mutating into so
mething that resembled a freaking mating call and the guy who would run this planet someday was touching a small boy’s face one last time and climbing to his feet.
I swallowed once, my mouth dry as rock dust. And then I remembered that I was a Singer—someone who deserved respect and who could command it if necessary. “I’d prefer to meet with the Inheritor Elect later.” The steadiness of my voice was an abject lie, but it would fool anyone not Talented.
Emelio raised an eyebrow, clearly taken aback. Evgenia’s face resembled a Renusian thunderstorm.
Clear evidence that I needed to beat my retreat a whole lot more graciously. I offered up what I hoped was a rueful smile. “My apologies—I’m suddenly quite tired from the travel. I believe I’d like to spend some time in my rooms now.”
I had no idea if either of them believed me, but as I followed a hastily summoned staffer out of the sunlight and into a dim hallway, I didn’t much care. Hiding might not be a life strategy my mother respected much, but every kid from a digger rock knew it had its uses.
Devan Lovatt was as good a reason as I’d ever had.
11
I wasn’t sure what life forms had made the little trails I was following through the high grass, but they surely weren’t human. Or headed anywhere purposeful.
No matter—the aimless wandering suited my mood. My assignment had just turned into even more of a clusterfuck, and I had no idea what to do about it.
Damn hormones.
And not just hormones. Devan Lovatt had shaken me silly, but Janelle had landed a few blows as well. A target who thought her desires and choices mattered was pretty standard on a KarmaCorp mission. Most people believed in the greater good, right up until they had to personally sacrifice for it. That’s why my job was to nudge, to make sure the ripples that happened were the right ones. But this time I’d be leaning on someone I liked, and I was out here partly because that royally sucked.
“Lost?”
The single word nearly jolted me into outer orbit.