by Audrey Faye
I had to give her credit—it was a very nice manor. I called on every gram of the discipline KarmaCorp had tried to beat into my head over the last fifteen years. “Good morning, Madame Inheritor.”
“And to you.” She nodded her head in brief greeting. “I was hoping to find you.” Her eyes glanced at the plate still clutched in my clammy hands and then back up at me, unwilling amusement glinting in their depths. “I see that my son got to you first.”
She was a woman who didn’t miss much. “He was kind enough to give me a brief tour. You lay out an impressive breakfast.”
“We aim to please.”
I was pretty sure she did that about as often as I donned high heels and sat in a spacer’s lap. “In that case, consider me a well-satisfied guest.” Or one who would be headed that way once I had a chance to wolf down the contents of my plate.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying our food.” She smiled at me, widow spider to foolish prey. “I’ve arranged a small dinner party for this evening in honor of your arrival. Our neighbors will wish to welcome you to Bromelain III.”
She made it sound more likely that they’d want to run me out of town on the business end of a blaster. “That’s very kind of you, but I generally like to keep a low profile while I’m working.”
“You would be far more conspicuous in your absence,” she said smoothly. “Although if it’s a low profile you seek, you may wish to wear shoes to the event.”
My bare toes curled up in embarrassment before I forced them back out again. I wasn’t a nursling brat to be chastised—I was a Singer, and a damn fine one. I held back the growl rising in my throat. “I imagine I can find a pair by then.”
She acknowledged my parry with the barest tilt of her head. “If you experience any difficulty, just let a member of my staff know. They would also be happy to fill you a breakfast plate in future, should you so desire.”
The woman knew how to wield a delicate and vicious sword. I said nothing. Sometimes silence was a very useful weapon.
Her chin tipped two centimeters higher. “Dinner will be at dusk on the outside patio. Formal wear and dancing.”
If she thought she could embarrass a miner’s brat with a formal dinner, she was a thousand lightyears away from right. Trainees were thoroughly schooled in basic cultural graces and the skills to meld seamlessly into whatever society we landed in. I was no Dancer, but I wouldn’t be embarrassed by a couple of turns around a patio or by a neighborly dinner, even if it came with five forks.
Which, I realized belatedly, Evgenia would likely know. There was more to her agenda here than trying to make me trip over my own toes. I capitulated—for now. “I enjoy dancing. It will be my pleasure to attend.”
“The Inheritor will be pleased to hear it.” She turned to go, and missed the flash of surprise I couldn’t hide. I had assumed the dinner was her idea, but the harmonics were clear. She was merely the messenger, albeit an obnoxiously regal one.
I rocked back on my bare heels, realigning my math. Evgenia’s motives in all of this were murky and hard to understand, but Emelio’s intentions seemed obvious—put the putative lovebirds together in the same room and see what the Singer can do.
I couldn’t fault his tactics—and perhaps they would help me out of the unholy mess I’d dug myself into. I assumed the blaster-carrying neighbors would be adequate incentive to stay out of the Inheritor Elect’s lap—and maybe observing Janelle and Devan side-by-side would let me find a way through this that I sure as heck couldn’t lay eyes on at the moment.
A way that wouldn’t make me feel like intergalactic scum.
13
Finally, a face I recognized—which might be a good thing, or not. I made my way through the gathering throngs of people on the Lovatt compound’s main lawn, ignoring the open curiosity and pointed stares. Tameka stood just inside the front gates, surveying the crowd.
I wanted to say hello—and I needed to know why she’d come. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
She nodded at me and smiled, her face wearing the bland look of diplomats everywhere. “I believe the dinner invitation went out to all the neighbors.”
Judging from the number of people who had arrived with overnight bags, “neighbors” was a very loose term. I reached up to my temples, already feeling the grinding inside. The last thing I needed right now was another Fixer on an intercept course.
A brief touch of something warm, and the aching under my fingers subsided.
I looked at Tameka in surprise, recognizing the vibrations of a trained Talent. Her fingers were shaping the air in front of her into a gentle figure eight. Soothing. Smoothing. She smiled at me. “Whatever else I may be, Lakisha Drinkwater, I’m not your enemy.”
She wasn’t—my Song could hear that just fine. But she might be something even more dangerous. “Sorry. It’s been a really long couple of days.” Ones where I’d spent way too much time apologizing and not nearly enough getting my job done.
Tameka was watching me with interest. “Something’s still shaking you.”
Not anything I was prepared to talk about—and not anything I wanted her to see. “It won’t affect my ability to work.”
“Park the attitude, child. I’m not Yesenia.”
I wasn’t a child, but arguing that point would just make me feel like one. I dug around for a safer subject. “I tried bacon.”
Her face creased in a huge and genuine smile. “Ah, one of our special treats—how did you like it?”
“I ate three platefuls at lunch.” Which had caused minor stomach protestations, but they’d been entirely worth it.
She chuckled and pointed at a rotund gentlemen sitting on a bench with a lady on each knee. “Ronald will be very happy to hear it. He’s in charge of most of Bromelain III’s pigs. He’d be glad to take you out to meet his charges, if you like.”
I’d grown up on a mining rock—it still made me squirm to find out where my food came from, especially if it was mobile. “I think I’ll just wait until they’re turned into bacon, thanks.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Spoken like a dumb flatlander.”
I sobered quickly—there was no way that choice of words had been accidental, and I would do well to remember that this wily old woman didn’t Dance on my team. “You talked to Janelle.”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “She likes you. I consider her a good judge of character.”
Figuring out the good guys and the bad guys on this planet was going to split my head in two. “I like her too.”
“That’s going to make your job harder.”
That, and my idiot hormones. “A Fixer who expects her work to be easy is doomed to be disappointed.” It was one of those axioms they drilled into us in trainee school—and it annoyed me just as much now as it had then.
Tameka snorted. “A Fixer who spouts drivel doesn’t last long working for Yesenia Mayes.”
I raised an eyebrow and tried a diplomatic stare of my own. “You seem to know an awful lot about my boss for someone who lives on a backwater planet.”
Her lips quirked. “You do that very well.”
I wasn’t sure that was a compliment.
“Relax,” she said quietly. “I imagine this assignment has thrown you for a bit of a loop, but this evening is something you know how to do. Watch. Observe. Collect data.”
Just like I’d told the third-year trainees. I met her gaze as directly as I could. Whatever side of the fence she might be riding tonight, it was good advice—from someone who’d done this job for longer than I’d been alive. “So, what do I need to know to survive this shindig?”
She smiled. “Strong opinions are appreciated, folks tend to go by their first names, and the amber stuff in the martini glasses is homebrewed and lethal.”
Good to know. “Noted.”
She paused a moment. “And at some point, go tell Ronald you like his bacon. He’s got a lot of pull on this planet, and you could use a friend or two that the Lovatts and Brookers can’t boss aro
und.”
I glanced at the man who still had two nubile young women on his lap, hearing what the wily old Fixer hadn’t said. “You like him?”
“I do.” She shrugged, eyes twinkling. “Just don’t sit on his knee.”
That would happen exactly never.
Tameka took two frothy green drinks from a passing server and handed one to me. “Go mingle, Singer. Let them see what you’re made of. Around here, that matters.”
It did on a digger rock, too. I squared my shoulders and took a sip of frothy green. Pleasant and vaguely minty. “Thank you.”
“Oh, you can decide later if you want to thank me.” She toasted me with her drink and made to move off into the crowd. “Best of luck, Lakisha Drinkwater. I have a feeling you might need it.”
I took another sip of my drink, both comforted and disquieted, and bemused by a woman who could hand out both in a three-minute conversation.
And wondered exactly what game she was playing at tonight.
-o0o-
My eyes roamed the lawn, taking in the configurations, the informal shaping of a crowd that said much about power and influence and who hadn’t gotten in a shower tube with enough frequency lately.
There were the usual folks traveling in the center, the suns around which lots of minor planetary types found their orbits. Smaller groupings on the periphery, some there by choice or habit, some because they hadn’t yet gotten permission to enter into a sun’s orbit and believed permission was needed. A few travelers wandering solo, although in this crowd, relatively few.
I let my Talent roam quietly, reading base notes and harmonies, noting off-key slides and chromatics. Not a lot of those here—Bromelain III was a pretty straightforward place. Its Song would have strong notes, a clear melody line, and lots of people very intentionally moving to a beat of their own.
A colony of folks who prized their freedom. Not a place where I’d expect to find a lot of support for an arranged marriage, no matter what the StarReaders had seen in their cards and charts. This was the kind of planet where people built their own destinies and were happy to do it.
And yet the guy running the place had sent for a Fixer. I looked around again, keeping my eye out for the key players. I had a rough read of the land—now I needed to see how the terrain responded to the people at the core of this particular assignment.
A stir at the left edge of the crowd had me turning, even as my Talent recognized the shifting notes, the new melodic influence. Emelio—and right behind him, a smiling, sunny Devan.
My gut clenched, even as my Song reached out in greeting. I yanked it back with both hands and all the discipline I could scare up on short notice. I wasn’t here to woo the man to my bed. My hormones hadn’t been this out of control since I’d come out of a cryo-sleep trip two years ago with a body that believed it had missed a decade of sex.
Using the kind of language that would make even a digger-rock mother blush, I read myself the riot act in short, sharp sentences. Then I tucked whatever insanity was rising in my Song away in a nuclear bunker, threatened it with blaster fire if it so much as twitched, and turned my attention back to the warm evening, the people collected on the Lovatt lawn, and the way the music had changed the moment the Inheritor and his son had landed.
Because damn, had it changed. And not entirely in ways I would have imagined.
The respect for Emelio was clear, and in most cases it came with a healthy dose of personal affection. The man connected with his people. The Song of the crowd had shifted to put him at the core, and it had done so without pissing off the people who had just been displaced on center stage. Which was a remarkable accomplishment for a man who looked like he did little more than smile and shake hands all day.
The swirls around Devan were what fascinated me most, though. Some respect for his position as Emelio’s metaphorical right hand, but a surprising amount for the man himself. Affection, too. But more, there were quiet lines of discontent on his behalf, and unspoken promises in the event that the man in question ever decided to make any moves off his father’s shoulder. Not a revolt—it didn’t have that kind of flavor at all. Just the support of some very independent and opinionated colonists for a young man they liked very much.
It tugged on something deep in my belly. I liked him too.
More stirring, this time on the northern edge of the lawn. I read Janelle’s presence before I saw her. She stepped into my line of sight moments later and flashed me a cheery wave.
The neighbors who had moved to flank her startled, and then fell into formation around her anyhow. A couple sent me dirty looks, but most just settled into greeting each other and raiding passing food trays, their message sent. Janelle’s parents might be off-planet, but they wanted me to know she didn’t walk alone.
I wondered if they understood just how little she needed their help. I shook my head—the StarReaders didn’t goof pretty much ever, but anyone who thought this woman could be gently nudged needed to get out of their office and spend some time in the presence of real-live human beings.
That line of thought felt good for about five seconds, and then I remembered it was my job to be the one who got out of the office and did actual work. I sighed, grabbed a tiny pastry that smelled like bacon and eggs, and turned up the volume dial on my Talent. I must be missing something. I’d been sent here because the powers-that-be thought a Singer’s nudges would work. Whatever reputation we might have in some parts of the galaxy, Fixers very rarely forced anything—it not only ran against our ethics, but it generally didn’t work very well either. We leaned, we influenced, we shifted the tides under things that were already there.
Carefully, I cleared my mind of anything but sound and sent out tonings, the listening radar pings of Talent that would hear the subtle undercurrents, the quiet hints of story traveling far underground. Most Singers couldn’t do this kind of work in a crowd, but I’d grown up learning how to dig through rock and muck and hard places. The data flowing on the Lovatt lawn reformed and sharpened as I listened. Carefully, I let the notes of what I found resonate against what I’d already heard.
And didn’t like what they said to me at all.
I finally backed out of my deep listening trance, well aware it had been a dumb thing to do on a lawn full of people, especially with a decent number of them poised to be unfriendly or downright hostile. And it hadn’t netted me much to work with. A hundred people to gather intel from, and there was still nothing of substance supporting any kind of romantic connection between Devan and Janelle. A few wry hopes for the partnership of the two of them—but none with any real heart energy.
Whatever the StarReaders had charted, the people of Bromelain III didn’t see it.
Which left me with very few allies on this grass—and my targets had a waiting army if they ever chose to use it. However much respect the residents of BroThree had for Emelio Lovatt, and it was substantial, they would not support his plan here, or my work.
I was going to be Singing very much alone.
-o0o-
“Singer.”
Devan’s voice at my shoulder caught me by surprise—and my jumpy evasive maneuver nearly ran me into Janelle, coming up on my other side.
She grinned and slung an arm through mine. “Evening, Kish.”
Flanked. I hadn’t even heard them coming. “Fancy meeting you two here.”
Janelle chuckled and steered us around a large group of gawking people. I ground my teeth and tried not to kick both of them in the shins. No one on this planet had any idea what low profile looked like.
I had just become an actress in a two-bit play—one who didn’t know her part. New music started up, and I decided it was time to improvise. I cast a sweet look up at Devan, hoping he could see the hints of murder in my eyes. “It’s a lovely night. You and Janelle should dance.”
The woman in question snorted and sent me a wry look. “You’ll have to be a lot more subtle than that, Singer.”
I waved politely at the
audience avidly watching us. “We’re being subtle, are we?”
Both of them laughed.
I relaxed a little—apparently, I’d managed my lines well enough. Janelle angled us over to a copse of trees. “Sorry. We’re being a little obnoxious.”
They had good reason, but that wasn’t making their shins any safer.
Devan motioned at a couple of nearby staffers, ensuring us relative privacy and reminding me he was planetary royalty, all in one quick, easy move. “You’ve been watching us all night. Care to tell us what data you’re storing away in that busy head of yours?”
The KarmaCorp operations manual screeched in protest. I ignored it—it hadn’t exactly been making itself useful on this assignment. And something in his tone had me snared. “You both have widespread support here, and there is very little for the Inheritor’s position on your marriage.”
His eyebrows flew up in surprise—whether at the information or at my honesty, I couldn’t tell.
“Told you.” Janelle’s voice carried tones of easy affection. “They support the man and the office, not every harebrained idea he comes up with.”
I jumped to Emelio’s defense, well aware my motives were murky at best. “It seems like a fairly well-considered way to maintain harmony between the two most important families on this planet.” I threw my hands up as they both turned on me. “I’m not saying it’s the best idea, or the only one—but I don’t think it’s harebrained, either.”
This time it was Janelle raising an eyebrow. “It doesn’t sound like the people of Bromelain III agree with you.”
They didn’t—but the StarReaders agreed with Emelio. And I’d just made my job a whole lot harder by telling them the first when I couldn’t tell them the second.
I’d never been so tempted to violate Ears Only in my entire life.
I looked into Devan’s eyes, glad against all reason that I’d told him that the people of this planet had his back. And wished, with all my heart, that I could tell him why I couldn’t do the same.