by E G Manetti
At the center of the concealed area is a sizable spa pool. She has not enjoyed one since she left Mulan, where the heated pools are prized during the cold season when the snows come. The soothing tang of Fortuna minerals scents the air. Following milord into the bubbling water, she sinks to her shoulders, her eyes closing in pleasure. She is warm to her bones. Opening her eyes to the cold night sky, she admires amethyst, rose, and red moons rising above the horizon. The central red one is almost as breathtaking as the rubies milord has hung from her belt. Fingering the submerged gems, Lilian tilts her head, entranced by the water’s distortion of the shape and color.
A deep, masculine chuckle rouses her from her heat-induced daze. Milord reaches out with one arm and gathers her close while the other presents a glass of sparkling purple wine. Yielding to the enfolding arm while carefully holding the chilled glass above the roiling waters, Lilian takes a small sip, allowing the delicate wine to flow over her tongue, crisp and heady, hinting of apples and lavender.
“Have you dined? Will it make you tipsy?”
“I have dined, milord,” she replies. “But the wine may well make me tipsy. It is more potent than that of Metricelli Prime.”
“Drink it all.” Milord’s lips flutter against her ear and neck.
Shifting under the beguiling caress, Lilian finds that the mineral-rich water of the spa increases her buoyancy. Her legs lift and float in front of her, her torso anchored against milord by the band of his arm. Milord gives a hum of pleasure and cinches her closer. Relaxing in milord’s embrace and the heated waters, she awaits milord’s will. In the silence, her mind drifts, reliving the triumph of the Bright Star code demonstration.
Lucius sips his wine, one arm around Lilian’s midsection as she half floats in the soothing water. She arrived at their morning meal with eyes haunted by her confrontation with Apollo. Her decision was the right one, but it weighed on her. In the warm transport she huddled in her cloak as if chilled to the bone. The stiffness in her spine and shoulders has eased but not disappeared. Even now, half floating, her spine remains stiff. Whatever occurs when the birds visit her dreams, he has detected no sounds of distress in the night.
Lucius is as cognizant as Trevelyan that it is extraordinary that his apprentice is sound. It is not quite a year since she raced for her life through the halls of Serengeti, Sebastian’s vicious protégé in pursuit. The violence and intrigue of that episode were no sooner cleared than she was assaulted, kidnapped, and forced to race for her life once again. An episode followed all too swiftly with by the disaster on Desperation, evidence of Despoiler resurgence, the battle, and an investigation so vile it occasionally disturbs Lucius’ slumber.
Katleen’s sunny certainty that Lilian’s distress is easing, coupled with Lucius’ carefully orchestrated design, has all been overset by Apollo’s agenda. Lucius will not have it. He has little desire for confrontation with a sect leader, even a sect as minor as Adelaide’s. Lilian is too valuable to be lost to alcove intrigue and shrine politics. Apollo will cease his demands or discover how uncomfortable it can be on the wrong side of Lucius’ will.
His dark thoughts are broken by a soft sound from the woman floating in his embrace. The so-stiff spine of a half period gone is now supple and yielding as she places the empty glass on the rim of the spa. Turning her in his arms, he finds the gray eyes slumberous under heavy lids. The woman wishes to be kissed. Lucius complies.
10. Hull Launch
The rebellions of the early second century did incalculable damage to technologistics in the then Seven Systems. When major engineering facilities were destroyed in the First and Second Systems, the advanced navigational technologistics that enabled stellar exploration in the beaconless expanse were lost. Restoring order and rebuilding the Second and First Systems absorbed the full resources and attention of the Governing Council. It was not until the second decade of the third century that stellar exploration resumed with the aid of automated probes. The ancient probes could provide little data other than the presence of water on potential planets. A score of probes led to four fruitless explorations before the fifth resulted in Sinead’s line opening the Eighth System in 248 and the settling of Camelot. ~ excerpt from The Foundations of Order, a scholarly treatise.
Sevenday 131, Day 2
Lilian wakes warm, content, and with pleasant aches in delicate places due to milord’s attentions of the night. Whatever the warbirds wish, they did not visit her. The sounds of milord’s rising drifts in from the next chamber. For whatever cause milord wills the door open, but then his will has often been inexplicable since the battle.
Second day! Lilian bounces upright on the bed. The hull launches this day. Dragging her slate satchel from beneath her pillow, she grasps her thorn and begins her discipline. I am the sum of my ancestors.
»◊«
Escorted by the governor’s militia, the Bright Star cavalcade streams down the transitway at stricture-violating speed. Milord has invited Seigneur Marco into his transport, leaving Lilian and Blythe to the small backward-facing seats. Crossing her ankles, clutching her slate bag, Lilian presses the concealed thorn against one thigh. I am the sum of my ancestors. It is all she can do to retain decorum. I am the foundation of my family. The code is a success. The Bright Star team rose in acclamation.
“Even Monsignor Horatio admitted it was an excellent investment,” Marco says. “Recall how he fought the funding?”
“It is a Serengeti invention,” milord replies, his eyes glittering with triumph. “He would have fought it even if it promised to coat Matahorn Headquarters in gold.”
Marco laughs. “With what the Thirteenth System will yield, that may be possible.”
Milord and the seigneur are as thrilled as she is. Nickolas could not cease grinning as seigneur after seigneur clapped his shoulders in approval. Next to her, Blythe’s eyes shine, riveted on the seigneur and milord.
The transport reaches the aerial transit center, which is perched on a leveled hill overlooking the stellar transit center on the plain beneath. The high-velocity transit rails that cover the two score miles between the centers are moving at capacity, most of the traffic flowing to the aerial transit center as hundreds hasten to reach the launch site. By passing the main entrance, the cavalcade turns toward the area where two dozen militia guards have cordoned off six low-altitude transports, the sand uniforms of Serengeti blending with the dark blue of the Fourth System governor, the dark purple of Leonardo, and the slate gray of Matahorn. Two small media rigs are relegated to the far end of the transport way. They will be able to collect visuals of the Bright Star team departing for the hull launch but naught else.
Mr. George halts the transport at a central LAT, where another Serengeti transport waits. Two guards spring to the doors and Seigneurs Herman and Hadrian emerge. Behind the legalistics seigneur, Clarice slides from the transport, her delicate frame swaddled in a calf-length cloak in the gray of an Iron Hammer apprentice, and her black eyes shining with expectation. Their stellar transport landed but two bells gone, and they came straight to the aerial transit center. Two more transports pull up. Monsignor Horatio and Seigneur William, Monsignors Angus and Coyote.
Flanked by their drivers, milord, the three monsignors, and Seigneurs Marco and William disappear into the LAT.
Two of the Serengeti Militia usher Seigneurs Hadrian and Herman to the far side of milord’s LAT, where another waits with Seigneurs Gwyneth, Aristides, Jasper, and Declan.
Escorted by Mr. Stefan, Lilian leads Blythe and Clarice to the next one over, where Chrys appears at the entrance.
Ushering Lilian and the other two apprentices into the LAT, Chrys is hard put to contain himself. If it were not for Nickolas and Fletcher already within, he would be crowing the success of the Bright Star code. This once, the protégés prove useful, Nickolas jumping from his chair in excitement. “We did it! Only four errors. And one was not the code.”
“If we were not working so quickly, there might not have been any,” Fletcher adds.<
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Eyes bright, Lilian gazes from one protégé to another. “Fletcher is correct, but the haste was part of the test. We know not under what circumstances the code will be sent. The haste was a means to imitate what might be difficult conditions.”
Chrys swallows a laugh. Of course, she must find the flaw.
“But you would have figured it out,” Nickolas replies. “Even with the errors.”
Lilian’s nose twitches in a telltale that she is repressing laughter. “True.” she nods. “But it matters not. The adjustments will be minor and there is time.”
Fletcher and Nickolas exchange a glance and laugh. At the sound, the smile she has been withholding breaks free. Behind her, Blythe whispers to Clarice, undoubtedly filling the other apprentice in on the prior day’s triumph. Clarice would not have been able to witness the demonstration from onboard the stellar transport.
Beyond the windows, Chrys can see the doors of the other LATs sealing. “We should sit.”
Stepping past the protégés who have the prime front position, Chrys motions Lilian to a window seat.
Shaking her head, Lilian refuses. “You take it. I have had the experience.”
Honor wars with desire. At Lilian’s insistent gesture, desire wins and Chrys slides into the seat by the window, the pairs of soft leather seats separated by burled-wood service consoles that provide luxury as well as physical separation. When they are settled, Stefan seals the door and takes his place next to the pilot. In moments they begin the vertical lift. When all six LATs are in the air, they regroup into a wedge formation and veer off over the plains. A chime sounds, and the service console opens to reveal a light meal of savory tarts and fruit.
In a matter of minutes, the rapidly moving LATs clear the hills of Fort Rimon and enter the flatlands. Chrys assesses the dormant grasslands, dusty gray and not the deep blue Lilian described. With a trained agrarian’s eye, he considers its potential for pasturage or conversion to a grain ocean. “I wonder why it is left fallow.”
Lilian shrugs. “Mayhap Master Declan will know. He has always been willing to satisfy my curiosity.”
Chrys nods and turns his attention back to the landscape. Monsignor Angus’ protégé is a decent sort, but he doubts Declan will be as interested in appeasing Chrys’ curiosity as he is that of an attractive woman, however off-limits she may be. Within half a period, the soft gray of prairie grass gives way to the darker gray of sand dotted with purple and red scrub and succulents. On the horizon, the northern mountains are a streak of black stark against the pale copper sky. He turns to Lilian. “It is even more bleak than you described. Is it as cold as it looks?”
“When I was here last, it was warmer and dryer than Fort Rimon,” Lilian replies. “I am not certain about this season.”
A warning chime is followed by the pilot’s voice. “We are coming to the construction fields. The consoles will seal in five minutes.”
Putting aside the remains of his meal, Chrys scans the horizon, finding the first sign of the construction fields, low rectangles mixed with taller, blockier structures and punctuated by sharp spires set at odd angles. As the LATs draw closer, the structures gain size, coalescing into hangers, warehouses, silos, and cranes. From above, they can see a variety of transports nestled among the buildings, some shining in the bright sun, others dull from collected dirt and debris. The deeper they fly into the mechanical city, the more sophisticated the construction sites become, the transports growing larger the closer they get to the far edge and the launch bays.
Lilian leans on the console, peering out the window. “It is just beyond the large brown silo.”
As they pass out of the shadow of the silo, they are confronted by the massive scarlet hull of the SEV1 rising a dozen storeys above the cargo transports and almost half a city block beyond the longest. The scarlet color is not a tribute to Blooded Dagger, but the natural change in the alloy pigmentation when it is refined and treated to form the shell of the vessel. It is far beyond Chrys’ imagining. “No wonder Monsignor Horatio wished it painted.”
“Monsignor Angus was adamant that adding a coating would threaten the hull’s integrity,” Lilian replies. “I doubt he was mistaken, but it did save bells of arguments over hue alternatives.”
“We know Monsignor Angus does not control the hue,” Chrys agrees. “Did he, it would be Leonardo purple.”
»◊«
Adelaide’s grace. When it was naught but the bones of the structure, the hull was awe inspiring. Completed, it is almost impossible to take in. The LAT sweeps along the scarlet expanse broken only by the dark panels of windows. For all its mass, it will travel at half again the speed of the fastest transports in the Twelve Systems. The interior is a shell but for critical environmental, navigation, and propulsion systems. Once tethered to a low-orbit satellite, construction will be completed in the weightless void of the expanse using specialized techniques developed for mining Ruin and other unfriendly rocks. It will never reenter the atmosphere of Fortuna or any other planet. Its massive size will allow it to transport the small flyers that will explore the Thirteenth System, and Bright Star will not need to risk the SEV1 in dangerous descents onto the two unexplored planets.
As they reach the center of the hull, the observation pavilions come into view, arranged on the cleared construction site adjacent to the hull. The half dozen pavilions lining the front of the site are dedicated to the three Bright Star governing monsignors, their seigneurs and their protégés, the Fourth System’s governor, and the elite of the Fourth System cartels, including Celadon and Euphrates. A second set behind the first hosts various members of the elite from the consortium partners with interests in the Fourth System and important guests from off planet. Behind the pavilions, the area is dense with another three thousand observers invited from the elite of the system.
Chrys points at something beyond the observation site. “Over there.”
Three miles distant, another thirty thousand spectators have rented locations at the edge of Leonardo’s construction field. Beyond them, thousands more spread out, every field in the area offering tickets for those who would view the launch. “Seigneur Marco estimates a hundred thousand spectators,” says Lilian. “The security around the thirty thousand Monsignor Angus allowed should provide a sufficient buffer for those who could not be verified.”
“How much of the spectator revenue will flow to Bright Star?”
“Naught from those on the fields of other enterprises. Half of what Leonardo collects. The rest will go to cover the cost of the arrangements and security.”
Reaching the far end of the hull, the LAT circles a hanger and descends near the pavilions. Parting from Chrys as they exit, Lilian turns for milord’s LAT while Chrys moves in the other direction to Seigneur Rachelle’s. Mr. Stefan falls into formation with the other guards as milord descends from the LAT. Following milord, they pass from the shelter of the hangar, exposing them to the chill wind of the flatlands. Clutching her wrap close, Lilian has cause to appreciate Leonardo’s careful planning. Within a few steps they are within the sheltering walls of the pavilion. High enough to halt the wind, but not so high as to obstruct their view of the hull. Standing behind milord’s left shoulder, Lilian briefly meets Chrys’ gaze from his position behind Seigneur Rachelle.
Other than the rush of the wind and the sound of murmured converse, there is an odd quiet. Construction has halted throughout the fields. A high roar signals the arrival of the four HATs before they can be seen. Twisting her neck, Lilian searches the high copper sky for the vessels. Rushing from the west, they sweep the construction area in the tight formation expected of the governor’s militia. Cheers can be heard across the plain as one after another the spectator groups acknowledge the aerial acrobatics. Coming in low over the SEV1, the two leaders unfurl their towlines and capture the grounded hull in perfect symmetry. The HATs rise at a shallow angle, the trailing lines pulling taut. The front of the hull lifts.
I am the sum of my ancestor
s. Lilian’s breath ceases. If the second pair misses or mistimes their part, the leaders will not be able to raise the hull. Its weight could pull it free of the lines and send it crashing to the ground.
I am the foundation of my family. The second pair of HATs set their lines with the same precision as the first. Following the leaders, they rise, lifting the tail of SEV1.
Lilian takes a breath.
Honor is my blade and shield. The angle of ascent and velocity must be in perfect synchronization. Until the hull fires its propulsion units, it is fragile, and the leading lines could rip it apart if the tension is not exact.
With the weight of the hull to manage, the fast-flying transports slow, their sleek lines set to the duty of hauling. Long minutes pass as the SEV1 escort fights gravity to pull the great scarlet shape into the sky. It has diminished to the size of a standard transport when a bright blue flash signals the SEV1 propulsion systems have engaged.
Honor knows not fear. The escort HATs release their lines and curve off in four directions, bright metal birds against the clear copper sky. The unwieldy mass of scarlet takes on grace and speed, launching itself toward the barrier between the planet and the black of the expanse.
Honor endures. The dwindling shape is naught but a spark of blue. The massive reviewers positioned throughout the spectator areas engage, relaying the monitors outfitted on the HAT escorts. Honor acts as duty commands. The SEV1 soars toward the copper rim that marks the boundary between Fortuna and the vastness of the universe. With a bright burst of green, the SEV1 breaches the barrier.
The sound that covers the plains drowns out the wind. Over one hundred thousand people are cheering. For the first time in over two centuries, a Twelve Systems’ stellar exploration vehicle has entered the endless night. Lilian, Chrys, and the other apprentices do not stand and cheer alone. The pavilion shakes under the stomping feet of its occupants. Milord’s arm punches toward the SEV1, his grin fierce with triumph.