Confluence

by S. K. Dunstall

  Saylor couldn’t hide his boredom although the occasional glare from Chen kept his acidic comments under control.

  What had happened in the Radko family that made Chen desperate to stay on their side?

  “Take off your jacket,” Tse commanded. “I need to see your arms.”

  Radko did so.

  Tse clapped her hand to her forehead. “Look at them. They’re . . . hard.”

  “And she has no chest at all,” Zheng said. “Or nothing to speak of.”

  Radko couldn’t tell if they were acting for their audience or genuinely upset. “Muscle tone never hurt anyone.” If they wanted curves, they wouldn’t get them from a Lancastrian soldier, especially not someone who worked for Abram Galenos.

  Commodore Vega now, for Galenos had been promoted to admiral.

  Zheng walked around Radko. “I could make her arms a feature. It would be unusual.”

  “No,” Hua said, and her horror wasn’t faked. “It would be a show of strength. We don’t want to challenge anyone. Cover them. Cover them now,” and she picked up Radko’s jacket and thrust it at her. “I don’t ever want to see them again.”

  Radko pulled on her jacket. She recognized genuine fear when she saw it. Had her mother always been so scared of the Emperor?

  “Messires Zheng and Tse will come up with two designs each,” her mother said. “You must choose one of them. While it’s being made up, I’ll send Messire Coles in to attend your hair. In the meantime, do us all a favor and go and wash and change.”

  “I wouldn’t mind some sleep.” Radko was a soldier. She could nap when she needed to. “It’s evening where I’ve come from.”

  “You won’t have time,” her mother said.

  Radko thought she might snatch a nap, anyway.

  Claudette caught up with her outside the apartment. “Take the Tse outfit. Grandmama has promised that the designer you don’t choose can design my dress, and I already know what I want.”

  Radko’s childhood had been made up of bargains and counterbargains like these. “Make sure Tse designs me something I want to wear, then. I don’t plan on looking stupid because you want the other designer.”

  “I’ll find a way to send Tse along to your apartment,” Claudette said.

  Radko missed her uniform already, and she was still wearing it.

  * * *

  “I want a dress I can move in,” Radko told Tse, when she was alone in her quarters with the designer. “And I want hidden strength.” She was a soldier. She was dangerous. Emperor Yu would do well to remember that. Then she remembered her mother’s obvious terror. “Maybe not the strength.” She didn’t want anything to reflect back negatively on her family.

  “Clothes you can move in are not fashionable.”

  “I’ll take a Zheng design then.”

  “Your niece wants the Zheng outfit.” Tse took out her comms and extended it to a full drawing slate. “I can’t design a new dress in half an hour.” She paused, and looked at Radko. “You seem naïve—unusual for someone of your position—but your mother is a good customer of mine, so I’ll give you some advice for free. Don’t antagonize Emperor Yu. I’ve seen other people try it, like young Ethan Saylor back in your mother’s rooms. It gets you nowhere except out, and if your family want to retain any position they have, they would then have to disown you.”

  “Is that what Saylor’s family did?”

  Tse cocked her head to one side and studied Radko, then the design on her slate. She didn’t answer.

  Radko looked at the design. A sheath dress, so tight she’d have to mince. “I can’t wear that. I need to move when I want to.”

  “I’m thinking.” Tse changed the image. The new design was much better. “This I designed for the Crown Princess herself. All designers do, you know. In case they are ever asked. Not that we’re ever likely to, of course—Her Royal Highness has her own designers. But we all have half a design ready to build on. A classic, just in case.”

  Tse modified the design and held up the final image. Tight-fitting leggings with a swirling, full-length tunic over the top. The tunic had side slits that went up to the waist. “You’ll be able to run in this.”

  Not without pulling it up, but at least you could pull it up. If she was desperate, Radko could fling the cloth over her shoulders.

  “The beauty in this is the cloth it’s made from,” Tse said. “It took me five years to come up with the design. But a soldier like you wouldn’t appreciate the finer things in life.”

  “Even soldiers like to dress well.”

  Tse sniffed. “I’d believe that more if you’d stopped to change before you went to your mother’s rooms.” She held up the design.

  Radko nodded approval.

  Afterward, Tse lingered.

  “Is there something else?”

  Tse still hesitated. Finally, she said, “Your mother is one of my best clients. I hope whatever you’re involved in doesn’t endanger her.”

  “What I’m involved in?” How much did Tse know about Radko’s job? How much did she know about Ean?

  “Your mother has a lot of new friends. All acquired after we heard you were coming home.”

  Radko had only been summoned ten days ago.

  “You don’t need friends like Tiana Chen or Ethan Saylor. They’ll discard you as soon as you’ve finished being useful. As will their mentor, Sattur Dow.”

  “Thank you,” Radko said. Her mother knew better than she did what a minefield Lancian politics could be. She would know this already.

  The swirling design on the outfit Tse produced reminded Radko of the creation scene on the wall in the large crew room on the Eleven.

  Pieter waited with his gels and brushes. “I hardly know what to do with it,” he said. “The dress takes over.”

  “What about an electrostatic halo,” Radko suggested. If she was to wear an outfit based on an alien design, she might as well wear her hair the way it often was when she was around lines.

  “It’s plain,” Pieter said, doubtfully, when he was done. “But it’s striking enough, I suppose.”

  It felt like home. “I’m used to its being like this.”

  Pieter looked appalled. “Isn’t it dangerous to be close to so much static all the time?”

  Radko smiled, thinking of Ean, who could throw a man across a shuttle bay with the help of the lines. “Of course it’s dangerous.” But perfectly safe, too.

  * * *

  HUA Radko kept up a constant, strained chatter in the aircar on the way to Baoshan. Radko thought the chatter covered nervousness and a bit of one-upmanship.

  There were six of them in the car. Radko, her mother, Claudette, Tiana Chen, Ethan Saylor, and another close friend of her mother’s, who’d been around seemingly forever.

  “It will be nice to see Michelle again,” Hua said. A subtle reminder to people like Chen and Saylor that Michelle was a relation. “She dresses so beautifully.”

  Her mother hadn’t commented on Radko’s dress. Claudette hadn’t either, but Radko had seen the expression on her niece’s face. Tse had gotten herself another client out of this and probably started a new fashion.

  “You work with Her Royal Highness,” Chen said to Radko. “You must see her every day.”

  “No.” If Chen thought Radko had easy access to the Crown Princess, it was time to disabuse her. “I’m part of a team. We have other duties as well.” She could get to Michelle more easily than most of her team could, through Ean, but that was none of Chen’s business.

  “Like guarding the linesmen on the alien ships,” Saylor said.

  That wasn’t general knowledge. “Occasionally,” Radko said. “Her Royal Highness has a linesman on her staff.” That was known.

  It was night on Confluence Station. Ean would be in bed.

  “And we’ll have access to that line
sman.” Saylor rubbed his hands together. “Imagine. We’ll own the universe.”

  Lancia was never going to get free access to Ean. Not without Michelle as intermediary. Nor without Radko at Ean’s back to protect him. Yet most Lancastrians assumed that because Ean was Lancastrian, they had an advantage over the other worlds. Radko wouldn’t have thought anything more about his comment except that Chen jabbed her fan into Saylor’s leg as he opened his mouth to speak again.

  It was supposed to be unobtrusive, but any trained observer would have picked it up.

  Why did Chen want Saylor to shut up?

  “Have you ever been on one of the alien ships?” Chen asked, in what Radko thought was a deliberate attempt to change the conversation.

  “Captain Helmo arranged for the crew of the Lancastrian Princess to see the Eleven.” She’d been plenty of times before that visit, of course, and afterward, but she knew how to deflect this conversation. “We wore suits and UV goggles. You couldn’t see much.”

  “Suits?” Chen asked. “So the air isn’t breathable?”

  Radko shrugged, like a junior guard who didn’t know much about the atmosphere on the spaceship and didn’t much care. “Orders,” she said.

  The Eleven was fully oxygenated now, not a trace of alien atmosphere left. The Confluence only had oxygen to the small area between the regular shuttle bay they used and the bridge, plus a few other areas they had explored thoroughly.

  “What was it like?” Chen asked. “The ship, I mean.”

  Everyone was interested in the ship. “Big,” Radko said. “You walk a long way to get anywhere. There wasn’t much to see, really.”

  “And the equipment?”

  Radko shrugged. “It was alien.”

  “But linesmen can read the boards?”

  Chen seemed to know a lot about the alien ships. The question made Radko uneasy.

  “That’s the theory.” It was common knowledge that linesmen were required for the alien ships.

  Hua Radko said, “We’ve a Lancastrian in charge of the project, but what have we seen? No alien technology. Not using the ships to attack Gate Union. When does Lancia get some benefit from this?”

  Civilians always expected things to happen immediately. And to happen solely for their own world’s benefit. “One ship has been crewed.” Or partly crewed, anyway. “These things take time.”

  “We’ve been at war months. We should have blasted Gate Union out of space by now. We’ve seen what the ships can do.”

  “Maybe the New Alliance is preventing Lancia from acting.” Chen watched Radko carefully, as she added, “After all, Galenos has only recently been promoted to admiral. Maybe he finds himself outclassed.”

  No one had ever accused Abram Galenos of being outclassed before. He’d worked with the admirals on Lancia as an equal, even when he’d only been a commodore.

  It was time Radko started shutting Chen down. She laughed. “I doubt it. I’ve seen some of the trials. The ship is dangerous. The New Alliance doesn’t want civilian casualties. They’ll bring the ship out when they need it.”

  They landed then, to her relief, for she didn’t want to spend hours talking about the alien ships. Not with these people.

  They waited in a private room off the public concourse of the palace. Radko saw four cameras. The people who were watching them would be part of her own unit. The Royal Guard.

  The Royal Guard was split into three branches. The largest was the division that dealt with the security for the Emperor himself and was headed by Commodore Sergey Bach. As a child, Radko had been scared of him. Thinking about it now, she realized it was her mother’s fear, for her mother had impressed on her early that Bach had the power to kill them if they so much as looked at Yu the wrong way.

  Her mother must be terrified of Emperor Yu.

  The Crown Princess’s division was headed by the recently appointed Jiang Vega.

  The third division, the group that looked after other members of the royal family, was run by Captain Ah Ning, who answered to Commodore Bach.

  Finally, it was time.

  * * *

  EMPEROR Yu was a striking man, genetically tweaked to be handsome and powerful. He was approaching sixty years of age but looked half that. Two Royal Guards stood inside the door, on either side, another two on either side of the throne, and two more partway between, close to where the visitors would stand when they had their audience.

  Aside from the throne, there was only one other seat in the room, a long chair placed at right angles to the throne. The seat was already occupied by Sattur Dow, a close friend of Emperor Yu’s.

  Sattur Dow’s presence was worrying.

  Radko bowed low and held the bow for as long as protocol demanded, and a bit longer. After all, she didn’t plan on disgracing her family.

  She kept her face expressionless. “Your Imperial Majesty.”

  He said nothing.

  The Emperor was famous for keeping his visitors waiting. Sometimes, he’d make the visitor wait ten or fifteen minutes before he spoke.

  Radko knew how to deal with that. She stood at ease, hands behind her back, and stared ahead as if she were at parade assembly. She could stand that way for hours. Although she would have preferred better shoes to do it in.

  Maybe it worked, for the Emperor broke the silence in less than two minutes. “Cousin.” Or maybe the short time was for Sattur Dow’s benefit.

  “Cousin.” Radko bowed again.

  Emperor Yu steepled his hands. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “I trust you are well.”

  “Thank you, I am. And yourself, likewise?” Dow hadn’t been introduced yet, so she didn’t inquire after his health.

  “Of course,” the Emperor said, as if there was never any doubt. “I hear you are protecting my daughter.”

  “It is an honor to serve as one of Her Royal Highness’s guards.”

  “Yet you are not guarding my daughter at all.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You are bodyguard to Linesman Lambert.”

  “Who is a member of Her Royal Highness’s staff, and Her Royal Highness herself has requested that protection.” Was this what he had called her home for? To reprimand her?

  “You spend a lot of time on the alien ships.”

  He’d better not ask her to spy for him because this conversation was going straight back to Vega and Galenos. “I have spent some time on the alien ships, yes.”

  The Emperor smiled. “You see,” he said to Sattur Dow. “I promise, and I deliver.”

  Saylor and Chen’s belief that they would soon get access to a linesman suddenly made sense. Especially given Tse’s earlier comment about their mentor being Sattur Dow.

  That was going straight back to Vega and Galenos as well.

  “But I have been remiss, cousin,” Emperor Yu said. “I summoned you here for a reason. Please allow me to introduce your future husband, Sattur Dow.”

  It wasn’t a surprise. The Emperor didn’t invite relatives like her to the Imperial Palace for any other reason. Most of the family members Radko had grown up with had already received their summonses. Radko fully expected that when the time came, she would do her duty as well.

  She went down on one knee and bowed deep—partly in acquiescence, partly to hide her dismay.

  “My cousin accompanies the linesman to every function,” Emperor Yu said, above her head to Sattur Dow. “You will have ample opportunity to speak with him.”

  How did Dow did think he was going to get access to the functions Ean attended?

  “My cousin is a dutiful soldier. She is also a dutiful employee of the Crown.” He directed the next words to Radko. “Cousin, you will take every opportunity to allow your new husband to speak to your charge.”

  Never. If she allowed Dow access to Ean, she was failing her job. She
wasn’t going to be Yu’s pawn. But the Emperor had given her an order. If she refused, it was treason, and he had every right to kill her.

  If she was going to die, she’d do it her way.

  Radko looked up. “I wish you had spoken to me earlier, in private, Cousin.” Not the Imperial form of address, for this had to sound personal, not professional.

  It was personal.

  It was also her job—her right—to protect Ean. Giving Sattur Dow access wasn’t protecting him.

  She stood, breathing deep to stop the tremble that threatened, and bowed to Sattur Dow. Lower than she might have otherwise. “No insult intended, Merchant Dow, but I have a career, a life. It doesn’t include a partner.” It might have included a partner, but not the one Yu was proposing.

  Emperor Yu’s expression didn’t change, but his voice was cold when he said, “You insult me with your rudeness.”

  “You insult both of us by not discussing this with me privately first.” She bowed to Sattur Dow again and hid her icy hands in the folds of material.

  The stance of the guards changed subtly. None of them had moved, but Radko could see they were ready. She couldn’t take on six guards on her own. Not Royal Guards. Right now, she would have liked Ean and line eight backing her up.

  “You forget yourself, cousin,” Emperor Yu said.

  “No. You forget yourself, Cousin. There is nothing in the laws of Lancia that says another Lancastrian must marry a person of the Emperor’s choosing.” If she had to make such a futile stand, she might as well do it properly. “The only reason other members of the family have done so is because you are head of our family and have arranged the marriage.”

  And because they were scared of him.

  He was about to kill her, and she couldn’t do anything about that. Not that he’d kill her himself; he wouldn’t soil his hands. One of those guards standing tense with their hands near their weapons would do the deed.

  She hoped Ean’s new bodyguard would look after him properly.