by Ginger Booth
After a grueling hour, they agreed to meet for supper. Ben would provide a neutral venue, that being a pressurized camping dome outside a city gate near Schauble’s location. Cope could attend with the prince. And the volunteers would be delivered, to be plugged into the auto-docs. These persons could return with Schauble at the end of the meal.
Jules refused to serve chocolate ice cream with the meal on the grounds that chocolate didn’t go with apple strudel. But she conceded to serve sample chocolates on the side. Schauble agreed to bring wine.
On the whole, the captain felt the social side of the negotiations showed significant progress toward the cordial.
But the wizard steadfastly maintained that only Evi Lieder, Fürstin of the Enchanters, could dictate when Sass and Kassidy would be released. And so far she wasn’t budging. She would evaluate only after the test subjects were returned to her. But she vowed not to physically touch the women again. Schauble claimed to believe her.
After another round that went nowhere, Ben decided to call a halt before he lost his sense of humor. “Enough for now. Let’s reconvene at dinner at Checkpoint Bravo Gate at seven. Come hungry, with Cope and the test subjects.”
“And the wine.”
“I look forward to it.” Ben nodded to the screen. “Cope.” His beloved nodded back, and the screen blanked.
“Well, that sucked,” Ben concluded to his brain trust around the table. “Clay…”
“Get Cope back,” Clay agreed. “I won’t blame you.”
Ben kneaded his forehead with the heel of his hand. “We can locate their comms. All that takes is flying low over Deutschland. Assuming they haven’t been moved to Zentrum. Thrive can search while we’re eating.” He dropped his hands to the table. “And I can take Wilder and Zan in tonight and try to retrieve them. But that can go all kinds of wrong. Might not get any further than reconnaissance.”
Clay nodded with a sigh. “Understood. Dinner first. And I’ll go with you if you infiltrate.”
Ben had been ignoring his comms during the video call. Now he pulled it out on speaker. “Yeah, Wilder, what’s up?”
“It’s the pikemen, sar. They keep advancing. They don’t cross the line anymore. They flank it. Permission to attempt diplomacy.”
“You?” Ben barked a laugh, and turned it into a cough. “Ahem. Excuse me. Yes, by all means. Out of curiosity, what do you plan to say?”
“If they advance one more meter, I’ll start picking soldiers up with the grav grapples, and advance them to the rear.”
“Sounds painful. But I have an alternate suggestion.”
“Sar.”
“Zan will provide a bag for you to grapple. You’ll drop the bag in front of their forces.”
“I could deliver it under white flag, riding an emu!”
“Nice touch. But no. You’ll rejoin the fleet. Because we’re leaving for Deutschland. Then we build a geodesic pressure tent for a supper party. You can ride emus for entertainment during the meal.”
“Oh, that’s not bad!”
“Glad you approve, sergeant. Acosta out.” He stabbed the comms again. “Zan, I need a bag of party gifts for our pals the pikemen. Make it a hundred Saggy bubble kits. Tie it with a note saying, ‘Thank you for playing. Thrive Spaceways.’ Set it outside and call Wilder for pickup. Needs to withstand his grav grapples.”
“For the wizard?” Zan inquired.
“No, he’s Deutsch wizards. The pikemen are British army.”
“Why gifts?”
“To give them face, Zan.”
“Agreed!” the hunter purred, and signed off.
“They’re high maintenance,” Abel suggested with a smile.
“An awful lot of fun, though,” Ben countered. He rapped the table. “Time to shift personnel. Jules, you want Corky to help fix this supper?” Jules was far more accustomed to power entertaining. But Thrive’s housekeeper Corky set a fine table as well.
“You doubt me?” Jules challenged him, eyes narrowed.
“I wouldn’t dare,” he assured her with a smile.
43
Ben and Jules faced off down the long table, surveying their handiwork. Jules looked elegant in flowing dark green over black tights. After consulting with Clay to match outfits, Ben wore his sun-bleached holiday clothes from Hellada. The dinnerware and flowers gleamed in candlelight, reflected warmly off the flexible geodesic tent panels surrounding them. Their guests would need to duck to reach their seats, but hey, it was a pressure tent.
Hours of effort resulted in quite a nice supper pavilion, in Ben’s opinion.
“This would have been a lot simpler in the galley,” Jules reminded him for the umpteenth time.
“A hostile wizard, on my ship,” Ben reminded her. “He wasn’t willing either, Jules. And Cope’s eyes nearly bugged out when I suggested he come aboard for a tour.”
Jules sighed loudly, the disciplinary tool wielded by mothers from time immemorial. “Yes, captain.” She shuffled her seating cards and began to place them, propped on the water glasses. “You’re here, guest of honor to your right, Cope to your left, guest of guest next to him, Abel and me next to Cope…”
“Blasters and stunners?” Ben inquired with a smile.
Jules smirked, and flourished both hands to indicate the sideboard.
“I should tape a couple under the table just in case.”
He backed out of the way as crew arrived with the next hotbox for the sideboard. All the courses were pre-loaded onto their proper plates for serving and stored in a box to keep them at the right temperature, cool and crisp or hot and steaming. Ben and Cope teased Jules mercilessly when she brought that gear aboard on Mahina. But she intended all along to host fabulous dinners on this trip. And the boxes already saw good use at her mushroom stand on the Sanctuary soccer fields, serving up the flavors of the Aloha system.
Jules opened the latest box to check, and released a tantalizing aroma of their main course, something obscure called wiener schnitzel mit spaetzle, rich and fried and buttery. She claimed her grandmother cooked it once when she was a child. Ben was impressed.
She arrayed the Sanctuary envoy cards at the foot of the table, farthest from the airlock. Oh, goody, I get to face off against Olympia Zhao all evening. Ben trusted he had enough intervening people that she couldn’t dominate the conversation. Then Jules checked her food boxes one last time against her checklist.
“Well, if it’s not here, I didn’t prepare it.”
“Chocolates?” Ben inquired. “Beer?”
She glowered at the sideboard, then commed the ship to have both sent out with the party guests. “How did you remember that when I didn’t?”
“Things you didn’t need to prepare,” Ben replied. He grinned and dropped a kiss on her forehead, though he had to aim upward to do it. Jules was taller than him, not as stretched as Cope, but still a bit on the gangly side. “It’s perfect, Jules. And right on time.”
A small gate-within-the-gate opened in the city wall a few hundred meters distant. Ben thumbed his comms. “Our guests are arriving. Let’s roll, people!” He and Jules clapped on their rebreather masks and cycled outside into the chill and stinging sulfuric acid mists.
Cantons at night had creepy down to an art form.
Prosper disgorged the last of Ben’s home team, nicely dressed and strolling down the ramp. Eli, botanist and science chief, carried the pony keg and tap. His recent Denali hire Tikka, a physiologist, bore the platter of chocolates. The moment the last of the Sanks stepped off the ramp, it folded closed. Zan lifted straight up to hold station 200 meters above, a dark swath between two moons.
Wilder clomped off under a white flag to greet their guests, leading his string of three emus. The shuttle, piloted by Ben’s crew chief Judge, hovered patiently above the gate until Wilder got his emu riders mounted – Schauble plus an assistant wizard and Cope. Ben’s husband carried a big pink ball for some reason. Wilder behaved and began clomping back in slow dignity, for his guest’s comfort
with the unfamiliar transport.
Cope called out a challenge and set his emu to gallop. The assistant wizard rose to the occasion and cranked his emu gait to maximum toward the lit pavilion. The Prince of Wizards elected to stick with dignity. And the shuttle smoothly swept in to collect the three test subjects, huddled to fearfully await their doom, taken to the ships above for ‘medical testing.’
Elise would direct that operation on Thrive with Milo. Remi, much to his annoyance, served as captain and first mate on Thrive today, so Ben opted to put all his French-speaking eggs in one basket. Sanjay Mare was even more annoyed. The captain of the Cupid sat alone, parked on some ugly ground north of Scandia as emergency backup in case Ben’s show went sour. Their gentle Denali farmer Quire would tend the two test subjects destined for Prosper’s med-bay. Schauble promised Ben the guinea pigs spoke English to some extent.
The city walls disgorged further personnel for Schauble’s retinue. A score strung out along the city wall, flamboyantly dressed wizards and utilitarian Polizei. Most bore umbrellas to stave off the ground-hugging mist, though the sky was clear. Ben doubted that accomplished much.
The galloping emus broke to pass to either side of the pavilion. Cope and the wizard flunky both overshot on when to stop braking. With the steely intent of a hostess, Jules funneled their home team into the pavilion and made sure they obeyed their seating cards.
Damn, didn’t have time to tape the guns under the table, Ben realized. But then his husband walked his mechanical emu back. Grinning ear to ear, Ben helped him dismount, the only physical reunion he was likely to get for a while.
“Disarm them,” Cope breathed. He pantomimed slipping off rings, around his unexplained ball of Saggy bubble stuff.
The plus-one wizard sheepishly led his electric emu back to the airlock side, his face hidden by a bear mask. “Ben, may I present the man who captured us in Benelux, the wizard Anders, one of the Prince’s most capable associates. Master Anders, our lead captain, Benjamin Acosta.”
Ben extended his hand, and tapped Anders’ rings. “Please, we sit to dinner unarmed.” Reluctantly, Anders surrendered his jewelry, including ear cuffs. Ben wondered what else he was packing. The captain himself carried comms, grav generator, a stunner in his pants pocket, and a couple knives stuck in his boots. Wilder packed a lot more than that. Those emus came equipped with saddle bags.
Anders turned to assist his more dignified prince in climbing off his fake-bird steed.
“That was great fun, captain,” Schauble acknowledged. He clicked his heels and bowed stiffly. “Thank you.” His outdoor rebreather mask featured a dragon snout breathing bits of flame.
Anders whispered to him about surrendering his rings. Schauble matter-of-factly relinquished nine of them. But not, Ben noted, his ear cuffs.
Ben introduced the wizards formally to Jules and Abel, as they cycled through the airlock, the last to enter the pavilion. Schauble stiffened at being introduced to a woman, but he and his sidekick surrendered large bottles of wine to the hostess.
Dinner began beautifully. Elegant salad plates passed up the table from the chill box. Jules was temporarily flummoxed by the stoppers in the wine bottles, but Clay held out a hand and popped the ‘corks’ for her, made of some unfamiliar expanding stuff.
Ben took one sip and set it aside. “That’s very sweet. Potent too. I hope you won’t be offended if I drink beer, Prince?”
Schauble completed his bemused study of his place setting’s selection of sporks, and nodded agreement. “I as well.”
The wine bottles retired to the sideboard. Porter and Zelda, Eli’s younger science grad students, tapped the keg and handed out beers instead. Those two didn’t rate seats tonight, but seemed eager to attend as servers. The captain reminded himself to thank them by bringing up questions regarding soil and atmosphere respectively.
That might as well be now. “We were surprised, Prince, to find that terraforming is still incomplete on Cantons.” He tucked into the glorious fresh greens.
“Copeland tells me it is also not complete on your world,” Schauble replied pointedly.
“But my clients visited Cantons about 30 years ago,” Ben replied. “Hugo Silva was on that mission.” He toasted Hugo with his beer glass to catch his attention. Hugo smiled and saluted back. “The atmosphere was closer to breathable then than it is now.”
“You have violated our planet not once, but twice?” Schauble demanded of Hugo, whose hopeful smile died on the vine. “And you did not advise us of your presence?” The latter challenge was directed at Ben.
The captain shook his head. “My company only met the Sanks a couple months ago.” Eli helpfully contributed the exact number of days in Cantons reckoning. Ben took the opportunity to introduce Zhao’s party, only by name. He provided them no opening to converse yet. “They were doing a survey, to find out which Diaspora worlds survived.”
“And what did you learn of Steppe?” Schauble demanded. He’d taken one bite of the salad, the pretty but strong-tasting radicchio, and pushed the plate away in distaste.
“Steppe’s atmosphere was closer to breathable than Cantons at that time,” Ben allowed. “But my clients felt more culturally attuned to Cantons.” Their opinion was woefully outdated. “But why did Cantons abandon terraforming?”
“This is unnecessary,” Schauble stated. “You see our city-states. We are underpopulated. And short of magicians and resources.”
“Magicians,” Ben noted. “That means wizards and enchanters? And…?”
Schauble shook his head. “Those two are the magic guilds.”
Ben meant to follow through with an agronomy question, as a sop to Porter, but it was moot if all food production was in greenhouses within the dome. They could use whatever substrates proved handy under such controlled conditions.
Instead he chose to tug on another thread. “And the moons. We understand that many of your people dedicate themselves to a particular moon? This is unrelated to magic?” The grad student Milo had been perplexing in that regard. But then at his level of initiation, he still believed in ‘magic.’
“Completely irrelevant,” Schauble agreed. “The moon alignment is one’s style of expressing evil.”
“Evil?” Ben assumed he missed something in cultural translation.
Cope, at his left elbow, quietly volunteered, “He means literally, Ben. Lammas, Beltane, Steppe. Each alignment celebrates a different kind of evil. Psychological terror, physical brutality, cruelty and greed.”
“I see.” Ben really didn’t. He turned back to the Fürst on his right. “And you are…?”
“Ha!” Schauble’s syllable was strong enough that Ben flinched. “These foolish games entertain the masses. My calling is wizardry. Technology, Cope called it.”
“Are there also good alignments?” Ben asked Cope, who shrugged. Bizarre!
With an expression of disgust, Schauble replied, “The southern cities practice religions, Italia, Iberia, Hellada. Surely you noticed. Did they seem more ‘good’?” The word was a sneer.
Eli, down the table on Schauble’s side, stepped in to derail the philosophy tangent. “Back to the atmosphere. Surely you realize that your environmental stress is rendering you…” Insane, Ben supplied mentally. “Less able, less healthy, than you could be.”
Schauble replied, “This is a matter for the enchanters.”
“The enchanters are in charge of the life sciences?” Ben asked Cope.
His husband nodded, lips pursed. “Though the wizard of Benelux dabbled in Earth species reboots. Eli, we saw a hawk and snakes. I caught some lizards for the kids.”
“Your lizards will recover,” Schauble promised. “They regrow limbs if one is removed,” he added to Ben, as though as a point of interest.
“Bunnies,” Ben breathed, to Cope though his unbelieving eye remained on Schauble. “I caught bunnies in Hellada for the kids. They’re on Prosper. The bunnies can bear live young.”
“Wow,” Cope acknowledged.
Porter asked and won permission to remove Schauble’s plate. Unlike the prince, his henchman Anders devoured his salad, so hopefully the following courses weren’t doomed.
“With your starships and wizards,” Schauble resumed, “we can capture Steppe and have an atmosphere. Tell me, captain, are you aware that you are a fool?”
Ben blinked. His eyes slid along the table toward Jules. Perhaps she knew hostess tricks for a guest who proved a rego ass?
But Clay volunteered. “Tell us, Prince, how do you plan to steal our starships?”
Schauble completed chewing his bite of buttered roll, and swallowed. Then he pointed upward. “I already have one.”
Ben glanced up, and his gaze was arrested. Prosper hung above them encased in a sickly olive glow. His husband abruptly blew out the candles on their end of the table to take a better look through the tent roof without the flame reflection. “What…?”
“No idea,” Cope admitted, still half-risen from his chair.
But the ship, with no lights, was drifting downward. The glow that caught it seemed to emanate from the ‘umbrellas’ born by the police and wizards against the wall.
Apparently the hostess playbook covered this eventuality after all. Jules rose to her feet, head bent by the angle of the dome, and took a deep breath, the better to project her outrage. “Prince Schauble! I demand you and Anders leave at once. My husband and I are God-fearing people!”
44
Chuckling darkly, Schauble took to his feet and twisted his ear. Ben stood upright, the only one who could as the head of the table lay under the high ridge of the dome. He shoved his chair out of the way to speed them on their way out.
Schauble clearly couldn’t help himself from crowing. “That is a nullity field, captain. You rely on electronics and radio waves. None operate within that sphere. Your ship is dead. And it is mine.”