by Power, P. S.
He fought a smile, expecting a joke, so shook his head and waited for the punch line.
"No? Did he get paid well for it?"
The girl smiled at that, and then shook her head.
"It was... Our old Revered One, our um, Ancient? Brown? He'd been taken prisoner by our Prime Minister. That was Glost Serge back then. No one even knew it had happened, or the people would have risen up to save him. Everyone loved Brown. Even as a little kid I knew that. So, he'd managed to get a secret message out to the Green Man, and his replacement, Tor. It was kind of confusing, but Serge had this insane daughter, who wanted to marry Tor. I mean, I don't blame her, he's incredible. Tor was taken prisoner too, after coming to marry her, and then was ordered to do a live sex show with Brown, because they all thought it would be funny to humiliate them."
She wasn't the most talented story teller ever, but it was about at least one person he knew, which helped keep it a bit more interesting. She brushed at her shoulder length blue and purple hair, then continued.
"The thing was, no one suspected that Tor was a wizard. We didn't think magic was real, back then. So he made this image of him and Brown, doing it? And used that distraction to escape, on the air, live. You could see him do it, later, in the archives, but at the time just passing through a wall like he did... That was just thought to be a glitch. It can happen. Then he ran away, protecting our Revered One. After that..."
She stopped, and went to the wall, where the food unit was. She didn't go on until she had a glass of something pink and bubbly. It smelled a bit like sugar candy. Slightly too sweet, and without any extra flavor to round it out.
"Then later, Princess Karina and Alyssa Baker sent in a small army to protect us from the Serge family. There was a movie that they showed me in school. It was all about how they secretly snuck in and killed Daria Serge, to save us all."
There was a clearing of a throat from the doorway. When he glanced over, Karina was there, shaking her head.
"We didn't really go in ourselves. Kolb led them for us. Some of his students and friends went in, armed with things that Tor had made for them. Daria... She'd murdered a friend of ours, Ali and me. Yardley. Lilith, that's what Daria called herself, was trying to force Ali to sign a whore contract to make a little extra coin off of her. Yardley wouldn't let her, so she was murdered. Then, later, Glost threatened to destroy Noram with nuclear weapons in order to get her back. Thankfully he didn't have anything of the kind, and we knew it, but we had to let her go, to try and save Denno. He wrote that play. The one you saw? Unless they made more than one. It was a joke that he'd come up with really, to entertain Alyssa and I, as we stumbled around trying to find a way to stop Daria. It was about her though. Always."
The girl blinked, and made a small sound that was a bit shocked, then smiled while sucking in air.
"That... Was not actually covered in school. I got to go on the museum trip too, since I grew up in Melby. They should probably fix that. Or, I guess not? It's a pretty good story. I liked the part where you cut off her head."
Karina, who was most often very polite, nodded.
"I liked that part of the story, too. It was actually David Derring that did it. No one is supposed to know that however, to protect him. He was just a kid back then, but had made certain he was in on it. Ali is his sister."
That got Dareg to stop suddenly, and tilt his head.
"I... Didn't know that. So Karen Derring..."
"Your aunt. By marriage, not blood."
He'd heard part of the story, but it suddenly made more sense now, put together that way.
Some other things did as well, but he didn't mention them out loud. It was the kind of thing that wasn't his business, and bringing Jan into it would be even worse.
There had been some events though, a month before, or slightly more, when David had met with them at the space port. He'd been dressed up like a High Servant, but wasn't one. Then he very clearly reported, or more accurately set up a time to report, with Kolb. Not his sister, who had been right there, and was an important immortal. If Kolb and David had gone to get those evil Austran's, years back, and were working together, there almost had to have been official sanction for it.
Karen hadn't thought it was strange that David had wanted to talk to their old weapons instructor alone either. True, they could have been lovers, or Dave might just have hated his sister, but neither had seemed to be the truth at the time. It was very telling. Some kind of special unit, that used magic and skill to do the dirty work of the Royal family.
Not that it mattered, he realized. They were all going to have to be questioned, carefully, to see if they had a real and traceable history. Then someone was going to have to check each tale, carefully. Without them knowing it was going on. Which he had no clue how to get done.
Karina went and got a coffee to help her wake up, and brought him a cup of it as well, being a kind and good soul, apparently.
Then she settled next to him and looked out the wall in front of them, which was so clear that not even their own reflections came back at them. It was like there was simply nothing there.
Dare took a deep breath, inhaling the aroma from his mug. It was better than the taste, but he didn't complain, just drinking it black, like the princess did.
"I'd wondered if you and Alyssa were friends. No one had really mentioned that. Well, good? I'm still the outsider, but if I can win over any of you, it should help with the others. I keep waiting for everyone to get tired of me. Not that they shouldn't. I keep sleeping all the time. That's pretty boring of me."
After taking a few quiet sips, the Ancient of Mars leaned over, nudging him with her shoulder.
"Yes, it really is. We haven't even gotten to have space sex yet. Well, I have, but not with you, and certainly not Saturn sex, so..."
The conversation shifted a bit in tone, and Jan suddenly bolted her small glass of pink sugar water.
"On that note, I either need to invite myself along with you, or go get some sleep. Guess which one the company is willing to pay for?"
It was hard to keep a straight face, but the answer was pretty clear, to Dare at least.
"The sex one? I'm not certain I want what I do to be recorded until I get some practice. I know, you can both help me with that for the rest of the trip?" If he managed to sound innocent, which was his plan, he didn't know. It sounded right to him, but not seeing his face made it difficult.
Karina nodded, and Jan laughing under her breath, walked from the room with a mock sense hurry taking her glass with her. That could be recycled anywhere in the ship, but as far as the Austrans knew so far, it had to be taken care of in that room. It indicated that the woman didn't really know that he was playing with her. Then, they had to have playing and flirting in Austra. Dareg hadn't seen a lot of it, himself, but then he wouldn't have, given the ones he'd been around most of the time.
The red headed woman he was engaged to, who was pretty young looking, even if she had to be over thirty, covered a small smile with a tan hand.
"That sounds like a plan. I take it that you're feeling a bit better? If so, we should go see about that. You know, before you get too tired, later?"
It was the kind of offer that Dareg hadn't had a lot of, so he stood, drank the rest of his coffee, then took her warm hand, gently.
"All right. If you insist. This way?"
Then to his surprise, instead of pulling away, she just went with him. Like it had been her real plan the entire time.
Chapter six
The rest of the trip went past in a strange combination of smooth and tense the entire time. Everything functioned on the ship itself, and while there were some small issues with the magic, since some of the science types didn't know how to use it, the crew worked things out for them in a pretty quick fashion.
They had all they really needed that way. Good food, clean water and the toilets worked the whole time, without any problems.
No, the real issues came down to what they, and
the people watching from Austra, wanted to have done at any given time. One of the things was that the people back on Earth seemed to want Dareg to be watched at every single moment. That didn't make sense, given that he did nothing but sit, and occasionally move to scratch his nose. Once or twice a day he moved the craft around so they could watch the ring makers through the main window. That wasn't the only thing people wanted to be done, but to Dareg it was the biggest thing.
About halfway through, the heavyset leader of the scientists, Grainger, did get to announce that the large obsidian ships that made the rings were actually alive, and not old Earth ships or alien craft at all, which was interesting, but other than that the whole trip was about getting pictures, and people asking him annoying questions.
The big thing was in how little the black rectangular things did. They ate, apparently, and made dust rings, which were their leavings, more or less. The scientists were all happy to hear it, since it explained an age old question about how the rings shifted, and new ones appeared over time.
The ring makers having lunch did it.
Jan spent the last day with her handheld turned off, not taking messages at all. She'd been the one being asked to get information from him, and it didn't take a genius to work out why that was.
As a camera, one of the few real time ones that worked off of magic, floated by his head, Dare looked over at her, a few seats away.
"So, they've all gotten bored and want to ask me about how I managed to trick poor Tor into thinking he was my father?"
Karina was asleep, having been taking turns running the ship while he rested, which was about half the day still, though less than it had been even a week before. That was the one part of the whole thing, which was a bit boring otherwise, that Dare really had to like. His energy was actually starting to come back.
Looking over at him, the media person, who had graduated to being an actual personality in the last few days, which was a big thing in Austra, growled at him a bit. Playfully, proving she could actually do that sort of thing. Like he'd thought.
Her voice was gentler though.
"Oddly enough, no. There's just a demand to set up a Jupiter mission now. A rather heavy handed one. Frankly, the folks back home are ordering us to fly off tonight, to go and do that." She seemed upset about it, her face scrunching up just a bit. Like she felt ready to cry about it.
Dareg didn't love seeing that, since she was as near to being a friend as he had from Austra. Thinking about it he understood that it was probably just her being homesick, and not an abiding hatred of Jupiter. Still, he nodded, trying to get the basic idea. Of the planet, and of what his friend was doing at the moment, which was hiding from her job.
"We can set that up. I need a few months, since I have things to actually get done. I start school in mid-winter, after Noram Day, so that will cut into time to do things, but I also have to set up the ports. When we get back I'm hitting Austra first, then Vagus, since my... Father and step-mother asked me to stay with them. I figure it will take about a month or two to get those all put together. Then I should have a few months? Another week long trip like this one. We'll want more satellites for that. You should call up Tim Baker and see if he can do that. Or will, I mean. We know he can, but I can't promise his work for things." The words were just him thinking out loud, but there were sounds of running in the pause between sentences, and a flood of bodies entered the room.
Half of them were smiling, and they had used the stairs that linked the science room above them, to the bridge. One of the younger people from the expedition team smiled at him. She was kind of common looking, though a bit taller than what he would have seen for that kind of woman in Noram. Nearly five-six. So merchant class, but with dusky skin and a bright smile. She had on a plum colored jumpsuit, her hair an interesting translucent color of blonde. As in it was almost invisible until she closed with him.
"Heya! My boss just said I need to get some spots for the Jupiter team set up? So, who do I beg for that?" She looked hopeful and locked her plain brown eyes on his. Flirting to try and get her way.
She was way too funny looking for that to work with him however. That was mean, but a lot of the Austrans were a little strange seeming for him still.
"Jan. She and her team will be running the media for the space things. That means she gets to assign the science teams. Get with Grainger as for how large the things will actually be. There's a buy in, but the coin has to come from the people watching, not businesses, so start trying to get them to chip in."
He was making up stuff that didn't seem to make any sense to him at all, but Jan sat up, smiling.
"Yes! We'll run it like a cash poll. A credit per vote. Each science group that wants in needs to get a vid up that we can show on a loop. Only real science teams, except for the three art spots we leave open." She stopped, as Tenet walked in, smiling and holding a handheld.
His voice was deep and held a smile that didn't show on his face.
"Queen Tiera would like to field a team as well? Ten slots?"
Dareg nodded.
"Work out how to buy in for there. All the funds need to go to science or magical studies."
Jan didn't even seem upset with that. It gave them another thing to work on, though a few hours later he started getting visits from the people upstairs on the current mission.
It was casual, but they were all asking for more time. Apparently while he'd been bored, and searching for things to do, the researchers had been scrambling with short sleep, getting measurements constantly.
Finally Grainger ended up standing in front of him, his face cheery.
"Sooo. We're returning in eight hours? I couldn't get a few more days from you?"
"Nope. But I can get you and a smaller team out here on the way to Jupiter? Set that up with Jan, from the media team. I put you in charge of it. That's the Noram way. Nepotism, after a fashion. I like you, so you get to be in control of the stuff I'm involved in. In return you have to make sure it doesn't interfere with my schooling."
His eyes went wider then, and he nodded.
"That is important. I'll make certain of that. I don't suppose I can get a copy of your schedule?"
Karina had moved into the room as they spoke, and sank next to him, looking a bit sleepy still and holding a white ceramic mug filled with coffee. That smelled really good to him suddenly, but he was about to get off and take a nap, before heading back in a few hours.
She sipped, and looked up at the Austran man.
"Don't forget to add in time for our wedding and honeymoon. Dareg is taking me to the nearest star for part of that. Before all of Austra asks, no you can't come!" She spoke directly to Grainger, but there was a camera hovering over them. It was constant, and reminded Dareg not to pick his nose. It wasn't a huge problem for him, but it being there made him constantly worried he was going to end up doing something gross and be caught at it.
Grainger clasped his hands together, suddenly giddy seeming.
"Of course not! That will be something to see, won't it? We'll have to make do with your vacation pictures. Will you be holding the wedding in Austra?"
That made no sense to Dareg at all, but Karina smiled.
"We're sort of required to have it in Noram, given the whole princess thing. Are you and your wife going to be attending? I hear that I can get invitations, being so well connected that way." She sounded dry and playful at the same time, which was impressive.
The science boss smiled then.
"Ah, that would be a coup, wouldn't it? You can just set me next to the Prime Minister and the Ambassador." There was a booming chuckle then, the whole thing being rather humble seeming.
Dareg smiled.
"You can sit with Queen Tiera and... The rest of my family? After all I know you slightly better than most of them, Tenet notwithstanding, of course. I don't know if Prime Minister Foley will come." He glanced at Karina, who shrugged a bit.
"I bet he will, as long as we have all the new tran
sportation available. He's a great man. We need to invite the other world leaders too. Blue Four, and Princess Abbey's mother. I don't know who Soam has. I think we just get Terry for Tellerand, so that will work pretty easily."
From his own pocket a buzzing came then, which wasn't unheard of for the last week, but didn't take place all of the time.
Strangely it was Queen Constance, when he answered it.
"Hello!" He didn't announce who it was, but did try to warn her about what was happening. "Karina and I are being watched by all of Austra at the moment. What can I do for you?"
"Prince Dareg? We have something of an emergency here. I know that you're away, but would it be possible to have you attend King Richard and I at your earliest convenience?"
He blinked.
"What kind of emergency. I mean, is it life and death?"
The voice was calm, but had underlying tension to go with it.
"Rather. A young woman that you might know seemed to have been taken prisoner by Baron Riley? He... has a reputation for being rather harsh on those caught spying on him."
It took a few moments to put that together. After all there were several young ladies that he'd run into in the last month and a half or so, and while it could have been Stara, from the Capital, moving her from there would have been a poor plan on Tamerlane's part. She was untrained and his new aunt was smart enough to see that keeping her at home for the time being made sense.
So this person was going to be someone he didn't know as a spy, but it also wasn't going to be a woman he knew by name. One of the mechanical fleet members then. Not Lyone, because she was spying on Sam Builder, which was far too good a position to take her away from. Not that working for him openly, and being handed all the data she needed for her job, was spying. More like an Ambassador that also cleaned. She was actually very efficient that way.