Once Upon a Star

by Anthea Sharp

  She always mentally referred to him as her “biological father,” because Henry Bischoff, one of Gaia’s richest oligarchs, certainly had never been a real father to her. Somehow, despite all his precautions, her mother had been clever enough to become pregnant with his child, and although he’d made sure neither of them wanted for anything material, he’d also never been a part of his daughter’s life in any meaningful sense.

  Except, perhaps, to remind her in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that one day payment would come due for all the money he’d spent on her and her mother over the years…and that day had apparently arrived at last.

  The transmission had come through this morning, so early in Luna City’s daily cycle that both Alexa and her mother were still asleep. Because Alexa was not allowed her own comm channel — both her parents had done their best to make sure she wasn’t exposed to any outside temptations — the message had come to her mother Rian’s account.

  “Your father has chosen a husband for you,” Rian announced as Alexa came into the kitchen for her morning cup of tea. “He’ll have more information for us shortly.”

  At the time, Alexa had still been so sleepy that she’d just nodded, the words only partly penetrating her brain. After a few swallows of tea, however, she could feel her stomach clench as she realized that her doom had finally descended.

  “Who is it?” she asked, trying to sound casual. Rian Sinclair disliked drama because it could cause wrinkles, and so Alexa tried her best to avoid doing anything that might ruffle her mother’s feathers. It was just easier that way.

  “I don’t know,” Rian said airily. “Your father didn’t say.”

  Of course he didn’t. Henry Bischoff probably considered that piece of information irrelevant because he knew Alexa would do as she was told. If she didn’t, her mother might lose this luxurious condo in Luna City’s most prestigious development, might not have access to the various treatments and surgeries that had kept her astonishing beauty intact for the past twenty years and made her look far more like her daughter’s very slightly older sister than the mother she actually was.

  And although Alexa had hatched more than one escape plan over the years, from the time she’d first learned of her biological father’s plans for her when she was around ten years old, all the way until just a week or so ago, she also knew she would never actually go through with any of those plans. While she believed she might be able to survive without all the luxuries her biological father provided, she knew she couldn’t say the same for her mother…and she also guessed that Henry knew quite well the leverage he had over her, the subtle blackmail that made Alexa stay put despite how she chafed over her confined existence.

  In a way, it was almost a relief to know that Henry had finally made a decision. If she couldn’t escape this fate, she might as well get it over with. Her mind had already manufactured enough horrors — most of them involving the richest and most unattractive men in the ranks of Gaia’s oligarchs — that Alexa found herself thinking the reality couldn’t possibly be any worse.

  At least, she hoped it couldn’t.

  Marek sen Krendil had been certain that Henry Bischoff would say no. The Gaian might have inherited much of his vast wealth, but he’d also added to it during his lifetime and was known as a shrewd negotiator. But, after a very long pause, during which Marek sat quietly in his study, waiting for the man’s reply, he’d given the slightest of nods.

  “Thirty million units,” he’d said. “And my daughter.”

  This was a conversation that, legally, should not have taken place. While the Eridani Accord kept the Gaians and Marek’s people, the Stacians, from engaging in outright warfare, the two races still had no love lost for one another, and were not supposed to have any contact except through diplomatic channels. However, if the Stacians knew one thing, it was that the Gaians would always find a way around the rules if commerce was involved, and the contact between Marek sen Krendil and Henry Bischoff was no exception.

  While the Stacians’ own code required that no trade was allowed involving goods which could be used against their own people — steel and other metals for weapons and spacecraft were strictly forbidden — luxury items were quite another matter. Marek’s lands on Stacia were rich with the fiery black opals the Gaians prized, and which the Stacians had little use for because of their inherent fragility. Those opals were so rare that they were worth more than their weight in platinum.

  Henry Bischoff had offered twenty-five million for the cache Marek was trading now. That sounded like an enormous amount…except Marek knew the Gaian could turn around and sell the gems for at least ten times that much to the Consortium’s jewel traders. Marek had countered with forty million. Bischoff had stood firm at twenty-five, even though he must know he was woefully underbidding what the gems were worth…until Marek said, “Thirty million. And your daughter Alexa.”

  To give the Gaian credit, he hadn’t even blinked. “My daughter is not part of this transaction.”

  Except, of course, she was. Marek always made sure to do his research before entering into any negotiation, and although the Gaian oligarch had done his best to keep his daughter’s mere existence a secret, the information about her was out there…if you knew where to look. Since Marek had done business with several excellent hackers in the past, it had not been that difficult to put them to work unearthing Henry Bischoff’s vulnerabilities.

  And Alexa Sinclair — the girl used her mother’s family name, not her father’s — appeared to be Bischoff’s weak point. Not because the oligarch cared about her particularly, but because he’d been carefully hoarding her, holding her back like an ace in the Gaian card game known as poker. As far as Marek had been able to tell, she existed primarily to be called upon if her father needed her to “sweeten the pot,” to use more Gaian parlance.

  Marek had never exhibited any particular interest in Gaian women, even though he knew some Stacian men had developed a taste for them, intrigued by the subtle differences between the two races. But when the hacker sent him the dossier, he’d been struck by Alexa’s image — the delicacy of her features, the glorious fall of copper-hued hair that hung around her shoulders. No Stacian woman had hair that color. But what had touched him most of all was the sadness in her striking green eyes, as if she knew she existed merely to be used as a pawn by her father, and so had no true hope for happiness in this life.

  Those eyes had haunted him. That was when he devised this plan, thinking he could include her as part of this deal so he could take her away from her father. Although the two races had been hostile almost from the moment they’d encountered one another, Marek knew that, biologically at least, there was not so very much to separate human from Stacian, except a few superficial physical traits. Even while he tried to focus on the financial benefits of the deal, he realized that he wanted to coax a smile from those beautifully curved lips, needed to see Alexa’s jade-hued eyes light up with laughter.

  Of course, he had not mentioned any such sentimental nonsense to Henry Bischoff, a man who apparently had liquid helium running through his veins. No, Marek hoped that Bischoff would think him a fool, a feckless alien who had no true concept of the fortune in his possession. A fool willing to give up millions and millions in profits because he didn’t know any better.

  Marek had only lifted his shoulders. “That is what I am willing to take for the gems. If you do not wish to make this deal, then there are others who have expressed interest.” Which wasn’t a lie, and of course the Gaian knew that as well as Marek did.

  After a perfectly timed pause, Bischoff said, “Well, then. I believe we have a deal. Thirty million units — cash — and Alexa.”

  “Very good,” Marek had replied. “I will have my people manage the details. Half now, and the remainder after your daughter has been sent to me.”

  And that, it seemed was that.

  The instructions they’d been given were peculiar, to be sure. A private ship would be sent to collect her, and she
would be taken away to her new home. She would be allowed only two pieces of luggage, and she must come alone. Why she was allowed so little of her personal belongings, Alexa didn’t know, except possibly her new husband wanted her to leave as much of her former life behind her as possible.

  Since that life had been a confining one, she couldn’t say she minded that particular stipulation.

  Even Alexa’s mother had seemed a bit shaken by these demands. “Alone?” Rian demanded of Henry Bischoff, who at least had stepped up enough to deliver his instructions via comm, rather than having one of his lackeys do it. But then, maybe he’d decided that the fewer people who knew of the plan, the better. “You mean I can’t even be there to see my only daughter married?”

  A tear glistened in her eye…a carefully manufactured tear. Alexa knew her mother certainly wouldn’t do anything to damage the porcelain symmetry of her features, which meant that real crying was definitely out of the question.

  Watching this exchange, Alexa stood off to one side, arms crossed. She’d had no say in who her husband would be, and so she was not particularly discomfited to learn she must go meet her fate alone. To tell the truth, she was a little relieved that Rian wouldn’t be at the wedding. Her mother always did manage to make everything about herself.

  So Alexa packed what would fit into those two bags, and the next day, she gave her mother a single hug before getting into the sleek private ship that awaited her at Luna City’s spaceport. In a way, it was oddly exciting to take off from the landing pad, to watch the domed city that had been her only home fall away behind her, to see Gaia’s blue-green crescent shimmering outside the windows before the ship blasted its way into subspace, taking her light-years from everything she’d ever known. This was the first time she’d been in space, since she’d never even been allowed to visit Gaia, let alone travel to any other worlds.

  The journey took nearly twelve hours, which meant her destination must lie a great distance from Gaia’s solar system. When the ship landed, Alexa saw at once she was in a place of great beauty — alien plants in shades of green and teal and subtle purple waved in a sweet-smelling breeze, and a clear white sun shone down from overhead. This was the first time she’d ever breathed in air that hadn’t been endlessly recycled, the first time she’d ever felt a breeze that wasn’t generated by a fan or an air-circulation unit.

  A cautious little tendril of joy unfurled in her heart. Maybe…just maybe…this distressing turn of events might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

  Waiting for her just outside the ship was a mech, its silvery metal surface gleaming in the sun. “Good afternoon, Miss Alexa,” it said as it took the two bags she’d brought with her. “I am here to guide you to your new home.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, since she wasn’t sure what else to say. There had always been mechs in her mother’s house, because Henry Bischoff’s money had made sure they could afford them, but this particular mechanoid seemed to be a very new model, tall and humanoid in shape, rather than the trundling little cart-like machines that had carried out the household chores in her Luna City condominium.

  The mech led her away from the landing pad, through gardens filled with flowers that bloomed in shades of purple and blue and white. They came upon a house that was clearly Eridani-inspired, with its clean lines and graceful use of natural stone and glass.

  Is my new husband an Eridani? Alexa wondered as she followed the mech inside. Is that why my biological father wouldn’t tell me who he was?

  Almost immediately, though, she had to cast that thought aside. While the purple-skinned, alien Eridanis had been marrying Gaians for decades, she knew that no Eridani would agree to any arrangement where a sentient being was being used as chattel, and so she couldn’t quite believe one would ask her to be included as partial payment in a business transaction. The Eridanis were the galaxy’s peacemakers, the philosophers, not people who would engage in trading human flesh.

  But still, as she looked around and saw all the handsome furniture made of pale wood and marble, the lush plants everywhere, she found herself frowning. The house did feel very Eridani, or at least, it looked a good deal like the pictures she’d seen of Eridani homes.

  “Whose house is this?” she asked.

  The mech said simply, “The home of my owner.”

  “But who is he?”

  “He will tell you that himself.”

  “When?”

  “When the time is right.”

  That was the problem with mechs — they would only respond according to their programming. Yes, the technology involved was quite sophisticated, but they couldn’t think for themselves. Not really. True artificial intelligence had been banned for centuries; the disastrous forays into that field in the twenty-first century had shown that allowing machines any real intelligence was the best way to ensure humans would soon be obsolete.

  Since Alexa knew it would be a waste of her time to attempt to pry any other information out of the mech, she was silent as she followed it into a lift that brought them to the home’s second floor. Here, she was taken to a large suite equipped with every comfort she could imagine…and since she had been raised in an elegant home with no expense spared, she could imagine quite a bit. There was a steam shower of marble and glass, an enormous marble bathtub, a huge closet filled with so many beautiful clothes that she knew she wouldn’t miss the pieces she’d left behind in Luna City, a large makeup vanity and mirror with multi-directional lighting in a variety of modes, and, best of all, a spacious balcony that would allow her to go outside and drink in more of the delicious air. Two chairs of wrought metal and a matching table had been placed on that balcony, making it the perfect spot to sit with her morning tea…or possibly sit with her new husband and have a glass of wine at dusk.

  She’d never had a glass of wine, or any kind of alcoholic beverage, because Rian hadn’t allowed it in the house, possibly because she feared it might damage her looks. Due to this restriction, Alexa had no idea what wine even tasted like, and she found herself hoping that her mysterious husband might be a bit less rigid on the subject.

  “Is there anything else you require?” the mech asked.

  “I would like to see my husband,” Alexa replied. Since she’d snacked several times on the journey here, she wasn’t all that hungry. Her desire to meet the man who had brought her to this place overrode any other concerns.

  “I have no control over his actions, but I will tell him of your wishes. Have a good day.”

  And the mech went out of the suite, closing the door to the hallway behind him. At once, Alexa went over and tried to open it, but the control panel wouldn’t react to her touch.

  So she was a prisoner, even if her cell was a very luxurious one.

  Does it matter? she asked herself as she went to retrieve her luggage from the spot where the mech had deposited it on the floor. You were just as much a prisoner in Luna City. At least here you can get some fresh air.

  Which was true enough. She hung up the clothing she’d brought with her, put her few toiletries away in the bathroom. It was easy to see why she’d been told to pack so little; everything she needed had already been provided. Her new wardrobe consisted of items as lovely as anything her mother had ever worn, and Alexa felt a little stab of satisfaction in realizing that here in her new home, she would no longer be forced to wear garments that guaranteed she would always be relegated to the background.

  Now all she had to do was wait to meet her new husband.

  Marek listened to the mech’s report and nodded. Alexa was now installed in her new suite — a suite he hoped to share with her soon — and seemed eager to meet him. The question was…how best to arrange such a meeting?

  He knew she had never seen a Stacian in person because no one of his race had ever set foot inside Gaia’s solar system. As the mech waited patiently in the background, Marek surveyed himself in the mirror in the modest room he had been using for his own. To human eyes, Stacians probably looked
wild and barbaric, with their golden-hued skin and copper eyes, the sharp ridges above their brows and cheekbones, and the thick masses of dreadlocked hair both sexes wore down their backs. The ornaments in his hair were gold, denoting his station as the head of one of his home world’s most prominent families. But Alexa would know nothing of that particular distinction, would very likely recoil upon learning that her new husband was not even human.

  There had to be some way to reassure her, to allow her to get to know him without being frightened by his appearance from the very beginning.

  His gaze moved back to the mech. It had proved to be a handy servant, even though when he’d first purchased the mechanoid, Marek had thought it might turn out to be an expensive toy and little more. Because it was such a new model, it had a number of advanced functions, one of which was the interface that allowed a user to talk through the mech, to effectively use it as a walking speaker.

  Alexa had already shown she was comfortable with the mechanoid, probably because her family’s wealth had allowed her to grow up with the devices as household servants. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to use the mech as his voice. That way, he could learn something of his new wife, her likes and dislikes, her views of the world, before meeting her in person.

  Cowardly? He didn’t want to think so, for certainly no one could accuse him of retreating from a challenge. But the last thing he wished was to frighten or intimidate his new bride, and this seemed the best way to approach her for now. Soon enough, she would know who he was.

  When the time was right, of course.

  The door chime sounded, and Alexa, who couldn’t quite resist changing into one of the lovely new outfits provided for her and who’d spent nearly half an hour playing with the cosmetics she’d found in the vanity, immediately got up from where she’d been sitting on the balcony and hurried to answer it. This had to be her new husband coming to see her. It had been kind of him to give her some time to relax and begin settling in to her home, but she was now anxious to know who he was…and, possibly, to learn something of how he had been the one to claim her.