Change of Command

Chapter Twelve

Within a week, Kate had moved to Appledale. Brun took her to dinner with Viktor Barraclough, and hosted a garden party where she met a group of less senior Barraclough relatives. The Lone Star woman seemed unfailingly cheerful, brisk, and friendly. She persisted in wearing screamingly bright colors, and spent a long time every morning arranging her hair into its vast pouf, but aside from that, she might have been an old friend. Brun found herself explaining, over breakfast or in the intervals of their social commitments, everything she knew about the family business and her uncle’s machinations.

The next time Harlis visited, Brun saw the Ranger in action for the first time. She had been coming downstairs when the bell rang; Kate waved off the maid and went to the door herself. Brun paused to see what would happen, stepping back so that she couldn’t be seen from the door.

“Hi, I’m Kate Briarly,” she heard Kate say to Harlis, without moving aside for him.

“I want to see Brun,” Harlis snapped.

“That may be, but I don’t know who you are,” Kate said. Brun was fairly sure that wasn’t true—she’d shown Kate ID pictures.

“Harlis Thornbuckle—now go call Brun for me.”

A grunt followed, then: “Now, Mister Thornbuckle—” in Kate’s coolest voice.

“That’s Lord Thornbuckle—”

“Back where I come from it is not considered polite at all for a gentleman to push his way past a lady—”

“You’re no lady! And you hurt me!”

“Be that as it may, you pushed at me, and that just won’t do. Now you be nice, and just wait there a minute, and I’ll see if Brun has time to see you—”

“She’d better, or I’ll—”

“Ah-ah-ah! No threats. Y’all know Brun’s still under formal guard for any threat to her safety; you’d hate to be hauled off kickin’ and hollerin’ to spend the night in jail.” The door thudded shut softly, and Brun came down another few steps to see Kate standing with her back to it, shaking with silent laughter.

“You shut the door on Uncle Harlis,” Brun said, grinning.

“I truly hope your father was a better man than that, Brun, because that man is all hat and no cattle, where brains are concerned.”

“A lot better,” Brun said. “But I’d better talk to him.” She reached for the door, and Kate stopped her.

“No—go into the drawing room and sit down in something comfortable.” Brun complied, realizing halfway there what Kate was about. She heard the door open again, and Kate’s voice—all sugar now—inviting him in. Harlis stormed into the drawing room.

“Where is your mother?” he demanded.

“I’m not sure,” Brun said, carefully thinking of the possibilities—her mother might be in bed, or eating, or out riding—rather than the certainty that her mother was somewhere on Sirialis.

“Dammit—she has no right to take family property while the will’s in question!”

“What property, Uncle Harlis?”

“Sirialis! I’ll wager that’s where she is!”

“It’s a large universe, Mister Thornbuckle,” Kate said, before Brun could answer. “Why do you think she’s there? And what difference would it make if she was? She can’t take off with a whole planet.”

Harlis glared at her, his face reddening. Brun tried to keep from laughing; he looked ridiculous.

“She had better not remove anything from the property,” he said finally. “I have an injunction.”

Brun felt cold to the marrow, but Kate spoke up again.

“An injunction—not to dispose of property? In other words, not a dismissal of the original will?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, no. She’s enjoined from disposing of any of the property under dispute, until the case has been decided.”

“Suppose you just let me see that, Mister Thornbuckle—” Kate reached out an imperious hand; to Brun’s surprise, her uncle put a hardcopy into it. Kate looked it over, one pencilled eyebrow elevated.

“It may be legal here, but it sure wouldn’t be legal back home,” she said finally. “Y’all have a really strange legal system, what with no proper constitution. But I guess you’ll have to send Lady Thornbuckle a message about it.”

“You don’t scare me,” Harlis said, and lurched out of the chair, grabbing the hardcopy from Kate on his way to the door, which he slammed.

“I don’t think much of your security,” Kate said after a moment. “Lettin’ that man up to the door without warnin’ us.”

“He’s my uncle,” Brun said.

“And you never have family murders here? No, never mind. It’s time I went to work.”

Kate looked and sounded a lot less Texan when she was detecting, Brun decided. She had acquired copies of all the relevant surveillance materials, on the grounds that she needed to prove that the Lone Star Confederation had not been involved in any way. Now her room was festooned with charts and lists and flatpic blowups.

“This here is a list of every person registered in the Monos Hotel; I don’t think much of your investigators for only getting the list of those on the fifth floor and above. Sure, the shot came from that high, but people can go up as well as down. They know at least one shooter was here, in room 517—”

“They didn’t tell us that.”

“Well, they wouldn’t. I wouldn’t, if you were back home and I was investigatin’ there . . . I’d have rules to follow, same as they do. Now, the couple in room 517 weren’t there at the time. They were attending the annual convention of the plumbing contractors, and we have good surveillance pictures of them in their booth for two hours, and another two if you don’t count the one trip each made to the john. Moreover, there’s witness statements, and an order book with an automatic time stamp, to show they took orders.”

“They could have let someone else use their room—”

“Yup. First thing I thought of. But as it happens, the room door was forced, not unlocked. A string of DJ-8, and someone took the trouble to overpulse the mag relays so that no alarm would sound when the lock blew. They wouldn’t bother with all that if they had a key. The Stringhalts might still be involved, but I doubt it. Right now I’m lookin’ at eight possibles.” Kate pointed them out on her list. “Two hotel employees—the assistant day manager, and the housekeeping supervisor—”

“Why them?”

“Access to files on which rooms were occupied, and which rooms were occupied at what times. I don’t want to drag you through the gory parts, Brun, but look at this here—” Kate put up another screen with the plan of the hotel and street overlaid in colors. “Your security personnel did a pretty good job, even though it wasn’t good enough. They’d moved all known foreigners out of rooms overlooking the route from the court to the Palace; they’d put spotters on the roofs, and the usual sort of net below. They had roving patrols, including in this hotel. My people might have made some changes, but nothing good enough to keep your dad alive, if his route was known. And his route was posted—everyone knew it.

“I can tell you this much . . . I’m convinced it wasn’t even an outside job. I think it was someone in the Familias, who tried to make it look like the NewTex Militia.”

“Well, I want to know who.”

“D’you have any ideas? Your population’s a lot bigger than ours, and we usually start with some idea of who’s trying to kill someone.”

Brun ticked them off. “There’s always my Uncle Harlis, though I don’t think he would—he wanted my dad’s property, and he’s doing his best to get it away from Mother, as you saw. His son Kell, who’s meaner than a—what’s your term?”

“Rattlesnake. And?”

“One of the Consellines, though I can’t see Hobart Conselline doing anything that stupid on his own.”

“Hmm. If it was stupid—he did end up Speaker. Well, let’s go after this another way. Leaving aside the murder, for the moment, what else have we dug up?” Kate shoved one mess of papers aside, and brought up a printout that looked to Brun like rows of figures.

“Are those numbers supposed to mean something?” Brun asked.

“Quite a bit,” Kate said. “If you can follow the money, you can just about always find the criminal. I got these figures off the public newsfeeds, by the way, so I can’t vouch for their accuracy. But here’s some things to look at . . . see this? It’s your uncle’s shares in companies you told me were your family holdings.”

Brun recognized most of the names. Her mother had mentioned them, but had given no details.

“Brun, I need to talk to you.” Lady Cecelia, sounding very upset. Brun hadn’t heard from her in days, and had been so caught up in Kate’s research that she’d almost forgotten about her.

“Lady Cecelia, how—”

“Now,” the voice said.

“I have that Lone Star woman visiting . . .”

“I know; I heard the rumors. But can I come out for a few days?”

“Of course.”

A few hours later, Cecelia erupted into the house in what Brun recognized as a fine white fury. She didn’t even glance at Kate.

“Did you know that Kevil Mahoney’s been robbed while he was in hospital?”

“No! George didn’t say—”

“George has been trying to cope without getting them in deeper trouble. Someone swiped their accounts, the day of the assassination, though George was too busy to find out about it for a couple of weeks. And he had no way to trace it by then.”

“But how? I thought the safeguards—”

“Were safe. Yes. So did I. But George is trying to take care of Kevil, and finish law school—they can’t even afford a cook, and they’re going to have to sell the house! The thing is, Brun, George didn’t have the access codes and Kevil couldn’t remember them. I have them, but I don’t know how to interpret what’s in the files.”

“You have Kevil’s access codes?”

Cecelia reddened. “Yes. And he has—had—mine.”

“So what they were saying about you and Kevil—”

“Was idle gossip. Brun, I’m ashamed of you! The man’s hurt, his memory’s damaged, he’s been robbed, and all you can think about is that?”

“Sorry,” Brun said. “It did come to mind.”

Cecelia looked at the papers and films spread all over the library tables, and then at Kate. “What were you looking up?”

“Goin’ through the public financial records, trying to find out how Harlis was gettin’ so far with a ridiculous claim, and tryin’ to cross the trail of the killer. Brun’s mama’s over at Sirialis, doin’ the same thing.”

Brun looked at Cecelia.

“Kate, we need to join forces here. With the codes Cecelia has, and your ability to interpret the files, this might go a lot faster.”

“If you’ll keep intruders out,” Kate said. “Remember what I said about your inept security—”

“I worry more about Kevil,” Brun said. “Why don’t I go bring him out here?”

“Excellent idea,” Kate said.

“But that’s all wrong, that’s—”

“Somebody’d do all that, wouldn’t stop at a little shootin’.”

By the time Brun got back with Kevil Mahoney, Kate and Cecelia were hard at work. Brun helped Kevil into the library, and moved a pile of printouts off a chair for him.

“Looks . . . like fun . . .” he said. “You . . . must be the . . . Texan.”

“Ranger Briarly,” Kate said. “Just call me Kate. Somebody sure knocked a hole in your stock tank . . . but I’ll get ’em.”

“Kate has a healthy disrespect for thieves,” Cecelia said.

“I don’t like people hurtin’ people, and takin’ advantage, ’specially of people that’s just been shot.” Kate gave Kevil one of her wide smiles. “I will bet my best show saddle that there’s not but one or two villains in this drama, and I aim to catch every one of ’em.”

“You’d be interested in what I found at Kevil’s, then,” Brun said. She held up a sack and shook it. “Interesting meds to give someone with a brain injury . . .”

“I thought so,” Cecelia said. “Was that nurse there? He’s been harder to shake with every visit.”

“Oh, yes. Very eager to give Ser Mahoney a little something to make the trip out here easier. Then very eager to clear the shelves of the meds.”

“I don’t suppose you have his access codes,” Kate said, looking up.

Brun grinned. “When I got back home, and wasn’t going out much, I spent my time building some of the gadgets Koutsoudas has . . . so yes, an illegal datasuck gave me every bit of data on him. Here.” She put it down on the table. “Interfaces to the cube reader or the computer, whichever you want.”

Three nights later, Brun was dozing on one of the long leather couches in the library, an arm shielding her eyes from the light, when the breakthrough came.

“Gotcha!” Kate muttered. She no longer looked like the sexy blonde in red fringe; back-to-back all-night work sessions had flattened the hair, and put circles under her eyes. Instead of the tight red suit, she wore loose knit pants and shirt. But nothing could dim the grin she turned on the others. “This is it, partners—we’ve got what we need.”

“Ummm . . .” Brun heard only the first of that, but managed to open a bleary eye for the last phrase. “Got whom?”

“Your uncle Harlis, for starters. He’s been acquiring stock in ways that are illegal even here—and I have to say, Brun, that your government needs to overhaul its legal system in a big way. There’s holes you could drive a herd of longhorns through, with this bylaws arrangement. All you have to have is one generation of idiots, cowards, and a few bad guys, and it’d be all over for you.”

Cecelia’s rumpled red head rose from the other couch. “That’s all very well, but what did he do?”

“He extorted stock by roughing up some of your weaker relatives . . . you remember tellin’ me how surprised you were that your dad’s aunt Trema left her stock to Harlis? That was no accident. I’ve got the paper trail where Harlis got some local toughs to come in and stomp on some of her favorite china, and tell her they’d break her bones just as easy. And he had the police around there in his pocket, told ’em she was a crazy old lady who dropped things and had hallucinations.”

“And they believed it?”

“Money makes a strong argument. Anyway, that’s not all I’ve got, and the evidence ought to stand up even in a crooked court. Which is what you’ve got, I gather—Harlis contributed quite a bit to the education of certain judges’ children. If you’ve got any kind of an opposition journal, this’ll be meat and gravy for ’em.”

“I can . . . help write . . . the appeal . . .” Kevil Mahoney said. He was standing, leaning crookedly against the doorframe.

“You’re up,” Cecelia said. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I’ve done nothing . . . but rest for . . . weeks. Enough. My memory’s still as spotty as a Dalmatian dog, but if you feed me the facts, I can write. I think.” His speech had already improved, but now it smoothed even more the longer he talked.

“Good,” Kate said, with another of those blinding grins. “Then I think it’s time for this Texas gal to go have a rest and a shower. I must look like something the barn cat dragged in.”

Kevil Mahoney’s name on the bottom of the petition for summary judgement upholding the late Lord Thornbuckle’s will might have had little effect, but the thick stack of supporting evidence did. One of the court clerks called Brun that very afternoon.

“The judge hasn’t heard of any of this before—” The clerk’s voice was sharp with disapproval.

“Of course not,” Brun said. “Ser Mahoney was critically injured, as you know; some of the family files were under his personal lock.” She said nothing about Kevil’s other problems; a clerk wouldn’t have reason to know anything about them.

“Is this all the data you have, or can we expect more?” That was sarcasm, but the clerk sounded uneasy.

“No, this isn’t all; this is merely the preliminary filing. My mother, Lady Thornbuckle, is on Sirialis, getting additional data from the main family archives there.”

“I see. Well . . . you’ll hear from us.”

Two hours later, Harlis came storming up the drive, only to be stopped by Brun’s new security force. After they disarmed him, and checked with Brun, they escorted him to the door. Brun met him there, backed by Kate, Cecelia, and an upright Kevil, who was leaning on George. Kate had reappeared in full Texan persona, but this time she wore her Ranger badge.

“Before you say anything,” Brun said, “let me make it clear: we have all the evidence we need that you engaged in criminal activity to get control of family companies, and we are gathering more.”

Her uncle glared. “I don’t believe it! You can’t do this to me! I didn’t do anything . . . it was all perfectly legal. Hobart will take care of you—” Then he blenched.

“How very interesting,” Cecelia said. “Hobart . . . Could you possibly mean Hobart Conselline . . . now why would someone in our sept be working with a Conselline . . .”

“I didn’t say Conselline,” Harlis said. But he had changed color, and his voice shook. “But it’s my right—”

“You had no right to terrify poor old Aunt Trema,” Brun said. She was startled to realize that she sounded very much like her father, and wondered if the others noticed. “And yes, we will press charges.”

“I’ll—I’ll see you in hell!” Harlis wheeled and strode down the front walk, shadowed by the guards.

“It’s not over,” Brun said, as much to herself as to the others. Harlis wasn’t ready to give up, and she didn’t know what he might do next.

“No, but it’s a good beginning,” Kate said. “C’mon, hon, wait until you hear Cecelia’s next good idea.”

“What?”

“She’s found a place for all those inconvenient women and children that Lieutenant Serrano is stuck with. She’s going to take them off to a pioneer planet she knows about, where they’ll be happier and their skills are needed.”

“That’s nice for Barin and Esmay,” Brun said. “But I wanted her to go tell my mother what we’ve accomplished. She needs to know that we have evidence against Harlis. We can’t trust that to ordinary communications—”

“You’re right, but now that Harlis is on the run there’s no hurry, is there? Your mother’s not going to do anything rash.”

Ruth Ann took a long look out the windows. It looked cool and green, and she didn’t know if this was spring, summer, or winter. Puddles reflected the sky, patches of blue and rolls of gray cloud like unspun wool.

No towering cities, no noisy crowds. When the hatch opened, the air that swept in was cool, moist. She could smell green growing things on that air. The red-haired woman led the way; Ruth Ann followed close behind. The ground felt good to her feet, even through shoes. It held still; it didn’t vibrate.

The red-haired woman with the fancy name—Cecelia whatsis, a Rejuvenant—led the way into a little square building, where they each had to show their ID. Ruth Ann felt the oddness of it, that each person handled their own cards. And hers had her own name on it, Ruth Ann Pardue.

Once they were all finished with “Customs,” whatever that was, and had new purple stamps on the cards, the red-haired woman led them down the street. This was scary. The little town looked like the backwater village where she’d grown up, where she’d have been whipped till her legs bled for walking around wearing shoes and looking at people . . . but here were men and women, dressed almost decently, except that they all wore shoes, and the women didn’t keep their eyes down. People looked at her, but with hope, not distaste. She recognized the admiring glances at the children.

They turned into the open doorway of a two-story building, and the red-headed woman yelled, “Ronnie! Raffaele!” Immediately, a woman yelled back. “Lady Cecelia! Just a second—I’m coming!” Then a clatter on the stairs, and a slender young woman with dark hair and eyes came running down, and gave the red-headed woman a hug. Then she looked at Ruth Ann. “I’ve got dinner on—we’re so glad you came; I hope you’ll like it here. Ronnie’s out trying to see why a machine won’t work or something . . . he’ll be back soon.”

Ruth Ann recognized, in the woman who introduced herself as Raffaele, the same signs of abomination she had seen in Brun. This woman had never lowered her eyes in respect; she had never stood back keeping silence; she had never been denied access to anything she wanted to learn.

But—from the smells coming from the kitchen—she had also never learned to do more than push buttons when she wanted something to eat.

“And we hope—” Raffaele was still talking, when Ruth Ann interrupted.

“What were you trying to cook?”

“Just some . . . some meat . . .”

“Let me take a look.” Ruth Ann sailed into the kitchen on a wave of unexpected delight. Sure enough, the place was a mess, sticky implements cluttering the counter—and not a big enough counter, either, that would have to change—and a stove leaking smoke from a badly-hung oven door.

“Secunda—Shelly Marie, you get that counter cleared. Tertia—Terry, get this floor clean. Benji—” Her oldest son stared at her, wide eyed. “Benji, we need that stove fixed.”

“Pri—Mama?”

“Now, Benji.” She could feel her confidence coming back. “Simplicity, honey, you take the littles out into the garden—you do have a garden, don’t you?” she asked Raffaele.

“Y-yes, but it’s not—it’s kind of a mess.”

“Not for long.” Messes she understood, and what to do about them. “Simplicity, just you start the littles weeding, and make sure nothing bothers them.”

The dark-haired young woman was fluttering now, like a gaudy butterfly in a net. “But—but Sera—Ruth Ann—I didn’t mean for you to go to work—I was making dinner for you—”

“Never you mind—why don’t you go set the table or something?”

“Come on, Raffa; I’ll explain about Ruth Ann.” The tall lanky redhead led the younger woman away.

In a kitchen again at last, a real kitchen. Too small by far for all of them, but bigger than any of the cubbyholes called kitchens in the spaceships and space stations. Shelley had found a kettle and had water heating on the stovetop; Benji had already taken off the oven door. Inside was a lump of meat, charring on one side.

Shelley handed Ruth Ann a couple of folded towels, and she pulled out the cooking pan, wrinkling her nose at the smell. Raw inside, burnt outside; the girl had built up the fire too much too fast, trying to compensate for the ill-hung door. Probably she’d never cooked without the electric, and the electric was off.

Ruth Ann looked around for a worktable—none. It would have to be the counter, where Shelley swept aside the clutter to make room for her, then began rummaging in drawers for the knife she knew Ruth Ann would want. “We’re going to need a worktable,” she told Benji. “They said they had plenty of wood, so that’s something to start planning.”

“Cecelia, I feel terrible—but the twins kept me up last night—”

“You haven’t found anyone to take them—?”

“No.” Raffa blushed, a becoming color, Cecelia noted. “I—we—we sort of—decided to keep them ourselves. And one of the nursemaids ran off with a farmer, and the one with children wanted to start a school, and besides she has her own children to care for . . .”

“You?” This was an unexpected complication. “Er . . . do you think that’s wise?”

“You mean, will Brun mind when she finds out?” Raffa had always been too sharp. “I don’t think she will, but if she does, too bad. I quite understand her not wanting to keep them. It must have been horrible, and I wish it had never happened. But I like—no, I love the boys, and I even love it that they’re part of her. The way things are, Ronnie and I may never get off this planet again—and that’s all right, but I do miss some things—”

“My dear—you don’t have to stay here—”

“Yes, we do, and don’t argue. We wanted a life of our own, and we’re getting it. It’s not anything I imagined, but—whether you believe it or not—we’re happy. But the thing is, children . . . it’ll be years, because . . . well . . . I don’t fancy having babies without modern medical support. This way, we’re helping Brun. And ourselves.”

Clearly it would do no good to argue. “What did you name them?” Cecelia asked.

“The redhead’s Peter, for Ronnie’s great-uncle, and the brown-haired one’s Salomar, for my mother’s brother.”

Cecelia felt her eyes stinging unexpectedly. Family names—and names she must know were in Brun’s family line as well. “So—when do I see the little demons?”

“They’re napping. They’ve had some illness—I know it’s only a childhood thing, and all children do this . . . out here, I mean.”

“Well, we’d better set the table then. One thing I’ve found out about Ruth Ann, when she makes up her mind, things get done.”

“Was she one of the—one of the ones who hurt Brun?”

“No. Her husband was, but she knew nothing about it until long afterwards. Where’s your table linen?”

“Used it for crib sheets,” Raffa said. “All we can do is dust this off.” This had been an elegant dining table when Raffa and Ronnie brought it downside, but it had spent several years as a work surface, and looked it. Cecelia forbore to comment on the state of the floor—with no glass in the windows, let alone any household machinery, how could Raffa keep dust off the floor?—and helped wipe down the scarred tabletop.

“I still have most of the china,” Raffa said. She unlocked the big cupboard in the corner, and took down stacks of plates. “Even if they look a bit silly on this bare wood.”

Incongruous was the right word, but Cecelia said nothing, laying out Pierce & Samuelson’s famous “Coronation” pattern, with the gold wavy rim. Partway through, she noticed that the smell from the kitchen had changed from singed meat and something sour to a delicious blend of roast and something that almost smelled like bread.

Suddenly Ruth Ann appeared in the doorway. “Oh—you don’t use tablecloths?”

“We don’t have any left,” Raffa said. “We had to use them for the beds—”

“Deary me! And us with all more than enough in the luggage. Cecelia, where are the boxes, do you know?”

“No, but I’ll find out. Which box?”

“The one with the table and chair on the side.”

Cecelia headed for the shuttle and, from the piles of boxes being unloaded, located the one with the table and chair on the side. One of the crew carried it back for her; she set it on the table and opened it carefully. Inside, it was stacked full of folded linens, brilliant with hand embroidery.

Cecelia lifted out the folded cloth. “However did you have time to weave this?”

“Oh, that’s not our weave,” Terry said. “We had no space for looms. But Prima—Ruth—says we mustn’t be idle. She got that Miss Waltraude to get us some cloth, and we embroidered it. Do you think it’s good enough?”

Cecelia shook out the folds. On plain white cloth, the women had embroidered a broad band of flowers, trees, birds, stars, and what she supposed were religious symbols. “It’s . . . more than good enough.” It was splendid, and the Coronation pattern looked even better than it had before.

By this time the kitchen smells had attracted the twins from upstairs. The twins were much more mobile than before, and although they might have been sick the day before, they were full of life now. They made straight for the table, and Raffaele tried to intercept them. Terry grabbed Salomar just as Raffa caught Peter.

“What big boys!” Terry cooed. “Yours, ma’am?”

“Yes,” Raffa said. “But I’m not ma’am—just call me Raffa. If you could help keep them out of the dinner table—”

“I’ll take them out in the garden, and help Simplicity keep an eye on them.”

When she’d gone, Cecelia cocked an eye at Raffa. “They’ll never believe you bore those children, you know. They’ll realize they’re adopted.”

“Yes, but not from whom,” Raffa said firmly.

Cecelia dared a peek into the kitchen. The floor could not gleam, being what it was, but it had the look of a floor that would gleam if only it were smooth enough. Ruth Ann worked a great lump of dough on the counter, which did gleam except where she worked. One of the women was washing dishes; another was chopping something that smelled good. Older children were moving in and out, bringing bits of fresh greenery from the garden, carrying out trash, and—as soon as Raffa agreed—mopping the dining room floor.

The lights came back on just before Ronnie came home.

“My God,” Ronnie said as he came through the door. The women bowed their heads and waited. “I mean—er—it’s a surprise.”

Ruth Ann looked up. “We don’t take the name of the Lord in vain,” she said. “I thought you were going to pray.”

“I know—I just . . . what did you do? Where did all this come from?”

“It’s just food,” Ruth Ann said.

“It’s not just food,” Ronnie said. “It’s a feast.”

“Then you can say thanks to God for it,” Ruth Ann said. She looked hard at Ronnie, who reddened and stumbled through a child’s grace Cecelia was sure he had not uttered in over a decade. The NewTex women added a hearty “Amen.”

The roast fell into even slices, perfectly cooked. Puffy rolls as light as clouds. Potatoes, crisp outside and mealy inside. Fresh greens that weren’t bitter or too sour.

“Truly a feast,” Raffa said. “I can’t imagine how you got that horrid old stove to work. Ever since the electric went bad, we’ve all been stuck. The bread machines don’t work—”

“You don’t need machines to make bread,” Ruth Ann said.

“I do,” Raffa said, with a smile that took the sting out of the contradiction. “I don’t know how to make it otherwise. I tried to put the ingredients in a bowl that the directions say to put in a bread machine, but it came out the most horrible sour lump—”

“Did you knead it enough?”

“Knead? What’s that? I mixed it up, isn’t that what the machine does?”

Terry snorted, and Ruth Ann shot her a look. “I don’t mean to make fun,” she began.

“You can make all the fun you want, if you’ll teach me how to cook the way you do,” Raffaele said. “If I could make an edible loaf of bread, just once—”

“You don’t make good bread by making it once,” Ruth Ann said, feeling more secure every moment. Cecelia had been right. Clearly this household needed her, needed the knowledge she had. “You make good bread by making a lot of bread.”

“Well, here I am,” Raffa said. “Ready to learn.”

Ruth Ann remembered Hazel, and had her doubts. This woman was much older than Hazel, and unless she had a natural knack, she might never be very good. Still . . . she could certainly learn not to stuff too much fuel in a leaky oven, and burn a roast on one side.

After dinner, the junior wives organized cleanup without even being told, and Ruth Ann discussed with Raffaele why they’d come, and what they wanted to do.

“We can use all the instruction you give us,” Raffa said. “I told Lady Cecelia last time she was here . . . we have good, hard-working people, but none of us have ever done without electricity, or running water, or all the other things that we have on developed worlds. It’s not just me—it’s all of us, just about. We can’t learn all this out of books or teaching cubes.”

“Let’s start with you, then. There’s room in this house; we can experiment—” She was proud of using that new word, of being able to think of it. “When we know what you need, we’ll know what the others need.”

The next day, work began in earnest. Ruth Ann had a clear picture in her mind of what the kitchen needed to be, so she and the others could work there without falling all over each other. She couldn’t believe it . . . she was directing men. “Make the counter this long,” she’d said, and they were making it that long. They didn’t seem to mind, and she was enjoying it. So were the others. All those months of being told how backward they were, all those months of being confused by the humming machines, feeling awkward and uncertain. And now—

“If you arrange your beds so the tall plants don’t shade the low ones, you’ll get more yield,” Becky was telling Raffaele. “See, you’ve got them crossways . . . if the plant rows went the other direction—”

“Oh . . . well . . . look, Becky, why don’t you tell me how it should be, and I’ll draw a plot of it for next season’s planting.”

“Fine—”

Terry had gone upstairs to work on the bedrooms—although they’d slept last night, Ruth Ann had been very aware of the clutter and dust. The boys were at work in the front courtyard on simple furniture: rope-strung bunks to get them all up off the floor. When Ruth Ann looked out the tall dining room windows, she saw a crowd of men standing watching. It was backwards, men learning from boys, but it was right that the boys and men were together. She carefully ignored the two women wearing pants in the same group.

By dinnertime that day, the shuttle had brought the rest of their things down from the spaceship, including the pop-up cots Lady Cecelia had bought. The whole house smelled different, and Ronnie had the expression Ruth Ann liked to see on the head of a household. Of course, he wasn’t her husband—she kept reminding herself of that—but she did enjoy watching a man eat with relish.

Cecelia left a few days later. Ruth Ann hardly noticed; she had her worktable in the expanded kitchen, and had also set up a summer stove outside, for preserving.

“What we need is a school,” Raffa said, watching the crowd around the stove as Shelley demonstrated jelly testing. “A really big kitchen, where everybody could come to learn cooking, and maybe a sewing room where they could learn sewing.”

“A weaving shed,” Ruth Ann said. “That fabricator cloth is too harsh. And a really big bread oven.”

Raffa looked around. “This would almost work, if Ronnie and I moved into one of the smaller houses.”

“No,” Ruth Ann said firmly. “Your husband’s the governor; you need this house. We’ll build one.”

More quickly than even she had hoped, the school went up. The engineering cubes Cecelia had brought, and the bundles of reinforcing whiskers, made it possible to pour solid walls quickly. One of the other colonists, who had been a hobby potter on her home world, found a lens of good clay in the riverbank, and knew how to make tiles.

“Not really good ones yet,” she admitted. “We don’t have a kiln hot enough. But for starters, better than plain concrete or dirt.” The school was the first building to have locally made tile floors.

A proper school for proper women, with a kitchen in which they could all learn the way she had learned—from watching and doing and being knocked on the knuckles with a wooden spoon when they needed it. A big outdoor oven to handle dozens of loaves of bread at once. A weaving shed—she regretted the loss of the captive women, who had been such talented weavers, but Tertia Crockett—she used Anna now—was almost as good. Sunrooms for embroidery. Gardens for the children.

The gardens for the children produced another benefit—everyone in the colony wanted their youngest children there, under Simplicity’s gentle guidance, for part of the day. Raffaele brought her twins when she came to learn cooking, and the other women copied her. As Ruth Ann had suspected, Raffaele would never be more than a middling baker. Her hand was too heavy for pastry, and not firm enough for yeast dough, though both her pie crusts and bread were now at least edible. But the other women followed her lead, and the gardens were full of busy little children.

Raffaele’s twins, though—the twins gave Ruth Ann a funny feeling in the chest. Salomar, in particular, was all too familiar . . . she had seen that quirk of mouth, that shape of eyebrow and set of eye, before. She looked again and again at Raffaele and Ronnie, trying to trace in their faces the source of those details of Salomar’s. What kept nagging at her had to be impossible. She had to be imagining it. Didn’t she?

She put her mind firmly back on the school. A few of the other former wives were being courted by men whose wives had died, but enough of the women wanted no part of remarriage that she was sure of enough teachers for years to come. Her daughters had suitors, too, the older ones.

And her sons, about whose acceptance she had been so worried, were every one of them more expert at tool use than these city folks, for all that those men had taken courses and been passed as expert enough. They may’ve been, Ruth Ann thought, with the fancy electric tools they’d trained on, but few of them knew anything of unpowered tools.

Everything from beds and tables to bowls poured out of the boys’ workshop. Nobody minded that it was plain stuff, though one of the other colonists began making stains out of local plants to give the wood different tones of soft red and yellow. And nobody here minded if a few girls took up woodcrafting. All through the rest of that spring, and into this new world’s long summer, Ruth Ann blessed the long series of chances that had brought them here.

“I never thought nineteen women and a bunch of children could make this much difference,” Ronnie said one hot afternoon. He’d taken to coming by to fetch the twins, and he often stopped to chat, leaning on one of the planters. “You’ve galvanized the colony, is what you’ve done. The extra supplies helped, but it’s you, Ruth Ann, you and the rest of them, who’ve waked us up and gotten us moving.”

She glanced sideways at him, thinking that he hadn’t learned it all yet, even so. Greatly daring, but also confident, she reached to the basket of hand tools. “While you’re resting,” she said, handing him a weeder and nodding to the planter he leaned on.

He grinned at her. “You never do stop working, do you?”

“You don’t have to rush if you don’t get behind,” she pointed out. “Those stickery ones are the weeds.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned at her. “I’ll learn in the end.”

“By the way,” she said, finding it easier to bring this up when he was bending over the tangled growth, weeding. “Those twins of yours . . . I can’t believe your Raffaele bore them—she’s so tiny.”

Ronnie’s ears turned redder. “She didn’t,” he said shortly. “They’re adopted.”

“It doesn’t matter to God,” Ruth Ann said. “What it is, though—and I know I’m being presumptuous, but—that Salomar. He reminds me of someone.”

The back of Ronnie’s neck went three shades darker, not counting the sunburn. “Who?” he asked, more coolly than Ruth Ann expected.

“I’m thinking,” Ruth Ann said, folding her needle away, because her hand had started shaking. “I’m thinking he minds me of my—of Mitch. And I’m thinking, if there’s any reason he should mind me of Mitch, that you might be worrying that I’d notice. You’ve been awful good to us, and I don’t want to worry you. So if—if it is that, what I’m thinking of, then—then I want you to know that I don’t mind, and I’m glad to have the boy around. Both of them.”

Ronnie said nothing; his shoulders bunched, and the dirt flew.

“I won’t say any more,” Ruth Ann said.

“It’s . . . all right.” He turned around; his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I—we didn’t know you were coming, or—but—Oh, I’m making a mess of this, Raffa will kill me. But if you’ve guessed, you’ve guessed—”

“I bore nine of that man’s children; I know their stamp,” Ruth Ann said. She said nothing of Peter’s father, though she knew exactly who that red hair reminded her of.

“Brun wanted a good home for them; she was afraid they might be stolen away and used against her.”

“You don’t have to defend her to me,” Ruth Ann said. She still could not understand a woman not clinging to her own flesh and blood, but she wasn’t going to argue that now. If their mother had been a natural mother, she herself wouldn’t have this chance. “You don’t know what a blessing it is, to have those children here,” she said. “I’ve worried and worried—that’s the last bit of Mitch I’ll ever see; I wanted to know the children were safe. Will Raffaele mind? I’m not going to interfere, I promise you.”

“She’ll skin me, but she’ll hug you,” Ronnie said. “Ruth Ann—you are a very, very unusual lady.”

“I try to be a good woman,” Ruth Ann said, but a bubble of delight rose and would not be denied. She stood up, and let her head fall back. “Praise God, you aren’t angry with me for seeing what I saw, and you won’t keep me from him. I never thought to be happy again, and here I am happier than I’ve ever been.”