Hunting Party

Chapter Two

Heris led the way into her cabin, wondering if civilians had any concept of shipboard courtesy. Would they know enough to stay on their side of the office? Sirkin did; she stood across the desk as Heris called up the files on the desk display, looking young and earnest.

She looked at the course Sirkin had originally planned. Direct, reasonable flux levels, no abrupt course changes, adequate clearance of the mapped obstacles. It was close to the course she would have selected, although R.S.S. ships could and did shave the clearance margins in the interest of speed.

“And Captain Olin disapproved this course? Why?”

“He said it was too risky. Here—” Sirkin laid her finger on the display, and it enlarged to show finer detail. “He claimed that coming this close to T-77 with a flux of 0.06 was suicidal. I asked him why, and he said he was captain and I’d learn better in time.”

“Hmm.” Heris leaned over the display. “Did you look up T-77 in the reference library?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Heris looked up at the younger woman—then remembered that it might be legitimate civilian usage. The R.S.S. used “sir” for either sex—it meant respect, not recognition of one’s chromosome type. Sirkin seemed respectful and attentive. “Baird and Logan said that T-77 is a gravitational anomaly, nothing more. Ciro speculates that it’s a burnt-out star. But all the references agree that it’s not as dangerous as Gumma’s Tangle, and it’s perfectly safe to transit that at a flux of 0.2. I was being conservative.” That had the bite of old resentment. Heris shook her head.

“Captain Olin must have had some reason. Your relative velocity would have been quite low, there—did you suggest boosting your flux and achieving a higher V?”

“No, ma’am. He said it was dangerous at 0.06; boosting the flux would make it worse—”

“If he meant a flux/mass interaction. That’s not the only danger out there.” She chewed her lip, thinking. She hadn’t been in that area for a long time; she wished she had access to R.S.S. charts and intelligence data.

“But why didn’t he say so?” Sirkin had flushed, which made her look even younger. “I could have redone it for a higher flux—”

“He didn’t want to go anywhere near T-77,” Heris said. “Let’s see what else he didn’t want to go near.” She looked at the rest of Sirkin’s course, comparing it to Olin’s, and calling up references when needed. Slowly, she felt her way into Olin’s logic. “He didn’t want to go near any of the low-danger obstacles, did he? Made you go clear around Cumber’s Finger, instead of taking that short Wedding Ring hop—and that’s a safe hop everyone takes. Made you wander over here—and why?” She looked up, to meet the same confusion in Sirkin’s expression. “Did Lady Cecelia have a preferred arrival time? Did she ask him to be here on a certain day?”

Sirkin nodded. “She had wanted to be here eight days before we arrived, for some kind of family party. Olin told her he couldn’t make it; it’s one reason she wanted a new captain. She said he was too slow.”

“You heard her?” Heris let her brows rise.

Sirkin turned red. “Well . . . I overheard it. I mean, Tonni over on the staff side, he told Engineering, and Mr. Gavin told me.”

“Staff side . . .” Heris said.

“You know. There’s the household staff, with Bates on top, and there’s the ship’s crew, with the captain—with you—on top. We’re not supposed to mix much, but at certain levels we have to. Our moles are always getting into rows with milady’s gardeners.”

Heris felt she’d fallen into a farce of some kind. Gardeners aboard ship? But she couldn’t let this young woman sense her confusion. “When we say ‘staff,’ we mean non-line officers,” she said, as if it had been a confusion of terms.

“Oh.” Sirkin clearly had no idea what that meant, and Heris let it pass. Far more important was getting this ship ready to travel. She could ask Sirkin, but she should learn more about the rest of the crew, and inspections would do just that. She looked back at Olin’s chosen route and shook her head.

“I wonder . . . it’s as if he knew something about these areas not listed in the references.” She wondered what. There were always rumors about “robbers’ coasts” and “pirate dens” to excuse ships that showed up late or missing cargo. But those were just rumors . . . weren’t they? Olin had chosen to skirt more dangerous—according to the references—points more closely; he had shaved past T-89 inside the line she’d have taken with a cruiser. Of course a cruiser massed more. Slow on the first leg of the trip, hanging about for a long time . . . then racing through the middle section, direct and sure . . . then dodging about again at the end. Smuggling came to mind, but she controlled her expression. Later she could figure out what, and with whom, Captain Olin had been smuggling.

“And you’re the newest crew member? What made you decide on this job rather than another?”

Sirkin blushed. “Well . . . it was a . . . friend of mine.” From the blush and tone of voice, a lover. Heris looked again: blue eyes, brown hair, slender, unremarkable face. Just very young, and very emotional.

“Aboard this ship?” She kept her fingers crossed.

“No, ma’am. She’s back at school—a third-year in ship systems maintenance. If I’d signed with a corporate ship, they’d have expected me to stay with them forever.” Not really forever, Heris knew, but to the young even the basic five- and ten-year contracts sounded permanent. “When she graduates—she’s not exactly at the top of her class—we wanted to be together, same ship or at least same company. . . .”

“So this is a temporary, until she graduates?”

“Yes, ma’am. But I’m not treating it any less seriously.” That in the earnest tone of the very young. Heris allowed herself to smile.

“I should hope not. When are you planning to leave Lady Cecelia?”

“It depends, really. She’ll graduate while we’re at that fox-hunting place—at Sirialis, I mean.” Sirkin’s fingers twitched. “Lady Cecelia expects to get back to the Cassian System about six local months after that, and she won’t take offplanet work until she hears from me.”

You hope, thought Heris. She’d seen more than one juvenile romance collapse when a partner was offplanet for a year or more. “You’ll have to keep your mind on your duties,” she said. “It’s natural to worry about her, but—”

“Oh, I don’t worry about her,” Sirkin said. “She can take care of herself. And I won’t be distracted.”

Heris nodded, hoping they hadn’t sworn vows of exclusion or anything silly like that. Those were the ones who invariably got an earnest message cube at the next port, with the defaulting lover explaining what happened at excruciating length. In her experience, it always happened to the best of the younglings in her crew. “Good. Now, I plan to have the crew cross-train in other disciplines—would you prefer another bridge assignment, or something more hands-on?”

Sirkin grinned, and Heris was almost afraid she’d say How fun—but she didn’t. “Anything you wish, Captain. I had two semesters of drive theory and one of maintenance, but I also had a double minor in Communications and computer theory.” Very bright girl, if she’d topped out in her nav classes and done that as well. Heris approved.

“We’ll try you in communications and the more practical side of shipboard computing systems, then. That should keep you busy enough.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s all, then.” With a last respectful nod, Sirkin left. No salute. Heris refused to give in to the wave of nostalgia she felt; she shrugged it away physically and drew a deep steady breath. No more salutes, no more old friends she could call on to find out, for example, what was known about the members of her new crew. She might have that later, as she made friends in the Captains Guild, but not now.

And at the moment, that was her most pressing need: knowledge. According to the ship’s record, all the crew but one had been supplied by the same employment agency. A good one: she had chosen to sign with them herself because of their reputation; they supplied crew to major commercial lines and trading corporations. Lady Cecelia was part of an important family; surely they were not sending her their dregs. . . . Yet she had the feeling that at least half these people were below average. She hadn’t expected that, not with the wages Lady Cecelia had offered her, and was paying the crew. She should have gotten more for her money. Sirkin was the only really top qualifier, just going by their records—which she didn’t. Records only told so much.

She punched up the local office of Usmerdanz, and worked her way up the levels until she found someone she could really talk to. “Captain Serrano . . . yes.” The owner of that silky voice had found her reference in the file, she could tell. “We . . . ah . . . placed you with Lady Cecelia—”

“Yes,” she said, interrupting. “I notice that Usmerdanz also placed other crew members, and I was wondering if you could give me some details.”

“All pertinent details should be in the ship files,” the voice said, with an edge as if a knife lay under the silk. From their point of view, she was the unknown quantity; she had been on their list less than a month, and there would always be questions about someone of her rank who resigned a commission without explanation. “Surely Captain Olin left the files open-keyed . . .”

“I’ve accessed the ship files,” Heris said. “But I find nothing equivalent to our—to the Space Service’s fitness reports. Are periodic evaluations handled by the captain aboard or . . . ?”

“Oh.” The knife edge receded behind the silk again. “Well . . . there’s no established schedule, not really. In the commercial ships, of course, there’s always some sort of corporate policy, but not on private yachts. Usually the captain keeps some sort of reports. You found nothing?”

“Nothing,” Heris said. “Just the data that might have been in the original applications. I thought perhaps you—”

“Oh, no.” The voice interrupted her this time. “We don’t keep track of that sort of thing at all.” Far from it, the tone said. After all, one could hardly recommend someone known to have problems on a previous vessel; best not to know. Heris had known Service people with the same attitude. “If there’s nothing in the ship files,” the voice went on, “then I’m afraid we can’t help you. We could supply incomplete data on education, background—but nothing more than that. Sorry . . .”

Before the silken-voiced supervisor could disconnect, Heris asked a quick question. “How do you choose which to recommend to which employers?” A long silence followed.

“How do we what?” No silk remained; the voice sounded angry.

“I noticed that only Sirkin—the newest crew member—ranked particularly high in her class, and she’s told me she was looking for a short-term job on a yacht for personal reasons. The others generally rank in the middle quartiles. Yet Lady Cecelia’s paying top wages; I wondered why you weren’t recommending these positions to your most qualified applicants.”

“Are you accusing us,” the voice said, all steel edge now, “of sending Lady Cecelia unqualified crew members?”

“Not at all,” said Heris, although she suspected exactly that. “But you aren’t sending her your cream, are you?”

“We sent you,” the voice replied.

“Exactly,” Heris said. “I know I’m not on the top of your list of captains . . . and I shouldn’t be.” As she had hoped, that admission soothed some of the anger in the voice on the com.

“Well. That’s true. I suppose.” Heris waited through some audible huffing and muttering, and then the voice went on. “It’s like this, Captain Serrano. There’s good people—qualified people—who aren’t right for every opening. You know what I mean; surely you had people even in the R.S.S. who were good, solid, dependable performers in ordinary circumstances, but you wouldn’t want to have them in charge of a cruiser in battle.”

“That’s true,” Heris said, as if she’d never thought of it herself.

“We supply crews to all sorts of people. We tend to hold out our best—our cream, as you said—for the positions where it matters most. It’s true that Lady Cecelia is a valued client, and her family is important, but . . . it’s not like that yacht is the flagship of Geron Corporation, is it?”

“Not at all.”

“She’s got a fine ship, relatively new, has it refitted at the right intervals, spares no expense in maintenance, travels safe routes at reasonable speeds. . . . She doesn’t need someone who can cope with a twenty-thousand-passenger colonial transport, or maneuvering in a convoy of freighters. Other people do. And her requirements dovetail nicely; we suggest for private yachts crew who are stable emotionally, perhaps a little sedate—” Lazy, thought Heris, could be substituted for that euphemism. No initiative. “Obedient, willing to adapt to a variable schedule.”

“I see,” Heris said, intentionally cheerful. She did see; she did not like what it said about the agency’s attitude toward her, or toward her employer. She was sure Lady Cecelia had never been told that her safety was less important than that of a load of frozen embryos or bulk chemicals. She had trusted the agency, and the agency had sent her junk. It had not occurred to Heris before that very rich people could have junk foisted off on them so easily. “Thank you anyway,” she said, as if none of that had passed through her mind. “I realize things are different in civilian life; I’ll just have to adjust.”

“I’m sure you’ll do very well,” the voice said, once more wrapped in its silken overtones. It wanted to be pleased with her, wanted Lady Cecelia to be pleased with her—wanted everyone to be pleased with everything, for that matter.

Heris herself was not at all pleased by anything at the moment, but she knew she would adjust, though not the way the agency intended. She would pull this crew up to some decent standard; she would exceed the agency’s low expectations and make of Lady Cecelia’s yacht a ship any captain could take pride in. Even working with the slack crew she’d been given. She knew Lady Cecelia wanted as speedy a departure as possible, but the delay her nephew caused gave Heris just enough time to interview each member of her crew. Those short, five-minute meetings confirmed her original feeling that most of the crew were past whatever prime they’d had. At least the ship was good: a sound hull, components purchased from all the right places. Regular maintenance at the best refitting docks. Like the crew, her instincts muttered. Heris blinked at the screen on her desk, fighting off worry. Surely Lady Cecelia hadn’t been cheated on everything.

Departure: their slot in the schedule came late in third shift. Lady Cecelia had already sent word that she preferred to sleep through undockings. Heris could understand that; she did too, on ships she didn’t captain. By this time, the ship’s own systems were all up and running; by law, a ship must test its own systems for six hours prior to a launch.

Heris arrived on the bridge two hours before undock, having checked all the aired holds herself, and as much of the machinery on which their lives depended as she could. Everywhere she’d looked she’d found gleaming new casings, shiny metal, fresh inspection stickers, their time-bound inks still bright and colorful. It ought to mean everything was all right . . . and the unease she felt must be because this was a civilian ship, tricked out in plush and bright colors, rather than an honest warship.

Her sulky pilot had the helm, his narrow brow furrowed. She put on her own headset and listened in. He was giving voice confirmation to the data already sent by computer: the Sweet Delight’s registration, destination, planned route, beacon profiles, insurance coverage. Heris caught his eye, and pointed to herself—she’d take over that tedious chore. The lists of required items came up on her command screen. Why an officer of an outbound vessel had to confirm by voice the closing of each account opened during a Station visit, each time repeating the authorization number of the bank involved, she could not fathom—but so it was, and had been, time out of mind. Even on her own cruiser someone had been required to formally state that each account was paid in full. It could take hours, with a big ship; here it was a minor chore.

“Thank you, Sweet Delight,” said the Stationmaster’s clerk, when she’d finished. “Final mail or deliveries?” Bates had told her that Lady Cecelia had a bag outgoing; the crew’s mail had been stacked with it. She sent Sirkin to take it out to the registered Station mail clerk. The furniture and decorations of the outer lobby had already been returned and stowed in one of the holds. When Sirkin returned, the yacht would be sealed from the Station and the final undock sequence would begin.

It seemed to take no time at all, compared to the bigger, more populous ships she was used to. Her own crew closed and locked the outer and inner hatches; the Station’s crew did the same on their side of the access tube. The Sweet Delight, on her own air now, smelled no different. An hour of final systems checks remained. The crew seemed to be careful, if slow, in working down the last checklists. They didn’t skip anything she noticed, although she didn’t know all the sequences for this vessel.

“Tug’s in position, Captain Serrano,” said the pilot. He had been positioning the yacht’s “bustle” to protect it from the tug’s grapples. Yachts were too small to fit the standard grapple arrangements; they carried special outriggers that gave the tugs a good grip and kept the main hull undamaged. Heris looked at the onboard chronometer: two minutes to their slot. She switched one channel of her com to the tug’s frequency.

“Captain Serrano, Sweet Delight.” There. She’d said it, officially, to another vessel . . . and the stars did not fall.

“Station Tug 34,” came the matter-of-fact reply. “Permission to grapple.”

“Permission to grapple.” Despite the bustle, she was sure she felt the yacht flinch as the tug caught hold. A perfect match of relative motion was rare, even now. Her status lights switched through red, orange, and yellow to green.

“All fast,” the tug captain said. “On your signal.”

On the other channel of her com, the on-watch Stationmaster waited for her signal. “Captain Serrano of Sweet Delight, permission to undock, on your signal. . . .”

“All clear on Station,” the voice came back. “Confirm all clear aboard?”

The boards spread emerald before her. “All clear aboard.” Fifteen seconds. She, the Stationmaster, and the tug captain all counted together, but the coordinated computers actually broke the yacht’s connection with the Station. The tug dragged the yacht—still inert, her drives passive—safely away from the Station and its crowded traffic lanes. Heris used this time to check the accuracy of the yacht’s external sensors against Station and tug reports of other traffic. Everything seemed to work as it should. She felt very odd, being towed without even the insystem drive powered up, but civilian vessels routinely launched “cold” and the tug companies preferred it that way. According to them, some idiot was likely to put his finger on the wrong button if he had power.

When they reached their assigned burn sector several hours later, the tug captain called again. “Confirm safe sector Blue Tango 34; permission to release.”

“Permission to release grapples,” Heris said, with a nod to the pilot and Gavin. The tug retracted its grapples and boosted slowly away. “Mr. Gavin: insystem drive.” The pilot, she noticed, was retracting the bustle, and checking with visuals that the lockdown mechanisms secured properly.

“Insystem drive.” The yacht’s sublight drive lit its own set of boards. “Normal powerup . . .” Heris could see that; she let out the breath she’d been holding. They’d done a powerup as part of the systems check, but that didn’t mean it would powerup again as smoothly.

“Engage,” she said. The artificial gravity seemed to shiver as the yacht’s drive began a determined shove, much stronger than the tug’s. Then it adjusted, and the yacht might have been sitting locked onplanet somewhere. “Mr. Plisson, she’s yours.” The pilot would have the helm until they made the first jump, and during jump sequences thereafter. Heris called back to the tug: “Sweet Delight, confirmed powerup, confirmed engagement, confirmed oncourse.”

“Yo, Sweetie—” The tug captain’s formality broke down. “Come and see us again sometime. Tug 34 out.” Heris seethed, then, at the pilot’s amiable response, realized that “Sweetie” was probably this yacht’s nickname, not an insult. After all, even Service tug captains called the Yorktowne “Yorkie.”

So, she thought, here I go. Off to someplace I’ve never been so my employer can chase foxes over the ground on horseback, and I can spend a month at Hospitality Bay making friends with other captains in the Guild. Somehow the thought did not appeal.

Heris had heard about cruise captains: unlike the captains of scheduled passenger ships, they were expected to hobnob with guests, flattering and charming them. She would not cooperate if that’s what Lady Cecelia had in mind. She would make it clear that she was a captain, not an entertainer. She would eat decent spacefaring meals in her own quarters, since the ship offered no separate wardroom for ship’s officers.

Cecelia had heard about spacefleet captains from her sisters: cold, mechanical, brutal, insensitive (which meant they had not worshipped at the shrine of her sister Berenice’s beauty, she thought). She enjoyed her meals too much to invite a boor to share them.

That first evening of the voyage proper, Heris ate in her cabin, working her way through a stack of maintenance and fitness logs. The crew cook provided a surprisingly tasty meal; she had been prepared for bland reconstituted food, but the crisp greens of her salad had never seen a freeze-dry unit, she was sure. She missed having a proper wardroom for the officers’ mess, but the officers on Sweet Delight, such as they were, were not likely to become rewarding dinner companions.

At least Lady Cecelia had not stinted on fresh food or on the quality of maintenance. Heris nodded at the screenful of data. Not one back-alley refitter in the lot; if the lady was bent on hiring incompetents, as Heris had begun to suspect, she did so from some other motive than mere economy. The bills would have paid for refitting a larger and more dangerous ship than the yacht, but Heris supposed part of it went into cosmetics, like the decor. Which reminded her, she must explain to Lady Cecelia the need for tearing out that plush covering the umbilicals.

She ignored the gooey dessert for another stalk of mint-flavored celery, slid her tray into the return bin, and called up data from the next refitting. So far—she refused to let herself contemplate all the future days—nothing had gone very wrong. This life might be bearable after all.

“I suppose you want us to dress,” Ronnie said. He lay sprawled in the massage lounger, his admittedly handsome body still dripping sweat from his workout on the gym equipment. Cecelia eyed him sourly; she wanted a massage herself, but not on the clammy cushions he would leave behind. When she’d chosen the luxurious zaur-leather upholstery she’d assumed she’d never have to share it. The saleswoman had mentioned the potential problem, and she had shrugged it off. Now she felt aggrieved, as if it were anyone’s fault but hers.

“Yes,” she said. “I do. And be prompt; good food doesn’t improve by sitting.”

“Thank you, Lady Cecelia,” said Raffaele. She appeared to be George’s companion, slight and dark—though not as dark as Captain Serrano. “These young men would never dress if you didn’t make them, and we can’t if they don’t.”

“Why not?” She was in no mood to honor custom; she watched the girls share a glance, then Raffaele tipped her head to one side.

“I feel silly, that’s all. My red dress, and the boys in skimps?”

Cecelia chuckled in spite of herself. “If you’re going to feel silly just because some lummox doesn’t live up to your expectations, you’ll have a miserable life. Wear what you want and ignore them.”

Another shared glance. One of the girls might have been more tactful, but Ronnie burst out first. “That’s what you do—and that’s why you never married and live by yourself in a miserable little ship!”

Cecelia stared him down. “That’s why I have the money and position I do—independent of any alliance—to do what I want—and that’s why I was available to help you when you got yourself into this mess. Or perhaps you don’t know that the first suggestion given your father was that you be packed off on an ore-hauler to Versteen?”

“They wouldn’t have!” Ronnie looked almost horrified enough.

Cecelia shrugged. “They didn’t, but largely because I was available, and could be talked into it. If your mother—well, never mind. But my point is, that if I had been a conventional member of this family, and married to some appropriate spouse, I would hardly have been free to take you on. You persist in regarding this as some kind of lark, but I assure you that most men—grown men, such as your father and his friends—consider your breach of the lady’s confidence a disgrace, even apart from its political implications.” Ronnie reddened. “Now,” she went on. “Go make yourself fit for civilized company at dinner, all of you. That includes you young women. I do not consider the sort of clothes you wear to parties with your own set adequate.” She actually had very little idea what kind of clothes they wore to parties with their own set, but had a clear memory of herself at nineteen to twenty-three.

When they had left, Cecelia felt the cushions of the massage lounger and shuddered. Entirely too clammy; she aimed a blow-dryer at it, and decided on a short swim. The pool’s privacy screen, a liquid crystal switchable only from within, closed her into a frosted dome, onto which she projected a visual of overhanging forest. She set the pool’s sound system, and eased over the edge to the opening bars of Delisande’s Moon Tide. A choice others would consider trite, but she needed those long rolling phrases, those delicate shadings of strings to ease her tension. The water enfolded her; she let her body and mind merge with water and music, swimming languidly to the music’s rhythm, just enough to counter the gentle current.

Just as she felt herself relaxing, the pool’s timer beeped, and Myrtis’s voice reminded her that it was time to dress.

“Bad words, bad words, bad words.” She had gotten away with that in childhood, even before she learned any. Her stomach burned. . . . If it hadn’t been for Ronnie and his gang, she could have had dinner held until she was ready—and she’d have been ready, because she wouldn’t have been interrupted. And her massage lounger wouldn’t have been sweaty. She hauled herself out of the pool with a great splash, hit the privacy control without thinking—and only then realized that with guests aboard she would have to be more careful. Luckily they were all off dressing—none of them had straggled back to ask a stupid question. Not that they didn’t swim bare, but she had no desire to have them compare her body to their young ones.

She walked into the warmed towelling robe that Myrtis held, and stood still while Myrtis rubbed her hair almost dry. Then she stepped into the warm fleece slippers, took another warmed towel, and headed for her own suite still rubbing at her damp hair. It dried faster these days, being thinner; she hated the blow-dryers and would rather go to dinner a bit damp than use one.

In her cabin, Myrtis had laid out her favorite dinner dress, a rich golden-brown shi-silk accented with ivory lace. Cecelia let herself be dried, oiled, powdered, and helped into the clothes without thinking about it. Myrtis, unlike Aublice, her first maid, had never seen her young body; she treated Cecelia with professional correctness and the mild affection of someone who has worked for the same employer fifteen years and hopes to retire in the same position. Cecelia sat, allowed Myrtis to fluff her short hair, with its odd spatchings of red and gray, and fastened on the elaborate necklace of amber and enamelled copper that made the lace look even more delicate. Those girls might be fifty years younger, but they would know a Marice Limited design when they saw it, and it would have its effect. They would not know it had been designed for her, by the original Marice, or why—but that didn’t matter.

The plump roast fowl sent up a fragrance that made Cecelia’s stomach subside from its tension. She glanced around the table and nodded to Bates. Service proceeded, a blend of human and robotic. A human handed her breast slices of roast, and the gravy boat, but crumbs vanished without the need of a crumb-brush.

“Do you eat like this all the time, Lady Cecelia?” asked Bubbles. Sober, cured of her hangover, she was reasonably pretty, Cecelia thought, except that her gown looked as if it would burst with her next mouthful. She was not so plump; the gown was that tight. She wore a warm bright green; it showed off her white skin and blonde curls although it clashed with the dark Raffaele’s red dress. The other girl, Sarah, wore a blue that would have been plain had it not been silk brocade, a design of fishes: d’Albinian work.

“Yes,” said Cecelia. “Why not? Cook is a genius, and I can afford it, so . . .”

“Tell us about your new captain. Why’d you choose a spacefleet officer?”

“Why was she available?” added the odious George. Less handsome than Ronnie, which Cecelia might have approved, but he had the sort of gloss she distrusted, as if he’d been coated with varnish.

“I wasn’t satisfied with my former captain’s performance,” Cecelia said, as if they had a right to ask. She knew she mellowed with good food; it was one reason she made sure to have it. She wasn’t going to admit that if Captain Olin had held to her schedule, she’d have been safely distant and unavailable when Ronnie was exiled. Why waste good ammunition? “I wanted more efficiency,” she said between bites, making them wait for it. “Better leadership. Before, they were always coming to me complaining about this and that, or getting crossways with staff. I thought an officer from the Regular Space Service”—she made the emphasis very distinct—“would know how to maintain discipline and follow my orders.”

“The Regs are crazy for discipline,” George said, in the tone of someone who found that ridiculous. “Remember when Currier transferred, Ronnie? He didn’t last six weeks. It was all nonsense—it’s not as if all that spit and polish and saluting accomplishes anything.”

“I don’t know . . .” Buttons, Bunny’s middle son, looked surprisingly like his father as he ran a thumb down the side of his nose. Gesture, decided Cecelia, and not features; he had his mother’s narrow beaky nose and her caramel-colored hair. “You can’t get along with no discipline. . . .” And his mother’s penchant for taking the other side of any argument, Cecelia told herself. In the girl, it had been fun to watch, but as Bunny’s wife she had caused any number of social ruptures by choosing exactly the wrong moment to point out that not everyone agreed. The incident of the fish knives still rankled in Cecelia’s memory. She wondered which parent Bubbles took after.

“We’re not talking about no discipline.” George interrupted as if he had the right, and Buttons shrugged as if he were used to it. “We’re talking about the ridiculous iron-fisted excuse for discipline in the Regs. I don’t mind fitness tests and qualifying exams—even with modern techniques, the best family can throw an occasional brainless wonder.” Cecelia thought that he himself could furnish proof of that. “But,” George went on, in blissful ignorance of his hostess’ opinion, she being too polite to express it, “I really do not see any reason for archaic forms of military courtesy that have no relevance to modern warfare.”

This time Buttons shrugged without looking up from his food. He had the blissful expression most of Cecelia’s guests wore when they first encountered the products of Cook’s genius. George looked around for another source of conversation, and found the others all engaged in their meal; with the faintest echo of Buttons’s shrug, he too began to eat.

The rest of the meal passed in relative silence. The roast fowl had been followed by a salad of fresh diced vegetables in an iced sauce strongly flavored with parsley: Cecelia’s favorite eccentricity, and one which never failed to startle guests. It awoke, she contended, the sleepy palates which the roast had soothed and satisfied. Crisp rounds of a distant descendant of potato followed, each centered with a rosette of pureed prawns. The trick, which no one but her own cook seemed to manage, was to have the slices of potato boiled slightly before roasting, so that the outer surfaces were almost crunchy but the inside mealy. The young people, she noted, took additional servings of potato as they had of the roast fowl. Finally, Bates brought in tiny flaky pastries stuffed with finely diced fruit in chocolate and cinnamon sauce. One each, although Cecelia knew that a few would be waiting for her later, safely hidden from the young people.

Satiety slowed them down, she noticed, nibbling her own pastry with deliberate care. They looked as if they wanted to throw themselves back in deep chairs and lounge. Not in my dining room, she thought, and smiled. The elegant but uncomfortable chairs that Berenice’s designer had foisted on her had their purpose after all.

Cecelia neither knew nor cared about the current social fashions of the young. In her young days, the great families had revived (or continued) the custom of a separate withdrawal of each sex with itself for a time after dinner, the women moving to one room and the men to another. She had resented it, and in her own yacht ignored it; either she invited guests (all of them) to continue their discussion in the lounge, or she excused herself and let them do what they would.

Tonight, with a good meal behind her, she felt mellow enough to grant them more of her time. Perhaps well fed, with hangovers behind them, they would be amusing; at least she might hear some interesting gossip, since none of them seemed to have the slightest reticence. “Let’s move to the lounge,” she said, rising. The young people stood, as they ought, but Ronnie frowned.

“If it’s all the same to you, Aunt Cece, I’d rather watch a show. We brought our own cubes.” The dark girl, Raffaele, opened her mouth as if to protest, but then shut it.

“Very well.” Cecelia could hear the ice in her own voice. Snub her, would they? On her own yacht? She would not stoop to equal their discourtesy, but she would not forget it, either. Buttons again tried to intervene.

“Wait, Ronnie . . . we really should—”

“Never mind,” Cecelia said, with a flip of her hand. The quick temper that she’d always blamed on her red hair slipped control. “I’m sure you’re quite right, you would only be bored talking with an old lady.” She turned on her heel and stalked out, leaving them to find their own way. At least she didn’t have to spend more time in that disgusting lavender and teal lounge the designer had left her. She toyed with the idea of having the yacht redone, and charging it to her sister, but the quick humor that always followed her quick temper reminded her how ridiculous that would be. Like the time she and Berenice had quarrelled, only to discover that her brothers had taped the row for the amusement of an entire gang of little boys. A snort escaped her, and she shook her head. This time she was justified in her anger; she wasn’t ready to laugh.

Myrtis, recognizing storm signals, had her favorite music playing and stood ready to remove her jewels. Cecelia smiled at her in the mirror as the deft fingers unhooked the necklace. “The young people prefer to watch entertainment cubes,” she said. “I’ll be reading late, I expect.” What she really wanted to do was hook up the system and take a long, strenuous ride, but that would mean another swim to cool off, and she suspected the young people would keep late hours. When Myrtis handed her the brocade robe, she slipped it on and went back to her study. Here, with the door closed, and the evening lights on in the solarium, she could lie back in her favorite chair and watch the nightlife. Two fan-lizards twined around a fern-frond, their erectile fans quivering and shimmering with delicate colors. At the sculpted water fountain, two fine-boned miniature horses dipped their heads to drink. They were not, of course, real horses; other small species had gone into their bioengineering specs. But in the dusky light, they looked real, or magical, depending on her mood.

Something flickered along the shadowy floor of the tiny forest, and a sere-owl swooped. Then it stood, talons clubbed on its prey, and stared at her with silver eyes. Not really at her, of course; it saw the windows farside illusion, a net of silvery strands that even an owl would not dare. The little horses had thrown up their heads, muzzles dripping, when the action began; they had shied, but returned to the water as the owl began to feed. Kass and Vikka, Cecelia thought. Her favorite of the little mares, and her yearling. In daytime lighting, the mare was honey-gold dappled with brown on top, with a white belly and striped mane of dark and cream. It was as close as Cecelia had ever found in the miniatures to her performance horse. . . . Most breeders of the tiny animals liked the exotic colors the non-equine species introduced.

When the mare led the young one back into the undergrowth, Cecelia sighed and blanked the window. Now she had the view that in all her memory made her happiest: her study at Orchard Hall, with the window overlooking the stableyard. Across the yard, the open top doors of a dozen stalls, and the horses looking out eagerly for morning feed. If she wanted, she could set the view into motion, in a long loop that covered the entire day’s activities. She could include sounds, and even the smell (although Myrtis would sniff, afterwards, and spray everything with mint). But she could not walk out the door over there, the one with the comfortable old-fashioned handle, and step into her former life. She shrugged, angry at herself for indulging even this much self-pity, and called up a new view, a seascape out a lighthouse window. She added the audible and olfactory inputs, and made herself breathe deeply of the salt-tang in the air. She had told Myrtis she would read late: she would read. And not a cube, but a real book, which enforced concentration far better. She allowed herself the indulgence of choosing an old favorite, The Family of Dialan Seluun, a wickedly witty attack on the pomposity of noble families four generations past.

“Her sweet young breast roused against the foe, Marilisa noted that it had not hands nor tentacles with which to wield the appropriate weaponry. . . .” As always, it made her laugh. Knowing it was coming, it still made her laugh. By the end of the first chapter, she had finally quit grumbling inside about Ronnie and his friends. She could always hide out in her cabin reading; they would think she was sulking miserably and never know that her sides ached from laughing.