Into the Fire

CHAPTER THREE

Instead, she stared for a moment at the files on the desk and then pulled them closer. Whatever this was—whatever she needed to do to protect the survivors—would cost money. Yes, she’d handed over her shares to Stella, and Stella claimed she lacked the money to pay Ky what was due, but that was exactly why she felt entitled to go through the reports on Stella’s desk. She was going to need some money—undoubtedly less than those shares had been worth—and something might have slipped her cousin’s attention.

Stella, she realized, had revised some of the procedures Helen had used; Ky nodded as she read. Helen, the former CEO’s wife, whose own background was in science, not business, had run the business as simply as possible, and as a result skimped on in-depth analysis from the business viewpoint. She hadn’t done anything bad, exactly, but she had missed opportunities that Stella clearly did not intend to miss. Ky, who had seen Stella as the secondary headquarters CEO, was well aware of Stella’s gift for corporate leadership, and the uptick in profits from Helen’s resignation to the present proved how much better Vatta would do under Stella’s command. If, that is, the fines levied on Vatta could be overturned.

In the silence of that hour, Ky remembered the quarrel of the previous night again and felt a twinge of remorse. Stella still rubbed her the wrong way, but she’d been at fault. And perhaps, as Rafe had suggested on Corleigh, she herself was in need of a consultation and analysis of the effects of that more than half year in Miksland. She queried the medical app in her implant and found a recommendation there for a tune-up by a specialist. Well. Maybe. Maybe she could take care of it herself. Moray was a long way away and right now she wasn’t sure which local specialists she could trust.

The house system flashed an alert: someone was opening the front door. The speaker came on. Rafe’s voice. “Teague. Thank you. Come on in.”

Ky relaxed, realizing only then that she was halfway out of the chair, her pistol in her hand. The medical app, still active, recommended a touch of neuroactive. She set it back on passive, holstered her pistol, and went to the head of the stairs. Below, Rafe and Teague were chatting; the door was closed and secured. Rafe looked up.

“He’s going to answer when the delivery comes. I’ll change down here, and back him up if anything happens.”

“Thanks,” Ky said. “I’ll come down now and get my box; we’ll stay upstairs after.”

“Full brief?” Rafe asked.

“Go ahead,” Ky said. “We’ll need him later.”

“Right.”

Ky went down to the suite to tell the others that another man was in the house. They were through with the cleaning, and stood gathered around the spiral stairs up to the top level. The hatch that sealed the lockdown looked ridiculous protruding through the ice-blue ceiling.

“What’s up there?”

“Two more bedrooms, from when this was the children’s wing. Can’t get there now with the house locked down, but this, where we are, used to be the playroom and common study space. The older ones could retreat from the noise up there; there are two bedrooms with dormer windows.” Ky set her box on the sofa, took off the float pins, and unzipped the seal. “This is stuff from my ship; they sent it down when they left. Should be some clothes in here you can wear until the store delivery comes.”

“It’s the fanciest house I’ve ever been in,” Barash said.

“Same here,” Inyatta said. “Was yours like this?”

“No,” Ky said. “Ours was on Corleigh, near the tik plantation, on the east coast. One story, sprawling out a bit. I could walk to the beach, though we also had a pool. My father had offices there in a separate building—mirroring the data here, so he could work from there much of the time. Coming to the mainland was a big deal.”

“Is that where you were until yesterday?”

“The island, yes, but not that house. It was destroyed—along with the offices—in the attack after I left the Academy. I was in space, then. In fact, this visit was the first time I’ve been on Slotter Key since… I left.” They were all looking at her, waiting for more. She could feel herself growing hot. “Actually, I was on an ansible call back here, to talk to my uncle Stavros, when it happened. The call cut off; I didn’t know why until later.” She looked away, staring at the wall. “Everyone there—and in the headquarters here—was killed. Why they didn’t target this house we don’t know, but that’s why Aunt Helen, Stella, and Jo’s twins survived.”

No one spoke for a long moment, then Inyatta said, “I’m sorry, Admiral.” The others murmured something.

Ky shook her head. “It’s—not something one can forget. Even when not directly witnessed.” As she spoke, her fingers brushed the familiar case, the case that held the family-related files sequestered from her father’s implant. The files that recorded what her father had seen that day, before he died, that she had watched, seeing it as he had, engulfed in his recorded emotions.

She pushed that memory down and lifted out the top layer of clothes. These women had their own more recent trauma to deal with. She would not impose any more of her own on them. “Here—see if any of these fit.” Inyatta and Barash could wear the exercise pants and tops; Kamat was too tall, even though she had to roll up the slacks Stella had lent her.

Not long after, new clothes arrived in the store’s own delivery van. Rafe brought the boxes and bags upstairs. Ky pulled out her own choices from the boxes and left the rest for the others. They all came down to lunch in new clothes, including Ky. With scarves wrapped around their heads, socks and shoes on their feet, with the five of them around the larger table in the downstairs kitchen, eating off the yellow-and-green-striped plates, the three fugitives looked less like refugees. While they ate, Ky continued her mental list. Wigs, or time for the women to grow out their hair. She had no idea how long it would take. And Kamat needed surgery. Possibly they all did, depending on how badly their implants had been damaged. New implants, then. But the rest of them—how much time did they have to find the rest of the survivors? How long would it take to organize a rescue? With the military obviously complicit—or some of it—who could she ask for help?

Her skullphone pinged. “Grace,” said the familiar voice. “Secure call. Now.”

Ky slipped her feet into the new ship boots she’d ordered out of habit and headed back upstairs to Stella’s office. Rafe, coming out of the living room, looked a question and she gestured: urgent call.

“Ky, where’s Stella?” Grace asked before Ky could do more than identify herself.

“At the office, I suppose.”

“Are those persons with you?”

She must mean the survivors. “Yes.”

“Don’t let them leave, for any reason, and don’t lower the house security. The situation is far worse than I thought. I have been stupid and careless; the danger is extreme. Do you know where Teague is? He’s not answering at my house.”

“He’s here. What—”

“Tell him to go back to my house and remove all of his and Rafe’s equipment. Quickly.”

“Aunt Grace, what is it?”

“That man—that captain—tried to kill me. His second yielded to interrogation. Tell Teague, Ky; keep Rafe with you. I must contact Stella immediately. I’ll call again.”

The contact ended. Ky glared at the com set. “Dammit, Grace,” she said in the silent office. “I am not your baby niece anymore. And I’m not going to sit here doing nothing.”

Out in the passage, she saw Rafe and Teague lounging near the head of the stairs, heads together. Before she could speak, Rafe’s gaze sharpened. “Trouble?”

“According to Aunt Grace, yes. Teague, she wants you—just you—to go to her house immediately and remove all of your and Rafe’s ‘equipment,’ whatever that is. She wants Rafe to stay here, and me to await further instructions.” She could hear the impatience in her own voice. “That nosy officer with the search team tried to kill her, she said.”

“Was she hurt?” Rafe asked.

“She didn’t say, but I got the distinct impression the captain is dead, since she mentioned interrogating his second.”

Rafe grimaced, then nodded. “Teague, you’d better go.”

“Pull everything? Even the internal house surveillance?”

“Yes. We don’t want any of that available to whoever this is.”

“But that will leave—”

“Just her stuff. Yes. But it’s good.”

“What about placing an external nearby?”

“Better not since she wants all our equipment gone.”

“And bring your clothes, too,” Ky said. “You’ll be staying here for a while.”

“I need the combination to the back gate,” Teague said. Ky gave it to him. Teague smiled, his rare and rather sweet smile. “This will be fun. I’m gone.” And he was running down the stairs. Ky and Rafe followed more slowly.

“What does she think it is?” Rafe asked.

“She didn’t explain. Just gave me orders. Stay inside. Don’t let our friends out. Don’t let the house security lapse. Send Teague. Keep you here. And wait for her next call.”

“You’re still annoyed with her.”

“Well, yes. You’d think I was twelve years old again and Missy Bancroft had just fallen off the roof and broken her arm. Do this, do that, wait, do the other thing. Even at twelve, I knew what to do when someone fell off a roof.”

“That really happened?”

“It did.” Ky could not help relaxing as she remembered the details. “She climbed the tree in our front yard and then jumped down onto the porch roof. I knew the roof was slippery. We all yelled at her not to. But she wouldn’t listen, and sure enough she slipped. And Aunt Grace heard us yelling and came out just in time to see Missy slide off, taking a length of gutter with her, and land in the flower bed. I jumped out of the tree—”

Rafe grinned. “You were up the tree?”

“Yes, of course.” Caught in the memory, Ky went on. “We’d started out racing each other up the tree to where the balloon had gotten stuck—”

Rafe laughed; she glared at him. “I can’t help it,” he said. “You and some other gangly tomboy clambering around in a tree…”

“She was taller than me,” Ky said. “Most of them were, the girls in that group. Daughters of my mother’s friends.”

“And you… you instigated that race up the tree, didn’t you?”

“Only because Vera Smittanger let go of the balloon string and the package tied to it. Anyway, after Missy fell off the roof, that was the end of the party. Aunt Grace told us all what to do before she even found out if we’d have done it on our own.” Ky shook her head. “At the same time lecturing us for not being young ladies now that we were approaching what she called the gateway to maturity.”

Rafe laughed again, shaking his head. “It’s not funny,” Ky said. But it was; she could feel laughter bubbling inside. “All right, it wasn’t funny then. In hindsight—” She could see them, the group of girls all appalled by Missy’s fall, and then smarting under Grace’s lecture. “Then all the mothers came out—and we hadn’t had time to brush the leaves and dirt off our party clothes. They all got on us.” She chuckled.

“Speaking of clothes,” Rafe said. “Did you notice that your new outfit is remarkably like a uniform?”

Ky looked down at herself, the dark-blue pullover and slacks. “No, it’s not; it’s just the dark color.”

“Not entirely.” He reached out to touch her hair in its snug braid. “Admiral to the core. I like it.”

“Good,” Ky said. She leaned on him a moment. “I’d better go tell the others we’re not going anywhere.” And how was she going to plan a rescue, let alone perform one, if she was stuck inside the house?

Stella Vatta answered the call in her office at Vatta headquarters. A chill ran down her back at Grace’s first words; she realized an instant later that she had her other hand on the pistol she carried in a concealed holster under her perfectly tailored suit even as she answered the question.

“Yes, Aunt Grace. What’s happened?”

“That fellow who was at your house tried to kill me,” Grace said. “I’ve contacted Ky; Teague should be collecting all that equipment from my house and going to yours—”

“You’re sending the trouble to my house?” A flash of anger she controlled quickly. But still. First Ky, then Grace, assuming that Stella and everything she owned would be at their disposal.

“No, I’m hoping it hits mine first. Stella, I’m serious. What’s the security setting at headquarters?”

“Highest. After last night, I called the late shift and had it raised.”

“Good. Have someone with you at all times, though I think they’ll go after me first.”

“Who? Why?”

“Miksland,” Grace said, answering the second question. “They’re trying to shut down all inquiries, military and civilian. Claiming there are dangerous diseases in a secret laboratory, and that Ky couldn’t have gotten in if she hadn’t known about the research beforehand. They’re trying to pin it on Vatta—claiming that we’re all plotting revenge for the earlier attack on us.”

“That’s crazy! We’ve never had anything to do with pharma or medical research… have we?”

“Not here. There was some research decades ago on using tik extracts, but it went nowhere and your father sold off the company. Doesn’t matter what the facts are, though; some people will believe anything. And there’s an offplanet Vatta company that produces pharmaceuticals… I don’t have the files here, but I think it’s where that boy you found lives.”

“Toby?” Stella’s breath caught in her chest. “His family?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that Miksland was an anthill waiting to be kicked, and we kicked it. Ky was there, she saw things, she kept records and reported. The evidence she submitted, though, has gone missing. The other survivors, except for your three, are locked down in multiple facilities on medical grounds—supposedly in quarantine—and I haven’t been able to locate all of them yet, let alone get them out.”

“I’ll check which pharma-related units are where, and warn the managers. And I’ll need to open the house briefly at least once every few days, because we need to use the real kitchen.”

“No more than three people unshielded at any time,” Grace warned. “I’m holding the entire team who showed up at your place for now, but we have no long-term confinement here. What worries me more is the disappearance of the evidence Ky brought back: the flight recorder, the bio samples, and the logbook of that fellow Greyhaus. Was it destroyed, or stored someplace—and if so, where? I should’ve insisted on making copies in my own office before she handed them over.” A pause that Stella did not interrupt. “I’m getting old, Stella, and apparently careless. But if I resign now, or if I’m fired, there’s no one to speak for Ky and the others that I trust completely.”

“Hang on, then,” Stella said.

“I will,” Grace said, and cut the connection.

Stella called up the Vatta extended files. Toby’s father was indeed employed by a subsidiary, VNR Technology, that manufactured reagents used in pharmaceutical quality control, and had a research section that did something Stella didn’t understand.

Vatta had two other subsidiaries, one located on the same planet and another on an orbital platform in the same system, involved with pharma. One was still doing research on tik extracts and had produced several marketable products. As it was then after midnight at Toby’s family home, she sent a text warning there, and to the managers of all three subs.

Her skullphone pinged.

“Stella, do you suppose we could hire a cook?” Ky sounded perfectly serious and also completely calm, as if they’d never had a quarrel. And what a ridiculous question, when real danger threatened.

“A cook? Why? We have the programming in the kitchen appliances.”

“Yes, but Rafe says he’s tired of program-cooked package meals. And so am I, and neither of us really enjoys cooking. You’re busy with the business. I thought maybe we could hire a cook—even part-time, or every other day or something—who could do it from scratch. From shopping to cleanup—no extra trouble for you, for instance. I know Aunt Helen likes to cook, but she’s off with the kids.”

“You have any idea what that would cost? We’ll talk about it when I get home.”

“Spoilsport,” Ky said. “I was hoping not to have to figure out how to defrost those green lumps in the freezer without having them go limp.”

“You spacer types,” Stella said. “You’re entirely too dependent on galley equipment. Cold water, put them in—wait, do you even know what green lumps they are? And how many?”

“Six of them, whatever they are; the label is smeared. They’ve got frost all over them. I thought we should use them before they got too old.”

“Maybe they already are,” Stella said. “Cold water for a half hour, until you can see the surface. If it’s mushy, discard. If not… oh, never mind, I’ll come home now and take a look.” And she could talk to Ky without fear of anyone listening in.

“Would you?” Now Ky sounded plaintive, a tone never natural to her.

“I can, today, but only for a few minutes. And we’ll talk about a cook.”

Stella looked at the clock after that conversation. “I’m going home for an early lunch,” she said to her secretary. “Cory Dansen won’t mind if I cut that appointment by ten minutes; it’s just that quarterly report that I’ve read and will approve and sign for. Ky’s trying to cook and she’s hopeless. You’d think someone her age would know how to steam broccoli or grill it, but she’s hardly been near a kitchen for the past sixteen years, so I suppose she’s forgotten. Call Sandy, please, and ask him to meet me at the car at 1145.”

“Yes, Sera.”

At home, she found the others crowded into the upstairs kitchenette with the makings of cheese sandwiches they’d taken from the pantry before sealing the house again. “That doesn’t look like green lumps,” Stella said.

“I gave up on them. They smelled funny. What about Barash? She says her mother taught her to cook, and if she has a good wig and a Vatta employee ID she shouldn’t trigger any doubts.”

“You want me to fake a Vatta Transport ID? All because you can’t cook broccoli?” And of course, Ky was giving her orders again. Stella pushed that thought down.

“I have other things to do,” Ky said. Stella felt her jaw muscles clench. “And yes, Barash could cook broccoli, but if she can go out, she can acquire things for the others with less suspicion than ordering them in.”

“Toasted cheese, with paprika and a pinch of cayenne,” Stella said to Barash, who was standing near the kitchenette’s mini-oven.

“Yes, Sera,” Barash said.

Someone had manners, Stella thought, and sat down at the table. She waited to speak until Ky had a mouthful of sandwich. “And while I’m waiting, more news from Aunt Grace. Serious trouble, she says; she’s got that team locked up for now, but can’t keep them long—no facilities there. None but the officer have knowledge beyond ‘these are fugitives and need to be caught.’ The officer knows more but has some resistance to the drugs.” Stella accepted a plate from Barash. “Now, your idea about having one of our guests pretend to be house staff—that makes sense, and allows everyone more flexibility, but it will take time to get her an ID. What color wig?”

“Brown, Sera.”

“That was your natural color? But I have no reason to be ordering a brown wig. If it was for Ky, it would be black; for me it would be blond. We’ll have to try some colors around your face, see what would work. Some people with brown hair have a skin tone that can handle a different color—Thank you,” as Barash slid a toasted cheese sandwich onto her plate.

Grace Vatta tapped her fingers on her desk, wondering what else she could do. Mac was on the way up from interrogating the uncooperative captain. The man had a block on the interrogation drugs they had handy. Her own inquiry into the whereabouts of the survivors was on someone’s desk—it annoyed her that she didn’t know whose. Her inquiry into the lost evidence had been halted at the level of a lieutenant colonel whose general, he said, was unavailable, in transit from Port Major to Hautvidor. Her new secretary, Pamela, was supposed to be contacting survivors’ families. Surely someone was home and available to talk. But not yet.

She had been so happy when Ky was finally out of that mess, showing up healthy and whole, with nothing more complicated than Marek’s death to deal with. Or so it had seemed. Instead, she had missed this conspiracy. Enemies had gotten ahead of her—of her!

Mac came in and shut the door behind him. “Pam seems fidgety this morning.”

“I had to ask her twice to keep going on the list and tell me only when she had a live one.” Grace snorted. “I don’t think she’s bent like Derek, but she’s easily alarmed.”

“Ah. Well, I managed to pry one name out of Captain Bontier, but it’s no joy to us. We already knew that family had something to do with Miksland.”

“Quindlan?”

“Yes. A major on a general’s staff, in Public Affairs.”

“Well. That could be a factor in a cover-up, couldn’t it?”

“Indeed. I’ve pulled his record. Actually, all records of Quindlans, but he comes first.” He handed her a datastick. “We need to set up a working group, Grace. And we need a secure way to share information. Ky has those three survivors, you have authority to dig into just about anything—but you’re too visible when you do it. We need to find some reliable people inside the military—probably in the ground troops, because that’s who was in Miksland, according to that journal Ky found that’s now disappeared.”

“I wish she’d copied everything before she turned it over.”

“So do I, but she didn’t. Nor did you.”

Shortly before the normal close of business, a dapper figure in a neat gray suit strode up to the door and pressed the bell. Teague opened the door. “Sir?”

“I need to speak with Sera Kylara Vatta.”

“May I ask your business?”

“It is confidential. I need to speak with Sera Kylara Vatta.”

“I will ascertain if she is available.” Teague took advantage of his new greater height and saw the man’s expression harden.

“It is necessary that I speak to her.”

“Wait here,” Teague said and shut the door, leaving the man outside. He closed the inner door carefully and reported the conversation. “I think he’s a process server,” he said at the end of a detailed description. “He has that unfriendly friendly look, the hail fellow well met that goes before you have been served.”

“She’s not available,” Rafe said. “She’s locked up in Stella’s office on an ansible call.”

“He’s going to wait, I’m guessing.”

“Let him. She’s not going out anywhere.”

“And if he’s still there when she comes out?”

“I’ll tell her.” Rafe scowled. “I don’t suppose he’s after the three guests and merely acting like a process server…”

“I don’t think so. No military vibe to him. I will inform him that she is not available at this time, but he may wait outside if he wishes.”

“I’ll warn the others: silent and invisible.”

“Go, then.”

Teague waited until Rafe was out of sight in the children’s wing before returning to the door. Sure enough, the man in the gray suit was standing on the top step, looking disgruntled.

“Sera Kylara Vatta is not available at this time, sir. And you did not provide your name, affiliation, and suitable identification.”

The man looked at him sourly. “Who are you? I didn’t know they had a butler.”

“No reason you should,” Teague said. “Now: your name, affiliation, and identification, please.”

“You don’t need my name. I’m obviously not a crook—”

Teague tipped his head. “Pardon me, sir, but I do not think a business suit rules out criminal behavior.” Did real butlers have this much fun? He had no idea, but if they did maybe he could switch careers. “I must have your name and business identity.”

With obvious reluctance, the man pulled out a wallet. “George L. Lewisham,” he said. Teague looked at the ID. It said GEORGE L. LEWISHAM, and the image matched the man’s face. The ID also gave MARKS & GRAVESON, GENERAL LEGAL SERVICES as his employer. “That satisfy you?” the man said.

“Thank you, sir,” Teague said. “I appreciate your cooperation, and Sera Vatta will be informed when she is available.”

“I’ll wait inside,” the man said, stepping forward as Teague stepped back, and reaching for the door edge.

“No, sir,” Teague said, tapping the man’s hand with the short rod he’d concealed in his other hand. The man jerked it back with a grunt of pain. “This house does not belong to Sera Kylara Vatta, and she is not my employer. My orders do not permit me to allow anyone but a family member into the house without the owner’s permission.” The man was now nursing bruised fingers under his armpit. Teague shut both doors and locked them. He glanced aside at Rafe, who had come downstairs and through the sitting room, ready to help if needed.

“That was a work of art,” Rafe said, slipping his gun back in his pocket. “You are the very image of the stuffiest kind of butler.”

“Did you ever have one?”

“Oh, yes. For a short time we had a full staff in the city house, then the city grew up around what had been the summer place and we moved there permanently, but we had fewer staff. I remember Soames, the butler, from when I was a small child. It gives one a bad start in life to be addressed as ‘Master Rafael’ by half the people in the house, and ‘Rafe, you little brat’ by older sisters. A sort of split personality.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m just Rafe. The various roots and forks of the tree all melded together.”

Teague looked at him, wondering if someone who had had multiple personas, including temporary DNA mods, could possibly be a single person. For himself, the change he’d gone through, from Pauli Gregson to Edvard Teague, from someone almost ten centimeters shorter with curly hair and dark eyes, to his present above-average height, yellower skin, straight hair, and gray eyes, had affected—and was still affecting—his personality and how he thought of himself. Tall and lanky, rather than medium and medium, made more difference than he’d anticipated when he’d agreed to the changes. He now recognized himself in the mirror, but the ghost of that other face still hovered in front of it, as if painted on a veil.

Rafe, watching Teague watch him, hoped that Teague was having an easier time with his transition from whoever he’d been than he himself had had with his numerous changes. And he hoped he could settle permanently into his own present identity: not ISC’s CEO, Ser Rafael Dunbarger, but Rafe the private person, perhaps never using his other identities but always Dunbarger… or some other name he’d then stick to. Ky, he was fairly sure, would not easily adapt to new identities the way he had. She was all of a piece, solid as wood or stone all the way through, something he found comforting in its predictability.

Ky came down shortly after that. Rafe positioned himself in one of the front rooms; Teague opened the door. “Ser Lewisham,” she said. “Your credentials were verified. I’m Kylara Vatta; I understand you wanted to speak with me?”

“Yes.” He handed her a flat, narrow package. “You have been served.” He nodded and went down the front walk without a backward glance.

Teague closed the door for her. Ky pulled out the scanner Rafe had given her and ran it over the package. “No explosives we recognize,” she said as she handed the package to Teague.

“I’ll run a complete scan before I open it. Any other advice from your legal team?”

“Send it to them at once, so they can interpret it. By law, it has to allow me five business days to respond.”

“If they pay any attention to the law,” Rafe said.

The package proved to hold no toxins, explosives, or spy devices, so Ky took it upstairs and faxed its six pages of dense legalese to Vatta’s legal experts. Stella arrived in the next half hour, bearing the translation into plain language, and with several packages. Ky looked at the translation and tried to ignore what Stella was saying to the others. “The intent was to notify you that you must appear before Slotter Key’s Twenty-First Special Court—which has jurisdiction over cases involving a foreign citizen—within twenty-two days, as a formal inquiry into the deaths of Slotter Key military personnel under your presumably illegal command over the past half year, specifically the deaths of Master Sergeant Marek and Moscoe Confederation citizen Commander Bentik. Please contact this office if you need further explanation of the serving, or if you require legal representation. Be advised that any request for additional legal assistance must be approved by Stella Vatta, CEO.”

It made no sense. She’d expected to testify about the events on Miksland, but to a military court. Back on Corleigh, Stella had said the evidence had gone missing and Grace was looking into it. And why a civilian court that handled cases involving foreign citizens? She wasn’t a foreigner; she’d been born on Slotter Key. She’d had a Slotter Key passport, until it was blown up in the original Vanguard near Moray. She looked at the others, intending to ask Stella’s advice.

Stella was handing Barash the wig she’d brought. “This is your wig,” she said. “And if you don’t mind, I need a different name for you, if you’re going to play a cook. What’s your first name? Or your middle?”

“Melisandra,” Barash said. “Alexandrina Sophronia.”

Ky blinked. None of those were common names, as far as she knew. She stuffed the papers Stella had brought back into the envelope. She’d talk to the legal team the next day and let them explain it. She had time. Surely Stella would grant her legal representation.

“My mother read novels from two centuries ago,” Barash said. “One of my sisters is Theodosia Francesca Emiliana. My brothers are equally embarrassed by theirs. We all use nicknames.”

“Mellie? Allie? Sophie?”

“Allie has more common longer names,” Inyatta pointed out. “Allison, Alice, Alexis, Allegra, Alliona—”

“That would be all right,” Barash said.

“Then you’re Allie the cook, and your new papers will say… Allison, I think.”

“Yes, Sera. But—” Barash looked at the wig Stella had given her. “It’s—nothing like my own hair.”

“That’s an advantage, actually. But it will go with your skin tone, I’m pretty sure, and if not we can dye it here. Try it on.”

With the curly red-gold wig on, Barash did look different; even her bone structure seemed changed.

“It’s the curls around her ears,” Stella said. “And the height on top. Not at all military and suggests a very different personality. I’ll take care of her makeup.” Stella pulled out a makeup kit from another bag and went to work. When she was finished, Barash looked not only different but at least five years younger, like someone named Allie.

Stella drove Barash the ten blocks to Minelli & Krimp, the gourmet grocery on Pickamble Street. She already liked the young woman; now, she decided, she’d much rather be driving with “Allie” than with Ky. Allie didn’t mind following orders without question.

She introduced “My new cook, Allie,” to the manager. “She’ll be using the Vatta account to purchase groceries. Go on, Allie, pick up everything on the list while I chat with Ser Vaughn.” The girl marched off, list in hand. Stella smiled at Ser Vaughn. “My cousin and her fiancé are staying with me, and Mother and the children may be back anytime. So I decided to get a cook in. And a man for the heavy things; his name’s Teague. You probably won’t run into him. He’s actually my cousin’s fiancé’s man, but he’s lending a hand.”

“Wise choice,” Vaughn said. “What service did you use for the cook?”

“Actually, a hint from a friend of my mother’s. We vetted her through the business, of course. I don’t expect we’ll need her for more than a half year, maybe a whole year at most, unless Mother takes to entertaining again. She knows that.” She smiled at Vaughn. “It’s good to have a quality grocer we can trust.”

“Of course, Sera,” he said. “And of course we’re always glad to deliver directly to the house, should you prefer.”

“Thank you. She says she’s not used to driving in the city and frankly I’d prefer she not try. But I wanted you to meet her in person.”

“Certainly; I appreciate that. You do know that our full inventory, including specials of the day, appears on CitiInfo?”

“Yes, thank you. But I actually enjoy coming here.”

On the way back to the house, Stella explained the ordering process to Barash. “The manager knows you now. And we have a separate connection from the kitchen that doesn’t go through any of the private servers. They’ll deliver and bill the house account.”

“Do you tip the delivery driver?”

“No. That’s included in the delivery charge. So what are we having for dinner?”

“You said fish, so I chose the best-looking white fish.” Barash glanced at the row of baskets. “I’m not sure how much will be reasonable for us…”

“Not to worry. For all the store knows, I’m stocking up for winter emergencies.”

Back in the house, Stella showed everyone where the kitchen computer was, logged Barash on as Allie, Cook, Employee with an ample per-purchase limit.

“Should she order weekly?” Ky asked, looking over Stella’s shoulder at the store display.

“Not at all. Every day or so is fine. She knows what to do,” Stella said. She was not going to have Ky bossing Allie around on household matters.