Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Chapter 7

The night lord Felph released her, Hera shook from head to toe in anticipation. The heavens did not thunder, the rocks did not cry out. Yet it was such a momentous event in her life, it seemed odd to Hera that all nature did not take notice. With Zeus at her side, Felph had Hera sit in a chair before her vanity. Chandeliers of green brass hung above Lord Felph like vines, and the glow globes in them suspended in the air like pale lavender honeysuckle. The walls in this room tonight all displayed three-dimensional images of a tropical glade in shades of deep green, as if they stood in a vast garden of mangrove under the moonlight, with water glinting from distant pools.

Hera felt as if she were in an enchanted forest, then Dooring brought out the Guide extractor from its case. The device was a simple rod in shape-thin, like a long splinter of silver. A magic wand.

With this Felph touched her Guide on the central gem, on her forehead, and the AI quit sending its pulses through Hera’s nervous system, released control of her muscles. She seemed to relax more deeply than ever before. It was as if all her life she’d been tense, expectant, and now she eased totally into a plush, soothing couch.

After he’d freed Hera, Felph then freed Zeus. There was fear in Felph’s eyes as he did so, yet Zeus only smiled when the deed was finished.

Yet if the heavens did not thunder at her release, certainly the world changed profoundly. Hera did not notice it all at once. The first clues came as she and Zeus undressed, prepared for bed.

Zeus stood before the mirror on his vanity, removing his dinner jacket, putting away the platinum and Tanzanite pin he’d worn in his lapel. He’d been prattling, and Hera had been so preoccupied with her thoughts as she took off her makeup that she didn’t notice the turn in the conversation.

Zeus said, “I don’t know why father insists on hiring these off-worlders. It’s their mantles he wants, not the people under them, eh? Put on a Lord Protector’s mantle, and I’d be a Lord Protector myself.”

Hera said, between wiping off her eye shadow, “I doubt he’d sell it. You can’t buy a Lord Protector’s mantle.”

“If he didn’t sell, we could always take off his head. The mantle would make a fine little basket to hold it in, don’t you think?”

Hera turned and stared at him. He’d never made such a tasteless jest, never spoken that way before. But then, perhaps he’d never been free to do so. Her husband had worn a Guide all his life, and until this moment, Hera had believed that she loved him, that she loved Zeus desperately despite his penchant for adultery. Now she just stared at him in wonder, not knowing what to say.

Zeus was gazing into the mirror, his long dark hair swept back over his muscular shoulders, staring intently at his own reflection, at eyes so dark and penetration that it was like gazing at holes in the sky. He stared through the mirror, into some scene imagined; his lips curled in a sardonic grin.

Who are we? Hera wondered, suddenly feeling odd. The room was familiar, with its separate vanities and wardrobes, the enormous bed where they’d made love so many thousands of times. But the people in the room, Zeus and herself, were not familiar.

When she was a child, Hera had once asked Felph why she wore a Guide. He’d told her that all princes and princesses wore crowns. For years after, she’d always wanted to believe that the Guide made her special. But she never felt special. The Guide had only made her a slave, controlled her thoughts, ordered her perceptions, stimulated her emotions. It had made her a stranger to herself.

Hera had not chosen to marry Zeus, not really. As a child, she’d been enamored of him, and once when she was twelve, he’d lured her to a garden, and there he’d raped her. Afterward, she felt it was her fault. She forgave him, and in time grew to love him inestimably.

Lord Felph had created her to be Zeus’s wife, had given her to him. Her Guide had not allowed her to love another, to think wantonly of another man.

So Hera loved Zeus as perfectly as one person could love another. She craved his presence. She admired his strength. She ignored his faults. She forgave his infidelities.

And Zeus loved her in return, in his way. It was true that Lord Felph, acting from some motive Hera did not understand, had given Zeus more freedom than he allowed his other creations. Zeus’s Guide had let him lust after other women. Indeed, Hera wondered if his Guide had not even encouraged him to seek their affections.

While Hera’s Guide held her prisoner in her rooms, Zeus would sneak from the palace to visit his paramours.

Yet Zeus always returned. Lord Felph had given Hera a special beauty that had always drawn Zeus back no matter how many times he loved other women. Perhaps it was her beauty. Perhaps his Guide had made him return. Hera wanted to believe he would have come back to her in any event.

I should test him, Hera thought. This stranger, my husband. Now that he does not wear a Guide, I should test him.

Hera got up from her vanity, turned her back so that Zeus would not see her face, and stood looking out the high, arched window. Brightstar sailed over the deep valleys, falling like an enormous diamond through sapphire skies. Hera’s tower looked down seven hundred meters to a lower level of the palace and the fields beyond.

She opened the window. Secreted in terrace gardens two hundred meters below were beds that teemed with roses and orchids, Japanese plum and lavender. A gust of cool wind brought the fragrance to her window.

Hera tasted the scent of flowers on the wind. Smiled. This is a fertile place in the desert, she thought. Fertile lands, fertile minds plotting about how to be more fertile. She did not have to reflect to discern the source of Zeus’s anxiousness. “You looked … irresistible, tonight.”

He shot her a brief but fetching smile in the mirror, used his toes to push his shoes off his feet.

“You did not need to impress me. Was it Maggie you were after?”

“You know I love only you,” Zeus protested. He stood before the mirror, naked now, and began cleaning off his own makeup. “Maggie … sounds too much like maggot. Who would want to make love to a maggot? Besides, she is pregnant.” Hera knew he wanted Maggie by the way he heaped on insults.

“I don’t know,” Hera demurred. “She has red hair. No one else on Ruin has red hair.…That would be enchanting, and she is only a few months along. Not overly large yet. Do not think of her as pregnant, think of her as fertile, a ripe melon full of sweet fruit, ready to burst. Perhaps she is lusty, too, a woman of passion. She is not from this world. Who can guess what secrets she knows for pleasing a man?”

“Yes, well apparently she pleases one man,” Zeus said.

“What of him?”

“A husband is but a nuisance. Perhaps while you divert yourself with Maggie, he would be entertained by me?” Zeus knew Hera had never hungered for another man, not so long as she’d worn her Guide, so she was quick to add, “Gallen seems very bold, and handsome.”

Zeus turned, raised his right brow. “Do I hear lust in your voice?” He affected concern, but his voice hinted at eagerness, as if she would agree to a swap.

Tonight, he was saying, perhaps we could put off our long feud, our petty rivalries? Tonight, perhaps, you will let me enjoy my decadence?

Of course, Hera could not agree to that. It was a game to him, chasing other women. He, Hera, and Arachne all played the “Great and Dreadful Game,” a contest where points were awarded for various feats of manipulation. Zeus’s philandering was part of the Game to him.

But it was not a game to Hera. It seemed a matter of life and death. If Zeus bedded a woman, for a moment he would be able to celebrate the points he scored. But if Hera blocked his tryst, she not only robbed him of his damnable points, she won a reprieve from the ache his infidelities caused.

I can’t let him enjoy his decadence, but at least I can feign to do so, she thought. Tonight I’ll unbalance Zeus. “Perhaps, now that we no longer wear our Guides, we will be free to put aside our jealousies?” she said with a hint of petulance. Zeus’s expression of pleasant surprise gratified her to no end, encouraged her a bit more. After all, if he was a stranger to her now, she was as much one to him. Hera affected a breathless, pleading tone. “You’ve sported with enough women; certainly you cannot object if I choose a man?”

Zeus put a hand on his hip, suddenly tense. He was possessive and would not like the idea of her sleeping with another. Yet the idea of truce tempted him. “So, you want to sleep with this Milk?” He snorted the term “Milk” in derision, as locals often did when speaking of people from the Milky Way. “That … would be your affair,” he said, turning away, feigning disinterest. “I would not come between you. In fact, it could be entertaining to see if you can lure him to your bed.”

Hera laughed. “If? You wonder if I can do so? I have my attractions.” He watched her in the mirror. She smiled at him, pulling at the vee in the neck of her low-cut evening gown. Hera was beautiful. How could she not be? The greatest body sculptors in the universe had designed her.

“Seduction is an art”-Zeus shrugged-”one you have not bothered to acquire.”

His condescending tone hurt her. You lout, she thought. You have no idea how I play you! How many times have I had to draw you back into my arms?

“Then you don’t mind if I bed the Lord Protector?” she said flatly.

“Ah, you don’t have to be hurt,” Zeus soothed. “I mean no disrespect. You’re lovely beyond all women, Hera. How could this cretin not be allured by your”-he waved toward her chest-”obvious charms?” He added, “Besides, if you have difficulty attracting the prey, I can advise you.”

“Thank you. I’m sure I don’t need a coach.”

Zeus glanced at her, a puzzled expression. “Sport with him if you like, but don’t become attached. Skills are so … easily learned. If he does something you like, you will, of course, teach me?”

“As surely as you have taught me the things you’ve learned abroad,” Hera responded. She went to the window, gazed out. She did not want Zeus to see her face, red with anger. She wanted him to imagine she was anxious for the escapades to begin. She’d known all along that Zeus would, try to seduce Maggie. It really did not matter whether Maggie was married or not, pretty or not, pregnant or not-Zeus collected lovers the way settlers on Ruin collected spirit masks from dead Qualeewoohs.

For years now, Hera had suffered humiliation at Zeus’s hands. Seldom had she been able to take much vengeance. Now Zeus would pay. He could not suspect the humiliation she would heap on him. Hera almost felt sorry for Zeus, so handsome, with eyes smoldering from his desire. Almost she felt sorry.