Winning Colors

Chapter Twenty-two

They were all relaxing after a leisurely dinner, waiting for dessert to be served, when a deferential waiter brought Venezia a comunit and plugged it in for her. “A call, madam. From madam’s brothers.”

Venezia scowled. “Good. I have something to say to them.”

But she didn’t get the first word. Heris could hear the angry, “Venezia, you stupid cow, what are you trying to do!” from where she sat. Venezia did not click on the privacy screen. The angry male voice ranted on. “You’re ruining us! It’s all your fault!”

“No.” Venezia grinned, an unpleasant grin full of teeth. “I am not the problem, Oscar. You are. I know about Ottala. I know about the drugs—”

“Venezia, no! Not on an open line!”

“I have called an emergency stockholders’ meeting—” Heris wondered when she had had time to do that. “And you can either resign now or be thrown out.”

“Venezia, you don’t understand.” Now the angry voice had turned conciliatory, pleading. “It’s your artistic temperament; I understand that. Someone’s upset you—”

“You have upset me.” Venezia snorted. “Artistic temperament, my left little toe! Do you think I haven’t seen what you did with those ceramics you said you appreciated so much? I even found one on the desk in the police station!” She cut off an apology. “Never mind. I haven’t made a pot in years. I bought them wholesale in the Guerni Republic, just to keep you boys off my back so I could do what I wanted to do, and you never even noticed that I kept picking uglier and uglier ones, hoping you’d quit asking—” She ran out of breath, and panted a moment, her cheeks flushed.

“You just don’t understand, Venezia . . . it was for your own good—”

“Ottala’s death was not for my own good! She would never have been killed if you hadn’t been involved in this mess with rejuvenation—if you hadn’t ignored the workers’ complaints—”

“Workers always complain!”

“You were forcing Finnvardians to manufacture rejuvenation drugs, and you tried to coerce them to use contraceptives,” Venezia said. “Didn’t you bother to find out anything about Finnvardians?”

“They’re tough, hard workers, and they like living underground,” her brother said.

“They’re also fanatic about free birth and plastic surgery,” Venezia said. “You remember when you wanted my investment in the expansion, I asked you then if you understood what a Finnvardian work force meant, and you said ‘Never mind, Venezia, let us boys handle it.’ I should have known better,” she said bitterly. She looked as if she might cry.

Marta reached for the comunit, identified herself, and went on. “Lord Thornbuckle is personally interested in these matters,” she said. “The supply of contaminated, adulterated, and illegal rejuvenation chemicals concerns the highest level of government. I think Venezia’s right—resignation’s your best option.”

“But—but she’s never managed any—”

“She has the shares, doesn’t she? Besides, it’s not a secret monopoly anymore. Your profit margin just collapsed. You’ll be lucky if you’re not held personally responsible for damages under the product liability laws.”

Cecelia went next. “And if there’s any evidence of pharmaceuticals from here getting into the hands of that conniving Minister’s sister—Lorenza—you know whom I mean—then I personally will sue you for the damages she did me.”

Heris decided to join the party. “And while Fleet chose not to act openly, in recognition of the difficulties remaining since the Patchcock Incursion, I should tell you that I have a brief from my admiral to report on the situation here and determine if it poses a threat to the security of the Familias.”

“But—but you’re just a lot of stupid old ladies!” Oscar blurted.

“Wrong, Oscar,” Venezia said, calm again. She looked at each of her allies and winked. “We’re a lot of rich, powerful, smart old ladies. And as you know, I’ve never had any rejuv procedure—so I can take the Ramhoff-Inikin and repeat it as often as I like.” She paused, but Oscar said nothing, at least nothing Heris could hear. “I’ll always be there, Oscar,” Venezia went on. “Older, richer, stronger, smarter. Live with it.” She cut the connection and grinned at the others. Marta and Cecelia nodded.

“To aunts,” Heris said, raising her glass. “Including mine.”

Hubert de Vries Michaelson reappeared, this time in a formal black dinner jacket, with one arm in a black silk sling, just as the waiter brought their desserts. Graciously, they invited him to join them, and he eased himself into a chair, careful of his arm.

As Heris expected, he was glad to explain his role. He had tried to warn management of the danger of manufacturing Rejuvenant drugs with Finnvardian workers, he said—and he had argued against the cost-cutting synthesis that sometimes degraded the product—but he’d been forcibly retired, with not enough money in his account to go offplanet. So he had worked alone, gathering evidence as he could.

“It’s a wonder they didn’t just kill you,” Heris said. She thought the black silk sling was a bit overdone. He couldn’t be badly hurt—if he was hurt at all—and he didn’t need that kind of fancy dress anymore.

“They would have,” Hubert admitted, “if I hadn’t made such a ridiculous figure. That’s why I dressed so formally all the time.” His shoulders shifted, emphasizing the well-cut dinner jacket. Heris had to admit it suited him. He twinkled at them, and went on. “They couldn’t believe anyone with creases and rosebuds and spats and so on would be a menace. They let me alone, mostly, though I couldn’t get access to open communication.” His smile widened to a cheerful grin. “I was very glad to see you ladies . . . I’m not getting any younger, you know, and I was afraid my evidence would be lost when I died.”

“And of course they wouldn’t let you have rejuvenation.” Venezia looked angry, her plump cheeks flushed again.

He shook his head. “Of course not. Although with what I knew about the production shortcuts here, I’m not sure I’d have wanted it. Now the field generator—I just wish I’d been faster. The Chief Engineer didn’t want to believe me, and I couldn’t get him to go look—”

“But the field didn’t collapse.” Heris was not sure how far to pursue this. She still did not know—and wanted to know—if the charge had been improperly calculated, or if Michaelson really had saved them all. Did he even know?

“No.” Hubert paused to sip from his glass. “We were lucky, I suspect. Anyway, after the Chief Engineer threw me out of his office, I hung around the control room—I know a lot of the workers there—and was ready to throw the switch diverting all power to the field generator when the explosion came.”

“And your arm?” Heris asked. Someone had to.

“I tripped,” Hubert said cheerfully. “I’m not as spry as I was, you know. Someone tried to pull me away from the controls; I fell over a chair, couldn’t catch myself—and there it was. A simple fracture. A couple of hours in the regen tank, and all that’s left is the soreness. They wanted to keep me overnight in the clinic, but I wanted to find you ladies—” Again that roguish twinkle.

“That’s very gallant of you.” Cecelia, Heris noticed, had a speculative look in her eyes. So did Marta and Venezia. They needed no help, she realized, in seeing Hubert for what he was: a minor player who wished very much to have a starring role on the strength of one decisive action.

“I was hoping we could celebrate together,” he said, giving each of them a bright-blue-eyed smile.

“I think the company owes you a rejuvenation, Mr. Michaelson,” Venezia said earnestly. “And I will have someone review your retirement folder; a senior scientist should certainly have had enough in his account to travel offplanet. Of course we are all grateful that you were able to do something about the field generator and prevent worse trouble. Unfortunately, while we certainly have cause for celebration, and I personally appreciate your help, we’ve all been traveling a long time, and would really rather go to bed.”

“Oh.” To his credit, his cheerful face did not lose its bright expression. “Well, in that case, I thank you for your interest, madam, and hope you have a very restful night.” He bowed slightly and walked off, jaunty as ever. Heris found herself unexpectedly sympathetic, now that she was sure her gaggle of aunts was safe. He had been helpful, courteous, brave . . . she hoped he would find someone to celebrate with. With that twinkle, he probably would.

Morning brought more changes. A message had arrived from the police station that all charges against the young people had been dropped. Heris noticed pale bare patches on the wall where the ugliest pottery decorations had hung, and passed one hotel employee hastily tacking up a framed picture of flowers over another. The young people, with the resilience of youth, were attacking a huge breakfast in the hotel dining room when Heris got there; they waved her over.

“Wait till you hear,” George said. “Ronnie and Raffa are going to elope.”

“Not exactly elope,” Raffa said. “But we are going to marry.” Ronnie swallowed an entire muffin in one mouthful, and grinned at Heris.

“Aunt Cecelia has decided to drop her suit against my parents.” He reached for another muffin. “She says if you are going back in Fleet, and can put up with your aunt the admiral, she can put up with Mother.”

“And we’re leaving this godforsaken hole,” George said. He alone looked gloomy. “I suppose I have to go home—”

Cecelia chose that moment to arrive at the table. “We’re all going home,” she said. “Heris, we have to straighten out the yacht’s title—”

“It’s yours,” Heris said. “It always was, and it still is—”

“Because I’m thinking of selling it.” That stopped conversation for a moment as everyone stared at her.

Heris finally said, “Sell it? Why?”

“Because I don’t really like living on it. Yes, it’s nice to be able to travel when and where I want, but most of the time I want to be on a planet. With horses.” She stared at the wall a moment, and turned to Heris. “And to tell you the truth, Heris Serrano, I don’t want to travel on that yacht with any other captain but you—and I don’t want you anyplace but where you belong. In Fleet.” Heris could think of nothing to say. The moment lengthened uncomfortably, until George knocked over the sugar.

They were days from Patchcock, well on their way to Rockhouse Major, when Heris thought of an adequate answer. She looked across Cecelia’s study and saw her employer frowning over a hardcopy of equine genetics studies.

“There’s another way to travel freely, you know,” she said.

“Hmm? Oh—don’t worry about it.”

“Seriously. You could use a smaller, faster hull than this. It wouldn’t be as luxurious, but it would be too small to allow for many—even any—guests.”

“I couldn’t get stuck with Ronnie,” Cecelia said, the beginnings of a grin quirking her mouth. “Although I have to admit that had good consequences as well as bad . . . and I realize I made some of Venezia’s mistakes, letting myself be alienated from my family.” So it was more than dropping the lawsuit. Cecelia was going home with more than her body healed, this time.

“Yes, but rescuing one nephew is enough,” Heris said. She ticked off the other advantages on her fingers. “Faster—less time in transit—so you wouldn’t miss the amenities. If you learned to pilot it yourself—”

“What!” Shock in the tone, but Cecelia’s eyes sparkled.

“Would you rather ride or be driven?” Heris asked. “You’re more than bright; you’ve gained enough time in your rejuvenation—as we now understand it—that the time taken to qualify for a civilian license would hardly dent what’s left. I think you’d enjoy it; your psychological profile certainly fits.” She watched as Cecelia’s face ran its gamut from surprise to anticipation. “Your own ship under your own control—of course you’d need crew, a few, because it’s not safe to solo at the distances you travel. But a small crew, and you yourself in charge—” That would be the real lure; Cecelia’s lack of political ambition sprang from no contempt for power itself.

“How long would it take?” Cecelia asked. Ah. She would talk herself into it. Heris relaxed.

“Depends if you go full-time or part,” Heris said. “Brun has all the current standards—she’s planning to qualify too. As you Rejuvenants are discovering, there are no limits to learning new skills.”

Cecelia had a faint flush on her cheeks, more excitement than anything else, Heris thought.

“I can’t seem to get used to it—the idea that we could keep living for centuries . . . forever—”

“Maybe you can’t. Maybe there are limits. But you will certainly have time to learn to pilot your own craft, if you want.”

“I’d like that,” Cecelia said. “I really would. And you?”

“Me? I go back in Fleet, of course—and, while you’ve been very courteous in not asking, that includes my former crew. Petris as well. We have . . . an understanding.”

“Good,” Cecelia said. “I’d hate to have you lose what you gained, there. And your family?”

That brought a knot to her stomach. “My family . . . well. My aunt the admiral said we’d talk. I’ll do what I have to.”

“It will be better than that,” Cecelia said. She looked as if she wanted to say more, but Heris was in no mood to listen to auntly platitudes from someone who had taken her own family to court. Perhaps Cecelia recognized that; instead of going on, she asked about Sirkin’s plans.

“There’s someone you should talk to,” Lord Thornbuckle said. He opened the door, and Heris managed by the slightest margin to keep her jaw from hitting the floor. She had not expected to meet her aunt here. Lord Thornbuckle nodded at Admiral Serrano, and went out, closing the door behind him.

“Good to see you again, Heris.”

“Sir.” Formality always worked; Heris fled into it as into a thicket.

“We’re off duty, both of us. You can call me Aunt Vida, or Aunt Admiral . . . but not sir.”

“Yes, sir—Aunt. Vida.”

“Better.” Vida took one of the big leather chairs and leaned back comfortably. “You did a remarkable job in Xavier, as you well know.”

“Thank you.” Heris eyed her aunt, wondering what was coming.

“And on Patchcock.”

“That wasn’t really my doing, sir—Aunt. Lady Cecelia and the others—”

“Nonetheless. I’m very pleased with your performance. You have more than justified my confidence.”

“Thank you.” Heris decided there was no use not asking the question that had burned in her mind for all the time since Xavier. “You did put that keyhole into the database—”

“Of course.” Vida grinned. “If you were smart enough to figure it out, you were smart enough to need it.”

That didn’t compute, in Heris’s mind, but she had no time to think it over.

“I want to talk to you about the family.” Vida wasn’t smiling now. Heris shifted uneasily in her chair. The old anger and confusion rose like a foul tide.

“I don’t,” she said shortly. “If they wanted to contact me, they could have easily enough. They haven’t.”

Vida shook her head. “Heris, your parents made a mistake. They didn’t come to your assistance instantly. I do not know their reasons; I have not asked. The only person who really needs to know is you.”

“I don’t—”

“Perhaps not. If you can accept that they made the wrong decision, without rancor, then you don’t need to know. But if not you, then no one. You are still angry; you are still hurt. You should ask them.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Heris said. She had no intention of asking them. She didn’t care what their reasons had been. The lump in her throat grew to choking size. She tried not to look at Vida’s face, or anything else.

Her aunt sighed. “If you’re going to be terminally angry with anyone, be angry with me.”

“Why? You’re the only one who ever contacted me, who ever bothered—”

“On my orders.” A flat statement, no possibility of error. Heris stared at her, seeing nothing in that face she could understand.

“What?”

“On my orders, once you had resigned.” Vida paused, and gave Heris another long stare from those remarkable eyes. “You know, that surprised us all. Your resignation, coming so fast.”

“Surely Admiral Sorkangh told you—”

“Afterwards, yes. Not at the time of the Board. I would not have expected that—I would have expected you to fight back—”

Rage exploded in her head like ships in combat, vast flowering shapes of colored light. “By myself? With no one from the family coming to my aid? With Sorkangh against me? You weren’t there—no one was there for me—” The fury came out of her mouth, the debris of her hopes, her career. When she ran down, shaking with rage and sorrow, her aunt sat as quietly as before.

“Heris, you’re still suffering, but you aren’t yet seeing clearly . . . you did not ask any of us. Most of us didn’t know until afterwards—I didn’t—and you did not ask anyone directly for help. Did you?”

She had not. She had not thought she had to. She had expected them to come to her side without being asked.

“No . . . I didn’t.” Had that been wrong? She had never wanted to depend on the family connection, overuse it.

“No. And of course we taught you that, early on. That was our fault, perhaps. We wanted all you youngsters to be competent in your own right, not to lean on the family name. All: not just you, Heris.”

“But—”

“But you still think someone should have come. I think so, myself. Your parents could have reacted faster. As I said, I don’t know why they didn’t.”

“If I had asked, would they have come?” Heris asked.

“I don’t know that, either. Until this mess, I had no reason to suspect them of being any less committed to you than you to them. Had you?”

“No . . . we hadn’t seen much of each other for some years, what with assignments, but I thought everything was fine.” Heris struggled for calm, getting her voice back under control.

“You’re aware that Lord Thornbuckle has some antagonism to our family?”

“Yes—he mentioned it on Sirialis, and I never did find out more.”

“Did you ask?” This was becoming monotonous.

“No,” Heris said.

“Ah. You know, Heris, someone who wants senior command should cultivate a lively curiosity. Technical competence, even tactical competence, isn’t enough. Strategy depends on intelligence, and that depends on asking the right questions.”

Heris grimaced. “I felt—uneasy. I didn’t want to seem—” Her voice trailed away; she couldn’t define now how she’d felt that far back.

“Disloyal?” Her aunt did not smile. “You were angry, bitter, hurt, and yet you didn’t want an outsider to think you were disloyal to the family?”

“I suppose.”

“You always were an idealist . . . it’s one of the things I liked about you. Well, it’s time you knew where all that came from.” Vida took a long swallow from the drink at her side. “This gets complicated. Every family has its black sheep, or at least its less competent members. Serranos are no exception. One entire branch left the military—flunked out of the Academy, one after another—and went into business. I suppose the best way to put it is that they conducted their business affairs with the same flair as the rest of us conduct wars.”

“I never knew that.”

“No—like most families, we don’t advertise our black sheep. Sometimes we can’t even agree on who they are. But I suspect it’s this branch which taught Lord Thornbuckle to distrust the name. At any rate, back to your parents—”

“It’s still not right.”

Now the famous tilt of the head. “Are you telling me you never made mistakes?”

“No—of course I did, but—”

“No personal mistakes, nothing that would look bad if everyone knew—” Sarcasm, when she least deserved it.

Heris glared at her aunt, hoping to shock her. “I have a lover—he was enlisted, one of my crew that was hunted by Lepescu—and when we found each other again, we—”

“Good for you,” Vida said. “The burden of perfection ruins more people than you’d think. He’s with the yacht?”

“Yes. Of course we haven’t—”

“Of course.” Vida grimaced. “Heris, I’d hoped you’d learned how to be human—how to forgive yourself for being human. Do you love him?”

“Yes . . . I do . . . but not . . .” It was going to sound crass, but she found herself unwilling to lie to this aunt, so much like Cecelia in some ways, so much like herself in others. “But not more than Fleet,” she finished.

“Ah. Yes. A Serrano problem, not unique to you. When you talk to your parents again, perhaps you’ll notice how little time they’ve had together in the past fifty years. One solution, it seems to me, is to encourage your friend to take a commission.”

“A commission?” She had said that to Petris, but she hadn’t thought it would really be possible.

“Yes, you idiot. Did it not occur to you that there’s a lot of good cess to spread around after your defense of Xavier? Commissioning a civilian—even a civilian who used to be enlisted—will cause no difficulty.” Vida grinned. “And I for one want to meet this paragon who overcame your resistance.”

Her aunt had insisted that she must make the contact. Would they answer? And if they did, what would they say? She hoped to find that they were outsystem somewhere, a safe distance. Instead, the directory listed them not only insystem, but on the base itself. Aunt Vida’s meddling, no doubt. Heris left her message in both stacks, and waited. Tried not to query her own stack every five minutes.

Finally she made herself go to lunch, then to the tailor’s, for a new set of uniforms. When she came back, her desk’s telltale blinked. Someone had left messages. Her heart thundered; she could hear nothing past the pulse in her ears. A long breath. She touched the controls. And there it was: a formal request for a personal meeting. Her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t. She had to.

“Heris.” Her mother and father stood side by side, formally, their faces as wary as hers must be.

“Come in,” she said. She couldn’t bring herself to call them by name.

“Thank you for seeing us.” That was her mother, as usual the spokesperson.

“I . . . talked to Aunt Vida.”

A quick look passed between them, the kind of sidelong glance Heris remembered so well. Her father spoke at last. “Heris, I won’t try to explain—”

She wanted to say something, but couldn’t. The silence stretched, until she felt that her bones were drawn out thin as wires.

“I will,” her mother said finally. “I’m not a born Serrano; I don’t have to play this game.” Her mother, the bronze eldest of a bronze clan, the Sunier-Lucchesi, whose roots went as far back in Fleet as any. “We heard it; we didn’t believe it; we expected you to come and tell us what you wanted us to do.”

“So it’s my fault?” Heris managed to say it calmly.

“No,” her mother said. “It is not your fault. It was our fault, for listening to the wrong advice, and for not realizing that you would not come. And saying we’re sorry doesn’t change it. If you want to stay angry, you can.”

“That’s true,” said Heris. But she didn’t feel angry; she felt tired. “What do you mean, wrong advice?”

“Admiral Sorkangh. He called your father, and said you were determined to work your own way out of it—that if you needed help, you’d call. We didn’t know until afterwards that he’d turned.”

“And then you listened to Aunt Vida, who said let me alone?”

Her father grimaced. “No, then I tried to figure out some way of killing Sorkangh without getting caught, or hurting anyone else. I told him—never mind what I told him; it’s on both our records now. And I called in every family member I could find. Your Aunt Vida came up with a plan—I didn’t like it, but she pointed out that I had made a royal mess already.”

Heris could almost smile. She could imagine her Aunt Vida making them all squirm. She was glad.

“Did she tell you about it?” her mother asked.

“She told me that she’d ordered everyone to avoid contact once I’d resigned my commission.”

“Did she tell you why?”

“No—but I guessed some of it. A Serrano she believed loyal, in a perfect position to strain blackmailers and enemy agents out of the stream . . .”

“Something like that. When you got Lepescu, she felt she’d proved her point. I didn’t.” Her mother grimaced. “I thought that should be the end of it; you’d earned it. But your Aunt Vida—”

Heris felt tired. “I wish—” She couldn’t finish; she didn’t know what she wished, except that none of this had happened.

“I’m sorry,” her mother said again. “But I hope you’ll forgive us, in time. If not now.”

If not now, when? A family saying intended to spur reluctant youngsters to try the difficult, to achieve the impossible. Forgiveness was impossible, looked at one way—the pain was still pain, the loss was still loss. In another way . . . it had been too long already. She could tell that they had suffered too; she was not alone in that.

“I missed you,” Heris said, and reached out for them. “I missed you so much—”

Vida Serrano, in uniform, behind her own desk, was back to being the admiral, full of advice for younger officers.

“If you get your mind straightened out—if you learn to ask the right questions—you’ll be an admiral yourself, in a few years. As for now—you did well enough with Vigilance and Paradox. We’ll see what you can do with a real battle group. I’ll expect you to be ready to ship out as soon as you get Vigilance back out of the yards.”

A battle group. Vigilance? A real—? She looked at her aunt, and Vida grinned, a wicked grin of delight at her niece’s surprise. “You’ve earned that much; I can’t get you a star yet, but if you handle the group the way I expect, it’ll come. You’ll be going straight into trouble, of course—”

“What about personnel?”

“Your lover?”

“All of them,” Heris said, persisting.

“I thought I’d give you Arash Livadhi as second in command,” her aunt said, ignoring her question. “That should make an interesting combination, you and Arash.”

“He’s senior.” Heris had her doubts about Arash, even now.

“He was. You’re getting a promotion, remember?”

What was the right question? Did you trust me? Did you care? Heris fumbled around in her memories of the past few years, trying to untangle what she burned to know from what her aunt would consider strategic thinking.

“How did I get that first job, with Lady Cecelia?”

“Good girl.” Vida’s grin widened, pure approval this time. “That took a bit of pressure on the employment agency. I wanted you to have flexibility, a ship with decent legs, a wealthy employer with an irregular schedule. Lady Cecelia was the first one to meet those qualifications.”

“Did you know her?”

“Not really. We’d met years back at a function she probably doesn’t remember. That didn’t matter. The other things did. And, since you’re now on the right track, I won’t make you drag the rest out piecemeal. Yes, it was more than blind good luck or your talented scavenger’s native ability that put certain items in his way when you needed them—those military grade scans, that weapons-control upgrade. You’d earned that when you got Lepescu. I made sure Livadhi got the assignment to carry the prince, rather than Sorkangh’s grandson. And yes, Koutsoudas was planted on you—and a good thing, too. Not that we didn’t need to get him away from the trouble he’d brewed before it cost us his life and Livadhi’s ship. You don’t know yet how ticklish things were in Fleet after the abdication. Or how many holes I had to try to plug with too few resources.”

“You’re going to explain?” Heris said, doing her best not to let sarcasm edge her voice.

Vida smiled, and ignored the question. “As for the yacht, you can tell Lady Cecelia that the Fleet would be delighted to purchase it from her at a good price—we can always use ships like that on covert ops, and I really admire the beacon switch your technicians put in her.”

“Uh . . . yes, sir.” Admiral Vida Serrano was back to being entirely admiral.

“Welcome home,” the admiral said, with just enough softening. “Welcome home and good hunting.”

“No, I’m not ‘trying to copy that Thornbuckle girl’ as you put it.” Raffa stared her mother down. “I don’t have her flair. I don’t even want her flair. But I do want my own life, and that life is with Ronnie Carruthers.”

“I suppose you’ll do it whatever I say,” her mother said.

“Yes.” Raffa waited while her mother worked it all out.

“Where are you going?”

“We’re going to migrate over to the Polandre Group and take up an investor’s claim.”

“But Raffa—dear—you don’t have to do that. It’s all right about Ronnie; now that his parents and his aunt aren’t feuding—”

“We want to do that. It’s nothing to do with his parents or his aunt—we want our own lives, and we can have it out on the new lands.” She hoped she didn’t sound bitter; she wasn’t bitter. Not really. But she wanted her children to have a chance to advance, without a layer of Rejuvenants over their heads, smothering them. She thought of the specs she’d seen, and found herself grinning. “It’s not like it used to be,” she said to her mother. “Pioneers these days have it much easier.” Never mind that she and Ronnie had already decided to spend most of their money on a bigger grant, and fewer amenities. By the time her parents found out—if they ever did—she and Ronnie would have it all straightened out.

Her mother gave her a long, straight look. “You must have more of your Aunt Marta in you than I thought. Well, just be sure to keep a little back for escape if things go haywire. Your father and I didn’t stay on Buriel—”

“You pioneered?”

“Not exactly. We tried to go out and run a subsidiary by ourselves—”

“And you think I take after Aunt Marta!” Raffa laughed. “Mother, you’re a fraud.”

“I don’t want you to make our mistakes,” her mother said, primly.

“We’ll make our own,” Raffa said.

“Keep a little back,” her mother said. “But—I hope you never need it.” She sounded almost wistful. “You will let us give you a good wedding, won’t you?”

“As long as it’s in the sculpture garden,” Raffa said. “And I get to choose my own dress.”

George stared moodily at the ceiling. It wasn’t fair. Ronnie and Raffa running off to play pioneer over in the Polandres. Brun being mysterious and busy and having no time for old friends. Captain Serrano suddenly restored to her former rank and commanding a battle group, with no interest in helping a former Royal Aerospace Service officer transfer his commission to the regs. The clones off wherever they were. Nobody to play with.

“Moping?” George jumped; he hadn’t heard his father come in.

“I feel left out,” he said, and wished he hadn’t. His father had that knack of extracting what you least wanted to say, fatal for many a witness.

His father came around and looked at him; he realized that his father looked older and more worn than he had seen him before. “Time to grow up, George. They have.”

“It was fun,” George said. He didn’t like the petulance in his own voice.

“Yes. But it’s over. If you want to enjoy the rest of your life, you’ll have to find another way.” That famous voice, which could sting like acid in a cut, or croon like a lover, spoke to him without sarcasm or contempt or anything but plain reason. He could have defended himself better against the sting or the croon.

“I don’t know what to do,” George said. “I’m not like Ronnie—I don’t have Raffa, and Brun isn’t the girl I grew up with anymore.”

“You’re not that boy, either, though you don’t seem to know it yet. George, tell me—why didn’t the clones kill you?”

George snorted. “I think I talked them to death, nearly, and it confused their circuits.”

“And back on Sirialis—you influenced the men who captured you—”

“Not well enough. I got shot in the gut anyway.” He shivered; whatever the experts said about the impossibility of remembering pain, he would never forget his.

“Well, then—what do you really like to do?”

“Talk,” George said promptly, surprising himself. Then, more slowly, “Talk, and . . . and make people do things. Just by talking at them. Sometimes it backfires.”

“Yes,” his father said. “Sometimes it does, but when it works . . . you know you’ve just described my career.”

“Law?! I wouldn’t be any good at that!”

“Because you’re lazy, self-indulgent, and sometimes drive people crazy?”

“That’s not how I’d have put it, but yes.”

“George, you’ve defined yourself in relation to Ronnie and Buttons and their friends for years. Rich, idle, spoiled, all that. But you’re not, really. That’s why they find you odious. Not because you are idle and spoiled, but because you pretend to be, and they scent it like hounds scent blood. For instance—suppose you tell me about Varioster Limited versus Transgene.”

George scowled, and hesitated. It had popped into his head, but he didn’t like where his father was headed. He gave a precis of the case, then said, “The only reason I know about it is that you left the brief out one time when I was trying to find your signature pad so I could get a signed excuse for class.”

His father grinned. “George, most kids who want to forge a signature simply use a copy algorithm in their notepads. They don’t wade through thousand-page briefs, and remember them well enough to give a cogent precis twelve years later.”

“Was it that far back?” It surprised him; he’d thought it was only seven or eight, and said so.

“Not quite,” his father said. “So you remember that as well, do you?” Tricked again. At least it had been by an expert. “You might not find it as boring as you think, George. After all, you’ve been sneaking looks at my work for years—has it been that bad?”

“Well . . . no.” But law school would be. He could just imagine day after day with a cube reader.

“The thing is,” his father said, “when you’re in law, everyone assumes the odiousness comes from that. And you can save most of it for the courtroom.”

“Law school . . .” he muttered.

“Law school is where I met your mother,” his father said. “It’s not all cube readers.”

The ginger-haired girl he vaguely remembered from that Hunt Ball grinned at him from across the room when he went in to take the placement exam. She had certainly grown up, he thought. He had enjoyed that evening, but he hadn’t seen her since he’d left Sirialis. Now—she winked at him and he winked back. She’d never called him odious. He looked at the exam, and realized it was full of things he actually knew something about.

Brigdis Sirkin reported to the crew lounge of the great liner, hoping her luck had changed. Lady Cecelia had found her this berth. She had said goodbye to Brun and Meharry and the rest the day before, over in the Regular Space Service section of Rockhouse Major. Now she was committed to a civilian life. She had few regrets.

“Brigdis Sirkin?” That was the third mate, checking crew aboard. “Welcome aboard! We’ve heard about you; we’re all glad to have you on our ship.”

Here they found her exotic. Her adventures convinced them she was extraordinary, someone of exceptional courage and wit. As the weeks passed, Sirkin relaxed, finding new friends and a lot less tension. She found it hard to define the difference; the crew were all highly competent, and the standard of courtesy was as high. But the great ship had polish without an edge, like a ceremonial, a work of art and not a weapon. She liked that. She was glad to have known Meharry and Brun and the others, glad to know what protected her and her crewmates . . . but even more glad that she was no longer trying to live up to that standard.

The curtained alcove gave them privacy; the cooks gave them the best food for light-years around. They ate slowly, taking the time to savor every nuance of flavor. Their table conversation lingered on the antics of favorite relatives: nieces and nephews, for the most part. The waiter, carrying away the remains of the fish course, commented to the kitchen worker who received the tray, “It’s so nice to see real quality. Ladies who appreciate good food, who take the time to be courteous to the staff. Just sitting there talking about their families without a care in the world. Reminds me of my own auntie.” Later, when they were giggling over something he didn’t understand, he reported again. “Perhaps a bit tipsy—all that champagne, you know—but they’re rather sweet, if you know what I mean. Perfectly harmless.”