Death's Handmaiden

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Ah,’ Zackery said, ‘but there are pirates and smugglers, Michiko. The navy and regular marines deal with them.’ His attention turned to Kyle. ‘Not that it’s my business to provide career counselling for you, young man, but you may get much the same experience in an ASF Special Tactics Unit as you would in the marines, with the added benefit of not spending half your life on a spaceship.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to spend all that time on a spaceship,’ Michiko said, possibly to keep her place in the conversation.

  ‘It’s a valid point,’ Kyle agreed. ‘And thank you for your advice, sir. I had considered that. It’s possible that my talents would be better suited to an STU, actually.’

  ‘You know you’re going to actually have to make your relationship official if you want the ASF to keep you together,’ Mitsuko said.

  ‘We know,’ Courtney said curtly. ‘That’s down to me too. It’s my family who’ll kick up a fuss.’

  Mitsuko glanced at her mother, but it was Nava who spoke. ‘Your family is quite a powerful one while Kyle’s is not. It’s a shame that the difference in social status might get in the way of your relationship.’

  ‘Don’t have to tell me twice.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Kyle said. ‘More than twice, actually.’

  ‘I know. It’s stupid. My parents are so backward.’

  ‘Amédée does say that the Garavain clan is exceptionally traditionalist,’ Yuzuki said. ‘She’s our eldest daughter. She’s the senior Alliance liaison officer on Garavain Prime.’

  ‘It’s not my place to say, but I pity her that assignment. She’s right about my clan. Well, I wouldn’t call them traditional. I’d probably use a less complimentary term. But not in front of Michiko.’

  ‘It’s something rude then,’ Michiko said sadly. ‘No one ever says anything rude in front of me. I’m ten, you know. I’m not a child.’

  ‘Legally,’ Nava said, ‘you are until you’re fourteen. Then you’ll be a young adult, like me, Suki, Chess, and Mel. And when you get to seventeen, you’ll be called an adult.’

  ‘“Called” is the appropriate word, Nava,’ Zackery said. ‘Some of those in the adult bracket behave like they never transitioned to young adults.’

  ‘And some grow up far too fast,’ Yuzuki added.

  ‘I grew up too fast,’ Michiko said, all seriousness. ‘Everyone says so.’

  ‘Then you should slow down, Michiko,’ Nava said. ‘Take time to be a child. You’ll never get the opportunity again.’

  ‘That sounded like the voice of experience,’ Kyle said into the silence which followed the statement.

  ‘Yes.’

  Michiko was not silent for the same reason as the older people in the room. She was pondering Nava’s suggestion as she seemed to consider everything adults – or young adults – said to her. ‘I will take that under consideration, Nava. Thank you for your advice.’

  ‘You are most welcome.’

  Alliance City, 235/5/10.

  In some ways, Alliance City was not what you might expect of the capital of a vast, interstellar alliance. On paper, it was two hundred and thirty-five years old, but that ignored the fact that Alliance City had been New Kyoto prior to its renaming on Alliance Day of the first year of the Clan Worlds Alliance. When you included the time before that event, the city was four hundred years old and a lot of its architecture dated back three hundred years when a major round of civic works had happened.

  There were modern buildings, more on the outskirts than the central region, but a lot of the city owed its style to a period when the inhabitants had got comfortable, society was stable, and they had looked back toward the architecture of old Earth. The city owed a lot to European architecture from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of the old calendar. However, the majority of the settlers had originally come from Japan, so there was old Japanese architecture dropped in among the stone buildings with their columns and tall, arched windows.

  ‘It’s all rather generic, when you really get down to it,’ Mitsuko said as the group of six walked down one of the main shopping streets. ‘The buildings are generic. The brands in the windows are generic.’

  ‘I think you’re being a little cynical, Suki,’ Nava replied. ‘When you get down to it, everywhere is really quite generic, but if you’ve never been there before, it can still have some charm. Until you get used to it, anyway.’

  ‘What I can’t get used to is the prices,’ Melissa said.

  ‘They’re not especially high,’ Mitsuko pointed out, frowning at a window display.

  ‘Technically, you’re right. But I’m used to Avorn dollars, not everything priced in Alliance Solars.’

  ‘Oh, right. Yes, I suppose that would take a little getting used to.’ Alliance Solars had been designed to not use any subdivisions. Most of the clans had their own currency, most of them were called dollars, and most of them had either cents or pennies. The exchange rates varied, but you could generally count on a hundred Solars being one clan dollar. Shinden was the only world in the Alliance that used the Solar as its basic currency, so someone visiting had to cope with everything appearing to cost a hundred times as much on first inspection.

  ‘The school doesn’t help you to get used to it,’ Melissa added. ‘Everything’s charged to your account. You never really see the prices unless you go looking.’

  ‘I look,’ Nava said. ‘Mostly so that I know how much of a nest egg I have for emergencies. Or shopping trips with Suki.’

  ‘I somehow doubt that Rochester and I will be spending much money,’ Kyle said.

  ‘Chess is wearing beige, knee-length shorts and a short-sleeved shirt with palm leaves printed on it,’ Mitsuko said. ‘If he doesn’t buy himself more normal casual clothes, I will.’

  ‘What’s wrong with–’ Rochester began.

  Melissa put a hand on his arm. ‘She’s right, Chess. Just accept it. How many pairs of jeans do you own?’

  ‘I, uh… Well, just the one.’

  ‘I know just the place,’ Mitsuko announced, and she set off with renewed vigour.

  Nava shook her head as she stretched her legs to keep up. ‘Give the girl a mission…’

  ~~~

  The small boutique Mitsuko had dragged them all into after an hour of other, varied boutiques had changing rooms in the back, lots of racks of products, and several seats beside the changing area’s entrance upon which men could sit looking either uncomfortable or expectant. The product – Rochester in particular refused to describe any of it as clothing – consisted of various amounts of different materials arranged in patterns which tended to afford… strategic coverage. It was a lingerie shop and, more or less as Nava had predicted, Rochester was not handling it that well.

  ‘He’s out there imagining you in various flimsy garments,’ Nava said. ‘Let’s face it, he just has to look up to provide him with fantasy fodder. Imagination is only required for what you look like.’

  ‘Why me?’ Melissa asked. She was currently trying on bras because getting a good fit was not a trivial matter for her and this was an opportunity to check out new manufacturers. Melissa had foundationwear issues.

  ‘You are neither that blind nor that naïve. And I don’t think you’re into that much self-delusion either.’

  ‘No one who is uninterested would spend that much time trying to teach a woman chess,’ Mitsuko added. Her choice of garment to try on was more exotic. Not that teddies were exceptionally exotic, but she did appear to be trying to find ones with as little solid material in them as possible.

  ‘He’s into you, Mel,’ Nava said, just to be clear. Nava was, in fact, the only one fully dressed. She had located something – another teddy – she liked, checked the sizing and the price, and decided to buy it in about a minute. She was in the changing rooms to keep the other three company.

  ‘He’s so into you,’ Courtney said. She emerged from a cubicle wearing a black, baby-doll nightdress, looked at herself in one of the larger mirrors, sneered, and went str
aight back into the cubicle.

  ‘You’re not that kind of girl, Courtney,’ Nava said. ‘I’m a little surprised that you don’t wear camouflage pattern underwear.’

  ‘I have some. Kyle bought it for me as a joke, but the panties are surprisingly comfortable, and the bra makes me look as though I have boobs.’

  ‘You’re really sure he likes me?’ Melissa asked, bringing the topic back to Rochester.

  ‘Ah!’ Mitsuko said. ‘Now I can believe Mel is that insecure.’

  ‘A valid point,’ Nava said. ‘Yes. His body language demonstrates a number of signs of attraction. He’s actually getting used to me and Suki, for example. He can look at us in low-cut tops without having to concentrate on our hairlines.’

  ‘And he’s never had that much trouble with me,’ Courtney said.

  ‘You’re only a cup-size smaller than Suki and me, Courtney. Insecurity doesn’t suit you. Mel, on the other hand, is quite the handful’ – cue squeak from Melissa’s cubicle – ‘and he couldn’t look her in the chest at all when we first met. Now, it’s furtive, lingering looks when he thinks he won’t be spotted. He’s more familiar with Mel than the rest of us, but he also treats her with more deference. He’s interested, even very interested, but he isn’t sure she is.’

  ‘They’re made for each other,’ Mitsuko said. ‘However, if you do want to take this further, Mel, you probably don’t want to wait for him to make the first move.’

  ‘I had to jump Kyle’s bones,’ Courtney put in. ‘That wasn’t insecurity. He just didn’t want to burden me with a lower-status partner. Idiot.’

  ‘That is a factor, you know,’ Melissa said. ‘The Hunts are a reasonably powerful family within the Leighton clan. The Connellys are basically your typical–’

  ‘It’s not even close to the same,’ Courtney said, her tone bitter. ‘The Avorns and the Leightons have roughly equal standing in the Clan Council and, unless you’re going to tell me different, I don’t think either of them would object to a marriage between them. The Garavains are one of the stronger clans, and they tend to favour internal marriages or alliances with stronger clans.’ She barked a short, mirthless laugh. ‘There are actually signs of inbreeding showing up in some of the stronger Garavain families and they still won’t change their ways.’

  ‘Besides,’ Mitsuko said, ‘we’re not talking about an official relationship here. At this stage, all we’re discussing is a roll in the hay.’

  ‘Good luck finding any hay to roll in,’ Nava commented.

  ‘It’s a turn of phrase.’

  ‘That’s just it though,’ Melissa said. ‘What if it’s terrible?’

  ‘Oh, that’s expected. You just keep doing it until it isn’t. Or you decide you’re going to be a meditative aesthetic and give up sex entirely.’

  ‘Or you give women a go,’ Courtney added. ‘It’s not an unpopular option.’

  ‘Certainly isn’t,’ Mitsuko agreed. ‘On that note, Nava and I will be available to console you, Mel, should he turn out to be an insensitive jerk.’ Melissa made a strangled sort of sound. You could imagine her cheeks reaching fusion temperatures. ‘But please try him out, Mel,’ Mitsuko continued. ‘Frankly, the sexual tension is getting too much for me.’

  ‘I g-guess I’d better go and find something other than b-boring bras out in the shop then,’ Mel said.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Nava said.

  ~~~

  The Clan Alliance Assembly building was a modern construction, if you viewed modern as anything under a century. And, actually, a century was pushing it. The original assembly building had been replaced with a newer one ninety-eight years ago. You could still visit it, but it was now a museum devoted to the history of the Clan Worlds.

  The new building had a lot of asymmetric features and ‘radical’ design elements. Everyone had hated it, saying that it had ‘all the worst features of modern, decadent architecture.’ A century later, no one really cared. It did its job exceptionally well and it was not as ugly as the office complex nearby which housed the Alliance’s central administration.

  Part of the redesign had been sociological. It was not enough, said the then members of the Clan Council, for government of the Alliance to be done: it had to be seen to be done. Hence, the new building was designed to allow the public in in a controlled manner. They could stand in viewing galleries where they could watch the council at work – through armoured glass – and see what their leaders actually got up to. Of course, most of the people who could conveniently get to the gallery – or even the planet – were members of the Sonkei clan who did not have a representative to watch. People on Shinden on business tended to have little time for sightseeing and generally preferred to view sights with more interest than a room full of politicians and patriarchs. Shinden did have a tourist trade and Alliance City did get tourists, but the sociological experiment had largely failed due to low interest. Why travel all that way to see something you could view from a better angle on video?

  One side effect of this grand experiment had, however, gone down well with those who spent more time in the area: the clan leaders and the administrative personnel. The new building had cafés and restaurants to cater to the tourists who rarely turned up. Very few of them had gone out of business, despite the lack of the intended type of patrons, because the locals used them instead.

  One such café came with a great view out over the bay Alliance City sat on, and it was there that Mitsuko took her friends for a bite to eat and a drink before they headed home. She had, rather dutifully, taken them up to the gallery to watch the council’s proceedings first. Melissa and Rochester were the most interested, and even they could only manage to keep that interest up for a couple of minutes. There was nothing of great political interest happening and the huge, tiered hall where the General Assembly of the Clans met was more than half empty.

  ‘My parents brought me here when I was… ten,’ Mitsuko said. ‘Father was on shore leave, but he was not getting much time off his ship, so Mother and I came out to meet him and we had lunch in this café. I say lunch. It was mostly sticky pastries. This place makes pastries from all over the Alliance and they’re all good.’ She put down her own plate of flaky, sticky goodness and settled into one of the seats at a table facing the ocean.

  Nava had asked Mitsuko to pick something out for her because she had no clue what any of the sweets were. Whatever the thing was she had been given – it had almond slices on it and looked nice – she was going to eat it and say she enjoyed it. She sat down beside Mitsuko, not particularly worried that her view was not especially good. She was, in fact, happier with the arrangement; she could see the door from her seat.

  ‘The assembly was a little… underwhelming,’ Melissa commented. She barely appeared to notice that Rochester held her chair for her as she sat down, though she did give him a quick, slightly nervous smile.

  ‘Somehow, I expected something more momentous,’ Rochester said. ‘I suppose I should have known better.’

  ‘When there’s something important going on, it gets more exciting,’ Mitsuko said. ‘I remember, that first time I came, the place was heaving. Everyone was there discussing something or other.’

  ‘Five years ago?’ Kyle asked. ‘There was a big Redwing Faction attack on Hamilton’s Star around then. A lot of rumours that they were planning assaults on other worlds. That might’ve been why your father was shorted on his leave too.’

  ‘They mostly attacked orbital facilities,’ Nava said. ‘There was some guerrilla activity on Hamilton’s Star Four. Civilians died. Any real chance of continued operations was negated by the loss of almost the entire Redwing attack force. They did do significant damage to some of their targets before the ASF and local defence forces destroyed them or drove them off.’

  Kyle raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m a little surprised you know about that. You tend to be, um, uninformed about Clan Worlds history.’

  ‘Yes, I do. I am, mostly. I happened to meet someone who was on Hamil
ton’s Star Four at the time while I was being acclimatised to the culture here. In the end, the attack put more of a dent in the pride of the Hamilton clan than any physical damage caused.’

  ‘The Hamiltons do tend to be rather fanatical about wiping out the Redwings,’ Mitsuko said.

  ‘It was a Hamilton who came to take Tracey Spears into custody,’ Courtney said. ‘Uh, Fawn Tyrell, first lieutenant.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mitsuko said. ‘I suddenly feel almost sorry for Tracey.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘I did say “almost.”’

  The Trenton Mansion.

  Courtney slid the Daison-Musck GravCruiser into a perfect, gentle landing on one of the mansion’s landing pads. She sighed. ‘Daison-Musck really know how to make a contragrav. I don’t get to fly many with this quality very often.’

  ‘I’ve only ever flown Avorn-Devin models,’ Melissa said.

  ‘You can fly contragrav?’

  ‘Anyone can fly contragrav, but I did have a permit on Avorna. I never bothered to get one here because I figured I’d never get to use it.’ It was true that pretty much anyone could fly a contragravity vehicle; the flight controls were meant to be easy to use because they were meant to be used by the general public. More or less everywhere had a permit system, however, and restricted use of the vehicles to those who had passed a test because that extra dimension of freedom made them more susceptible to pilot error than ground vehicles.

  ‘Kyle actually has a licence for operating spaceships,’ Courtney said, a hint of pride in her voice.

  ‘Not that I get to use it much,’ Kyle said. ‘What’s the plan for this afternoon?’

  ‘Pool?’ Mitsuko suggested.

  ‘You mean you want me to dip you in sunblock again so you can roast,’ Nava said.

  Mitsuko grinned. ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘I’m feeling a little tired,’ Rochester said. The colour in his cheeks suggested something else. ‘I believe I’ll lie down in my room for a while.’

  ‘We’re here to relax. If that’s how you want to relax, far be it from me to force you onto a lounger.’ Mitsuko turned slightly so that she could give Melissa a pointed look and, for once, Melissa actually got the meaning.