"Or it could've started at Snowbay. I remember there was some concern about sending him so far away, to such a strict headmaster. But Nadrel had gotten in all that trouble—" Heris blinked again. She knew—it had been her business to know—the names of the various members of the Royal Family, but she wasn't used to anyone calling them by first names. Nadrel, the second son, had died when he eluded his Security protection and got himself into a brawl with someone who didn't worry about the niceties of aristocratic duelling. Before that, he had been considerably wilder than the current prince.
"I hadn't realized," Ronnie said, looking at his hands. "I feel . . . bad about it. It's sort of indecent, I mean—our quarrel, when he's not—not like he was. Like the time George had that virus or whatever, and nearly flunked everything for a month; we started out teasing him, but it wasn't funny."
"It's indecent that it happened, if you're right. The quarrel's beside the point, although I expect it influenced him." Heris fought her way through Cecelia's logic in that and by the time she had it figured out both aunt and nephew were off on another tangent. Whom to tell, and how, and when.
"Better not tell anyone," she said, interrupting them. "It's dangerous knowledge." They stared back at her.
"But I must," Cecelia said. "He's the only surviving prince. If his father doesn't know—"
"Then someone doesn't want him to know. Someone who will be glad to eliminate you. His father probably does know, after all, and I doubt very much he wants it widely recognized or talked about."
"I'm not a gossip. Everyone knows that." Cecelia looked exasperated. "It's not something I can ignore. If I do, and he knows, then he'll suspect—it will be worse than telling him."
"But it's dangerous," said Heris. Surely Cecelia could see that; it was like taking a light escort straight into a suspicious scanfield. They needed to know more before anyone said anything. Her mind tickled her with something Ronnie had just said about George. George had had a month of being stupid? A virus? Or the same thing that affected the prince? But Cecelia, sticking to her own main interest, was talking again.
"They need to know. Even if it's dangerous, it's more dangerous to have him like this, unrecognized. Dangerous to everyone, not just to me. It can't be hidden much longer anyway; he's getting to an age where he'll be expected to take on some Crown functions. The sooner it's known, the sooner we—" This time the we clearly meant those who managed things, the great families of the realm, "—can change our plans and adjust. If it's permanent, for instance, he can't take the throne later. Then there's the Rejuvenant/Ageist split; this could change the balance in Council."
"But it'll be terribly embarrassing, Aunt Cecelia," said Ronnie. "Maybe Captain Serrano is right—"
But Heris could tell from the stubborn set of Cecelia's jaw that they weren't getting anywhere. Maybe later. They were still a long way from Rockhouse. She could talk to Ronnie about George's experience in private.
The ship itself functioned smoothly. Sirkin had looked startled the first time she heard Oblo say "Aye, sir" to Heris, but she soon got used to the preponderance of military backgrounds. Heris thought it improved the tone a lot; it seemed a comfortable compromise between military formality and civilian casualness. Bunny's yacht crew, efficient enough, held themselves slightly aloof from Lady Cecelia's; she didn't mind, since they'd be going back to Bunny's from Rockhouse.
Her relationship with Petris, however, seemed as uneven as the foxhunting fields. She had understood the prohibition of relationships between commanders and their subordinates as preventing both sexual harassment of subordinates and favoritism . . . it had not occurred to her that there was any intrinsic problem with the relationship if both desired it. She learned differently.
"I don't know," Petris said one late watch, when they had expected a pleasant evening in bed, and instead found themselves less interested in bed than talk. "It's not the past, really. I'd been crazy about you for a long time, and once I found a way—but on this ship—"
"It's the teal and lavender," Heris said, trying to make light of it.
"No. It's—how can I say this and not sound like a barbarian?—it's the authority. Here, you're in charge—you have to be. And—" Heris waited out a long silence as he worked his way through it. "When we were back on that island, you weren't. You were hurting, and I could help. I had the choices to make."
"Mmm. An authority block?"
"I suppose. Except I've never resented your authority, you know. Not with the ship. It never has bothered me who captained a ship, so long as they were good at it. I knew early on I never would . . . didn't really want to." That surprised her.
"Didn't you?"
"No. Not all enlisted are lusting for command, you know. Commanders maybe, but not command itself. It's damned scary; I can see that in your eyes. Maybe I feel that way here—it's scary, because I'm stepping out of my role, with the commander. It didn't bother me off the ship . . ."
"And it's not something I can command," Heris said. Some did; she knew that. But she couldn't. "How about we pretend this isn't the ship?"
"I'll try." It seemed to be working—Heris had felt the shifts in her own breathing that went with great pleasure long deferred—when the intercom intruded.
"Captain Serrano—there's something on the screen—" She lunged across Petris to answer it, and he cursed.
By the time she'd been to the bridge, where the image onscreen had vanished, and gotten back to her quarters, Petris was gone. Heris didn't call him back. Later. There would be time enough later.
Chapter Two
Nothing had been settled—not about the prince, not about Petris—when the Sweet Delight made its last jump. They came out of the anomalous status of jump space precisely where Sirkin had intended, for which Heris gave her a nod of approval. She wished Sirkin hadn't had a lover waiting at Rockhouse Major—she'd have liked to keep her as crew.
"Somebody flicked our ID beacon," Oblo said. "Stripped it clean and fast: R.S.S., I'd say, remembering the other side . . ."
"We're not fugitive," Heris said. "And they'd be looking for the Sweet Delight, considering . . ."
"Mmm. Wish we had better longscans and a decoder that could do the same. Feels all wrong to have someone stripping our beacon when we can't strip theirs."
"Mass sensors show a lot of ships," Sirkin put in. "And the delays are too long to tell me where they are now—"
"That's what I meant," Oblo said. "Now in the Fleet, we've got—" He broke off suddenly as Heris cleared her throat, and looked up at her. "Sorry, Captain. I'm used to being on the inside of security, not outside."
"We'd all best be careful, if we want to stay outside a prison, and not inside," Heris said. The only bad thing about Sirkin—and Bunny's crew—was this tension between what the ex-military crew knew and what they weren't supposed to know and couldn't share with shipmates. It would have been easier if they'd all been her former crew members.
She had sent off a message when they first dropped out of FTL, with the codes given them by the Crown Minister. Now the system's outer beacons blipped the first response.
"Captain, Sweet Delight, proceed on R.S.S. escort course—" and the coordinates followed.
Oblo whistled. "They're putting us down the dragon's throat, all right."
"What?" Sirkin asked.
"Escort course is the fastest way insystem; eats power and makes a roil everyone in the whole system can pick up. Hardly what I'd call discreet. All other traffic gives way, and we're snagged by a tug that could stop a heavy cruiser, in a counterburn maneuver. Plus, we go past the heavy guns and damn near every piece of surveillance between us and Rockhouse."
Heris glared at him, and Oblo actually flushed. He knew better, and she had already warned him. Sirkin wasn't military, had never been military, wasn't ever going to be military, and he had no business explaining Fleet procedure to her. But he had a thing for neat-framed dark-haired girls, whether they liked men or not, and he had taken a liking to Sirkin.
They were only halfway home, as Cecelia put it, when the escorts pulled up on either side. R.S.S., both of them; Heris got an exterior visual and grinned. She had once captained one of these stubby, peculiar-looking ships; ridiculously overpowered, designed for fast maneuvers within a single system, their small crews prided themselves on "flair." On distant campaigns, they traveled inside podships, even though they mounted FTL drives.
The voicecom board lit. Heris flicked the lit buttons, and then a sequence which informed the caller that she had no secured channel.
"Ahoy, Sweet Delight. R.S.S. Escort Adrian Channel calling—"
"Captain Serrano, Sweet Delight," Heris said.
"You don't have any kind of secure com?" At least that showed some discretion; she'd been afraid they'd ask in clear if she had the prince aboard.
"Negative."
"Well . . ." A pause, during which Heris amused herself by imagining the comments passing between the two escorts and their base. Then the voice returned. "We understand you have urgent need for priority docking at Rockhouse Major. Is that correct?"
"Yes, it is," Heris said. "The relevant enabling codes were in my initial transmission—"
"Yes, ma'am. Well, ma'am, we're here just to see you make a safe transit, and chase any boneheaded civvie that doesn't listen to his Traffic Control updates out of your way. Our instruments show you on course—" Oblo scowled at that; with him on the board there was no question of being off course.
The counterburn maneuver, when it came, strained the resources of the Sweet Delight's artificial gravity; dust shimmered in the air and made everyone on the bridge cough. For one moment Heris felt nausea, then her stomach ignored the odd sensations. Others were not so lucky. She saw a medic light go on in the prince's stateroom, and in the galley.
Then the internal gravity stabilized again; the tug's grapple snagged the yacht's bustle, and Petris shut down their drive. Far faster than a commercial tug, the R.S.S. ship shoved them toward Rockhouse Major, and put them in a zero-relative motion less than 100 meters away from the docking bay. Visuals, boosted several magnifications, showed the Royal Seal above their assigned bay, and the gleaming sides of a Royal shuttle and a larger, deepspace yacht twice the size of Sweet Delight. Grapples shot out, homing on magnetic patches on the yacht's hull. These would stabilize, but not change, their inward drift under docking thrusters. Heris had always enjoyed docking maneuvers, and the chance to show off at a Royal berth delighted her. She eased the yacht in, with neither haste nor delay, until the grapples were fully retracted and the hull snugged against the access ports.
Until this moment, she had spoken with the Rockhouse Major Sector Landing Control—a professional exactly like any other landing control officer—and their exchanges were limited to the necessary details of bringing the yacht in. Now another channel lit on the board. Heris took a steadying breath. This would be a very different official, she was sure—and even after hours reading everything Cecelia's library had on Royal protocol, she wasn't sure she would get it right. Once, she could have relied on the military equivalent, but as a civilian captain—
"Royal Security to the captain of Sweet Delight—"
"Captain Serrano here," she said.
"We need to establish a secure communications link before your passengers debark; we'll need hardwire access. Open the CJ-145 exterior panel next to the cargo access, please."
At least he'd said "please." For a moment she was surprised that they knew which panel to use, but of course they would: the yacht was a standard design, built at a well-known yard. They'd had weeks to get all the specs.
"Just a moment, please," she said. She nodded at Oblo, who put the relevant circuits up on a screen, and cut out all but the communications input. No reason to give them easy access to Cecelia's entire system, just in case they were of a mind to strip that, too. When he grinned at her, she popped the latch and waited while Security set the link up.
And after all that, the formalities were no different than docking at any fairly large Fleet base. Mr. Smith—the prince—had spoken to Security from his suite, she presumed in some code. She herself admitted the Royal Security team (one technician in gray, the others in dress blues, a major commanding) who would escort the prince down to the planet. No one seemed to expect any protocol from her that she didn't already understand.
But when the prince came into the lounge, Lady Cecelia was with him. Her maid followed, with a small travel case in her hand. The prince's servants, behind the maid, filled the passage with luggage.
"I'm going with him," Cecelia said. Heris, who hadn't expected this, stared at her. Cecelia pulled herself to her full height, and looked every millimeter the rich, titled lady she was. "The Crown Minister gave me the responsibility—"
"But madam . . . we're Royal Security." The major looked unhappy, as well he might.
"Very well. Then you can make sure that I also reach groundside safely."
"But our orders were to take . . . er . . . Mr. Smith . . ."
The red patches of incipient temper darkened on Cecelia's cheekbones. "Your sacred charge, young man, is the personal safety, the life itself, of your prince. If you think I endanger it, you are sadly mistaken about the source of danger. I suggest you need to have a long talk with the Crown Council. I went out of my way, at my own expense, to bring this young man safely home from a life-threatening situation. It might be asked where you, the Royal Security, were when he was being shot at!"
"Shot at!" Clearly this man had not heard the whole story. Heris wished Cecelia had not said so much; she'd assumed they would know already. "But he was on a training mission, with military guard—"
Cecelia glared. "Perhaps your superior will, if you prove discreet, tell you the full truth later. Suffice it to say that my honor, and my family's honor, are involved in this, and I will witness Mr. Smith's return to his father myself. You will find that his father agrees, should you care to take it that far."
"Yes, madam." The Security man still looked unhappy, but resigned. Exactly what she wanted.
"I will not require my maid's attendance, since I expect to travel directly to my brother's residence once I've spoken to the king. I am ready." She glanced back, to find Gerel and his luggage in the passage behind her, took her small case from her maid, and stepped forward.
The Royal shuttle eased into atmosphere with hardly a shiver in its silken ride. Four Royal Aerospace Service single-seaters flanked it, and another pair led it in. The prince sprawled in a wide seat, looking glum. Cecelia divided her glances between the viewports—she had always liked watching planetfall—and the Security men, who avoided meeting her gaze. She enjoyed the excellent snack a liveried waiter served her. The prince, she noticed, waved it away, and the Security men drank only water.
Two flitters waited on the landing field. Both dark blue, both with the Crown Seal in gold and scarlet. Honor guards stood by both. Cecelia snorted to herself. It wasn't going to work; she would see to that.
Sure enough, Security steered the prince toward one flitter, and attempted to lead her to the other. She strode on after the prince.
"Gerel—wait a moment." He paused, and looked back almost blankly.
"Yes, Lady Cecelia?"
"You're too fast for an old woman," she said, grinning at him. "Ronnie knows to slow down for me."
He smiled. She saw no malice in his smile, but no great intelligence either. What had gone wrong? How could the king not know? "I'm sorry," he said. "I was just thinking of being home."
"But sir," one of the Security men said. "We're supposed to take you home, and Lady Cecelia to her—"
"I told you," Cecelia said, still smiling, "I'm going with Gerel. It is a matter of honor." To her surprise, Gerel nodded.
"Yes, it is. A matter of honor." And he held out his arm for her. Whatever had blunted his intelligence had not ruined his manners. Here, she saw no sign of the hectic energy, the tension that had led him to such stupid outbreaks at Sirialis. Through the fli
tter ride, he sat quietly, not fidgeting, and when they arrived at the palace landing field, he gave her his arm again on the way in. Although she had believed Ronnie before, Cecelia found herself even more worried about the prince now.
"So, you see, I felt it necessary to come to you myself," Cecelia said, watching the king's face for any reaction. He had offered her one of the scarlet and gold striped chairs in his informal study, where she was both amused and delighted to see a picture of herself among the many others on one wall. It was one of her favorites, too, one the king had taken himself just as her horse sailed over a big stone wall.
The king looked tired. Rejuv had smoothed his skin, but he still had deep discolored pouches beneath his eyes. "I'm glad you did," he said. "Do you have any idea how many other people have noticed?"
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