by Joe Pace
Lamb stared at her, and she could feel Hadley’s gaze as well, though Pratt’s eyes were still fixed on his drink. Quintal lurked in his own thoughts as always, while Churchill sat, glassy-eyed and slack-jawed, drunk.
“Think that’s funny, yeah?” Lamb asked. “Him calling me boy? You got a low opinion of the jacks, just like Pearce and your pop, too, I’ll bet, no matter what this old man says. Just another too-good, too-high, too-mighty damned officer, looking down her nose at the dumb brutes below.”
“N-no,” she stammered, cheeks burning, horrified and humiliated. “I just…”
“Oh, leave her be,” Hadley said, resting a hand on Lamb’s burly arm. “Girls giggle, man, I should know. Especially when the drink is in. Leave it.” Worth could have hugged her, but Lamb still glowered. Like the seasoned sailor she was, Hadley changed her tack. “Dance with me,” she chirped, taking Lamb by the hand and tugging him away. “Music!” she cried, and Quintal obliged, tapping at the vidpanel until a popular song drifted from the speakers set in the wall. Hadley pulled Lamb close, framing her hips against his, guiding his hands lower and lower down her gently curving back.
“Are you all right?” Hall was beside her, a cup of his own in his hand, though his clear eyes said he’d had less than the others. Worth nodded, almost absently, glad he was there but still unable to ignore the weight and heat of Lamb’s stare, a brutal beam that wouldn’t release her even as his hands roamed Hadley’s lush, ever-willing body.
“You be careful, sir.” It was Rowland, still seated next to her, his voice breaking the spell of Lamb’s eyes. Rowland pointed at Pratt. “He’s a rugged one, there, strong like a Machrine, but hot and cold, and I think there’s even a conscience in there sometimes, struggling to stay on top. But that one,” he nodded at Lamb, “that’s a right vicious bugger, that is. You be strong and you be smart, and don’t you ever be afraid, or he’ll smell it on you, like a reek.”
Worth felt herself lifted from her seat, forcibly, yanked to her feet like a child. Lamb had dumped Hadley in Pratt’s broad lap, with rough unceremony, and now he was enveloping Worth with those strong, hairy arms.
“Come on, give us a dance, sir,” he hissed mockingly, his breath hot and moist in her ear. “Not a bad little piece, are you? Probably never had a man in you, either. At least,” his eyes flicked toward Hall, “not a real one, at any rate.” He held her by the waist with one arm, his free hand on her breasts, groping, pinching, and whether it was the grog, or the giving way of some wall of patience and fear within her, Worth punched him. Hard, in the face, not a girlish slap but a closed-fist blow with all the might her small frame could put behind it. Lamb released her, staggering back a pace, momentary shock yielding to a slow-burning wrath, one cheek bearing a red welt. The room was suddenly and deathly quiet, except for the strains of Quintal’s music, still streaming from the wall in misplaced merriment.
“You little bitch,” Lamb snarled, and raised a hand to swat her down. Somehow, Charles Hall was between them first, and Lamb’s heavy fist connected with him instead of her, knocking the midshipman heavily to the deck. Worth screamed despite herself, while Rowland and el-Barzin seized Lamb by the arms, dragging him bodily against the wall and holding him there, against his enraged struggles. They’re stronger than they look, she thought vaguely, but so was Lamb, who looked strong enough to begin with, and threatened to break free from their grip. She wanted nothing more than to kneel, to check on Hall, lying and groaning on the floor, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She glanced over her shoulder at Pratt, at Churchill, at Hadley, and at Quintal, standing at the dispensers, calmly refilling his drink, that self-satisfied little grin still on his face. What would they do? Would they come to Lamb’s aid, or Rowland and el-Barzin’s? Or would they stand fast?
“Knock it off, Lamb,” demanded el-Barzin, straining to keep his hold on the man. “Striking an officer? You want the lash?” Lamb continued his struggles, bidding to break free of his smaller restrainers, and Rowland called out.
“You men, there!” he shouted. “Pratt, Quintal, you, too, Hadley. Churchill, you useless sot! Lend a hand, here, calm your mate before he hurts himself.”
Pratt stood, slowly, and all the eyes in the galley, except Hall’s, focused on him. His face no longer looked angry, but had become instead an impassive, unreadable mask.
“We’ll have no talk of punishment,” he said, and it wasn’t a request, or a demand, but a simple statement of fact. Worth could see a glance pass between el-Barzin and Rowland, a glance that clearly said I don’t think we can hold this crazy bastard much longer. El-Barzin, the eldest, most seasoned able, the one who, in a more perfect world, the others would all defer to and respect, nodded. Worth could tell that it galled him, ran counter to everything he believed, but clearly he had done some quick math and decided against escalation, against summoning the Captain or Pott or Crutchfield and his Machrines. Maybe it was a small measure of solidarity belowdecks, or perhaps the prospect of a long space voyage with a crew that distrusted and hated each other. Maybe it was pure expedience.
Pratt came and took up a fistful of Lamb’s shirt. Both were tall, both strong, but Pratt was far more of both.
“That’s enough, Saul,” he said, and it would have been difficult for Lamb, infuriated as he was, to ignore the command. If he was afraid of anyone, it was Pratt. Finally, he sagged, and Worth turned her attention to Hall. He was barely conscious, though not by much, a purpling mark above his right eye and a stupid, absent smile on his face, revealing those crooked teeth.
“Some hero,” he muttered, groggily, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he fainted.
“Mister Worth.”
She looked up, still cradling Hall’s head. El-Barzin still had his hands on Lamb, but now he was propping him up more than holding him back. All the fight seemed to have gone out of the crewman with Pratt’s looming presence.
“I suggest you and Hadley take Mister Hall up to Surgery,” El-Barzin continued, quietly, urgently. “That was some spill he took, hitting his head on the table like that. We’ll get this one to his bunk, and back to work tomorrow for us all.”
Worth realized with cold suddenness that she was the senior officer, indeed the only conscious officer, present. El-Barzin was making it look like she was in charge, though his experience and calm authority were clearly in control. Preserving the flimsy fiction of chain of command, she thought. She knew she should report it all -- the drunkenness, the violence, the insubordination -- but some instinct told her to follow el-Barzin’s lead, to cede some ground now in exchange for the trust of the crewmen. She nodded, and stood.
“Very good,” she said, and somehow her voice didn’t crack. There was no more joy left from the grog, no more pleasant buzzing, just a throb at her temples and an all-encompassing leaden fatigue. She wanted to go to bed, she wanted her father, she wanted some magic button that could reset the entire night. Instead, somehow, she faced it.
“Quintal, get Churchill to help you clean the galley. Pratt, help Lamb find his bunk with these men. Hadley, with me.” As she said each name, she forced herself to look each starman in the face. Churchill was vacant, Quintal amused, Hadley a little sad. El-Barzin and Rowland both showed relief and approval. Pratt revealed nothing, his face an utter blank. It was Lamb’s eyes that were the worst, but she steeled herself and burrowed into those brown holes, hating him, and with every last ounce of herself she willed the message, you will never touch me again, you filthy animal. There was no response, no answer, just the slow smoldering burn of anger deferred but not dead. She continued to see those eyes, feral and repulsively magnetic, long after Lamb was gone.
We haven’t even left Earth yet, she thought later, and it’s already been a long cruise.
****
Kew was a marvel, but for Banks it held little novelty. He had affection for the sprawling gardens, for the unique treasures it held – a handsome little rowan, for instance, and a crimson-leafed maple, both the las
t known of their kind – and could never be truly indifferent to the collection as a scientist, but there was no wonder left in it for him. In part, his apathy stemmed from over-familiarity. His late father, the Fourteenth Earl of Northumberland, had been an old friend of the King, and together, along with Sir Eustace, they had shared an enthusiasm for botany. Banks respected botany, but it was merely one among the constellation of his academic interests. For him, this was a place of business, not unlike an office or a coffee-house. Other men, other women, could be slack-jawed in awe of the open air and rambling verdure, but not him. Likewise, and for the same reasons, the Royal Presence had long since lost any spellbinding majesty it might once have had.
The Royal Family were no longer the absolute monarchs they had once been, but neither were they the mere puppets or ceremonial figureheads that the populist democratic crusaders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would have made of them. To be sure, the American agitations of the latter half of the 1700s had been inconvenient, and had required political as well as military remedies. Fortunately, Prime Ministers from Pitt to Churchill to Thatcher came to realize that the loyalty of would-be rebels was rather easily purchased with seats in Parliament. In the end, those movements had been only modestly successful, effectively co-opted by the King’s royalist allies. There were concessions, greater influence for the House of Lords, even some window dressing for the Commons in Parliament, but the monarchy endured.
The current King, Charles V, was a largely useless creature; feckless, simple, barely literate, and yet by virtue of bloodline and a talented, discreet Privy Council, he had sat the throne for nearly forty years, and was, from all accounts, widely esteemed by his subjects. He loved his gardens, his birds and butterflies, and being outdoors. Even now, well past seventy, he was quite spry on his walks, and capable of astonishment at the smallest surprises or pleasures. He was an elderly child.
Queen Katherine was an entirely different matter.
The King’s second wife, Katherine had been procured for the thorny, and as yet unsuccessful, proposition of producing a male heir (the deceased Queen Patricia, the King’s first wife, had generated three quarrelsome, tedious, political daughters – it remained a palace joke of some durability as to exactly how Queen Pat had lured King Charles to bed enough times for that happen). Not yet thirty, slightly thickset, aristocratic, and in possession of a keen mind and ready wit, Queen Katherine had very quickly assumed the royal role in the affairs of the Kingdom that her husband happily left vacant. The Privy Council had initially reacted to her activity with dismissive scorn, which swiftly evaporated as the Queen demonstrated her precocious grasp of the art of governing.
It was a damp morning, with a light drizzle, when Banks was asked to stroll at Kew with their Majesties, and the gardens were a different kind of beautiful in the gray mist. Leaves and needles were a deeper green, the muted colors of flowers and berries an impressionistic canvas. The Queen wore a stylish lavender cloak with a hood to keep off the weather, but the King was bareheaded, his long wisps of silver hair plastered across his face.
“Isn’t the rain wonderful?” asked King Charles of no one in particular. “I do love when they let it rain. I should instruct them to do it more often. What do you think, Banks? Hm?”
“Sire,” Banks dipped his head, “it should rain or snow or hail at your pleasure.”
“I think, my love,” interrupted Queen Katherine, “that what your science minister would say in a less guarded moment is that your weather-tamers know their craft and you should leave it to them.” The King frowned, then brightened.
“Worms!” he exclaimed. “There are sure to be worms!”
“Yes, dear. Why don’t you take your little pail and collect some? You can feed them to your birds later.” He dashed off, leaving Banks alone with Her Majesty. She almost sighed, but did not. Banks admired her restraint, and her decorum. She was a fierce defender of the King, a jealous guardian of his reign, and by extension, her own.
“I understand,” she said, turning to him, the motherly tone she adopted with her husband gone, replaced by her matter-of-fact business voice. Banks knew well that there was a coquettish, flirting voice, too, unleashed at need, as well as various other personas. The Queen was a deft political animal. “I understand you have sent a ship to the far reaches of the galaxy, to procure more exotic specimens for the King’s gardens.”
“The Star Lord sends ships, Highness, not me.”
“Don’t be coy,” she snapped. “I dislike coy. It is so very British.”
“Guilty.” Banks spread his hands and hitched his most charming smile to his handsome face. It worked better in the sunshine, he knew. “I am, after all, British, as are we all.” It was the slightest feint, intended to do no real harm, but perhaps to unnerve her a tiny amount. The Queen was, after all, a native of America, and it was well-rumored that her ancestors some four hundred years before had participated in those abortive rebellions against the then-English throne. In any event, she was too well-bred and too shrewd to show any disquiet.
“Your…particular friend, Sir Eustace, was here some days ago.” She emphasized the word particular, and Banks knew his ever-so-gentle sally had not gone unnoticed. If she was trying to upset him with inferences about his relationship with Eustace, it was a weak riposte. Their relationship was one of London’s worst-kept secrets.
“I would imagine, Majesty, that the Royal Gardener might spend some time at the Royal Gardens now and again.”
She actually giggled then, and whether it was in earnest or for show he could not tell, but it certainly sounded authentic. She really was not beautiful, though there was a certain animation, a kind of electricity, that she created around herself, and it was hard to look away when she smiled or laughed. She was an Adams, a child of privilege and pedigree, her father the seventh Duke of Boston. She had married the King when she was only twenty-two. Despite her youth, Banks knew ministers who had ignored or underestimated her to their own peril.
“Wit is so much better than coy,” she said. “Let us be candid with one another, Banks.”
He waited in silence, not sure where this was headed. A lifetime around politicians had taught him the virtue of patience.
“Tell me more about this most recent calamitous prediction of yours, if you please.”
The Queen, thought Banks, was a well-informed woman.
“It was discussed at Privy, Highness.”
“Coy again.” She rolled her eyes, and somehow the affectation had charm.
“I would not want to speak out of turn.”
“When the Queen asks, it becomes your turn. I know what was said at Privy. Lord Djimonsu was most expansive with his thoughts on the matter.”
“The Chancellor is my honored colleague,” said Banks, carefully. And then, less so, “Begging your royal pardon, Majesty, he is also an enormous ass.” The giggle rose again, throaty and young.
“Yes, yes, he is, but he is also my ass, and as all women always have, I use my ass to my own advantage. Now I would use you, Minister. I have his thoughts. Will you give me yours, or am I left to surmise his are thorough and accurate?”
Banks had been very cleverly trapped, and he knew it. He took a moment to gather himself, unused to being cornered this way. A butterfly landed on a nearby hawthorn, and he made a show of studying its orange and yellow wings. The rain had all but stopped, and a few white shafts of sun penetrated the gray above. Banks looked to the sky, thinking about Pearce and the Harvest, due to launch in only a few hours. And there was Eustace, poor old Eustace, already aboard, excited and anxious and determined to succeed. Could he trust the Queen? What were her motives? If she was an ally of Djimonsu, the ship and its mission could be compromised. That he could not allow, whatever the risk.
“Your Majesty, I stand by what I told my fellow Privy Councilors. It is…unfortunate in the extreme that they did not see clear to pursue a remedy.” He sighed. “I will simply have to try again
another time to convince them.” With a silent whisper of color, the butterfly disappeared.
“And this botanical adventure of which Eustace spoke?”
“Just that.” Banks looked the young Queen squarely in the eye and grinned. The gaze that returned was icy and impossible to interpret. Banks kept his face pleasantly neutral, but inside he churned. Every one of his eggs was in that steel and plastic basket in orbit at Spithead. He knew he was running a dangerous game, lying to the Queen, but he could see no other choice. If the journey of the Harvest succeeded, he would happily forfeit his titles and incomes in exchange for humanity’s future. And if it failed…if it failed, what did the rest matter? Banks had no wife, no children. He would be the last Earl of Northumberland, at least, the last Banks to hold the title. He had no shortage of nephews and cousins who would no doubt angle and compete for the honor, but he scarcely cared about that. The legacy that concerned him was not Spring Grove, much as he loved it, or his ancestral, and concluding, bloodline, but rather the continuation of his species. With luck, he would be the savior of humanity, and all of mankind would be his true heirs.
At that moment King Charles returned, somewhat crestfallen, soaking wet, with mud and blades of grass stuck to his knees and fingers.
“Only one worm,” he declared plaintively.
“Yes, love,” said Queen Katherine, still holding Banks with her stare. “Only one worm indeed.”
****
Pearce stared out the tiny window of his cabin as the massive presence of Jupiter loomed against a static backdrop of stars. The launch had gone smoothly, despite all the repairs the Harvest had needed while in spacedock, and the old girl was as healthy as she would ever be. Now, with Spithead behind and the infinite universe ahead, he was almost excited. This was where he belonged, where he could be of use.
