by C. J. Ryan
“Easy or not, it must be done. You know what’s at stake here.”
“You mean, aside from my career—and yours?”
DuBray went to the bar and began fixing himself another drink. “My career,” he said, “is perfectly secure. And yours, as well, if you don’t take counsel from your fears. You’re still young, Opatnu, so you lack a long-term perspective. Do you know how many investigations I’ve quashed over the years? Usually, all I have to do is rear up on my hind legs, let out a growl or two, and the problem is solved. VanDeen, I admit, presents an unusual challenge, but hardly an insurmountable one. If she continues to defy me and resist your persuasion, stronger means are available. I doubt that they will be necessary, but the option is always there.”
“I heard that your ‘stronger means’ wound up in the hospital,” Opatnu said with a slight smirk.
DuBray didn’t quite snort. “Manko is useful, but he’s hardly essential. I’m not talking about mere muscle here, or even sex. The purely physical is the lowest level of control. We use it because it’s easy and it generally works. When it doesn’t, we can turn to other methods. I can crush VanDeen anytime I want. I’d prefer to avoid that, but if she makes it necessary, I won’t hesitate.”
“I know,” said Opatnu. “But sometimes, I wonder…” Opatnu trailed off and stared at the million glittering lights.
“What?”
Opatnu turned to look at DuBray. “If it’s worth it,” he said.
“It is,” DuBray assured him. “But if you’re having second thoughts about the choices you’ve made, I suggest that you get over it. When you finally get this office—and you will, when I move up to replace Mingus—remember that power is simply a tool, like a hammer. A carpenter doesn’t sit around staring at his hammer, pondering its existential significance. He uses it to drive nails.”
“I know,” Opatnu said. He took a big swig of his drink. “And don’t worry, I can handle VanDeen and OSI.”
“Our friends expect no less,” DuBray reminded him.
“Our friends,” Opatnu said, “won’t be disappointed.”
THE DEXTA FLYER MANEUVERED AWAY FROM the dock at Earthport, accelerated smoothly for a few hours, then turned on its Ferguson Distortion Generators and slipped smoothly into its transluminal journey to New Cambridge, three-and-a-half days away. The Fergusons created a spherical membrane of eleven-dimensional Yao Space, which squirted through the inimical fabric of the universe, carrying within it a bubble of normal space with the Flyer at its center.
Travel between the stars was mainly a question of mass and energy. To save on both, a Flyer consisted of no more than a sealed cylindrical tube, twenty feet long and ten in diameter, with minimal facilities and life support for two passengers. No crew was necessary, so Gloria and Elaine were alone in the Flyer, which was the fastest available form of interstellar transport for human beings.
As soon as they were properly under way, Gloria stripped off her clothing, as she always did on such journeys. There was no point in using up four days’ of laundry, especially when you could never be sure if there would be decent laundry facilities available at the other end of the trip. Elaine, making her first interstellar journey, followed Gloria’s example.
Beds were built into each side of the cylinder, separated by a narrow aisle. There was a spartan, waterless bathroom aft. Two work consoles, chairs, a table, and galley facilities were crammed into the forward section of the craft. Gloria settled onto her bunk, took out her pad, and resumed reading her history of the war with the Ch’gnth.
Later, Elaine fixed their dinner—microwaved-fish-something, and a concoction that went by the name of DryWine; just add water, and you had a beverage that would have appalled any oenophile in the Empire. But it was palatable as long as you didn’t imagine that it had anything to do with real wine, and it packed a considerable kick. By their third packet of the stuff, Gloria and Elaine were pleasantly high and chattering easily and freely.
Elaine’s mother was a marine biologist, originally from Fiji, and her father was a Japanese businessman, currently serving a three-year term on a prison colony for fraud and embezzlement. She was philosophical about her family’s disgrace, as she was about the fact that it had taken her three tries to pass the Dexta Entrance Examinations. She was Gloria’s age, but seemed younger. Gloria knew all of this from Elaine’s file, but it was interesting to hear about it from her own lips. Gloria had yet to figure her out to her own satisfaction, and hoped to get to know her better during their trip.
Petra, the Lap Dog, was friendly, smart, loyal, obedient, brave, helpful, efficient, and funny. Elaine, the Tiger-in-the-making, was clever, ambitious, tactful, wary, given to taking shortcuts, and a little too slick for her own good. Gloria liked her, but didn’t really trust her, the way she did Petra.
Worse, there was an uncomfortable suggestion of hero-worship in Elaine’s attitude toward her, and something more. It was as if Elaine believed that by observing Gloria closely, she might somehow learn and absorb her secret of success and make it part of herself. Well, thought Gloria, she’s welcome to try.
“Another?” Elaine asked, indicating the DryWine.
Gloria hesitated, then said, “Why not?” There were enough packets of the stuff to keep them both blind drunk all the way to New Cambridge, which was probably the way some people preferred to travel. Elaine mixed the brew, poured for them, then lifted her glass in a toast.
“Here’s to our first mission together,” she said. “May it be successful, and not our last.”
Gloria clinked glasses with her and took another gulp of the concoction. The first glass had been dreadful, but the fourth was merely bad. She had an idea about how to improve the fifth even more. Gloria got up, went back to her bunk, found her travel bag, rummaged around in it briefly, then returned forward carrying a small plastic bag.
She swilled down the rest of her glass, then handed it to Elaine. “Here, make another batch. Got an idea.”
Elaine did as instructed. Gloria opened the plastic bag, took out a small handful of dried brown leaves, crushed them in her hand, then sprinkled the resulting powder into their glasses. She found a spoon and stirred vigorously until the powder had nearly disappeared.
“Jigli,” Gloria explained. “It should improve this stuff, and it has some pleasant side effects.”
“What is it?” Elaine asked. “I never heard of it.”
“A little souvenir from Mynjhino. Drink up.” They did. The tart, astringent taste of the jigli certainly didn’t hurt the DryWine—as if anything could have.
Why did I do that? Gloria wondered vacantly. She was getting pretty drunk, she realized, so maybe her judgment was a little cloudy. And maybe she just wanted to shut down her rational mind as completely as possible for the next few hours.
At war with the Quadrant Administrators. Spirit, how had she managed to bungle her way into such a fix? A Fifth Quadrant? Well, it sounded good, but the reality was that OSI was a tiny appendage of Dexta—a little toe, no more—while the Quadrants were the heart and lungs. Did she really believe that OSI could survive and triumph in such an unequal contest? Of course, she could always take the easy way out and go be Empress Gloria…
Elaine giggled irrelevantly. Gloria wanted to giggle irrelevantly, too. “What?” she asked.
“I was just thinking how great this is,” Elaine answered, and giggled again.
Gloria found no cause for giggles. “If this is your idea of great,” she said, waving her arm to encompass the cramped Flyer, “then you have led too sheltered a life.”
“Not sheltered,” Elaine said. “Definitely not sheltered. Just a little limited, maybe. But that’s not what I meant. I meant that it’s great, being alone here with you, getting plastered with Gloria VanDeen. You’re my ideal, Gloria. I can’t begin to tell you how much I admire and respect you.”
“Don’t, then.”
“Really,” Elaine persisted, “you’ve got the Empire by its balls, Gloria. You do what you w
ant, no man owns you, and you have fun on your own terms. You do important work and save a lot of lives and make Dexta look good and…oh, just everything!”
Gloria sipped some more of the jigli-laced DryWine. The familiar jigli glow was spreading through her, warming her groin, tingling her limbs. And the DryWine was doing a job of its own on her slightly spinning head.
“So you wanna be like me?” Gloria asked Elaine.
“Of course!” Elaine gushed.
“Lemme tell ya, sometimes, I don’t wanna be like me. It’s a full-time job, you know. And sometimes, people try to kill me. Ever smell your own hair being burned? I gotta be Gloria VanDeen allatime, everywhere I go. You think that’s easy?”
“No, but it must be a lot of fun.”
“Sometimes,” Gloria said, “having fun can be a lot of work.”
Gloria got unsteadily to her feet, made her way aft, and plopped down on her bunk. A moment later, Elaine sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Are you all right, Gloria?” she asked.
“Fine, just fine,” Gloria assured her, then closed her eyes. Suddenly, she became aware of Elaine’s lips pressing against her own.
She opened her eyes and tried to focus. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing I haven’t done before,” Elaine said, giggling again.
Gloria tried to sit up, but the slight weight of Elaine’s body pressed her back down. “What the hell do you mean by that?” Gloria demanded.
“Remember that night, a couple of weeks ago, at the Club Twelve Twenty-Nine? I was there, Gloria.”
“Spirit,” Gloria groaned. She remembered the night, if not all the details. Not Elaine, certainly.
“It took a little doing,” Elaine explained, “but I finally managed to squeeze in next to you. I kissed you, like this”—she demonstrated—“and then you kissed my tits. You seemed to enjoy it. Then I kissed yours”—again, she demonstrated—“and you seemed to enjoy that, too.”
“Elaine—”
“So then I went on kissing you.” Elaine shifted her weight and moved downward, twirling her tongue around inside Gloria’s navel. Gloria shuddered.
“Elaine,” she said, “maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
Elaine looked up at her and said, “I think it is. Here, I have a treat.” Elaine held her hand in front of Gloria’s face. Two familiar lozenges were in her palm.
“Twenty-nine?” Gloria asked.
Elaine smiled and popped one of the lozenges into her mouth. The other, she placed between Gloria’s lips, then continued her journey downward across Gloria’s brown belly. She giggled again as Gloria’s soft blond thatch tickled her chin.
Not such a good idea at all, Gloria thought. And then she realized, as she shuddered again, that if she really wanted Elaine to stop, she should have said so much sooner. It was far too late for that now.
CLUTCHING PUG’S FOREARM, PETRA PAUSED AT the top of the short flight of polished marble steps that led downward into the vast, glittering ballroom. She took in a breath, took in the scene. Gliding gracefully around an area only slightly smaller than Weehawken, two or three hundred of the Ellisons’ closest friends were dancing to the sedate rhythms of a large orchestra playing lush and lugubrious ballads from the twenty-fourth century. Everyone was beautiful or handsome, or both. Gemstones glinted and flashed incessantly as the stalwart men of New Cambridge maneuvered their extravagantly coiffed and garbed women around the dance floor. Liveried servants darted back and forth among the tables that ringed the room, while smiling bartenders kept a steady flow going. The dance number ended, the dancers politely applauded, then, almost as one person, turned to look toward the top of the stairs—at Petra.
It was one of those flash-frozen moments, and Petra knew, even as it was happening, that she would always remember it. The gentry of New Cambridge had come to this party in the expectation of seeing the young woman that the Ellison lad had brought home with him, and here she was—looking as good as she ever had in her life. Makeup just so, hair still brown but artfully highlighted and swirling down to her shoulders, dead on her ideal weight for once, thanks to all that Qatsima, and the dress was one she’d borrowed from Gloria and never given back. It was the dress she’d worn that night at the Governor’s Reception on Mynjhino, and it left her mostly naked from her shoulders to far below her navel, with the dark blue smart fabric set at 70 percent transparency. The skirt was slashed in a wide vee almost to the crotch, and there was no back at all, to speak of. Ricky had loved it…
Poor Ricky. Dead, just days later. She hadn’t worn the dress since then. Ricky had been the first great love of her life, blazing across her sky like a meteor, bright and hot and suddenly gone. Then there had been a brief fling with Bryce Denton, the sexy news weasel, but no one after that until she and Pug had found their way, after much travail, into each other’s arms on Sylvania.
She loved Pug, although not quite the way she had loved Ricky; on the other hand, she hadn’t loved Ricky the same way she loved Pug. Her love for Ricky had been crazy and fantastic, fierce in its intensity. With Pug the temperature was not quite as high, but she saw in him a love that might last.
So tonight was another necessary ritual, like Meeting the Parents. Now, she had to meet, not Pug’s friends, since he scarcely knew most of these people, but his peers—the wealthy, powerful, and arrogant few who ran this planet. The social elite, the very apex of the food chain. She stared at them and they stared back, and for a moment the immense hall fell silent. Pug squeezed her hand, and together they started down the steps. Noise and chatter returned, and Petra had made her entrance. She resumed breathing.
Pug, who looked as if he had been born to wear a white dinner jacket, steered Petra through the throng with his palm on her bare back, smiling and nodding and making quick introductions. Petra felt as if she had been transported into one of those romance novels her mother constantly read, where life was nothing but a series of grand balls and swirling gaiety, punctuated by the occasional kidnapping by dashing rogues. There were even a few authentic Lords and Ladies present, well practiced in their charming condescension.
“Whoops,” Pug said abruptly. “Moment of Truth approaching. Here comes one of my old girlfriends.”
“Which one?” Petra demanded. “The one who wants to be a nun, or the one who died in the tragic Ferris wheel accident?”
“That one,” Pug said, pointing toward a willowy blond with an intricate hairdo and heaving breasts the size of small melons, completely on display in an iridescent confection that had probably been woven together from the tailfeathers of some endangered species of hummingbird. Petra silently gulped, then quickly hit the contact switch in her dress seam, upping the transparency of her own gown to 80 percent. As Petra stepped forward to meet the competition, she found herself wondering how Gloria would have handled a moment like this.
“Pug, dearest!”
“Steff! You look wonderful tonight!” They exchanged quick kisses on their respective cheeks. Pug put his arm back around Petra. “Petra,” he said, “I want to introduce you to an old and dear friend, Steffany Fairchild. Steff, this is Petra Nash.”
They shook hands and smiled at one another. “Charmed,” said Steffany. “We’ve all been looking forward to meeting you, Petra.”
“All?”
“All of Pug’s friends, I mean. He’s been gone for over a year now, and we’ve been wondering about this mysterious new woman in his life. I mean, who would have thought that he’d find someone in Dexta?” Steffany laughed at the very mention of such an absurd notion.
“Petra,” Pug said proudly, “is Gloria VanDeen’s assistant.”
“And he’s mine,” Petra added, possessively clamping an arm around Pug’s waist.
“Yes,” said Steffany, one eyebrow raised, “so I see.”
“And what do you do, Steffany?” Petra asked, gamely trying to make conversation.
“Do?”
“Steff doesn’t exactly do anything, Pet,” Pug ex
plained.
“Now that’s not true, and you know it. I’m on half a dozen charity committees. Why, just last week your mother and I spent a whole afternoon together, trying to come up with a theme for this year’s Founders Day Ball.”
“A whole afternoon,” said Petra trying to sound impressed. “And what did you settle on?”
“We were torn between ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and the Sultan’s Seraglio. The full committee will have to decide.”
An old school chum suddenly appeared and dragged Pug away, leaving the two women staring at each other in brittle silence. Finally, Steffany said, “Charming dress, Petra. But perhaps a little too ‘New York,’ if you take my meaning. Here on New Cambridge, we keep our pussies covered.”
“Yes,” said Petra, “I’d bet money on it.”
Steffany crossed her arms and tilted her head to one side. “Think you can keep him?”
“I haven’t seen any reason yet to think that I can’t,” Petra replied.
“Really? Then perhaps you should look around you. If you think I’m your only competition for Pug, you’re either naïve or foolish. The Ellisons are not about to let their son spend his life as a file clerk—or as a file clerk’s assistant. You may think those cute little tits of yours will keep him hooked, but you’re dealing with primal forces here, Petra. You might keep that in mind.”
A little later, Petra met some of the primal forces, face-to-face. Pug steered Petra over to a knot of distinguished-looking people and made the appropriate introductions. “And this,” he concluded, “is my great-uncle Benedict, my mother’s uncle.” Uncle Benedict had silver hair and piercing blue eyes that took Petra in from head to toe with evident approval.
“Congratulations on the new appointment,” Pug said. He turned to Petra and explained, “Uncle Benedict was just named Imperial Governor of Pelham III, out on the Frontier in Sector 23.”
