Elsa unwrapped the layers of paper surrounding the item. She gasped. “Marraine, I can’t accept this! It’s far too generous.”
Marraine smiled, her strange eyes shining. “It’s unwise to reject a gift from the fays, child. Take it and enjoy it. You’ve earned it.” She dropped a kiss on Elsa’s forehead, feather-light.
Elsa hugged her tightly and then wrapped the package back up. Her smile seemed a permanent fixture by this point. “I accept, with gratitude. Just let me go clean up. It would be nothing short of criminal to get soot on this.”
5
Camilla and Priscilla had never seen so many people on Tremaine Station. The party was located in the vaulted central atrium of the station, and the crowds packed in so that they could catch a glimpse of the Sovereign’s crew, especially Captain and Lieutenant Tsarevich. The clones, wearing purple dresses with purple stockings and purple shoes, were leaning over the balcony of the second level, looking down at the people swirling below. The dancing was expected to begin any moment.
“There he is,” Camilla said, elbowing the other clone. “This is our chance.”
The captain and the lieutenant caused a stir the moment they strode in, imposing in their long dark coats. The rest of the Sovereign’s crew had foregone the customary uniforms in favor of more colorful civilian wear.
The clones took a service lift down, avoiding the worst of the crowd, and emerged behind the Tsarevich men as they walked into the atrium.
Priscilla grabbed Karl Tsarevich’s arm, causing him to start. “It’s so wonderful to see you here!” she exclaimed, as though they were old friends. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Do I know you?” the lieutenant asked, a little bewildered.
Priscilla nodded solemnly. “From a past life. We were soul mates. It’ll all come back to you.”
“You perished, beheaded by barbarians,” Camilla supplied helpfully. “I’m sure your luck will be better this time around.”
From an upper level, Elsa looked down on the scene as the clones clutched their prize. Karl, poor soul, looked slightly panicked and a little amused, which was typical for someone newly introduced to the clones. As Elsa watched, Camilla led him to a table with hors d’oeuvres, and Priscilla handed him a plate filled with something unidentifiable before he could refuse. Elsa saw him take a bite of the finger food and pull a subtle face. He surreptitiously slipped the offending delicacy into a potted plant next to him when the clones were momentarily distracted by the sight of his father choosing a dance partner.
She snorted. “Charming.”
Bruno appeared at her side, looking very dignified in his best clothes. “Marraine and the boys are already downstairs. Are you going to join this party, or are you just going to hover up here?”
Elsa took a deep breath, a little nervous in her unaccustomed finery. “Let’s go.”
Bruno offered her his arm, and they walked down the staircase together.
The Charger 751 orchestra was tucked next to the staircase, and the musicians happened to begin playing dance music just as Elsa and Bruno reached the bottom steps. Several heads swiveled to look in the direction of the sound—including Karl’s.
There were several audible gasps from the people nearby when they caught sight of Elsa—or rather, when they caught sight of Marraine’s gift. The gown Elsa wore was unearthly in every sense of the word. One look and everyone could tell this was something from another world. The dress shimmered, silvers and blues glimmering like the light of an alien moon on the sea. It looked wrong, somehow, but breathtakingly, exquisitely so.
Karl, truth be told, would have taken advantage of any excuse to escape the clones—Camilla was regaling him with the tale of the gruesome demise of her cat, Kumquat, and Priscilla was staring at him with too much adoration for comfort—but he was intrigued by the woman standing at the foot of the stairs, looking terribly foreign and heart-wrenchingly lovely at the same time.
Bruno moved away from Elsa, giving a strange little bow, and she glanced at him in puzzlement at this unexpected courtly behavior. He looked past her shoulder. She turned, and there was Captain Tsarevich’s son.
He was on the short side, she noted with some surprise. Still taller than she was, of course—everyone was—but noticeably under-height for a legendary space hero.
“Hello. Would you care to dance?” he asked.
Elsa dredged up dim, cobwebby recollections of an attempt at learning to dance back in her early school days and was not sanguine about her abilities. “I’m not very good,” she admitted.
“Not a problem,” he said with a tinge of desperation. “We’ll wing it. I’m just not sure I can handle another gruesome feline death.”
Elsa laughed and took his offered hand. He seemed very human for a hero about whom parents told bedtime stories to their children. “Mmm, Camilla does have bad luck with pets. Did you hear the story about the exploding tumor?”
Karl guided them out towards the center of the area being used as a dance floor. “Not yet, thank heaven. Please, don’t spoil it for me.”
Marraine danced past with Jaq, who looked amazed by his good fortune. Elsa waved at the couple.
Karl did a double take. “Is she a fay?” he asked in awe.
“She is,” Elsa replied, focusing intently on her feet so she didn’t tumble into the potted plant like the hors d’oeuvre. “Have you met any before?”
“Only once, years ago. We’ve not been to the quadrant containing the fays’ homeworld in a long time. I was entranced—they were very beautiful, and very kind.”
Elsa couldn’t agree more after the events of the day. “Very kind indeed. Marraine gave me this dress for the evening, and I’ve never worn anything so fine. She said there were crystal shoes to go with it, but I think I would have inadvertently killed one or both of us by now if I’d attempted to wear them.”
“Crystal shoes?” he inquired, quirking an eyebrow. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”
“Marraine admitted they were awfully uncomfortable, which isn’t too surprising,” Elsa said. “Apparently they’re traditional footwear on her planet for ceremonial occasions.”
Karl winced remarkably like Elsa had when Marraine told her about the shoes.
“I know!” she said. “Fearful thought.”
Karl paused, struck by an idea. “Wait. Traditional for both men and women?”
She froze for a moment before bursting out laughing. “You know, it didn’t occur to me to ask. I’ll have to visit someday and find out. There are so many places I haven’t been.”
“Where is home for you?”
It should have been a difficult question for a cinder who bounced from one mining world to the next, but she answered without thinking. “Here,” she replied, surprising herself. “This is where my friends are.” She added, “I was born on Anser.”
Her partner cleared his throat. “That’s a hard place to live. Were you, ah, there for . . .”
Elsa’s smile faded. “The battle? I was, though I was very young and don’t remember much. My mother was killed in the action. She was serving aboard the Wilhelm as a propulsion expert.”
Karl broke rhythm for just a second. “I’m very sorry,” he said soberly. “The loss of the Wilhelm’s crew was a terrible tragedy.”
Elsa gave him a gentle smile. “Thank you. My father and I missed my mother very much, but we were proud of her.”
“Is your father here on the station?”
Elsa couldn’t imagine her father ever living in a place like this. “No, unfortunately he also passed away several years ago. He wasn’t one to leave the homeworld, though. He was a glacial geologist; he loved Anser because of—not in spite of—the cold and snow.”
Karl flushed. “I’m sorry, I seem to be doing nothing but opening old wounds this evening.”
Touched by his concern, she hastened to reassure him. “Not at all, please don’t feel badly. It’s nice to talk about my parents. I haven’t in some time.” El
sa paused to concentrate on a particularly tricky—at least for her—turn. “Actually, your arrival reminded me of some of my favorite memories with them,” she confessed.
“How so?”
“Our family loved to see the ships come in. My mother adored the Wilhelm, and my father would always take me to see her when she docked.” Elsa met Karl’s eyes, a little shy. “I watched the Sovereign come into port a few days ago. She’s magnificent.”
Karl’s face lit up. “She is that! I love her dearly. I don’t often see her from the outside, of course, but whenever I do . . . it’s enough to make your breath catch in your chest.”
He had an infectious smile, Elsa noticed. “Indeed it is. You know . . .” She paused speculatively and looked around the atrium. “The observation deck is probably fairly clear right now. Would you like to go see her?”
“Gladly,” he said with such fervor that Elsa had to bite back a laugh. “Oh,” he said, remembering his manners, “unless you’d prefer to dance? I don’t want to deprive you of all the entertainment.”
Elsa’s lips twitched in mischief. “The risk to your toes increases exponentially the longer we dance; I’m having trouble talking and dancing as it is. We can always come back. The dancing will probably be going for hours if your father has anything to say about it.”
The observation deck was at the top of the atrium, so they could still hear the strains of music when they walked off the lift. But their attention was entirely consumed by the ship in front of them, looking like a bird frozen in the moment of flight.
Elsa did indeed catch her breath. “Imagine, sailing among the stars in that,” she murmured, unable to suppress a twinge of envy.
Karl walked up to the window. “She’s a good home to us,” he said, gazing outside. “Not that there aren’t times when I get sick of life aboard ship,” he conceded. “But those times are rare.”
“I’m glad you realize how fortunate you are,” Elsa said. How might her life be different now if she had shipped out with the fleet instead of becoming a cinder? She trailed her eyes across the frigate’s hull, trying to imagine it.
“Believe me, I do. Especially now, in these times of peace.” He put out his hand to touch the glass idly. “The Sovereign wasn’t meant to wage war, though that’s what she’s spent so much of her life doing.”
“It does seem wrong that something so beautiful should be used to take lives,” Elsa agreed. “Whoever designed her clearly had more than killing in mind.”
Karl turned to her, his eyes thoughtful. “What was it like, growing up on Anser? So much death was dealt out in the skies over that planet.”
“Life returns to normal eventually. Or life becomes the new normal, I suppose.” She shrugged, not because she didn’t care, but because she cared too much. “Some things didn’t really change.” She told him of days and nights on the snowfields, star-gazing in the crystal-sharp air, hearing the snow geese in the night. “During the autumn, I often woke to the sound of the geese flying south. Their cries made me restless; I wanted to run after them to places I’d never been.” She gestured to the Sovereign. “The sight of her makes me feel that same ache, almost physical—as though it’s time to be off and see new sights.”
He listened, rapt, and in turn she asked him for stories of his life, growing up aboard a frigate. He told her of the early days of families being permitted on board, what it was like with so few other children around, going from one colonized world to the next.
“One of my favorite planets to visit is New Gaul,” he said. “It’s not a place for thrilling adventures, but I enjoy its tranquility. And the food is superb,” he added with a roguish grin.
Elsa chuckled. “My friend Jaq is from New Gaul,” she said. “You two should share recipes.”
“Really? We were there recently, actually—just a quick stop for repairs. The sails took some damage in an asteroid belt crossing when we had a bit of trouble with the main shielding emitters.”
Elsa raised an eyebrow. “That shouldn’t have occurred. Zero-point energy collectors like the Sovereign’s Casimir sails are designed to have separate shielding specifically to avoid that problem, and power can be routed through several auxiliary routes in case of damage to any one section.”
Karl stared at her, mouth open.
Feeling terribly bold, she laughed and tapped his jaw shut with a finger. “My mother was a propulsion expert, remember? I learned about solar sails and drawing energy from the ground state of fields in the vacuum of space around the same time I learned to ride a hoverbike.”
“Stars above, why aren’t you serving in the fleet?” he asked, dumbfounded. “Propulsion experts are always in high demand.”
“Not always,” she said. “Not on Anser, not after the battle. The fleet dock was destroyed; no one was shipping out from the port. My father worked hard to rebuild the planet, but he took too much on himself; I didn’t realize he had gone into personal debt, trying to help some of the families in our region.” Her mouth twisted in sadness. “Not until he passed away and I was left to pay it off. I needed a high-paying job, and the fleet doesn’t pay much to those starting out, as you know,” she said, looking up at Karl. “I started on a different career path at a young age, and by the time I had earned enough that I might have been able to quit, I’d missed the ideal time window for fleet training for my age group.”
She knew she sounded wistful, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret her decision—not most days, anyway. Again she glanced sideways at Karl, who looked stricken. “Oh, it’s not so bad!” she said, laughing at his expression and at herself for her maudlin ramblings while she should be enjoying her time with the golden boy of the fleet.
She tapped a finger against the glass. “If I’m honest with myself, I know I could still have gone and made a place for myself there.” She turned to face the lieutenant. “But by then I’d found a family here. We live in a pragmatic galaxy, at least in my corner of it; when I found unconditional kindness here, I hung onto it. It’s a rare thing, in my experience.”
He looked long and hard at her, and she couldn’t read his expression. “I think I envy you your perspective,” he said finally. “If we all shared it, the worlds would be a very different place.”
The music drifting up from below changed subtly, and he seemed to realize he was gazing at her too long. He smiled. “We should rejoin the party,” he said. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s a tango, and this will be worth watching.”
Elsa tilted her head. “Why?”
“You’ll see.”
Bruno and Gus stood to one side of the dancers, watching with amusement. Dancing wasn’t really Bruno’s forte; but he found himself enjoying the sight, even if it did unearth memories.
Do I still have mine? he wondered, watching the captain’s long coat swirl as he danced. He had worn that coat with such pride, long before his days of wearing a cinder suit.
Gus nudged him with an elbow, jostling him from his thoughts. “Do you think I could come up with an excuse to talk to the King?” he asked.
Bruno grunted, his attention suddenly focused on an unexpected party-goer on the other side of the room.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Bruno nodded, then shook his head. “Not really. Take a look over there,” he gestured with his chin.
Gus turned. “Where?”
“By the orchestra, next to the stairs.”
Gus raised an eyebrow. “Is that Nebraska? She never comes to station gatherings.”
“Mmmhmm.” Arms crossed, Bruno watched the cyborg with narrowed eyes.
Gus glanced at him. “What is it?”
“She’s been talking with the music director from Charger 751 for some time.”
Gus cocked his head. “You think she’s up to something?” He watched her for a few seconds. “She doesn’t look particularly vicious at the moment. Anyway, I thought she was turning over a new piece of circuitry, so to speak; she was almost nice earlier.”
&nb
sp; Bruno snorted. “People—even cyborgs—don’t change overnight. She was almost too nice earlier.”
“If you ever stop worrying, you won’t know what to do with yourself.” Gus glanced at his commlink as a tango piece began. “It’s almost midnight. I’m going to dance a bit more before calling it a night.”
Bruno lifted a hand in farewell.
When they emerged from the lift, Karl stepped straight back into the dance, drawing Elsa in. He looked over Elsa’s shoulder, turning her until she could see that side of the room.
“My father loves a tango,” he said.
Captain Tsarevich had snatched the hand of one of the station vendors, who happily allowed herself to be dragged onto the dance floor. The captain glided smoothly across the space, expression set in concentration. Elsa laughed out loud; she couldn’t help it. Seeing the distinguished Captain tango suavely across the floor was so incongruous with his fearsome reputation. He dipped the station vendor, and she yelped.
Karl twirled Elsa, and her skirt fanned out like rippling water. When she moved back into his hold, she said, “I never thought I’d see the King of the Stars cut loose like that.”
Karl cringed. “You have no idea how quickly that nickname grew old aboard ship. No one likes to work for the King.”
“You’ve heard they call you the Prince, haven’t you?”
He blinked, plainly horrified. “I haven’t. That’s even worse.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t complain. Plenty of people envy you, the son of a famous captain, sailing the stars in the flagship of the galactic fleet, and now, of course, exploring new star systems . . .” She arched an eyebrow at him.
He glanced around and lowered his voice. “You’ve heard about that?”
So they had been right! She tried and failed to keep the smugness from her voice. “Not exactly. But we surmised it.”
“We?” His voice rose an octave.
She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. “My friends and I. It didn’t take much effort to put the facts together.”
Five Glass Slippers: A Collection of Cinderella Stories Page 26
