Assistant’s lips twitched, but the assessing look remained on her face for a moment longer, as if she was recalculating what she knew about Ari all over again. Moving the pieces around into something that fit.
Then again, Assistant already knew Ari better than anyone else in the universe, including Ari’s own father. Not so long ago, the thought would have stung; here and now, it made Ari’s heart flutter.
“You’re good at a lot of things,” she added, and smiled hopefully.
Assistant sat back in her chair. “Are you seducing me, Your Ladyship?”
Ari nodded hard.
Chuckling, Assistant rose to her feet. “Good news. You win this one, too.”
~ ~ ~
Afterward, they lay in Ari’s bed. They were still sweaty, but neither of them was particularly sleepy yet. And to Ari, it seemed the Q’heri match had opened a door of some kind—a door to her own past, at least.
“Maybe I could show you something,” Ari said shyly, and when Assistant had nodded, she brought out the holo-chip she kept in the top drawer of the nightstand.
She pressed the button, and the pictures leapt to life. Ari quickly skimmed through them until she found the one she wanted. It didn’t take long—there weren’t many. She and Assistant looked silently for a moment at the dark-haired woman who floated before them in pixels and lights.
“That’s my mother,” Ari said. “Lady Fara.”
“I’d have guessed it,” Assistant said. “You look remarkably like her.”
“Oh, no,” Ari said. “She was so much more beautiful. Everybody said so.” She chuckled a little painfully. “When I was a kid, sometimes I overheard people saying that it was a shame that someone like my mother had given birth to someone who looked like me—you know, gangly and plain and all that.”
“Mmm.” Assistant trailed her hand up and down Ari’s bare stomach and thigh. “I do not appreciate someone disagreeing with my own assessment.”
Ari blushed. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway. She was so pretty, and she loved parties and music and all that. But she was a good mother, too—I don’t remember much, but I know that. I have memories of her holding me and smiling.”
Assistant nodded.
Ari took a deep breath. She was getting to the painful part. “But when I was seven, she came down with Etelian Fever.”
“Oh,” Assistant said. “Yes. I remember there was an outbreak about thirteen years ago.”
“My father got it, too. He lived, but sometimes he still has relapses. The fever comes back sometimes, but not as badly. I never caught it because I was so young.”
Assistant nodded again.
“So…that was my mother.” Ari kept looking at the beautiful woman with the dark hair and warm smile. Life would have been so different if…
“You and your father do not speak much,” Assistant said, sounding almost cautious.
Ari bit her lip. “Well, everybody’s always told me how crazy he was about my mother. After she died, maybe I reminded him too much of her.”
“You were his responsibility,” Assistant said. “Grief or not, he had no right to abandon you.”
“He didn’t!” Ari protested. “I told you, he always made sure I was taken care of. He has more to worry about than I can even imagine. Or you, for that matter.” That wasn’t meant to be condescending—just honest. Assistant was immensely smart and capable, but she was a slave, not a stationmaster. How could she know what it was like to have Ari’s father’s responsibilities?
“No indeed. How could I imagine such a thing?”
Ari wouldn’t give Assistant the satisfaction of engaging with her sarcasm. “And he’s always been really good about letting me look after my plants. Wherever we moved, he made sure I could transport my whole garden with me, and that I’d get quarters that could hold it all.”
“Yours are rather vast,” Assistant conceded. She glanced through Ari’s open bedroom door into the foliage. “Although it’s hard to tell sometimes because it seems a little crowded out there.”
“So, you see?” Ari persisted. It seemed important for Assistant to understand. “He loves me.”
Assistant took the holo-chip gently and turned off the projection. “Yes.”
“Well…he does.” There hadn’t been doubt in Assistant’s voice, but you could never be sure with her. “What about your parents? I still don’t know anything about…” You. “How you grew up.”
“My parents were killed by pirates when I was very young,” Assistant said, her voice as bland as ever. “But they kept me. I must have been three or four. So, I grew up among the pirates. I remember no other life.”
This time, Ari understood her inflection—the I’m-done-talking-about-this tone. “Oh,” she said in a small voice. Then she dared to squeeze Assistant’s hand with her own.
“Yes.” Assistant pulled her hand free. But her voice was kind when she leaned over Ari, put the chip on the table, turned off the lamp, and said “Get some sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow, don’t we?”
“The saplings!” Ari said, and quivered happily.
“Indeed,” Assistant said, and stroked her cheek.
CHAPTER 10
“Don’t touch that!”
At Ari’s call, Assistant’s hand paused over the intercom button. She frowned. “Is it malfunctioning? It was fine at lunch.”
“It’s working as far as I know.” Ari hurried out of the garden into the kitchen, pausing to untie her apron and hang it up on the rack by her shelves. “I just thought, it’s time for me to honor my promise.”
“Your promise?” Assistant didn’t sound terribly focused as she looked Ari up and down. She usually did that when Ari’s apron came off at the end of the day, and more often than not it led to very enjoyable shenanigans.
Ari wasn’t about to let herself get distracted, though. “Remember? The first time we went to the Observatory, I said we could go to the mess hall, too. I never followed through. I thought…” She put her hands behind her back, lifted her chin, and let a teasing note enter her voice. “Tonight could be the night.”
Her cheeks warmed. It was becoming easier to get a little suggestive, even to express a bit of open affection from time to time. Mainly she followed Assistant’s lead, which didn’t exactly go anywhere demonstrative, but she’d also covertly been searching for tips over the Infonets with her datapad. She’d even found a couple of romantic poems that would have seemed ridiculously sentimental once, or at least alien to her own experience, but that now made a lot more sense.
To her delight, Assistant responded. She didn’t always, but tonight she folded her arms, cocked her head to the side, raised an eyebrow, and said, “The mess hall, hmm? Be careful, Ariana. I might swoon.”
Ari grinned. “I’ve got half a bucket full of water left over from Cambrensium. I’d revive you.” She looked down at her grubby skirt. “Let’s get cleaned up and go. What do you think I should wear, the red dress?”
When Assistant did not reply, Ari looked up and was surprised to see a touch of darkness in her gaze.
“No, I don’t think the red dress,” Assistant said, her voice a little rough.
“I thought you liked that dress.” Ari blushed at the memory of how, exactly, Assistant had told her she liked the dress. “Wouldn’t it be nice for me to bring it out again for you?”
“For me, yes.” Assistant stepped forward. No, not “stepped”—more like “prowled.”
Ari’s heart began to beat faster.
“But you’re talking about everyone else,” Assistant continued. “Did you even notice how people’s eyes followed you when you wore it that night?”
Ari tried to laugh it off, but it sounded much too breathless to be casual. “Oh, come on. Nobody did that. And if they did, it’s because I’m the stationmaster’s daughter and I’m hardly ever outdoors.”
“And what a waste that is.” Assistant was close enough to trace a fingertip over Ari’s cheek.
Ari’s eyes
fluttered shut for a moment as the touch made her tingle.
“Not that I’ve seen a great sampling of this station’s population,” Assistant added, “but I’m having a hard time imagining that a single woman here is more luscious than you.”
Ari looked away from her eyes even as her mouth widened in an unstoppable smile. “That’s—that’s sweet of you.”
“I’m not sweet.” Assistant’s arms slid around Ari’s waist.
Instead of looking up, Ari rested her head on Assistant’s shoulder and breathed in her scent, felt the strength of her.
“So why shouldn’t I wear the dress if I look nice in it? I’d like to look good for you.” That had sounded as teasing as it should have—it had come out much too sincerely for Ari’s peace of mind. She didn’t want to sound as sappy as those poets. “So people see you out and about with someone who doesn’t look like a complete disaster.”
“‘Out and about?’”
Ari heard the frown in Assistant’s voice and stiffened. When Assistant put it like that, suddenly the phrase sounded a lot more suggestive than she’d meant it to. “Well—yeah. We’ll be out of my quarters. Going…about. Right?”
“Ariana.” Assistant pulled back, holding her at arm’s length, to Ari’s dismay. The darkness had vanished from her gaze, and now she only looked serious.
“I am delighted to get a better look at this station—believe me—but if you don’t want attention, then don’t treat your slave as your equal in public. Or, worse, as a friend.”
Or a lover went unsaid. Ari’s face flamed.
Before she could object, Assistant shook her head. “I know what you’re going to say. What I am saying is a reality that we must both accept outside these rooms.”
We. Both. There was no way Assistant had meant for Ari’s mind to grab onto those particular words, but Ari couldn’t help the glow they created in her belly. The stupid, irrational glow. Put like that, it almost seemed like Assistant was upset about it too.
“What does that mean?” she asked. “I’m not even supposed to talk to you? People talk to sl—”
She nearly gasped. What had she been about to imply? That slaves weren’t people? Assistant’s lifted eyebrow proved that she’d caught what Ari was now desperately trying to cover. “Owners…masters…” Ari was, technically, neither of those things to Assistant. Her father was. “You know what I mean. Slaves are talked to. What else should I do?”
Assistant’s face had already relapsed into its most neutral, inscrutable look. “The normal thing would be for you to talk to other people, Ariana. Friends or acquaintances whom you see in the mess hall.”
The warm glow in Ari’s belly had entirely vanished, replaced with a much less pleasant kind of heat: anger. The odds of her encountering an acquaintance in the mess hall were miniscule, much less of her encountering a friend. All her friends were within the walls of her quarters. Assistant knew that perfectly well. “Well, I guess I’m not exactly normal, then. Look, do you want to go or not?”
Assistant looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Yes, you little cricket, I want to go.”
“Well then, let’s… Did you call me a cricket?” Maybe Ari hadn’t heard that correctly.
“I did.” Assistant did not look either embarrassed or malicious, just exasperated. “Chirp, chirp, chirp, all day long.”
It probably wasn’t a nickname, but it sure sounded like one. For the moment, Ari decided to pretend it’d stick. She’d never had a nickname before. To hide her sudden rush of pleasure, she turned around and headed for her bedroom. She called back, “I’m wearing that dress, and you can’t stop me!” Then, unable to prevent herself, she looked back over her shoulder, smiling.
Assistant stuck her tongue in her cheek, folded her arms, and said, “I do appear to be rather helpless. Go on with you, then.”
Still grinning, Ari rushed into her bedroom, listening to Assistant’s tread as she went to her alcove.
~ ~ ~
Assistant had obviously been imagining things. Ari checked subtly to see whether people looked at her differently in her red dress, but she noticed nothing other than the usual deferential nods or salutes. Certainly, nobody looked at her like Assistant did.
“See?” she asked Assistant in a low voice. “Nobody cares about what I have on.”
A pause ensued, during which Ari thought Assistant had decided not to reply. Then she heard a murmur that thrilled her from her head to her toes: “I do.”
She was still blushing as they reached the Officers’ Mess, reserved for ranking officers and their families. The food there was better, the furnishings more refined, and more importantly, it held fewer people.
Unfortunately, Ari had forgotten that officers were more likely to approach her than enlisted troops. Many of them knew her father personally and wanted to convey their greetings while she fought to keep smiling. Her face didn’t want to smile, especially because she’d also forgotten that slaves weren’t allowed to sit with their masters in the Officers’ Mess. It wasn’t such a big deal in the regular mess hall, because so few enlisted troops had slaves, and sometimes soldiers and slaves even befriended each other, although it was technically frowned upon.
Lady Ariana Geiker had no such allowance, and when she saw the slaves standing obediently to the side while their masters ate, she almost turned right around and dragged Assistant out of there.
But Assistant placed a hand on her elbow and then withdrew it before anybody noticed. “No,” she said softly. “We’ll stay.”
“But I forgot you can’t even sit down.” Ari’s elbow tingled, the only pleasant sensation she could feel while her face burned with embarrassment. Assistant had hated kneeling next to her at the banquet. At least here she didn’t have to do that, but still, they’d be able to talk even less than they would have in the regular mess.
“Trust me.” Assistant ever-so-slightly nudged her farther into the mess. “Sit down, eat, and pay attention to what’s going on around you.”
A private wearing a dress uniform ushered both Ari and Assistant to a small table by a window with a lovely view of the stars. Even though there were two seats, Assistant couldn’t sit down, which was so ridiculous. Why were people treated like this? Why couldn’t a human being, tired from a long day in the garden, sit down in a chair nobody else was using?
In her memory, her father’s voice said firmly, Don’t ask questions, Ariana. For the first time ever, she imagined herself telling him that he was wrong and she’d ask as many questions as she wanted about this barbarous practice.
The idea was so shocking that when a waiter appeared with a menu and a slight bow, she nearly jumped in her chair. Assistant, standing to her left by the window, didn’t quite manage to stifle a sigh.
The waiter frowned at her. “Would Your Ladyship like to begin with something to drink?”
Ari almost asked for water, but then she caught sight of the Blue Bubbly, a fizzy drink in a shade of bright teal that had just a touch of alcohol. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d drunk anything alcoholic—she hadn’t touched her wine at her father’s banquet.
And right now, she felt like she could use it. So, she ordered one, along with a glass of water to be prudent, and quickly tacked on an order for the first item she saw on the menu so she could eat and get out of here as fast as possible.
The waiter left. Ari fought not to fidget. She and Assistant had eaten in silence multiple times, though not as much lately. It was usually a comfortable silence, bought at the end of a long day while Ari thought about her experiments or what she’d do first thing in the morning, or anticipated what would happen in bed when the lights went out.
Silences, it turned out, came in different guises, and this one was awful. Ari couldn’t even see Assistant, just feel the warmth of her body that stood at too far a remove.
“Pay attention,” Assistant repeated, so softly Ari barely heard it. Ari had no clue why—pay attention to what?—until she realized someone was heading t
o her table. A colonel, judging by the insignia on his shoulders, though she didn’t recognize him.
He saluted when he stood before her. Other people in the Officers’ Mess were taking notice. A dim memory of etiquette scrambled through Ari’s mind, and she made ready to stand up, already bunching her skirt in her sweating hands. This didn’t have to be hard.
The colonel held out a restraining hand as she prepared to rise. He was a man of middle age with salt-and-pepper hair and a strong jaw. “Oh no, Your Ladyship, please. I just wanted to convey my greetings. It’s not often we see you here.”
Why did everybody point that out? Just because it was true didn’t mean you had to make a big deal of it. Ari managed a smile. “Oh, well, thank you. It’s—nice to be here.” He seemed to be waiting for more. Uh-oh.
What would Assistant say if she were in Ari’s place? Stupid question. If Assistant were in Ari’s place, this colonel would have been too intimidated to say hello. Ari would just have to do the best with what she had. She held out a hand and fought to keep it steady. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
He cleared his throat as he took her hand and gave a slight bow. “Actually, we have, Your Ladyship. Just very briefly, when you and your father were taking a tour of the station upon your arrival. But you met so many people, and it was quite a while ago.” He smiled at her. “I wouldn’t remember me, either.”
That touch of humor was all that kept Ari from wanting to melt into the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was a little overwhelming. It’s nice to meet you…um, again…Colonel?”
“Colonel Haktari, at your service, Your Ladyship. Please don’t let me bother you further. I had just finished my dinner and wanted to say hello, and hope you’ll convey my respects to your lord father.”
“I sure will,” Ari lied. Then she remembered what Assistant had said twice now: Pay attention.
People usually didn’t pay attention to Ari, and she didn’t usually pay attention to them. But if Assistant had to stand back there with nobody to talk to and nothing to do but watch Ari eat, then the least Ari could do was provide her with some other stimulus. Besides—it really wouldn’t hurt to learn to be more sociable. At the very least, she would have something else to talk about over dinner with Assistant when they could sit at the same table.
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