Grant tugs his helmet off and hits the interceptor cockpit release. He stands with the raising dome, places his helmet in the cushioned pilot seat, and swings himself out of the ship onto the deck.
“Nice flight, boss?” Chief Engineer Waian approaches through the connector steam and the scurrying deck crew. “How was the Eqtoran version of the wing array control?”
“Too stiff, I think.” Grant rolls his wrist. “I really had to yank hard.”
“That tracks,” Waian says. “The Eqtoran pilots kept accidentally breaking it on tight maneuvers. I should snap a few clutches and make mek-Taqa fix them.”
Specialist Ipqen-mek-Taqa glances up from the drone whose guts cover her workstation, grunts, and returns to it.
“Can we marry the pull on the Taiikari version with the Maekyonite upsize?” Grant asks.
“Yep.” Waian’s distracted by something. Grant traces her attention to Ipqen. She raises her voice. “All right, people. Early lunch. Take the extra half-hour and we’re back at 1300. Dockers, once you’ve locked that interceptor down, clear out. ”
The engineers and dockworkers seem confused by this proclamation, but nobody’s about to complain about an extra half hour. They hurry by, pausing to bow to Grant on their way out. Most of them, anyway.
Ipqen-mek-Taqa scoops whatever drone project she’s working on into a big safety-yellow duffel bag and strides past Grant without looking at him. He finds an interesting star to look at and tries not to think about the guilt.
The sharp whistle from Waian flinches him as much as it does Ipqen. “Mek-Taqa. You bow to your sovereign.”
“It’s—” Grant wants to say it’s okay, but people are looking, now, and whispering, and it can’t be, can it?
Ipqen gives a deep but quick bow and turns away before Grant can make eye contact with her. She hikes her bag up her shoulder; the pieces of drone and tech clatter with the motion and with her sulking departure.
Waian beckons Grant in as the hangar empties out. “Something’s up with Ipqen.”
“She’s pissed at me,” he says. “She’s right to be. I shot her, Waian. And she thought I did it under compulsion. Now she doesn’t know why.”
“She can be confused and upset,” Waian says. “What she can’t be is disobedient. Not on this ship, not without consequences. She’s a minor genius with our tech, and she’s only had a couple decas with it. But there’s millions of geniuses who’d give up an arm to be on the Pike. Hell, I did. There’s girls who resent her, who think we’re moving too fast with her. If they see her glide through without showing the proper deference, if they see you applying some other rubric to her, it’s a problem.”
“I want to tell her. Her and Ajax. They saved my life.”
“I know.”
“They deserve the truth.”
“I know.”
“If we can’t make it public, fine. But if it’s people we trust… I think this is the moment.”
“Boss, with respect. I’m not the broad you should argue with about this. I can’t defend it.”
“Who do I argue with about it, then?”
“Right now?” She looks around the emptying hangar. “Nobody. Not yet. But if the time comes around, I want you to know something.”
“The time? What time?”
“I want you to know,” she repeats, in an insistent whisper. “If it’s you or them, boss, it’s you.”
Grant opens and shuts his mouth a couple of times. “Who’s them?”
Waian’s hand tightens on his arm. “Anyone. You’re my fuckin’ kids, Grant. Okay? You’re my family. That trumps everything. Everything. You get me?”
Grant nods, uncertainly. He ’s starting to grok what she’s saying.
“She’s not ready to hear this,” Waian whispers. “But it’s you.”
Her words echo in his head on his way up to the cabin. Sykora is out at one of her many Core meetings, this one the latest in a long series about the progress on the former Cloud Gate sector's resettling. Their caregiver—a springy-haired woman named Yshala with adorable apple cheeks and a bib-front coverall full of hand puppets—bows as he enters the cabin. Rory is sleeping in her crib; her brother and sister are with their pod at the other end of the Pike, but she had a cough today and Grant fretted enough that they kept her in the cabin.
Now he looks at her tranquil slumber and feels like a dummy. “How is she?” he asks Yshala.
“Much better, Majesty,” she says. “No coughing. We played for a while and then she conked right out.”
“It’s deeply appreciated.” He indicates his armoire. “I’m here to change clothes. Would you give me some privacy?”
“Of course, Majesty.” She scurries for the door. “I’ll be outside.”
The hydraulic doors hiss open and shut. He’s alone, then, with his baby girl. He moves to his closet, then reconsiders and picks her gently out of the crib. She yawns and squirms; her eyes stay shut.
He cradles her head, where the wisps have solidified into a respectable head of hair. “Jeez,” he murmurs. “You’re really getting follicular up here, huh? Bet you’re gonna have your mom’s hair. Long and Princess-y.”
She lets out another tiny yawn. Her chubby little hand reaches up. He rests his thumb in it.
“Your brother and your sister are gonna make a lot of people really mad,” he says. “You’ll have to keep them safe sometimes, I think. You’re the one they’ll all call normal. No matter how much of an oddball you end up. I guess that’s a license to get weird, huh?”
She pedals her tiny feet. He chuckles.
“I wonder if you’ll ever feel left out,” he says. “If you’ll ever feel like less of a fucking miracle than they are. I hope not.” He kisses her head and puts her back in her crib. “Dad’s gonna be back soon, okay? Just a little workout and then we’ll hang out.”
He hits the quick release on his uniform and shimmies out of the falling fabric. He steps into the loose jersey of his gym clothes and fishes his communicator out of the uniform’s waist pocket.
He pulls up his contact list to message Sykora and tell her where he’ll be at once she’s out of her Core brief. There’s a priority message on top. The crew communications report. He sighs and scrolls to it.
This is some automated thing he gets every tenday that informs him of any conversation taking place aboard the Pike that mentions him. He despises the idea, but has kept the reports in case Sykora ever checks his communicator. It’s Princely to have logs of this, she’s said, and the crew has consented (for whatever that’s worth). Grant always just marks them as read and then never looks.
But when he opens the file, the topmost record is a conversation between Master Sergeant Ajax and Senior Specialist Meena.
This isn’t what he does. He does not spy on his people. He gets these files because they’re automated, and he doesn’t watch them, he doesn’t read the logs, he doesn’t spy on his own people.
He sits at Sykora’s vanity, flips its counter to the terminal keyboard, goes to the crew comms record, and types the record ID into the field.
The mirror’s view switches to a camera feed looking down into the hab ring. Ajax sits at a hab-ring cafe table by the ground-level waterway, opposite from Meena, his wife who’s as plump, sweet, and pink as a tulaberry. By the table is a two-child stroller where their sons Ronax and Karinax sit, covered in crumbs and tug-of-warring over a little flexible silicon ring.
“—still Grantyde,” Meena is saying. Grant feels outside himself as he rewinds the footage a few seconds.
“I miss them,” she says, thirty seconds into the past.
Ajax stirs his tea with a honey-mesh straw that dissolves as it swirls. “Miss who?”
“Who do you think? Their Majesties. Their babies. It was so lovely, wasn’t it? When we’d go down to Ramex or Harok or wherever with them.”
“We forgot ourselves, Meen. We’ve been too familiar.”
“Is that something they said to you?”
He shakes his head. “Just something I figured out.”
“Is this about Her Majesty’s immunity?”
Ajax doesn’t reply to that.
“Does it really matter if she’s immune? I mean, she’s still Grantyde. I don’t understand why you can’t be her—”
Ajax’s ears twitch. “His, Meen.”
“Right. Right. My bad. It’s just—tough.”
“You know he can hear us if he wants to.”
“Why would that be a problem? He’s our friend, Jaxy. His kids play with our kids.” She turns to Karinax, who’s tugged the ring from his brother’s hand. Her eyes flash. “Lemme see that, little dude.”
He hands her the ring and she rests it between them. “Okay, kids. Ready?” The boys watch with the intensity of runners awaiting the starting gun; as soon as Meena’s hand departs the tug-of-war begins anew. Ajax chuckles.
They’re old enough to understand their mother. Grant didn’t realize. That must be new.
“Is he still our friend?” Meena asks.
“He is our Prince,” Ajax says. “We’re his servants. Being his friend was getting in the way.”
Meena has a puzzled frown as she nibbles her pastry. “How?”
“I’ve been…” Ajax drums the table. “I thought he owed me things, I guess. Beyond just his fidelity. Got ahead of myself.”
“Things? Like what things? Like your rank?”
“Nothing like that,” Ajax says. “Nothing big, really. Explanations. I’ve been inappropriate. I’ve been way too familiar with him. I’ve called him—I can’t even remember. A smartass. Things like that.”
Meena shrinks into her seat. “God, really?”
“We’ll be fine. You said it yourself, right? He’s still Prince Grantyde. He’s merciful. They’re not about to take our cabin away.”
“I’m not worried about us, Jaxy. Or our cabin. I’m worried about you. It was so nice, knowing you had Guy Time with His Majesty.”
“I’m okay, Meen.” Ajax accepts the tugging ring from a victorious-looking Ronax. “I have all the guy time I need with these little wreckers.”
Grant shuts the footage off. He returns to the message on his communicator and deletes it. He’s going to tell Sykora he can’t be signed up to receive these reports anymore. He tried but he can’t.
He gets Rory out of her crib again and holds her for a few minutes as she sleeps. Then he puts her back and heads down to the gymnasium.
At the center of the practice room he’s booked stands a henge of mechanical scaffolding and heavy punching bags, sticking out of a trio of concentric rotating rings. Grant takes a staff from its sconce on the wall, steps into the center of the circle, and lowers the blackout goggles onto his face. The world goes dark.
With his foot he finds the floor switch and presses it. A rhythmic click-click-click sounds around him as the rings activate. The whoosh of air. The targets are turning.
He chokes up his grip on his staff, stares into the black, and waits. It’s sound, Kymai’s taught him, and sensation, but it’s more than that. A displacement, sort of, but not exactly. Not something you name, something you feel. You can’t hunt for it; you have to stay open and let it collide with you itself. He’s still pretty terrible at it, but he’s getting better.
Tap. Tap. Whoosh. He whips his staff toward the displacement and is rewarded with the slap of wood on canvas. The heavy bag he struck swings away from him and slots back into its place in the rotating ring. The sound of victory is a cheery, affirmative ding! from the blindfight array.
He spins a one-eighty, staff whistling through the air, and strikes another. Ding! He loosens his stance. Ding! His record’s a paltry five. He thinks he can beat it today.
Another movement. His staff swipes toward it. He lets out an alarmed grunt as it makes contact with some sinewy something that twists it out of his hand. A weight sends him staggering backward; he grasps for it but it’s already skittered around to his back.
His blacked-out goggles are jerked from his head. His wife’s upside down face is inches from his. Her eyes flash. “Gotcha, Maekyonite,” she says. Her bare thighs cinch around the back of his neck.
He laughs, surprised, and reaches for her. She dismounts lightly to avoid him, flipping onto her feet. Her hair waterfalls around the wide curves of her nakedness; Grant gets only a brief glimpse before she phases from sight.
“Do go on,” her voice says.
Grant hits the button on the floor and the rings cease their turning. “Should I put the staff away?”
“Doesn’t matter. You won’t hit me.”
Her liquid giggle flows around his peripheral hearing, sending pinpricks along his spine. He pivots to the sound.
“Your foot’s a bit forward, dove. Careful it doesn’t—”
Suddenly his leg shoots out, caught by an invisible tail. He drops and rolls, shoving his opposite foot out, and he hears a grunt as he makes contact with something soft. Guilt pierces through him. “Are you oka—”
He’s cut off as something wraps around his neck.
Sykora is real again, sitting on his chest, her bare, heavy breasts hanging in his face, her legs loosening from across his throat. Her eyes flash. “Piss your pants,” she commands.
He shoves her off, and she cackles as she handsprings back into invisibility.
“And now you’re at a serious disadvantage,” she calls. “Tactically embarrassed.”
“All right, you gremlin.” He throws the staff aside and squares his shoulders.
Something swishes suddenly between his legs. Her tail again, lashing upward. He flinches, even as she pulls the blow away at the last minute into a caress of his inner thigh. “Stance, dove. Stance.”
He squares up again. “All right, all right.”
“Imagine if I’d done that much faster and harder,” she says. “Keep your jewels in the vault.”
“If I’m actually fighting I’m gonna have my HAK on, y’know,” he says. “With a c—”
Movement. Air shifting. He ducks and lunges and snatches his invisible space goblin wife out of the air. They twist to the floor.
He pins her in place. “Gotcha, Taiikari.”
“Gods of the Firmament.” Invisible feet perch on his chest; she doesn’t push him away. “My warrior husband.”
He leans in. Her legs widen to receive him. “Victory for Maekyon.”
“I could have ripped your jugular out before you grounded me, you kn—” she gasps softly as his teeth brush the unseen flesh of her neck. She giggles and squirms as he turns it into a sucking kiss. “Okay, I surrender. Victory for Maekyon.”
He slides her arms up above her head and keeps them pinned there with one hand, freeing his other to explore the chameleon contours beneath him. It slips beneath the curve of her arching spine, journeys to her ass, cups a soft, squishy handful, then glides down the rear of her thigh.
Her hot breath carries her whisper into his ear. “What will you take as your prize?”
“Let me see you,” he whispers back, and the blue beauty in his grip melts into visibility. He’s left a blueberry-dark hickey on her, on the mirror side of the tattoo of his canines.
“Shoot,” he says. “I thought I put that on the bite.”
“Not knowing right from left?” She snickers. “No wonder your stance is so—”
He tucks her knee to her chest, opening her wide, and her bratty act flickers and vents away in a lascivious moan. Her stomach flexes and relaxes; he kisses the little pouch below her belly button, the place where their babies grew in soft, safe darkness.
He rests her legs on his shoulders.
Through flickering fluorescent hallways, Helen strolls. The chain of her tea diffuser clinks on the side of her thermos. She halts at the office checkpoint and passes her shoes and her sling bag through the scanner. “How proceeds the night, Harry?”
The man in the flak jacket spares her as much of a smile as he can. “A lot of talk, ma’am. A lot of movement. A lot of wondering.”
“I’m sure.” Helen points to the red plastic bowl by the security desk. “Have they finally restocked the kitchen, or are you bringing those Lucky Charms from home?”
“We’re fully loaded. Something tells me there’s overtime incoming.” Harry shifts the collar of his bulletproof vest and clears his throat. “Have we heard anything from her, at all? Any kind of contact?”
“Her being—”
“You know.”
“Uh huh.” Helen retrieves her bag. “None.”
“I have a suspicion, Madame Director. The timing—”
“The sweep,” Helen says. “She gave us the sweep because the sweep is what triggers the Imperial arrival. And then she disappeared.”
Harry’s face falls. “You think so too?”
Helen steps back into her heels. “It seems obvious, yes.”
“She screwed us, then.”
“Perhaps that was her intention and perhaps not. But I don’t feel particularly screwed.” Helen shimmies her shoulders. “I feel rather loose, in fact. Don’t you?”
“I’ll let you know how I feel once I’m positive it’ll still be legal to,” he says. “That or I’ll say hail the Empress.”
“So dour.” She winks at him. “Chin up, Harry. The future’s here. Right on time.”
Through the checkpoint and down the clerical hallways, nodding to the whispering and heads-down staff around her in their Archer Holdings antiradiation ponchos (a ridiculous precaution, but one must give one’s staff their creature comforts). She finds her office, slides the glass door shut and settles at her desk.
“Mrroawawul,” Lordling observes, from his corner bed.
Helen flips her laptop open as he rises, stretches, and hops onto her desk. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Lordling, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.”
Lordling vocalizes his unenthusiasm for Shakespeare.
She rubs the white spot on his head. “No grumbling now. I’m expecting a call.”
And the phone rings. She hums as she lifts the handset. Everything moving like clockwork.
“You have Director Mercer. Who may I ask is speaking?” She clicks and unclicks her pen. “Yes, I’m available now, if he is. Yes, fine. I’ll hold.”
She scribbles on her notepad as the connecting music plays. Two crossed poleaxes. It’s somewhat addictive, drawing it. She wonders how it’ll look on the moon.
The call connects. “Good evening, Mr. President,” Helen says. “I hear you’re asking around about the Taiikari Empire.”