Chapter 9
“One lens of societal history reveals a painful conclusion: Each of the countless attempts to force progression into human societies inevitably demands an eventual retreat to rediscover these essential elements of human contentment. These are nothing less than the rediscovery of tribal elements, and it has become clear we cannot prosper without them.”
—Dr. Georgette Hester-Vicary, Irresistible Puppeteer: The Motivational Primacy of Tribe
Richard entered Lykeios Manor under the weight of an appalling contrast. While Lykeios had provided the setting for his earliest childhood memories, it represented everything Richard had grown to despise. The manor’s thick walls seemed a stony metaphor for the Sinclair-Maru themselves: his Family—thick, immovable, constructed for defense, and unchanged by passing centuries.
Richard’s recent friendship with the Okuna twins formed the far extremity of this new continuum, and he relished every moment spent at that opposite pole. Preston and Paris openly mocked their own Family’s security obsession, though they quickly realized that they faced nothing so oppressive as Richard had. His frustrated stories of Sinclair-Maru severity had evinced companionable sympathy from the Okuna twins, and some gentle mockery.
“Poor Richard,” Paris had cooed, patting his cheek. “Cramped by stuffy relatives. Silly old things don’t even realize they’ve got nothing anyone wants anymore, do they?”
Paris had said these words and Richard suddenly realized she was entirely right. For the first time he saw it clearly: The older generation of his Family reflexively defended an empty bank, somehow thinking themselves wealthy. He burned with chagrin, shame, anger at the self-important posturing of the Family leaders throughout his entire life, seeing their absurdity clearly in an instant.
And now he unwillingly returned to Battersea for yet another pointless display of paranoia, entering Lykeios Manor and descending to the fortified core of the structure. There stood the great table that had supported these Family meetings for centuries, his ridiculous relatives so unaware of their foolish self-importance even as they took their seats. As Richard ran his eyes over the members of the older generation he tried to decide if even a single one of these rejuv-blessed “leaders” remained worthy of the name.
His great-great-aunt, Anthea, led Family security for all Sinclair-Maru holdings and facilities, and there she sat, erect and poised, that large pistol on her hip worn shiny from years of constant use. As if Anthea would ever fire a single shot at anything but range targets! Unless his own brother, Saef, held the unfortunate distinction, Anthea might personify the most perfect example of Sinclair-Maru backwardness and stupidity.
Richard noted the vidstream screen high on the wall, Kai’s gleaming visage filling it from his place at Hawksgaard, many seconds of time lag making his presence almost academic. The two screens displaying QE comm feeds from more distant Family outposts held even less interest to Richard, the almost symbolic need for their “presence” adding the final taste of pretentiousness to the tableau.
Richard’s mocking thoughts paused as Cabot stepped up to the head of the table, his cold, supercilious expression sweeping over the assembled company, seeming to pause briefly upon Richard before moving on. At the touch of that gaze, Richard felt his pulse quicken uncomfortably. Cabot comprised something either more or less than the others, and the mocking commentary in Richard’s mind felt suddenly thin and somewhat childish to him.
“I’ll touch briefly on some accounting information that might impact every department represented here,” Cabot opened without preamble, his refined tenor rolling smoothly over the words. “Hawksgaard shipped the two-hundred-ton allotment of medicines for the Imperial contract well ahead of schedule.” He looked over at the screen where Kai Sinclair-Maru’s shiny pink face looked on attentively from Hawksgaard, way out in the asteroid belt. Cabot’s words would reach Kai before long, but Cabot would not wait. “An excellent job, Kai.” He passed his eyes across the table again, continuing.
“Saef’s prize agent has advanced three million credits from his most recent action, but we’ve heard he was superseded as commodore, and may also have lost his acting command of Hightower.”
“What’s he done this time?” said Grimsby, head of the Family Trade division. Richard worked directly for Grimsby, and of all the older generation Richard held the greatest measure of respect for his mentor.
“Aside from bringing in another three million, you mean?” old Eldridge interjected. Saef had always been a favorite of Eldridge’s, so count on the fool to defend anything Saef touched.
Cabot ignored Eldridge, replying to Grimsby, “Done? Nothing untoward that we have heard. Hightower was an acting command, as they term it in Fleet, and the original captain rejoined. That is all.”
Grimsby shut his mouth and looked down at his hands folded on the table before him, his expression closed, and Cabot moved on.
“Our agricultural output increased nicely and netted the Family nearly a million credits over last season, while the Polo-Macao manufactory has experienced a nine percent decrease in revenues.” Cabot paused. “Altogether, a very solid showing that has enabled some interesting new investments, such as an opportunity with the investment consortium the Bliss Family introduced to us.”
Richard listened with half an ear to the usual talk of the Family’s small-time financial games, his mind on the much greater prospects maturing with Preston and Paris that dwarfed all this Family silliness. It promised many billions in profit, and a commanding position for any Family wise enough to seize the golden opportunity.
Cabot concluded the short financial summary and Richard worked to stifle an impatient sigh as Anthea accepted Cabot’s invitation, launching into one of her interminable and needless security overviews.
“Since the kinetic attack on the Medical Specialties Center some weeks ago, we have seen signs of adversarial probes in several Family facilities,” Anthea explained in her stolid way. Richard remembered admiring Anthea when he was very young, not because of her anachronistic martial nonsense but because she managed to combine an image of strength with a severe but graceful beauty. But though she had not visibly changed in those years, her flaws seemed to multiply in Richard’s eyes, shading over any qualities she possessed.
Anthea continued calmly speaking, meeting the eyes of the gathering as she spoke. “Hermes reports a tenfold increase in attempted penetrations of the Lykeios Nets. He recognizes multiple traces originating from powerful synthetic Intelligences but does not detect the signature of any known old Battersea Intelligence at work.”
“What does that imply to you, Anthea?” Eldridge asked, staring.
Anthea interlaced her fingers as she looked somberly back at Eldridge. “It appears some unknown party has imported more than one synthetic Intelligence to Battersea and set them to battering away at Hermes.”
Eldridge exhaled audibly. “The expense! Which House would go to such lengths?”
Anthea raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps the same party who would launch an attack on the Medical Specialties Center—some Family with great resources; some Family who takes a perverse interest in the Sinclair-Maru.”
Richard could scarcely withhold the rolling of his eyes at this laughable self-importance, but merely looked on, mute.
“But who? Which House? Barabas was shattered after their attack on Bess and the consul. Who else could it be?”
Richard lost what little interest he had in the topic. Whichever Great Family spent so foolishly to break into the Sinclair-Maru Nets would find themselves sadly out when they discovered nothing of value to loot after all that effort and expense.
Anthea’s gaze locked onto Richard. “Perhaps Richard may grant us some insight into this mystery,” she said.
Richard hesitated for a startled moment, certain that Anthea must have misspoken, but as Anthea continued to stare, Richard spoke from puzzlement alone. “Insight, my lady? I know less than nothing about synthetic Intelligences, and very little more about the—the petty Battersea political scene.” He could not keep a slight sneer from his reply, and Anthea unexpectedly displayed a fire he had never witnessed before.
“Drop your court card games here, boy!” she snapped, and Richard suddenly recalled Anthea’s cutthroat reputation from the bloody decades of an earlier age, perceiving her for the first time in his life as dangerous. “I do not speak to you of Intelligences or Battersea Families. Let us speak of disloyalty or criminal negligence instead.”
Richard felt the blood leave his face as awareness began to dawn, Cabot, Anthea, and many of the others staring coldly at him.
“Here now, Anthea—” Grimsby began to say, but Anthea cut him off with a sharp glance.
“Hold your peace, Grimsby. Richard will answer.” Her eyes bored into Richard.
“I know of no—no disloyalty, my lady,” Richard said at last, his mouth dry.
“On seven occasions—that we know of,” Anthea began, “you have evaded your security detail in Imperial City through one pretext or another. Do we see a romantic dalliance or some other foolishness of youth? If only I could wish something so simple formed the truth.”
“Evade? I—I merely attend meetings in private settings, such as within Pomeroy and Watt where security is—is not permitted.”
Grimsby made an affirming sound but Anthea shook her head. “Pomeroy and Watt account for three of the seven, but even there I sought a common thread tying all instances together. Do you know what connection I found? House Okuna.” Richard’s pulse thumped in his temples, his thoughts a tumult.
Cabot turned his eyes on Richard, his face expressionless, and Richard said, “I—of course I have dealings with Okuna and other Great Houses as a—a matter of regular Trade affairs. There’s—there’s nothing…” Richard sought words, his mind going blank as he saw Grimsby turn in his seat to stare, unable to meet his mentor’s eye.
Cabot spoke, his voice revealing no emotion at all. “I daresay it was a matter of business. You met privately with actual members of the Okuna Family?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Cabot sighed, sharing a look with Anthea before he turned to Richard. “I can hazard a guess as to the nature of this business.…Was it perhaps a new, secret process for turning lead into uranium?”
“No!” Richard snapped, suddenly angry—at himself, at Cabot, at the Okunas.
“No?” Cabot said in a dry voice, then his head tilted back, his eyebrows rising as a thought dawned. “No…of course not. Your obsession with Trade is quite obvious, and they would capitalize upon that, I daresay.” Cabot’s lips curved ever so slightly into the hint of a cold smile as his eyes settled upon Richard in a knowing light. “The Shapers,” he murmured, musing. “Okuna offers some angle on the Shapers to you, don’t they? Not direct access, surely? Even you wouldn’t be so green as to fall for that.”
Richard’s flicker of expressions clearly spoke volumes to his elders. Anthea’s lips shaped a savage snarl, frighteningly unfamiliar to Richard, while Grimsby looked away. Cabot merely nodded as if placing the pieces of a vast puzzle together. “The Okuna Family has always been reasonably predictable, Richard,” Cabot said in a mild tone. “They—er—specialize in constructing binary paths for their opponents. So tell me…they hold the promise of the Shapers out to you, and what contrasting option did they offer as your alternative?”
“Option?” Richard said, dazed, unable to think clearly, his mind sticking on Cabot’s word, opponents. Preston and Paris weren’t his opponents.
“Yes, Richard,” Cabot said in a patient voice. “They provided a fork in the road, didn’t they? What lay on each—er—tine of this fork?”
Richard shook his head slowly. “There is no fork…there is just the Shapers, or nothing.”
Cabot frowned. “That seems quite uncharacteristic. Which members of the Family did you—er—meet?”
“Preston and Paris,” Richard said. “Always them. Only them.”
Anthea looked at Cabot with an unreadable expression and Cabot held her look for a moment before turning back to Richard. “Thank you, Richard. You may return upstairs. We will send for you if we need you further.”
Richard stood from his seat and walked blindly from the table, pushing out through the heavy doors. With the eyes of his elders sealed away behind him, Richard’s mind seemed to unlock from its nightmare state at last, his spirits beginning to resurge. After all, what wrong had he done? He had only tried to obtain a favorable business arrangement for the Sinclair-Maru, only to be treated as a sort of traitor.
The indignation of his rough treatment at the hands of his elders began to overcome the lingering feeling of shame.
He made his way up from the fortified heart of Lykeios Manor, each step restoring his shattered confidence, piece by piece. How Paris would laugh at the stuffy, self-important drivel of the Sinclair-Maru oldsters! Acting as if anyone still wanted anything his throwback Family feverishly hoarded.
Richard’s momentary smile faltered as he entered the manor’s ground floor. The way Cabot and Anthea had acted—even Grimsby!—it seemed unlikely he would be allowed to return to the Family Trade office in Imperial City.
Richard slowed his pace to a halt, alone in the broad hallway, his feet falling silent on the warm stone floor he had known his entire life. If he could not return to Imperial City, to all his sophisticated companions among the elite Families…what remained for him? Mindless labor here on provincial Battersea? Or worse, shipped off to bloody Hawksgaard, that miserable asteroid enclave the Family remained so damned proud of?
At that moment, Richard felt he would rather die than be subject to a lifetime of either drudgery.
He did not even notice the moment of decision, finding his feet moving again, walking woodenly through the short tunnel to the east garage. As long as the Family meeting continued in the dungeon of Central Comm, no one would know of Richard’s new disfavor, not even the House Intelligence, Hermes, whose presence was excluded from the Family meeting…but that would not last long.
In a matter of a few moments Richard had made his decision. He checked out a vehicle from the garage and set off for Port City. Perhaps the Sinclair-Maru remained too stuffy to recognize Richard’s particular skills, but Richard knew in Imperial City these qualities held real value. Preston and Paris did not suffer from the blind backwardness that beset his own Family.
Richard held just enough of his own personal funds to purchase passage back to Core, back to Imperial City, to the metropolitan existence he loved, to the embrace of Preston and Paris.
* * *
Richard could not know that his absence went unperceived for some time due to a greater tumult that erupted. Poor, compromised Bess, in her new youthful body, had gone missing yet again, and no one, not even Hermes, could locate her within Lykeios Manor or the surrounding grounds.
The connection between the vehicle Richard borrowed and the disappearance of Bess did not emerge for a lengthy period. Hermes readily verified that Bess was nowhere near the east garage when Richard departed, so focus lay elsewhere at first. No one initially imagined that a person so diminished, with the evident intellect of an infant, might find a means to secret herself in a vehicle as it slowed to exit the Lykeios grounds.
And, of course, Richard never thought to explore the cargo boot, distracted by his own troubled thoughts.
* * *
Che Ramos rehabilitated after his grievous gunshot wound by walking slow circuits through the consular complex, now nearly abandoned since Winter Yung’s flight to the Sinclair-Maru holdings. He possessed far too much time for thinking, and his thoughts swung from extreme to extreme as he reflected upon his variegated fortunes.
From his humble birth, until a thrilling moment not so many months earlier, Che had lived like most any young demi-cit of the Myriad Worlds. That had changed when he made the decision to transform everything, risk everything. On that special day, he had promoted to the glorious freedoms and deadly responsibilities of a Vested Citizen, a cheap new sword at his waist, and subsequently obtained his Fleet rating. He then managed to join the crew of IMS Tanager, perhaps the smallest, oldest frigate still in Fleet service, serving as bridge crew during Tanager’s harrowing battle. For Che, serving under a member of that history-book Sinclair-Maru Family would have held glamour enough, even if Saef Sinclair-Maru hadn’t previously saved his neck from a forced duel. Thinking back, Che still couldn’t understand how he managed to accidentally stumble into a near-betrayal of the captain he served and admired, and still managed to emerge from Tanager with a pocketful of prize money. It seemed nearly as miraculous as the baffling romance that now defined his entire existence.
How could he, Che Ramos, go from the mundane life of a demi-cit to become the favored consort of Winter Yung? Che knew Winter was some kind of second cousin to Emperor Yung himself, and he did not care. He knew Winter had enjoyed decades of life experience prior to Che’s birth, thanks to full rejuv, and he did not care. He had also spent weeks living in close enough company with this imperious, volatile goddess to witness her abundant flaws, and he did not care. Che Ramos, Fleet specialist, former demi-cit, had lost his heart and possibly a fair bit of his mind. Whatever Winter saw in him, he could not imagine.
Che’s thoughts traveled through the glorious moments shared in Winter’s embrace, glossing over all the events that would have been hurtful had they been perpetrated by anyone but Winter. But his pleasant recollections ran always into the same dark corner: Winter had fled Port City while Che lay unconscious in medical suspension. How many days ago? Did Winter still live? Or had her enemies finally struck her down? If she lived, would she ever return, or would Che keep pacing and wondering and longing forever?
Che walked through the quiet halls again and again, wondering how many days and nights he would continue waiting. He paused in the garden, tugging a delicate blossom from a tree and considering its fragile beauty in his hand. What if she really never did return? What then? Back to his Fleet career that felt so…so sterile now?
Just as every prior list of doubts concluded, Che told himself he couldn’t really go anywhere yet anyway. It might be weeks until his body fully recovered from the bullet wound that blasted through his vitals, and no decision could be made until then. So he walked, he thought, and he waited.
During his long vigil only a few of the consular staff even appeared, mostly Winter’s assistant, Mossimo Minetti, and a few security types, and this relative solitude suited Che very well. It left him to walk and think undisturbed by anything more intrusive than the custodian and his dumb-mechs that scuttled about cleaning after civilized hours. His walking route became well established, beginning within the apartment wing, down the long hall, into the echoing vestibule, through the kitchen’s side entrance, and into the courtyard garden among the decorative cherry trees. From there he stepped back into his apartment and started the loop over again.
It took Che an astonished moment to overcome the extreme shock of finding a human figure standing silently in the semidarkness of his opulent apartment. Che gasped, opening his mouth to speak, and Winter leaned forward into a sliver of light, her slender finger at those lips he remembered so well, silencing him. He choked back his words, merely exhaling, holding his hands up questioningly, trying to comprehend, to understand what he should do.
Winter reached out and took Che’s hand, leading him quietly out of the apartment and into the broad hallway, then into a side closet he had scarcely noticed before. She drew him in and closed the closet door behind them, placing her finger on Che’s lips as he opened his mouth to speak once again.
“Wait,” she whispered.
Wait? Wait for what in a closet?
Che heard a soft click, and a narrow opening appeared low on one wall, outlined in muted light. Winter took Che’s hand, leading him down a few steps, closing the concealed door behind them. Only then did she communicate clearly with Che, but not in words.
Che had never occupied a secret room before, but as he lay on the narrow bed beside Winter, his hand caressing the platinum tresses that fanned across her bare shoulder, he entertained no complaints. He still learned nothing of substance, Winter having said only a few words as she brought him to the small refuge beneath the consular complex and began removing his shirt, her face expressionless. Her hands had frozen as the ugly red mark of his wound became visible, before she rested her palm lightly over it, her fingertips at his collarbone as she pressed a tender, uncharacteristic kiss upon his lips.
That kiss had set the seal upon their moment, Che immersing in the slow, gentle worship of his heart’s desire. For Che, it did not conclude as physical hunger was sated, merely changing focus and intensity. He asked nothing, listening to Winter’s gentle breathing beside him, glorying in the unguarded instant that allowed—welcomed—his touch.
Che’s caressing hand froze as Winter rolled to her side, her intense gaze transfixing Che in the half-light. She looked down at the wound below his collarbone again, then back up to his face.
“The Sinclair-Maru turned me away,” she said in a quiet voice. “Bastards. Happy enough to keep Bess, though.”
Che leaned slowly to reach his clothes folded at hand, lifting a silky white blossom from a pocket and gently placing it on Winter’s wrist. Her pupils expanded, looking from the blossom to his face. “This…it symbolizes purity,” she said after a moment, her expression uncertain.
“I know,” Che said.
Winter touched the blossom with one finger and stared into Che’s eyes. “You are a…lovely enigma,” she said after a moment.
Che resumed his fingertip exploration of Winter’s flank, holding her gaze, saying nothing, and the silence stretched as she seemed to consider.
At last she spoke again. “I am stalked like a beast, Che dear.” Her hand moved to trace Che’s angry bullet wound again. “You see, it is not safe to be near me…and I do not know where else I can go.”
Che looked from the gleam of her eyes to the tremulous curve of her lips, feeling the tremble of her body. In the long, slow days of his recuperation, he had mentally explored the uniquely unsettling sensation of being prey, stalked, unable to obtain a single moment without vigilance, without the momentary expectation of another bullet. Over and over he rebelled against the torment, and against his own peaceable nature until he found a disturbing intellectual purchase. If he could have identified Winter’s murderous stalkers, Che knew he would have armed himself and confronted them, wherever they lurked, taking life if necessary; giving his life as a matter of course.
Che broke his silent reverie. “Wherever you go,” he said, “I will go…if you will have me.”
Winter’s lips formed a smile tinged with bitterness, her long fingers brushing his cheek. “You are infatuated, Che, love. That will fade in time, trust me, and then where will you be?”
He knew protesting, declaring his undying love would achieve nothing. Winter had observed declarations of love, the inevitable betrayals and heartbreaks for how many decades before his own birth? She expected his naïve, youthful adoration to fade under the cynical light of a cruel life, just like all the others. But Winter’s cold, incisive worldview held pockets of surprising blindness, allowing no space for genuine religious adherents either, and yet plenty of that sort lived, even on Battersea. Such people, with their unshakeable faith in some intangible reality, matched Che’s own emotional state far better than— Che’s thoughts froze, a shocking idea gelling.
“Did—did I understand it right…?” Che began, suddenly remembering back to a shipmate he knew on Tanager. “Do your—your enemies require Shaper implants to—to do their…?”
Che saw Winter’s pupils snap open in their distinctive, peculiar way, roving over Che’s face. “The only enemies that concern me seem to, yes,” she said, her gaze locked onto Che, her expression avid.
Che nodded slowly. “Then I—I think I know where we can go…together.”