The Fall (23 page)

“Not likely. He has far less experience.”

“Even so.”

Bertie snorted. “Care to wager on that?”

“I have no coin.”

The human aristocrat gave him a sidelong look. “If you win, I introduce you to some very
unofficial
trade connections.”

“And if I lose?”

“Hold that thought.”

The wrestlers lunged, slamming into each other with a loud smack of skin on skin. The shorter man got his arms underneath and gripped the material wrapped around his opponent’s waist. The ornately-robed referee dodged around the ring’s perimeter, calling out in a language Farric could not understand. For a moment, the wrestlers stood motionless, each pitting raw strength against the other, and then the smaller one hit the ground, slapped down by the larger. Bertie cheered.

Farric rubbed the back of his neck. “And if I lose?” he repeated.

The human flashed a smile. “You teach me your Tolari martial arts.”

* * *

“Bloody hell.”

Farric twisted in the air, landed behind Bertie, and touched the human’s neck. “I have sent you into the dark three times,” he said. “Enough for this day.”

The human whirled to face him, eyes wide. “You’re an effing gymnast,” Bertie said, tightening the black cloth belt that cinched the waist of his short white robe. “How do I compete with that?”

Farric laughed and grabbed two lengths of toweling from a pile near a wall, tossing one to Bertie. The guards had cleared the space called a
bedroom
, converting it into a place to spar and exercise rather than use it as a place to sleep. For that, they crowded together into another of the four bedrooms in the diplomatic suite.

“You have not seen a—”

The chime at the suite’s outer door interrupted Farric’s rejoinder. He headed into the sitting room, toweling the back of his neck as he walked. His human friend lagged behind, and the guards fell into position around him. Caradyn took up a stance by the door.

“Come,” Farric said.

The door slid open to reveal one of the first humans he had ever met, five years ago on Tolar. Then, she had dressed in long flowing gowns, in the manner of the human aristocracy. Now, she wore the uniform of Earth Central Security: dark gray trousers and outer garment over a white inner garment.

He inclined his head. “Mrs. Russell.”

Her smile did not slip as she entered the room, but her emotional landscape jolted. “Major Russell,” she corrected, giving the title a slight emphasis, “but you can call me Adeline, or even just Addie, if you like.”

“I could use a shower,” Bertie announced. “If you will excuse me.”

Adeline Russell watched, the fingers of one hand curling, as his friend disappeared back into the room they used for sparring. The faint sound of water falling on tile carried through the closed door.

“What brings you to my morning exercise, Major Russell?” Farric asked.

One eyebrow twitched. “It’s difficult to reach a man without a comms address.” She shifted her weight and managed to edge closer to him without seeming to intend it.

Farric let a smile creep onto his lips.
Let the game begin
, as the humans put it. A guard stepped between them. “I cannot be too careful, as our experience here has taught.”

“Yes, I was so sorry to hear about your loss.” Her glow tinted with an irritation which did not show on her face. “You have my deepest sympathies, but was it really necessary to use almost lethal force to obtain the body? One of the morgue security officers is still on medical leave.”

“I regret we found it necessary to use force at all.”

“Yes, well, we all make mistakes. Central Security appreciates your graciousness in not escalating the matter into an interstellar incident. How did your father take the news? I hear so little about events on your planet.”

He swept a hand toward the divans and chairs. “Sit.” Without waiting for her, he took the chair at one end of the low, rectangular table.

She lounged on the divan next to it. “I’ll be frank with you, high one,” she continued. “You’re playing your part too well. Do you know how dangerous it is to engage in negotiations with Trade Alliance ambassadors and interstellar corporations without real authority?”

“Yet that authority comes from your own diplomatic machinery.”

“And you know as well as I do everything is dependent on your prior agreement with us—which we fully intend to see honored.”

“All of which will be approved by my father and the ruling caste, soon.”

“It is not only you Tolari that will have troubles if you continue to go beyond your role in this. You could drag one of the Rembrandt lordlings—one of
our
citizens—into your trouble with you.”

“He serves as my financial advisor, I believe it is called.”

“He’ll be disgraced along with you.”

“He knows what he risks.”

“High one, your father doesn’t have the authority for what you’re doing!”

Farric smiled. “After the recent realignments, my father’s coalition gained a numerical majority in the ruling caste.”

“And that gives you the ability to trade on Tolar’s behalf?”

He broadened his smile. “So it seems.”

“Is there anything I can say to warn you off your present course?”

“I am an ambassador. I do as I am instructed.”

Her lips thinned. “It’s your funeral, high one. Just don’t make it Lord Albert’s as well.”

“It is, as we say, my path to walk.” He stood. “Good day, Major Russell.”

Shaking her head, she quit the divan, bowed to him, and left.

Farric occupied himself sparring until Bertie emerged from the bathing room, toweling his hair and dressed in clothing both traditional and popular among wealthy human men, in shades of brown. A strip of dark blue cloth hung unknotted from his collar. The color combination jarred, as if he belonged to the science caste, with a touch of scholar and a reminder of lost Detralar in the pale tan of the inner garment covering his torso.

“You sent her packing, I presume?” Bertie asked.

Farric blinked. “Is she traveling?”

The human guffawed. “A way of saying you dismissed her.”

“Ah. Yes. She came to express Central Security’s concern for our safety.”

Bertie’s voice went dry. “How kind of her.”

“Would the Rembrandt clan truly cast you out?”

“Without a second thought. My father didn’t want four sons, you know. He needed a daughter for a marriage alliance and got me even with the sex selection treatment. I’m deuced inconvenient.”

“My heart grieves for your pain.”

“It needn’t. Seven or eight hundred years ago, I would have been expected to join the military and get myself decently killed. Since that option is no longer available, I enjoy poking the old man, being the financial genius he wishes my oldest brother could be and making oodles of money he doesn’t know about. He wouldn’t miss me if I should be careless and get myself disappeared.”

Farric shook his head. To lack parental bonding
and
experience rejection at the hands of his father? Bertie’s wounds ran deep, however much he denied it. “I did not intend to put you in danger.”

“Don’t worry. After what happened to Teylis, Central Command doesn’t dare touch either of us on a neutral trade station in alien space, however much they might like to.”

* * *

CCS-52-1573

FROM: Adeline Pearson Russell

Find out what’s destroying the fleas in the Tolari quarters at Capella ASAP.

(signed) Adeline Russell, Major, Central Security

Head of Field Operations, Inner Sector

* * *

The Monral leaned back with the report from Farric, in a state approaching real approval for his heir. Farric had concluded negotiations with Earth that ensured Monralar virtual control over all trade in Tolari space, with the humans providing both security and transport accommodations. His heir included hints that he had made reserve agreements with other
odalli
races, but this might be either protective coloration, or a clever move to forestall any betrayal by the humans.

The remainder of the report consisted of background information and rumors: the Terosha had changed their feeding habits, suggesting a new round of planetary exploration on their part, and reliable information indicated that the Chairman of Earth Central Command had contracted a terminal illness.

Of the new station in Tolari space, there was no mention—he had instructed his heir on this point in advance, since the Monral no longer had assurance that his communications could be kept out of the hands of the Sural. The ruling caste would salivate over the possibilities for new trade, and with the Sural removed from caste leadership and his interdict on Earth’s access to Tolar ended, the human station in the wastelands they called the Drift would provide a bridge for wealth to pass to and from Tolar in abundance.

And when the Tolari fleet came out of K-space, the station that the humans built at such expense would be Monralar’s. He pictured shock on the face of the long-dead Monral his father.
Oh, yes, Father, I
was
listening,
and you have my gratitude for leaving me with enough information to find it, one day
.

The Paranian coalition had shattered. If the Paran exerted himself, he might hold enough votes to decide the election of a new leader once the power of the Jorann’s grandchild was broken. He might. But it was not likely. Few had shifted to the Suralia bloc, throwing their support instead to Nalevia, an enemy of Monralar who had no chance of victory but whose primary objective, in putting himself forward, was to annoy the Monral.

The Jorann would surely see reason and permit the restoration of conventional rule. When he led the ruling caste, he would lift the interdict—once his province had a monopoly on interstellar trade, of course. He lacked only his bond-partner’s support to make his ambitions complete.

He could not suppress his smile as he began to compose the call for a deep winter Circle.

* * *

The star party had grown.

Laura, carrying a blanket, emerged from the stairwell to find at least a dozen of Azana’s colleagues from the science caste already occupying blankets on the roof, gazing up at the meteor shower peaking tonight. She paused to catch her breath. It was still several tens of days until her baby was due to arrive—two more months, as near as she could figure—and climbing the stairs to the roof had become enough of a challenge to give her second thoughts about accepting any more of Denara’s stargazing invitations for the rest of the pregnancy.

Kellandin stood to one side of the cluster of reclining scientists, his physicist lover on one arm and a blanket folded over the other. Denara fussed over a viewing instrument.

“Is she trying to see shooting stars through a telescope?” Laura asked Azana.

The mathematician laughed. “No. She has an astrometric assignment.”

“She always has an assignment.” Grinning, Laura looked around for a place to spread the blanket. The roof offered plenty of space for a gathering like this.

“It is what the young do.”

“Even during the winter, when all the grownups are sleepy?”

On cue, Azana covered a yawn. Laura chuckled. Except for the Sural, every adult she knew had winter grogginess—even her friend Marianne. The Paran kept himself dosed with enough stimulants to counteract most of it. She herself didn’t feel groggy at all; her apothecary suggested it was a consequence of the high metabolism the Jorann’s blessing had given her.

Kellandin laid out a blanket, and Laura excused herself to spread hers nearby. With a sigh, she lowered her swollen body onto it and turned her gaze upwards. Several meteors shot across the sky. She gasped, grinning.

“Does the Paran plan to join us?” Kellandin asked.

“He hopes he can,” she replied. “He is… below, debating with representatives of provinces that had supported him in the past.”

His mouth thinned a little.

“It’s partly my fault, isn’t it?” She dropped her voice as she continued. “Having an
odalli
bond-partner mattered when his coalition started to fall apart.”

Kellandin frowned. “His personal life was not a factor. And you are not
odalli
any longer.”

“But I thought—”

“We are not so narrow in our thinking, artist, however hard we may cling to our traditions in most matters. To lose a proven heir, who herself had an extraordinary child, weakened his position. Now what the ruling caste sees is a new ruler with no guarantee of stability in his line.”

“And that’s important.”

“Very important.”

She sighed. The Monral
had
said the Paran’s allies wouldn’t think less of him for her sake. “I can understand the attraction. The Monral was really very charming when I met him.”

Kellandin laughed. “Such is not my impression of the man. He must have liked you.”

“He seemed to. So what happens now?”

“Monralar’s opposition bloc has achieved a majority, but that matters little when a grandchild of the Jorann leads. It is all a political game. Nothing changes for the rest of Tolar.”

Laura hoped with all her heart that he was correct.

A particularly bright shooting star blazed across the heavens. Denara squealed, despite all her effort to observe a decorous objectivity before the adults.

“It still upsets the Paran,” Laura said.

Kellandin chuckled. “Of course. He is ruling caste. Ambition is bred into him.”

Laura leaned back on her elbows and fell silent. The Paran had gone grim, but he had left his study and was approaching. She sent affection through their bond to soothe his mood. Gratitude blossomed in him. Smiling, she hauled herself back to her feet and picked her way along the low retaining wall at the roof’s edge, making for the stairs.

She laughed when she tripped on the corner of a blanket, until she reached for something to catch herself and found only empty air.

* * *

“I have him.” Azana pushed the words past gritted teeth. Hands took her arms, lending her strength. Concentrating so hard she almost could not see, she held on with all her strength to the glow within Laura and let the hands hurry her along. Voices flowed around her.