A Princess of the Aerie (11 page)

“If you hear a double hoot instead of a single—those are only a couple of times a year—it’s a big perturb, like a slight negative
gravity followed by a couple of seconds of one point five g. So always grab something that’s bolted down as soon as you hear
that sound. Though even that doesn’t always help—we had a godawful mess in the public fishing pond a couple of years ago because
there were four boatloads of kids out there and we got an unscheduled double hoot. No deaths but some scary moments, and people
were finding fish in strange places for months.” She smiled. “I did tell Kawib to brief you about life here, but no doubt
he was having more fun flying the hopper.” From the way she smiled, it was clear that Kawib was in no real trouble.

“All right, my decisions: Myxenna will be a lady in waiting to Princess Shyf. The combination will be unusual—a commoner,
not rich, foreign—but not impossibly so. And you two boys are joining the Royal Palace Guard. That’s the temporary solution.
After that I’m planning to assign each of you to the first unusual duty that comes up, especially duties away from Greenworld.
My guess is that they expected you all to be put under house arrest, so that’s what we
won’t
do. Is that acceptable?”

“It beats house arrest,” Jak said.

“Excellent, because that was really the only alternative I had.”

“You were planning to offer this all along?” Myxenna asked.

“Oh, of course. Except that I didn’t have a rationale for doing it. And trust me, if you’re sitting in a seat like mine a
couple of decades from now, you’re going to find that knowing what you want to do is never enough. You have to be able, in
a year or two, to answer that terrible question ‘What were you thinking?’ Which is why I am so grateful to you, Dujuv, for
having supplied me with a very nice answer indeed to that question. Spoicke. I have to remember that term. It’s sounds so
much more reasonable than ‘I didn’t know what to do but I knew I had to do something.’ ”

F
rom the outside the Royal Palace Guard barracks looked like a bland hotel. The sprite was making the vivid blue-white figure
eight, about half a meter tall, on the door, indicating that they had reached their destination. Jak pressed the bell, and
the sprite vanished.

The door dilated, and they stepped through to find Kawib Presgano behind a desk, looking bemused but smiling. “It appears
to be the Colonel’s pleasure,” he said, “never to rid me of you. Welcome to the Royal Palace Guard, I guess. Congratulations
on being lieutenants.”

“We’re
officers?
” Dujuv asked.

“Oh, we all are. At least. The Royal Palace Guard doesn’t actually guard the palace, so we don’t need any actual fighters
to do any actual fighting.”

“What
do
we do, besides being not actual?” Jak asked. “Why, we serve at the pleasure of the Princess.” Was there a bitter undertone
to Kawib’s voice? Jak couldn’t tell. “You’ll be assigned regular patrol duties in which you follow a sprite around the palace
grounds—that includes the residential and commercial areas inside the walls—and there will be ceremonial duties of various
kinds at court functions. Should you actually encounter any violent lawbreaking, you are welcome to try to stop it if you
like but most of us just call the pokheets.

“We also have a mandatory schedule of workouts for everyone on active duty, which, since both of you are reasonably athletic,
you’ll probably enjoy, though being from the Hive, where people are prudish, you might be uncomfortable about working out
in just a thong and shoes, in front of a viewer gallery.”

“I’m about as immodest as a wasp ever gets,” Jak said.

“And I have nothing to be ashamed of,” Dujuv added.

Kawib smiled slightly, looking over the panth’s compact mass of muscle and his handsome regular features, and said, “I predict
a slight increase in attendance at workouts for a while—they’re generally popular with ladies in waiting. Remember that any
hearts you capture are supposed to be given back.”

“Don’t forget to warn them about Seubla,” a tall, graceful young man said, coming in to sit on Kawib’s desk.

“I don’t need to warn gentlemen, such as these, about such matters,” Kawib said, grinning. “They are not the sort of heets
that go chasing after a pizo’s demmy. Very much unlike certain members of my guard who we may need to neuter, if we are ever
to stop them from humping the legs of the young ladies at diplomatic receptions.

“But I suppose I should explain. Seubla and I have been mekko and demmy since the third year of gen school. The minute I’m
discharged from the Royal Palace Guard, she will resign as a lady in waiting, we will get married, and I will drop by the
barracks to wang the living shit out of anyone who has ever looked at her with even slightly more lust than he harbors for
his grandmother. Is that clear, Xabo?”

“Yessir. But may your lowly XO point out that your demmy
does
attend many of our workouts?”

“Entirely to enjoy the sight of me stripped to the waist, and the sneer of cold command with which I put the rest of you through
your paces. Or would you care to discuss it while Disciplines sparring?”

“Having sparred with you, sir, I’d rather just have you beat me with a plank and trust to your sense of restraint.” Xabo stepped
forward and extended his hand to Dujuv. “You must be the new recruits. I’m Xabo Srijesen, second in command around here, and
the skipper’s toktru tove and all around factotum.”

“Dujuv Gonzawara.”

“Jak Jinnaka. And—pardon me, sir, but you’re the commander?”

Kawib nodded. “Yes. And I run errands like picking up stray guests. I told you we’re a ceremonial outfit. The greatest privilege
I have is that when there’s any real work to do—which is nearly never—I am able to grab it for myself. My official title here
is brigadier general, but when I finally get out of here and get my long-delayed commission in the regular Army, I will be
entering it as a captain.”

“Royal Palace Guards can’t resign?” Dujuv asked.

“Oh, I suppose your embassy would say something if you were held here against your will. It must be nice to have an embassy
to talk to, masen? Let’s swear you in and get you into uniform. And fitted with your thong. Workout starts in less than two
hours, and when they get fresh meat, they want it on the table as soon as possible.”

Jak and Dujuv deposited their bags into small, comfortable rooms in the dormitory. They worked out on resistance machines
with about twenty other young heets, all of them in just thong and shoes, and a small crowd of fashionably dressed young women
watched them. Myxenna wasn’t among them, which surprised Jak slightly and also pleased him since it was one less thing to
precess Dujuv.

There was no mess but there was a generous meal allowance to draw on; Jak and Dujuv ate in a small Lunar Greek restaurant
within the Palace that Xabo suggested. They were to report back immediately after dinner for night assignments.

“I ought to message Uncle Sib and tell him what’s going on, except I don’t actually know myself,” Jak said to Dujuv.

They came around the corner into the office. Kawib returned their salutes in his oddly sardonic manner; he never did anything
wrong yet everything he did implied that he knew he was only playing soldier.

“Well,” he said, “night patrol tonight. Wear these monocles so you can see the infrared sprite. Follow it. If you encounter
anything that looks like it should not be happening, either suppress it yourself or call for help. Every time the sprite flickers
into the visible light range and starts running through all the colors of the spectrum, call in to report that everything
is okay. If your sprite suddenly glows red and moves quickly, follow it because it’s taking you to where someone needs backup.
In my two years here, that has never happened. All you’ll see is lost, drunken, noisy kids, fresh from a party somewhere.
The Princess prefers that we be officious with them and make them afraid, and urges you to feel free to hit them. I am required
to tell you that it is an official privilege of your job to be, and I quote, ‘moderately abusive for your own pleasure.’ (Unofficially
I’m adding that if I catch you hurting people for fun, you and I have a sparring date, and I’m a local champion.) I’m sure
we’ll all see each other before the night is out. The sprites tend to go to the same places.”

Darkness was just falling, the lights dimming on the bottom of New Bethlehem five hundred kilometers above as the glass a
kilometer overhead changed to opaque, when Jak set out. For the first hour, he followed the sprite, a hand-sized pale gray
cross, as it danced along the hedge walls of the central maze.

Jak’s stiff, thick coat, tight knee breeches, and high black boots were out of a comic opera. The jingle of all the little
medallions and metal decorations precessed him too. When he tried standing still and listening intently, he heard only the
faint jingles of other RPGs.

Standing there in the quiet, Jak glanced up. The dome was de-opaquing. When possible, Greenworld used “natural” rather than
“room-style” darkness for night. A shiny black circle, as wide as your hand at arm’s length, covered the zenith, where New
Bethlehem hung above them, absorbing all the sunlight falling on it. Columns of crescents descended around the black circle—habitats
on other arms, a few lit brightly and a few dark with just a few lights on.

Around the crescents the stars blazed brilliantly, barely dimmed by a mere kilometer of air. Off to his right, low on the
horizon, he could see the bright double “star” of the Earth and Moon, and to the right of that pair, the dimmer, much more
distant Hive. He stood on one of the broad lawns, surrounded by statues of Earth animals—his purse said they were trophies
of the conquest, and had once stood around the doors of the Republic Hall. The shapes of the horns and the graceful fins on
the stone creatures cut into the sky full of stars and crescents, both peaceful and violent, like silhouetted twisted wreckage
on the walls of a fortification, many long years after a battle, rusting in the shapes into which it had burned.

The gray cross waited patiently; with no reason for Jak to be here, the AI that steered the sprite could afford patience.

Then the cross zipped toward one entry into the hedge maze, and veered back and forth, like a crazed puppy, urging him to
hurry. Jak followed, the silly jewelry on his chest tinkling madly. The sprite led him up a winding pathway onto a low stone
platform and turned right.

Jak was on the big stone stairs of the Heir’s Palace, facing up the hillside toward the complex neobaroque fractal profusion
of doorways and windows in the cascading stone fountain of high arches and vaults. The Heir’s Palace seemed poised to fly,
either to sail up into the stars, or to plunge down the stairway like an owl on a mouse.

The overhead dome re-opaqued for another pass through daylight, and the bright sky faded as if someone had turned down a dimmer.
At the top, the sprite led him to a wall where a hidden door dilated silently.

Down a hall, through another door, Sesh was waiting by candlelight. Nearly Jak’s height but less than half his mass, her body
was shaped by the admixture of gracile that the Karrinynya line had acquired from the three-century-long Permanent Regency,
when the bored captive kings and princes had ennobled showgirls, courtesans, and models as their consorts.

The candlelight, scattered by bozze, sconces, chandelier, and fiber-trees, made her thick, almost waist-length red hair and
ocean-storm blue eyes blaze. Her coffee-colored skin was covered with a fine-lined geometric tan pattern, now, different from
the tiger stripe she had worn as his demmy.

She wore a scarf tied low on her hips, just enough to cover, and her hair poured over her breasts in a wave of crimson highlight
and black shadow. “Jak Jinnaka,” she said. “It’s been a long time. I’ve had lovers, but I haven’t had anyone touch me gently,
or like an equal, or just for love. I … would you like … ?” She let the question trail off, sighed, stretched, and brushed
her hair back over her shoulders; her hands continued in a single motion to release the scarf like slippery smoke. Her soft
lips felt his as if trying to memorize him, and when he gently pressed his tongue forward her mouth opened wide and soft.

She giggled at the awkwardness of removing his heavy uniform.

The black leather chaise among candlelit mirrors was exquisitely smooth and soft, just firm enough to let him take his weight
on his hands. She pulled him into her, and they thrust together, fast and hard, more and more, until she arched her back and
his hard thrusts ululated her cat-shriek into a siren.

Jak sat back, spent, panting, heart and mind empty, his eyes wandering in awe across the perfect planes and curves of her
body, from her high-cheekboned face to her wide-flung thighs. The sweat on his chest and shoulders would cool in a moment—

The lights came full on, bright and blinding.

“See,” Sesh said, in a tone better suited to a lecture than to a bedroom, “that was what I was talking about.” She flipped
off the chaise in a beautiful back somersault and landed on her feet, turning in a mocking dancer’s bow to the candled mirrors.

The mirrored wall flew up into the ceiling, revealing an array of theater seats, occupied by Kawib, Dujuv, Myxenna, and three
other young women.

With a cry, Jak rolled and covered, feeling more naked than he had ever felt in his life.

Sesh laughed uproariously. Two of the three girls that Jak didn’t know joined her, seeming to compete to see who could laugh
hardest. The very pale blonde girl, who sat apart from them, sat perfectly still, as if watching a poisonous snake crawl toward
her. Everyone in the seats was naked.

“Well, you all saw,” Sesh said. “In fact having you all see is probably what’s bothering Jak.”

The two girls laughed again. Myxenna and Dujuv were staring into space; between them, and a row farther down, Kawib was glaring,
all but hyperventilating.