A Princess of the Aerie (36 page)

“What about the slamball team?” Jak asked.

“They can get along without me for a year; they did before I got there, they will after I go. This is more important.”

“Duj,” Jak said, “you can write them a letter! They were lucky that you turned up and helped out! The insurance company will
only need some recorded testimony to justify paying for the slagged equipment! I don’t understand.”

Dujuv shrugged and went on eating; after a moment he said, “I don’t speck that whether you understand, or not, is going to
be very important to me, anymore.”

Jak asked, “So … do you think I should go back too, and take care of things there until everything’s all right? Do you think
that I owe that to them too—I mean, do you expect me to do that?”

Dujuv thought for such a long time that Jak thought he had just decided to ignore the question, but then he said, “No, I wouldn’t
expect that of you. I guess I never
should
have expected anything of the kind of you.”

Phrysaba pulled herself back into the pilot’s chair and said, “Strap down, boosting in forty seconds.” Jak hastened to fasten
his lap belt; Dujuv managed to do his one-handed without letting go of the food; Sib and Pabrino checked theirs. The engines
thundered and boomed, there was briefly gravity toward the back of the ship, and then silence again. “Next boost in about
fifty minutes,” Phrysaba said, to no one in particular, unstrapping and letting herself float up for a better view out the
front window.

None of them spoke to Jak again for the rest of the flight back to the
Spirit of Singing Port,
and Jak was afraid to try to start a conversation.

A
ctually,” Myx said, “I haven’t seen Shyf myself for days.” She stretched and rolled over; Jak admired the job the reconstructors
had done. Not only was Myx’s new left leg as functional as the old, it was as pretty and as pleasant to the touch, and having
thoroughly explored, Jak could attest that the attachment was seamless. “Are you still brain-locked on her?”

“Yes,” Jak admitted.

“I don’t suppose I can get your mind off her for a few minutes, since you can’t get your body onto her?”

“I’m still a little tired from the last time,” Jak said, “and besides, I speck maybe I should get dressed, and get up, and
go sign up for some shifts at the barracks.”

Myxenna rolled over onto her belly and pushed up onto all fours; Jak admired the sway of her full breasts. “Hunh,” Myx said.
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be interested enough to do that. The ship leaves in two weeks, and nobody’s going to care if
we just hang around and party, masen? I only put on the fancy dress and go up to court and do the lady-in-waiting thing because
it’s fun.”

“And her little night activities—”

“She still wants some of us to watch, now and then. She gave me to Kawib as a present for a while—I think in her weird mind
she wanted to try to cheer him up—but of course he wasn’t interested, and I certainly didn’t want to press things. The main
thing she uses me for is a crying towel.”

“For what?”

“Oh, for Seubla, of course. That poor girl tried so hard to be Shyf’s friend—not that I blame her, how else could she hope
to stay alive?—and it looks like, now, looking back, she
did
become Shyf’s friend. So now Shyf is lonely and doesn’t have anyone to talk to or argue with, and she spends a lot of time
telling me about that. Which I avoid whenever I can. Life, like me, is short.”

“And can be delightful.”

“Oh, there’s the difference. I am, life can be.” The blue starring in her green eyes twinkled, but she put on a serious face
and said, “Now don’t change the subject. Why would you be going back up to the barracks to rejoin the gigolo corps?”

“Maybe I just like the fancy clothes,” Jak said.

“They don’t make me do military drill when I wear mine.”

“Well, yeah, but I look like crap in a long gown.” Jak sat up and reached for his underwear.

Myx sighed in frustration. “All right, pizo, I admit it, I feel like I really want to dak what you’re up to. Especially because,
if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been trying to tell you that Shyf is crazier than ever, more cut up inside into more weird sharp
nasty little pieces, and the worst possible thing you can be is someone she likes. It’s like being the pet bunny of a sadistic
ten-year-old boy; he wants to wub his wittle face on your soft fur, and he’s wondering what it would be like to hang you.
If you had any brains, you would
stay away from her.
What’s this sudden attack of a sense of duty about? Did you bang your head on the head- board while I was too busy to notice?
Or is it something left over from the conditioning? I thought that had faded.”

“I think it has. I’m not sure I could explain it myself.”

“Well, then,” Myxenna said, “will going tomorrow morning, instead of this evening, make any difference?”

Jak shrugged.

Myxenna wet her lips and smiled that smile. Jak started to see her side of the argument, and it became convincing when she
stood up and pressed herself against him.

The next morning, while Myx was still asleep, Jak got up and walked to the RPG barracks. He was carrying his uniform slung
over his shoulder in his jumpie, and he might have been anyone with any minor errand to run.

There was no way of cutting through the Palace grounds faster; the interwoven canals, tall hedges, ponds, gardens, and thickets
meant that you pretty much had to stay on the path, even in one-third g, unless he wanted to try jumping a hedge at the risk
of landing in a slough.

Ahead of him, a low-flying hawk—the things weren’t the smartest creatures that the genies had ever made— stalked Jak’s sprite,
and he laughed as it swooped down twice, obviously puzzled by the moving object that became just a spot of bright light when
it got near.

He had been back in Greenworld for ten days and this was the first real walk he’d taken. He loved the winding grassy walkways
between the hedges. He liked ambling slowly through the narrow thoroughfares with their dozens of little shops, each selling
some single highly specialized handicraft. Complex reversed curves at a lintel end echoed the transoms over the windows and
facades, so that the whole effect was fractal and swirly and intensely alive.

Down another street, he found he had walked into a promenade, and he politely moved to the right, walking nearer the shopfronts,
to leave the center to the passing young men and women, for he had no intention of participating in the mutual inspections
himself, and anyway he was dressed more than a few levels too informally. He noted, though, just in case future reference
would be useful, that he saw no military uniforms or court livery; whether it was a whole street of republicans, or mufti
was always expected, Jak didn’t know, but he made a note to his new purse to learn something about the customs.

Clearly the ethnographic stuff was taking hold. He winced at the self-teasing.

As he walked the last greensward, between the cascading fountains, to the barracks, the perturb alarm hooted, and he crouched
low, letting the brief moment of lightness and heaviness pass. All around him, fountains crashed and passersby whooped; it
was a nice day to be splashed with cool water.

Kawib Presgano was behind the desk again. “Jak Jinnaka. Congratulations on your successful mission; I understand they reinstated
you with back pay after your success?”

“They did,” Jak said.

“I wonder how old I will be before I get to do anything.”

Jak didn’t know what to say, so he just watched as Kawib made some more notes. “So,” the thin, pale young man said, “you do
realize that you are utterly mad.” He seemed to try to force his old sardonic smile back on; it didn’t look like it fit anymore,
probably because he couldn’t help meaning what he had said.

“I’d like a regular watch assignment.”

“I was told that when you came in, I was to give you all night watches. Doesn’t that make you think about going back to your
hotel and staying there?”

“It’s what I want.”

“I don’t want to know what that’s supposed to mean.” The two shook hands like thieves who hope never to meet again.

During his first night patrol, Jak alternated between rehearsing the things he needed to say, and experimenting with how silent
and alert he could be as he followed the gray-white cross. After a while, he stopped rehearsing, and just followed the cross.
His own inward silence matched the dark silence of his surroundings.

Soon he could comfortably hear every crunch of his boots on the pavement, then the hiss of his every breath, and finally the
low deep pulse of every slow heartbeat, in the state of total awareness that the Disciplines sought to achieve.

After leading him aimlessly around the maze for hours, the sprite went to the Heir’s Palace by the shortest and quickest possible
route. Senses up and heart quiet, Jak followed.

Sesh liked drama and surprises. He had half-expected to find her naked. Instead she was sitting, fully dressed, at a writing
desk in the center of the room. She gestured for him to take the seat opposite her, and he sat, hands on his knees, as if
she were interviewing him for a job, or explaining his algebra grade.

She hesitated. In the instant before she spoke, Jak let his eyes enjoy her gracile lines, perfect thick crimson hair, and
rich soft brown skin.

“Well,” Sesh said, “remember that at the time that you received Riveroma’s false message, there was a real one diverted? I
told you what was in it. Do you remember?”

She stretched and turned, balancing and aligning that dancer’s back with the grace of a waking kitten. When she turned back
to look at him, head turned a little to the side and face partly blocked from his view by that curtain of soft crimson curls,
the eyes that looked straight into his were the color of clear Martian twilight, dark as night yet purely blue, like looking
a hundred kilometers down a well into a running reactor. “Well,” she said, “I’m waiting for an answer to my question. And
princesses are not supposed to be kept waiting. Do you remember what was in that letter to you, from me, which you never got?”

“You were getting rid of me.”

“Right.” She sighed and brought her hands up onto the desk, resting them there with arms crossed; he admired the flat, chiseled
muscles of her bare arms. His gaze drifted up to her chocolate-and-coffee tanpatterned shoulders, so vivid against her soft,
cream-colored tunic. Sesh sighed again, and her fingers rolled in a little arpeggio of frustration and impatience.

“Now, you see, things are different. Oh, not that different. There would still be excellent reasons for getting rid of you.
You are still, of course, not much more than a lively boy in bed—real talent there seldom goes with a knack for heroics. You
are still republican at heart—you don’t properly appreciate that I am a princess. But you are more interesting now. You’re
a perfect addition to my media image; a dashing heroic commoner lover is an asset beyond price in the battle to stay popular.
I’d never have thought you would be willing to step all the way into the image. I would have marked you down as a naive boy,
based on your devotion to all these ‘toktru toves’ of yours. I’d have said that you would never betray a friend, but, well,
I was wrong.”

“No, you’re wrong now,” he said. “I treated Dujuv and Shadow like that because it was our best chance to beat Riveroma.”

“I’m sure that’s what you told yourself,” she said. “Jak, there are senior operatives who haven’t half your sangfroid. You
left Dujuv to be tortured while you did a pointless stunt—killed what, five heets? Just somehow or other, coincidentally,
that happened to make a fabulous climax to Sinda’s new series about you. Well, such men are useful. And very attractive. Like
the Hive itself—apparently big, warmhearted, forgiving, not too smart, way too sincere; actually with a black hole for a heart.
You might have made a prince of yourself, back in humanity’s glory days—you could have slaughtered a million people to get
a crown, and then afterwards firmly believed it was for everyone’s good, and enjoyed the slaughter and the crown alike.

“Well, now that I really
know
you, my only problem is securing your loyalty. So here you sit, Jak, bathed in my pheromone mix … given a view that makes
me nearly perfect … listening to a voice cadenced for hypnosis …” She beamed at him, and then gave him her Sesh-giggle again.
Jak had never felt so in love before. “Undress,” she said. “I haven’t been a delicate little virgin in weeks.”

Afterward she breathed “Calm love” in his ear, and he lay holding her, happy and at peace, until she said, “Now, something
is bothering you a lot. Tell me all about it.”

He adored her; holding her was the greatest peace he had ever known. The words he had rehearsed seemed a million years in
the past, in some other language entirely. “You and Mreek Sinda set me up. You really did record that message I got. It took
me forever to realize how much it costs Sinda’s company to make even very short, semi-convincing viv animations, which any
code-breaking AI can tell from the real thing, even if her nitwit audience can’t. And your message was twenty minutes long
and perfect. The way you did it was, you recorded that message, probably three or four times, cut it all into samples, and
averaged it. That way it looked extremely real, because it was, but the cutting-and-averaging process was just detectable
at the limits of what analysis can do, so when Mattanga looked into it, it looked like the best fake in history. It all makes
sense, too. Sinda really did need a new story, and you really needed to be a celebrity—being a princess just gets you into
the club, being a celebrity gets you a chance at going places, masen?”

“Toktru,” she said.

“Did you always plan to send me where Riveroma might capture or kill me?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Sinda did. That was irritating, that she didn’t tell me, but toktru, Jak, I’d have sent you anyway. Not
because we needed anything done on Mercury— it didn’t matter whether Riveroma ran that. Suppose he had won? He’d have had
to sell metals at pretty much the same rates as the quaccos do now. If he’d tried to push metals prices much higher, the resourcers
on Venus and the asteroid miners would have expanded and beaten his prices down. Whether Riveroma or the corporations or the
miners’ union controls Mercury, the only difference is who cashes the checks, not how much they’re for, and I suppose whether
some very ugly people with very dull lives live longer or shorter. But at least it is turning into lovely publicity, and the
Greenworld and Uranium troops that went there to ‘restore order’ are doing a nice job of getting some schools and hospitals
and so forth put up, and making things just enough better so that Psim and I will have the miners’ loyalty for a generation
or so. Many thanks to your toktru tove Dujuv, by the way, who is very good about talking us into things we were already going
to do anyway; it makes everything so much more credible.”