Heris Serrano (6 page)

Satiety slowed them down, she noticed, nibbling her own pastry with deliberate care. They looked as if they wanted to throw themselves back in deep chairs and lounge.
Not in my dining room,
she thought, and smiled. The elegant but uncomfortable chairs that Berenice's designer had foisted on her had their purpose after all.

Cecelia neither knew nor cared about the current social fashions of the young. In her young days, the great families had revived (or continued) the custom of a separate withdrawal of each sex with itself for a time after dinner, the women moving to one room and the men to another. She had resented it, and in her own yacht ignored it; either she invited guests (all of them) to continue their discussion in the lounge, or she excused herself and let them do what they would.

Tonight, with a good meal behind her, she felt mellow enough to grant them more of her time. Perhaps well fed, with hangovers behind them, they would be amusing; at least she might hear some interesting gossip, since none of them seemed to have the slightest reticence. "Let's move to the lounge," she said, rising. The young people stood, as they ought, but Ronnie frowned.

"If it's all the same to you, Aunt Cece, I'd rather watch a show. We brought our own cubes." The dark girl, Raffaele, opened her mouth as if to protest, but then shut it.

"Very well." Cecelia could hear the ice in her own voice. Snub her, would they? On her own yacht? She would not stoop to equal their discourtesy, but she would not forget it, either. Buttons again tried to intervene.

"Wait, Ronnie . . . we really should—"

"Never mind," Cecelia said, with a flip of her hand. The quick temper that she'd always blamed on her red hair slipped control. "I'm sure you're quite right, you would only be bored talking with an old lady." She turned on her heel and stalked out, leaving them to find their own way. At least she didn't have to spend more time in that disgusting lavender and teal lounge the designer had left her. She toyed with the idea of having the yacht redone, and charging it to her sister, but the quick humor that always followed her quick temper reminded her how ridiculous that would be. Like the time she and Berenice had quarrelled, only to discover that her brothers had taped the row for the amusement of an entire gang of little boys. A snort escaped her, and she shook her head. This time she was justified in her anger; she wasn't ready to laugh.

Myrtis, recognizing storm signals, had her favorite music playing and stood ready to remove her jewels. Cecelia smiled at her in the mirror as the deft fingers unhooked the necklace. "The young people prefer to watch entertainment cubes," she said. "I'll be reading late, I expect." What she really wanted to do was hook up the system and take a long, strenuous ride, but that would mean another swim to cool off, and she suspected the young people would keep late hours. When Myrtis handed her the brocade robe, she slipped it on and went back to her study. Here, with the door closed, and the evening lights on in the solarium, she could lie back in her favorite chair and watch the nightlife. Two fan-lizards twined around a fern-frond, their erectile fans quivering and shimmering with delicate colors. At the sculpted water fountain, two fine-boned miniature horses dipped their heads to drink. They were not, of course, real horses; other small species had gone into their bioengineering specs. But in the dusky light, they looked real, or magical, depending on her mood.

Something flickered along the shadowy floor of the tiny forest, and a sere-owl swooped. Then it stood, talons clubbed on its prey, and stared at her with silver eyes. Not really
at
her, of course; it saw the windows farside illusion, a net of silvery strands that even an owl would not dare. The little horses had thrown up their heads, muzzles dripping, when the action began; they had shied, but returned to the water as the owl began to feed. Kass and Vikka, Cecelia thought. Her favorite of the little mares, and her yearling. In daytime lighting, the mare was honey-gold dappled with brown on top, with a white belly and striped mane of dark and cream. It was as close as Cecelia had ever found in the miniatures to her performance horse. . . . Most breeders of the tiny animals liked the exotic colors the non-equine species introduced.

When the mare led the young one back into the undergrowth, Cecelia sighed and blanked the window. Now she had the view that in all her memory made her happiest: her study at Orchard Hall, with the window overlooking the stableyard. Across the yard, the open top doors of a dozen stalls, and the horses looking out eagerly for morning feed. If she wanted, she could set the view into motion, in a long loop that covered the entire day's activities. She could include sounds, and even the smell (although Myrtis would sniff, afterwards, and spray everything with mint). But she could not walk out the door over there, the one with the comfortable old-fashioned handle, and step into her former life. She shrugged, angry at herself for indulging even this much self-pity, and called up a new view, a seascape out a lighthouse window. She added the audible and olfactory inputs, and made herself breathe deeply of the salt-tang in the air. She had told Myrtis she would read late: she would read. And not a cube, but a real book, which enforced concentration far better. She allowed herself the indulgence of choosing an old favorite,
The Family of Dialan Seluun,
a wickedly witty attack on the pomposity of noble families four generations past.

"Her sweet young breast roused against the foe, Marilisa noted that it had not hands nor tentacles with which to wield the appropriate weaponry. . . ." As always, it made her laugh. Knowing it was coming, it still made her laugh. By the end of the first chapter, she had finally quit grumbling inside about Ronnie and his friends. She could always hide out in her cabin reading; they would think she was sulking miserably and never know that her sides ached from laughing. 

Heris had had no idea a yacht could be this complicated. It was so small, after all, with so few people aboard . . . but rich civilians did nothing efficiently. As she worked her way through the manuals, the schematics, the overlays, she wished she'd had weeks aboard before the first voyage. Hours were not enough. She wrinkled her nose at the desk screen, muttering. The owner's quarters separate from the household staff's quarters, and both separate from crew quarters. Four complete and separate hydroponics systems: crew support, household support, food, and flowers.
Flowers?
She pushed that aside, to consider later. Ship's crew,
her
people, were responsible for all life support, but not for the household food and flowers. Ship's crew maintained all the physical plant, the wiring, the com connections; in one of the few duties that did overlap, the household kitchen supplied the crew. Not madam's own cook, of course, but her assistants.

Eventually she went in search of further enlightenment, and chose the most senior employee aboard: Bates. She had stayed out of his path, which seemed to be what he expected, but no captain could command without knowledge.

"Who does this in a planetside house?" asked Heris. Bates folded his lip under. She waited him out. He might be a butler, but she was a captain.

"It . . . varies," he said finally. "More than it used to; more than it should, some say. Originally, household staff did it all, unless a wall fell in or something. Then as houses became more technically oriented—plumbing inside, gas laid on, electricity—" Heris had never considered that having indoor plumbing meant someone was technically oriented. "Then," Bates went on, "owners had to resort to outside expertise. Calling in the plumber or the electrician when something went wrong. Some found staff members who could do it, but most of those trades thought themselves too good to be in service. . . ."

"So . . . usually . . . it's outsiders?"

"Mostly, except in the really big households. Where we're going, of course, the staff does it all, but they've a whole planet of homes to care for."

"The whole
planet
is one household?"

"Yes—I thought you understood. Lord Thornbuckle's estate
is
the planet."

She had known it, in an intellectual way, but she had not ever dealt with its implications. Of course the super-rich owned whole planets . . . but not as pleasure-grounds. She had thought of them as owning the land, perhaps—but never as owning everything on the planet—the infrastructure, the houses, the staff to manage it. But it wasn't that impossible, she reminded herself. The R.S.S. owned several planets as well: one for resources, and one for a training base. This would be like a large military installation. At once her first frantic concerns—where do they buy groceries? Where do they educate the kids?—vanished.

"So Lord . . . er . . . Thornbuckle has all the support staff on hand already," she said. "Technicians, moles, all the rest?"

"Yes, Captain. In the off-season, the planet's population is less than two hundred thousand; in the main season, he'll have at least two thousand guests—which means, of course, another ten to twenty thousand of their ships' crews, and ships' staff all rummocking about the Stations or off at Hospitality Bay."

Hospitality Bay sounded like the sort of place Fleet marines went to gamble, wench, and pillage. From Bates's explanation, it was designed as a low-cost recreational base for ships' crews and off-duty house staff . . . in other words, a place to gamble, wench, and pillage. Most of the wealthy guests who arrived in their own yachts left them docked "blind" at one of the Stations (which one depended on the guests' rank). It had proved cheaper and more pleasant, Bates said, for the crews and staff to vacation planetside than to enlarge the Stations enough to hold and entertain idle servants. A largish island, complete with a variety of accommodations, automated service, recreational facilities, and the chance to meet crew and staff from the other yachts. Clubs, bars, entertainment booths, and halls—everything the vacationing staff might want.

"No riots?" asked Heris, remembering the Fleet marines. "No . . ." What would they call shore patrol? "No—security officers?"

"The militia," said Bates, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "Of course there are always those who take advantage, and someone must keep order. It's understood that the usual . . . er . . . structure of command does not apply. I am not held responsible, let's say, if an under-gardener from this ship gets into trouble. Milady would consider that, afterwards, and might say something to me, but not the militia. We each have our own places, you see."

Enlisted bars, NCO bars, and officer bars, Heris thought. She called up a list of the branches of the captains guild, and found one listed for Hospitality Bay . . . so she, too, would be expected to sit out the hunting season entertaining herself with other captains from yachts. Why was that so much worse than spending leave with other Fleet officers? She knew the answer, but pushed it away. She'd joined the Captains Guild; that was all she could do for now. Someday she would belong again . . . or she wouldn't. She'd live with it either way.

"I suppose," she said, looking at Bates carefully, "that if anything . . . arises . . . on the household side that I need to know about, you will inform me?"

"Yes, Captain Serrano." He smiled at her, evidently pleased. She could not imagine why.

"This is
very
different from the Regular Space Service," she said, to see what his reaction would be.

"Yes, it is, Captain." His smile broadened. "It's even different from most civilian households. Lady Cecelia likes to do things her own way."

That, Heris had figured out from the lavender plush. Perhaps servants like Bates took pleasure in their employers' eccentricities, but she didn't. Yet.

"I must warn you," she said, "that I'm planning to run emergency drills just as I would aboard a warship. It's a matter of safety, you understand. Do the . . . er . . . staff have training sessions aboard?"

"Not normally, no, although we do have assigned places and duties for various emergencies. Captain Olin never found it necessary." A faint air of distaste, whether for Captain Olin or her proposal, she couldn't tell.

"Captain Olin, I'm afraid, had eccentricities unsuited to the master of a spacefaring vessel," Heris said, and then realized how odd that sounded. Eccentricities implied activities engaged in with objects obtained from catalogs with names like
Stirrings
and
Imaginations.
The only person she'd ever known thrown out of the Service for "eccentricities" had insisted on sharing his delight in electrical and plumbing lines with those not so inclined. She had sat on the court-martial, and remembered suddenly that he'd also liked having his mouth packed full of feathers. Captain Olin's eccentricities, she was sure, had been ethical and not sensual.

Bates no longer smiled. "And these drills will be . . . unscheduled?"

"Yes. I'm sorry; I realize it's inconvenient, but one never knows when a real emergency will occur, and drills must be a surprise. That way we can find out what didn't work, and prepare for it." She paused. "However, if you would like to arrange training first, I'll delay the drills. At the least, every member of staff should have an emergency station where he or she will be safe and out of the way of crew members with assignments. Ideally, staff would help with things like verifying that emergency hatches have locked, that ventilation systems are working according to specs, and so on."