Grant adjusts his perch on the Maekyonite-sized armchair he’s set before the cabin’s camera in preparation for the meeting Shoskia requested. The chiaroscuro crimson of his own backdrop is noticeably less sumptuous and open than hers. He’s never thought of the cabin as cramped, but the contrast reminds him he’s onboard a starship, and she’s in a sprawling estate. “Hello, Marquess.”
“How goes your work on Korak Refinery?”
“It goes.” He laces his ringed fingers together; he’s finally given in to Sykora’s urging and started wearing a few with precious stones in them, and they’re ideal for fiddling. “I wasn’t aware that you were planning your own entry onto the ring when we took our first meeting.”
“Well, we’re all so excited, Majesty,” Shoskia says. “Many people who are tired of the way things work on Ptolek are thrilled to set up stakes on another exo planet. Especially when there is so much publicity thanks to you and your firm.”
“I hear you’re in your aerostat phase,” Grant says. “That’s… quick.”
“It may seem that way to you and to Countess Wenzai, this being your first venture.” Shoskia’s grin curls with condescension. “Once you’ve set up a few of these firms, you learn some knacks and cut some cruft.”
Grant glances over his shoulder. Sykora is sitting up in bed in a scarlet mumu, her feet encased in a quietly humming electromassage box. She rolls her eyes and makes a masturbatory waggling motion with her ring and middle fingers. Balanced on her baby bump is a plate stacked with pancakes. He made them for her once, and she’s developed an addiction.
“Speaking of which,” Shoskia says, oblivious to the lounging Princess past the edge of the screen eating pancakes barehanded. “I wanted to get in touch because I’d heard you were having problems with your Eqtoran workforce?”
“You’ve heard, then,” Grant says. “I guess word travels quickly in the exo clique.”
“I don’t use the Eqtorans in the same way you do, but I have a handful. It’s a rather regular topic of conversation among them. I believe we can help one another, Majesty.”
“How so?”
“Our refineries may be in competition, but we ultimately serve the same mistress, naturally. There’s no reason it can’t be a friendly competition, hmm? I’m fortunate enough to have the ear of someone who has the ear of someone who has the—well. They don’t exactly have ears, do they? Just those funny little nubs.”
Grant laughs politely and hopes his desperate urge to hang up in this woman’s face doesn’t show. Under the camera, he’s tapping furiously on his communicator.
honey i am this fucking close to snapping and cussing this marquess out. talk me down
“I might be able to render some aid with your Multraq problem,” Shoskia says.
“My Multraq problem,” Grant says. “You know qer name, then?”
“She’s done some sabre-rattling around my affairs as well,” Shoskia says. “But we’ve been communicating. I could take up your cause with her.”
“I see.” Grant sets his jaw. On the bed, Sykora hurriedly licks syrup off her fingers and picks her communicator up. “And you’d do this for free?”
“About that.” Shoskia rubs the edge of one long nail. “I have been of the opinion for some time now that for the safety of your people and the soundness of your shareholders, it might be best to bring additional help on. It appears Wenzai isn’t rising to the challenge. Bless her, but she is just a Countess, after all. They are limited in power and in capacity.”
“Whose help, then?”
“Well.” She rests a hand on her chest. “While I am in some ways a competitor, I am also a loyal subject of yourself and her Majesty. For a stake in your future success, I would be happy to consult.”
The turning oval of Sykora’s typing reply resolves into a message:
talk you down? no way mister >:)
fuck this harlot and how she’s talking to you. torch her and hang up.
He transforms his smirk at the message to as gracious an expression as he can manage. “Would you give me just a moment?”
She inclines her head. “Take your time.”
He sends:
are you sure?
Sykora starts tak-takking away again.
you have nothing more to gain from gentility, dove
she’s already strung along
she’s already doing what she can to sabotage you
she already thinks of you as an idiot and an enemy
so fuck her!!!
piss her off. it’ll trip her up and make her think you’re impulsive.
just make her mad, not scared. The caller mute button is the box with the x, she’ll HATE that
“If you wished to wind down your association with the Korak Refinery entirely, I would be more than eager to buy you out, you know,” Shoskia says. “You have done such a splendid job setting it up. I really think it has promise.”
“I said just a moment, please.”
She titters. “Of course, Majesty.”
Sykora sends:
oh and press the orange square on the console before you do it because i need this recording tagged and saved hahahaha >:)
“Marquess.” Grant looks back up at her. “I think you’re operating under a misunderstanding.”
She raises one thinline brow. “What would that be?”
He sets the communicator aside. “There is no struggle you can inflict on me that will make me come begging. Not for help, and not for a truce.”
“A truce? Inflict on you?” She laughs. “Majesty, I fear you’ve been watching too many—”
He presses the box with the X, and a red mute glyph appears in the corner of her screen view. Her mouth snaps shut.
“Listen up.” He hits the orange square and straightens his shoulders. “Record this and play it back if you need reminding. I don’t want to do anything the way you or people like you have done it. I visited your manor, and it made me sick. It disgusted me. You disgust me. And I will do everything in my power to oppose your vision for the Empire. I will outrank you and outspend you and whatever else I can do. I will never accept your help. If you threw me a life preserver in a storm, I’d pop it with my teeth. I will run my refinery my way, and nothing you or any other Taiikari or Eqtoran does will stop me, and I’ll ride it into the molten core of Qarnaq before I let you chisel your way in.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Marquess Shoskia’s eye twitches. Probably wishing she could compel over video. He takes her off mute.
“Have I made myself clear?” he demands.
The Marquess’s voice is quiet and lethal. “Exceptionally, Majesty.”
“Good,” Grant says. “Don’t call me again.” He punches the disconnect.
Sykora breaks into a giggling fit as soon as the screen goes blank. “Gods of the Firmament, her face. I want that as my communicator background.”
He exhales and shakes the tension out of his arms. “I hope that wasn’t a mistake.”
“We can work with rage, dove. Come lie over here with your wife and babies.” She pulls her feet out of the massage machine and wiggles her toes. “Take a turn with the doodad.”
“Will it fit my feet?”
“It’s very adjustable. I’m sure—” Her voice dies as he scoots into bed and places his feet next to the whirring machine. His big toe clears its beveled edge. Her eyes widen. “Sometimes, when you’re not in my immediate field of vision, I forget how so unreasonably huge you are.”
“I’m perfectly reasonable,” he says. “Certain Marquesses aside.”
“Oh, won’t it be so lovely when she’s aside.” Sykora sighs. “I rather think it’ll be soon. I bet she’ll be blowing up our fake Dantia’s line any minute now.”
“What about the real Dantia? Are you still meeting her this fourthday?”
“We are,” Sykora says. “I’d like you there. I think I have the perfect repayment in mind for giving her little attack-throoks back. Will you come?”
“Anytime and every time.” Grant kisses their sleeping children through the flimsy gauze and the firm belly. “I need to run soon. Choir practice with your brother and the mek-Taqas. Are you doing anything in the next hour?”
“Why? Should I?”
“If you stay in bed, I’ll come back up and lick syrup off you when I’m done.”
“Ahh. Well.” Her ears perk up. “That’s me booked for the day, then.”
“So is he your lover?” Ipqen asks as Ruaq mumbles her way through a sightread of the high harmony.
“We love one another, yes.” Tymar finishes erasing the line in his notebook and flips his pencil back around to the graphite. “Though lover suggests a kind of physicality that isn’t really our flavor.”
Brother Cerik nudges an open book into Tymar’s hand and indicates a passage. The Paas System’s red dwarf star shines through the picture window, haloing his blonde hair, before it settles across the sizable poster of the pop star Nuwas Luall that adorns Waian’s cluttered studio. The chief engineer has cheerfully allowed them to usurp her practice space, and though it’s a tight fit considering she’s made it equal parts music studio and workshop, it’s cozy once you get over the echoing scents of industrial grade lubricant and artificial colophony.
“Oh, yes. That’ll do nicely.” Tymar gives Cerik a quick kiss on the cheek, then starts copying the passage down and spacing out a translation beneath it. “Cerik is Cerik. You haven’t known me with him, but most people I’ve met haven’t known me without him. When I make my permanent move to the system, it would be a great comfort to have him with me. I don’t want to be difficult and call him a requirement, but…”
Grant sets aside the basswood Taiikari strala he’s experimenting with. His fingers are just too thick for these frets. “Not difficult at all. Not if he’s willing.”
Cerik smiles.
Ipqen smiles back. “Does he ever speak?”
“When I have to,” Cerik says in a startlingly low and gravelly voice.
“The rest of you can stay on break,” Tymar says. “But if I could ask you to match my pitch, Lady mek-Taqa. You’re the central melody for these first two arguments.”
Grant sets his folio aside and takes a deep drink from his bottle—water cut with just a splash of tart zaikem peel for his busy throat. “Do we need food? I certainly do.”
“If they’ve got that fake knockfish steak, I’ll take an order of that,” Ipqen says.
“I’m all right,” Tymar says. “But if you’re running to the cantina, Cerik’ll have—” He considers a moment. “A basket of tulatila fritters and a large iced green.”
Cerik smiles.
Grant looks to Ruaq. “You want to come with me?”
Her snout ascends from her sheet music. “Sure thing, sire.”
It’s Majesty, not sire. Sire is for Consorts. Grant catches himself about to say that and is surprised at himself. Since when do you care? He opens the soundproofed door for Ruaq, and the two head out on the hab level thoroughfare, toward the kiosks.
Grant returns the bows and salutes as they rain down on him. Ruaq gives a perky hello and a quick hug to a woman Grant recognizes from the agro level.
“In my early days aboard, that’s one of the first people I talked to,” he says, as the coveralled food tech ambles away. “I invited her onto an elevator, and she refused.”
Ruaq steps around a floor vent that a chirruping quadrupedal drone is servicing. “Why’s that?”
“She said we cannot be alone with you, Prince Consort.” He taps his anticomps. “I didn’t have these yet.”
“They hadn’t made them?”
He shakes his head. “They hadn’t, no. I was Sykora’s property then.”
“And look at you now.”
“Look at us.” He gestures around to the crew scurrying underfoot and over catwalks. “You and me and Ipqen and the galactic conquerors.”
She laughs. “You conquered me too, you know.”
“Well, so did Ipqen,” he says. “You forgave her, right?”
“Halfway.”
They get into line at the food kiosk, and the three crewmates ahead of them instantly bow themselves out of the way, despite Grant’s most good-natured attempts to wait his turn. Grant takes a knee to reach the order screen. “So you and Ipqen. I hear there was a thing with Hyax.”
Ruaq’s smile shrinks.
“I don’t need you to relitigate everything for me if it’s annoying, or it hurts,” Grant says. “Just want to make sure all three of you are okay.”
“Yeah.” Ruaq exhales. “We sort of all had a… tense conversation the other day.”
“Did it have anything to do with this schism that Tymar’s got us working on?”
“Schism.” Ruaq scratches one of her teeth at the gumline. “That’s loaded.”
“It’s not clear to me like it is to you and Tymar what to call it,” Grant says. “But I’m grateful you’re helping me fix it. And I can’t imagine it’s a simple thing for you.”
“So my thing with Hyax.” Ruaq scrolls through the menu looking for Ipqen’s weird artificial fish. “It’s not as though I don’t understand where the frustration came from. But you need to understand this is all so wondrous and exciting and all, but there’s a terror, too. Like even if the Taiikari did hold the same values as close as we did, it’d be scary. And you don’t. You just don’t. You value…” Ruaq pauses to find her word. “Collaboration, I guess, more than freedom.”
“I’m not Taiikari, Ruaq,” Grant says, with gentle reproof.
“Right. Sorr—” Ruaq laughs ruefully. “Can’t say that, though, can I?”
“It took me a while to get used to it.”
“I grew up thinking sorry was just the right thing to say.” Ruaq hits the menu button, and the automaton manning the grill beeps encouragingly. “And now I find out that the entire rest of the galaxy disagrees. Our backwardness, our suspicions. The way we live. Our faith. It seemed so encompassing. It seemed like an ocean. Now it’s a puddle.” Her fringe wilts. “I get it. I do. But it still hurts to hear you—them—say it.”
“Is that what Hyax said? That it was backward?”
Ruaq tilts her head back and forth. “Not in those words, exactly. Not at first. Things got, uh, heated. I’m just feeling… scrutinized. Y’know, this was my religion before it was Ipqen’s. She converted to it, I think, mostly to please me. And now it’s causing you all these problems, and it’s a keeper who’s the real pain in the ass. I’m used to being the cutting skid, not the floating one.”
“I’m going to take a guess about what that means,” Grant says.
“It means—”
“Hold on. I’ve gotten good at this.” Grant retrieves the fritters and the tea from the jingle-chiming automaton. “It means you’re used to being a solution, not a problem.”
“Exactly.” Ruaq laughs weakly.
“You’re not. A problem, I mean.”
“Yes,” she says. “I am. Or my people are. And this is all you’re seeing of it, of this big beautiful thing that’s—that used to be my life. It’s really, really beautiful, so often. Most of the time. The way we live in the arms of Eqt, I mean. And you’re only seeing it at its worst.”
“Well, remember,” Grant says. “Tymar’s convinced the same scripture that’s fueling Multraq is also our silver bullet.”
“Ooh.” Ruaq cracks a toothy grin. “My turn. That means, uh… is silver rare on Maekyon?”
Grant munches a fritter. “Sort of.”
“So it means something like a hard-to-find solution.”
“More like a simple, magical solution to a complex problem. Like a—” Gordian knot. “Well, so there’s this thing called a werewolf, right? A guy that can turn into a wolf.”
“What’s a wolf?”
Grant is saved from the spot he’s painted himself into by the whistle of the robot with Ruaq’s meal. The two of them amble back toward Waian’s workshop.
“When all this is done, I’ll go to a service with both of you,” Grant says. “In-person, no video link or anything.”
“That could be nice.” Ruaq peels a flaky shred of knockfish from the gleaming slab in her basket. “Don’t know how the hell you guys synthesized this stuff. But it’s fucking sacramental. And me and Ipqen are the only ones who eat it.” She sighs as another cluster of Taiikari go by and wave at her. “You’re all just too nice, you know? Like you’re too nice.”
“Who’s you’re here?”
“The Empire,” she says. “We surrendered, and you’re all too nice.”
Grant wants to say it again—I’m not Taiikari. But she didn’t call him that this time, did she? He can deny he’s Taiikari until he’s as blue as his wife in the face. He used to deny just as firmly that he was Imperial.
He catches his reflection in the glassy hab-block door that leads to the studio. The sleek, martial crimson of his uniform. He shakes his head like he’s clearing cobwebs from it. “If we sing this next stanza badly, I’ll have everyone court-martialed,” he says. “That make you feel better?”
“Sure.” Ruaq giggles. “That’s some good authoritarianism right there.”
Grant opens the studio door, and the low, sonorous song of Ruaq’s fiancée lilts outward. Ruaq’s already humming her countermelody. Apostasy in service of Empire, against the precepts that used to rule the little keeper’s life. But it sure does sound pretty.