Starcrossed (36 page)

Startled, I looked up at him. The pain in his eyes made me wince, but he also looked determined.
 

“Thank you, Sean. Thank Molly for me, too.”

He gave a quick shake of his head, frowning now. “Don’t. This doesn’t mean I’m okay with—” He glanced at Rigel. “But I won’t . . . make you hurt.” For a moment he looked almost pleadingly into my eyes, then turned away abruptly and went back to his table, where the others were watching us curiously.

I stared after him for a second, confused and a little disturbed. But I could worry about Sean later. Right now, I had a precious chance to talk with Rigel and I wasn’t about to waste it.

“What was that about?” Rigel asked as soon as I joined him. “O’Gara telling you not to sit with me?”

“No, actually. He said they’re not going to try to keep us apart anymore. He and Molly, I mean. I’m pretty sure everyone else will.”

Rigel frowned over at the other table. “Wonder what he’s plotting now?”

I put my hand over Rigel’s, making him look at me. “I don’t think he’s plotting anything. He’s not a bad guy, Rigel. Just . . . committed. He and Molly have been really nice to me, running interference with Allister and even their mom. I consider them friends.”

“Friends.” I could feel jealousy and uncertainty from him. “One of whom can make you feel better, apparently. Whose DNA is helping those Healers concoct their damned cure. So what you said earlier, about leaving—”

“I meant it. I still do. You’re
way
more than a friend to me, Rigel. You know that.”

Finally he smiled, his negative feelings slowly dissipating, though sadness lingered in his eyes. “Glad to hear it. Because you . . . you’re my life, M.”

stochail
(sto-KAYL):
preparation, as for a battle or journey

Barely a minute after I sat down with Rigel, Ms. Harrigan entered the cafeteria, ‘patrolling,’ like yesterday. Sure enough, as soon as she spotted us, she headed our way, though casually, like she didn’t want it to be obvious.

“So.” Rigel spoke quickly, watching her progress. “We agreed to look for alternatives, right? The O’Garas gave you that book full of stuff and I can probably get more files from my dad. You e-mailed you were looking for loopholes. Let’s both work on that.”

I nodded. “I found out last night I can read even faster now than before you left. But so far it’s mostly government structure, history, protocol, stuff like that. Allister probably edited it before giving it to me. But some of the laws are so convoluted, maybe there’s something he overlooked.”

“And I’ll look at more recent stuff—news stories from the past twenty years, especially resistance news. My dad has tons of books and articles.” He laced his fingers absentmindedly through mine as he talked. It felt delicious.

I’d have been happy just to enjoy the moment, but Ms. Harrigan was getting closer. “What if we
don’t
find anything? Or not soon enough? Those Healers said they might have something to test in a week. We need a backup plan, so we can get away if we have to. It won’t be easy, and we need to be ready.”
 

He squeezed my hand reassuringly, then switched to telepathy, since Ms. H was getting close enough to hear us now.
We’ll both work on that, too, and compare ideas tomorrow, okay? Don’t worry, M.
He could sense my emotions at least as well as I sensed his.
 

Okay. We’ll figure something out, one way or another,
I thought back, just as Ms. Harrigan reached us.

“Are you sure this is wise, Excellency?” Ms. Harrigan whispered, frowning at our still-clasped hands. “I may be here merely to observe, but I feel I should advise you—”

“How about you don’t?” I interrupted. Me, interrupting a teacher! Except she wasn’t
really
a teacher, and we all knew it. “I’m being advised to death these days, thanks. And don’t call me that—not here.”

To my surprise, an embarrassed flush stained her flawless cheeks. “Of course. My apologies.” With another frown for Rigel, she hurried away.

“Wow.” Rigel was looking at me with something like admiration.

“What? I’m sick of all these . . . these
meddlers!
”

He grinned. “Me too. But the way you stood up to her—that was great. You’ve changed more these past few months than you realize, M.” His grin faded. “You really are becoming a leader.”

I stared at him. “What, because I was rude to a teacher? Oh, yeah, they’ll be bowing down to me for that. Don’t be silly.”

But his words made me wonder. I knew I’d changed physically, getting stronger and faster—and a little prettier. Plus this improved telepathy and my faster reading, all of it thanks to Rigel. But my personality hadn’t changed, had it? I still felt like an insecure teenaged girl most of the time, which was about as far from a leader as anyone could get.

“Besides,” I said aloud, “I don’t
want
to be a leader. Haven’t I said that all along?”

“Yeah, you have,” he agreed, but he still looked thoughtful—and wasn’t letting me read those thoughts, whatever they were.

Unsettled, I turned my attention to my lunch.

Sean had a game that night, so I didn’t have to go to the O’Garas.’ (I didn’t even ask to go to the game, though I wondered what my aunt would have said if I had.)

Pleading homework, I went up to my room right after dinner and spent the evening poring over Martian legalities and traditions. Pretty boring stuff, but as I pushed myself to read faster and faster, I found myself sucked into parts here and there—especially the history.
 

Whenever I found anything that might be useful—an obscure clause in an old law or some historical reference to an exception to a tradition—I jotted it down in a notebook I’d started for that purpose. I also noted which years or even decades were skipped over, in case Allister had deliberately deleted stuff he didn’t want me to see.

When I finally rolled up the scroll around midnight, I was amazed to discover I’d read the equivalent of six or seven whole books since getting home from school that afternoon.
 

Among other things, I’d learned that Sovereigns weren’t expected to rule for more than a hundred years, though some had ruled much longer, while others had stepped down early in favor of a successor. Three different times, that successor wasn’t the Sovereign’s child, but a direct descendant of an earlier Sovereign.
 

There had been six underage Sovereigns in the history of Nuath, the youngest Acclaimed at the age of twelve, and their actual authority while minors (which on Mars meant under eighteen) had varied a lot. Based on what I’d learned, I probably
could
force my wishes on the Council, but that would obligate me to declare for Sovereign right now, which I was
not
ready to do.

Most importantly, I’d read about a few occasions where intended Consorts had been rejected by the Sovereign, once only days before the “joining,” or wedding. In that case, the Sovereign in question, Vevilana, had gone on to rule solo for more than seventy years, Nuath’s own Virgin Queen.

I fell asleep slightly more hopeful that Rigel and I would find our loophole in time after all.

The next day we compared notes at lunch. Though Ms. Harrigan didn’t talk to me in the cafeteria again, she did keep wandering past, like she was hoping to overhear something. We both kept an eye on her, waiting until she was on the far side of the room to talk out loud about anything important.

What Rigel had found most encouraging from his research was the recent dissent among various factions of the underground resistance—which was becoming less underground as its numbers swelled.
 

“A sizable minority are opposed to installing another Sovereign at all,” he told me, his eyes shining. “If they convince enough people to agree once Faxon’s gone, you might never have to play ruler at all!”
 

I was startled to feel a spurt of resentment—almost anger—at those people. Which was just crazy. Sure, they were essentially dissing my grandfather, but I’d never even met him. And they sounded like my best hope for getting out of a job I totally didn’t want.

“That would be awesome,” I agreed, my smile only the tiniest bit forced. Before Rigel could tap into my conflicted feelings, I pulled out my own notebook and started sharing what I’d found last night.

“If you’re reading as fast as I am, we’ll get through all this stuff a lot quicker than I thought,” I concluded. “I was right, though, that I hardly have any recent history, and I’m pretty sure there are parts that have been deleted. These are the gaps that made me suspicious.”

He copied my list into his notes. “Doesn’t surprise me. I wonder if it’s just Allister who doesn’t want you to know everything, or it it’s the whole Council? We may not have much of this older stuff at home, but I’ll fill in any blanks I can.”

Ms. Harrigan was meandering back our way, so as soon as he’d copied everything, he snapped his notepad shut and we turned our conversation to school-related topics neither of us cared beans about.

Back home that afternoon, I spent some time working out a plan for Rigel and me to run away, since neither of us had found anything yet that was a slam-dunk alternative—or even close. It was my night to make dinner and I nearly burned the macaroni, I was so absorbed in details to throw everyone off our track.
 

I listened more closely than usual to Uncle Louie’s stories over dinner, gleaning a detail or two that might be useful later. I also hoped do some computer research after dinner on how to effectively disappear before diving back into my Nuathan texts.

Unfortunately, I’d barely started clearing the table when Mrs. O’Gara called, asking my aunt if I could come over. Of course, she said yes.

After what had happened here the last time, I couldn’t suppress a sense of dread when I knocked on their door twenty minutes later. “So, what’s tonight’s bad news?” I asked Sean brightly when he answered the door.

“Bad news?” He looked genuinely confused, which was a relief. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind. Why am I here?”

Allister answered, which was bad news all by itself. “Now that you are recovered, Princess, I thought we should continue your education. There may not be much—”

“Time left. Yes, I’ve heard. Repeatedly. Where do you want to start?” I joined him in the living room, resigned to an unpleasant evening.

Mrs. O’Gara put a cup of tea in my hand before I could sit down, then set out a plate of amazingly yummy scones with jam. Probably trying to make up for my horrible last visit—as if anything could.
 

“Sean, why don’t you join us?” Allister said as his nephew started to leave us alone. “Much of it will be review for you, but that will be no bad thing.”
 

Meaning that Sean, as my supposed future Consort, would need to know this stuff, too. Sean’s reddening ears showed he’d also caught his uncle’s implication, but he sat down in the chair next to mine without a word.

Allister became all business then, launching into his lectures and questions without further preamble. Rather to my surprise, nothing he told me was new; I’d read it all in the scroll-book. When Allister started quizzing me, I made a point of answering quickly, and with painstaking accuracy.
 

“Nuathans first came to Earth shortly before the Renaissance—which they helped to spark,” I responded at one point. “After that, ships came here at roughly twenty to thirty year intervals, always taking advantage of the closest synchronous orbits of the two planets.”

He nodded, his brows rising higher with each correct answer I gave. Sean appeared frankly amazed—and admiring. I tried not to look at him.

“And our settlements in America?” Allister asked after only the slightest pause.

“We had representatives on both the
Santa Maria
and the
Mayflower
, but we first formed a real collective in New Hampshire in the eighteen hundreds, followed by a smaller one in Colorado just before nineteen hundred, then the big one in Montana in the nineteen-thirties.”

Allister blinked, clearly surprised, since those were details he hadn’t mentioned tonight. “I take it you are finally studying?”

“Yes, now that Rigel is back and I’m feeling
so
much better, I’m catching up. Which proves he’s
not
a distraction to my studies. Rather the reverse.” I glanced at Sean, who looked away, then at Mrs. O’Gara, who was sitting across the room talking quietly with her husband and Molly. She didn’t look at me, but I was pretty sure she was listening.
 

“Hmph.” Rather than acknowledge my logic, Allister resumed his questions. “How are the representatives for the People’s House chosen?”

“The
Eodain,
you mean? They’re elected—popular election—from among candidates put forth by each of the villages, usually community leaders from the Royal and upper Scientific
fines
, though the law allows for other
fines
as well.”

“And the Royal House?”

“By blood, of course. Though specific positions in the
Riogain
are determined by Acclamation, based on demonstrated interests and skills. When there are multiple candidates for a position, a vote of the Royals is called, and if a two-thirds majority can’t be reached, the Sovereign decides.” One of those many duties they expected me to take on eventually. I couldn’t even imagine it.

As Allister continued to quiz me on the intricacies of the legislature, I couldn’t tell whether he was pleased I got all the answers right or irritated to have nothing to scold me for. He was clearly groping for more difficult questions when Mr. O’Gara interrupted him.

“Allister? There’s a call for you.” He held out one of those tiny cellphones most
Echtrans
seemed to use, though I assumed it wasn’t
really
Martian technology since I’d seen them used in public.
 

“Thank you, Quinn. Excellency, I’d say you’ve earned a break. Well done.” Allister actually granted me a thin smile before retreating into the entryway by the front door. Then, into the phone, “Yes?”