“And why two instruments?” he asked.
“The larger one records spectral variations, and the other is for direct viewing. If you wish, high one, we can use the smaller one to view the moon or any other object we like until the event begins.”
“Excellent!”
“What about my home star, Sol?” Laura asked slowly, in Paranian. “May we look at that?”
Denara took a breath, then knitted her eyebrows together and frowned.
“
Nivadaona,
” the Paran said. “
Sol
is the human word for it.”
The girl set about adjusting the smaller instrument, while Laura searched the sky for the bright stars the Paran had taught her lay on a line with Earth’s sun. When she found the dim star between them, she pointed.
“There,” she said.
Denara nodded without looking up. The Paran slipped an arm around Laura.
“So,
um
,” she said. “How was your day? You seemed preoccupied.”
“Negotiations occupied much of my time,” he replied.
“With your coalition?”
“What is left of it.”
She grimaced. “Why did your allies abandon you?”
“Abandon is not the correct term,” he replied. “Stability and continuity, or the promise of it across generations, counts for much. Monralar has it. I no longer do.” He shrugged. “It is the Game. Perhaps the child you carry will lift Parania back to prominence.”
“If he is anything like my father, he will.”
“It could happen that scientific breakthroughs would also gain us influence,” Azana said. “Human maths are governed by laws formulated from a completely different ontological viewpoint. They may spark conceptual leaps in our own science.”
“Whatever that means.”
The Paran chuckled.
“Is that because it was the Benefactors what gave us our maths?” Denara asked.
Azana nodded. “Likely.”
“Where did your Benefactors go?” Laura asked.
“We do not know,” the Paran replied. “Some historians believe they left observation devices, but we have not identified any on Tolar or in orbit.”
Denara plopped onto the blanket near her mother. “Maybe they are on the moon!”
“Detailed scans reveal nothing,” Azana replied.
“Huh.” Laura set aside her tea mug and scrambled to her feet. “Is this pointing at Sol
now?”
* * *
The Monral gazed about the audience room. Groups from the city had arrived to join the staff gathered in the audience room for the concert and filled the room to capacity; the musicians he had engaged, even if against their will, were popular. He stood on his dais and gazed at the milling crowd, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. The music would begin soon.
And he would see Sharana.
Even if she refused to take her proper place on the dais, which he believed likely, she would still share this space with him. The music, good or bad, mattered less than the opportunity it provided to entice her here, where he could see her face and drink in her presence. Seeing him would chip away at the ice surrounding her heart. It must.
Behind him, his son climbed the three shallow steps onto the dais and took his place.
“Father,” he said, as the Monral turned to face him.
“Son. What news?”
“She will not come.”
The Monral frowned. “She must. She is resigned to it. You spoke to her?”
His son shook his head. “She refused to admit me to her quarters.”
“Then she will come.”
“Father—”
“I know her heart. She will come.”
Farric lifted a shoulder and knelt on the dais matting to sit on his heels. A faint sigh escaped him. “Yes, Father.”
The Monral turned back to face the empty space reserved for the musicians. He scanned the crowd, but he well knew Sharana remained, filled with resignation, in her apartments. She would leave them at any moment. His heart lifted at the thought, and a smile crept onto his face. He lowered himself to join his son on the matting.
A guard flickered into sight, made a series of gestures, and disappeared again. It seemed that the musicians had invented a delay, and sent their apologies by means of the guard.
They dare!
They chanced much to risk his anger. They had already pushed as far as he would tolerate. He would make sure they regretted it.
Sharana’s distress at his anger pierced him, forcing him to suppress a wince. Pushing down the turmoil, he fought to calm himself and sent her affection and welcome through their bond. She did not push him away, but neither did she accept what he offered.
He judged this a good sign.
A low murmuring of conversation began as the crowd began to grow restless, a sign that Dazyn and Sylindra risked their own reputation as well as his anger. Moments later, the guard flickered once more, and the musicians walked in, carrying their instruments.
Sharana remained in her apartments.
The Monral stopped breathing. His son had been correct. As Dazyn began to play a small curve harp, the Monral closed his barriers as much as he was able—not completely, alas—and shoved the crashing, searing rejection out of his mind. He concentrated on the music now, using its technical perfection as a means to avoid conscious thought.
The concert continued. Dazyn and Sylindra delivered a performance brilliant on a technical level but disappointing on an empathic one. It was, no doubt, a further display of their displeasure, but it provided the lifeline he needed. Had the musicians used their gift to play the emotions of the audience in the same way they plied the strings of their instruments, he could not have remained impassive in the face of Sharana’s rebuff. Perhaps he would not ruin them after all.
Nevertheless, he stood as the last note fell and left the audience room, brushing past the performers without a word or a glance. Behind him, Farric’s voice rose, his heir stepping in to fulfill the ordinary forms of etiquette. Anger at the pair of musicians fueled his pace down the main corridor to the family wing, and not until the door of his quarters closed behind him did he sink to the floor and sob.
* * *
The Monral jolted awake, blinking at the wrong ceiling, his tablet chiming and buzzing in its pocket. With a groan, he pulled it out, silenced it, and dropped it on the floor.
On the floor?
He pushed himself up on one elbow. On the other side of the windows, the sun hung halfway up the sky. He’d fallen asleep on a divan in his sitting room, after… He glanced at a nearby low table sporting a variety of empty bottles. Some looked familiar. The pounding in his head suggested he’d emptied all of them.
He shoved himself the rest of the way to a sitting position and scooped the tablet off the floor to examine it. The signal that had awakened him originated from the stronghold’s communications plexus—the
odalli
from Central Command, Adeline Russell, had sent him a message. He dropped the tablet back on the floor mats. It could wait. Stumbling to his peds with another groan, he pulled off his robe and trousers and headed for the bathing area.
The sun hung a little farther up the sky when he re-emerged, clean and fresh-robed, hair brushed and re-knotted. The servants had removed the bottles, and with it the evidence of his overindulgence. He dropped into a chair, rubbing his temples with both hands. The turmoil with Sharana bloomed.
With a sigh, he reached for the tablet, which had replaced the bottles on the low table. A sigil indicated waiting reports. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and began to navigate through the tablet’s menus. Menus. Such an
odalli
idea. But then, the tablets, and the larger consoles, were
odalli
inventions, among the few alien ideas to take hold on Tolar. He himself preferred the Smoke.
Sharana’s mood savaged his heart, and he stifled a groan. This had to stop.
“Servant!” he called. “Summon my apothecary.”
While the servant did as he was bid, the Monral opened the message from
Major
Russell.
Earth Central Command extends an invitation to the honored heir and ambassador of the province of Monralar to preparatory negotiations at the Central Command Embassy, Capella Free Station, time yet to be determined
, it said. There followed several hundreds of words of security measures and restrictions on movement.
He shook his head. Complications, always complications, when it came to the humans. Something inside him exploded, and he hurled the tablet at the nearest wall hard enough to score the stone and break the tablet into three pieces. As if Central Command would have any say in his son’s movements.
The ornate door of his apartments opened, and his apothecary walked in.
“Speak,” the Monral muttered.
The man was not one to engage in conversation. Without comment, he sat in the next chair, probing with healer’s privilege while his medical scanner hummed about the Monral’s aching head. Then he pulled a vial from a pocket in his robe, unsealed it, and held it out.
“Drink,” he said.
The Monral took it and quaffed its contents in one swallow, shuddering at the taste. After a few moments, the pounding in his head lessened. He met the apothecary’s eyes. “I need a way to function.”
“Reconcile with your bond-partner.”
He scowled. “You have a drug you use to suppress your own empathic response when treating patients in pain. I want access to a supply of it.”
The healer’s eyes narrowed. “High one?”
“This turmoil with Sharana renders me unfit to attend to my duties, and she refuses me. I cannot court her if she will have nothing to do with me.”
“Conflict between a bonded pair is always short-lived—”
“Will the drug work for this purpose?”
“I believe it could be used to relieve such distress, but high one—”
“Prepare a supply.”
Laura heaved a sigh and leaned her chin on one hand at the desk in her sitting room, her tablet propped before her. “The Paran has been insanely busy.”
“Sounds like the Sural.” On the tablet’s small screen, Marianne’s face held bland disinterest. “They couldn’t do this while an Earth Fleet flagship orbited most of the time, so it’s the first Kekrax trade mission in more than five of their years. There are several dozen provinces involved, and from what I understand, the Kekrax are eager to see what shinies they have on offer after all this time.”
“What the lizards have to bargain with in return is beyond me—Kekrax Main is a ball of mud. The Paran is sparkling with glee, though. He must have gotten something he wanted.”
“The Sural traded for some of that weird clay they have. Tolari artisans love it.”
“Not
this
Tolari artisan.”
Marianne laughed. “How are you getting along? Double the hormones, double the fun?”
“Not really. I never did have much trouble with that anyway.”
“Lucky!”
“Now, now. Would it help if I said I haven’t been able to draw much?”
“What? No! Why?”
Laura lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I planned to draw a portrait of the old man who did the whale sculpture, but I haven’t been able to finish it. I spend a lot of time reading instead.”
“That’s too bad.” Marianne’s eyebrows creased. “What are you reading?”
“A little of this, a little of that. I don’t read very fast, but mostly romances and colony planet adventures in the library you gave me. I’ve started reading some Paranian stories, too, and the Paran put some of his own poetry on my tablet.”
“Oh how nice!”
“What about Rose? Do you have her reading yet?” Laura stuck her tongue in her cheek.
Marianne sputtered a laugh. “No, but she’s a precocious little weed. Four months old—I think—and crawling all over the place already. At least she’s finally stopped squawking every time I have a strong feeling.”
“That was good for you. Built character.”
“Built stress is more like it.”
Laura giggled. “Enjoy the adventure.”
“I’m trying.” A crash sounded in the background, followed by a shriek. Marianne started. “The adventure continues!”
The link cut off. Laura chuckled and stuffed the tablet in a pocket, then glanced out the window into the darkened garden. A thrumming satisfaction flowed through her from the Paran. He took real delight in the Kekrax trade mission underway. Shaking her head, she headed out of her quarters and into his suite, where she stretched out on a divan to lie in wait for him. The man had to sleep sooner or later.
* * *
The Monral pinched the bridge of his nose and stifled a curse. The trading went well—the Kekrax seemed to favor Monrali pottery over Nalevian—but the apothecary’s drug took a toll on his ability to keep up with the strange little
odalli
. He returned from a brief walk to shake off the fatigue only to find the Paran had pulled a promising trade right out from under Monralar.
His apothecary had warned him he would experience undesirable symptoms if he used the substance for more than a few tens of days. He wasted little thought on the matter. He needed empathic distance to function, and the drug provided the most effective means of achieving it. Undesirable symptoms or no, he preferred fatigue to continuous emotional turmoil.
Sharana had left her apartments to take up quarters in the city. She had refused to allow a guard to accompany her, and the Monral understood the message in that. It was a measure of how well the apothecary’s drug worked that he could consider the implicit rejection with dispassion.
He wrenched his thoughts from that path. He needed to keep his attention fixed on the present. And for the present… He quit his chair and left the open study, heading for the bottommost level of the stronghold, buried deep in the bedrock.
When he arrived, his son, five guards, two servants, and an apothecary, all carrying shoulder packs, gathered near a circle about a man’s stride across on the stone floor: the portable phase platform left five years earlier by Ambassador Russell and his…
wife
. Monrali engineers had modified it to work with Kekrax technology, and now it provided a perfectly adequate way to transport Farric off Tolar. With so much trading, so much communications, so much flow of goods to and from the Kekrax ships in orbit, the extra activity generated when Farric and the guards left would go unnoticed.