"His Royal Highness, Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander
Chiang MacClintock!"
Prince Roger maintained his habitual, slightly bored
smile as he padded through the door, then stopped and
glanced around the room as he shot the cuffs of his shirt
and adjusted his cravat. Both were made from Diablo
spidersilk, the softest and sleekest material in the
galaxy. Since it was protected by giant, acid-spitting
spiders, it was also the most expensive.
For his part, Amos Stephens paid as little attention
as possible to the young fop he had so grandly announced.
The child was a disgrace to the honorable name of his
mother's family. The cravat was bad enough, and the
brightly patterned brocade jacket, more appropriate for a
bordello than a meeting with the Empress of Man, was
worse. But the hair! Stephens had served twenty years in
Her Majesty's Navy before entering the Palace Service
Corps. The only difference between his years in the Navy
and his years in the Palace was the way his close-cropped
curls had shifted from midnight black to silver. The mere
sight of the butt-length golden hair of the farcical dandy
Empress Alexandra's younger son had become always drove
the old butler absolutely mad.
The Empress' office was remarkably small and spare,
with a broad desk no larger than that of a middle-level
manager in any of the star-spanning corporations of Earth.
The appointments were simple but elegant; the chairs
sensible, but elaborately hand-crafted and covered in
exquisite hand-stitching. Most of the pictures were old
master originals. The one exception wasthe most
famous. "The Empress in Waiting" was a painting from life
of Miranda MacClintock during the "Dagger Years," and the
artist, Trachsler, had captured his subject perfectly. Her
eyes were open and smiling, showing the world the image of
an ingenuous Terran subject. A loyal upholder of the
Dagger Lords. In other words, a filthy collaborator. But
if you stared at the painting long enough, a chill crept
over your skin and the eyes slowly changed. To the eyes of
a predator.
Roger spared the painting one bare glance, then looked
away. All of the MacClintocks lived under the shadow of
the old biddy, long dead though she was. As the merestโand
least satisfactoryโslip of that lineage, he had all the
shadows he could stand.
Alexandra VII, Empress of Man, regarded her youngest
child through half-slitted eyes. The carefully metered
bite of Stephens' ironic announcement had apparently gone
over the prince's head completely. Roger certainly didn't
seem affected by the old spacer's disdain in the
slightest.
Unlike her flamboyant son, Empress Alexandra wore a
blue suit of such understated elegance that it must have
cost as much as a small starship. Now she leaned back in
her float chair and propped her cheek on her hand,
wondering for the hundredth time if this was the right
decision. But there were a thousand other decisions
awaiting her, all of them vital, and she'd spent all the
time she intended to on this one.
"Mother," Roger said insouciantly, with a micrometric
bow, and glanced at his brother in the flanking chair. "To
what do I owe the honor of being summoned into two such
august presences?" he continued with a slight, knowing
smirk.
John MacClintock gave his younger brother a thin smile
and a nod. The galaxy-renowned diplomat was dressed in a
conservative suit of blue worsted, with a practical damask
handkerchief poking out of one sleeve. For all that he
looked like a doltish banker, his poker face and sleepy
eyes hid a mind as insightful as any in the known worlds.
And despite the developing paunch of middle-age, he could
have become a professional golfer ... if the job of Heir
Apparent had allowed the time for it.
The Empress leaned forward abruptly and fixed her
youngest with a laser stare. "Roger, We are sending you
off-planet on a `show the flag' mission."
Roger blinked several times, and smoothed his hair.
"Yes?" he replied carefully.
"The planet Leviathan is celebrating Net-Hauling in
two monthsโ"
"Oh, my God, Mother!" Roger's exclamation cut the
Empress of Man off in mid-sentence. "You must be joking!"
"We are not joking, Roger," Alexandra said
severely. "Leviathan's primary export may be grumbly oil,
but that doesn't change the fact that it's a focal planet
in the Sagittarius sector. And there hasn't been a family
representative for Net-Hauling in two decades." Since I
repudiated your father, she didn't bother to add.
"But, Mother! The smell!" the prince protested,
shaking his head to toss an errant strand of hair out of
his eyes. He knew he was whining and hated it, but the
alternative was smelling grumbly oil for at least several
weeks on the planet. And even after he escaped Leviathan,
it would take several more weeks for Kostas to get the
smell out of his clothes. The oil made a remarkable musk
base; in fact, it was in the cologne he was wearing at the
moment. But in its raw form, it was the most noxious stuff
in the galaxy.
"We don't care about the smell, Roger," snapped the
Empress, "and neither should you! You will show the flag
for the dynasty, and you will show Our subjects that We
care enough about their reaffirmation of alliance to the
Empire to send one of Our children. Is that understood?"
The young prince drew himself up to his full hundred
ninety-five centimeters and gathered the shreds of his
dignity.
"Very well, Your Imperial Majesty. I will, of course,
do my duty as you see fit. It is my duty, after all, is it
not, Your Imperial Majesty? Noblesse oblige and all that?"
His aristocratic nostrils flared in suppressed anger. "Now
I suppose I have some packing to oversee. By your leave?"
Alexandra's steely gaze held him for a few moments
more, and then she waggled her fingers in the direction of
the door.
"Go. Go. And do a good job." The "for a change" was
unstated.
Prince Roger gave another micrometric bow, turned his
back quite deliberately, and stalked out of the room.
"You could have handled that better, Mother," John
said quietly, after the door had closed on the angry young
man.
"Yes, I could have." She sighed, steepling her fingers
under her chin. "And I should have, damn it. But he looks
too much like his father!"
"But he isn't his father, Mother," John said
quietly. "Unless you create his father in him. Or drive
him into New Madrid's camp."
"Try to teach me to suck eggs, why don't you?" she
snapped, then inhaled deeply and shook her head. "I'm
sorry, John. You're right. You're always right." She
smiled ruefully at her older son. "I'm just not good at
personal, am I?"
"You were fine with Alex and me," John replied. "But
Roger's carrying a lot of loads. It might be time to cut
him some slack."
"There isn't any slack to cut! Not now!"
"There's some. More than he's gotten in the last
several years, anyway. Alex and I always knew you loved
us," he pointed out quietly. "Roger's never been
absolutely sure."
Alexandra shook her head.
"Not now," she repeated more calmly. "When he gets
back, if this crisis blows over, I'll try to ..."
"Undo some of the damage?" John's voice was level, his
mild eyes unchallenging, open and calm. But then, he
looked that way in the face of war.
"Explain," she said sharply. "Tell him the whole
story. From the horse's mouth. Maybe if I explain it to
him it will make more sense." She paused, and her face
hardened. "And if he still is in New Madrid's camp, well,
we'll just have to deal with that as it comes."
"But until then?" John met her half-angry, half-
saddened gaze levelly.
"Until then we stay the course. And get him as far out
of the line of fire as possible."
And as far from power as possible, as well, she
thought.
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