"If that was the prince."
"It was. Everything that's happened since proves it. Neither the kingnor Lorenza, I believewould go so far to protect a mere clone; if a clone fails, you get rid of it. My point is that along with Gerel's undeniable witlessness he had great and generous gallantry. A meaner boy, stupid or bright, would not have done what he did. And when Skoterin threatened Sirkinthe moment the weapon swung toward her and away from meGerald A. did the same thing. In the same style. Generous, brave, and incredibly stupid. It provoked her to shoot; she might not have fired, and your Petris might have killed her before anyone else got hurt. I think that was no clone; I think that was the prince himself."
"But he had seemed more sensible at times . . . on the voyage with the others."
"Think, Heris. If they were protecting him, if they knew his problem, they would shift about, so that you could not be sure which one you spoke toyou'd have to ask. Couldn't that be it? Or perhaps all that time without the drug began to reverse the dullness."
"But if that's true, then I've failed in the mission the king gave me. And what do we do with the clones?"
"I'll tell you what we don't do. We don't take them back to be discarded or killed by someone who would let his own son be ruined. Go talk to them. I told them what I thought; they didn't say much. They may to you. If they are the clones, and Gerel is dead, I will not let you take them on my ship. I don't want their ruin on my conscience."
Brun had no intention of staying safely at home on the family's estates. They knew who had poisoned Lady Cecelia; they had figured out that the prince had also been slowly poisoned, and that the same method had been used on George for a short time. She and Ronnie and George were ready, the moment Buttons and Sarah arrived, to do battle with the minions of evil.
"Whoa," Buttons said. "You haven't thought it all out."
"What's to think?" George said. "The woman's a menace: she poisoned me, and then the prince, and then Lady Cecelia, and maybe a dozen others"
"Why?"
"Why? I suppose . . . I guess . . . she likes poisoning people."
"George, you're sounding about as intelligent as you did in your bad term. I have some missing links you'd better add to your chain of evidence. You mentioned Gerel being excited after visits from his brothers . . . do you remember any more?"
"No." George sounded grumpy. He hated being interrupted.
"I do." Buttons stood and paced around the big library. "It annoys all of you when I remind you I'm older . . . but it matters. You were in school with each other and Gerel; I was in school with Gerel's older brother, Nadrel."
"Who was killed in a duel; we know that."
"Shut up, Ronnie. That's only part of it. Because I was his friend, I got to know the oldest, and don't bother to tell me you know Jared had been accepted as Successor by the Grand Council. That happened our last year in school; it was terribly exciting, and I got to attend, with Nadrel. But what I didn't knowbecause Jared had said I was too stuffy and priggish and would spill the beanswas that Jared had been groomed by some of the Familias to head a rebellion. Nadrel knew, of course . . . and they dragged in poor young Gerel, who worshipped his oldest brother. And it was Gerel who spilled the beans . . . to you, George."
"II don't remember." George looked stunned, as if a rock had landed on his head.
"Noyou wouldn't, if they drugged you. I don't suppose you told anyone intentionallyyou had a certain innate cunning even thenbut your father got wind of it, and he told the king. That assassination"
"The king killed his own son?"
"No. Nor ordered it . . . but one of the other Familias felt it had to be done. No one knew how far the plot had gone; the military was on alert for months. Nadrel . . . Nadrel was a problem, bitter and violent; I couldn't swear his duel was spontaneous."
"And Gerel?"
Buttons shrugged. "I would guessI knew nothing about it, until you told me thisI would guess the king wanted to be sure Gerel could not be the same kind of threat. Perhaps you, George, were the experimental subject, to prove the effects reversible. Then GerelI would like to believe the king meant no harm by it."
"No harm!" Brun was so angry she felt her hair must be bristling. "Poor Gerel, everyone thinking him a fooland then Lady Cecelia being poisonedand Sarah shot"
"I didn't say there was no harm, only that he may not have intended it. If Lorenza was the king's arm in this, she may have done more than he knew."
"Then it's Lorenza we have to stop. Now." Ronnie was on his feet now. "What if she attacks my mother, thinking I might have said something to her? Or George's parents?"
"Ronnie, we can't simply walk in and seize her. She's a Crown Minister's sisteranother complication, because I for one have no idea how much influence she has with himor he with the king, for that matter. She's got a vote in the Grand Council in her own right. We have no legal standing"
"Tell my father," George said. "I'll call him"
"George, will you listen! Your father's already involvedso is ours. They've filed a Question. But none of us can grab Lorenza; we have no evidence. We need Lady Cecelia alive and well, her competency completely restored so that she can testify; we need the prince alive and welland both of them are a long way away with a lot of things that can go wrong. Less will go wrong if we all act discreetly."
"Then you didn't need my warning at allyou already knew about Lorenza, and I could have stayed with Lady Cecelia" Brun felt tired and grumpy.
"Nowe didn't know about Lorenza. We knew it had to be someone, but we didn't know whoand that's important. But we can't afford to lose anyone, so I want you all to agree to stay calm and follow orders."
"Whose?" Ronnie asked bluntly.
"Mine, for now, and Dad's when he gets here. George's father will tell him the same. Now will you use sense and act like the adults you are?"
Cecelia looked around the main lounge of her yacht with distaste. "I thought the lavender plush was bad, but I have to admit this is worse." Then she grinned. "Though I must say I'm glad to see itreally see it. Show me everything." Heris glanced at Petris, now their new environmental section head and assistant. "Everything, milady?"
"Every bit of it. I'll be thinking how lovely it will look when Spacenhance has finished with it." She looked from one to the other of them. "Come on! What are you waiting for?"
"Well, we have this little problem," Heris said, leading her down the streaked grayish walls, wondering how Cecelia was going to react when she saw them. She opened the door to the 'ponics section: stacks of mesh cages held an ever-increasing number of cockroaches, filling the air in that compartment with an odd, heavy smell. "This."
"What onthey're alive."
"Yes . . . and I don't want you mentioning this to the medical teams, either."
"Where did they come from?"
"Spacenhance," Heris said.
"The decorators? They put cockroaches on my ship? On my ship?" Outrage made her voice spike up; Heris grinned.
"We think they put cockroaches on everyone's ship, to eat the old wallcovering and carpeting, and the adhesives. Illegal, of course. A trade secret, no doubt. We thought we might need to deal in trade secrets, so we trapped the ones we found and let them breed."
"But what did they do with the cockroaches after they ate the stuff?" Cecelia leaned forward to look at the nearest cage.
"We think . . . mind, this is only our speculation . . . that they converted the cockroaches into a sort of organic slurry, which could then be extruded into fiber or other shapes . . . to make carpets or wallcoverings"
"You mean they put ground-up cockroaches on people's floors? Walls? You mean that horrible lavender plush was really nothing but ground-up cockroaches?"
"Quite possibly," Heris said, enjoying Cecelia's reaction. "Of course, they would have dyed themthat's why they're white, I'm sureand they may have added other materials."
Cecelia stepped back. "I have never even imagined anything so . . . so disgusting."
Heris gr
inned at Petris. "There is something worse . . ."
"What?"
"When they're loose and you haven't noticed them in the sheets." She and Petris both started laughing, and Cecelia glared at them.
"It's not funny. OrI suppose it is, butoh, my, have we got a whip hand here."
"That's what I thought," Heris said. "Of course, we're now in violation of half a dozen regulations ourselves, but we've been careful. I would prefer, however, that Commander Livadhi's people not know about the live ones."
"Oh, absolutely," said Cecelia, beginning to smile. "But I suspect that restocking my solarium with miniatures will be well within my budget."
From that beginning, the trip back to Rockhouse Major went smoothly. Heris made the rendezvous with Livadhi's Martine Scolare, and his pinnace picked up the medical teams. Heris had braced herself for questions about the clones, but the medical teams were so excited about the new technologies they'd discovered in those few days on the Station that they could talk of nothing else. Livadhi asked, of course, and Heris gave the answer she and Cecelia had worked out. It was not exactly a lie.
"I left the clones behind; neither of them was the prince. As you know, one was killed in the shooting, and tissue analysis at autopsy could neither prove nor disprove that that one was the prince. Perhaps postmortem degradation . . ."
"Or perhaps he's off in a bar somewhere making an idiot of himself," Livadhi said. "I wonder if the king knows how many doubles he had?"
"We may never know," Heris said cautiously. "What's the latest on the uproar?"
"Not quite civil war," Livadhi said. "Fleet's on standby, all the Family Delegates are gathering for an emergency session, and rumor has it the king is considering abdication. The Benignity has filed complaints, and threatens to take action if we don't pay reparations for their two cruisers, which have somehow grown to dreadnoughts; Aethar's World decided this was a great time to try a little piracy . . . oh, yes, and the Stationmaster at Rotterdam says to tell Lady Cecelia that the black mare has foaled. Anything else?"
"Nothank you. What about the Fleet and us?"
"You personally, or you in Lady Cecelia's yacht?"
"Either or both."
"Well, I've had strong representations from senior Familias that my neck is in the noose if Lady Cecelia doesn't get back safelyhow is she, by the way?"
"Quite able to take up her duties," Heris said.
"Good. And I've had strong pressure from some . . . er . . . elements in the Fleet that your permanent disappearance would just about guarantee my first star. While others say the opposite. I would suggest the fastest possible course, and I suggest you allow me to escort you in."
"I accept both suggestions." She was not entirely sure of him in all respects, but if he wanted her dead, it would have been easy enough to leave her in Compassionate Hand space without help.
The Familias Grand Council met in a domed hall. High above, painted stars on pale blue echoed the carpet of deep blue patterned with gold stars. Each Family had its Table; each voting member had his or her Chair. On the north wall, opposite the entrance doors, the Speaker's Bench had become the king's throne, and the king, wearing his usual black suit, sat there behind a desk with its crystal pitcher of water, its goblets, its display screens, and the gold-rimmed gavel.
For an hour now, the Members had streamed in past uniformed guards and weapons checks and more guards and more weapons checks. The lines extended across the lobby, out the tall front doors, down the steps, to the sidewalk where yet more limousines disgorged yet more Members. A light rain brushed the steps with one slick layer after another, and those who had not expected a wait got damp and grumpy.
Cecelia watched her sister and brother-in-law climb up the steps. She, Heris, Meharry, and Ginese were part of a thin crowd held back by a chain attached to a movable post. From the chain a little tin sign dangled, with the words "Members Only Past This Point." Across from them, on the far side of the entrance steps, another such chain restrained another small clump of observers.
"When are you going?" Heris asked.
"After Lorenza. I want to be sure she's here."
"What if she doesn't attend?"
"Oh, she will. She may not take her own Chair, but she always attends her brother. Therethat's theirs" Cecelia started to look down, then remembered she didn't look anything like the Cecelia Lorenza would recognize. They had docked the yacht over on Rockhouse Minor, where Bunny's shuttle retrieved them. There would have been gossip, of course, but Livadhi, at Heris's suggestion, had docked at the Fleet terminal at Rockhouse Major, and complained loudly to his fellow officers that "that bitch Serrano" had disappeared again.
Cecelia watched as the portly Crown Ministerwhen had Piercy gained all that weight?climbed out and offered his arm to Lorenza. She, at least, had prepared for a wait, in a pretty ice-blue raincoat. Piercy had an umbrella; Cecelia felt her lip curling. If you couldn't stand a bit of rain, then carry a personal shield, not an ostentatious umbrella. That was carrying the fashion for antiquity too far. Piercy held the umbrella over Lorenza's head; she looked out from under it with catlike smugness. Cecelia realized she was trembling only when Heris touched her hand. Rage filled her; she could hear that voice whispering in her ear . . . how had she not known who it was? How could she not leap over the chain and strangle that smug little tramp?
Lorenza looked around, as if for admiration. Cecelia stood straight, watching her; their eyes met. Lorenza frowned a little, shook her head minutely, and went on up the steps to the tail of the line. Half a dozen more Members got in line; Cecelia shifted her feet.
"Let's go."
"It's too close," Meharry said. "She'll see youshe'll start trying to remember"
"Let her!" Cecelia was breathing deeply as if before a race. Heris gripped her hand.
"Milady, we're with you. You have allies; you know that. Don't let her shake your resolution. Even if she does look like the worst insipid tea biscuit I ever saw."
That got a grim chuckle; Cecelia felt her tension ease. "All right. But not much longer."
"No, not much longer." They waited until Lorenza and her brother were near the top of the steps, when the guards at the door recognized them and swept them inside ahead of the others. "Now," Heris said. They stepped around the barrier, and Cecelia clipped her Member badge to her coat. The others put on the ID tags Bunny had arranged; Members could bring their personal assistants, as long as none carried weapons. Heris wasn't worried; Meharry and Ginese were weapons.
Most of the delegates had arrived; the line moved faster. At the door, Cecelia moved into the Members Booth for an ID check. The others, with staff IDs, went through without incident. Cecelia came out of the booth and found them waiting. Now, in the lobby, out of the rain, she could hear the steady sound of all those people talking. She felt weak at the knees. She had been alone so long . . . and then with a few friends . . . and now, to face that crowd . . . she had always hated public speaking. She felt the others close in.
"All right, milady?" Heris asked.
"All right. I justI'm fine." The line they were in snaked slowly forward. She could see in the door at last . . . it had been decades since she'd attended a Grand Council. When she'd been a young woman, first eligible for a Chair, it had been a thrill . . . later a bore . . . later something she delegated to a proxy without a second thought. Now that earlier awe struck her again. That tall dome spangled with stars, those dark polished Tables, each with its Chairs of red leather, all symbols of power that had kept her safe and wealthy all these years, and then had nearly killed her. Across the chamber, as she came to the door, she saw the king on his throne. He stared out, seeming to see no one.
Her family Table had moved since the last time she'd attended; Tables were drawn by lot every other Council. Now it was midway down the right side of the left aisle, almost directly across from the Speaker's Table. A page led them to it, and checked Cecelia's ID again before handing her to her Chair. The Chair itself required her to ins
ert her Member card . . . a precaution resulting from the behavior of a speedy young man who had once managed to vote two Chairs by flitting from one to another while a long roll-call vote dragged on. With the card in place, the screen before her lit. Only then did she look around. Her sister Berenice, two Chairs down, stared at her, white-faced, then glanced at her companions and turned even whiter. Ronnie, at the foot of the Table, started and then grinned happily. Gustav would be at his family's Table; Cecelia had no idea where it was now.
"Good to see you again," Cecelia said. They had not told Berenice; they had not told anyone. Berenice's shock was almost vengeance enough for her treatment of Heris.
"You'reyou had"
"Rejuv, yes. Just as you did." Cecelia smiled. "Where's Abelard?"
"Probably having a last drink," Berenice said. Abelard, their oldest surviving brother, always came late. Ronnie looked as if he were bursting with glee and news both. Cecelia gave him a look she hoped would quell him. They already knew what he knew; Bunny had told her. She looked around. Kevil Mahoney was in his Chair, with George beside him. Bunny, his brothers, and his sons were already seated; Brun, a year too young for her own Chair, crouched beside her mother at another Table. She was scanning the chamber, looking . . . and she saw Cecelia. A grin spread over her face; Cecelia gave a little nod. Now . . . to find Lorenza. The Crown Ministers sat together, at two Tables to either side of the throne . . . but when she found Piercy, leaning back to hand a file to a page, she did not see Lorenza's gold head anywhere near. She let her eyes rove the chamber, but it was Meharry who spotted her.
A nudgeCecelia leaned over and Meharry murmured, "Top tier, near the right aisle." Cecelia turned casually. There. The ice-blue raincoat had been slung carelessly over the back of a neighboring Chairunlike the precise Lorenza. But there she was, leaning over to talk to someone else Cecelia couldn't see. Whose Family was that? Not Lorenza's certainly . . . Lorenza's mother had been a Sturinscough, and her aunt Lucrezia should be heading that Table. So she was, an upright old tyrant in black lace whom no amount of rejuvenation could soften . . . maybe, thought Cecelia, it runs in the family.