Karl Schroeder - Ashes of Candesce - Book Five of Virga

"He can confirm my story," said Leal, "he and a few top-ranking members of the Guard he's currently trapped with. Even if I'm wrong, I'm offering you the chance to rescue Griffin, which alone would be a feat with great propaganda value to Slipstream.... Considering your new relationship with Griffin's country, Aerie."

Antaea tilted her head, looking puzzled. "Which begs a question. Why are you two here, and not at the big party?"

"We'd be a bad memory," said the admiral with a shrug. "Can't say I disagree.... What do you mean, rescue Griffin? Trapped? How's he trapped?"

"That's a very long story," said Leal.

"Let's hear it."

Venera tapped Chaison's ankle with her sabre.

"Well," said Leal, "I suppose it all started the day a great voice began crying in the darkness beyond the city lights..."

Venera rapped Chaison's shin again. She made to do it a third time, but his blade was suddenly in the way.

" Dear ," said Venera sweetly, "why don't we invite the nice people over for dinner ? I think that would be the best time for lengthy stories, don't you?"

"No," he said, "I want to hear this now--"

Venera's sabre slid along his and nearly disarmed him.

The Fannings took a step away from each other as their swords came up.

"Really," said Chaison, "if this is as important as it sounds--"

She lunged and he bounced away. "Venera..."

"They've come a long way ," she said, punctuating her words with casual cuts at his head, "and they're very tired . It would be impolite not to offer them some food and re fresh ments." She broke off, turned to Leal, and said, "Shall we say six o'clock? The admiralty staff can direct you to our apartments."

"Six o'clock would be fine," said Leal as she, too, backed away.

"Now really--" Chaison moved to intercept Leal, and Venera interposed herself, blade up. The two began to circle one another warily.

"Until six, then..." Leal waved for Antaea to follow her--Argyre was staring at Chaison Fanning--and she drew her out into the hall and closed the door even as the sound of clashing blades started up in earnest.

11

"YOU'RE TELLING MEthat this terrible news is not true?" Antonin Kestrel, the unlikely prime minister of Slipstream's new government, glared up and down the table. "That it's a lie?"

Leal Maspeth nodded at the prime minister, who sat at the head of the table in Chaison Fanning's surprisingly small dining room. "He was alive when I left him," she said. "The stories out of Abyss are simply untrue."

"But why should we believe you, and not the government of Abyss?"

"Because," she said with a winning smile, "I know where he is. We can pick him up and you can ask him yourself whether he's alive."

From its position ringed by empty dishes, water jugs, and bottles in the center of the table, Leal's now-inert doll watched Kestrel curse and rub his lean chin.

Leal kept glancing at the doll while she talked--whether in embarrassment, or in hope that it might rise and speak, Keir couldn't tell. It faced Kestrel as a strange kind of centerpiece; flanking Kestrel down the sides of the table were Leal, the Fannings, Antaea, and Keir, who felt as out of place as the doll.

Part of that was feeling underdressed; they'd had only a day to prepare for this meeting, and so he wore the livery of a junior naval officer, minus any badge of rank or affiliation. The admiral himself was in a white dress uniform that looked carved rather than sewn. Antaea Argyre, whom Keir had seen before only in leather and trousers, was displaying her cleavage in a gold gown. The dress was gorgeous, but she obviously wasn't comfortable in it; here, Venera had her outclassed. The admiral's wife had squeezed into a long slinky black number made of a material so thin that Keir found his eyes drifting despite himself to trace every muscle and curve of her glorious body. She awoke something buried in him, a startling excitement; but he had no time to think about it right now.

Compared with the other women, Leal Maspeth looked dowdy in brown slacks and a white top. Dresses and skirts were admittedly rare in Virga (in some countries, he'd heard, only prostitutes would wear an article of clothing that was so revealing in freefall). While Slipstream clearly allowed them, Maspeth was just as clearly not used to seeing them, much less wearing one. She, too, kept surreptitiously goggling at Venera and Antaea.

Chaison Fanning half-rose. "Mr. Prime Minister, I know this is a lot to take in, and my apologies again for dragging you away from the opera. We've only just learned many of these details ourselves; in fact, we're not done yet, but the conversation had gotten to a point where I thought it best to bring you in." The delay had cost them an hour, but Fanning had been insistent that they wait. With no safe topics of conversation, the time had dragged as they sipped their coffees and stared at one another--but Chaison had kept them in line, glaring around the table like a disciplinary father.

"Here's where we stand," he said now. "Item one: We have learned that foreigners have made the offer of an alliance to all the humans in Virga."

It was Leal Maspeth's tale that had convinced Fanning to call in the prime minister. Granted, her story alone would have been enough to bring the house down in any decent theater, especially the revelation about the existence of other spheres like Virga. It had been hard for her to drag the Fannings past that realization, and now the admiral demanded that she do it again for Kestrel. When she finished, Kestrel steepled his hands, scowled at her, and said only, "You're telling me that they brought this to us first, instead of taking it to the Guard?"

Maspeth raised her chin defiantly--an admirable posture she was clearly unused to. "Good," said Kestrel. "Go on."

Venera Fanning was nodding. "If you'd gone to the Guard you would have been placing yourself at their mercy. I wouldn't have done it."

"Item two," Fanning said now; he looked every inch the bureaucrat as he ticked off another finger. "The Guard seem to be divided about what to do. Even worse, they seem to have been caught napping by the offer."

Now it was Antaea's turn to throw in what she knew about Jacoby Sarto's serpentine cousin Inshiri, and her apparent alliance with forces from outside Virga. Kestrel looked skeptical, but surprisingly, Venera sprang to Antaea's assistance. "I can vouch for this," she said. "My own people have seen increasing civilian traffic to the tourist center at the walls of Virga, and also to the place where the Gates of Virga are supposed to be. Some kind of high-level governmental liaison is going on between certain key governments in Virga and the Home Guard."

"I've heard nothing of this," said Kestrel, clearly disturbed.

"Slipstream would be the last place they'd include in their consultations," Antaea pointed out. "Sarto was quite clear about it, though; he told me they're visiting pilots and kings and presidents and making them some sort of proposal. I don't think it's the same as the one Leal's beasts are suggesting."

"What my people are seeing," ventured Venera, "is consistent with the view that the Guard's traditional allies outside Virga are putting political pressure on both the Guard and the ruling class of Virga itself."

"Pressure about what?" asked the prime minister.

"This is where we'd gotten to when I decided to bring you into the conversation," said Fanning. "Keir Chen? Can you show our guest what you showed us?"

He hopped up from his chair, nearly knocking it over. Damn--he still wasn't used to the gravity in Rush. Stepping around the main table, he went to a side table under a window, where a white tablecloth draped Exhibit A. "On our way into Virga," he said to Kestrel, "we ran into some of these." With what he hoped was an appropriate flourish, he pulled the tablecloth away, revealing the inert knife-ball that had fixed itself to Sarto's ship. Kestrel swore and did knock his own chair over as he stood up.