A Princess of the Aerie Read online

  “Thanks. Pay the bill here. Leave a tip thirty percent over average.”

  “Done.” The little lighted square in his palm went out.

  “Well, you heard the gadget,” Jak said. “Guess I’d better run, tove.”

  “Yeah. You want to take a beefrat with you?”

  There were two left of the plate. “Naw, have ’em all.”

  “You paid for ’em.”

  “Well, I have the money, you have the appetite. It’s a specialization of labor. Gotta move, tove.”

  Dujuv nodded, his face already down in another beefrat.

  Jak spoke to his purse. “Get Pongo to the nearest station.”

  “Done, off.”

  With a final nod to Dujuv, whose mouth was still much too full to talk, Jak pushed the button to slide the private booth door open, and walked out past all the mostly-closed booths, through the front door and across the courtyard to the little spur of track between the walls of an alcove. After a short wait, both walls dilated into doors, and Pongo emerged from the left and grounded.

  “Right here,” Jak said to his Pertrans car, which, recognizing his voice, turned on a green okay light and popped open its canopy. Jak jumped in, fastened his belt, and said, “Okay, close up and get me there.”

  The canopy closed, the inducers lifted Pongo half a centimeter off the tracks, and they shot off in a series of high-acceleration lurches and bobs. They couldn’t go as fast back to Jak’s place as Pongo had come by itself—Jak couldn’t take forty g—but Jak had set up a standing funds authorization for extra energy, shortcuts through the high-priced tunnels, automatic payment of misdemeanor tickets—all the costs of speed. To go through the Hive in a hurry, Pongo had to bounce from one space between Pertrans cars to another, jinking in and out of tubes, speeding or slowing to match speeds with each successive hole, calculating a hundred dips and bobs ahead as traffic entered and left the tube system. Jak loved it; Uncle Sib called it “being shaken like a rat,” though just why anyone would shake rats was beyond Jak.

  At ten minutes till arrival, Jak had his purse call ahead to have his house start drawing a bath. Since Pongo docked inside his living quarters, Jak undressed in the Pertrans car. When the car grounded and popped its canopy, Jak walked straight to his bath, dropping his purse onto the recharger on the bathroom counter.

  As he settled into the warm sudsy water, the purse said, “Mail from Princess Shyf.”

  “Bring it up, on the screen I can see from the tub.”

  The purse said, “I am requested to point out that this message came in through the purely personal channel, one of your encrypted back doors, and she used a back door that hadn’t been used before. So this arrives in the highest confidence.”

  “Interesting,” Jak said, meaning he was fascinated. “Put it up.” He settled back into the suds to see what Sesh had to say to him. Two years ago; when he had just performed a daring rescue, and with so much conspiracy and counter-conspiracy in the air, setting up the back channels had seemed like a good thing to do just in case. Now, she’d activated one.

  The screen swirled for a half second as the decrypter worked. Sesh’s image appeared. She was almost as tall as Jak, and thin. Her ancestry owed much to the gracile breed, and her blazing red hair, deep blue eyes, coffee-with-cream skin, and fine bone structure still mesmerized Jak. There was something sad and wary in those fascinating eyes.

  “Hey, Jak, weehu, it’s been a long time since I messaged you.” Her smile deepened, suggesting that he ought to forgive her; he did, of course, instantly. “I guess I’m doing all right at this stupid princess job, I mean I speck I’m at least an average princess, maybe a little better than that, and I’m sure I can be way above average by the time I make queen. Get queened, queenify, queen out? What do you call it, and why hasn’t anyone ever told me? Anyway, you know what I mean.”

  She leaned forward, close to the camera. The view down her cleavage brought back fond memories, so Jak tried to focus on her face, but then he was lost in those eyes again. “Jak, I’m finding that more and more I need services that I can’t get officially. The whole Royal Palace is one big snake pit and I need at least one snake on my side. I can’t tell you what it is that I need in this message—it will be decrypted and read here, and in the Hive, and probably twenty other places too, soon. I need some things done quietly and unofficially. I think your Uncle Sib will guess what kind of things, so you should show him this message.

  “Anyway, it’s nothing terrible—I don’t need you to kill a man or carry a secret message to my lover or anything like that. But I need a good friend that I can trust to do it, and I know from that time you rescued me, you’re good at the kind of stuff I need done, and you’ve had all that training from your uncle, and I know your Long Break is coming up, so I have arranged a fast passage over to the Aerie.

  “When you get here I’ll pass you off as a visiting school friend, set you up with a room here in the Royal Palace, and … well, mostly we’ll party and hang around and enjoy life here, which is pretty enjoyable I must say, but also while you’re here you can do a few things for me, and I know that you might be a lot more interested if I mention this, so let me add that some of those things are, um, kind of wild and edgy and a little crazy and dangerous.

  “Also, here’s something else I’d like: bring along Dujy, and while you’re at it bring along Myx. Neither of them is essential but it would be so fun just to have the four of us together again. And of course in the event of trouble, Dujuv is so good … you know, a panth, and a loyal friend, and all of that … not that I expect that you’ll be in a fight or anything, but then, I can’t say that I wouldn’t expect there to not be fighting, either, masen? Weehu, that was another one of those sentences. Well, anyway, I hope I’m making some kind of sense all the same.

  “I expect that sending this by back channel with so little real information will probably at least pique your curiosity. So here’s what you do. The Hive Spatial has CUPV slots open for you, Myxenna, and Dujuv, for the next cruise of RHBS Up Yours, and its very first port of call happens to be the Aerie.”

  Jak smiled; she knew how he liked to travel. He’d been a CUPV before, three times, all on merchant sunclippers. A CUPV was “Crew, Unpaid, Passenger Volunteer,” a fancy way of saying a paying passenger working on the ship to have something to do; it counted for union points, and it was more interesting than the viv, the gym, and reading, which were most of the amusements for passengers on sun-clippers, and tended to become boring in a few days—a major problem since getting between the worlds on solar sails and gravity assists took many weeks even in the lower solar system.

  During peacetime, the Spatial took passengers. Warships, with their quarkjet engines, traveled on direct trajectories much faster than the solar orbits in which the sunclippers moved, and charged less than the super-fast private quarkjet liners. At half the cost of a quarkjet liner, it was often worth it to administrators to be able to move bureaucrats and corporados around in a quarter or less of the time a regular sunclipper would take, and transporting needed, high-ranking workers on Spatial ships would not threaten the social order, for no one was going to acquire a taste for luxury while traveling on a warship.

  Furthermore, the Spatial’s passengers, like any other passengers on a union ship, were eligible for CUPV status. Jak had never been on a Spatial ship—and Up Yours was a battlesphere, the biggest and second-fastest class of deep space warship. So whatever it was that Sesh wanted him to do at Greenworld, just getting there was going to be a wonderful opportunity.

  “Up Yours will be leaving just after your final exams. It took me a few good tricks to get access to those CUPV slots, let me tell you, but I did, and the three of you need only claim them—just call on Lieutenant Creyamanen on Up Yours, anytime down to a week before it boosts. As a CUPV you can even pick up some union points, just in case you’re still interested in that funny-looking short-haired girl.”

  “Phrysaba,” Jak said. “Phrysaba Fears-the-
Stars.” Besides Sesh, Phrysaba was the other person whose letters Jak’s purse was supposed to announce immediately.

  “I’m not toktru insecure on that point, I mean, look at her, who could be? But anyway, give it some thought.

  “Now, the important last detail: don’t reply. I worked up a few things all on my own to get one good back-channel message out. There’s just the slightest chance that nobody on Greenworld has detected this message, so let’s not risk their detecting your reply. Just show up. You at least, with Dujuv and Myxenna ideally.” She gave him the big warm happy smile that had always melted him, and said, “I still miss you a lot.”

  He played her message twice more as he finished his bath.

  CHAPTER 3

  I Have a Feeling That Your Troubles Are Over

  And that’s the project he’s requiring, Uncle Sib,” Jak said, unhappily staring down at his pasta. It was superb, but he was full, and he rarely ate in so light a place now that he had his own apartment. “Vague directions, unclear goals, and a chance to use my nonexistent ethnographic skills. And I have to find it for myself. This is like having to find the rope to hang yourself with.” He managed to eat a couple more small, perfect mussels and a twirl of linguine, for manners’ sake; perhaps, if he sat and picked long enough, he might get up the will for dessert.

  He couldn’t help thinking, enviously, that Dujuv could probably have eaten all this, finished Sib’s, and then consumed three desserts.

  Sib nodded. “It doesn’t sound especially easy. I might have some thoughts on the subject.”

  “Actually, I have one very large thought on the subject. We should discuss it privately.” Now Sib would change the subject, but Jak and he would have a conversation, soon, away from listening devices. Practicing basic security was automatic to both Jinnakas; Jak had been brought up knowing that his uncle’s business must not be discussed in public.

  “I’m assuming that this idea will turn out to have involved some actual thought, knowledge, and attention?” Sib didn’t sound entirely hopeful. During his brief adventure two years ago, Jak had learned that Sib and his long-term demmy Gweshira were members of Circle Four, a notorious and powerful zybot (a social engineering collective trying to covertly reshape human society and history), and that Sib and Gweshira had always hoped (to their frequent disappointment) that Jak too would want to be involved in public affairs, political intrigue, and sedition— categories which overlapped heavily if you were in Circle Four. All zybots were supposed to be illegal, but Circle Four was often useful to the Hive and so it was tolerated, as long as it stayed quiet.

  “Well,” Jak said, “I admit I never used to pay attention to the news or politics. But I’ve changed, at least somewhat. I’d attribute it to my classes at the PSA, and Gweshira’s influence.” Jak looked down at his plate, mentally counted off ten seconds, and looked up to see his uncle, as he’d expected, about to explode with rage. It was a funny sight and Jak laughed aloud. “And most importantly, your influence, you silly, sensitive old gwont. I was just having fun with you.”

  “I was thinking of something else,” Sib said, staring into Jak’s eyes with utter sincerity.

  “You were so annoyed that you were ready to wet yourself. And rightly so. You put a lot of work into waking me up to the larger world around me, Uncle Sib, and you deserve full credit. I was just teasing. Sorry if I went too far.”

  Sibroillo tried to hold his expression of wounded dignity for another moment, but failed utterly and began to laugh. “Gweshira always says that when she teases me, I look like a furious toad.”

  “With the goatee,” Jak said, “more like an angry terrier.”

  “Ahem.” The word was more whistled than spoken, from directly behind Jak. He turned. At the table behind him, a very senior Rubahy warrior (to judge by the darkness of the patch on his right shoulder, and the shape and size of his enormous teeth), more than two meters tall, had turned all the way round at hearing the hated slur. His feathers were already fluffed and his rage spines were extending from his back.

  Jak got out of his chair and made the kneeling single-knee bow: deep apology. “I deeply regret the offense, but I assert by my honor that I am blameless. I was saying that my uncle resembles, somewhat, the type of dog called a terrier. I meant no slur upon your species and was not thinking of the Rubahy at all. Still, saying that word in a public place was obviously careless and foolish, for I have angered a noble warrior whose respect I would much rather have. I ask his forgiveness and mercy.”

  “And you receive it in abundance.” The Rubahy’s rage spines sank back into his back, and his feathers smoothed; the huge, flat, flexible lips extended to cover the monstrous slicing-teeth. He extended a three-fingered, two-thumbed hand; as was proper, Jak gripped it lightly and stood. “You have a courteous way of speech. Have you known other Rubahy?”

  “I have known one well,” Jak said, thinking of Shadow on the Frost, from whom he occasionally received inexplicable mail and to whom he would then reply with whatever random facts about his life he happened to think of, always being told that the message had brightened Shadow’s day. “But he lives in exile in human service, and he has many enemies, and so I hesitate to speak his name.”

  The Rubahy made a standing bow. If the name of Jak’s unknown friend were revealed, and it were an enemy of this Rubahy, with a misunderstanding so recent, anything from a snub to a duel might follow, depending on the exact degree of enmity. “I am glad not to know his name, then, for his teaching courtesy to you has made me think of him favorably, which is superfluous for a friend, improper for an enemy, and dangerous for an unknown (since it might someday lead me into a quarrel on an outnumbered side).”

  Jak nodded. “Then let it suffice that, yes, I was taught some courtesy, and by a Rubahy.”

  “And so you honor your teacher.” The Rubahy and Jak shook hands. The insult was now better than forgiven, making them bond-acquaintances; if either were attacked in the other’s presence before leaving the restaurant, the other would be morally required to come to the aid of his bond-acquaintance.

  The human and the Rubahy turned their backs and resumed their conversations. Jak only then noticed that they had been surrounded by waiters and bouncers with tranquilizer guns. Knocking both of them unconscious would have been much cheaper than the cost of cleanup and repairs (not to mention the lawsuit by Jak’s surviving kin.)

  “You would not have handled that at all well a few years ago,” Sib observed.

  “Well,” Jak said, “that was the-friend-whose-name-I-can’t-speak-here’s influence, of course.” A good tove and a loyal friend, even if he looks like what happens if a tyrannosaur mates with a sasquatch and the children all marry chickens, Jak added mentally, mindful of the Rubahy warrior behind him.

  Shadow on the Frost now served in the special Rubahy bodyguard corps for the Duke of Uranium. Sesh was a princess, Psim was a duke, his old crewie friends were downbound, coming back from a shakedown voyage to Jupiter … and Jak was back in school in the Hive. He suddenly, deeply, fervently hoped that the Dean’s assignment and Sesh’s message would shake him out of this miserable rut and get things moving again in his life. “Want to go back to my place for a nightcap?”

  “Sounds good, old pizo.”

  As Sib and Jak entered Jak’s apartment, he raised his purse to his mouth and said, “Full check, please.”

  There were hums and beeps as the watcher-watchers activated, swept, and checked. Bursts of Jak’s recorded voice, saying trigger combinations like “king assassinate, plutonium sell Rubahy,” and “Hive imperialism,” came from a dozen loudspeakers, and the watcher-watchers listened across the whole electromagnetic spectrum for any outgoing signal triggered by them, or for any recording device tucking them away for future reference. After almost two minutes of these checks, during which Jak and Sibroillo stood stone-silent, Jak’s purse said, “All clear.”

  Sib smiled. “Weehu, I can see you’ve been tinkering with your bugfinders. Anything get
planted here much?”

  “Just random police checks, I think. I did the enhancements as part of a class project and just left ’em in afterwards.”

  Sib nodded. “Good project and a clever approach. All right, what is it you’ve been so mysterious about?”

  Jak played Sesh’s message.

  “Believe it or not, Uncle Sib, I really would like your opinion.”

  “Now I know the world is ending. I’ll have to watch it again before I have an opinion.”

  He listened all the way through a second time. “Well, that is interesting. Certainly you’ll be able to get your Dean to take this as the project for your Junior Task. It’s almost too perfect. You’ve done the standard authentication checks?”

  “And all the premium ones that I can access and afford,” Jak said. “I did pay some attention to you, growing up.”

  Sib grunted with satisfaction. “Well, we should keep in mind that a really good fake can spoof them. Authenticators are just big fast smart AIs, and a singing-on good fake will fool them more often than not, but a bad or average fake won’t, so this message is either authentic or a much-better-than-average fake. But that said, I think I know what’s going on.”

  Recognizing a prompt when he heard it from a heet who was always willing to write a check, Jak asked, “What do you think is going on, Uncle Sib?”

  His uncle hesitated for a moment. “Er, I know you’re fond of her, so—you’re not a prude, are you? You do realize that aristos pretty much go at it like dogs in the park?”

  “Sure,” Jak said. “It’s one of their most attractive qualities. But a sex scandal wouldn’t be a problem for Sesh. A young good-looking princess with a hot sex life would just make the porn gossip media more often, and maybe get a few nasty sermons preached at her by the Tolerated Faiths. If she were pregnant by the wrong person—” he thought “—no, she’d just get an injection like anyone else, before anyone knew. Since as far as anyone knows she agrees with her father about everything, she could have just turned over anything political to regular government security.