"It's nice, not having to keep an eye on the floors and the doors." Ipqen's drill whines as it threads the last bolt into the shuttle's side. "Gonna miss it when I'm back aboard the Pike."

"Wish I could get on that thing." The Eqtoran soldier leans against the shuttle's flank and looks out beyond the hangar membrane at the massive tower that hangs on its side outside the station. She's a strapping, scarred woman with a shoulder-length fringe and gunmetal skin, dressed in a humvee's worth of HAK plating with a curved knife the size of a machete strapped to its broad thigh. "Furled my fringe when they said no aliens allowed."

"Thing is, when there's a lot of us, it keeps them saying 'scuse me," Ipqen says. "On the Pike, it's just me and the Prince. I keep worrying I'mma step on them. Like I'm in a daycare only they're all doing adult jobs."

"You wanna take them seriously, you gotta try shooting an imp gun," the woman says. "A hot war would've been a massacre."

"I'm not saying I don't take them seriously." Ipqen gives the hose she just linked up a firm tug, then hooks her drill into her belt and dusts her gloves. "It's just… I dunno. Crick in the neck. Haven't shot anything yet."

"Try it sometimes, if they'll let you. Those things are fatidic. Like Apqar's own thunder. And the HAKs? Shit." The soldier woman draws the syllable out as she rolls a shoulder. "Tell you what, I could live in one of these."

Ipqen tugs another hose from the shuttle harness and yanks some slack into it. "The jumpsuits ain't so bad, now that they come in child-of-Eqt size."

"You're looking good in it, sister."

Ipqen smiles. "Thanks. Kinda tight in the tailhole."

"Everything's tight with the Taiikari. The girls are tripping hazards, sure. But the boys…" The woman grins. A big purple tongue pokes between two of her razor teeth. "I like an imp boy, turns out."

Grant chooses this moment to nudge past the rolling toolboard Ipqen's got set up at her station. "We're talking about boys?"

"Majesty. Afternoon. Uh—" Ipqen hastily sets her hose on the floor and bows. "This is Sergeant Qiva-mek-Hvok, Knife Seven."

Qiva-mek-Hvok plants her fist on her breastplate and bows just as low. "Majesty."

"Afternoon, Sergeant," Grant says. "You're part of the implant trials, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"How's that treating you?"

"Outstanding, sir."

"It's a sacrifice, losing your old language. You have everyone's gratitude."

"No regrets here, sir."

"Majesty," Ipqen whispers.

"No regrets here, Majesty."

Grant looks the scarred marine up and down. "No?"

"Soldier first, Eqtoran second," Qiva says. "Doors and lieutenants are shorter. The rest is familiar enough. Majesty."

"How was the party last night?" Ipqen asks. Her stiff posture is being subtly tugged toward the maintenance harness she's halfway through installing.

"It wasn't bad," Grant says. "My first gala in a hangar. I reckon this is probably a better use of it."

"Music sounded nice, from my side of the door," Qiva says. "They ain't letting Eqtoran guards into the main rooms at these things until they're finished testing Taiikari tunes on us."

"How did it make you feel?" Grant asks.

"Uh…" Qiva smacks her lips. "Some type of way. You oughta come to an Eqtoran thing sometime, Majesty. I've had their beer. Not for folk our size."

"That's a tempting offer, Sergeant mek-Hvok," Grant says. "But today all I'm looking for is a ship and an escort. Something small, fast, and inconspicuous. Sykora and I are going to some private business on Ptolek. Not the kind of thing you'd need the Pike for. You see what I mean?"

"Absolutely, Majesty." Ipqen picks up the end of a cable. "Soon as I get this thing's batteries juiced, it's good to go. Don't have to check it back in, even, if we need it to stay outta the books. Just put in an extended maintenance order."

"That's some disorderly stuff, Ipqen." Grant inhales through his teeth. "Might have to report you."

Ipqen grins. "Sure you will. Go get your wife. Won't be more than ten minutes."

"Let me talk to you for a second, first." Grant indicates an open bay further along the hangar, past a pair of chattering Taiikari engineers. "Over this way."

Ipqen's finned fringe leaches some of its oceanic color. "I'm not actually in trouble, right?"

"Nope. Just a quick thing." Grant salutes to Qiva. "Good to meet you, Sergeant."

She salutes back. "Likewise, Majesty."

"You're Talem's new commander, right?"

Qiva takes a couple of seconds to respond to this. "Yep."

"Taking good care of him?"

"Yes, Majesty."

"I know he can be a handful."

"That's, uh…" Qiva's eyes raise. "Think my translator might be having a problem with that word, Majesty."

"Kind of annoying," Grant tries.

"Oh. Yeah." Qiva chuckles. "Yeah, well. He's behaving."

Grant departs the sergeant. More salutes and bows and murmured hails of "Majesty" as he walks with Ipqen. It used to bother her, too, he remembers, seeing all this deference. Now she barely clocks it. Does it herself, even.

"I haven't gotten much of a chance to talk to you," Grant says. "Things have been moving too fast ever since I, uh—you know."

"Shot me," Ipqen says.

"Yeah." Grant grimaces. "But I remember telling you I offered you a better life than this. And now you've had a while aboard, and you've seen what it's like. And if it's too dangerous, or you're not fitting like you want to, Sykora and I can tell the admiralty to suck it. We can get you a job on Qarnaq, close to home. Plenty of stuff to work on, good pay. We can't free Ruaq yet, not until a decacycle's gone by, but neither of you need to stay on the Pike."

Ipqen leans on one of the bay's support girders. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"Yeah."

"Sometimes I need to remind myself to be sad," Ipqen says.

"What do you mean?"

"Poking the wound, y'know," she says. "Making myself remember the republic and what happened and all. Because otherwise, I'm… I dunno." She glances around the promenade. "I'm having a pretty good time. And I feel guilty about it."

"Really?"

"Well, not all the time. Got shot the other day. But me and Ruaq. I mean, we're scientists." Her thick, tattooed arm gestures across the hangar, to its sleek ships and its vast membrane. "And this, everything that we've seen. It's beyond. Like way beyond. I thought I'd work hard all my life and write a few papers, maybe discover some efficiencies in our satellite launching systems and die on the same world I was born on. Now I'm friends with aliens and jetting across the firmament. And I keep forgetting to be sad."

"Maybe that means you're happy?" Grant ventures.

"Maybe," Ipqen says. "Check in with me again once I don't have to own my fiancée anymore."

Above Grant's head, in the wide central chamber of the Ptolek Governess's mansion, Sykora of the Black Pike is meeting and mingling with magnates and Marquesses. He's promised to join her soon. But he and Countess Wenzai's business has taken them literally underground, past corked barrels and shelves of preserves and into a snug corner office purpose-built to hold a narrow desk, a stained-oak liquor cabinet, and guests with whom a Governess might not wish to advertise their acquaintance. Guests like Representative Corska Ondai.

"Majesty." The dirty-blonde woman stands from her high-backed seat as Grant enters, and bows low. She's cleaner and more groomed than the leering gremlin from the Cloudsprint, and she's in a smartly cut tunic rather than a refinery boiler suit. But the blue sash around her chest is the same. "Such an honor to meet you."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"We've met, Corska." Grant smiles and sits across from her, Wenzai at his side. "Remember? At the Cloudsprint."

"The Cloudsprint." Ondai furrows her brow and follows suit. "This past Cloudsprint?"

"The Princess and I visited your barge."

"Not my barge. Can't be. I hosted Her Majesty on a barge, but that was a rental company's barge. And I'm sure I'd remember a Prince on there." She clicks her tongue. "No. My memory must be patchy, Majesty. I remember a Princess, but no Prince."

"I wasn't a Prince at that point."

"Ah." Corska's fingers drum the desk. "What were you?"

"I was a Prince Consort."

"You'll have to help me out. I'm not clear on the difference. Not peerage, y'know."

Grant chuckles. "Okay, Representative Ondai. I see what you're getting at. Yes. I was a husband-of-the-void."

"Indentured, then," Corska says.

"Sure. And now I'm a Prince." Grant places a tablet on the table. "And I've got some business with you."

Corska raises the tablet and examines it. "What's this?"

"That is an abridged version of our piss-poor initials," Wenzai says. "At these rates you've quoted, we're transporting an invasion force to and from Qarnaq with a few incidental refinery turbines aboard. We can't get started with your org until these numbers go down."

"Prices don't tend to fall, I'm afraid," Corska says. "Not with the state of affairs as it is."

"Don't pretend, Representative." Wenzai smirks. "This will be a more productive conversation that way."

Corska scratches her freckled nose. "Pretend what?"

"That you're not skimming off the top." Wenzai taps the readout. "I looked into this security contractor. It's a shell company. If you want a bribe, you should just say you want a bribe, without putting it somewhere a clerk can review it. We could have done this subtly."

Corska's brows raise. "You're suggesting in front of the Prince that the servants of the Empress engage in bribery?"

"I'm working off the assumption he isn't an idiot and knew that already," Wenzai says. "But what bugs me is this price hike came perfectly timed with some coterie maneuverings on the other side of the balance sheet."

"What kind of maneuverings?"

"Either you know, or it's not worth telling," Wenzai says. "And either you want a payoff from us, or someone in the peerage is paying you off already, trying to obstruct His Majesty and I. Or you're double dipping, which congrats. It's a good play. But we can't leave today without a solution. The union's stayed in place despite indiscretions like this because it's convenient for Her Majesty to keep it there. You keep your place by staying convenient. So let's talk like adults. About what is possible."

"I don't want a payoff," Corska says, her voice all patient neutrality. "What I want is to never look into the dead faces of threescore refiners again. Threescore widow visits."

"Those were scabs, not union guys," Grant says. "You told me that. You visited scabs' widows?"

Corska shrugs. "Refiners are refiners and widows are widows, Majesty. Perhaps they didn't carry cards, but their heirs will. Their families understand better than anyone how important it is to organize."

"We're not stripping all your securities," Wenzai says. "You'll have the same full escort you've always had."

"We live in a different sector now, Countess." Corska wags her finger. "Surely you remember how securely you were locked down after the incident?"

Wenzai squirms in her seat at that and casts a glance at Grant. "We're past those days."

"The Comet Queen is dead," Grant says. "I saw it. I pulled the trigger. We all have burdens on us from that incident. But the circumstances that gave rise to it have been handled."

"We're right on the border of what's about to be one of the biggest turf wars the Frontier's ever seen," Corska says. "A three-way feeding frenzy in a Princess-less sector. Her Majesty will be tied up and constantly busy; the sector will grow in great big clusterfuck-y bounds. Overextend itself, maybe. And that's before you consider a certain rumor I heard about a certain appeal you shoved through the Core."

She makes a suggestive gesture with this. Grant raises his eyebrows.

"Which if it's true, will distract the prime guardian of this sector's security even more," Corska says. "Perfect atmosphere for piracy. And my boys already bear the wounds from last time the Empire bumped up against its limits."

"These are pretty excuses, but that's what they are," Wenzai says. "The attack you're talking about was on-world, not mid-sweep. We could double your usual escort and it wouldn't come close to this bill. And it would be a ton of firepower to protect—what? Ring mining equipment? Am I supposed to believe these pirates have enough scrip and scrap to set up their own exo ring?"

"They could, if they're another noblewoman," Ondai says. "That's what the last one was. Your friend, right?"

Wenzai takes a deep breath through her nose and out through her mouth. It buzzes between her lips. She looks quite convincingly frustrated. Grant imagines it's only partially her bad-cop playacting.

"Wen," Grant says. "Would you excuse us for a second?"

"That's probably a good idea." Wenzai stands in her seat and whispers into his ear. "You got it from here?"

He pats her shoulder. "Trust me."

"Yep." She hops to the floor and trots from the room. Her tail tugs the door shut after her.

Corska Ondai leans forward and rests her chin on her hemp-braceleted palms. Her tail clatters as it wags. It's braided, Grant realizes, with beads along the plait. She points at the liquor cabinet. "May I?"

"Go ahead."

She crosses to the cabinet and rummages through it like a scavenger.

"My father's name was Richard Hyde," Grant says. "We lived in a mobile home, in a place called North Carolina."

Corska produces a glass tumbler and holds it up to a spigoted chrome cube built into the cabinet. "This is what you'd like to talk to me about?"

"I can get to the point, if you'd prefer," Grant says.

"No, no." Corska removes a glass-blown cylinder from a lower shelf and uncorks it. "Go ahead, Majesty."

"When I was a kid my father used to take on odd jobs," Grant says. "Driving things places, moving things for people. The kinds of jobs that people don't think about until they need them, or something goes wrong with them. Little fractions. And he'd take a fraction here, and a fraction there, and then he'd go to Costco and get these big canned tomato pastas, these raviolis—I guess those words don't mean much to you."

Corska shrugs and mixes her drink.

"But that's how I ate. He fed me the fractions. And everyone was happy. The guys who paid, they paid a little more, but it was spread out so many places and so many balance sheets that in the end it was pocket change. Just little rounding errors. Fractions, you know? Nothing that makes or breaks a business." Grant points at the shelf of glassware. "You mind passing me one? Neat is fine."

"You going to order me?"

"Would you make me one without it?"

Corska taps her finger against her glass. "No," she says.

Grant smiles. "Then I hereby order you to pour me a double, Citizen Ondai."

Corska quirks her brow. She pulls out another glass.

"My father wasn't that smart a man," Grant says. "He started thinking he was getting one over on all these people. He thought they were stupid, I guess. But they weren't stupid. They just saw a man who needed a little more, but not so much it hurt them." He watches Corska fill the glass to its brim. "This isn't my liquor, you know."

"In a roundabout way," Corska says, "it's all yours."

"Anyway," Grant says. "These guys figured: Richie has two kids with big growing mouths, and otherwise he's a solid hand, and numbers on paper say things are one way, but the real world is another way. One guy's pocket change is another guy's tether on a cliff to starvation. Thank you."

He accepts the glass Corska proffers.

"So they didn't address it," he says. "And he got a little too confident, and started wondering about something bigger than a fraction. And it ended pretty badly for just about everyone, but especially him. And that's how we got chased out of North Carolina the first time."

Corska's tail loops around the crossbar of her seat and she boosts herself back into it. "You have my sympathies, Majesty."

"That's kind of you, Representative." Grant takes a sip. The usual Taiikari liquor—can't be more alcoholic than a Maekyonite merlot. "Now, this security thing that Wenzai and I are poking at. This looks like someone found a spot to really drill in, because they got an inexperienced nobleman in front of them, maybe, and they've got a reason they can point to, and they're excited. But I've spent my adulthood asking myself what Richard Hyde would do, and then doing the opposite. And it's a policy I'm suggesting to you now."

"This is all on the level, Majesty."

"So if I went to this security firm, and I started poking around in there, all those ships and salaries would be legitimate? Everything right where it was supposed to be, nothing skimmed or squirreled away?"

"Would that truly be a valuable use of your time, Majesty?"

"No," Grant says. "I don't think it would, Representative."

He empties his glass and smacks his lips. Corska can't hide the consternation in her eyes at how he polished that double off.

"The more I play ball with you, the harder the coterie raptors will hunger for our failure," he says. "Right now, you and me are doing the exact dance that they want us to do. And it ends two ways."

He holds up two fingers.

"Option one." He puts one down. "I tell you and your crew to screw yourselves, and I use scabs and suppressions and all the old Imperial tools."

Corska sits placidly. This woman has a better poker face than any noblewoman Grant has shared a table with. "And option two?"

He lowers the other finger. "Option two is I don't tell you to screw yourselves, and I capitulate, and the Korak refineries—well, they do okay. They struggle to open, and they bleed cash, and every time the numbers come in, Korak is right at the bottom. And all the skull-cracking, scab-picking owners, the ones who fight you every day, point to us and say, Here's what happens when you're dumb enough to work with the unions. Either way, the old bosses win."

"Your wife can afford this, Majesty."

"She can. But you're not talking to her. You're talking to me. And I can't. I don't want this to be a cute little playset I tinker around with while she does the actual work. I want to show these stuck-up noblewomen I can run this thing and run it well, without spear-fighting the Union."

Corska drums her fingers on the desk again. She makes a show of glancing at her timepiece.

"I'm not asking you to turn on your people," Grant says. "All I'm asking is that you treat me like the usual Taiikari peerage twits you're used to dealing with, not a naïve idiot. Take the union's extra piece of the pie in crumbs, like you usually do. Maybe a little less, even, because I imagine you have a nest egg built for legal stuff and the emergencies that pop up when you're working for someone who hates your guts. Which I don't."

Corska has been unnaturally still throughout his offer. The stillness lasts a breath more—then she reanimates like someone pressed play on her. "I really don't know what you're talking about, Majesty. I wish I did, and that I could help you out here. But things cost what they cost."

"Okay." Grant leans back in his chair. "You don't believe me. Test me."

"Test you?"

"Something that would let you know I'm not blowing hot air," Grant says. "Something my wife wouldn't do. But I might."

The skin around Corska's eyes wrinkle with her mirth. "Nice afternoon for entrapment, then, Majesty?"

"You didn't get where you are right now without taking risks," Grant says. "Run the numbers and talk to me, or don't. I'll excuse myself, and Wenzai will find some boring, unsentimental asshole to be our proxy in these conversations, and you'll get jerked around again by the Imperial bureaucracy. And nothing changes."

The ice in Corska's glass clatters as she finishes her own drink.

"Okay," she says. "I'll test you."

Grant spreads his arms.

"You talked about your father," she says. "I'll talk about a guy named Aokan. Aokan is like Richard Hyde, I think. A solid hand, and a provider to his family. But these proctors of reality you mentioned. The ones with the wisdom to see things as they are. They're less common here than on Maekyon, maybe. And much harder to run from. Aokan makes a few mistakes. Understandable mistakes, you'd say, if the things you've said to me are the things you'd really say. The servants of Sykora said otherwise."

"So if someone were to countermand them, and secure a pardon for the man," Grant says. "After a careful review of his case, of course. To see if he's as benign as you say he is."

"Of course."

"This would show you I mean what I say?"

Corska crushes a cube of ice between her teeth. "It would show me something, at any rate."

"I can't make anything like a promise."

"I'm not expecting one."

"That'll be our baseline, then," Grant says. "Shaky as it is. And we'll build." He stands up. "Where is this Aokan dude?"

"He's right here on Ptolek II," Corska says. "Spending five decacycles in one of your wife's re-education camps."

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