Cardenas (Findlay IV), Findlay System, Eriuman Republic.
It took five weeks for the family to erupt over Khalil Ready, which was completely unsurprising to Sang. There could be no immediate or direct protest about her relationship as Eriuman women were technically free to choose their partners.
Before their venture into the heart of Karassian lands, Sang had found the subjective reality of Eriuman affairs of the heart perfectly natural. Now, though, they had a different perspective to measure it by. So did Bellona, who carried all her memories of Xenia’s pleasant life in Ledan.
In this matter, Karassians had a more open approach. Alliances, dalliances, contracts, marriages, it was all of utter disinterest to Karassians, unless a relationship soured, or was settled for the long term, or provided some other drama they could watch from afar. The ‘who’ was less important than the ‘how’.
Eriumans, though, cared deeply about the couplings of their family members, especially if breeding was involved. Then, family manipulations to arrange the “right” partner emerged in force. The longer a seemingly casual and unsuitable alliance continued, the stronger the family response to it.
Max was the first to speak to Bellona directly about Khalil. Sang suspected the indelicate directness was a result of his military life, which demanded he return to service, forcing him to speak.
Sang spent the morning gathering Max’s possessions and stowing them in the carryall for return to the Decimus, while listening for Bellona’s return. She and Khalil had hiked to the peak of the hill the homebase was located upon. It was a four hour journey both ways and the better part of a day, if one lingered at the lonely peak. There was a hot spring just below the peak that would beckon the pair, too.
Max dithered impatiently, picking up and putting down childhood possessions that were kept on the shelf by his big desk. He sat, then stood, then sat again.
“The satellite has them nearly back to the house,” Sang observed, after consulting with the house AI. “They are making better time on the lower slopes, too.”
Max nodded, pretending only a mild interest.
As it was close to both Max’s departure time and the early evening partake, Sang went to the kitchens and arranged for Max a meal of several hundred calories—enough to keep his energy up and his mood stable. Max fell on the hotpot and pie with a grunt of approval and devoured it quickly.
By the time he was done, Sang could hear Bellona’s voice from the front of the house, as she spoke to someone there. She sounded happy.
Max jumped up, shoving the plates away. “Come with me,” he told Sang.
Sang followed him out to the public rooms.
Max caught up with Bellona in the gallery, the wide and even longer hall that gave access to the private suites. Like the gathering room, the gallery had no solid walls on either side, just fields to keep the inclement weather out. Today, the fields were down. The late afternoon air was just turning from warm to cool.
Max beckoned Bellona over. Khalil stayed by the other side of the gallery and looked out at the lengthening shadows.
“You’re wearing your uniform,” Bellona told Max.
“I’ve been called back. There’s an offensive…well, you don’t need the details.”
“An offensive where?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t have time, anyway. I’m already dangerously close to being late.”
Bellona frowned. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about. I haven’t had a chance, lately.”
Max’s gaze flickered toward Khalil. “Understandable,” he said heavily. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Bellona’s face closed over. Her jaw flexed, as anger flickered in her eyes.
Max read her reaction as easily as Sang had. He shook his head. “Put your claws back, Bellona. You know I don’t care about who you’re with. You must stop flaunting in him front of Father, though.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“You think I don’t know you’re doing it deliberately? You know that every time he sees you with Khalil, it gnaws him. You think that Father doesn’t know you’re baiting him, too?”
Bellona crossed her arms. She looked very young, with the fresh glow of exertion on her face, but the defiance had gone. Now she merely looked thoughtful. “I might have known that if he had only spoken to me about more than the weather, lately.”
“Those are not conversations that come easily to him. You know what he’s like, Bellona. Do you really want to force Father to speak to you over something like this? It won’t end happily.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Bellona said, her voice smooth and strong. Confident. “I don’t play by family rules anymore. The delicate stepping around in circles. The prevarications. All of it. I’m done, Max.”
“Not while you’re living here, you are not.”
“I can’t live anywhere else,” she said bitterly. “Not anymore. Maybe I never could, despite trying. Why did you take me off the planet? Why was I on the Hathaway?”
Max grew still. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I think it’s a good thing you can’t remember.”
“If I did remember, would I still be here?” Bellona asked. “Would I want to be here?”
Sang looked at Max, as interested in the answer as Bellona.
Max swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, or you won’t tell me?”
“You wouldn’t tell me!” Max shot back. “You came to me, more upset than I’ve ever seen you in my life. You were verging on hysterical and you wouldn’t say what was wrong. You just begged me to get you away, far away.”
Khalil had stopped pretending to be interested in the view. He stood with his legs spread and his hands at the ready, watching the siblings.
Bellona stared at Max. “What happened?” she muttered.
Max retreated to the practical. “Have you tried to restore the memory? Bots? Hypnosis?”
Bellona rolled her eyes impatiently.
Max nodded. “Then maybe you should stop digging at it. Either it will come back, or it won’t. Either way, I don’t think you’ll like it when it does. You were not yourself that night, Bell.”
Bellona shifted on her feet. The boots and trousers she favored these days vexed her mother, but Sang thought they suited her. She scowled. “I haven’t been myself for a very long time,” she said, her voice harsh. “One more ripple won’t be noticed amongst the churn.”
Sang cleared their throat. “The time…” they murmured, as their sense of passing time was always more accurate than most humans and far more accurate than Max’s.
Max nodded. “I have to go. I can’t keep the shuttle waiting.” He gripped Bellona’s arms and gave her a shake. “You take care of yourself.”
“Always,” she said easily.
“I mean it.”
“I will.”
Max looked at Sang. “I want you to watch out for her, Sang.”
Sang nodded.
“I don’t need a help-meet,” Bellona protested.
“You’re about to lose one of your few allies in the family,” Max said gravely. “I’m compensating for that as much as I can. Let Sang help. They’re very good at it.”
“They are,” Khalil said quietly, from his observer’s place across the gallery.
Bellona sighed. “Very well.”
Max hugged her. It was an impulsive movement and Bellona stood with her arms stiffly at her sides, caught by surprise.
Max glanced at Khalil and nodded, then stepped around Bellona and strode down the gallery, heading for the front of the house, where he would find Reynard and Iulia and say his goodbyes.
Sang saw the temper simmering in Bellona’s face as she studied them. The resentment was unmistakable. “We will see Max off,” they said.
“Good idea,” she said shortly.
* * * * *
For a week after Max’s departure, a lull held the family. Bellona did her best to ignore Sang, although her disregard was not aimed purely at Sang. She ignored everyone, including her father. She and Khalil toured the city, hiked a lot and spent time in the movement suite with the doors sealed, from where the sound of clashing weapons could be heard. Bellona was training Khalil more effectively than Sang could. Sang’s coaching became a supplement, instead, rounding out Khalil’s skills.
“It helps her keep the memories fresh,” Khalil confessed to Sang after a long session from which he emerged sweating and exhausted. “It reminds her of who she was.”
“She wishes to remember being Xenia?”
“The Xenia she remembers was happy. She had friends. A life that was content. It doesn’t matter that it was all an illusion. It felt real enough when she was living it.” Khalil frowned. “And it helps her ignore the news.”
The war news was not good. Part of Sang’s function was to collate news and present it daily. When Max was not there, Sang merely collected. They did not know how Bellona was acquiring her news updates, for she did not ask Sang for them. Perhaps it had not occurred to her that Sang could provide the service. Iulia, as head of the family, was the only woman assigned a personal assistant. Bellona had grown up without one, as most women in minor positions in Eriuman households did. It was considered a waste to provide each of them with an assistant, so Bellona had never learned to work with one.
The terminal in Bellona’s private suite was smart enough to build a daily update, although it was not an AI and would not adapt the feed to suit her waxing and waning interests. It didn’t matter for right now, because all the news was negative. Lost ships, with all hands. Lost territories, which Erium found almost more painful than the loss of lives. While losses were an accepted part of war, it was the manner of the more recent losses that grated. The Karassians had taken Max’s innovations with smaller, personal fighting craft and applied it with the usual Karassian slap-dash passion and drive. The little fighters they were using against Eriuman cruisers had been too quickly designed and were inclined to explode upon launch or even in mid-flight. They often broke down. Yet, when they were working, they were fast and they were lethal. Max’s tactic of overwhelming Karassian cruisers with Eriuman fighter craft, the constant barrage bringing them to their knees, was being used against the Eriuman Navy now.
So the silence and stillness lasted for a week after Max’s departure, while Iulia stayed in her rooms and Bellona and Khalil roamed the city for long hours each day.
Then Reynard announced a formal dinner party, to which Khalil was not invited.
Bellona summoned Sang to her suite and showed them the invitation on her screen.
“Oh, that is…awkward,” Sang decided. “It is a direct shot across the bows, too.”
Bellona nodded. “Formal dinner parties are never odd-numbered. They’ll have someone there. Who? Would they dare push my cousin Delben at me again?”
Sang smiled. “Delben is married these days, with six children.”
“He was heartbroken by my disappearance, clearly.”
Sang considered the invitation. “It is a formal invitation to which you must respond. You could simply not attend.”
“Decline, or accept and fail to show?” Bellona grimaced. “Either is…gutless.”
“Under the circumstances, it could be argued as the prudent move.”
“Whose side are you on, Sang?” she asked. “You’re a family member, too.”
“Max asked us to watch out for you.”
“This falls under ‘watching out’?”
“I am a generalist assistant,” Sang pointed out. “My parameters range as far as my experience tells me they need to.”
“Like buying a luxury Karassian yacht to smuggle me off Kachmar?” Bellona asked. She was still smiling. “Khalil told me.”
“That is a very good example.”
“If your parameters are so flexible, then you can help me with this.” She pointed at the screen again.
“You intend to go?”
“Only to learn how serious my father is about pushing the family agenda on me. If I can’t take Khalil, I want you there.”
“It would be inappropriate for us to sit at a table that has no formal place laid for us.”
“You can stand next to Riz and Wait if that makes you feel better. I want you there in formals, though. I want it known you’re with me. And I want you to observe everything that happens so I can analyze it later.”
“We would be most happy to help you with this.”
Bellona’s smile returned in full force. “I also want you to make me a dress. Khalil says you’re skilled at design.”
“It is a matter of mathematics, that is all.”
“Esthetics have something to do with it. Can you make me a dress that will tell everyone there I don’t care?”
“Is that the message you wish to send?”
Bellona frowned. “Yes.”
“Then we know exactly what you should wear.”
* * * * *
Sang made the preparations carefully. Their first step was to consult with Khalil, who approved the plan wholeheartedly. “Bellona is right. You need to be there, if I cannot be. No one sees you.”
“They will, this time,” Sang pointed out.
“They might for a few seconds, but they’ve had a lifetime of ignoring you. They’ll soon forget you’re there, once the surprise has worn off.”
On the evening of the party, Sang presented themselves to Bellona. Khalil, sitting in the easy chair he favored, smiled. “Impressive, Sang.”
Bellona walked all around them. “Yes, it is,” she decided. “Male, tonight, Sang?”
Sang looked down at the dark formal trousers and jacket. “It is appropriate we favor the male gender tonight if you wish to impart the maximum impact.”
Khalil pointed to the terminal where an Eriuman profile rotated. “If they have invited this Captain Ahn Delucas that Sang has decided is the one, then Sang is right. A sharp jab at his competitive nature will have him reacting without filters. There are rumors he likes to deal with opposition without witnesses, though.”
“That won’t be an issue tonight,” Bellona said. She held her hands out from her sides. “How do I look?”
Sang considered the scuffed boots, the rumpled black trousers and the even more disreputable shirt. Her hair was loose, as usual and ringlets hung about her face in delightful disorder. She wore no makeup and no jewelry.
“They will know exactly how little you care, except that you will be standing next to Sang, whose appearance disputes that,” Khalil decided.
“Only for those who notice Sang at all,” Bellona said. “My father will get the message, though.” She gripped Sang’s elbow. “Let’s go.”
Eleven people stood in the gathering room, each holding a cup, when Sang and Bellona walked into the room. Sang catalogued reactions as Bellona had requested. Most of the guests were slow to notice their entry, because they were concentrating on their own conversations—especially those surrounding Reynard. There were some puzzled expressions and some amused ones. Lips parted. Eyes widened.
The man standing next to Reynard was a stranger, yet Sang knew the face. Captain Ahn Delucas, wearing the full uniform of the Eriuman Navy.
Iulia stepped around the group she had been a part of and hurried over to where Bellona and Sang stood by the inner doorway. She trailed silk, lace and perfume. Her eyes were narrowed, while her face was held in a stiff neutral expression. “Are you mad?” she whispered. “Go back to your rooms and change into something more suitable, as quickly as you can. This needn’t be a disaster. I will tell your father you were running so late, you thought it wise to appear first, then dress properly. Go. Go!” She pushed at Bellona’s shoulder, trying to turn her and get her out of the room.
“I’m as dressed as I will get, Mother,” Bellona said. “I am comfortable and tidy.”
“You cannot represent the family looking as you do,” Iulia hissed back. There was a tic at the corner of her eye, fluttering quickly.
“I don’t remember being asked to do that.”
Iulia’s tic increased. “You’re not a fool. Neither am I. You know very well these events are a showcase for the family.”
Gaubert came up to them. The clean, square line of the jaw that was a family trait was softer on him, blurred by good living and an easy acceptance of his status. He touched Bellona’s shoulder. “You are looking casual, niece.”
“I am, thank you,” Bellona shot back. “Sang, a drink, please.”
“No,” Iulia snapped. “She is returning to her room.”
Sang looked at Bellona. She stared right back.
Instead of leaving her with her mother and uncle, Sang raised their hand and beckoned one of the help-meets over. Sang smiled their thanks and took two of the cups from the tray they were carrying and handed Bellona one of them.
Gaubert watched Sang, a smile forming and growing broader. “How quaint,” he murmured and drank deeply from his own cup.
Iulia gripped Bellona’s forearm as she tried to lift the cup to her mouth. “No,” she said, her voice low and hard. “Hear me. Stop this at once, Bellona. You will gain nothing from defying your father in this way.”
Bellona swayed to one side, to look around Iulia’s shoulder. She smiled. “I have already gained everything I intended.”
Sang looked in the direction Bellona had glanced. Reynard was standing near the big dinner table, talking to Delucas. His face was dark with suppressed anger. As Sang looked, Reynard’s gaze flicked toward Bellona.
Bellona shook off her mother’s grip and sipped from the cup. “Toss me out, mother,” she said. “Please. You’ll be doing me a favor.”
Gaubert tisked in delighted disapproval. He was enjoying the moment.
Iulia dropped her hand. “Sending you away will only call more attention to your waywardness. We will brazen this out. Sang, take your post.”
Sang looked at Bellona for direction. She nodded. “Yes, I think my point has been made,” she said softly. “Thank you, Sang. I will not divide your loyalty any more tonight.”
Sang felt a need to contradict her observation and held it back, for it would not contribute to the play they were helping perform right now. Instead, Sang nodded and moved over to where Riz and Wait stood, in the darker corner of the room. As they went, they sipped the wine, then added the cup to the return tray. They presumed no one would notice the audacious act, except Riz and Wait, who both looked shocked.
Iulia pulled Bellona over to where her father was standing, her knuckles white where she gripped Bellona’s arm. Delucas turned to face the approaching women, a pleasant smile stitched on his flat face.
Sang focused their hearing.
Reynard’s grip on his cup tightened, as he said in a jovial tone; “Captain, I present to you my daughter, Bellona Cardenas Scordina de Deluca. Bellona, I recommend to you Captain Ahn Delucas Scordino de Carosa.”
Ahn inclined his head. “It is a great pleasure, Bellona, to finally meet you. You have been much in the news lately.”
It was now Bellona’s turn to express her appreciation for his company and add a light compliment of some sort. Sang had seen the pattern repeated thousands of times.
Bellona drained her cup and put it on the table by her hip, disturbing the neatly laid pattern of plates and utensils. “Your ship is the Livius, yes, Captain?”
Ahn’s pleasant expression faded. “Indeed,” he said, his tone flat.
“A dreadnought of the third generation,” Bellona added. “Tell me, what strategies have you developed to counter the Karassian single-man fighters?”
Reynard cleared his throat. “This is barely a fit discussion for here and now.”
“I guarantee it is the only subject Captain Delucas thinks about these days,” Bellona said, staring at Ahn.
Ahn’s smile this time looked as though it was pulled from him without his permission. “You are very perceptive,” he said shortly.
Iulia sighed. “Oh dear…”
“Really, Captain, I would like to hear your thoughts about this,” Bellona added. “It seems to me that my brother’s idea to carry lightweight fighters gave the Eriuman Navy a short advantage that has now been completely neutralized by the Karassian imitations. Instead, you’re having to deal with a problem of your own making.”
“You would be right,” Ahn said, his attention thoroughly caught.
“An impasse,” Bellona said.
“Indeed.”
“However, could you not also argue that the entire undeclared war, going back to the destruction of the Valerianus, has been on the whole a search for a way to break the impasse?”
Ahn nodded. “A constant impasse, yes. As soon as we or the Karassians discover a weakness to exploit, the other side imitates that strategy.”
“Then both sides adapt and you’re back to the impasse,” Bellona added.
Anh drew in a slow, deep breath. “You have an unusual clarity of thinking.”
“It comes from having lived in both worlds,” she said shortly.
Anh drew back. He clearly did not appreciate the reminder of her recent history.
Iulia leapt to minimize the damage. “I am desperately hungry. Reynard, may we start the meal?”
“That would be appropriate,” Reynard said slowly, as if his mind was far away. He was staring at Bellona and Sang suspected that for the first time in his long life, Reynard Cardenas was seeing his daughter without filters.
Sang motioned to the help-meets, who hurried to withdraw chairs from the table and help the guests seat themselves. Ahn Delucas was seated next to Bellona. Sang placed themselves directly behind her chair and enjoyed the startled look Iulia gave them.
Unlike most formal dinners that Sang had attended, this one held the promise of novelty.