speedy M2P2 ship, not a slow interorbit cycler like High Wire , but even with constant acceleration on the way out and assistance decelerating from the magbeam transmitters on Phobos, it’s going to take us nearly ninety days to make the passage. The package I’m carrying needs to be activated twenty days before we arrive; until then, it’s concealed in a small cryostat in the base of a profoundly ugly black model of an extinct airborne replicator that preyed on other similar avioforms. My mission is to avoid succumbing to depression, creating a scandal, or otherwise attracting attention. Which may not be so easy, for I am one of only eight principal paying fares on this flight, and the face-achingly strange disguise I’m wearing tugs at my awareness constantly, squeezing me into the shape of somebody else’s life.
I’m not traveling alone. “You’re an aristo, you need servants,” Jeeves told me. “Take two.” To keep watch on the statue when I am not in my cabin, he assigned me a pair of munchkin assistants, Bill and Ben, who are connected in some way with the consignment, I gather. In public they pretend to be slave-chipped servants, cowed and obedient and quick to bounce out of the paying passengers’ way. But in private . . . I have no private. If I was a real aristo, I’d switch them off when I wanted privacy, and if they were real arbeiters, they’d have no option but to let me. And within a day or two of departure, they have me wishing I could. It’s not just sarcasm and sly asides. I am required to act in character, as a dominating aristo bitch; they are my servants. It sets us up for chilly formality at best and resentful hostility at worst. And unlike a real aristo, who would have the keys to their souls, I have no comeback. The only souls I’ve got are my own and the one I wear. The graveyard travels in my luggage, locked. Merely convincing Jeeves to let me take it with me required argument, for he warned me that it would be a security risk.
But enough about all that.
Pygmalion is a fast solar clipper, able to sustain almost a hundredth of a gee continuously. Pygmalion doesn’t carry steerage—passengers are accommodated inside an airy, lightweight bubble almost twenty meters in diameter, dedicated to their comfort and amusement. It’s strictly first class, plus servants. As the Honorable and Most Adored Katherine Sorico, traveling with two of her household between a business engagement on Cinnabar and the winter resorts of Olympus, nobody questions my right to a seat. But I keep my distance, sitting in a corner of the grand saloon for much of the time, quietly observing the other passengers while playing interminable hands of solitaire against myself.
The cause of our early departure holds court at the far end of the saloon, accompanied by a stripped-down coterie of courtiers, five flappers to keep her amused throughout the long passage. The Venerable Granita Ford is old money, about as old as it comes among our kind. Her fortune just barely postdates the death of our Creators, and it shows. (One of the curses of Rhea’s Get is our painfully tuned good taste—painful because it is so easily offended.)
Granita is humanoid, of course. Most of the early aristos are descended from lineages that served as deputies for our progenitors in social situations, as secretaries and carers, and consequently they are traditional in body plan—but like my current disguise, she has the bishojo features, colorful plumage, and flat, textureless skin that proclaims her anime, not animated. She and my nemesis on Venus could be evil twins. I study her sidelong, trying not to be noticed; she’s laughing at some witticism of thigh-slapping proportions that a flapper has just offered up, but her smiles never reach her eyes.
Midway down the lounge, the second most important potentates aboard float in stately isolation, disdaining the fawning of clients. The Lyrae twins are the sole survivors of a most singular
I’m not traveling alone. “You’re an aristo, you need servants,” Jeeves told me. “Take two.” To keep watch on the statue when I am not in my cabin, he assigned me a pair of munchkin assistants, Bill and Ben, who are connected in some way with the consignment, I gather. In public they pretend to be slave-chipped servants, cowed and obedient and quick to bounce out of the paying passengers’ way. But in private . . . I have no private. If I was a real aristo, I’d switch them off when I wanted privacy, and if they were real arbeiters, they’d have no option but to let me. And within a day or two of departure, they have me wishing I could. It’s not just sarcasm and sly asides. I am required to act in character, as a dominating aristo bitch; they are my servants. It sets us up for chilly formality at best and resentful hostility at worst. And unlike a real aristo, who would have the keys to their souls, I have no comeback. The only souls I’ve got are my own and the one I wear. The graveyard travels in my luggage, locked. Merely convincing Jeeves to let me take it with me required argument, for he warned me that it would be a security risk.
But enough about all that.
Pygmalion is a fast solar clipper, able to sustain almost a hundredth of a gee continuously. Pygmalion doesn’t carry steerage—passengers are accommodated inside an airy, lightweight bubble almost twenty meters in diameter, dedicated to their comfort and amusement. It’s strictly first class, plus servants. As the Honorable and Most Adored Katherine Sorico, traveling with two of her household between a business engagement on Cinnabar and the winter resorts of Olympus, nobody questions my right to a seat. But I keep my distance, sitting in a corner of the grand saloon for much of the time, quietly observing the other passengers while playing interminable hands of solitaire against myself.
The cause of our early departure holds court at the far end of the saloon, accompanied by a stripped-down coterie of courtiers, five flappers to keep her amused throughout the long passage. The Venerable Granita Ford is old money, about as old as it comes among our kind. Her fortune just barely postdates the death of our Creators, and it shows. (One of the curses of Rhea’s Get is our painfully tuned good taste—painful because it is so easily offended.)
Granita is humanoid, of course. Most of the early aristos are descended from lineages that served as deputies for our progenitors in social situations, as secretaries and carers, and consequently they are traditional in body plan—but like my current disguise, she has the bishojo features, colorful plumage, and flat, textureless skin that proclaims her anime, not animated. She and my nemesis on Venus could be evil twins. I study her sidelong, trying not to be noticed; she’s laughing at some witticism of thigh-slapping proportions that a flapper has just offered up, but her smiles never reach her eyes.
Midway down the lounge, the second most important potentates aboard float in stately isolation, disdaining the fawning of clients. The Lyrae twins are the sole survivors of a most singular
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