The Praxis by Walter Jon Williams Page A

at the party looking at her with eyes that glittered from more than whatever they’d been consuming earlier in the evening. There was an anticipation there Gredel didn’t like. So she dropped Lamey’s arm and straightened—because she didn’t want these people to see her afraid—and walked to where Stoney waited.
    â€œEarthgirl!” Stoney said. “This is Caro!” He was practically jumping up and down with excitement, and instead of looking where Stoney was pointing, Gredel just gave him a long, cool glance, because he was just so outrageous this way.
    When she turned her head, her first thought was, She’s beautiful. And then the full impact of the other girl’s face struck her.
    â€œAh. Ha,” she said.
    Caro looked at her with a ragged grin. She had long golden hair and green eyes, and skin smooth as butter cream, flawless…
    â€œIt’s your twin!” Stoney almost shouted. “Your secret twin sister!”
    Gredel gaped while everyone laughed, but Caro just looked at her and said, “Are you really from Earth?”
    â€œNo,” Gredel said. “I’m from here.”
    â€œHelp me build this pyramid.”
    Gredel shrugged. “Why not?” she said.
    Caro wore a short dress and a battered jacket with black metal buckles, and boots that came up past her knees—expensive stuff. She stood by the dining table carefully building a pyramid of crystal wineglasses. “I saw this done once,” she said. “You pour the wine into the one glass on the top, and when it overflows it fills all the others. If you do it right you fill all the glasses and you don’t spill a drop.”
    Caro spoke with a kind of drawl, like Peers or rich people did when they made speeches or announcements on video.
    â€œWe’re going to make a mess,” Gredel predicted.
    â€œThat’s all right, too,” Caro shrugged.
    When the pyramid was completed, Caro got Stoney to start opening bottles. It was the wine his crew had stolen from the warehouse in Maranic Port, and it was bright silver in color and filled the glasses like liquid mercury.
    Caro tried to pour carefully, but as Gredel had predicted, she made a terrible mess, the precious wine bubbling across the tabletop and over onto the carpet. Caro seemed to find this funny. At length all the glasses were brimming full, and she put down the bottle and called everyone over to drink. They took glasses and cheered and sipped. Laughter and clinking glasses rang in the air. The glasses were so full that the carpet got another bath.
    Caro took one glass for herself and pushed another into Gredel’s hand, then took a second glass for herself and led Gredel to the sofa. Gredel sipped cautiously at the wine—there was something subtle and indefinable about the taste, something that made her think of the park in spring, the way the trees and flowers had a delicate freshness to them. She’d never tasted any wine like it before.
    The taste was more seductive than she wanted anything with alcohol to be. She didn’t take a second sip.
    â€œSo,” Caro said, “are we related?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” Gredel said.
    Caro swallowed half the contents of a glass in one go. “Your dad was never on Zanshaa? I can almost guarantee my dad was never here.”
    â€œI get my looks from my ma, and she’s never been anywhere,” Gredel said. Then, surprised, “You’re from Zanshaa?”
    Caro gave a little twitch of her lips, followed by a shrug.
    Interpreting this as a yes, Gredel asked, “What do your parents do?”
    â€œThey got executed,” Caro said.
    Gredel hesitated. “I’m sorry,” she said. Caro’s parents were linked, obviously. No wonder she was hanging with this crowd.
    â€œMe too.” Caro said it with a brave little laugh, but she gulped down the remains of the wine in her first glass, then took a sip from the