Generation Warriors (8 page)

"My advice, Captain, would be to see if those who've been deposed, and whose testimony is at best minor, couldn't be released to go on long liberty over on Six. That's a recreational reserve: hunting, fishing, sailing, a few good casinos. Fleet has a lodge in the mountains, too. They'd have to go by civilian carrier, but at least they'd be out of your hair."

"I don't like splitting my crew." Without calling up the figures, she couldn't be sure just how for away Six was: days of travel, anyway, on a civilian insystem ferry, perhaps more. If something did happen... She shut that line of thought down. Better to clean the whole environmental system with toothbrushes. Preparedness, she'd noticed, tended to keep trouble from happening. And there were worse problems than boredom.

Chapter Four

"Darling boy!" Auntie Q, Ford thought, was the archetypal spoiled rich widow. She had sparkling jewels on every exposed inch of flesh: rings, bracelets, armlets, necklaces, earrings, and even a ruby implanted between her eyes. He hoped it was a ruby, and not a Blindeye, a medjewel. "You can't know how I've longed to meet you!" Auntie Q also had the voice his father had warned him about. Already he could feel his spine softening into an ingratiating curve.

"I'm so glad, too," he managed.

He hoped it sounded sincere. It had better. He'd spent a lot of time and money tracking Auntie Q down. Most of his immediate family had intentionally lost her address and her solicitors were not about to give her yacht's private comcode to a mere great-nephew by marriage serving on a Fleet cruiser. He had finally had to go through Cousin Chalbert, a harrowing inquisition which had started with an innocent enough question, "But
why
do you want to see her? Are you short of funds, or anything like that?" and ended up with him confessing every venial and mortal sin he had ever committed.

Then he'd had to endure that ride on a tank-hauler, whose bridge crew seemed delighted to make things tough for someone off a cruiser. They seemed to think that cruiser crews lived in obscene luxury and had all the glory as well. Ford was willing to admit that hauling supplies was less thrilling than chasing pirates, but by the third day he was tired of being dumped on for the luxuries he'd never actually enjoyed.

Auntie Q gave him a glance that suggested she had all oars in the water, and turned to speak into a grill. "Sam, my great-nephew arrived after all. So we'll be three for dinner and I want your very best."

"Yes, ma'am," came the reply.

Ford wished he had a way out, and knew he hadn't. The tank-hauler's crew had insisted he share their mess and his stomach was still rebelling.

"You did bring dress things, didn't you?" asked Auntie Q, giving Ford another sharp look.

But he'd been warned. Some of his outlay had been for the clothes which Auntie Q expected any gentleman to have at hand.

"Of course... although they may be a little out of date..."

She beamed at him. "Not at all, dear. Men's clothes don't go out of date like that. All this nonsense of which leg to tie the ribbons on. That's ridiculous. Black tie, dear, since no one's visiting."

Auntie Q's favorite era of male dress had been thirty years back: a revival of 19th century Old Earth European. Ford thought it was ridiculous, but then all dress clothes were, and were probably intended to be. Fleet taught you to wear anything and get the job done. He thought of that, checking himself in the mirror in his vast stateroom. It was as big as Sassinak's
Zaid-Dayan
stateroom and office combined, full of furniture as costly as her desk. His black tie, crisply correct, fitted between stiffly white collar points. Studs held the stiff front panels of his shirt together (buttons were pedestrian, daytime wear) and cufflinks held his cuffs. It was utterly ridiculous and he could not keep from grinning at himself. He shrugged on the close-fitting dinner jacket. Like his dress uniform, it showed off broad shoulders and a lean waist (if you had them) or an expanse of white shirt, if you did not. He already wore the slim black trousers, the patent-leather shoes. He looked, to himself, like a caricature of a Victorian dandy.

A
face
appeared in the mirror behind him: haughty, willful, her graying hair piled high in elaborate puffs and curls, a diamond choker around her wattled neck. Her gown, draped artfully to suggest what she no longer had to display, was a shimmering mass of black shot with silver-gray. From the top of her hairdo three great quills stuck up, quivering in shades of green and silver. Ford blinked. Surely they weren't
really
....

She winked at him, and he had to grin back. "Yes they are, dearie," she said. "Ryxi tailfeathers, every one, and you shall hear how I came by them."

Impossibly, this visit was going to be fun. No wonder his father had been overwhelmed; no male under thirty-five would stand a chance. Ford swept her a bow, which she received as her due, and offered his arm. Her hand on his was light but firm; she guided him unobtrusively to her dining room.

Three for dinner meant Ford himself, Auntie Q, and her "companion," introduced as Madame Flaubert. Ford's excellent education reminded him of all possible associations, and his Fleet-honed suspicions quivered. Madame Flaubert had excruciatingly red hair, a bosom even more ample than Auntie Q, and an ornate brooch large enough to conceal a small missile launcher. The two women exchanged raised eyebrows and significant nods and shrugs while Ford attempted to pretend he didn't notice. Then Madame Flaubert leaned over and laid her hand on Ford's. He managed not to flinch.

"You are Lady Quesada's great-great-nephew?" Her voice was husky, with a resonance that suggested she might have been trained as a singer.

"Only by courtesy," said Ford smoothly, with a smiling nod to Auntie Q. "The relationship is by marriage, not by blood, on my father's side,"

"I told you that, Seraphine," his aunt said, almost sharply.

"I'm sorry, but you know my mind wanders." Ford could not decide if the menace that weighted those words was intentional or accidental. But his aunt sat up straighter; she knew something about it. Madame Flaubert smiled at Ford, an obviously contrived smile. "Your aunt will not have told you, perhaps, that I am her spiritual advisor."

Despite himself, his eyes widened and shifted to his aunt's face. Two spots of color had come out on her cheeks. They faded slowly as he watched. Madame Flaubert pressed his hand again to get his attention, and he forced himself to meet her gaze.

"You do not believe in spirit guides? No. I see you are a
practical
young man, and I suppose your... Fleet... does not encourage a spiritual nature."

Ford tried to think of something innocuous to say. Of all the things he had thought about coming to meet his notorious Auntie Q, spiritualism had not entered his mind. Madame Flaubert finally patted his hand, as one would pat a child who had just proven a disappointment, and smiled sadly.

"Whether you believe or not, my dear, is of little consequence as long as your heart is filled with purity. But for you, for a man who makes his living by war, I see trouble ahead for you, if you do not seek a higher road." Her hand fell from his heavily, with a little thump on the table, and she lay back in her chair, eyes closed. Ford glanced at his aunt, who was sitting bolt upright, her lips folded tightly. She said nothing, staring past him down the table, until Madame Flaubert moaned, sat up, and (as Ford by this time expected) said, "Oh! Did I say something?"

"Later, Seraphine." Auntie Q lifted the crystal bell and, in response to its delicate ring, a uniformed servant entered with a tray of food.

Whatever else Auntie Q had, Ford thought later that evening, she had a miracle of a cook. He was sure it was not just the contrast with the supply hauler's mess: he had eaten well enough on the
Zaid-Dayan
, and at plenty of elegant restaurants in several Sectors. No, this was special, a level of cuisine he had never even imagined. Nothing looked like what it was, or tasted the way he thought it would, and it all made "good" or "delicious" into inadequate words. If only his unsteady stomach had not suffered through the tanker crew's cookery, he'd have been in culinary heaven.

Conversation, on the other hand, was limited, Madame Flaubert kept giving Ford meaningful looks, but said nothing except to ask for the return of certain dishes. Spiritual advising was evidently hungry work; she ate twice as much as Auntie Q, and even more than Ford. Auntie Q asked Ford perfunctory questions about his family, and was satisfied with the barest outline of answers. He had the feeling that normally she'd want to know what color stockings his sister's bridesmaids had worn at her wedding, and who had given what gift, but something was distracting her. Suddenly, while Madame Flaubert still had a mouthful of food, Auntie Q pushed back her chair.

"We shall retire," she said, "while you enjoy your port."

Madame Flaubert flushed, swallowed gracelessly but without choking, and stood. Ford was already on his feet, and bowed them out. Port? After clearing away, the servant had returned, carrying a tray with bottle, glass, and a box of cigars. Ford eyed them. He did not smoke, and everything he'd read about cigars warned him not to start now. The port was something else. Would it settle his stomach or make things worse? And how long was he supposed to wait before rejoining the ladies? For that matter, what
did
the ladies do while waiting for the gentleman to finish his port?

He took a cautious sip, and smiled in spite of himself. Wherever Auntie Q had found this, it was grand stuff for a stomach-ache, warming all the way down. He stretched his legs beneath the table and tried to imagine himself lord of all he surveyed. With the exception of Auntie Q, who would rule whatever domain she happened to be in.

After a time, the same servant appeared to take away the tray, and direct Ford to "Madame's drawing room." Originally a
withdrawing
room, Ford recalled, to which the ladies withdrew while the menfolk made noise and rude smells with their cigars.

His aunt's drawing room was furnished with more restraint than Ford would have expected. A small instrument with black and white keys, reversed from the usual, and too small for a piano. Ford wondered what it was, but did not ask. Several elegant but sturdy chairs, each different. A low table of some remarkable wood, sawn across knots and knurls to show the intricate graining. A single tall cabinet, its polished doors closed, and two graceful etchings on the walls but none of the cluttered knick-knacks her other mannerisms had suggested.

Madame Flaubert lounged in a brocaded armchair, a pose he suspected of concealing more tension than she would admit. She fondled a furry shape he gradually recognized as a dog of some sort. Its coat had been brushed into fanciful whirls, and it had a jeweled collar around its tiny neck. Two bright black eyes glittered at him, and it gave one minute yip before subsiding into Madame Flaubert's ample lap. His aunt, on the contrary, sat upright before a tapestry frame.

"I remember your father," Auntie Q said. "Hardly more than a boy, he was then. Seemed afraid of me, for some reason. Very stiff."

Ford gave her the smile that had worked with other women. "If I'd been a boy, you'd have frightened me."

"I doubt that." She snipped the needle free and threaded a length of blue. "I know what your side of the family thinks of me. Too rich to be reasonable, too old to know what she's doing, troublesome. Isn't that right?" Her eye on him was as sharp as her needle's point.

Ford grinned and shrugged. "Spoiled, overbearing, arrogant, and tiresome, actually. As you, without doubt, already know."

She flashed a smile at him. "Thank you, my dear. Honesty's best between relatives, even when, as so often, it is inconvenient elsewhere. Now we know where we stand, don't we? You didn't come to see a spoiled, overbearing, arrogant, tiresome old lady for the fun of it."

"Not for the fun of it, no." Ford let himself frown. "It was actually curiosity."

"Oh?"

"To see if you were as bad as they said. To see if you were as sick and miserable as
you
said. To see what kind of woman could have married into both Santon and Paraden and then gotten free of them."

"And now?"

"To see what kind of woman would wear Ryxi tailfeathers to dinner. How could anyone resist
that
?"

"I can't tell you what you want to know," she said, somber for an instant. "I can't tell you why. But, never mind, I can tell you about the Ryxi."

Ford was not surprised to notice that Madame Flaubert was back in the room, cooing to her dog, which had spent the interim curled on her chair.

"Even the Ryxi are fellow beings searching for the light," said Madame Flaubert. "Ridicule damages the scoffer..."

"I'm not scoffing," said Auntie Q tartly. "I'm merely telling Ford where I got these feathers."

She plunged into the tale without looking at Madame Flaubert again; her voice trembled at first, then steadied. Ford listened, amused by the story. He could have predicted it, what a high-spirited rich young wife might do at one of the fancy balls when her "incorrigibly stuffy" husband tried to insist that she be discreet. Discretion, quite clearly, had never been one of Auntie Q's strong points. He could almost see her younger (no doubt beautiful) self, capering in mock courtship with a Ryxi in diplomatic service... a Ryxi who had let himself get overexcited, who had plucked the jeweled pin from her turban, and crowed (as Ryxi sometimes did, when they forgot themselves).

He could imagine her shock, her desire to do something outrageous in return. When the Ryxi had gone into the final whirling spin of the mating dance, she had yanked hard on his tailfeathers. By the time the whirling Ryxi could stop, screeching with mingled pain and humiliation, she had run away, safely hidden by her own wild crowd. Ford glanced at Madame Flaubert, whose mouth was pinched into a moue of disgust. He could almost hear her mental comment:
vulgar.
Ford himself agreed, but not with any intensity.

Most of what he knew about the wealthy and powerful he considered vulgar, but it didn't bother him. He certainly didn't bother about the degrees of vulgarity they might assign to one another's actions. Tenuous as the family connection might be, he would pick Auntie Q over Madame Flaubert anytime. His aunt had finished her story, with a challenging, almost defiant lift of her chin. He could imagine her as a spoiled child, when she would have had dimples beside her mouth. He grinned as much at the memory as at her story.