Starbound (29 page)

I spent the next day kicking around the North Palace, doing nothing and feeling useless. Neither my father nor Wesley sent an update all day, and my calls to my father's office were taken by his office secretary but not returned. They were clearly letting me know where I stood in their eyes at the moment, and I didn't like it at all.

I checked in with Karina and the nurses a couple of different times. Her father was still very incoherent, and that was worrisome. The stasis field had had residual effects on him, and he still hadn't fully recovered. I did manage to get her to have dinner with me in the private family dining room on the third floor, but it was a somber affair. We both were very down about being cut out of the decision-making process, perhaps permanently.

We were waiting on dessert when Walther interrupted us.

“Sire, there's an urgent communiqué for you in the library,” he said. I glanced up at Karina.

“May I—” she started.

“Please, join me,” I said. “This concerns you, too.” I asked the servants to bring us coffee in the library and then we and Walther went out of the dining room and made for the nearest lifter.

I sat down in front of the desk plasma console and keyed in my private code to de-encrypt the transmission. It was a text-only message from Zander aboard
Benfold
:

“Have ma
de the run to Candle
and back. Arrival e
xpected at 1900 hour
s your local time.”

I checked my watch. Thirty minutes from now. I resumed scrolling the message.

“H
arrington aboard wit
h urgent news regard
ing Carinthia. Reque
st permission to lan
d at Palace and cons
ult with you directl
y.”

I replied in the affirmative and sent the coded packet back to Zander with the palace landing coordinates, then passed the arrival time on to Walther. I shut the library doors again and turned to Karina.

“Zander says Harrington has urgent news about Carinthia. I hope it's good, but I doubt that it is,” I said.

“I agree, I have my doubts,” said Karina. “Should we consult with your father and Wesley?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Not just yet. They haven't exactly been forthcoming about keeping us in the loop, so I would prefer to handle this first myself. Zander is requesting to consult with both of us, not them. But I'll have Walther set up the link just in case. We can decide after we hear what they have to say,” I said.

Zander was ten minutes late on his arrival time, and for a man as diligent to promptness as he was, it was almost an offense. I nodded to him as he arrived at the back entrance to the palace, with Harrington in tow as promised. I led them both into the library where they greeted Karina again, poured them both a warming drink of brandy, and we sat down together.

I looked to Harrington. “So tell me your news.” He looked grimly down into his glass.

“There is nothing good, I'm afraid. The reports about the grand duke's ‘abduction' have been made public by the Regency. They are
blaming it on ‘anti-Carinthian agents' and have vowed to track down the perpetrators and bring them to justice, that sort of rhetoric. There is no mention of you, Princess, but it is very clear in the government-controlled media that they are pursuing young Cochrane here,” he said, then turned back to me. “They are doing everything but blaming you directly for the abduction. They are making it very hard for anyone associated with Quantar or the Union to do business with Carinthia, so much so that as of today I have suspended my merchant operations there and withdrawn my people. I won't be going back any time soon,” he finished.

“So now I'm a criminal?” I said. Harrington nodded.

“At least on Carinthia you are.”

“I have to make a statement,” said Karina. “Get a message to my people, tell them why we're really here. Can you get a message broadcast in Carinthian space, Mr. Harrington?” He looked to Zander.

“Aye, it can be done, Princess. We'd have to jump in, drop a longwave ansible and jump back out again. The message would be picked up on any media device that has a longwave receptor, which if I'm guessing right is pretty much every Tri-Vee, personal communicator, and plasma network on the planet. You'll get to most of the people that way,” Zander said.

“Would it be dangerous?” she asked. Zander shrugged.

“It might be, a bit. But danger and I are old friends, Princess. And we're not at war. Or at least we won't be until you make this broadcast,” Zander said.

Then they looked to me. “I think it's best if we bring in my father on this now,” I said. I called Walther in to set up the encrypted longwave link to Government House on the library's main wall plasma display. I sent the communications packet with an urgent request, and this time it was answered. I navigated around my father's secretary and she agreed to get him on the line. His image came up a few seconds later. He and Wesley were seated in his office.

I introduced Harrington and Zander and the merchant proceeded to fill in the two leaders on what he had just told us.

“We're aware of the government line on Carinthia,” said Wesley, “and about the blame being placed on young Peter. So far they have refused all Union overtures, either from us or the Earthmen, on diplomatic negotiations. They are threatening withdrawal from the Union, but we're not sure what else they may be planning.”

“Then let me fill you in, Admiral,” said Harrington. “I've withdrawn all my merchant operations from the Carinthian system. Doing business there has become impossible. They are interdicting all foreign cargo ships that dock at the High Stations under the guise of a search for evidence on the abduction, then taking the cargo and rerouting it to Carinthia.”

“Hoarding supplies,” said Wesley, nodding his head.

“For what?” I asked.

“For war, son,” answered my father. “Prince Arin is threatening military action against any planet found to be harboring these so-called ‘anti-Carinthian agents.' Carinthia has demanded the return of all their sailors and soldiers to their home bases. Some are already going. We don't know how many will stay with the Union. We're on the verge of war.”

We all took that in soberly.

“There will be a formal war council tomorrow at 0900. It will be up there, at the North Palace,” said Wesley. “It would be helpful, Princess, if your father could participate.”

“I understand,” she said.

With that we agreed to wait until morning for further action and cut the link. I made arrangements for apartment suites for Harrington and Zander, then said my good night to the princess. It had been a long day, and tomorrow was likely to be much, much longer still.

I tossed and turned for more than an hour, exhausted but unable to turn my mind off. I got up around midnight and picked up a novel with an interesting cover from the collection in my room and sat down to read. It was from an author named Swenson, what they used to call “science fiction,” an antiquated genre. I remembered reading it as an adolescent and enjoying it. I was barely fifteen minutes into my reading when there was a knock at my door.

“Come in,” I said. The doors parted and Karina came in, wearing a pink robe over a flowing white nightgown, which trailed her across the carpet as she came in and shut the door behind her.

“That gown looks a bit long for you,” I said, smiling as I put the book down. She smiled back.

“Short girl problems. I'm only a hundred and fifty-six centimeters,” she said. I tried to run the conversion in my head.

“Five-foot-one?” I said.

“Five-one and
a half
,” she replied. “In your quaint outmoded measurement system.” She came over and sat next to me in a side chair, the gown fabric flowing onto the floor. She wrestled with it, trying to figure out what to do with all the extra fabric.

“We'll try to find you something that fits better tomorrow,” I said by way of apology. She smiled again.

“They did their best. No doubt some normal-sized second lieutenant of the royal guard is out her favorite nightgown,” she said, then continued. “I saw your light on. I couldn't sleep either. There's so much on my mind.”

“And mine,” I agreed. I sensed there was something more, but hesitated to ask what it might be, so I let the silence hang in the air for a while. She looked at me as if she was unabashedly evaluating me, but for what? Finally she spoke.

“I hope you would agree that these are not normal circumstances, Peter, and that we've been forced together in a way that neither of us would have chosen,” she said.

“I
wo
uld
agree with that,” I said.
Now where
is
this
going?
I thought.

“Then perhaps that will make you open to some more . . . unorthodox solutions in regards to our current predicament?”

I shifted in my chair. This could be trouble. “What's on your mind, Karina?”

Now it was her turn to wiggle uncomfortably in her chair. “You would agree that the problems on Carinthia, with my brother, are now threatening to envelop the whole Union?” she said.

“Yes, that's obvious.”

“And if we could put pressure on Arin in his position as Regent, force his hand, if you will, it might create a crack in my world's desire to follow him down the path to leaving the Union,” she said. I thought about that a moment.

“Which side will your people come down on?” I asked.

“My people are dedicated to my father. They trust his rule, and his judgment. Arin is not so well liked. He's never been popular with the people. There has even been a movement to petition my father to make Benn the legitimate heir, though my father never considered it,” she said. I thought for a moment again.

“My hope has been that you and your father will be able to make your broadcast to the Carinthian people. Won't that help the situation?” I said. Now she moved in closer to me.

“Help, yes, but will it be enough? Arin could just maintain that the kidnappers were forcing us to make the broadcast. And he doesn't care about his popularity, whether they will believe him. He just wants control,” she said.

“Go on,” I replied, trying to stay as neutral as I could manage.

“So to my mind,” she continued, “we need something more decisive than just the message. An act that will force both sides on Carinthia to choose who they will follow, my father, or the Regency,” she
said. The look in her eyes was very intense now. It was time for me to find out what she had in mind.

“All right. What are you proposing?” I asked. She leaned in close and took my hand in hers. Whatever was coming, she was very serious about it.

“Marry me. Now,” she said.

I could only stare blankly at her, so she continued.

“My father will condemn Arin and declare a government in exile, a union of our two families. It will split the Carinthian people
and
the military in two.”

“Karina—”

“Please, Peter. Can't you see this is the only way? My father is fading fast. Once he's gone Arin will have total power, and the Union will be at an end. Only by our two families being joined can we hope to mount a challenge to his authority. Only that bond could sway popular and military opinion enough to save Carinthia from civil war and the Union from dissolution. You have to see it. It's the only way,” she said.

She had surprised me again. No, shocked me, with her boldness.

“You're not saying anything,” she said. “Is it such an audacious proposal? Or is it just that you don't fancy me as much as your daring Lightship captain?”

I had no idea what to say to
that
. I hadn't even considered this as a possibility. A marriage for political purposes was something I had always been faced with since the death of my brother; I just hadn't thought of it as a solution to this current crisis.

“I think we should consult with my father and Wesley,” I said. “This could actually spur on a civil war on Carinthia.” Karina shook her head.

“That won't happen. If our wedding is as popular as I think it will be, the people will clamor to stay in the Union, and the military will
not act in discord with the people. I'm not saying it won't be dangerous, but I believe there are enough good men left in the Carinthian military to stave off a civil war, and we will be the catalyst for them to stand down, even in the face of Arin's orders,” she said.

“But—” I didn't get to protest as she continued to talk right over me.

“As for your father and the admiral, they will discourage it, and Carinthia will pay the price. Our people will fall under oppression and my father will die in exile of a broken heart on a world light-years away from his home. I want to save my world, Peter. I've thought it through, and this is the only way. I'm asking you, not as a young navy commander, but as a royal son of Quantar who will one day inherit his own planetary title. Unite our two worlds. Marry me. Help me to save Carinthia,” she said. Her grip on my hand was ever tighter, and she was on the verge of tears. I looked at her and knew she would not be dissuaded from this path. I had to decide, one way or another.