The girl and I were almost equally well-endowed, the only major changes intended having been to lighten my skin to a red-head’s shade, and change all of my bodily hair to match hers. Luckily, Bellna was a big girl, only about two inches less than my own height, which meant it hadn’t been necessary to shorten me. The clinicians had discussed the point at some length, and practical considerations had dictated their final decision. My reflexes and sense of balance were adjusted to my body as it was; shortening me would throw off that adjustment, possibly fatally if I couldn’t readjust before I had to defend myself from serious attack. It would be a lot simpler putting me in flat-heeled boots rather than the high-heeled ones Bellna wore, thereby adjusting the height difference painlessly. I moved my body slowly in the mirror, glad it was more recognizable than my face even if it was covered by that ridiculous bodysuit. The pink of it went terribly with my hair, and I saw my new face frown as the thought came that the thing was much too revealing and immodest.
Whoever had put me in it should have been whipped for the insult, to do such a thing to someone such as I! How dare they treat me so, as though I were a peasant girl or a slave! Who would dare!
“What’s the matter, don’t you like it?” a voice came suddenly from behind me, and I whirled around while blinking back clouds of highly incensed anger. Valdon stood just inside the door to the corridor, still too close to let it slide closed again behind him. He’d come in with no more announcement than I ever got, and I was getting tired of the intrusion.
“Next time, you’d better figure out some way of letting me know you’re out there,” I said, only somewhat distracted by the sweet, girlish tones I’d produced that just had to be Bellna’s voice. I value my privacy, and have been known to go to some lengths to ensure it.
“You can worry about your privacy once this is all over,” he countered, taking a few steps forward and folding his arms across his chest. “In case it hasn’t come through to you yet, I’m part of this project too, but in a position just a little higher than yours. Now, what were you doing a minute ago?”
He stood there in front of the now closed door, that unwavering stare coming straight at me, and I suddenly realized something else about him. It wasn’t only a hunter who looked out from his eyes, it was also a man who was used to dominating everything and everyone around him. I hadn’t seen that look often before, but I was bright enough to recognize it – and human enough to resent it. I didn’t work for Valdon no matter what opinions he had to the contrary, and it was time he knew it.
“None of your damned business what I was doing a minute ago,” I answered, turning back to the mirror. “You managed to find your way in here, so now let’s see if you can remember the way out. If I decide I need you for something, I’ll send someone to rattle your cage.
I shook my head to move the hair back from my face, seeing, in reflection, the way Valdon’s jaw tightened in anger, the look in his dark eyes hardening even further. he unfolded his arms and straightened to full height, then started coming toward me.
“Now, you listen to me, you little” he began, his right hand outstretched to wrap around my arm again, yet that was far too much.
No one had the authority to touch my person, least of all boorish louts such as he. I turned somewhat back to him, my right side toward his reaching one, struck upward with my arm against his to raise it, then kicked sideways into his ribs, twisting my hip into the kick.
The churl grunted aloud with pain as he bent forward, his arms wrapped about himself, and then he leaned upon one knee, seeking with eyes closed to recover what breath he might. I had swiftly taken myself back a pace or two, well prepared to continue should he show signs of further foolishness, but then came an interruption.
“Now what are you two doing?” Dameron demanded from the doorway, frowning at Valdon and me. I shook my head hard as I relaxed from the standard attack-defense position I’d taken, and Valdon raised himself to his feet, though obviously still in pain. He took a deep breath, wincing as he did so, then made for the door as Dameron moved to one side.
“Nothing but a small difference of opinion,” he muttered as he passed Dameron. “I’ll see you later.”
Dameron leaned out to watch Valdon disappear up the corridor, then came back in to turn his sudden confusion toward me.
“I don’t understand any of this,” he protested, a plaintive note in his tone. “What happened between you two this time, and where is he going? There’s a briefing scheduled for you in a little while, and I wanted him there.”
I moved my hand over the panel, closing up the mirror again, then gave my attention to finding the closet that had been used the last time. When I did find it and found that it had been used again; I pulled out the jumpsuit that had been neatly hung back in place. As I began getting into the suit, I shrugged in answer to Dameron’s question.
“I don’t know where he’s going,” I said over my shoulder, predictably adding to Dameron’s confusion. “And it’s just the way he said. A small difference of opinion.”
Dameron shook his head without comment, not terribly satisfied with my answer, but I wasn’t very happy with it myself. I was trying to Tigure out what had made me act the way I had, but the crystal-clear reasons of a few minutes earlier had somehow clouded to total irrelevance. No matter how annoyed I got, I wasn’t in the habit of assaulting people who weren’t bent on offering me harm. Getting physical rarely does more than cause hard feelings or create awkward, unexplainable bodies. I’d struck out at Valdon without warning or excuse, and the action bothered me more than any possible consequences. It wasn’t like me to do something like that, and I’d have to be careful to watch myself closely in the future. I closed the jumpsuit with a stroke of my hand, then went with Dameron to his briefing.
The scoutship settled to the ground in the deep black of the woods, making no more sound than a leaf settling the same way. The night sky was dark with racing clouds, and we nestled in the darkness, showing no lights of our own. The hull of the small scout ship was clear all about the pilot and me, but nothing could be seen through it from the outside. The pilot’s instrument board glowed a steady, unexcited blue, and he and I sat in silence, waiting for the agent who was supposed to rendezvous with us.
The past few base days had been dull tripled and squared, filled with nothing but briefing sessions. Right from the very first, the impressed memories I’d been given had made the briefings a bore, going over and over again points I already knew. I kept getting the urge to explode and walk out, but I overrode that feeling. I’ve been invited to many briefing sessions, but I’ve never purposely missed one and I never will. When your life can depend on some insignificant little point some bore grinds out, you learn to listen with full attention. I was told about the political and geographical twistings and forkings, given a list of friend and foe, filled in on plans, hopes and wishful thinking. I was a fairly good improviser and hadn’t been caught off-balance too many times, so I wasn’t worrying about the operation, but that didn’t mean I had no worries.
I’d been silently examining my inner self, and what I’d noticed about my attitudes and reactions had not only not gone away, it had begun to spread, coloring my thinking when I wasn’t consciously willing it not to. When someone warned me to watch out for this or that possibility, I experienced a very strong desire to laugh at him and tell him just how good I was. That part of it scared me more than the presence of a knife at my throat would have; thinking you’re the best and smartest around is the first step toward a messy ending. Over and over I caught myself mentally strutting around, discounting advice even before I’d heard it, minimizing the plottings of opponents. I kept telling myself that it was only a slight aberration, a weird reaction from having been alone so long, thinking myself finished, and then suddenly finding myself saved. Relief can do strange things to people, and as soon as the shock or whatever it was passed, I’d be my old, practical self again. I told that to myself often, and hoped that I wasn’t conning myself.
The woods around us were thick and old, the black shadow leaves swaying in a rhythm that had been known forever. I couldn’t feel what was moving them, but I could see its passage, and I recalled what the woods were like during the daylight hours, when I had ridden them with my escort. My escort had been large, of course, as befitted a princess, and they had been ever alert to keep harm from me. My ladies had disliked riding the woods as often as I did, finding the experience uncomfortable in the extreme, therefore did I ever insist upon their accompanying me. It was necessary to teach them that my needs and desires were all-important, theirs nothing but ignorable whim. Once, to punish them for daring to beg to be excused, I picnicked for a very long time with the captain of my guard, allowing all of my escort the time to carry my three ladies off into the woods. I knew they and the others of my ladies had been taken into the woods before by certain members of my escort, yet never had all of them taken only three. I felt the punishment would do well for them, and when they were later returned to me, tears staining their cheeks, I considered the matter properly seen to. Thereafter they recalled that I was a princess and they were not. It was a – I broke off the thought fast and shook my head, forcing the rambling back from wherever it had come. Bellna’s own neighborhood seemed to have triggered her memories, and it wasn’t taking me long to discover that I didn’t like her very much. I moved around in my seat, ignoring the questioning look I was getting from the pilot, and that reminded me of the other questioning looks I’d been getting lately – or maybe
“questionable” would be a better word. Not long after the briefings had started, Valdon had shown up and put himself in a quiet corner, listening but not contributing. No one had questioned his presence so I couldn’t very well object, but he’d spent most of his time staring at me with no expression on his face. Normal staring doesn’t bother me a bit, but there was something about his stare that rubbed me the wrong way, something behind it that primed me like a high explosive.
I gritted my teeth and stuck it out during the briefings, but made sure to be nowhere near him afterward. The new, touchy part of me felt satisfaction’ over what I had done to him and was more than willing to have me do it again, but there was no sense in adding complications. Dameron was trying to minimize possible trouble spots in the operation, and I had decided to try doing the same.
Although nothing but a sprinkling of stars relieved the darkness outside, the planetary time wasn’t all that..? late. Just then I was waiting to be collected by one of the resident agents of Tudor, who would escort me - or, rather, the Princess Belln - to a hunting lodge not far from Havro’s keep. The lodge was sometimes used by certain of Havro’s guests, but just then it would be empty. The agent and I would spend the night, and in the morning my secret mercenary escort would pick me up. No one knew about this secret leave-taking but Prince Clero and his cronies, who had been told soon enough to target their plans against my traveling group, but not soon enough to send riders against the lodge. I’d be able to get one night’s uninterrupted sleep before the fun began, and after that it would be catch as catch can.
I sighed as I thought about the plans that had been made for after the attack. They all hinged on whether or not I was still breathing, of course, but assuming I was, I was to dump my escort and then head south. Once I had put a lot of emptiness between me and other people a scout ship would pick me up, guided in by the beacon that had been implanted somewhere in my body. Just where that beacon was I had no idea; there wasn’t a mark or scar on me. As a matter of fact, one or two scars that I’d had for a while had also disappeared without a trace, all of it due to the process known as Healing. I wanted to spend a lot of time thinking about that, but in the middle of Dameron’s precious project I couldn’t spare the attention. Once it was over, though.
The pilot next to me had been helping me watch the darkness, but he’d been using his instruments instead of his eyesight. He stiffened suddenly just before I caught a hint of movement about twenty-five feet from where we sat, but the stiffness left him almost immediately and his hand relaxed away from his sidearm. His panel light glowed a cool blue, telling us my date had arrived.
Four dark, cloaked figures came up to the scouter, one slightly ahead of the other three, all of them waiting for the pilot to activate the access release. When the panel next to my right arm slid aside I gathered my cape together, then climbed out into the night. The figure closest to the scouter took my arm to help me down, then all five of us moved back about ten feet from the scouter and watched it rise soundlessly into the air, gliding higher and higher, becoming harder and harder to see. In no more than seconds it had blended with the dark gray clouds sliding through the skies, totally gone from mere mortal senses. I took a deep breath to drown the sudden, childish feeling of abandonment I was abruptly filled with, and only then discovered that the hand that had taken my arm hadn’t let go again. I tugged slightly to show that I was ready to be turned loose, but the hand on my arm only tightened.
“Have no fear, you will not be harmed,” a gruff, impatient voice came from the shadow figure beside me, speaking the Tilddrani language.
“These-ah-guardsmen – and I will escort you to your destination, Princess. During this short journey, we require no converse from you.”
It wasn’t hard to tell that I’d just been ordered to keep quiet, or that the other three men were Absari agents posing as Tildorani. The Bellna memories I’d been given identified the voice as belonging to Grigon, Prince Havro’s chief adviser, but the tone and sense of command weren’t part of those memories. Grigon usually used smoothly professional calm on Bellna, and I couldn’t see any reason to change that.
“Converse is unnecessary when issuing commands, Grigon,” I told him coldly, resisting the pull that was trying to take me deeper into the surrounding trees. “You and these others may indeed escort me, yet only in the manner befitting my station. Release my arm, and begin such actions at once.”