- well, they usually survive, but you’d be surprised how little that says. Use like that is hard enough on grown women; what it does to little girls is unspeakable, especially if he decides to train them to a life of it. That’s one of his hobbies. Can you see it in his eyes?”
The map was suddenly replaced by a depth photo of a man, but Dameron’s question was bitterness without meaning. The eyes that stared out at me were light-colored and laughing, set in a handsome face topped by sandy hair. The handsome face was wreathed in smiles, true delight and good-natured happiness clear in every line. If the man had been a politician women would have eagerly raised their babies for him to kiss, and fathers would have volunteered their teenage daughters to help him in his campaigning. It was the face of a man who loved life and loved people, a man who trusted and could be trust – a man who, according to Dameron, was a sadistic psychopath.
“And Naro’s above all that?” I asked after a minute of studying the mature, handsome face. “No hidden little twists he keeps out of the public eye?”
“Naro’s a product of his culture,” Dameron shrugged, tapping the terminal again. “He enjoys indulging himself with female slaves, but he knows the slave trade can get out of hand if it isn’t kept under tight control. People beating the woods for stolen children aren’t very productive, and a drop in productivity affects his tax collections. He’s nothing if not practical, but what more can people ask for in a ruler?”
The face now projected in front of me was approximately the same age as Clero’s, but there the similarity ended. Naro was dark-haired and dark-eyed, his features average and nondescript except for a faint and difficult to define air to competence and decisiveness. he also looked as though he would be harder to get along with than Clero, harder to talk to and harder to relate to.
“Why isn’t Naro taking care of seeing to Clero?” I asked, looking up to see Dameron’s eyes on me. “If he’s as competent as you say, he ought to know who the opposition is.”
“Naro does know who the opposition is,” Dameron answered with a faint, humorless smile. “He knows all about the distant cousin of his who Clero uses as a front. As far as Clero goes, no one beyond the other princes involved – and ourselves – know what he’s up to. And even if people were told about it, how many of them would believe it?
Could you look Clero in the face and suspect him of anything underhanded? Being hard on slaves doesn’t equate with planning treason. Every-one is hard on slaves.”
“You do have a problem,” I admitted, seeing that King Naro’s face had been replaced with the map we’d been looking at. “And just what is Clero planning?”
“He’s trying to reach the throne by the back door,” Dameron said, his tone still annoyed. “King Naro’s oldest son and heir, Remo, is seventeen, a ripe marriage-able age. Clero has been trying to pair Remo up with one of his daughters, which would be the beginning of the end for Naro. Right after the marriage an accident could be arranged to settle Naro, and then Remo would become king. Remo’s two brothers would then follow their father, after which it would be Remo’s turn. With Clero’s daughter a widowed queen and no other heir in sight, guess who could walk into the Regent’s job – which would evolve into the kingship?”
“Why would a widowed queen need a regent?” was my next try, seriously curious. “Are Clero’s daughters so incompetent they’d need a regent, or are they just so far under daddy’s thumb they’d ask for him?”
“Neither,” Dameron came back, a sudden amusement in his dark eyes.
“Narella will never be ruled by a queen simply because women aren’t competent enough to rule. They’re shallow, flighty, empty-headed, unknowledgeable, too flatterable and totally helpless. Women are made for bedrooms and kitchens, not thronerooms.”
“How would you like your arm broken in three places?” I asked mildly and pleasantly through a comfortable smile. “Afterward I can even give you the medical terminology for each of the breaks, which break came first, and a pretty good estimation of how long each will take to heal.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re not really joking?” Dameron asked, his grin coming full out. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were angry with me, but that couldn’t be. All I was doing was quoting the way Narellan men see the thing. Which, of course, has nothing to do with my own views.”
“Oh, of course,” I agreed with a sober nod. “Are they really all that backward?”
“Backward isn’t the word,” Dameron snorted, still somewhat amused.
“If their women step out of line they beat them, without hesitation and without regret. A woman with a smart mouth would get it twice as fast, just to be sure she didn’t make the same mistake a second time.
If there’s one thing those women give their men, it’s obedience and respect.”
“That’s two things,” I pointed out, giving him the ghost of a smile.
“And there’s a difference between respect and fear, a big difference.
So Clero’s daughter as a widowed queen would mean Clero as king, but you and your horde have a plan to stop him – if you can make it work right.”
“It damned well better work right,” Dameron growled. “The only way we could counter his move was to find another candidate for bride-to-be, which we did. Havro is another prince governing under Naro, his lands lying here, to the west of Clero’s.”
The dots ran around the most westerly section, the largest area after the king’s, the one lying right next to Clero’s, and then the map disappeared to show the face of a man. Obviously part of the age group shared by Naro and Clero, Prince Havro was a man with a broad, boyish face and bright red hair, blue eyes sharp with private amusement. he wasn’t as distant as Naro or as handsome as Clero, but there was still something – involved – about him.
“Havro is a competent man, reliable enough to guard the country’s western border from barbarian invasion, and intelligent enough to take suggestions when they make sense,” Dameron said. “He considers ruling a responsibility rather than a right, and he has a daughter who is perfect for our purposes. Bellna has no sisters, but in any contest between her and Clero’s three eligible girls, she might as well be considered quintuplets. She’s prettier than Clero’s three, smarter than they are, quick to learn, and eager to become the eventual queen of Narella. We maneuvered Bellna and Remo into a meeting at the capital – right after Remo’d had Clero’s daughters presented to him. Our timing couldn’t have been better.”
The repeater screen first showed three girls ranging in age from fourteen to seventeen years, standing near a dark-haired, dark-eyed, very handsome young male. The male looked as though he would have been happy to drop through the floor, but from boredom more than anything else. The youngest girl was still a boy, straight up and down and with no hint of femininity even in her face. The second girl was clearly feminine, but too sweetly female and very delicate looking. The third and oldest was pretty, but the stiffness in her stance and the forced smile on her face said that nothing in life was likely to please her. All three wore long, complicated party gowns, well fitted and well made, but none of them looked right in the clothing.
And then the screen changed to a single girl standing near the boy, and I blinked at the extreme difference. This girl had lots of bright red hair and dancing blue eyes, a smile to make a man three days dead rise again, and a body that made all the previous three look like boys. The young male was grinning down at her, his eyes nearly a blur, his approval and interest so clear that anyone watching him would have to laugh softly. The girl returned his look with a cloaked arrogance and wordless challenge in her eyes that had probably made him quiver, and I laughed at that, too.
“Bellna is no more than about fifteen, but Remo considers that perfect,” Dameron said, a chuckle in his voice. “His bride bar to be from one of the princely families, and Clero’s daughters are about average among the rest. Remo spoke to his father about his decision, got Naro’s approval, then made the engagement formal. Re’s bright and able to make even unpleasant decisions quickly, and should make a good king when he succeeds his father.”
“And his marrying Bellna should let him live long enough to reach that point,” I nodded. “I’m assuming that if Bellna ends up a widowed queen with all the rest of Remo’s family gone, Havro rather than Clero would he tapped as Regent. What I’m wondering is, wouldn’t that simply put Havro in the same spot as Naro and the others? If Clero can scratch a king and his sons, what’s to keep him from doing it to another prince like himself?”
“That’s a good question,” Dameron said with a smile of approval.
“You’re right in all of your assumptions except for the one concerning worry about Havro. Havro and Clero are enemies of long standing, and while Havro isn’t paranoid he also isn’t foolish enough to let Clero or any of his friends or hirelings get anywhere near him. If we can keep Bellna safe until she marries Remo, Clero will be stopped cold until he can think of something else.”
“Which brings you right back to the big if,” I said, leaning back in the lump chair. “You can decoy Clero away if you can find a stand-in for Bellna. None of the women I’ve seen in this base looks much like her, but I suppose padding, make-up and a wig would take care of that. Why don’t you use one of the gals you have here?”
“Because none of them are trained fighters,” Dameron said, in a voice charged with frustration. “They’ve all had field experience to one degree or another, but whoever goes out as decoy has to expect to be the object of Clero’s attempt at bloody murder. The Tildorani are still in the sword-swinging stage before gunpowder, but that only means that our decoy has to be able to handle a blade well enough so that she needn’t depend on protection from someone else. Getting separated from outside protection can happen all too easily. Whoever does the decoy work not only has to look exactly like Bellna, she also has to be able to fight a whole lot better than that pretty little girl.”
The block to Dameron’s right reverted to its original picturelessness as Dameron tapped keys on his terminal, but I sat and frowned at it a minute before shifting my eyes back to the man.
“What do you mean, the decoy has to look exactly like Bellna?” I asked, watching him as he tapped at keys. “I can understand the need for fighting ability, but aren’t you crowding your options a little by insisting on an exact look-alike? It could be years before you found anyone like that – if you ever did. I thought you said you had less than a week.”
“I don’t have to find someone who looks exactly like Bellna,” Dameron said with a snort of faint amusement, still paying attention to his terminal. “The changes in facial structure and all will require only minor Healing, nothing major involved. Less than a week gives us more than enough time for it – if we can find someone to change soon enough. If we didn’t need that relationship with the barbarians so badly-”
His voice trailed off as the symbols of his terminal took his attention again, and I didn’t say anything more to distract him, being too busy with my own thoughts. If I was understanding him correctly – and I didn’t see how I could be mistaken Dameron’s people were able to change anyone to look like anyone else as easily as my people shuttled back and forth from planets to orbital stations. The possibilities inherent in the process were endless and fascinating, especially in my line of work. If I could be changed to look like – oh, that young girl Bellna, for instance, I could get away with almost anything I tried. Rather than depending on my brown hair and eyes to let me melt into a crowd as camouflage, I could let red hair and blue eyes distract any male to the point where I could stalk a target, reach him, and then walk away without ever being suspected of anything nasty. No one would believe that a fifteen year old girl could be a Special Agent, and that would give me more of an edge than being female did. I crossed my legs as I watched pictures parading past my inner eye, and forgot all about Dameron.
At least until he made a sound of pleased surprise and turned away from his terminal. His face was lit with hopeful excitement, and he bounced out of his chair as if he had just shed ten years of heavy worry.
“The gods must be on our side in this one,” he said through a grin as he headed for the door. “One of the gals from post nine is on her way in, and should be here any minute. You just relax where you are, girl. I won’t be long.”
By that time the door was already sliding closed behind him, so there wasn’t much sense in trying to argue. I was annoyed at being left there to sit and twiddle when I could have been a good number of parsecs on my way back home, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it until Dameron got back. I leaned back in the lump chair again and began sketching out a going-home campaign that would grab Dameron’s attention by the throat and hold it long enough to get something done.
I had developed a line of attack with enough variables to cover almost any contingency and was ready to start fleshing it out with carefully chosen detail, when the door to the room slid open again. I thought it was Dameron coming back, but the figure walking through the opening belonged to the one who had been called Valdon. he had dark black hair and dark black eyes, and although he wasn’t quite as big as the junior giant named Leandor, he didn’t miss by much. he moved as lightly and with as much confidence as the leader of the field team had, which was usually unexpected in such big men. he hesitated very briefly when he saw me, as though he hadn’t expected to find me there, then headed straight for Dameron’s chair.
“Well, there you are again,” he observed, sitting down and keying the terminal to life without taking his eyes off me. “I saw you earlier, with Dameron, in the communications room.”
“Yes, I remember that,” I observed back, keeping the answer neutral and uncommitted. I didn’t know where this Valdon stood in the base, but the fewer people who knew about my origins, the better. It might be necessary for Dameron and his second to have all the details, but as far as I was concerned that was still two too many. Either one of them could, at any time, come up with a dozen great reasons for keeping me there a while longer, and the more people who knew about me, the better the chance that some mental lightbulbs would glow.