I'd always known Dragus to be a smooth talker, and perhaps the men of Dobraton's army weren't the only ones interested in becoming Zealon's consort. There seemed to be some competition going on here, but it was subtle, and I wondered just who she would choose.
Given that the females of this world considered their males to be too rowdy, I had no idea what they might have valued in a man. Scalia had seemed to value honesty as much as a cooperative attitude, but there was no asking her about it now.
I also wondered just how much courting any of the other palace guards had done with Zealon even before this—with the attitude that if they were good to her while she was Princess, they would have a better shot at becoming her consort. This train of thought led me to Scalia and Wazak, which must have been a very interesting courtship! The fact that Scalia hadn't been what you'd call exclusive—at least, not lately—meant that if Wazak truly was the father of
all
of her children, she'd obviously been quite taken with him. Funny how she'd never let on...
When Dragus and Zealon left to confer with Wazak, I opted to stay behind to talk with the prisoners to hear more about their side of the story. The man I had been talking with introduced himself as Falah, and he seemed quite willing to enlighten me.
"So, did you really intend to fight a battle here?" I asked. "What I mean is, what were your orders?"
"We were to take over the mines," Falah replied.
"Any way we could."
"And since these miners were ready for you, you had to fight," I said with a nod. "What would you have done if they hadn't been warned?"
"That would depend on how reasonable they were willing to be," he replied.
"Hmm," I said reflectively. "And Lerotan sold Dobraton the weapons you carried?"
"I believe so," he said.
"Tell me something, Falah, if you were to choose— that bit about getting Zealon notwithstanding—which side would you be on?"
"Whoever paid the highest price," was his prompt reply.
"Well, that certainly sounds like an honest answer,"
I said with a chuckle. "You didn't really believe what Dobraton was selling, did you?"
Several of them exchanged meaningful looks. "We did not know what she intended."
"You just took the money and didn't ask questions?"
Falah nodded.
"Were you that hungry?"
"No," he replied.
"Well then, why do it?"
They looked at each other again and shrugged.
"Honest to God, this world is as bad as any other!"
I said, stomping my foot in sudden anger. "I've never understood why men are so willing to go to war! I've often wondered just what would happen if a government decided to wage a war and the soldiers on both sides simply refused to fight it!"
There was a bit more foot-shuffling, but no one commented.
"Nothing was so bad here," I went on. "Oh, it could be argued that getting a McDonald's might raise your cholesterol levels a bit—but really, what's so wrong with visitors from other worlds? Granted, some of them—and I think we can include Lerotan in this group—aren't the most peace-loving, law-abiding citizens in the galaxy, but most people are! You just have to be careful who you let land. This isn't the first planet to be visited by offworlders, you know!
Space travel has been going on for a long time, and most societies are just interested in trade, not planetary conquest."
I might have continued with my little antiwar tirade, but I soon realized that, for all intents and purposes, I was talking to myself. These guys hadn't a clue. Apparently, along with being volatile, being stupid wasn't far from the mark either.
When I rejoined the others, it appeared that Wazak wasn't about to set Dobraton's men free until we were on our way. "They must not be allowed to escape to warn of our attack."
If they hadn't already.
"Hey, how far away do those comlink stones of yours work?" I asked. "Seems to me that they could have reported back to Dobraton a long time ago."
"They only function effectively over less than a kilometer," Dragus said. "Beyond that, reception is poor."
"You guys definitely need some better technology!"
I declared. "On Earth that would be like something out of the Stone Age."
Lerotan got the joke, though I'm not sure anyone else did. "I
tried to
sell them better equipment," he said with a shrug. "But their budget was too tight."
"Which side do you mean?" I asked with a chuckle.
"Both," he replied. "Neither of them bought any communication equipment whatsoever."
"Their loss," I said. "Don't suppose you could sell us some of that stuff now, could you?"
His grin was downright diabolical. "What were you planning to use as payment?"
"Well," I began, "Trag and Tychar have some really nice jewels, and I've got this glowstone necklace...
and my pearls. Zealon and Nindala have lots of nice beads, too."
For a moment there, the gleam in his eye suggested he might be more interested in getting something else as payment, but he only said he'd think about it.
"You don't have anything with you to sell, do you?"
Tychar said shrewdly.
"On my ship," Lerotan said with a regretful sigh.
"We only have our personal comlinks with us," he added. "And since they're implanted, we can't sell them to you."
"They would still be useful," Tychar said. "If we are divided into groups, we could maintain communication with each other through them."
A long silence followed, which was finally broken by Wazak. "One of Lerotan's men with each squadron," he said thoughtfully. "Yes, it might work."
It might make them more trustworthy, too, and though I doubted I was the only one to be thinking that, nobody said it aloud. I thought we should split up Dobraton's former soldiers in the same way, but I didn't say anything, because I was pretty sure Wazak would figure it out on his own. Of all the Darconian males I'd ever met, he was certainly among the least volatile, nor was he one bit stupid.
IT WAS PROBABLY THE FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF DARCONIA that a member of the royal family had spent any time at all with miners, acrobats, and mercenaries, but Racknay was definitely intrigued. I wondered just what a prince who would never take the throne had to keep himself occupied besides taking piano lessons. Since they were supposedly too "volatile" to do much else, I could only come up with a military career. Actually, the more time I spent among them, the more I decided that the bit about them being too volatile was ridiculous; they were no more so than the males of any other world. I wondered what queen in the past had decided to keep them off the throne—though undoubtedly it had been the daughter of a man who'd been a bit of a warmonger. Still, Dobraton was proof positive that having a female in power could be every bit as bad as a power-hungry king.
I wondered just what Dobraton was calling herself now. Queen? Prime Minister? President? I also wondered if she was intending to maintain control until her death, which would mean that the new government would essentially be a dictatorship, which was bad news for everyone. Besides, if there had ever been any misuses of power by Scalia, they weren't readily apparent. In fact, the best I could tell—aside from the harem she kept—she was more progressive than many of our elected officials back home. While it was true that I'd only spent time among those who worked in the palace—or were slaves there—I hadn't heard even a whisper of discontent beyond the trouble Dobraton had stirred up. They all seemed to be as loyal to Scalia as they could possibly be. Even her slaves liked her!
The miners were another good example. They could have surrendered to Dobraton's forces with no loss of life if they had supported her bid for power, though Lerotan might have scotched that plan by warning them ahead of time and selling them weapons. Being well-armed and warned, the miners might have decided to shoot first and ask questions later.
Still, I couldn't help feeling a personal grudge against Dobraton for messing up everything. When I lay down with Tychar that night on a hard pallet in a chamber carved out of a mountain, surrounded by a multitude of other people when I would have very much liked to have been alone with him, I found myself feeling quite murderous toward her. My mind was seething with irritation, frustration, and plain, old anger! Things had been going pretty well; granted, I was still only a piano teacher, but I
was
working for a queen and had fallen in love with a wonderful man, and now this! Needless to say, when Trag nestled up behind me, I was feeling a bit crabby. I stood it for a while, but finally spoke up.
"Trag," I whispered. "What are you doing?"
"I would have thought that was perfectly obvious,"
he whispered back. "I'm just lying here enjoying your scent—since that's about all I can get these days."
"Guess we're right back where we started, aren't we?"
"Yeah," he grumbled. "It really sucks to be me."
"You have my sympathy," I said kindly.
"I'd rather have... well, just about anything besides that!" he declared.
"Go to sleep," Tychar told him.
"I can't!" Trag protested. "I'm lying here wondering if we'll all live through this adventure, and I—"
"Don't start that!" I warned, cutting him off abruptly.
"I'm having enough trouble sleeping as it is!" Sighing irritably, I added, "Honest to God, if I could get my hands on Dobraton right now, I think I'd kill her."
"You could try," Trag amended. "But I doubt if you could do it with just your hands."
"Oh, you know what I mean!" I muttered. "I'm just mad, that's all." I blew out another exasperated breath.
"Don't suppose either of you has any joy juice flowing, have you? I could use a little of that right about now."
"Got lots of it," Trag said eagerly. "I've been smelling you, remember?"
"How could I possibly forget?" I asked dryly. "You've only been breathing down my neck for the past hour!
Look, Nindala isn't the only Edraitian woman we've got camped out with us. If she doesn't like you, why don't you go sniff one of the others?"
"Sorry," he said meekly. "But none of the other blue girls smell good, either."
"Go commiserate with Dragus, then," I suggested.
"He hasn't had much luck lately."
"I don't want to talk to that slut and hear about all the women he's had," Trag grumbled. "I've had to listen to that crap from him for years!" Pausing briefly, he took a deep, fortifying breath before continuing, "Actually, I was hoping you would—"
"No," Tychar put in firmly. "She will not."
"See, you've even got Tychar irritated now," I whispered fiercely. "And that's pretty hard to do. Go to sleep!" With that, I snuggled in closer to Tychar, who leaned down to kiss me. It was dark, but I found his lips anyway—and had an orgasm.
"Why, you sneaky little devil!" I exclaimed. "There was some joy juice in that, wasn't there?"
"Well, you
did
say you wanted it," Tychar said in a frankly seductive voice that, surprisingly enough, could still send shivers down my spine, even in mid-orgasm.
"No way am I gonna kiss her now," Trag said miserably. "D'you suppose I could find some nice, blue Edraitian girl to do me real quick?"
"Don't even mind the fact that they're blue anymore, do you?"
"No," Trag said. "Doesn't look like I can afford to be too choosy." I heard him shift on his pallet. Calling out to the others, he said: "Hey, there! Any of you acrobats want to spend the night with a Zetithian? We're so good that lesser men tried to exterminate us."
I heard a few groans—mostly from the men—but, surprisingly enough, a female voice replied. "Sure it wasn't because you were a bunch of boastful jerks?"
"Uh, no," I said, raising my voice a bit. "I believe I can vouch for him on that. It's pretty incredible— well, it is for humans, anyway. Don't know about Edraitians."
"Hey, what's that line again?" Trag whispered to Tychar.
"I will give you joy unlike any you have ever known,"
Tychar whispered back.
"Yeah, that's it," Trag said. Calling out again, he said, "I'll give you more joy than you can stand."
"I don't think he got that quite right," I said to Tychar.
"Doesn't matter," said Trag. "I think she bought it."
I heard movement in the darkness and the sound of footsteps coming closer. My glowstones must have picked up on my thought that it was too dark to see, for they slowly illuminated. It was one of the Edraitians, all right, but it was a male.
"Be quiet, Zetithian," he warned, "or other 'lesser'
males will finish what someone else began."
"Okay, okay," Trag muttered under his breath. "I'm just kidding," he said aloud. "Your blue girls are safe from me."
"I will hear of it if they are not," the Edraitian said menacingly before returning to his own pallet.
"Now, let's all be friends," Lerotan said, speaking up from where he lay. "We all need to get plenty of sleep."
"Or sex," Trag muttered, none too quietly. "You know, we could have one hell of an orgy here."
"Which would do wonders for interplanetary relations, I'm sure," I chuckled.
"Dibs on the Terran!" someone else called out. Not surprisingly, it was Dragus.
"Oh, be quiet, Dragus," I said witheringly. "There are children present, you know."
"I'm not complaining." It took me a moment to place the voice, but then realized it was Racknay. He was growing up pretty fast, it seemed.
Of course, the next voice I heard was Wazak's, and he wasn't anywhere near as nice as the Edraitian had been. We all quieted down after that.
A A A
<*> <*> <*>
>r >r >r
It took three days to organize our supplies and plan our attack. We had no idea what Dobraton might do, so an open battle strategy, along with a plan for infiltrating the palace, had to be hashed out. Wazak took charge of most of this, but Lerotan claimed to be good at stealth and secrecy, and he'd been on the occasional battlefield, as well, though, as he later informed me with an infectious grin, it had only been in an advisory capacity.