Starbound: A Starstruck Novel (35 page)

“Should have guessed they’d do that,” he said as the reporter moved on to a dissection of today’s interviews. “But it’ll probably help your numbers, even if it’s not what you—”

“I know. And I’m not mad at you, Sean. It’s not your fault at all. It’s just…I’m worried about Rigel.”

He held my eyes for a long moment, then his gaze fell away and he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I get that. Dad, can we call Rigel’s grandmother and see how he’s doing?”

Though clearly as startled as I was, Mr. O pulled out his omni. “I’ll try.” I could feel his reluctance.

A moment later, Morag Teague’s face appeared on the vidscreen in place of the news. “Yes? I’m rather busy at the moment, Quinn.”

“Thank you for taking my call, Morag,” he replied pleasantly, though with a slight edge. “The Princess would like to speak with your grandson, if that’s possible.”

I leaned forward eagerly, but she pursed her lips, again reminding me forcefully of Aunt Theresa. “I’m afraid it isn’t, at the moment. I’m still at the research center and he’s at my home.”

“Can we reach him there?” Mr. O persisted.

“No,” she said bluntly. “I haven’t had time to get Rigel an omni of his own. In any event, he wasn’t feeling well when I left earlier, so I recommended he stay in bed.”

I quickly scooted sideways on the couch to get in front of the screen. “Ma’am, I know what’s wrong with Rigel, and staying in bed isn’t going to make him better. If I could just visit—”
 

She raised an eyebrow but gave me a
fairly
respectful bow. “Yes, he told me this morning what he thought the issue might be, but what you suggest is out of the question. Even assuming it’s true that you and he have developed some semblance of that mythical
graell
bond—”

“Of course it’s true! Didn’t Dr. Stuart—your daughter—tell you?”

Her face became shuttered, expressionless. “My daughter and I have not been in close communication in recent years. But in the unlikely event such a bond could exist, it makes far more sense to develop a cure than to indulge it, given the difference in your stations. Don’t you agree?”

I swallowed, aware not only of her judgmental regard but Mr. O’s, as well. “Ah, no. I’m afraid I don’t. Without our bond, I doubt I can become the kind of leader Nuath needs. Rigel and I are both stronger, healthier and…
better
when we’re together.”

That skeptical eyebrow went up again. “I suppose it is understandable you would believe that under the circumstances, Excellency. If he is not feeling better tomorrow, I will bring him in for testing and confer with my colleagues on the best course for him. For both of you.”

“But scientists on Earth—Martian Healers—already tried a cure. They did a bunch of tests and came up with something they called an antidote, but it obviously didn’t take, since Rigel and I are both getting sick again now.”

She actually smiled, though not a very nice smile. “With all due respect for those
Echtran
Healers—” she used the word
Echtran
like a slur— “and while I’m sure they did their best with whatever equipment they have, I can’t say I’m surprised they were less than successful. In Pryderi we have the most advanced Healer research facility in existence, with resources that go far beyond anything available on Earth.”

I drew myself up, doing my best to look and sound regal, though I was feeling less so by the moment. “Madam, I must insist—”

“Once you are Acclaimed, Princess, we can discuss this further. At present Rigel is my responsibility, and I must do what I feel is best for my grandson. When our researchers develop a cure, it will of course be shared with you immediately.”

“But—”
 

“And now, if you will excuse me, I must return to my work.” With a final, perfunctory bow, she broke the connection.

I sat back, suddenly limp as a dead fish. “I can’t
believe
her!” I practically wailed. “Even his own grandmother won’t believe we’re bonded? Why didn’t Dr. Stuart tell her?”

“You heard what she said.” Mr. O switched back to the news with a shrug. “Now that you’ve met Morag, can you blame Ariel? It’s clear her mother still hasn’t forgiven her for marrying outside her
fine.
No doubt she was abusive enough toward Van that it caused a permanent breach. Sad, of course, but these things happen.”

Sean took my hand and squeezed it, which felt better than I wanted to admit, even to myself. “We just need to hurry and get you Acclaimed, M. Then she won’t dare go against your wishes.”

I glanced up at him in surprise and saw the shadow of pain behind his smile. He wasn’t happy at the prospect of me getting Rigel back, but he’d help me do it. Because he really did care about me.
 

It hit me again, strongly, how unfair this was to him, since I could never care for him the same way. Still, I’d accept whatever help he was willing to give.

What choice did I have?

My approval numbers did get a slight bump from the day’s efforts, though less than Mr. O had hoped. Probably because, while I was answering questions and wandering around Glenamuir, my opponents were busy undercutting my support. Like the press conference Devyn Kane gave late that afternoon.

“Clearly this recent stress is taking a toll on our Princess,” the feeds showed him saying. “She looked so ill during her conversation with Regan Ryan this morning that I was extremely concerned for her, as I’m sure many of you are, as well.” He nodded to a large screen behind him that showed my face, pale and sweating, magnified to several times normal size. “She seemed to rally somewhat afterward, but it seems obvious she is on the verge of some sort of breakdown. And who can blame her? She’s little more than a child, one who has had multiple shocks in recent months.”

Then there was the footage with those men who’d disrupted my forum in Glenamuir. “You implied earlier that Princess Emileia is unfit to lead Nuath. Can you tell us why?” a reporter asked one of them.

“Are you serious? Look at her—she’s just a kid! Think about the state of Nuath these days: legislature barely functioning, cobbled together from the few Royals healthy enough to serve and some random Scientists. We’ve got disruptions in half our supply chains, not to mention that power outage the day she got here. You really think she can handle all that? When she couldn’t even keep her Bodyguard’s hands off her?”

Worst was a panel discussion on the
Comeadach
Network, which pandered to Nuath’s staunchest traditionalists—the ones Mr. O had originally claimed I could count on.
 

“We can’t only look to the next decade or two, but must consider future Nuathan generations,” Gordon Nolan said. Others on the panel, including Rory Glenn, nodded in agreement. “That is why it is essential, before Acclamation can occur, to know for
certain
that the Royal bloodline has not been polluted. We owe it to our children and grandchildren—and their grandchildren.”
 

Though fewer than 10% were in favor of Gordon as Nuath’s next leader, more than twice that many agreed with his stance about my “purity.” That bothered me more than Devyn’s approval rating, which was now 42% and rising, nearly even with the Interim Governor’s 47%. Mine was currently at 58% but that would be hard to maintain now that my “easy” interviews were over.
 

 
Over the next few days, as my opponents got better organized, my appearances became more confrontational, just as Mr. O had predicted. Though I tried hard to keep my focus on the issues, people kept demanding to know exactly how “serious” my relationship with Rigel had been. Two different interviewers baldly asked whether I was still a virgin. (I said yes.)
 

My schedule became more and more grueling, with Mr. O constantly prepping me as we traveled from one appearance to the next, all over Nuath. Sometimes I even had to change outfits in transit to better relate to whatever audience I needed to reach.
 

I never could have survived any of it without Sean. Not only his physical touch, which was the only thing keeping me healthy enough, alert enough, to function at such a level, but also his unwaveringly supportive presence. Not once did he let slip a single snarky word about Rigel or our bond, or even try to take advantage of our forced closeness by getting too cuddly.
 

Still, I was continually, uncomfortably aware of his feelings for me. Touching as often as we had to for my health, his emotions were coming through more and more clearly, sometimes even when I didn’t focus. That bothered me almost as much as the emotions themselves, since it reminded me way too much of the earliest days of my bond with Rigel, when emotions were the only things we could pick up from each other, and only when touching.

Despite all our efforts, my numbers slowly began to erode. Devyn and I were now neck and neck on the question of who Nuath’s next leader should be, with Nels Murdoch a not-too-distant third. Bringing up the rear were Gordon Nolan and Crevan Erc, spokesman for the “Populist” movement.

According to Mr. O’Gara, when Nels had been pressed to assume temporary leadership, he’d only accepted because no other qualified Royal was healthy enough to serve. But apparently two months in power had given him a taste for it. Both he and Devyn constantly hammered home my lack of experience. The traditionalists, goaded by Gordon, continued to shout for Rigel’s head, while Crevan Erc spun my own comments about a representative legislature against me.

It looked less and less likely I’d be able to deal with the Grentl in time to stop the next power glitch Eric had predicted. Finally, I suggested to Mr. O that we just go public about the aliens, since colony-wide panic was obviously preferable to its destruction, but he shook his head.
 

“Only if all else fails. That news could do nearly as much harm to Nuath as Faxon did.”

“How about just telling Nels Murdoch?”
 

Mr. O sighed. “I’ve already suggested he put in extra safety precautions against the chance of another outage. He brushed me off, claiming everything possible is already being done. I rather doubt he’d believe the truth now, but that may have to be our next step.”
 

 
Crazy as my schedule was, I tried several more times to talk to Rigel but his grandmother never answered, forcing me to leave message after message—which I doubted she even relayed to him. In desperation, I even sent a message to Shim, on Earth, begging him to do something. Finally, after more than a week, I received a text from Morag, but it only read, “Rigel comfortable, stronger daily, research ongoing.”
 

I was glad he wasn’t getting sicker, but I still wanted to talk to him more than anything—especially after a news story that ran that same evening.

As he always did, Mr. O turned to the main Nuathan Network after dinner to check the day’s numbers and we saw the blonde reporter, Moya, chatting with her colleague, Gaynor.
 

“Not a bad day for our Princess, all told. Many thought those technical questions from the acting Minister of Planetary Resources would point up some chinks in her armor, but I didn’t notice any. Did you?”

“She did hesitate once or twice, but overall her performance would have done credit to a woman twice or three times her age. Even so, most predict that Devyn Kane will pull ahead of her in the polls any day now.”

Moya nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid the only thing keeping Princess Emileia alive in the polls is how charmed people are by the real-life romance unfolding right in front of our eyes between our Princess and her prince-to-be, Sean O’Gara. Let’s look at some responses to this afternoon’s vid-poll.”

I cringed, then cringed again, as they showed brief clips of Nuathans from all over the colony sharing their opinions on that topic.
 

“It’s like a fairy tale, only it’s really happening,” said a young woman from Monaru, the big manufacturing city where my most recent interview had been held.
 

“I didn’t think I had a romantic bone in my body, especially at my age,” said an older man from the mining village of Einion, “but watching those two together puts me in mind of when my wife and I first fell in love.”

The network cut back to one of yesterday’s interviews, where I was answering a question about Nuath’s power supplies while clinging tightly to Sean’s hand. He was gazing at me with complete absorption and I looked totally okay with it, even glancing over to smile at him once or twice while I talked. Then they cut back to the videos from today’s poll.

“Aren’t they just the most adorable couple?” gushed a middle-aged woman from Thiaraway, the capital city.

A dozen more flashed up, interspersed with other clips of Sean and me together, like that first one in Glenamuir. Not all the comments were positive—some referenced the “scandal” with Rigel—but most focused on Sean and me as a couple. Over and over, I heard words like “charming,” “adorable” and “sweet.”
 

Sean must have noticed my appalled expression. “Hey, silver lining, it’s keeping your numbers up.”
 

“He’s right,” Mr. O agreed. “We need something more substantial, though. Tomorrow will be your first chance to face all of your opponents at once. All of Nuath will be watching this one, so it’s
imperative
you be impeccably prepared.”
 

He launched into the questions I needed to be able to answer, keeping the fear I could sense from him out of his voice and expression. Though I was equally aware of how short our time was, my answers were rote, automatic.
 

Because all I could really think about was Rigel, wherever he was, watching that same news report. Watching Sean and me, looking for all the world like two people falling in love.

nimhic
(NIV-ik):
antidote; cure

I went up to bed that night both depressed and frightened.

If Eric’s prediction was correct, the next power glitch would happen the day after tomorrow. If tomorrow’s debate didn’t turn the tide in my favor, Mr. O and I had agreed our next step would be to sit down with Nels Murdoch and perhaps Devyn Kane to inform them of the Grentl threat—and hope they believed us. In fact, Mr. O had already tried to arrange an appointment with Nels, but the Interim Governor’s office hadn’t confirmed it.