“They want us to go ashore right now?” he asked. He was forty-two years old, and a veteran of several combat campaigns both
in space and on planets.
“That’s right. Apparently people are deserting the villages in droves. Picking one of them up shouldn’t be too big a problem.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that.” He shook his head. “I don’t like this idea that we’re already behind enemy lines.”
“I didn’t ask my boss what the situation was like in Dur-ringham right now, but to my mind this whole planet is behind the
lines.”
Murphy Hewlett nodded glumly. “There’s real trouble brewing here. You get to recognize the feeling after a while, you know?
Combat sharpens you, I can tell when things ain’t right. And they’re not.”
Jenny wondered guiltily if he could guess the essence of what Ralph Hiltch had said to her. “I’ll tell Dean to look out for
a likely landing spot.” She hadn’t even reached the wheel-house before Dean Folan was shouting urgently. “Boat coming!”
They went to the gunwale and peered ahead through the thin grey gauze of drizzle. The shape slowly resolved, and both of them
watched it sail past with shocked astonishment.
It was a paddle-steamer which seemed to have ridden straight out of the nineteenth-century Mississippi River. Craft just like
it were the inspiration behind Lalonde’s current fleet of paddle-boats. But while the
Swithland
and her ilk were bland distaff inheritors utilizing technology instead of engineering craftsmanship, this
grande dame
could have been a true original. Her paintwork was white and glossy, black iron stacks belched out a thick, oily smoke, pistons
hissed and clanked as they turned the heavy paddles. Happy people stood on the decks, the handsome men in suits with long
grey jackets, white shirts, and slender lace ties, their elegant women in long frilly dresses, casually twirling parasols
on their shoulders. Children ran about, sporting gaily; the boys were in sailor suits, and the girls had ribbons in their
flowing hair.
“It’s a dream,” Jenny whispered to herself. “I’m living a dream.”
The stately passengers were waving invitingly. Sounds of laughter and merrymaking rang clearly across the water. Earth’s mythical
golden age had come back to nourish them with its supreme promise of unspoilt lands and uncomplicated times. The paddle-steamer
was taking all folk of good will back to where today’s cares would cease to exist.
The sight was tugging at the hearts of all on board the
Isakore
. There wasn’t one of them who didn’t feel the urge to jump into the river and swim across the gulf. The gulf: between them
and bliss, an eternal joy of song and wine which waited beyond the cruel divide which was their own world.
“Don’t,” Murphy Hewlett said.
Jenny’s euphoria shattered like crystal as the discordant voice struck her ears. Murphy Hewlett’s hand was on hers, pressing
down painfully. She found her arms were rigid, tensed, ready to propel her over the side of the fishing boat.
“What is that?” she asked. At some deep level she was bemoaning the loss, being excluded from the journey into a different
future; now she would never know if the promise was true…
“Don’t you see?” he said. “It’s them, whatever they are. They’re growing. They don’t care about us seeing them unmasked any
more, they don’t fear us.”
The colourful solid mirage sailed on regally down the river, its wake of joyous invocation tarrying above the brown water
like a dawn mist. Jenny Harris stayed at the gunwale for a long time, staring into the west.
The grove was a site of intense activity. Over two hundred people were working their way along the rows, positioning the collection
cups around the weeping roses. It was early Duke-day; Duchess had just set, leaving a slight pink fringe splashing the western
horizon. Between them, the two suns had banished all trace of moisture from the torrid air. Most of the men and women tending
the big weeping roses wore light clothes. The younger children ran errands, bringing new stacks of collection cups to the
teams, or supplying iced fruit juice from large jugs.
Joshua was feeling the heat despite being dressed in a burgundy sleeveless T-shirt and black jeans. He sat on the back of
his horse watching the cupping teams at work. The cups that were being hung so carefully were white cardboard cones, with
a waxed shiny inner surface, thirty centimetres wide at the open end, tapering down to a sealed point. Stiff hoops pasted
onto the side were used to wire them onto the trellis below the weeping rose flowers. Everyone he could see carried a thick
bundle of wires tucked into their belt. It didn’t take more than thirty seconds for them to fix each cup.
“Is there one collection cup for every single flower?” he asked.
Louise was sitting on her horse next to him, dressed in jodhpurs and a plain white blouse, hair held by a single band at the
back. She had been surprised when he accepted her invitation to take the horses rather than use a carriage to get about the
estate. Where would a starship captain learn how to ride? But ride he could. Not as well as her, which gave her a little thrill,
that she should be better than a man at anything. Especially Joshua. “Yes,” she said. “How else could you do it?”
He gave the stacks of collection cups piled up at the end of each row a puzzled frown. “I don’t know. Jesus, there must be
millions of them.”
Louise had grown accustomed to his casual swearing now. It had shocked her a little at first, but people from the stars were
bound to have slightly different customs. Coming from him it didn’t seem profane, just exotic. Perhaps the most surprising
thing was the way he could suddenly switch from being himself to using the most formal mannerisms.
“Cricklade alone has two hundred groves,” she said. “That’s why there are so many cuppers. It has to be done entirely in the
week before midsummer when the roses are in bloom. Even with every able-bodied person in the county drafted in there’s only
just enough to get it finished in time. A team like this takes nearly a day to complete a grove.”
Joshua leant forwards in the saddle, studying the people labouring away. It all seemed so menial, yet every one of them looked
intent, devoted almost. Grant Kavanagh had said that a lot of them worked through half of Duchess-night, they would never
have got the work finished otherwise. “I’m beginning to see why a bottle of Norfolk Tears costs so much. It’s not just the
rarity value, is it?”
“No.” She flicked the reins, and guided the horse along the end of the rows, heading for the gate in the wall. The foreman
touched his wide-brimmed hat as she passed. Louise gave a reflex smile.
He rode beside her after they left the grove. Cricklade Manor’s protective ring of cedars was just visible a couple of miles
away across the wolds. “Where now?” It was parkland all around, sheep clustering together under the lonely trees for shade.
The grass was furry with white flowers. Everywhere he looked there seemed to be blooms of some kind—trees, bushes, ground
plants.
“I thought Wardley Wood would be nice, you can see what wild Norfolk looks like.” Louise pointed at a long stretch of dark-green
trees a mile away, following the bottom of a small valley. “Genevieve and I often walk there. It’s lovely.” She dropped her
head. As if he would be interested in the glades with their multicoloured flowers and sweet scents.
“That sounds good. I’d like to get out of this sunlight. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
“I don’t notice it, really.”
He spurred his horse on, breaking into a canter. Louise rode past him easily, moving effortlessly with her horse’s rhythm.
They galloped across the wolds, scattering the somnolent sheep, Louise’s laughter trilling through the heavy air. She beat
him easily to the edge of the wood, and sat there smiling as he rode up to her, panting heavily.
“That was quite good,” she said. “You could be a decent rider if you had a bit of practice.” She swung her leg over the saddle
and dropped down.
“There are some stables on Tranquillity,” he said, dismounting. “That’s where I learnt, but I’m not there very often.”
A big mithorn tree stood just outside the main body of the wood, its coin-sized dark red flowers sprinkling the end of every
twig. Louise wrapped the reins round one of its lower branches, and started off into the wood along one of the little animal
tracks she knew. “I’ve heard of Tranquillity. That’s where the Lord of Ruin lives, Ione Saldana. She was on the news last
year; she’s so beautiful. I wanted to cut my hair short like hers, but Mother said no. Do you know her?”
“Now that’s the trouble when you really do know someone famous; no one ever believes you when you say yes.”
She turned round, eyes wide with delight. “You do know her!”
“Yes. I knew her before she inherited the title, we grew up together.”
“What’s she like? Tell me.”
An image of a naked sweaty moaning Ione bent over a table while he was screwing her appeared in his mind. “Fun,” he said.
The glade she led him to was on the floor of the valley; a stream ran through it, spilling down a series of five big rock-pools.
Knee-high flower stems with tubular yellow and lavender blooms clotted the ground, giving off a scent similar to orange blossom.
Water-monarch trees lined the stream below the pools, fifty yards tall, their long, slender branches swaying in the slight
breeze, fernlike leaf fronds drooping. Birds flittered about in the upper boughs, uninspiring dun-coloured bat-analogues with
long, powerful forelimbs for tunnelling into the ground. Wild weeping roses boiled over the stones along the side of two of
the pools; years of dead petrified branches overlaid by a fresh growth of new living shoots to produce hemispherical bushes.
Their flowers were crushed together, disfigured as they vied for light.
“You were right,” Joshua told her. “It is lovely.”
“Thank you. Genevieve and I often bathe here in the summer.”
He perked up. “Really?”
“It’s a little place of the world that’s all our own. Even the hax don’t come here.”
“What’s a hax? I heard someone mention the name.”
“Father calls them wolf-analogues. They’re big and vicious, and they’ll even attack humans. The farmers hunt them in the winter,
it’s good sport. But we’ve just about cleared them out of Cricklade now.”
“Do the hunters all get dressed up in red jackets and charge around on horses with packs of hounds?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
“I suppose you’ve seen real monsters on your travels. I’ve seen pictures of the Tyrathca on the holoscreen. They’re horrible.
I couldn’t sleep for a week afterwards.”
“Yes, the Tyrathca look pretty ferocious. But I’ve met some breeder pairs; they don’t think of themselves like that. To them
we’re the cruel alien ones. It’s a question of perspective.”
Louise blushed and ducked her head, turning away from him. “I’m sorry. You must think me a frightful bigot.”
“No. You’re just not used to xenocs, that’s all.” He stood right behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “But I would
like to take you away from here some time and show you the rest of the Confederation. Some of it is quite spectacular. And
I’d love to take you to Tranquillity.” He looked round the glade, thoughtful. “It’s a bit like this, only much much bigger.
I think you’d like it a lot.”
Louise wanted to squirm away from his grip, men simply shouldn’t act in such a familiar fashion. But his customs were surely
different, and he was massaging her shoulder muscles gently. It felt nice. “I always wanted to fly on a starship.”
“You will, one day. When Cricklade is yours you can do anything you want.” Joshua was enjoying the touch of her. NaÏvety,
a voluptuous body, and the knowledge that he should never, ever be even thinking about screwing her were combining to form
a potent aphrodisiac.
“I never thought of that,” she said brightly. “Can I charter the
Lady Macbeth
? Oh, but it will be simply ages yet. I don’t want Father to die, that would be an absolutely awful thing to think. Will you
still be coming to Norfolk in fifty years’ time?”
“Of course I will. I have two things tying me here now. Business, and you.”
“Me?” It came out as a frightened squeak.
He turned her round to face him, and kissed her.
“Joshua!”
He put two fingers over her lips. “Shush. No words, only us. Always us.”
Louise stood rigidly still as he unbuttoned her blouse, all kinds of strange emotions battling in her head. I ought to run.
I ought to stop him.
Sunlight fell onto her bare shoulders and back. It was a peculiar sensation, a tingling warmth. And the expression on his
face as he gazed at her was scary, he looked so hungry, but anxious at the same time.
“Joshua,” she murmured, half nervous, half amused. Her shoulders had hunched up of their own accord.
He pulled his T-shirt off over his head. They kissed again, his arms going around her. He seemed very strong. His skin pressing
against her had started a trembling in her stomach that nothing was able to stop. Then she realized her jodhpurs were being
peeled down.
“Oh God.”
His finger lifted her chin up. “It’s all right. I’ll show you how.” And his smile was at least as warm as the sun.
She took her black leather riding boots off herself, then helped him with the jodhpurs. Her brassiere and knickers were plain
white cotton. Joshua removed them slowly, savouring the drawn-out exposure.
He spread their clothes out and laid her down. She was terribly tense to start with, her lower lip clamped between her teeth,
narrow eyes peeking down fearfully at the length of her body. It took a long, pleasant time of soft caresses, kisses, stealthy
whispers, and tickles before she began to respond. He coaxed a giggle from her, then another, then it was a squeal, a groan.
She touched his body, curious and suddenly bold, a hand sliding down his belly to cup his balls. He shuddered and repaid her
by massaging her thighs. There was another long interval while their hands and mouths explored each other. Then he slid above
her, looking down at dishevelled hair, drowsy eyes, dark nipples standing proud, legs parted. He moved into her carefully,
the damp warmth enveloping and squeezing his cock an erotic splendour. Louise writhed tempestuously below him, and he began
a slow, provocative stroke. He used neural nanonic overrides to restrain his own body’s responses, sustaining his erection
as long as he wanted it, determined that she should reach a climax, that it should be as perfect for her as he could possibly
make it.