The electrocar had hissed up on the smooth black roadway a dozen meters away. The main processional streets of Archona had been the first public places in the solar system to be fitted with superconductor grids, just last year. Their car floated by the curb, motionless and a quarter meter above the roadway as the gullwing doors folded up; it still looked a little unnatural to Yolande for something to hover so on Earth, without jets or fans.
She reached out for Owen's hand, and the child took it in one of hers and offered the other to Marya. Their eyes met for a moment over the child's head, before they turned to walk behind the others.
Strange,
Yolande thought.
Life is strange, really.
"I
did
it! Cohortarch, independent command, I
did
it!"
Jolene looked up smiling as Yolande collapsed backward onto the bed in her undertunic, the formal gown strewn in yards of fabric toward the door. The room was part of a guest suite in the von Shrakenberg townhouse, beautiful in an extremely old-fashioned way; inlaid Coromandel sandalwood screens in pearl and lapis, round water-cushioned bed on a marble dais with a canopy, a wall of balcony doors in frosted glass etched over with delicate traceries of fern and waterfowl. They were opened slightly, letting in a soft diffuse glow of city light cut into fragments by the wind-stirred leaves of ancient trees; it smelled of water, stone and frangipani blossoms, and the air was just warm enough to make nakedness comfortable.
"Congratulations, Mistis… again," the serf said.
Yolande shook her head wordlessly; it had been a perfect evening, after a stone bitch of a week shuttling from one debriefer to the next and wondering what the Board would say.
Her mind still glowed from the impossible beauty of Cerraldson's music…
Why
had he killed himself, at the
height
of his talent?
Why had Mozart, for that matter? And this mission, it was the perfect opportunity, for so many things. She rolled onto one elbow and watched Jolene. The serf was sitting on a stool before the armoire, brushing out her long loose-curled blond mane, dressed in a cream silk peignoir that set off the fine-grained ebony of her skin. And also showed off the spectacular lushness of her figure; the black serf had filled out a little without sagging at all. The Draka grinned.
"Yo' pick out a father fo' the new baby, Mistis?" Jolene asked.
"That nice Masta Markman?"
Yolande chuckled. "No, not this time. We're giving it a raincheck fo' a while; different postin's." Teller had been a good choice for an affair; interesting and friendly without trying to get
too
close. "Myfwany's brother agreed to release sperm from the Eugenics banks when I asked. As fo' yo', wench, yo' just miss the variety." She and Teller had tumbled Jolene together a few times, and the wench had been enthusiastic.
"Mmmh." Jolene said, meeting her owner's eyes in the mirror as her hands brushed methodically. "It was nice." More seriously: "Nice to see yo' smilin' agin, Mistis."
Yolande shrugged, sighed. "Ah, well… Yo' can only grieve so long. Gwen deserved better, little enough she sees of me." Work could keep you busy, hold the pain at bay until it faded naturally; work and the things of daytime. Nights were worst, and the moments when the protective tissue seemed to fall away and everything came back raw and fresh. "Grief dies, like everythin'
else." For a moment, her mind was beyond the walls, under the unwinking stars.
Except hate. Hatred is forever, like love.
Jolene rose, arranged the armoire table, bent to pick up the gown and fold it, swaying and glancing occasionally at the Draka out of the corner of her eyes. Yolande watched with amusement, lying on her stomach with her feet up and her chin in her hands.
"Oh, fo'get the play-actin' and come here, wench," she said. "I know what yo' want." Jolene sank down on the padded edge of the bed and Yolande knelt up behind her, reaching around to open the buttons of the silk shift and take the serfs breasts in her hands; she traced her fingers over the smooth warmth of them and up to Jolene's neck, down again to tease at the pointed nipples. Her own desire was increasing, a soothing-tingling whole-body warmth.
"Mmmm, feels nice… Mistis?
Mmm—
" as Yolande ran her tongue into the other's ear. "Mistis, yo' picked the brooder yet?"
"Freya, yo' feel good. Up fo' a second." She drew the garment over the serfs head and tossed it aside. "Yo' first. The brooder?
No, I'll look at the short list when we get back to Claestum."
There were always plenty of volunteers to carry a Draka child; it meant a year of no work and first-rate rations at the least, often the chance of promotion to the Great House, personal-servant work or education beyond birth-status. Being a child-nurse as well as brooder was a virtual guarantee of becoming a pampered Old Retainer later. "Lie down."
The serf lay back and Yolande straddled her, running her hands from the black woman's knees up over thighs and hips, circling on the breasts and starting over. Jolene arched into it, squirming and making small relaxed sounds of pleasure. Yolande savored the contrasting sensations, the firm muscle overlaid with a soft resilient layer of fat.
Not flabby, but so different from a
Draka,
she thought.
"Yo' do this with the brooder, Mistis?" Jolene asked through a breathy chuckle.
"Maybe," Yolande said, running her fingernails up the other's ribs. That brought a protesting tickle-shiver. "If she's pretty an'
willin'. I'm goin' pick her for hips, health, an' milk, not fuckabiliry."
She leaned herself forward slowly, until they were in contact, hips and stomach and breasts, then kissed her.
Mint and wine
, she thought languidly. There were times when this was
exactly
what you wanted: friendly, slow and easy. It might be the creche training, but with Jolene she always felt affection without the risk of the wench getting excessively attached, which was embarrassing and forced you to hurt them, eventually.
"Mhhh… I'd… I'd like to do it, Mistis," Jolene said. "Have yo'
baby."
Startled, Yolande rose up on her hands and looked down into the other's face. "Why on earth?" she said. The movement had brought her mound of Venus into contact with the serfs, and she began a gentle rocking motion with her hips; the other slipped into rhythm.
"I… like babies, Mistis."
" Hmmm. Up a little harder. Yo' can have yo' own, any-times; take a lover or a husband, I don't mind."
"Thanks kindly, Mistis, not yet. I hopes to travel with yo'
sometimes, see them faraway places. But yo' away lots next little while. An'… well, yo' knows I gets friendly with Marya? No, not like this, just she don' have many to talk to. Other Literates at Claestum sort of standoffish, 'specially with her." Yolande winced slightly, remembering her early treatment of the wench. It would mark Marya with dangerous misfortune, in the eyes of most.
"Then, she don't have much to talk about
with
, with the unclassed." The vast majority on a plantation, illiterate and forbidden even the most limited contact with information systems.
"Marya good with babies, but Gwen gettin' to be a holy terror; we kin,"—she ran her hands down her owner's flanks, gripped her hips to increase the friction of the slow grind— "kin help each othah. 'Sides," she said, raising her mouth to the Draka's breasts, "I like the idea."
"Mmmm. All right, I'll take yo' in to the Clinic and have yo'
seeded. Now shut up an' keep doin' that."
Bing.
The bedside phone. Yolande raised her mouth from Jolene's. "Shit."
Bing. Bing. Bing
. "It isn't goin' away." Not that it was all
that
late; she had only been back from the Amphitheater two hours.
Her left hand went to the touchplate, keying voice-only. Her right stayed busy; not fair to stop now. "Yes?" she said coldly.
"Uncle Eric here." An older man's voice, warm and assured.
"If I'm not interrupt—"
Jolene shuddered and stiffened, crying out sharply once and then again.
"Ah, even if I am, niece, I've got a gentleman here I think yo'd like to meet, an' some matters to discuss. Half an hour in the study? Strictly informal."
"Certainly, Uncle Eric," Yolande said, breaking the connection. "Senator, possibly Archon-to-Be, war hero, Party bigwig, darlin of the Aerospace Command,
he-who-must-be-obeyed by new-minted Cohortarchs,
shit,
" she muttered, looking down. Jolene was smiling as she lay with her eyes closed, panting slightly. "Got to go fo' a while, sweet wench,"
the Draka said.
Jolene's eyes opened. "Half an hour, the bossman said," she husked, swallowing. "Five minute shower, five minutes fo' a loungin' robe and sandals. Ten-minute walk; that leaves ten minutes. No time to waste, Mistis-sweet, yo' just lie back there an' put yo' legs over my shoulders."
Yolande threw herself back and began to laugh.
I wonder
, she thought in the brief moment while thought was possible,
I
wonder what he has to say?
The study was book-lined, with the leather odor of an old well-kept library; there was a long table with buffel-hide chairs, and another set of loungers around the unlit hearth. A few pictures on the wall: old landscapes; one priceless Joden Foggard oil of Archona in 1830 with a smoke-belching steamcar in front of this townhouse; a nude by Tanya von Shrakenberg. A few modern spacescapes. The doors to the patio had been closed, and the room was dim; a housegirl was just setting a tray with coffee and liqueurs on the table amid the chairs. There were three men waiting for her. Uncle Eric; nearly sixty now, and looking… not younger, just like a very fit sixty; the hatchet-faced von Shrakenberg looks aged well. His eldest, Karl, thirty-six and a Merarch already, like a junior version of his father with a touch of his mother's rounder face and stocky build; also with more humor around his eyes.
They rose, and she saw the third man was still in evening dress rather than the hooded
djellaba
robes she and her hosts were wearing. A rather unfashionable outfit, brown velvet with silver embroidery on the seams and cuffs, and a very conservative lace cravat. An unfashionable man, only fifty millimeters taller than she, broad-built and bear-strong; you could see that he might turn pear-shaped in middle age among any people but Draka. A hooked nose, balding brow, and a brush of dark-brown beard.
"Greetin's," she said politely, gripping his wrist. "Service to the State."
"Glory to the Race," he replied; the return grip was like a precisely controlled machine. His accent was Alexandrian, like the Board chairman this morning, but with a human pitch and timbre. And a hint of something else, unplaceable.
"Doctor Harry Snappdove, my niece, Cohortarch Yolande Ingolfsson," Eric said, with a smile at her well-concealed surprise. "I am on the Strategic Planning Board, Yolande," he said.
They all sank into the chairs; the housegirl arranged the refreshments and left on soundless feet.
"I felt," her uncle continued, "that it was time yo' and I started… talkin' occasionally on matters of importance, beyond the purely social."
His voice was genial as they sipped at the chocolate-almond liqueur, and the other two turned politely toward her, but for a moment Yolande felt as tense as she had before the Appointments Board. Then the mellow contentment of her body forced relaxation on her mind, and she sent a thought of silent gratitude to Jolene.
"Hmmm. Ah, Uncle… am I to presume I'm bein' invited into the infamous von Shrakenberg Mafia?" The factional struggles within the Party had been getting fiercer these last few years, and it was well-known who led the controlling circle of the Conservative wing.
Eric laughed soundlessly. "Wotan, are they still callin' it that?"
Seriously: "Yo're reaching the point where political commitments become necessary." Yolande nodded slightly; that was almost true. The Domination had never been able to afford real nepotism; you had to have plenty of raw talent to get promoted. Still, it had never
hurt
to have family and Party connections.
"The Party is goin' to split soon," he continued. Yolande felt a cold-water shock at the casual tone, the equally casual nods of the other two. The Draka League had always been there in the background of her life, like the atmosphere.
"How?" she asked.
"Oh, along the present factional lines. About thirty percent to my Conservatives, maybe twenty to twenty-five to Gayner and her Militants, the rest to the Center group; the Center will pick up what's left of the other parties, the Rationalists and so forth.
Melinda,"—she thought for a moment before realizing he must mean Melinda Shaversham, the present Archon—"hates the idea; she'll probably end up with the rump, the Center, and try to hold things together. The Center have the largest numbers, but they're short on organization an' leadership. Well prob'ly have an unofficial Center-Conservative coalition, fo' a while at least. The long-term struggle will be fo' the Center's constituency."
"Well, if yo' lookin' fo' my vote, Uncle Eric—" she began dubiously. He shook his head.
"Somethin' far mo' fundamental, Yolande." He paused, looking down into his glass for a moment. "One thing the Militants
don't
lack, it's leadership: McLaren, Terreblanche, and Gayner. A thug, a loon, and a loony thug, but
smart.
"
"Call themselves Naldorists, don't they?" she said.
Karl's snort matched his father's. "Naldorssen's been dead since 1952," he said decisively. "The Militants just wave her name, since we've all had her Will-To-Power philosophizing shoved down our throats in school."
"Well, son, she did put it mo' coherently than Nietzsche, even the formulations he made after he migrated to the Domination and calmed down," Eric said charitably. "And the Militants do have a point. All that
trans-human stage of evolution
thing was mystical drivel when Naldorssen made it up, back when. With modern biocontrol, it could happen." His mouth twisted slightly.
"Under the adjustment to circumstances mealymouthin', what the Militants have in mind is reorganizin' the human race on a hive-insect specialization model."