It was a small contingent, a dozen ships, well within our capabilities, but Dylan told me only to fire warning shots while he tried to hail them. They gave no response and continued the attack. He shook his head, with regret, I thought, and gave the order to fire at will but to bring aboard any survivors for questioning.
I destroyed the ships. There were no survivors. When we examined the wreckage, we determined that the ships had been flown by A.I.s only or otherwise automated; no live beings had been aboard.
"This is a warning, Captain." I reconfigured the battle array to re-arm the weapons that had been fired.
"I agree. Beka, send a copy of the battle record to Charlemagne Bolivar for his consideration, and ask him to meet us at his convenience."
Beka sent the message. "Why would the Dragans want to waste ships like this? They're not a wealthy pride any more; they've had too much internal strife," she mused. "Every time we've encountered them, we've seen only a fragment of the group, working autonomously. It makes no sense."
"Perhaps the Dragan groups have reassembled into a consortium," I said. "Or maybe they've heard about the Magog and wanted to impress you with their ability to wage war without sacrificing men."
"Tyr, you have an interesting sense of humor." Dylan moved away from his command station. "How likely do you think it is that the Dragans would form an alliance?"
"Not very. They're not that intelligent, and everyone else knows it."
"Such language," Beka murmured. "You'd think you were discussing ordinary mortals like the rest of us."
"Considering the idiocy of that last group of Dragan allies that were eaten by the squorm, I think your intelligence and ability to compete and survive is far superior," I told her.
"Hmm." Dylan turned back to peer at the display of readings in front of him. "Any word from Bolivar?"
"Just in now. He'll meet us near Salamanca Station."
"Make course for Salamanca, then, please." Dylan waved a hand at the door. "Tyr? Beka? Harper? I need to go over some things with Rommie. I'll catch you later."
***
There were almost no fresh vegetables in the galley. When I arrived at the hydroponics garden, Trance was picking tomatoes and peppers and string beans into an old-fashioned market basket.
"You know," she said, as if we had been conversing for a while, "the trees really miss birds. Birds would make them happy. So would bees. I'll have to see about getting a hive of bees, or maybe two, the kind that are just pleased to make honey and keep plants happy."
I sat down on a bench beside where she was working. "Wouldn't the birds eat the fruit?" I asked.
"Probably. I don't think the trees would mind that much, though. It's hard on them, being out here in space. They miss having real dirt under their roots."
"What would make the birds happy?"
"That's a good question." She moved over to an espaliered apricot and began picking its golden fruit. "Other compatible birds, I think. Someone to talk to, something to talk about. They'd be amused by the salmon in the water tanks, and I don't think the salmon would bother them." She looked back at me. "What would make you happy, Tyr?"
"You know, you're the first person in a long time to ask me that question." I had learned not to doubt Trance's perceptiveness, though I was never sure how much she saw as opposed to how much she guessed. Her predictive ability was more than coincidental; I did not need to know how it worked in order to be careful of it.
"It's an important question." She finished with the apricots and moved over to the dwarf pear trees that had borne the fruit I'd prepared for Harper, a few days ago. "I don't think you look for happiness in the same places as people might expect."
"What do you think they expect?"
"Oh, the usual. Money, power, fame, control." She blinked at me, long eyelashes fluttering. "I think you value these things -- I would never say you didn't -- but I think you want something more than that."
"Perhaps I want to become a philosopher."
"Perhaps." She handed me a blushing pear. "Here. That one wanted to be enjoyed immediately."
I bit in. The fruit tasted perfectly ripe, the juice like nectar, almost intoxicatingly sweet. "Delicious."
"Does it make you happy?" she asked. "You look happy."
"It certainly pleases my taste buds," I said, between bites. "Does that translate into happiness for you?"
"You see? You're already a philosopher; you don't have to wait to become one." She beamed at me.
"What about striving to do what is right? Shouldn't that make me happy, rather than simple physical comforts?" If she wanted to discuss philosophy, I was ready.
"Yes, of course it should." She tilted her head, observing me. "The question isn't whether it should, though, but whether it does. Does doing what is right for yourself make you happier than doing what is right for others? Or is it the same thing?"
I smiled at her, delighted. It had been so long since I had enjoyed a conversation in the philosophical mode. "What do you consider the highest good that one should seek? I noticed you separated power and control in your list."
"Oh, Tyr, you know they're not the same thing." She perched at the foot of the pear tree and started to nibble on a ripe pear of her own. "As for money and fame, they're ... illusions. They come and go. Are you a better person because you have money or because someone knows who you are? I don't think so."
"I could argue that money and fame enable a person to do what he only can dream of without them." I dropped the core into the container Trance kept for collecting seeds for planting. "If I owned my own ship, I could battle the Magog on my own terms."
"This is true, but you couldn't do it as effectively as you can from the Andromeda, in the alliance that Dylan is creating. In this case, your work on the crew is more valuable than money for getting you what you want. Try another example."
"All right." The artificial sun in the garden felt warm; I leaned on my elbow to bask in its light. "We've disposed of money. Power and control are not equal, I agree; both may depend upon alliances but power may be ineffective without control, and too much control can strangle an alliance's utility. I think that leaves fame."
She swung her legs back and forth like a child on a tall chair. "You're already famous. So am I. So are Beka and Harper. So is Dylan. What difference does it make? When I go to a market, the fact that they know my name doesn't mean they'll give me better prices."
"Is fame an end in itself, or a means? You seem to think of it as a means."
"It could be either. Or neither. I don't think it really exists, any more than money does." She smiled suddenly. "Of course, because I don't think they're important, they're much easier to handle."
"Is that why you win at the gaming tables, whenever you're near them? Because you think they're not important?"
"No, I win because they're fun." She hopped down, picked up her basket and moved to the other side of the area where I was lounging, to peer attentively at several flowering bean vines. "Whether something is fun doesn't determine whether it's important or not. That's not how fun works. You know that."
"Are you going to tell me that love makes the world go around?"
Trance shook her head at me. "I shouldn't have to tell you that."
"It's a very pretty sentiment. I don't see that it has a place in formal philosophy."
"That's odd. I mean, isn't that what Plato and Socrates and Hume were talking about? Weren't they discussing how a person can make a rational choice in order to increase happiness?"
"Yes, depending on your definition of happiness. Some would call my choices self-interest."
"Ah, but if they're only beneficial for you, and they make other people unhappy, how can they really be choices that promote happiness?" She bypassed the beans and moved on to grapevines, where she selected three clusters and said something under her breath as she picked them. I would have sworn she apologized to the plant, or perhaps asked its permission. "Isn't happiness one of the things that's a universal good? If you have an increase in happiness, it has to benefit everyone in order to be true happiness."
"Where did you study philosophy, Trance? Your dialectic is extremely Old Classical."
She glanced at me. The cagey, knowing expression was back on her face. "Oh, here and there. I like to read a lot, sometimes."
I leaned toward her to engage her attention. "What do you think would create the most happiness for everyone on the Andromeda right now?"
"That's not even a hard question: making the Magog worldship go away."
"But that causes a lot of pain and distress to the Magog. Does their pain negate the happiness that their deaths would cause?" Ah, the pleasures of the philosophical mode, in which one could ask the most difficult questions as if they were merest speculation.
"I don't think that's something I could answer," she said carefully. "All they do causes pain and death; I'm not going to say that they're good to us, or beneficial to any systems. But I don't know if, in a larger sense -- a pan-universal sense -- they're without merit of any kind."
"That's the same rationale that was used for maintaining supplies of virulently contagious diseases centuries ago -- until someone loosed the diseases on an unready populace."
"No, you're wrong. That's not the same thing at all." She flared at me. "Diseases aren't sentient."
"Are most Magog, other than Rev Bem, truly sentient? Do they comprehend good and evil? Do they even comprehend that there might be something other than their own devastation?" I picked up a small rock, running a finger across the crystals that gleamed in the light.
"If you're asking me whether I think we should destroy the Magog worldship, you're wasting your time." Trance set the basket down carefully and reached for another one. She walked purposefully to the herb garden and peered at the plants, pinching back a little here, a little there. "I'm not pleased at all when innocent people are harmed, like you and Harper."
I dropped the rock. It bounced once before coming to rest on the moss beneath the tree. "You think of me as innocent?"
She nodded toward a tall, bushy basil plant, but I knew who her gesture was meant for. "Yes. You didn't do anything to annoy them. None of us did. You didn't make them come to destroy us; they did it on their own. That makes you innocent."
Ah. We were still in the philosophical mode, of course. It had been so long. "I agree with you, as long as you are not considering me 'an' innocent."
This jibe gained me a triangular smile from behind the dill weed. "Oh, I would never do that, Tyr. I know you too well. But I think we've strayed from our topic, which was happiness."
"I think we've come close to concluding that beings that are solely destructive of other's lives and others' happiness are guilty of causing unwonted distress, and therefore should be eliminated. Hmm. Is there enough basil for a good pesto?"
"I think so. If you want to make it for all of us, I think I know where Harper hid the good cheese."
"Harper likes cheese?"
Trance pinched back the enormous red opal basil in three places and added the deep maroon leaves to the basket. "Oh, he loves cheese."
"That's good to know. I do think good cheese contributes in a positive way to happiness."
"I think I could be persuaded that good cheese might be a universal good -- it benefits the cows and goats and sheep and such that give milk, it benefits the people who make it and the people who eat it. That's pretty universal, I think." She handed me an empty basket. "Choose what you like and I'll take the rest to the galley."
As I picked and chose from the bounty she laid in front of me, I noticed her frowning at two plants off to the side. "What's going on there?"
"Oh, this one's a pepper plant and this one's a tomato. They don't like each other."
"They don't?" I peered at the plants. "They don't look that much different."
"They're not much different at all. They just don't get along. When they're together nothing really happens. They don't have flowers or fruit, because they send antagonistic chemicals at each other. It's very sad," she said soberly. "I'll probably have to move one of them, but there's really no other place for it."
"Can't you just put a barrier in between so they can't contact each other any more? Would that help?"
"I might try that. Thanks." Trance blinked at me. "You know, you're changing. This isn't a bad thing."
"I'll try to remember that as I grind up pesto for you," I said. I had filled the empty basket full of herbs, mostly basil but also oregano and thyme, with the remainder of the space taken up by fresh fruit. "I wouldn't say that good food was the highest good, but I'd never argue against it; I've had too many bad meals."
***
"Let's talk," Dylan said as he walked into the galley. "Rommie, privacy mode." He closed the door behind himself. "I'd ask you to walk with me but you appear to be busy."
"Yes, I am." On Kotyra, I had been taught to grind pesto as one would grind cornmeal, in a trough with a stone. The difference was that pesto could be ground while standing rather than kneeling; courtiers such as myself were only sent to grind corn as punishment. Later, I had found a bowl lined with narrow serrations and an accompanying wooden tool for rubbing nuts or leaves across the ridges. On Andromeda, three centuries ago, someone had gone to the trouble to provide a genuine stone mortar and pestle, which worked admirably.
"I'm glad the old stuff is useful."
"Oh?" I glanced up at him as I added a handful more pine nuts. "You know where this is from?"
"Not really. I think I remember someone bringing it aboard from a shopping trip on Tarn Vedra. But that's not important." Dylan sat on a tall stool across the counter from where I was working. "I want to talk to you about your cargo."
He sounded far too casual. It put me on alert.
"Yes?"
"It's occurred to me that my locking it away from you might have given you the wrong idea."
"Such as?" I wasn't prepared to move into the formal mode when the civil mode so neatly expressed my feelings.
"Killing me and taking it, and the Andromeda."
I reached for the first batch of basil, tore the leaves and dropped them into the pestle. "Believe me, sir, if I wanted you dead you'd already be dead. I learned some time back just how difficult it would be to take the Andromeda from you alone, and I'm not interested in the impossible."
"It's a sign of wisdom to be able to distinguish the unlikely from the impossible," Dylan said with a smile that I could read as either amused or cautioning. "Can I do anything to help with whatever you're making that smells so wonderful?"
"It's pesto. Here." I pushed a block of cheese, a grater and a collecting bowl toward him. "If you want to help, fill the bowl with ground cheese to this level." He took them and unwrapped the cheese. "So. What did you have in mind in regards to my ... cargo?"
"I've been thinking, since you gave me the information on David's descendants. That connection doesn't make me Nietzschian, but it should give me more leverage in a few places." He rubbed the cheese energetically across the grater, scattering cheese crumbs across the counter. "Sorry."
"And this has what to do with me?" I raised an eyebrow and continued to pound the torn basil leaves into the already pounded garlic and pine nuts, drizzling a small amount of olive oil into the pestle to ease the job.
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you stole the body back from the Dragans because it gives you an advantage, not just because you wanted to piss them off."
My words were as peaceable as I could make them. "I recovered the box from the people who had stolen it from my pride because that was the right thing to do." Perhaps Trance's ideas were rubbing off on me, though our discussion had strayed from love to happiness more easily than I'd expected.
"Because the Dragans killed your family."
"Because I'm the last member of Kodiak Pride, and guarding Drago Museveni is my pride's right. You know that already."
"Well." Dylan brushed the back of the grater to free the last few curls of cheese from it. "If this were still a High Guard ship of the old line, it would be part of my job as captain to make sure there were paths to advancement for my crew. I've been thinking about this a bit lately, ever since we encountered the Magog worldship. It's a lot harder to do that in this century than it used to be."
He handed me the bowl of cheese, which I accepted with a nod, and set the grater and the diminished block of cheese aside. I threw the last of the basil, the dark-ruby opal basil, into the pestle and continued to grind, adding a little more olive oil.
"Career advancement. I knew you were an insane optimist when you climbed into the worldship to rescue three dead men." I crumbled the cheese between my fingers and nodded. "Let me see. What would you advocate? Harper of course should have his own design shop and assistants, not to mention whatever legal backing is available to protect his inventions. Beka could probably choose between becoming an admiral and a fascinating career in diplomacy, or international commerce." There were times when I couldn't restrain the sarcasm I felt in dealing with Dylan-the-relic as opposed to Dylan-the-strategist. "We don't have careers any more, captain. We have lives. We try to survive from day to day, and if we're doing better at the end of the day than we were at the beginning, it's a success."
"Now, that sounds like the Tyr I met when he tried to 'salvage' the Andromeda with me on it, not the Tyr who just put Charlemagne Bolivar into a position where the most powerful Nietzschian leader in this quadrant owes him his life and any favor he wants to request." Dylan's eyes narrowed, as they had in his cabin when we played go.
I felt the ground shift under my feet. Dylan knew something. Did he know of shikastri or understand its implications? Or was he simply taking a chance in the dark, as he so often did, to see how I would react? I shrugged a shoulder. "As you say."
Dylan rested his elbows on the counter and steepled his fingers, peering at them as if they were a compass to chart his path. "What would you say if I offered to help you regain a pride of your own, as well as the status of husband and father, and keep the body of Drago Museveni from anyone else who might want to take it?"
I blinked at him. I could not help thinking I'd strayed into an alternate dimension. "Let me get this straight. You -- the creator of the New Commonwealth -- are offering to help me become the new leader of the Nietzschian people?"
"Hmm, not in so many words, but the meaning is still the same."
"Why?"
"Because we can work together? Because we have similar goals? Because, despite your tendency to go off on your own, I can trust you to watch my back when we have a mutual enemy? Because I think you have a better sense of what the rest of us are capable of than most modern Nietzschians I've met?"
"Those are ... interesting reasons, if they're true. I have my doubts about some of them."
"I'm sure you do."
"Why now?" I tipped the grated cheese slowly into the pestle, added more oil and some tomato paste, and continued to mash the contents together. The fragrance of the pesto bathed the room. "It's not because of my superior culinary efforts, I'm sure."
Dylan swirled around on his stool. "Oh, I could say that, but it wouldn't be true."
"I see. You do like my cooking."
"You've been kinder to Harper than I'd ever have expected. You saved his life. You contributed the remedy for Magog infestation; in fact, you contributed far more than I would have expected." He slid off the stool and stood facing me. "I think we can work together. Are you interested?"
"You offer me what I've been working toward all my life -- what do you think?" I returned. My heart pounded with a wild joy at the thought of what he offered, but my mind was spinning through labyrinths of precaution and doubt. "You're entirely insane, of course. When the Jaguars learn that I have the Progenitor, they'll be as avid to steal his remains as the Dragans were, and the same with the Sirrush. The only thing that will keep them all at bay for a while is the Magog invasion. Are you sure you want to do this?"
Dylan shrugged. "Well, I could just offer it to Charlemagne Bolivar, but I don't think I want to do that. For one thing, I doubt I'd live long enough to get it off my ship."
"True."
"We don't need anything to divide the focus of the alliance until the Magog have been destroyed."
"Agreed." I ran a fingertip over the mortar and tasted the pesto. "Not bad." I held it out for Dylan.
"Oh, this is terrific." He nearly moaned as he tasted it. I carefully kept my expression neutral.
"You might consider letting the rest of the crew in now; they're going to wonder what we're up to."
Dylan nodded an acknowledgment as he said, "Andromeda, unlock the galley doors, please."
Beka nearly tumbled through the door, followed by Rommie. Harper was one step behind.
"Do I smell a conspiracy?" Beka glanced sharply from Dylan to me. "Or were you just trying to steal the recipe?"
Rommie leaned close to sniff the mortar. "Mmmm. Pesto. You need whole-grain pasta to go with it. I'll see to that." She moved purposefully into the cooking area behind me.
"Oh, wow, Tyr, more good food. Are you going to become a master chef instead of a mercenary now?" Harper sneaked a finger into the pesto for a taste. I smacked his hand playfully.
"Nothing of the sort, Beka. Tyr and I were merely discussing the future."
"Ah. The future." Beka reached toward the pesto. I glared at her. "You know, that tastes absolutely wonderful on a sandwich, with good sausage and cheese."
"If that's what you want to do with your share, you're welcome to remove some for yourself. I believe Rommie is making pasta for the rest of us, though."
"But Rommie doesn't eat," Trance put in, as she reached toward the bowl of the mortar as well.
"Just because I don't eat doesn't mean I don't appreciate the smell of good food," Rommie said. "I assume you want your pasta al dente?"
"Of course." Dylan seemed delighted to have something to answer that would not incriminate him in some way.
Harper's eyes met mine over Trance's shoulder, and I knew I would hear from him later.
***
It didn't take long. He caught up with me after my next shift and walked with me to his shop, where he shut the door and asked what Dylan had said. I gave him the abbreviated version.
"He offered you what?"
"You heard me."
"Yeah. I heard it. I just don't believe it." Harper paced from one workbench to the other and back.
I nodded. "What does it gain him? He's already got the most powerful Nietzschian army as an ally."
"He'd lose the Jaguars for sure if he does this, wouldn't he?"
"Unless he can persuade Bolivar that it's in the best interest of Sabra-Jaguar Pride to go along with what he plans."
"And we don't know what he's planning." Harper chewed his lip. "I don't like this at all."
"Welcome to the club," I growled.
His glance caressed me. "I could go seduce him and see if his pillow talk's any good."
"Oh?" I crossed my arms and leaned a hip against the workbench.
"If you can have Charlemagne Bolivar, I can have Dylan."
"I have no argument with that, but does Dylan want to have you?"
"He watches my ass all the time. You have no idea."
I concentrated my gaze on his altogether admirable ass, as he turned. He almost blushed. "Actually, I have a pretty fair idea."
"Well?"
"So. You go to Dylan and offer to ... please him --"
"That's diplomatic of you."
"What's to keep him from thinking of it as a spying expedition on my behalf?'
"You're right. But aren't you more the do-it-yourself guy? I mean, if you wanted to listen to Dylan's pillow talk, you'd be getting after his ass yourself."
"I might point out that I've offered and been rejected." I let it be matter-of-fact. "I don't take rejection well."
"You don't take rejection at all, from what I've seen. But that was different. So, he turned down a chance at the finest alternative-health-care delivery system this side of Antares. That's his loss. Unless you asked him at another time?" Harper speculated.
"He was not precisely unimpressed with my charms, but I suspect he was still more interested in what Beka might offer."
"Then why in the name of Albert Einstein hasn't he made his move? He's driving Beka nuts."
"I would have thought the estimable captain of the Eureka Maru would be capable of asking him anything."
"Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you? But Beka's a little odd that way. She'll go after someone that she sees as her level, but not if she has him up on a pedestal or something, and she's definitely got Dylan on a big one."
"He doesn't deserve it." I recrossed my arms.
"Look." Harper stopped in front of me. "You want me to go let Beka in on Dylan's attitude, I can do it. But that's still not dealing with what he asked you."
"I don't want to deal with it right now."
"Well, what do you want?" He'd crossed his arms, pugnacious as ever, and his chin rose. "I've been having this fantasy about you in this room, this non-surveilled room."
"Oh, have you?" I let my eyes caress him, knowing he would feel them as if they were my hands. "And what would you do with me here? I assure you, I don't wish to become an android."
"Nothing like that at all. In fact, what I've thought of is a whole lot more human than that." He pushed a section of work out of the way on the work table behind me. "What would you say if I told you I'd had dreams of pushing you down on that table and having you right here?"
Had I been most other Nietzschians, I would have killed him for even suggesting that. Had he been another Nietzschian, I might well have reversed his scenario for him and had him on his own workbench. But my life has not followed the prescribed course of a Nietzschian warrior for some time.
And we were shieldbrothers.
And he owed me this.
"Oh, really?" I towered over him. "You'd push me around?"
"Yeah. I'd push you around. I'm tougher than I look." He grabbed my vest and pulled me in for a hard, hot kiss. "You think you can take me?"
"I can take anything you deal," I said, my voice slipping into its lower range. I knew this had an aphrodisiac effect on him, as it had been designed to do. "Show me what you've got."
One of his hands slid down to cup me, an exquisite tease. "Drop 'em and turn around."
"I assume you mean my clothes and not my jewels?"
He let out a laugh. "You know exactly what I mean." His hand moved a little lower. "Do it."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you'll have to wait until I feel like it." Insouciant tease.
Without a word I unfastened my trousers and turned around, the leather dropping between my legs. The trousers were specially made to unhook on either thigh and slip across, so that the lower portion of the leathers functioned as leg protection even when the upper section was missing. It had been a while since I'd made use of this feature for any good purpose.
"Oh, man." Harper, behind me, sounded as if he were invoking deity. "You have such an amazing ass." He put one hand on my back. "Down."
I leaned over the table, reaching to grab the other side. I could feel his fingers on me, then a slicked one in me, and I held my breath until he brushed the gland; I felt the reverberations of that touch through every inch of my body.
"I told you I wouldn't have any mercy on you." Harper's voice sounded almost as low as mine.
He was blunt behind me, hot and wet, and then as I drew a breath he was in. We both gasped. I arched my back, pushing myself toward him, inviting him. His hands anchored themselves on me, and he moved slowly at first but strongly, without hesitation.
And then he kept moving, on and on, sending lightning bolts through me. My dangling cock hardened, rose, brushed my belly with wetness, and he ignored it and kept on, pounding.
"If you want mercy from me, Tyr," he whispered, behind my shoulder, "you're going to have to ask for it."
In response I pushed back at him and tightened myself just a little, and he smacked my thigh with the palm of his hand and held on, slowing his strokes and making them longer, deeper, taking me in a way that I had not felt in more years than I wanted to contemplate, learning me, knowing me. And when he came, he came as hard as I had come in him, that night when he had not tightened his legs around me.
He was leaning over me, panting, after he finished, and I was lying on the table, holding on to anchor myself to something concrete in the spinning, throbbing universe. I felt him kiss my back as I returned to normal consciousness; I realized I had spent myself twice on the floor under the workbench and had not even noticed, so intense was the pleasure he'd given me.
"I told you I'd keep my word," he whispered.
"Yes, you have," I said, "my shieldbrother."
As we pulled ourselves together, and he took the time to admire the design of my clothes, his eye caught my offering. "Hey, a little something for me to remember you by," he smirked. "But I think I'll make it a bit less controversial, just in case Dylan walks in."
"By all means," I said.
"Great." He reached behind himself and tossed most of a can of what looked like sawdust or wood shavings -- antiquated as the thought might be -- onto the floor over it, then swept them back up again. The stain was gone. "Now I've got you, my pretty, and you're not getting away."
I took his face in my hand and kissed him. "You've been watching entirely too many old videos."
"There's no such thing." He tilted his head as he looked back at me. "You can consider that to be phase one in the celebration of the closing of The Harper's Transportation Line. No more passengers. Trance certified it today."
"I assume there'll be more celebration later on?"
"You can count on it."
"In that case, I suspect your seduction of Dylan will have to wait a day or so."
"Why? The Harper is very good."
"Oh, all right." I let my hands drop. "I'd assumed, perhaps wrongly, that you'd wanted to share your good fortune with me. But by all means bring in the rest of the crew. You'll simply have to find a larger bed."
"Well, if you're worried about getting cold, you could bunk with Trance. She's really warm to sleep with." His eyes sparkled. "And fun, too."
"I didn't think she liked men."
"Trance? Oh, she likes everyone. Well, everyone who doesn't have claws and fur."
"Thank you for clarifying that."
"What, you don't want a celebratory orgy?"
"Is it really necessary, now that Trance has given everyone on board the antibody?"
"When you put it that way, it makes you sound sort of old-Earth Puritan."
I straightened my back and glared. "I most certainly am not."
"Yeah. I know. Weird that you want to sound like that, but hey."
It was more of the teasing in which he specialized; two could play at that. He leaned over to pick up a couple of tools that had fallen during our most vigorous efforts, and I moved in behind him, grasped his hips in my hands and rubbed myself against him. "Does this feel 'Puritan' to you?"
"Um. No. No way no how. Ohhhh."
***
As it turned out, Charlemagne Bolivar had indeed noticed the spate of unmanned fighters; his own ships had been attacked by them. To term him merely displeased would be to deprecate the ancient and honorable Nietzschian tradition of battle oratory. Fortunately for Dylan, Bolivar confined himself to the major theme rather than composing an extempore lyric epic. Dylan appeared to be impressed with Bolivar's oratorical skills as well as his solution for the situation: an improved sensor, which he shared with us, that would both detect a ship's crew and trace any transmissions to their source, however remote or disguised, and tag the source with a signal at the molecular level that could not be erased.
Bolivar ignored my presence on the bridge, an hour after my encounter with Harper, during his discussion with Dylan. I listened, and thought, and noticed that, rather than have his second in command behind him during the transmission he stood there alone. Had he subdued a mutiny? Was he now only a figurehead on one ship instead of the commander of an enormous fleet? The mystery was solved as the lens pulled back to reveal a small group entering the bridge -- a tall older woman with silvery skin and raven-black hair, a young woman whose face resembled Bolivar's but whose cascading hair was a stream of red and gold, and several men with no particular similarity to one another, including Paris Ramses.
"I believe it is time for us to introduce ourselves to each other," Charlemagne said, in the most formal tones possible. "The matriarch of Sabra-Jaguar Pride, Messallina. My sister, Boudicca. My brother, Suleiman." He inclined his head toward a man with skin like my own and Charlemagne's features, who stood next to Boudicca. "My wives will be pleased to entertain you and your crew, should you come to our home world when this is finished. I believe you have already met Paris Ramses."
I noticed he had not phrased anything beyond his introductions in the formal tone. Suleiman looked annoyed at being introduced to mere humans, but Boudicca's eyes traveled until they found me at my post. A small nod from her confirmed her interest.
I felt far too warm, suddenly.
"I'm gratified that you have introduced us," Dylan said. "Let me introduce my crew: Beka Valentine, captain of the Eureka Maru, my first officer; Seamus Zelazny Harper, my chief engineer; Trance Gemini, life science officer and medical expert; and Tyr Anasazi, fire control officer and weapons expert."
Oh, Dylan had certainly noticed Charlemagne's lapse in protocol, and had returned the favor by putting his own introductions into the most formal mode available in the common tongue. The startled expression on several Jaguar faces amused me, though I kept my amusement behind a very sober face.
"And I see one of my own kinsmen there as well," Dylan continued, "Paris Ramses, out of Lucretia by Geronimo. It's good to know that I still have family in this time and place."
"Indeed." Charlemagne inclined his head. "You have a prodigious family in my pride. We will have to take the opportunity to get to know one another much better, very soon. I'm quite looking forward to it." His eyes found me, and his voice dropped into the formal mode. "Tyr Anasazi, out of Victoria by Barbarossa, last of the Kodiak, I present you to my sister Boudicca."
I stepped out from behind the weapons station; it was only fair that the woman should see all of what she was offered. "I am honored by your notice, and I offer my arm for you, should you ever wish it." Formality required the prospective husband to make the offer. "I also offer wishes for good health and long life to Messallina, whose wisdom and prudence are certainly in evidence in the wisdom and prudence of your pride's leader."
From the side, out of lens' range, I heard, "Stuffy much?" from Beka.
Messallina inclined her head graciously. She seemed far more interested in Trance Gemini than in myself, for which I could only be grateful. Boudicca stepped forward. "I am Boudicca, out of Nefertari by Subotai. I would like to meet you in person."
"My lady," I began, but Dylan interrupted me.
"I'm sure we can take a few hours to get to know one another a little better, and I'd certainly like to meet David Geronimo's descendants. Paris, you look very like my brother."
Charlemagne recovered his composure admirably, far more easily than his brother. "We would be pleased to offer our hospitality to you for, what, high tea? Come as you are, I'm sure. Bolivar out."
"Dylan, are you insane?" Beka hissed at him. "You go over there, you're not coming back."
"Beka, I have to show that I have faith in my allies. Charlemagne Bolivar has been on this ship twice, and this is our chance to allow him to return our hospitality."
"Just as long as you're not on the menu for high tea," Trance said.
"Oh, he won't be. I'm the main course." Now that I was no longer under the watchful eyes of the Jaguars, I was free to speak my mind. "If they even let me out of the women's quarters, that is."
"Tyr, Tyr, your fame goes before you," Beka chided gently. "It's only a few hours. Even you can't --"
"I'm in no mood for an inquisition from Messallina on the details of my upbringing and experiences." I turned back to the weapons station controls. "Why can't you just find me an enemy out there that I can blow up? A nice explosion would feel so gratifying."
"Hey, you're famous. Suck it up," Harper advised. "Go over, have tea, make nice with the pretty ladies for a couple of hours and come back. How hard can it be?"
I glared at him to remind him just how hard I could be, and he blushed, fortunately behind Beka's back. But his eyes watched me as a line formed between his eyebrows, and I knew his teasing was a ruse.
"Come on, Tyr, let's go if we're going." Dylan was already on his way out. "Beka, you have the con. If we're not back by dinnertime, target their thrusters but not their life support. I'd like to have some chance of getting back alive."
"No problem, Dylan." She faked a sniff and a tear. "I'm miffed they didn't invite me."
I followed him out, mentally rehearsing the lecture he'd get in the Maru on the way over -- not that he'd listen to a word, but at least I'd have had the chance to say what I thought of this foolishness before he could put both feet into his mouth up to the hip.
***
"Summarize, Tyr. What are the three most important things I need to know?" Dylan angled the Maru toward the dock in Bolivar's ship.
"Don't use the formal mode unless you intend not to lie in any way whatsoever. Lying while in the formal mode is a crime -- "
"Got it."
"Bolivar is non-traditional in many ways but we don't know if his matriarch agrees with him. Watch her and follow her lead as well as his."
"Got it."
"If any Nietzschian women offer to take you aside for a personal tour, go with them. Do what they ask of you."
"What?"
"We mate before a battle. If you're asked, and you don't, it's an insult, a killing offense of honor."
His jaw dropped. "You must be kidding."
"Captain, would I joke about my people's longest-standing customs? You were the one who claimed Paris as a kinsman; you may well be required to prove your own prowess." Dylan shook his head. His hair was almost long enough for that to be a useful habit. "Oh, and that gesture you just made will be very attractive; hair like yours is a fetish to some of the women of my people."
"Oh, just shoot me." Dylan cast his eyes up at the ceiling. "Don't."
"I have no intention of robbing our allies of the opportunity
to share their most generous hospitality." I snorted, enjoying his discomfort.