Kerensky residence
The Four Cities, Tigress
May, 3133; local summer
Anastasia Kerensky woke up in a much better mood than the one that had sent her out looking for trouble on the DropPort Strip. Daylight filtering in through the drawn curtains of her bedroom brought her to full awareness slowly and comfortably. Her muscles felt relaxed and pleasantly fatigued, and she was conscious of the warm weight of another person lying next to her. Full memory of the night before returned, and she smiled as she treated herself to a langourous, full-body stretch.
It was a damned good thing, she thought, that the bed had turned out to be a solid piece of furniture, and not a shoddy piece of work some local landlord had purchased on the cheap for a furnished rental unit. Otherwise, the two of them could have broken it, after the point where she had discovered that her partner for the evening—freeborn local or no—was strong enough that she had no need to worry about breaking him.
She rolled over to look at him, and saw that he was already awake and looking at her. In the daylight that made its way past the curtains, he was not quite as young as she had guessed in the streetlamp’s glow, but still perhaps a year or so her junior. He was dark-skinned and muscular, in a pleasantly compact kind of way, with black hair cropped short and a nicely shaped skull underneath. He had surprisingly full lips, and his eyes were a dark brown, almost black, very lively and curious.
“Good morning,” she said, and smiled at him. “After a very good night. Do you happen to have a name?”
He smiled back at her with a flash of strong white teeth, like a carnivore’s. “Nicholas Darwin.”
That was a local name, she thought, not Clan. She felt a slight disappointment. Locals could be fun, in their way, but they always had people they wanted to go back to, and work that they did not want to abandon. “Are you off one of the DropShips?”
He laughed. “No. I’m a tanker. Star Captain.”
That was not so bad after all. She propped herself up on one elbow and drew a fingernail along the line of crisply curling hair that ran down the center of his chest. “Darwin is not a Clan Wolf name.”
“It was—” his breath caught as her fingernail slid downward “—my mother’s family name. My father was a Wolf Clansman, or so she said, and the genetic tests agreed.”
“Ah.”
Her hand stilled, and she considered him for a long moment in the morning light. Not really a local, then. True, he was freeborn and only half Clan—not quite good enough, it seemed, to go all the way to win a Bloodname and earn the right to ride a ’Mech into battle. But nevertheless he was both pleasant to look at and pleasant to take to bed, and Star Captain was a good enough rank that she need not be ashamed.
She made her decision.
“My name is Anastasia Kerensky.”
“I know,” he said.
“What!” she exclaimed indignantly. She sat bolt upright, so that the sheet slid down off her body and crumpled around her hips. “You knew?”
He was laughing, damn him, and giving her an unrepentant grin. “I recognized you buying drinks for the Purple Light Bar and followed you out.”
“You followed me out.” She was still seething, although inwardly she had to admit that she had not exactly been keeping a low profile at the time. “Why?”
“Curiosity,” he said. “You acted like you were looking for something, and I wanted to see if you found it.” His expression turned reminiscent. “And you certainly did. The way you handled that guy in the street… remind me never to make you mad.”
“You’re coming real close right now,” she said, but she let her accent slide downward into Tassa Kay’s casual imprecision, to take the sting out of the threat. “But you’re right, Nicholas Darwin. I did indeed find something that I was looking for.”
She rolled out of bed, heedless of Nicholas Darwin’s gaze, and went over to the closet and began pulling out clothes for the day. Uniform, this time, and working, not dress. “I had a question. I was looking for the answer. And I found it.”
“Fortune-telling through personal violence? That is a new one.”
“There are a great many liars in the universe,” she told him. “But death and violence, in my experience, tend to tell the truth.”
At some point the night before—she was not sure if it had happened during the fight in the alley or during the sex afterward—Anastasia Kerensky had achieved an enlightenment of sorts. She knew what she wanted—she had always known what she wanted—but she understood now that the subtle approach was not going to work. On the likes of Duke Aaron Sandoval, perhaps, or on the offspring of House Kurita—clever, subtle adversaries who could appreciate a well-turned ploy. But Kal Radick was not a subtle man.
She shut the closet door and headed out of the bedroom, carrying the clean uniform with her.
“Where are you going?” Nicholas Darwin said.
“Right now? To get washed and dressed. And after that, Headquarters. I have words to exchange with the Galaxy Commander.”
17
Steel Wolf Headquarters
The Four Cities, Tigress
May, 3133; local summer
Anastasia Kerensky entered the Steel Wolves’ strategic planning room unannounced and let the door shut behind her. She noted with satisfaction that Kal Radick was indeed where his aide had told her he would be; even better, the big, high-ceilinged room was packed with Kal Radick’s trusted subordinates, Star Colonels Ulan and Marks, as usual, as well as other high-ranking Warriors of the Steel Wolves. The tri-vid map display filling the surface of the table in the center of the room confirmed her suspicion that she had walked in on yet another batchall. Based on the map, Small World was the latest planet chosen to be the target of the Wolves’ concentration.
As soon as she had everyone’s attention, she strode up to the table, to a spot opposite Kal Radick. She gave herself a slow count of five to look at the map of Small World, then deliberately raised one eyebrow and nodded as if to herself. Only then did she look across the table and say to Radick, “I am glad to see that our reverses on Quentin have not daunted you.”
To either side of her, in her peripheral vision, she could see Marks and Ulan shifting position slightly and looking at each other. Their uneasy reaction confirmed her guess that she had not even been supposed to be here for this bidding.
He ignores me, he cuts me out. Me, Anastasia Kerensky.
The realization added fire to her resolve; she felt anger now, as well as justification. She channeled that anger into a wealth of dubious scorn as she spoke to Radick again, “But …Small World?”
Galaxy Commander Radick regarded her with a look of dawning unease. He replied carefully, as befitted the circumstances, when he must know that she had some agenda of her own, but not yet what that agenda might be. “Star Colonel Kerensky, would you care to participate in the batchall?”
“No.”
She saw him relax a little at her answer, and under the relaxation noted a flicker of what had to be carefully suppressed contempt. He said, “The Star Colonel may remain and observe the bidding if she chooses.”
Anastasia smiled a little at Radick, just to unnerve him further. “I am not interested in observing the bidding.”
That caused a whispered buzz of comment among the assembled officers. They looked from her to Radick and back again, aware like their commander that something was up, but not knowing what.
“Then what is your purpose in coming here?” Radick asked.