Cachat wasn't there. Rozsak hadn't expected him to be, since the Havenite agent was doing his best to keep his own involvement in the affair as much of a secret as possible.
He was startled to hear Berry speak calmly. He'd expected the girl to be in something of a state of shock. He was even more startled by the half-whispered words themselves. They carried to his ear quite clearly, even under the shouts of the crowd and the cries of alarm rising from the media crews.
"Victor's keeping guard over the former Mesans who decided to stay. Not the settlement-they're safe enough-but the ones who came in to surrender individually. For the moment, they're all being kept in the old barracks."
Half-propped on an elbow, Rozsak looked down at her. The back of Berry's head was resting on the terrace floor, her eyes fixed on him. It was a gaze far more hostile than he'd ever have expected to encounter from the girl.
"Didn't think of that, did you?" she whispered, icily. "The retaliation that angry ex-slaves might visit, after the killing of someone they think is a liberator of sorts."
He hadn't thought of it. Startled, he glanced at Palane, still on the floor barking commands into her com. It was an act, he knew-by now, the Scrags would be dead and the cover-up well under way-but it was a very good one. He had no doubt at all that the media would be fooled. To all appearances, Palane was organizing a manhunt.
"Thandi thought of it, though," Berry whispered. The underlying contempt in her tone was not disguised at all.
And even the girl knows. Rozsak realized in that moment that a teenaged queen-to-be already had what amounted to a staff as good as his own-and probably even more trusting. Odd, really, given the disparate elements it was made of.
He sighed softly. "I'm glad to be done with it," he whispered, trusting in his scrambling equipment to keep the words from being recorded by anyone. Half-protesting: "Damnation, Your Highness, somebody had to pay for Stein."
She said nothing. He forced himself to meet her eyes again. Berry's gaze was no longer hostile so much as…
Royal. Imperious, even.
"You and Thandi Palane are quits, Captain Rozsak," she commanded.
"-got them, kaja. They put up a fight, so there's not much left. Scrags, by the look of the remains. Two of them."
"Don't touch anything," Palane snapped into the com. "We don't have much of a forensic capability, but I want the media to get recordings while the scene of the crime is still undisturbed by investigators."
She rose to her feet, glanced down at Cassetti's corpse, and stalked toward the crowd of reporters.
"It's over," she announced.
"Who was it?" cried out one of them. "Mesan agents?"
"Don't know. I doubt if we ever will. There were two assassins and they put up a fight. The unit who took them out are special commandos, not cops. They didn't leave much, it seems." Thandi shook her head. "You'll be allowed to record whatever there is. The unit commander tells me she thinks they were holdovers from Templeton's gang. Whether they were operating on orders or just trying to get revenge… who knows?"
And nobody ever will, Rozsak thought with satisfaction. The Erewhonese, he was quite sure, had already erased any evidence that two Scrags had been captured on the space station. The same two Scrags that Thandi's Amazons had just blown away, after one of the Amazons shot Cassetti. It was a nicely planned, well-executed operation.
Nobody? Well… except for the ones who mattered.
"Quits, Captain," Berry repeated.
"Yes. My word on it."
He meant it too. Very, very sincerely. Everybody on the terrace was rising to their feet, holstering whatever weapons they might have drawn. Everybody except Jeremy X, who was still prone on the floor and still had his hand pulser in his grip.
True, it was not pointed at Rozsak. Not exactly. But the Ballroom leader's gaze was pinpointed on the captain. That flat-eyed, empty, killer's stare.
"My word on it," he said again.
Epilogue
Michael Winton-Serisburg smiled. "So she lost, huh?"
His daughter Ruth nodded. " 'Lost' is hardly the word. She got smeared. Flattened. Nobody agreed with her-not even me. But I will say she put up one hell of a fight. And-Berry's a lot slyer than most people think-she got what she wanted out of it in the end, I'm pretty sure."
Judith, Ruth's mother, had a smile on her face also. But it was a distracted sort of smile, since she was preoccupied examining the thousands of ex-slaves spilling through all the streets in Torch's main city to watch the coronation. "I assume she made sure the whole populace knew about the brawl."
Her daughter gave her a hey, no kidding sort of a look. "That was my job," she said, a bit smugly. "Well. Captain Zilwicki helped."
Her father's smile widened. "Indeed. That was before the vote, yes? So by the time the entire populace was able to express their opinion on whether they wanted a constitutional monarchy, they all knew that their prospective Queen had been waging a battle royal to have herself referred to as 'Your Mousety.' With 'Your Incisorship" as"-he choked down a laugh-"the 'compromise' she was willing to settle for."
"Yup," said Ruth. "Like I said, she got smeared. But the vote in favor of the constitutional monarchy was ninety-three percent-and she did manage to hold the line on the royal 'We.' She just flat refused, pointing out that nobody could make her use the expression. And since she's the only one who can, that made it a moot point. She said it made her feel fat already, with her eighteenth birthday just behind her."
Ruth's mother didn't try to choke down her own laugh. "Probably just as well she lost. The Andermani Emperor would have had a fit. He's got precious little use for 'constitutional' monarchism in the first place, much less kings and queens being likened to mice."
"Your aunt would have been none too pleased either, for that matter," commented Michael idly. He was now examining the crowd closely himself; but, in his case, concentrating on the notables gathered on the terrace where the coronation was finally getting underway. The same terrace that he and his wife and daughter were standing on, as the official representatives of the Star Kingdom.
"No reason to irk your neighbors unnecessarily-especially when, for the moment at least, you're awash in official goodwill." He made a discreet little swivel of his head, indicating by the gesture everyone gathered on the terrace. "This is quite an assemblage, when you get down to it. Official representatives from every star nation on this side of the Solarian League. And even if the League itself didn't send anybody…"
His eyes settled on the figure of Oravil Barregos. The governor of Maya Sector was standing almost right next to the rabbi who would be officiating over the ceremony. Close enough that he was almost crowding him, in fact. The governor was smiling widely and waving at the crowd gathered below; the rabbi was clearly trying not to scowl.
Michael's gaze shifted to the man next to Barregos. The new top military officer of the SLN in Maya Sector-formerly Captain, now Rear Admiral Luiz Rozsak-was standing just a little to one side, and just a little farther back. Not much. Clearly enough, Maya Sector felt it had a certain "special relationship" with the new star nation of Torch.
Which, in truth, they did. But Michael didn't miss the importance of the position which had been given to the Erewhonese representatives. Jack Fuentes, the President of Erewhon and in fact its central leader-never automatically the same thing with Erewhonese-was standing on the other side of the rabbi. Just as close as Barregos, had he chosen to crowd his way forward the way the governor of Maya was doing.