Conrad had seen reactions like this often enough in the women he loved, and through long practice he knew the correct response: he spread his arms wide. And then, when she didn't step into them, he moved forward and pulled her into a hug.
“Shush. Shush. It's all right, Wendy. Nobody knows what they're doing—not really. There isn't a script for us to read from. There has never been a person exactly like you, or a situation exactly like this, so how could you know what to do? We just make it up, every time, every day of our lives.”
She made a token struggle but did not pull away. She badly needed a hug, whether she could admit it or not. They stood like that for several minutes, and yes, she did manage to calm down, so he pulled some chairs out and they sat. He offered her a mug of red tea then, and she accepted, and they sat there at the table, staring out the window, across the city and down toward the sunlit waters.
The distant world of Van de Kamp hovered near the horizon, visible even now in broad daylight, its pinpoint glare twinned by a reflection in the calm waters of the bay. Gatewood was sometimes visible in the daytime, too, but you had to know where to look.
“Nice view,” she told him, with apparent sincerity.
“Some people say I stole the best spot in town, before the streets were even laid out. I suppose it's true. You should see the lights at night. Or the stars, or the sunrise. Or a thunderstorm, with mist devils twirling out on the water. It's always beautiful here.”
He watched her drink that in, her eyes lighting up with imagination. “Did you design the house yourself? Especially for this site?”
“Yeah. A long time ago. Really long.”
“It's nice.”
“Thank you very much. Coming from someone with so little basis for comparison, a compliment like that can come only from the heart. You have a good heart, don't you, Wendy?”
She shrugged, looking uncomfortable again. “I guess so. I mean, how would I know?”
Conrad laughed. It was a good question—exactly the sort that was supposed to pop out of the mouths of young children. “Put it this way,” he told her. “I think you would know if you didn't. For all your tough talk, you do seem to have a sense of social duty. That's a good sign, especially for a princess.”
A bit of anger stole back into her features. “A permanent princess. I'll never be the ruler of anything.”
He shrugged. “I don't know. Your father used to say the same thing, but life is long and full of surprises. Anyway, is being a queen such a great job, really? Your, uh, your grandmother claims otherwise. Maybe you'll meet her someday, and she can tell you all about it.”
“Great. That's a great comfort to me, Mr. Mursk. You really know how to cheer a girl up.”
“Okay,” he said, sighing. He'd just met this newly minted person, and should not presume to solve her problems for her. Like his own long-ago teenage angst, it had a solid basis in reality. And unlike the brash young Conrad, Wendy had no real context for judging her circumstances. It was all new to her; she was waking up and looking around, finding the world not entirely to her liking but having no idea what to do about it. Welcome to life, baby girl.
Like a solar sailor in a difficult turn, he shifted his mirrors and tried a different approach. “Listen, Wendy, you should come by my office sometime. Just ask directions from any block of wellstone; the place is no harder to find than this house. I'll introduce you to a nice young man, and maybe he'll show you around. He's not too nice, you understand—he has his own way of doing things. But I gather that won't be a problem for you. It must be . . . very exciting, seeing everything for the first time like this.”
She shrugged again. “I guess. It all seems kind of normal.”
Ah, youth. A child could grow up in the fires of hell itself and still consider it normal.
“Take my word for it, then. This is a magic time which will never be repeated no matter how long you live. In later years you'll look back and wish you had treasured it more.”
She looked at him for several seconds, then asked, “Why do old people always say stuff like that?”
Conrad thought for a while before answering. “Because it's true, I suppose. Because we hope to be listened to, though we know we will not.”
Was he really as old as all that? Did it show? Had he dug himself into so deep a rut that any break in the routine was this unsettling? He was philosophizing, for crying out loud. Conrad Mursk, the ne'er-do-well space pirate and summer camp hooligan! But no, that was hardly fair to the original Conrad Mursk, who had never asked to grow up into . . . what? A man who worked hard all the time, never playing, decade in and decade out?
It was a troubling thought, and it panicked him so greatly that when Bascal finally arrived, the first thing Conrad said to him as he stood in the doorway—flanked by a pair of looming Guards—was, “I need a new job, Bas. Your Majesty, Sire, I need to be someplace far away. Your daughter here—who by the way you should've told me about!—has persuaded me that my life needs shaking up. And she's correct. How did I not see this? Why didn't you tell me?”
“Um, I did,” the king said, blinking. “Didn't I?”
“Can you get me out of here? Bas, I need adventure, or anyway I need change. Sudden, dramatic change—the kind that keeps a person young.”
“But you're the greatest architect in the world,” the king protested. “You're building a world for the rest of us to inhabit. It's what you always wanted, right? You had to come six light-years to achieve it!”
“I wanted it, yes, but not forever. Not some unchanging rut to last me all through eternity. Have I never thought this through before? There has to be something next, doesn't there? Or my life is over, and the fact that I'll never die becomes an actual liability.”
“May I come in?” Bascal asked with mock impatience.
“Oh. Sorry, yes.” But Conrad, lost in his thoughts, continued to block the doorway. “You've said it yourself: there are other architects. I don't have to build the whole world. If I'm going to live forever then I should be out there, experiencing things. Right? Maybe my childish ambitions are something I'm supposed to outgrow. We used to be pirates, for crying out loud. Every day a new adventure.”
Laughing, Bascal nudged Conrad out of the way and stepped inside. One hulking Palace Guard trailed in behind him. “That wasn't what you said at the time, boyo. You were a miserable mutineer who never stopped trying to get us out of that business. And you were successful in the end, if I recall correctly. We were caught and punished. Did you forget that part? Or sleep through it?”
“I was a fool, then. Just get me away from here, away from myself, so I can't fall back into this habit. Send me somewhere. Make it an order, a proclamation.”
“Okay, okay. Calm down.” The king pulled out a chair and sat down next to Wendy. “As it happens, I know of a job which just opened up, for which you're uniquely qualified. Yesterday I wouldn't have dreamed of asking, but it seems the situation has changed. How would you like to work in space again?”
“Perfect,” Conrad said, seizing on it and nodding vigorously. “The stars, the vacuum . . . When do I start?”
“Four days. Actually, ninety-seven pids. Fuck I hate this planet's clock. It's three months from now, all right? On December first.”
“You designed the clock, Bas.”