She looked up at Tom Rom, cold and businesslike. “The homestead is mine now. Everything automatically transfers into my name upon my father’s passing.”
Tom Rom nodded. “Yes. I helped him prepare the documents myself.”
“And you are my guardian.”
“I am your guardian in actual fact, regardless of the legalities. You are an adult, but I will stay with you if you wish.”
She looked at him as if he had become a fool. “Of course I wish it.”
He gave another nod. “I don’t need a document to tell me who I am. I am your guardian regardless, and forever.”
Zoe knew she was being impetuous, but she made up her mind. “I don’t want this homestead. I don’t want to stay on Vaconda. I don’t want anything to do with this place. I want to leave.”
Tom Rom said, “I will take you wherever you wish. But what do we do with the homestead?”
Zoe heard the simmering sounds of the lichentree forest, watched a purple beetle making its way too close to the questing probe-tendril of a sluggish mold, which snapped it up and retracted the pseudopod into its own main spongy mass. Seeing all the festering life, the churning biological cauldron all around her, she turned to one side, vomited, and sank to her knees. “I hate this place. I wish we could just burn it.”
“I can burn it,” Tom Rom said, “if that is what you want.”
At first, she was unwilling to consider it a genuine possibility. “But it’s all I have. How will we live?”
“We know how to survive. I’ll make sure you survive.”
Zoe looked at him for a long moment, then told him to do it.
Back at the watchstation above the lichentree forest, they packed their few belongings aboard Tom Rom’s ship and retreated to a safe distance to watch.
He triggered the fire bombs he had scattered throughout the jungle for kilometers around. Explosions erupted in orange feathers of fire that flattened a large swath and ignited the surrounding lichentrees. As the wildfire spread, it cleared a giant section of the dense forest, leaving only a smoking smear of ash.
As Zoe watched the fires, she felt a kind of satisfaction, of freedom. Even though there was nothing left, she still owned it. The fire bombing had erased all the years of her life there, all the marks her parents had made, everything Vaconda had done to them. The jungle would reclaim its own soon enough, she knew, but Zoe planned to be long gone by then.
In an irony even greater than the reward, after the smoke cleared and the ashes settled, they discovered that the wildfire had exposed an extensive vein-inclusion of prisdiamonds long buried under the jungle growth.
And those prisdiamonds were enough to make Zoe Alakis one of the wealthiest women in the Spiral Arm.
FIFTY-EIGHT
KING PETER
The funeral for Father Idriss brought visitors from across the Spiral Arm: important businessmen, representatives from Confederation planets, heads of Roamer clans, even an Ildiran delegation that included the Mage-Imperator’s green priest consort, Nira, who was pleased to be back in the original worldforest after so many years on Ildira.
Normally, Peter conducted the business of the Confederation alongside Queen Estarra, as equal partners, but after her father’s death, Estarra withdrew to mourn silently and sent her apologies to the visitors.
The throne room would have had two empty chairs, one for the Queen and one where Idriss had sat to listen (or snooze), but Peter’s children joined him. Prince Reyn had returned from Earth, accompanied by Deputy Eldred Cain and Rlinda Kett. Using the facilities of her own Theron restaurant, Rlinda would cater the food for the funeral banquet that evening.
Reyn sat with Arita, filling their roles as Prince and Princess, dressed in traditional Theron finery, beside their father. They were as close as a brother and sister could be, but they had little time to talk, caught up in the swirl of responsibilities. Peter was glad he didn’t have to face his duties alone, especially today.
They received the visitors who came to express their sympathy. Green priests gathered around, sending reports and passing messages through telink. The Roamers, through their newly elected Speaker Sam Ricks, sent a beautiful embroidered tapestry.
Deputy Cain entered the chamber wearing a business suit. The soft-spoken, responsible man had been an unexpected ally in the final days of the Hansa. He gave a polite bow. “Father Idriss was an honest and well-respected man. I present formal condolences on behalf of Earth, but on a more personal note, King Peter, I wanted to give you this. It’s from my own collection.” He lifted a rectangular object the size of a thin briefcase and removed a cloth to reveal a small framed painting that depicted a poignant sunset. “It’s one of my particular favorites done by the twenty-first-century master Dolus. The image is both majestic and sad—I felt it evoked the right feelings on this occasion.”
As Cain presented the painting, Peter felt a lump in his throat. He knew the Deputy would have found it difficult to part with one of his prized works of art. Peter, Reyn, and Arita marveled at the colors, the beauty, the majesty. It did remind him of Idriss in that indefinable way that only the best art could achieve. “We will hang it on the throne room wall to remember Father Idriss, and also to be reminded of you, Deputy Cain, and all you’ve done for us.”
The funeral gathering also served as an awkward reunion for members of Estarra’s scattered family. Her sister Celli returned with Solimar from their terrarium dome in Fireheart Station, and—an even greater surprise—their older sister Sarein returned from the Wild, where she had lived in self-imposed exile since the collapse of the Hansa.
Estarra and her older sister had a strained and scarred relationship. In the political turmoil of the Elemental War, Sarein had done many questionable things that hurt Estarra and Peter, but she had also helped them when they needed it most. By going off to the uninhabited continent, Sarein had avoided any accusations. For a social and ambitious woman who had once fought hard for Theroc to become a vibrant part of the Hansa, Sarein must have found it difficult to live as a virtual hermit. It took the death of Father Idriss to bring her back.
Now, the three sisters shared grief over the loss of their father. Their brothers, Reynald and Beneto, had both been killed years ago in the Elemental War, and the sisters clung to what they had left.
After Peter, Reyn, and Arita finished receiving the visitors, a staff member informed them that the green priests had finished preparing Father Idriss for the ceremony. Wearing dark cocoonweave garments adorned with moth wings and segmented beetle shells, Estarra and her sisters came to meet Peter.
The Queen clasped his hand. “I wish we could just do this privately with the family.”
“The rest of the Confederation needs the spectacle,” Sarein said in a cool voice. “Peter was trained properly. He understands.” She had once been beautiful, but now looked weathered and hard.
“I understand it too.” Estarra straightened, looking regal. “I’m just saying what I wish.”
All the dignitaries and visitors had already gathered on the forest floor. Peter held Estarra’s hand, and they wound their way along an open path through the thick worldtrees, a trail that Peter was sure hadn’t been there before. Somehow, the forest had created a wide avenue for the procession.
The mourners entered an open glade spangled with small white flowers and fleshy green vines. Father Idriss’s body lay on the ground in the meadow, draped in a pristine white cocoonweave shroud. When Estarra saw the wrapped body, she paused, suddenly uncertain.