“I was going to say, none of your business.”
He nodded. “Okay. I deserved that. And do I inherit this legacy? Am I next in line?”
“Now that wasn’t smart,” she said, pulling her hand away. Her cheeks reddened—she still had that marvelous blush, so surprsingly easy to trigger. “You can’t trade hearts around like coupons, Hero Boy. Or didn’t you know? Thanks to you and your friends I’ve lost my parents and my home. Anyway, what makes you think I want to have this conversation here, in front of the world? I suppose my charms have driven you mad, but believe it or not, we are about to be sentenced.”
“Um, right,” he said. Then, mustering a bit of sincerity: “Sorry.”
That seemed to soften her. She touched his cheek again. “Oh, my. Twenty years, Conrad Mursk. Maybe thirty. They say the heart remembers. Maybe someday, when we’re out of prison, a little bird will whisper my name, and you’ll think of me, and maybe even look me up. I believe I’d like that.”
He could feel his own cheeks coloring now, warming. How absurd, this myth of his heroism! He’d been selfish and frightened through every minute of an ordeal he’d personally helped to create. And even now, in the relative safety of the Queendom, the touch of a soft hand was all it took to unravel his courage. “I’m an idiot,” he warned. “I really am.”
“Go. Sit,” she said, waving him away with an expression he couldn’t read. She moved back, taking a seat among the Denverites, and Conrad had the uncomfortable sense that a piece of him went with her. Blindly, eagerly, heedless of consequence. He hoped she would treat it kindly.
The crowd—tended by half a dozen Tusités—was growing thicker and thicker: not only a Denver section almost two hundred children strong, but a Calcutta section as well, and another smaller one for ... Athens? He also recognized the TSA Africans from Refuge. They were clothed for the occasion, but even so their blue skin really stood out. And around them stood many dozens of others, in a variety of colors and manners of dress.
Theoretically, the Queendom was one big society, freed by the Nescog from the tyrannies of time and space and geography. That had certainly been Conrad’s unexamined view. But he could see now that there were other yokels in other provinces, preserving their own little bubbles of regional culture. These kids over here had a vaguely Martian look: hair teased high over loose-fitting blouses and pastel slacks. Those over there had the squinty, buttoned-down look of Antarcticans—a look he’d had no idea he could even recognize.
It occurred to him that before the start of whatever happened next, this stadium was actually going to fill up. Two thousand people? More?
“What is this?” he asked out loud, of no one in particular. “Who are all these people? Revolutionaries, all of them?”
It was Peter Kolb who answered. “Revolutionaries, all. Not all space pirates, obviously, but rioters and saboteurs.”
“But ... wow, this must be a tenth of the children in the Queendom.”
Peter shrugged. “More like a thirtieth. But yeah, it’s a lot, and the ranks of sympathizers are even larger. Our exploits really struck a chord.”
Conrad nodded, thinking about that. It seemed important: could any society really lock up a thirtieth of its own children? Especially if their crimes were more celebrated than reviled? Maybe there would have to be a just solution, a Restoration-style rearchitecting of the social order. And then, in one of those little moments of grown-up awakening, it occurred to him that he didn’t really have any idea what that would mean. What did a perfect world look like? If anyone asked him, he could only stare back at them, slack-jawed and simple.
Great. Just great. He’d fought and struggled and made a mark on the universe, for no clear purpose. For the hell of it. Amazingly enough, he had no list of demands to nail over anyone’s doorway. Did Bascal? Did any of them? Would Their Majesties even ask, or care?
He took his seat, feeling morose. And since he seemed to be the only one in a crowd of thousands who felt that way, he felt it even more keenly. Did these people imagine some culmination of a prince’s clever plan? How disappointing for them.
And the amphitheater really did fill, getting louder and rowdier as it went, until finally the queen’s courtier, Tusité, mounted the stage and glared out at them all.
“You! Quiet! Quiet, everyone.”
Conrad couldn’t tell if the acoustics were natural or wellstone-enhanced, but in any case her voice punched right through the crowd noise like a comet fragment at twenty kips. The conversation splintered, swirling and withering into silence as her gaze swept from one side of the crowd to the other.
“Be silent, everyone. And stand up. Your king and queen will be here shortly.”
There were a couple of boos and catcalls at this remark, but they were met with waves of shushing and pushing and even—it looked like—some good, hard punches to the stomach. Whatever they might be guilty of, whatever grievances they had, these myriad kids were mostly loyal citizens at heart. This, Conrad supposed, was the very thing that separated revolutionaries from ordinary criminals: a desire to make things better not for themselves, but for everyone else. Even if the personal cost was high.
“That’s right,” Tusité said. “If you want respect, you start by giving it. We will now sing ‘Praise upon Her.’ ”
And they did, with Tusité leading them, and the sound of it was beautiful. By the age of ten, everyone in the Queendom had had at least rudimentary voice training, and the tune and lyrics were of course familiar, although a part of Conrad—at once innocent and weirdly alert— felt as though he were really hearing the song for the first time. It didn’t take long to get through the first verse, and Tusité didn’t lead them through the second. Soon the echoes were dying away, leaving behind only the imprint of memory.
Then the fax machine at the back of the amphitheater crackled, and Conrad turned just in time to see Their Majesties, Tamra-Tamatra Lutui and Bruno de Towaji, step through. They were holding hands at first, but let go almost immediately, commencing a stately walk together down one of the stairways, flanked fore and aft by pairs of Palace Guards. He could distinctly hear their footsteps, the clump clump of boot heels on the wellstone marble of the steps.
Her Majesty held the Scepter of Earth in her left hand. His Majesty held a rolled-up document in his right. The two of them looked grim, unhappy, determined. Their eyes did not survey the crowd, did not make contact, and Conrad was struck by the notion that this man and woman weren’t people at all—the parents of his friend, whom he’d spoken with personally—but animate mouthpieces for a civilization of twenty-five billion. And the hairs on his neck stood up, because it was hard enough to explain yourself to two people—to one person. To yourself. Was there any hope of being understood by an entire solar system?
The staircase led all the way down to the base of the stage, whose edge the king and queen followed around until they came to a smaller, narrower staircase leading up onto it. And then, there they were at the focal point, the physical and psychological nexus of the stadium’s attention.
The crowd was utterly silent.
“Good afternoon,” the queen said. She pointed with her scepter, sweeping it in an arc across the crowd. “You children—and the few dozen legal adults among you— have been very naughty. But you know that.”
There was scattered laughter. Ah, Queen Tamra, who always knew what to say.
“Many of your concerns,” she went on gravely, “are entirely understandable. However, as you will realize, our understanding does not and cannot equate to forgiveness. The rule of law cannot protect us from each other, and from ourselves, unless it is applied uniformly in all cases. Selective enforcement is the hallmark of a tyranny.”