After hovering for a bit, the dragon finally cleared enough space to land and then Changed into a redheaded girl in an emerald green dress. With a general wave she disappeared into the gathering crowd.
“Not much of a chance to talk to her, either,” Herzer noted.
“Or to get around Marguerite,” Rachel said. “Speaking of which, where is Marguerite?”
“Not here yet,” Herzer replied. He let go of the float-glass he was holding and adjusted his twentieth-century “tuxedo” then grasped the glass again, taking a sip. “I asked one of the butler-bots. He says she is intending a special surprise for everyone.”
“And it looks like she was waiting for the dragon to arrive,” the girl replied as two projections in twenty-fourth-century dress appeared at the entrance to the maze and waved a space clear.
“GENTLEBEINGS,” a voice boomed through the crowd. “MARGUERITE VALASHON!”
There was polite applause at this over-the-top entrance — by and large the culture preferred a more sedate introduction — but the applause faltered and then picked up as a blue glowing cloud, projecting Marguerite’s smiling face, appeared in the archway and floated out into the crowd.
It took Rachel a moment to adjust. At first she thought it was just a special effect but then the reality caught up with her. “She had herself Transferred!” she gasped.
“Apparently,” Herzer said in a sad voice.
“What’s your problem?” she asked. “I mean it’s my friend that just got turned into a cloud of nannites!”
“I know, but…”
“You were sweet on her?” she asked. “A Transfer can take any form, you know. She’s still a girl… sort of.”
“Like I said, I’d only seen her a couple of times since school,” he snapped. “I wasn’t… sweet on her. I’d hoped to get that way, though.”
“Hopeless, Herzer,” she said, gesturing around at the crowd. She started to walk towards Marguerite’s apparent path, hoping to get at least a greeting in edgewise. “Marguerite’s got more boyfriends than my dad’s got swords.”
“What’s one more,” he said, following behind her. “Speaking of your dad…” he continued as Marguerite turned towards them.
“Rachel!” the Transfer cried. She’d formed into a semblance of herself, wearing a pale blue body-cloak. But there was a blue glow around her that designated a Transfer and her voice, either through deliberate choice or an inability to master sound yet, had a reverberating overtone that was eerie and just a shade unpleasant; it reminded Rachel of ghost vids.
“Marguerite,” she replied as Marguerite shifted through the welcoming crowd. “How… surprising.”
“It was a gift from my dad!” the Transfer said with a smile. She shifted into a delphinoform and hung in the air. “Look! I can mer any time I want!”
Rachel smiled painfully and thought about her mother’s lecture on Transfers. Humans went through natural changes in personality as they aged, their bodies going through a series of programs leaving the person of sixty different from the person of thirty different from the person of fifteen. Because the changes were a combination of experience and experience-influenced physiology, wildly random in their forms, there was no way to simulate them for a Transfer. So a Transfer, except for whatever experiential change might affect them, became “locked” in an age. From her mother’s experienced perspective, the worst possible Transfer, other than a child, was a teenager. People didn’t just get calmer and wiser, by and large, from experience. They got calmer and wiser because their bodies were programmed to.
Marguerite, however, would remain forever sixteen.
It was an odd thought. Instead of growing up in tandem, and presumably remaining friends, she suspected that by the time she was old, say, thirty, that it would be hard to stay friends with a sixteen-year-old Marguerite.
Other than that she thought it was neat.
“I love your dress, is that a reenactor look?” Marguerite continued, hardly noticing her friend’s pause.
“Imperial court dress,” Rachel replied. “From the time of the Chitan Imperial Court.”
“And your mom finally broke down and let you do some sculpting,” Marguerite said. “It looks good on you.”
“Thank you,” Rachel replied, not looking at Herzer. “Have you said hello to Herzer?”
“Charmed, miss,” Herzer said, bowing. “A beautiful transformation of one already a beauty.”
“Speaking of transformations,” Marguerite said as she changed back to human form and ignoring Herzer’s comment. “You’re looking… better. Did Ms. Ghorbani… uhm…”
“Fix me?” Herzer asked, unconsciously flexing. “She did the neural work. I had a friend help me with the sculpting.”
“Oh, okay,” Marguerite said, dismissing him. “Rachel, I’ve got to go say hello to people. But I want to get together later, okay?”
“Okay,” Rachel replied. She’d realized that Marguerite was just about the only person at the party she wanted to talk with, but she felt constrained to hang around. “Talk to you later.”
“Bye.”
She sighed and looked around, wondering how to ditch Herzer.
“About your dad,” Herzer said, continuing where he’d left off. “I was wondering, could you introduce me?”
“To my dad?” she asked. “Whatever for?”
“Uhm, some friends of mine have gotten into the whole reenactment thing,” he said. “You know your dad’s sort of famous, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said, shortly. She wasn’t about to go into how disinterested she was in reenactment. Her father had dragged her to events since she was a kid and every trip seemed to be like a continuation of school. Learning to cook over smoky wood fires was not her idea of fun. And learning to hunt and butcher was just grotesque.
“I’d hoped to meet him; I’d like to see if he’d be an instructor for me.”
“I’ll send you an introduction projection,” she said. “Oh, look, it’s Donna. I think I’ll go talk to her. Take care of yourself, Herzer.”
“Okay,” he replied to her retreating back. “Have fun.”
CHAPTER FIVE
When Edmund came through the front door of his house he was more than a little surprised to see Sheida Ghorbani lounging in his chair, a goblet of wine in her hand while her lizard was perched on the table snacking on a mouse.
“Make yourself right at home, why don’t you?” he asked, shaking off his cape and hanging it up. After stamping a bit he took off his boots. These were right/left fitted with a good sole and oiled leather; he wasn’t so into period that he was willing to wear the rotten footwear available in even the high Middle Ages. Once he had them sort of cleaned he set them outside the door on the portico; they were coated nearly knee-high in mud.
“Anyone else would simply translate from the inn to their door,” Sheida said, taking a sip. “Or all the way into the house. Only our Edmund would stomp through the mud. Nice vintage by the way.”
“I’m not ‘our Edmund,’ ” Edmund replied, walking over to the matching chair and throwing another log on the fire in front of it. Fireplaces were inefficient methods of heating a room as large as the front hall and he’d often considered breaking down and putting in a potbellied stove. But that was too out of period for his tastes. So he put up with having to spend half the winter in front of the fireplace. “Charlie sent it up from down-valley; he’s finally replicated some of the rootstock from the Merovingian period. It’s not nearly as undrinkable as most people thought.” He sat down and stuck his feet up in front of the fire. “So to what do I owe the pleasure and privilege of a visit from a Council member? You realize, of course, that that ‘our Edmund’ sounded uncomfortably like a royal ‘We.’ ”