“Sikander, then.” The Gadiran princess turned along one of the shaded paths leading toward the garden fountains. Sikander fell in easily beside her. “I have met many offworlders, as you might imagine. Most are Montréalais, of course, although I have met Aquilans, Cygnans, and a few distant relatives from the Terran Caliphate. But I have rarely had the chance to speak with someone who comes from another colonial system. How do the people of Kashmir perceive their relationship with Aquila?”
“Well, the phrase ‘colonial system’ is not generally favored,” Sikander admitted. “Most Aquilans are too polite to describe the arrangement in those terms, and most Kashmiris are too proud to allow themselves to look at things like that. Our bureaucrats and officials choose to speak of ‘the Aquilan alliance,’ or ‘our development agreement,’ or ‘our chief trading partner,’ not our colonial patron. The people who describe the relationship as colonialism tend to be the nationalists and the radicals.”
“Things are not very different on Gadira. Of course, our radicals aren’t concerned with words like ‘colonialism.’ The terminology is not terribly important; the dynamics of the relationship are the same.” Ranya paused to gaze at a bed of blooming flowers that Sikander did not recognize. “Kashmir and Gadira share a situation that many less-developed peoples have been caught in down through the centuries. They rarely end well.”
“I suppose I am a little more optimistic,” Sikander said. “Economically and technologically, Kashmir had fallen a hundred years behind the Coalition powers when Aquila brought us into their sphere of influence. Now Kashmir is only twenty or thirty years behind the times. Within my lifetime I think I’ll see my homeworld catch up to the worlds of my Aquilan peers. The same forces that are shaking Gadira today shook Kashmir a generation or two ago, and we survived them. I see no reason why your world should be any different.”
She glanced up at him. “You truly believe that?”
“I think you’ll find that I rarely manage to stop myself from saying what I think about things, Ranya.”
“That is something of a handicap for a diplomat.”
“Which is why my father thought military service better for me,” Sikander replied.
Ranya laughed. “That was probably for the best, then.”
The guard following ten feet behind them quietly cleared his throat. He stood almost two full meters in height, and wore an impressive turban that made him seem even taller; Sikander would not have cared to give the fellow a reason to remove him from Ranya’s presence. “Amira, Bey Hurat and his party are arriving,” he said to Ranya. “The sultan is about to greet them.”
“I will be right there, Captain Zakur.” The amira gave Sikander a small shrug. “Duty calls, I fear. It was a pleasure to meet you, Sikander.”
He took her hand. “Likewise, Ranya. I look forward to our next meeting.”
“I do, too, although I am afraid that must wait.” She held his hand for a long moment, measuring him with her dark eyes. “My uncle is flying to Nador tomorrow to preside over the opening of a new power plant, and I will be accompanying him. We won’t return until early next week … but I hope you’ll visit again when we get back.”
“I will,” Sikander promised. “Have a safe journey.”
Ranya smiled warmly, then turned and glided back toward the sultan’s pavilion. Sikander stood watching her for a moment, then took a deep breath, glanced around the palace garden, and headed off to find his shipmates again.
9
Tanjeer, Gadira II
Five days after the garden party, Ranya el-Nasir gazed out the window of the luxury flyer, daydreaming as the golden cliffs and dazzling waters of the coastline east of Tanjeer passed by below. Nador was eight hundred kilometers behind her, a little less than an hour of flying time; she leaned back in her seat half-asleep, her mind drowsily sorting through the discussions and events of the whirlwind state visit to Gadira’s second-largest city. But just as she began to actually doze off, Sultan Rashid brought her pleasant languor to a very sudden end. “I think it is high time that we found you a husband, my niece,” he said.
Ranya couldn’t have awakened any faster if her uncle had pushed her into a pool of icy water. “Uncle, I am not sure—” she began.
“Allow me to finish, Ranya.” Sultan Rashid smiled benignly and cut her off with a broad gesture of his hand. He reclined in the comfortable seat across the narrow aisle from her. “I have been giving this a good deal of thought lately. You are twenty-four years old now, and Gadira expects princesses of the royal house to do their duty to the dynasty. And more to the point, my brother would have wanted a grandchild.”
The route of the sultan’s luxurious transport happened to pass just a kilometer or two above some of the most magnificent desert landscape on Gadira, but it seemed that Sultan Rashid had more on his mind than the view. Ranya paused to gather her argument. She had no time or interest for husband hunting at the moment, but she didn’t want to hurt her uncle’s feelings—or, worse yet, spur him into some grandiose plan to helpfully interfere in her romantic life. She settled on the most honest answer she could give him. “I simply don’t feel that I am ready for marriage yet,” she finally said. “I’ve been so caught up in my duties that I haven’t even met anyone that might be a suitable match.”
“And that is in part my fault, my dear.” Sultan Rashid shook his head. He was less than twenty years older than Ranya, but he’d developed the manners and studied indolence of a much older man. He was already fat enough that his doctors constantly urged him to moderate his diet, but Rashid had a sweet tooth that could have shamed a ten-year-old. “You are a beautiful young woman, but you have the mind and temperament of your father. I have relied on you as I might have relied on a son, instead of allowing you to blossom as a daughter. It is not fair to you.”
“It’s what I wanted, Uncle.” This topic came up every few months, and it seemed that every time it did, her uncle sounded as if just a little more of Gadira’s chauvinistic ideas had seeped into his way of looking at the world. Years ago she had found it endearing; now it was becoming tiresome, although Ranya did her best not to show her annoyance. If nothing else, she was fond of her uncle. “As you say, I have my father’s temperament. I wasn’t meant to spend my days as a palace ornament.”
“That you have made clear to me more than once. Nevertheless, Yasmin and I have been talking, and we have come up with a plan of sorts.”
Ranya frowned. This was something new. Her uncle had never gone beyond making simple observations about her eligibility for marriage, and he rarely consulted with his wife on anything. Extremely shy, Sultana Yasmin disliked the capital and the public routine of the palace. She and her two daughters spent most of their time in the Khalifa Palace, a highly secluded fortresslike retreat high in the mountains above the picturesque town of Toutay, a couple of hundred kilometers from Tanjeer. It wouldn’t be quite accurate to say that Rashid and Yasmin were estranged from each other, since as far as Ranya knew there was no real disagreement between them. But Rashid seemed content to allow his wife to enjoy her seclusion, and it didn’t seem likely that the sultan and sultana would ever produce a male heir for House Nasir. For now, Gadira’s elites maintained the polite fiction that a crown prince would be born in due course, but in all likelihood the throne of Ranya’s father would eventually pass to any of a half-dozen distant cousins who had had the foresight to be born with a penis … unless Ranya happened to find the right marriage.
So that is what this is about, she decided. Her uncle was worried about establishing a clear line of succession. “A plan?” she asked cautiously.
“It seems to your aunt Yasmin and me that there are not many suitors of your station on Gadira,” Sultan Rashid said. “As the daughter of a planetary sovereign, you should most properly be married to the son of a royal house of similar rank. So we have settled upon the idea of sending you on an extended visit to the core systems of the Caliphate. You can begin by making your hadj to Terra. Then you can undertake studies at any of the proper schools, and attend various royal courts. We have relatives in the Caliphate worlds willing to sponsor you, and introduce you to men of suitable rank. I think three years should be sufficient.”