"Not bad," Roger admitted. "Not bad at all. I don't think I would have been nearly as attracted if you'd been severely overweight and out of shape. But I love you for you. Whatever package you come in."
"So, you're saying I should keep this package?"
Roger started to say no, wondered if he should say yes, and then stopped, shaking his head.
"Is this a 'does this dress make me look fat' thing?"
"No," Despreaux said. "It's an honest question."
"In that case, I like them both," he confessed. "They're totally different, and I like them both. I've always been partial to brunettes, especially leggy ones, so the hair is a wash. But I like a decent-sized chest as much as any straight guy. Those are, honestly, a bit too large." Okay, so it was a little white lie. "On the other hand, whether you marry me or not, your body is your body, and I'm not going to tell you—or ask you—to do anything with it. Which do you prefer?"
"Which do you think?" she asked sarcastically.
"It was an honest question," Roger replied calmly.
"My real body. Of course. The thing is... I guess the question I'd ask if I were trying to trap you is: Does this body make me look fat?"
"No," Roger said, and it was his turn to chuckle. "But you know the old joke, right?"
"No," Despreaux said dangerously. "I don't know the old joke."
"How do you get guys to find a kilo of fat attractive?" he said, risking her wrath. She glared at him, and he grinned. "Put a nipple on it. Trust me, you don't look fat. You do look damned good. I suppose I do, too, but I'll be glad to get my old body back. This one feels like I'm maneuvering a grav-tank."
"This one feels like I'm maneuvering two blimps in front of me," she said, and smiled at last. "Okay, when this is over, we go back to our own bodies."
"Agreed. And you marry me."
"No," she said. But she smiled when she said it.
"Mr. Chung," Beach said, nodding as Roger came onto the bridge.
"Captain Beach."
Roger looked at the repeater plot. They were in normal-space, building charge and recalibrating for the next jump. That one would be into the edge of Saint territory.
"So, have you found someone to crosscheck me?" Beach asked an offhand manner.
"Yes," Roger replied, just as offhandedly.
"Good." Beach laughed. "If you hadn't, I would've turned this damned ship around and dropped you back on your miserable mudball planet."
"I'm glad we see eye to eye," Roger said, smiling thinly.
"I don't know if we do or not." Beach gazed at him for a moment, then tossed her head at the hatch. "Let's go to my office."
Roger followed her to her office, which was down the passage from the bridge. It had taken some damage in the assault, but most of that had been repaired. He grabbed a station chair and sat, wondering why it had taken this long for the "conversation" to occur.
"We're fourteen light-years from the edge of what the Saints consider their space," Beach said, sitting down and propping her feet in an open drawer. "We're in deep space. There's exactly one astrogator on this ship: me. So let's be clear that I'm holding all the cards."
"You're holding many cards," Roger responded calmly. "But let me be clear, as well. In the last nine months, I've become somewhat less civilized than your standard Imperial nobleman. And I have a very great interest in this mission's success. Becoming totally intransigent at this time would be, at the very least, extraordinarily painful for you. I'd taken you for an ally, not a competitor, although I'm even willing to have a competitor, as long as we can negotiate in good faith. But failure of negotiations will leave you in a position you really don't want to occupy."
Beach had raised an eyebrow. Now she lowered it.
"You're serious," she said.
"As a heart attack." Roger's newly brown eyes gave a remarkable imitation of a basilisk's. "But as I said," he continued after a moment, "we can negotiate in good faith. I hope you're an ally, but that remains to be seen. What do you want, Captain Beach?"
"Most of what I want, you can't give me. And I was raised in a hard school. If it comes down to force, you're not going to like the results, either."
"Agreed. So what do you want that I can give you?"
"What are you going to get from the Alphanes?" Beach countered.
"We don't know," Roger admitted. "It's possible that we'll get a jail cell and a quick trip to Imperial custody. I don't think so, but it's possible. We'll be negotiating, otherwise. Do you want money? We can negotiate you a more than fair fee for your services, assuming all goes well. If we fully succeed, and I believe we will, we'll be freeing my mother, and I'll be Heir Primus to the Throne. The next Emperor of Man. In that case, Captain, the sky is the limit. We owe you—I owe you. Do you want your own planet?" he finished with a smile.
"You do know how to negotiate, don't you?" Beach smiled in turn.
"Well, I really should be letting Poertena handle it, but you wouldn't like that," Roger told her. "But, seriously, Captain, I do owe you. I fully intend to pay that debt, and since it's an open one, you can draw on it enormously. Right now, I have virtually nothing you could want. Even this ship is going to have to go away—you know that?"
"Oh, yeah. You can't get this thing anywhere near Sol. We could only hang around the fringes, where it was easy to bribe the customs officials."
"So we can't give you the ship; we're going to need it to trade to the Alphanes."
"But you're going on to Old Earth?"
"Yes."
"Well..." Beach pursed her lips, then shrugged. "What I want, as I said, you can't give me. Now. Maybe ever." She paused and made a wince. "How... Who are you going to use as a captain on the Old Earth trip?"
"I don't know. The Alphanes will undoubtedly have at least one... discreet captain we can use. But he or she will be one of their people. Are you volunteering to captain the ship to Sol? And if so, why?"
"I will want money," Beach said, temporizing. "If you fully succeed, a lot of money."
"Done." Roger shrugged. "A billion here, a billion there, and sooner or later, you're talking real money."
"Not that much." Beach blanched. "But... say... five million credits."
"Agreed."
"In a UOW numbered account."
"Agreed."
"And..." She made a face and shook her head. "If— What are you going to do about the Caravazans?"
"The Saints?" Roger leaned back in his chair with a tight smile. "Captain, right now we're wondering if we can make it to Alphane territory in one piece! After that, we have the little problem of springing someone from a fortified palace and somehow keeping the Navy from killing us. I'm in no position to discuss anything about the Saints, except how we're going to sneak by them."
"But in the long run," Beach said, half-desperately. "If you become Emperor."
"I'm not going to start a unilateral war against the Caravazan Empire, if that's what you mean," Roger replied after a moment. "I have... many reasons I don't care for them, but they pale beside the damage such a war would cause." Roger frowned. "What do you have against the Saints? You were one."
"That's what I have against them," Beach said bitterly. "And so, I will ask this of you. If you see the opportunity, the one thing that I'll ask—screw the money!—the one thing that I ask is for you to take them down. All the way. Conquer the whole damned thing and kill the leaders."