“You are ridiculous! It’s the same joint, but it’s not the same stresses. I give up. What was it you came about?”
Heris had hoped to soothe Cecelia, but since that hadn’t worked, she tried for a bland, quick summary of her reasons for wanting a quick departure. “Arash Livadhi, who saved our skins as you recall, has asked me a favor; he wants me to transport one of his crew, who needs to be . . . er . . . out of touch for a while.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say, exactly. It has something to do with the mess we were all in, and something the person overheard. He’s a communications tech.”
Cecelia scowled at her. “Is this a way of sneaking in another ex-military crewmember?”
“No.” Heris didn’t explain further; it wouldn’t help.
“I don’t like it,” Cecelia said.
“Arash’s medical teams saved Sirkin’s life,” Heris pointed out. “And yours. We owe him, both of us. He got us back here, past potential enemies, in time for the Grand Council.”
Cecelia’s expression didn’t soften. Inspiration hit. “You don’t have to consider this person a crewmember, if you wish. Since it’s technically my ship, consider him my guest.”
“You—!” Cecelia’s face went white, then red in patches, then she burst into laughter. “You stinker! I almost wish I’d known you when you were all military. You must have been—”
“Difficult,” Heris said demurely. “Difficult is what they called it.”
“Brilliant on occasion, I’ve no doubt. If you were my age, I’d thrash you, but considering—I’ll just put some interesting problems in your next riding lesson.”
It was Heris’s turn to stare. “You can’t mean that—you think I’m going on with riding?”
“It would exercise something besides your ingenuity,” Cecelia said. “And you never know when physical fitness will come in handy. You and Petris, for instance—”
Heris felt the heat in her face. She and Petris indeed. She struggled for something, anything, to say, and blurted it out before her internal editor had a chance at it. “We have other ways of maintaining physical fitness. . . .”
“I’ll bet you have,” Cecelia said, and smirked. Heris glared.
“Other than that.” But she had to chuckle; she had done it to herself. “I don’t know why I thought you’d mellow after rejuvenation.”
“I don’t either,” Cecelia said. “And I didn’t. Mellow was never my virtue. But we’ve had even honors on this one; I won’t say any more about that man’s crewman, whatever he is.”
“Thank you,” Heris said. “May I ask why you were looking at that stallion whose hocks you didn’t like?”
“Rotterdam,” Cecelia said. “Those people did a lot for me; they’re old friends, of course, but . . . I want to do something for them. Of course I can share the bloodstock I have there—but I’ve been doing that for years. What I’m looking for is some outcross lines that will broaden their base, that they couldn’t possibly afford on their own.”
“Is that all the planet does, raise horses?”
“Almost.” Cecelia touched her screen, and brought up a graphic montage. “It’s a combination of climate, terrain, and the accidents of discovery and development. Horses are useful in a variety of ways in colonization: self-replicating farm power, for instance. Pack animals in difficult terrain. Personal transportation. But they’re displaced if industrialization provides alternatives. So usually you have poor planets with horses—workhorses—and room to breed but no recreational bloodstock. Then you have industrial planets with a demand for recreational horses, but those horses squeezed into less and less land. Rotterdam was settled as an agricultural world, complete with draft horses. But its climate is far better suited to permanent pasturage than grain farming. Someone apparently obtained some bloodstock semen and began breeding recreational horses. . . .”
“How did they market them?” Heris asked. Horses, she remembered, shipped badly aboard spacecraft.
“With great difficulty. But somehow they got a colt nominated for a famous stakes race, and got him there alive and capable of running. More than capable. That was Buccinator—it was one of his descendants that I rode at Bunny’s. I bought into his syndicate as a young woman—”
This made no sense to Heris, but the general plan did. “So you’re going to find additional semen or whatever for your friends on Rotterdam. . . .”
“Right. I’ve got a dozen cubes to review—ordered them from bloodstock agents—and then we’ll go take a look. So far most of Rotterdam’s produce is semen and embryos. It’s too far off the main shipways, and very rarely can a group get together to haul mature animals someplace. When I first set up my stud there, I’d planned to work on that . . . but things changed. . . . Anyway, if they have the quality, the money will follow. And provide transport.”
“Have you decided where to go first?”
“Wherrin Horse Trials. I’ve missed two of them—no reason to miss this time. I should pick up more ideas there, breeders not yet with bloodstock agents, that sort of thing.”
“I’d like to leave as soon as Koutsoudas is aboard,” Heris said. “He’s not the only problem—I know you talked to your nephew—and you know that Lord Thornbuckle has asked me to take on Brun.”
“I’m willing,” Cecelia said. “The lawyers can handle my suit just as well without me. Better perhaps. They say I interfere. . . . I didn’t know it would affect Ronnie and Raffaele.”
Heris thought of saying what she thought about the lawsuit, but considering her own family relations she decided against it. She was hardly one to preach reconciliation with relatives.
Brigdis Sirkin hated being back on Rockhouse Major. Over on Minor, she had been able to pretend that they weren’t in the same system where Amalie died. Here, every shop window, every bar, every slideway and bounce tube reminded her of Amalie. Here she had died, and into this station’s recycler her physical cells had gone, to become the elements of something else . . . even this meal. She shoved it away, disgusted suddenly by the rich aroma of stew and bread.
“What’s wrong, hon?” Meharry leaned across the crowded table. “Got a bug or something?”
She didn’t want to answer. Meharry and the others had been so careful of her since the shooting, so sorry they’d believed a former shipmate and condemned her. They had organized that revenge on Amalie’s counselor in hopes of cheering her up; they had enjoyed it a lot more than she did. She was tired of it, tired of having to be kind in return. What she really wanted, she thought, was to be somewhere else, with someone else, someone who wasn’t part of the original mess. A face flickered in her memory a moment, the rich girl who had been Lady Cecelia’s friend and pretended to be hers as well.
She scolded herself into a deeper depression. Probably she wouldn’t see Brun again. Why would a girl like that want to be around her? It was silly to keep looking at the presents Brun had bought, as part of their pretense of courtship.
“Hi, there!” Sirkin looked up, startled. Meharry scowled, and Oblo grunted. Brun in the flesh, clearly excited and happy, in a soft blue silk jumpsuit that must have cost a fortune and brought out the blue of her eyes. Brun squeezed in next to Sirkin, with a chair she snagged from the next table. “We have to talk,” she said.
Sirkin felt her face going hot. There was no need for this; that other game was long over.
“And how did you find our humble eatery?” Meharry asked, with a bite to her voice.
Brun smiled, smugly. “I asked where the Sweet Delight’s crew usually ate. Since I’m now in the crew—”
“You’re not!” Oblo stared at her wide-eyed, then shook his head. “I wonder what the captain’s thinking of.”