Page 1 of Ward

Chapter 1

Aldric

The transport began its docking approach to Libra Station, and Aldric pressed his cuff to the last notch before the seal ever broke.

He had learned that much from Falkin’s account, at least. Brace early. The station arrived in the mind before it arrived in the viewport — thousands of beings packed into a turning ring, their wanting pressing outward through the hull like heat through a bulkhead. Falkin had described it as surf.

Falkin described everything generously. It was one of his more exhausting qualities.

To Aldric it was not surf. It was noise, and noise was a security problem, which meant it could be managed. He sat in the transport’s last row with his back to a structural rib, his kit at his feet, and did exactly that. Cuff at the final notch. Breathing even. The walls he had spent years fitting stone by stone, checked and holding.

Out the viewport, Earth turned below the station, blue and white and indifferent.

Thirty days, he thought. Then the paperwork, and then home.

His comm chimed.

He knew who it was before he looked, and not because of any gift. There was only one man in the galaxy who would time a call to the exact moment of Aldric’s arrival, purely to be present as though it was a ceremony.

He accepted the call. Falkin’s face resolved on the small screen, and behind him, unmistakably, a wall of mismatched picture frames.

“You’re smiling,” Aldric said. “Stop it.”

“I’m not smiling.”

“You’re doing the thing where the smile is in the voice. It’s worse.”

“You’ve docked, then.” Falkin leaned back. He had the settled look of a man who had eaten well and slept well and been loved well and intended to go on doing all three indefinitely. It was obscene. “How was the approach? The noise takes some getting used to. I remember my first arrival — it nearly took my knees.”

“I’m aware. You told me. At length.”

“And?”

“It’s a crowd,” Aldric said. “Crowds are all the same. They want things and they’re loud about the wanting.” The transport shuddered — the docking clamps taking hold, a long hydraulic sigh through the deck plating. Even through the last notch he felt the station lean in against his walls. He did not let it reach his face. “I’ve arrived. You’ve witnessed it. Honor is satisfied to the letter. Was there anything else?”

“You could try being pleasant.”

“I could,” Aldric agreed, and let the silence do the rest.

Falkin laughed. That was the thing about Falkin that no amount of distance improved: he could not be insulted by honesty. He’d simply decided, somewhere back in the training yards of their youth, that Aldric’s coldness was weather, and weather was not personal, and a sensible man just dressed for it.

“The delegation knows you’re attached to us for the month,” Falkin said, turning briefly useful. “Officially you’re additional security for the negotiations, which — I’ll be honest — we need. Things have gotten complicated since the injunction fight. There’s a man named Hargrove Earth-side who’s discovered he can build a career out of us, and he’s building it energetically.”

“I read the threat assessments on the transit. All of them.” Aldric had read them twice. It had given his hands something to do that was not thinking about why he was actually here. “Your station security is understaffed, your docking manifests are a sieve, and your negotiation venue has four approaches and coverage on two. I’ll have recommendations by tomorrow.”

“There he is,” Falkin said warmly. “I’ve missed you.”

“You have not.”

“I have. Brooklyn wants to meet you. I’ve told her all about you.”

“And that will change. As it does with all women.” Aldric shouldered his kit as the cabin lights shifted to disembark. Around him the other passengers were rising, and their anticipation rose with them, pushing at the last notch like floodwater finding the seam in a door. He stood very still and let it pass around him. “Falkin. Let us be clear with each other, since you insist on being present for things. I’m here because I said words in a training yard and a man of Vorjan House doesn’t unsay them. I’ll stand in the agency’s lobby. I’ll accept the match announcement. I will be courteous to whatever unfortunate woman their database has selected. At the end of thirty days, I will file the rejection and go home, and you will never speak of this again as long as we both draw breath.”

“As House Vorjan breathes?” Falkin said, gravely, and the smile was in his voice again.

“I’m ending this call.”

“Aldric.” His friend’s face shifted — the warmth going quieter, older. Underneath the insufferable contentment there was, briefly, the man who had testified beside him at a tribunal, who had stood at his shoulder through worse things than weddings. “Thirty days is longer than you think. Try—” Falkin paused, choosing, for once, with care. “Try not to spend all of them behind the wall. That’s all.”