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“Zeta Five Orbital, this is Gravamir Actual. Launch authorization Gravamir upsilon seven. Unscheduled, but you know how things get. Headed to Mooring 78 to take the yacht out.”
As I looked at him, feeling how I overused the freedom he had given me to raise my eyes to his as a dismaying, warm tingle throughout my body, I thought I could see tension in his face despite the casualness that suffused his tone of voice.
“Gravamir Actual, please stand by while we authenticate.”
The voice at the other end of the connection had taken on a tone of respect. Outside, all trace of blue had vanished: I saw onlydeep black, pierced by diamonds—no, not only diamonds: my eyes opened wide as I realized the starlight came in blue and red and purple as well.
Then, suddenly, something bigger came into view, something much closer, whose rapid progress across the window showed, I understood immediately, just how fast the ship was traveling. It could only be the orbital, a great gray wheel rotating around a central hub, illuminated by what seemed like thousands of little windows, as if in an echo to the distant stars—all of it looking just like the orbitals did in the illustrations of the school stories.
“Gravamir Actual, Zeta Five Orbital,” the voice came, the respect diminished but still present. “Stand by and power down for authentication, please.”
My master looked at the control panel intently for a moment, obviously making certain the microphone wouldn’t carry his voice to the flight controller on the orbital. He turned to me and to Mistress Franla.
“I don’t think I can trust the police to be their usual plodding selves—not with our lives, anyway.”
“Gravamir Actual,” said the flight controller, respect gone now and suspicion growing. “Power down immediately or?—”
His lordship touched the controls and cut the voice off.
“No sense listening to that,” he said, his lips curving into a tight little smile. He touched another button. “Gravamir’s Joy,come in.”
I blinked in confusion, trying to keep up with the situation that I belatedly realized might well kill me only a few minutes after seeing the stars for the first time. I might have said, thatmorning when on display naked in a cage, that it wouldn’t make much difference. Everything had changed, though.
Glancing over at his lordship, I tried to tell myself that I wanted to live so that I could find the chance to escape from bondage, out there in the stars where my teacher Mrs. Grelinqua had found a real, independent life. But the intent look on his handsome face seemed to make a mockery of that idea. I bit my lip as I failed to keep back the question that posed itself with most urgency—not,How can I get away?butHow can I survive long enough to serve in my master’s bed?
A pleasant feminine voice replied, over the ship’s speakers. Though the house had spoken to Mistress Franla at a masculine pitch, the timbre and the smoothness of this new voice made me think immediately of the voice of his lordship’s palace. I realized it must come not from a human captain of my master’s yacht, but from the yacht itself.Gravamir’s Joy.
“Gravamir Actual,Gravamir’s Joy,” the yacht said. “Standing by.”
The ship had started to turn, so that I could only see a bit of the orbital station. I noticed that it seemed to have emitted, from the top of its hub, what looked at first like two small specks of dust. It only took a second for those specks to grow to four or five times their original size, and to assume distinct shapes. My lips parted as I understood: the station had launched two ships, and the ships were headed towards us.
“Master?” I asked, my voice sounding very faint to my ears.
His lordship touched one of the communication buttons on the controls and turned to me. Then his eyes widened a little, and I knew he had seen, past me, the ships coming from the orbital.He refocused his gaze on me, and to my surprise, his smile had grown more easy, not as if he regarded the circumstances as actually enjoyable—but as if he felt certain that the best way to treat them lay in acting as if we were playing a game, and nothing more.
“Thank you, Chalondra,” he said. Then he touched the control panel again.
“Joy, I’m headed to you. Spin up the grav drive. As soon as we’re within your mass field, execute jump pattern rho seven, if you please.”
“Acknowledged,” the yacht replied. “Jump pattern rho seven, when the launch is in field.”
The ship had continued to turn as his lordship had conversed with his yacht. I lost sight of the orbital and the ships pursuing us.
“They can’t catch us,” my master said, “and that’s something.” He had lowered his voice to a murmur, and I could tell that he meant to do his best to distract me and Mistress Franla from the peril of the situation. “Our engine and theirs come from the same place, and that place happens to be a factory that belongs to me. And I happen to have made certain that our engine goes about five percent faster.”
My mistress spoke for the first time in what felt like several minutes. “And their weapons?” she asked, dryly.
“Weapons?” I asked. The stories, of course, had lots of fighting in them, but it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that one part of the Vionian Empire would ever turn their guns or lasers or missiles on another part. Would they really try to shoot down a nobleman’s starship?
By this point, the view in the front window had at its center an array of objects, growing larger by the moment, that I thought must be ships—muchbigger ships—parked in orbit. As if in response to the question, that view suddenly shifted to the left. I felt the tiniest lurch in my stomach, and I realized the gravitational dampeners had kicked in to cushion us against the effect of a drastic change in position and momentum.
“Well,” my master said, “yes. They do have those. The ride is likely to get a little bumpy from this point on, but…”
The ship shifted again, much more violently: up and to the right, as far as the view of the ships in front of us was concerned. One ship now occupied the very center of the window, and it began to get bigger very quickly. I thought I could see something streak by us, and then I saw a flash that blotted out the vessel. I couldn’t suppress the little cry of alarm that rose to my lips, for I felt certain that my master’s yacht had just been destroyed.
When the flash disappeared, though, the ship still hovered there against the stars.
“Nope,” his lordship said, his voice almost boyish in triumph. “Not theJoy. Not that way. Fire your mass bombs at someone who cares.”
