blond hair. “I know, I’m shaggy. I’ll get a haircut on Cuandru.”
“I like it. It makes you look rakish. You were always so spit and polish.”
“I had to be. Everyone was waiting for the ‘lowborn scum’ to disgrace the service.”
She laid a hand across my mouth. “Don’t. Forget about them. Forget the slights.”
“Hard to do.”
“Don’t be a grievance collector,” Mercedes said. She changed the subject. “Lot of silver in there.”
I stroked the gray streaks at her temples. “Neither of us is as young as we used to be.”
“Really? I would never have known that if you hadn’t told me.” She pulled my hair, and we laughed together.
I was on the verge of dozing off when she suddenly rested a hand on my chest and pushed herself up. Her hair hung around her like a mahogany-colored veil. My good mood gave way to alarm, because she looked so serious.
“Tracy, do something for me?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t report that you’ve found me. Not just yet. I want a little more time.”
I did too. So I agreed.
Late in the sleep cycle, I was awakened by her cries. Tears slid from beneath her lashes and wet her cheeks though she was still asleep. She thrashed, fighting the covers. I caught her in my arms, and held her close.
“Mercedes,
Her eyes opened and she blinked up at me in confusion. “They’re dead.” She gave a violent shiver, and covered her face with her hands, then looked in surprise at the tears clinging to her fingers. “I see those houses. The children. I killed them.”
I rocked her. “Shhh, hush, you didn’t.” But it was only a half-truth and she knew it. And she was only mentioning half the dead. There was no word of the battle group. The men she’d commanded, and who had died no less surely than the people of Kusatsu-Shirane.
Eventually, she fell back to sleep. I lay awake, holding her close and wondering when the full trauma would hit.
SINCE THERE WAS AN Imperial shipyard at Cuandru, I came out of Fold at the edge of the solar system. I didn’t want the big point-to-point guns deciding that we were some kind of threat. I ordered Baca to tight beam our information—ship registry, previous ports of call (excluding the Hidden Worlds, of course), and cargo—to the planetary control. My radio man gave me a look.
“We’re not mentioning the Infanta?”
“Not yet. Her orders,” I answered, striving to sound casual. Melin and Baca exchanged glances, and Melin rolled her eyes. I felt the flush rising up my neck, into my face, until it culminated at the top of my ears. Not for the first time, I cursed my fair complexion.
“Then she better be a crew member,” Jahan said. “Otherwise, they’ll think we’re white slavers and we kidnapped her.”
“She’s not young enough,” I said.
“Oh, boy,” Baca muttered.
“Better not let
“What?” I demanded.
Melin said, “Captain, somebody’s got to take you in hand and teach you how to be a boyfriend.”
“I’m not her boyfriend. She’s married. We’re friends.”
“Okay. Then you got a lot to learn about being a lover,” Melin said.
At that moment, I hated my crew. I made an inarticulate sound and clutched at my hair. “Get her on the crew list.” I stomped off the bridge.
I DECIDED TO take us in to dock at the station. I shooed Melin out of her post, and she proceeded to hover behind me like an overanxious mother. Through the horseshoe-shaped port, we could see the big cruisers under construction. Spacesuited figures, most of them Isanjos, clambered and darted around the massive skeletal forms. Against the black of space, the sparks off their welders were like newly born stars.
There was a light touch on my shoulder. I glanced up briefly. It was Mercedes, and sometime in the past few hours, she had cut her hair, dyed it red, and darkened her skin. Dalea loomed behind her.
“What’s this?” I asked, hating the loss of that glorious mane.
“We had to do something to keep her from being recognized,” Dalea said.
“I’m sure the port authorities will be expecting to find the Infanta aboard a tramp cargo ship,” I said sarcastically, as I tweaked the maneuvering jets.
Jahan, seated at my command station, said “Tracy, her face is on the
And so it was. She graced the twenty Reales note. The picture was taken from an official portrait that had her wearing a tiara, long hair elaborately styled, and a diamond necklace at her throat. Now she wore a pair of my stained cargo pants, and one of Melin’s shirts.
Jax came rustling onto the bridge. Now the entire crew and Mercedes were watching, but I wasn’t nervous. I knew I was good. With brief bursts of fire from alternating jets, I took us through the maze of trading ships, station scooters, racing yachts, and military vessels. With a final burst of power from the starboard engines, I spun the ship ninety degrees and brought us to rest, like a butterfly landing on a flower, against a docking gantry at the main space station.
There was a brief outburst of applause. Mercedes leaned down and whispered, “You were the best pilot of our class.” The touch of her lips and the puff of her breath against my ear sent a shiver through me.
She straightened, and addressed the crew. “So what now?”
“We try to find someone to buy the farm equipment, and we pick up another cargo,” Jax fluted.
Melin stretched her arms over her head. “I want a martini and a massage. And maybe not in that order. Or maybe both at the same time.”
Jahan uncoiled from the back of the captain’s chair. “I’m going home to see my mates and kids.”
“If the captain will give me money, I’ll replenish our medical supplies,” Dalea said.
Mercedes smiled at Baca. “And what about you?”
He blushed. “I’m gonna find a concert. Maybe go to the opera, depending on what’s playing.”
Mercedes tugged my hair. “And you need a haircut.”
“I take it we’re going planetside?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” Mercedes assured me.
Dalea’s makeover worked. The guards glanced briefly at my ship papers, and waved us through and onto a shuttle to the planet.
IT WAS FOOLISH, crazy even. I planned to check us into an exclusive hotel, a place frequented by aristocrats and famous actors. It was going to take most of my savings, but I wanted… I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted. To make sure she was comfortable. To show her that I could be her equal. Fortunately, Mercedes was wiser than me. When I outlined my plan, she took my face between her hands and gently shook my head back and forth.
“No. First, you don’t have to prove anything to me, and second, I’m likely to be recognized, red hair or no, and third, I’ve spent my life with these people. Let me have another life. A short time where I don’t have to remember…” But she didn’t finish the thought.
Jahan advised us, and we ended up in an Isanjo tree house hotel that sprawled through an old-growth forest on the outskirts of the capital city. To accommodate the occasional human visitor, there were swaying bridges between the trees, which Mercedes and I used with white-knuckled effort. As we crept across the swaying bridges, the Isanjo traveled branch to branch, and crossed the intervening spaces with great soaring leaps. The Isanjo were good enough to deliver meals to our aerie, so we spent our first day planetside in bed.
Wind whispered and then roared through the leaves as it brought down a storm from the mountains. It set our room to swaying. Lightning flashed through the wooden shutters, and thunder growled with a sound like a giant chewing on boulders. We clung to each other, torn between terror and delight. The rain came, hammering on the
