between the age of forty and ninety now wore: ageless, smooth, and healthy. That David himself wore, although it was by now an ancient joke that folks with the darkest skin stayed the youngest looking for the longest time; there was not four months in chronological age between Charles and David and Marco, but people often mistook David for younger.
'But,' echoed Cara, smiling at Diana. 'You'll ask anyway. I must say you're looking pert, David, after that impossibly boring audience and ceremony.''
'I left.'
'Of course. You could. Tess is doing linguistics research, Diana.'
'Linguistics research? That seems so mundane, somehow. I thought maybe she was kidnapped by a dark warrior and swept off into a life filled with hardship and passionate lovemaking. Oh, well.'
There was a pause. David chuckled.
Cara regarded Diana with an expression of amused indulgence. 'And a bastard every year? Or do you suppose she was married in some primitive ceremony?'
'Oh, certainly,' said Diana with conviction, pushing herself away from the wall. 'Barbarians are prudes, aren't they? Of course there was a ceremony. She's probably scarred for life.'
David laughed.
'How long have you been an actor?' Cara asked.
Diana smiled in a way that showed her dimples to perfection. David sighed and shook his head, feeling very old. 'My first performance was at age four as the changeling in A Midsummer Night's Dream.'
'That must explain it,' said Cara, but David knew her well enough to see that she liked Diana. 'In any case, Tess is gifted with languages, and I suspect she saw Rhui as an excellent laboratory to study human evolution in parallel to our own.'
'Like Owen?'
'Perhaps. It's not a bad analogy.'
'You have a laboratory here, too, don't you? A medical one.'
'Yes.' Cara cast a glance at David.
'She's studying aging,' he said.
But Cara was only angling for an opening, since it was her favorite subject. 'As grateful as we may be for the longevity treatments the Chapalii gave us, allowing us to live out our full one hundred and twenty year life spans with good health and a long period of relative youth, I suspect there's something we're missing. Something they didn't tell us, or something, perhaps, that they don't know.'
'What do you mean?'
David had seen Cara's lecture mask before. It slipped firmly into place now. 'Aging is a two part process. One is a breakdown of the vitality and regenerative abilities of the tissues and the metabolic system, that's what the Chapalii treatments deal with. But the other is a genetic clock that switches off the organism at a set time. We're still stuck at one hundred and twenty years. I think we can do better.'' The mask slipped off, and she suddenly looked cautious. 'Perhaps. We'll see.'
'It's a delicate and peculiar issue,' put in David, since Cara had left him his opening. 'We don't talk about it much.'
'Oh,' said Diana. The sea faded into darkness behind them, and the massive bulk of the palace rose against the stars. 'Is that why you have your laboratory down here, on an interdicted planet? Where the Chapalii aren't allowed?'
What need to reply? The wind coursed along the parapet and the sea dashed itself into foam on the rocks below. The fecund moon lay low, bordering the hills. A shoe scraped on stone, and Marco emerged from around a curve of wall. He smiled at Diana and leaned casually against the wall beside her.
To David's surprise, it was Diana who broke the silence. 'But, Dr. Hierakis, are the Rhuian humans really the same species as we are?'
David almost laughed, seeing how disconcerted Marco looked, as if he thought that once he arrived, Diana would not be able to think of anything but him.
'Oh, yes,' said Cara. 'By all the biological laws we know. Identical.' She appeared about to say something else, but did not.
'But how?' Diana asked. 'That should be impossible.'
Though it was night, the moon lent enough light to the scene so David could still read their expressions. Marco gazed soulfully on Diana, and David thought she was aware of his gaze on her. Cara sighed and shifted to stare out to sea, imposing the kind of silence on the little group that betrays knowledge hard-won and dangerous to share.
'Oh,' said Diana. She looked disappointed, but resigned to her fate. 'It's a state secret. I understand.'
Marco chuckled. 'Fair one.' He caught one of her hands in his. 'Had you agreed to marry me yet?'
'You hadn't asked me yet,' Diana retorted, extricating her hand from his. Then she lowered her eyes from his face and looked quickly away.
Oh, dear, thought David. He looked at Cara. Cara looked at him. The signs of infatuation were easy enough to read. And she was young, and susceptible.
'I hear you're doing The Tempest tonight,' said Cara. 'Do you suppose you could find a seat for me? I've always loved that play.''
'Goodness,' said Diana, sounding a bit strained as she said it. 'I really must go. I'm sure we can find you something, Doctor, if you'd like to come with me. The duke's-the prince's-box is always vacant, unless he's attending. If you think he'd like to go.'
'Ah,' said Cara in a dangerous voice. 'I'm sure he'd love to attend tonight.'
They made their good-byes. They left. Marco began to walk after them.
'Marco,' said David softly, 'she is an intelligent and sensitive young woman, and I stress the word, 'young.' Stop playing with her. It's cruel, above all else.'
Marco spun. 'Et tu, Brute? Hell, I had a lecture from Suzanne before she left to go back to Odys. Is this some kind of conspiracy? I think she's old enough to know her own mind.'
'Maybe she just strikes us all as more vulnerable than the others. She's terribly romantic.'
'Well, so am I,' Marco snapped. 'I suggest you let the subject drop.' He propped his elbows up on the battlements and glared out at the bay, striped in darkness and moonlight. But then again, Marco was always short- tempered when he was in full pursuit.
'I've said everything I intend to say. For whatever good it will do. When do Maggie and Rajiv and Jo get in?'
'Tomorrow,' said Marco grumpily. 'And don't forget Ursula.'
'Ow.' David winced. 'I had. Well, I've lived through worse.'
'Or the next day,' Marco added, evidently determined to be perverse. 'It depends on the weather. They're marking time in orbit now.'
'Why did you tell Charles that an irresistible force is about to meet an immovable object? What does that have to do with Tess?'
Marco fixed a brooding stare on David. 'Don't say I didn't warn him.'
'My goodness,' said David, 'you certainly make me look forward to this expedition.'
Marco only grunted. Then he lapsed into a silence from which, David knew, he could not be coaxed. David decided to see if he could go wangle a chair in the prince's box, to see tonight's performance of The Tempest. Somehow, a play about being shipwrecked on a lost and primitive island seemed appropriate to the moment.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jiroannes Arthebathes was at Eberge when he received the courier from his uncle ordering him to leave three-quarters of his retinue and all of his women and their attendants at the northern villa of the Great King's fourth cousin.
His personal secretary, Syrannus, read the letter to him. Jiroannes grabbed the parchment out of Syrannus's
