The Lotus Eaters

Hamilcar kept his thoughts to himself, though his face said he was enjoying the girls' dance. It was a wedding dance, though it had not, in living memory, ever been performed by a dozen girls at once. To one side of the throne stood his military adjutant, Tribune David Cano, flanked by Cano's wife, the green-eyed Alena. Some local notables stood on the other side. The rear of the throne was ringed by fierce-visaged, armored and armed Pashtun, facing out while standing. In front was a similar ring, though there the guards were on single knees, so as not to interfere with their Iskandr's view.

Alena turned and tilted her head slightly, her emerald eyes laughing. 'If you don't tell them, I won't, husband. But I'd suggest you have a little talk with his tutors, if you want them to be quiet about it.'

Her head tilted the other way. 'Still, I don't know why you would bother. The Carreras are going to know, eventually. Say, when he shows up back in Balboa in a few years with a dozen wives in tow.'

Cano's chin sunk on his chest. Ham's mother is going to kill me.

'Oh, stop worrying, will you?' Alena insisted, poking her husband's ribs with her elbow. 'It's years before he'll have to go back. By then, Lourdes and the Duque will be grandparents, probably a dozen times over; one of the factors in our choice for brides for Iskandr is that the girls had to come from highly fertile mothers and, in their day, grandmothers. Not a one of these girls has fewer than sixty first cousins. You think the Duque or Lourdes will object to that?'

'Maybe not,' Cano conceded.

'There's something else, too,' Alena said. 'Something the Duque said to me before we left.'

'When he asked to speak with you privately?'

'Yes, then. He told me the boy was not who I thought he was—of course I scoffed at that!—but that he really was something almost as special. He said he was sending him to us for training, more than anything, and he hoped we would put Iskandr through a regimen to make him grow up very quickly and very well.'

'So?'

Alena pointed with her chin toward the oval where a dozen beautiful girls danced with hands in graceful pose and fingers subtly beckoning. 'Those were also just about the most grown-up girls we could find, even if one of them is no older than Iskandr. Given that females are more mature than males by something like an order of magnitude, how long do you think those girls will allow him to remain a boy? And, no, I'm not just talking about sex.'

'What would you have done,' Cano asked, 'if Carrera had not, on his own, decided to send the boy here?'

'I'd have brought the girls to him and presided over a wedding by our custom, myself,' Alena answered without a moment's delay. 'I picked most of them out when we were still in Balboa.'

'You are a witch, wife.'

'Perhaps,' she conceded. 'Mostly, though, in this case, I used the Globalnet and had the women here do the leg work.'

'No 'perhaps' about it. You know too much. I shall have cross words with your father for having you taught to read.'

Alena gave her husband a mysterious smile. 'I do know something you don't know,' she said.

'Surprise me.'

'I will,' she answered, looking up at him, mystery morphing into radiance, 'in about seven months.'

Museo Nacional, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

Months we've been looking, fumed Fernandez. Everywhere. Through every literary or physical trace. Even arranging to tear down two buildings in the slum by the old city so I could have a crew search through the dirt. And it was here all the time. He reached out one hand to touch the thing, reverently, then shook his head. God, the time wasted!

The 'it' in question was a small black oblong box. Elsewhere, out on the Isla Real, was its twin, though that twin was in much worse condition.

'It was donated to the Museum,' said the curator, 'oh, maybe two centuries ago. We've never really had the room, or the funding to expand the room, to put it on display. I'm not even sure what it is, only that it was something that once belonged to Belisario Carrera.'

You don't need to know what it is, old man, thought Fernandez, hand still caressing the thing. It's only important that I know what it is. It's a flight computer for a shuttle and, more importantly, it's the same dimensions, probably the same model, and can probably be fit into the shuttle we captured a few years ago in Pashtia. It looks like it can, anyway.

We dug through everything. Everything! And then one of my bright boys suggesting checking probate accounts. And that led to a court record of an old estate fight . . . which led to a branch of a family . . . which led to another probate record . . . and to another, and another . . . to a woman who died rich and childless . . . and finally, to you.

And you, my lovely little black box, are going to lead us . . .

Fernandez's eyes turned upward, toward the stars.

Campo de los Sapos, Cristobal, Balboa, Terra Nova