Crown of Slaves

to protect royalty. That's the one thing I can't afford, now of all times. More than ever, these days, the strength of the Crown rests in the allegiance of the commonalty.'

Anton bowed his head slightly, acknowledging the truth of her remark.

'I'm curious, Captain,' Elizabeth continued. 'Yes, your variant will let me slip off the hook when the time comes. But the fact remains that both of us know that we are in fact using a commoner to protect a princess. Doesn't that bother you? I'd think it would, coming from Gryphon. Some of the Manticore Crown Loyalists would undoubtedly do it cheerfully, but you highlanders are a… cantankerous lot.'

Anton grinned. 'Are we not, indeed? The reason it doesn't bother me, Your Majesty, is because my daughter insisted on it.' He gave Ruth another glance. The girl had been sired upon her mother by a husband who viewed his wives as chattel. 'I said I was a father, not a stinking Masadan patriarch. Be damned to the rest of it.'

Ruth's cheeks seemed to glow a bit, although her expression remained still. Anton hadn't made the remark for any ulterior purpose, but he realized in that moment that he'd cemented his position as one of the princess' heroes, and he felt his heart sink slightly. Another man might have taken pleasure at the thought of acquiring favor from royalty. Anton Zilwicki-'Daddy Dour,' his daughter Helen sometimes called him-saw only the problems and complications involved.

And to think I used to have such a simple life. An unattached widower and an obscure intelligence officer in the RMN, that's all. Now look at me! My lover's the most notorious political figure in the Star Kingdom, and now I've added royal intrigue to the brew!

* * *

'There's one other thing we could do to enhance the chances of keeping the switch unnoticed for as long as possible,' he added. He studied the two girls for a moment. 'Assuming that they're willing to do it, of course-and, meaning no offense, Your Majesty, that you're willing to pay for it.'

Queen Elizabeth chuckled. 'A nanotech transformation? You're certainly free with the royal purse, Captain Zilwicki!'

Anton made no reply beyond a thin smile. That seemed like a better response than: sure, it'll cost a small fortune-but for you, that's pocket change.

Elizabeth studied the two girls herself. She seemed a bit uncertain, although Anton was quite sure the hesitation was not because of the expense involved. Biosculpt would have been cheaper, but biosculpt was- literally-only skin deep, and they needed more than that in this case. Although Berry and Ruth were very similar physical types, aside from Berry's dark brown hair and Ruth's golden blond, they weren't quite the same height. And while neither of them would ever be called stocky, Ruth was noticeably finer-boned than Berry. It wasn't anything which would be hugely apparent to a casual observer, but it would show up instantly if anyone decided to run a side-by-side comparison of their HD images.

Unless, of course, the differences were reversed before the HD cameras ever saw them.

There were drawbacks to that approach, however, and Elizabeth was clearly aware of them. Even leaving aside the fact that doing the procedures in the short time they had available would be uncomfortable at the very least, nanotech body transformations were unsettling in the best of circumstances. Although the changes were easily reversible, it was still disturbing to most people to have their bodies start changing shape on them. All the more so, when the two people involved were very young women, their physical aging furthered retarded by prolong, who were still getting accustomed to the bodies they had.

'It's your decision, Ruth-and yours too, of course, Berry,' said the Queen. 'I warn you, it won't be any fun.'

'Sure we'll do it!' the princess piped up immediately.

* * *

Berry herself, noticing that Ruth Winton's expression didn't look nearly as confident as the words themselves, had hesitated a moment. She really knew very little about nanotech, especially as applied to human physiology. But the look of silent appeal the princess gave her settled the issue.

' 'Course we will,' she'd agreed, trying her best for a tone of confidence. And hoping that her own expression wasn't as transparent as Ruth's.

* * *

To Berry's relief, the 'clinic' proved to be a fully equipped and up-to-date mini-hospital. Not entirely to her relief, the doctor who appeared upon her arrival to take charge of her proved to be a very friendly but disquietingly youthful person. Judging from appearance, Berry wouldn't have thought the woman was old enough to have graduated from medical school yet.

To her complete chagrin, the doctor lacked the most basic rudiments of a proper bedside manner.

'Is this going to hurt?' she asked nervously, following the doctor down a corridor which seemed excessively sterile and undecorated.

'Probably,' Dr. Schwartz replied breezily. She gave Berry a smile that was less sympathetic than Berry thought it could have been. 'What do you expect? A full nanotech body transformation in four days!' Schwartz shook her head, as if bemused by the folly of it all. 'We're adding almost a full centimeter to your height, you know. And reducing the Princess' the same amount.'

The smile was definitely not as sympathetic as it should have been, Berry thought crossly. Especially when she heard the doctor's next words.

'There's bound to be a fair amount of discomfort when we start taking your bones apart and putting them back together again,' Schwartz said. 'Soft tissue changes aren't that bad, but bone alterations are an entirely different matter. Still, I imagine you'll spend a lot of the time sleeping.'

Five seconds later, Dr. Schwartz ushered Berry into a deceptively unremarkable looking private hospital room.

Ruth already occupied one of the room's two beds. She looked a little calmer than Berry felt, but not very much, and Berry felt obscurely comforted as she recognized the other girl's matching nervousness.

'All right, now, Ms. Zilwicki,' Dr. Schwartz said briskly. 'If you'll just climb into your gown and hop into bed, we can get started with the workup.'

'Uh, just how much is this going to hurt?' Berry asked as she began to obey. It was, she admitted to herself, a bit late to be asking that particular question, but Dr. Schwartz didn't seem to mind.

'As I already said,' the doctor told her, 'there's always a degree of discomfort involved with bone modifications. Of course, I realize that we doctors tend to make patients a bit nervous when we throw around words like 'discomfort,' but you really shouldn't look at it that way. Pain is one of the body's most effective ways to communicate with us.'

'If it's all the same to you,' Berry said, 'I'd just as soon not be communicated with that way anymore than I have to.'

'I'll second that,' Ruth put in from her bed.

'Well, we'll do what we can to minimize it, of course,' Dr. Schwartz assured both of them. 'Actually, the procedure itself isn't particularly difficult. The trick in something like this is in properly programming the nannies, and since we had complete access to both of your medical records, that was fairly straightforward this time. I remember once, when we were doing a rush job for the SIS, and we didn't have access to the med file of the fellow we were supposed to be matching our agent to. Now that was a challenge! In this case though-'

She made an airy, dismissive gesture, then frowned at Berry, who obviously wasn't getting out of her own clothes and into the waiting gown rapidly enough to suit her. Berry took the hint, and the doctor nodded in obvious satisfaction as she quickened her pace.

'In this instance, we had all the information we needed, of course,' Schwartz continued. 'It's the time factor that's the problem. As soon as we've completed the final workups on both of you, we'll fine-tune the nannies'