Crown of Slaves

programming and inject them. After that,' she said with what Berry privately thought was appalling cheerfulness, 'the nannies will start taking you apart and putting you back together again. If we had a couple of weeks to work with, it probably wouldn't feel much worse than, say, a moderately severe case of the flu. In the time frame that we have, I'm afraid it's going to be a bit more taxing than that.'

She shrugged.

'As I said, I expect you'll both spend quite a bit of time sleeping over the next few days. A nanny transformation does tend to use up a lot of your energy. We'll provide some meds against the discomfort, but we're going to have to be able to monitor your responses to the modifications, and we can't afford to blur those with anything really potent. That's especially true when we're making the changes so rapidly. So I'm afraid that any time you don't spend sleeping is unlikely to be among your fondest memories.'

She smiled again, with that same maddening lack of sympathy, and Berry sighed glumly. This had all seemed so much simpler when she blithely volunteered for it.

She finished buttoning the gown, then paused. It wasn't really hesitation. She told herself that quite firmly. But it was something uncomfortably akin to it, and an amazing number of butterflies seemed to be hovering in the vicinity of her midsection.

'Ah, you're ready, I see! Good!' Dr. Schwartz approved, smiling more cheerfully than ever, and Berry's butterfly population expanded exponentially. 'In that case, let's get started, shall we?'

* * *

The next few days were considerably more miserable than the doctor's breezy assurances would have led an unsuspecting soul to believe. But it wasn't really that bad-nowhere near as bad as some of Berry's experiences had been. Besides, that same life experience had made Berry about as suspecting a soul, in a friendly and benign sort of way, as anyone she knew.

Well… except Princess Ruth.

Berry got to know the Manticoran royal fairly well during those days, since they'd nothing else to do but talk whenever they weren't sleeping. And while Berry soon came to the conclusion that Ruth was a woman she was going to like-a lot, in fact-she also found the contrast between their two personalities more than a little amusing.

Some of the differences were obvious-Berry tended to be quiet, Ruth exuberant. But an even deeper difference, if not an immediately obvious one, was their different outlook on life. True, Berry's life had left precious little in the way of childlike innocence, but she still tended to take a cheery view of the universe and its inhabitants. Ruth, on the other hand…

'Paranoid' was not the right term, Berry finally decided. The connotations of that word involved fear, worry, fretfulness-whereas the princess had about as sanguine a temperament as possible. But if the expression 'optimistic paranoiac' hadn't been a ridiculous oxymoron, it would have described Ruth fairly well. She seemed to take it for granted that half the human race was up to no good, even if the knowledge didn't particularly worry her much-because she was just as certain that she'd be able to deal with the sorry blighters if they tried to mess around with her.

'How in the world did the Queen manage to keep a lid on you for twenty-three years?' Berry finally asked.

Ruth grinned. 'I was her accomplice. I figured out by the time I was six that I'd be better off staying out of the limelight.' She stuck out her tongue. 'Not to mention-bleah-that it saved me about a million hours of tedious sitting still and trying to look properly princessy-that means 'about as bright as a donkey'-at official royal events.'

'Is that why all the details of your mother's escape were kept out of the public eye for so long?'

'Oh, no.' Ruth shook her head firmly. Ruth's gestures were usually done firmly-when they weren't done vehemently. 'Don't blame me for that idiocy! If they'd asked my opinion-they didn't, I was only a few years old, but they should have-I would have told them to shout it from the rooftops. As it was, the truth didn't become public knowledge until after Yeltsin's Star had joined the Manticoran Alliance, at which point the Manticoran public reacted by making my mother a national hero. Ha! The same thing would have happened right from the start, even before the treaty was signed! You can be damn sure that releasing the naked, unvarnished truth about the brutality with which Masada treated its women would have made the choice of an alliance with Grayson rather than Masada a no-brainer.'

She scowled fiercely. 'Which, of course, is exactly why the cretins didn't do it. 'Reasons of state.' Ha! The truth is that until the Foreign Office made up its mind once and for all to pursue the relationship with Grayson, the bureaucrats had to 'keep their options open'-there's another weasel phrase for you-with the benighted barbarians who ran Masada! So of course the entire episode had to be swept under the rug.'

Berry chuckled. 'My father says that 'reasons of state' has been used to cover more sheer stupidity than any other pious phrase in existence. And whenever Mommy-uh, that's Cathy Montaigne-tries to get him to do something he doesn't want to, he immediately says he wants to keep his options open.'

'And what does she say?'

'Oh, she tells him he's being a weasel again. And always tries to get me and-if she's home from the Academy-Helen to agree with her.'

Berry added piously: 'I always do, of course. Daddy can weasel with the best of 'em. Helen usually tries to claim the Academy Code of Honor prevents her from taking a stance, whereupon Mommy immediately accuses her of being a weasel.'

Now, Berry looked positively saintly. 'And, of course, I always agree with her again.'

Ruth was eyeing her oddly. 'Hey, look,' Berry said defensively, 'the truth's the truth.'

She realized, then, that she'd misunderstood the meaning of the Princess' scrutiny.

'We're going to be friends,' Ruth said abruptly. 'Close friends.'

It was said firmly, even vehemently. But Berry didn't miss the depths of loneliness and uncertainty that lurked beneath the words. Ruth, she was now certain, was not a woman who'd known very much in the way of close friendship in her life.

Berry smiled. 'Of course we are.'

She meant it, too. Berry was good at making friends. Especially close ones.

* * *

'Sir, please tell me you're pulling my leg,' Platoon Sergeant Laura Hofschulte, Queen's Own Regiment, begged plaintively.

'I wish I were, Laura,' Lieutenant Ahmed Griggs sighed, and leaned back in his chair to run his fingers through his thick, reddish hair. It was his platoon Sergeant Hofschulte managed, and the two of them had served together for almost two T-years. During that time, they'd come to know one another well, and a powerful sense of mutual respect had deepened between them. Which probably helped explain the pained, disbelieving look of-well, betrayal wasn't quite the right word, but it was close- Hofschulte gave him now.

'I'm not sure whose idea it was,' Griggs went on after a moment. 'My impression from Colonel Reynolds is that it was Her Majesty herself, but it sounds to me more like something the Princess would have come up with.'

'Her, or maybe Zilwicki,' Hofschulte said darkly. 'The man's a professional spook, Sir. God only knows how twisty his mind's gotten over the years!'

'No, I don't think it was him,' Griggs disagreed. 'As you say, he's a professional spook. And a father. I don't see a man as protective as he's supposed to be exposing his daughter to risk this way. Not if it was his own idea, that is.

'Not that it matters who thought it up,' he continued more briskly. 'What matters is that it's up to us to make it work.'

'Let me get this straight, Sir,' Hofschulte said. 'We're haring off to Erewhon as the Princess' protective detail, but we're supposed to look like we're protecting Berry Zilwicki, who everyone else is going to think is the Princess?'

'Yep.' Griggs smiled crookedly at her expression. 'And don't forget how sensitive relations with Erewhon are at