The Sea is Full of Stars

“Well, I am worried about it,” said a melodic male voice behind her. She almost jumped, and turned to see the large and imposing figure of the young Baron Oriamin. The sight of such a personage in this peasant rookery was not only unexpected, it was almost unprecedented, not to mention downright embarrassing. But Czua wasn’t embarrassed at all; she was in absolute awe of the man, who was just about everything a young Ochoan female dreamed about in a man.

“My Lord Baron! Please, pardon my dark musings! I had no idea…” Nakitt stumbled, spreading her wings and bowing low.

The Baron was a well-known figure in the region, but generally lived on the family peak with its castlelike fortress built out of solid rock, and didn’t mix much with the common folk. They’d seen him only from a great distance before, and now, close up, he lived up to his billing.

“Please do not feel put out. I did not expect that you would be waiting for me. I am pleased, however, that you know who I am.”

As if anybody locally didn’t! And he knew it quite well. The guys didn’t do a heck of a lot here, but he sure played his royal breeding well. He also seemed to ooze sexiness on an Ochoan standard, with a commanding voice, huge physical presence, and emanating male sexual hormones that could melt the strongest minds. Nakitt felt the effects and fought mightily against the chemistry causing it. Poor Czua had the look of a mindless panting love slave.

“Please forgive the look of this place, my Lord Baron,” Nakitt managed. “Can I— we—get you something to drink?”

The Baron seemed amused by the idea of consuming anything at this socioeconomic level. “Thank you, no. You are called Nakitti, I believe?”

“Yes, my Lord Baron.”

“Things are beginning to pop, hopefully ahead of our common enemies. There is to be a gathering in a few weeks time at Zone to discuss a common policy and strategy to deal with all of this. Much advance work is even now being done and will be revealed there. You come from the same time and space as this mad Empress, do you not?”

“Yes, my Lord Baron. What Josich attempts here is the same as what he attempted back in the confederation called the Realm. He was a male then, an Emperor, self-appointed and self-proclaimed.”

“And this consortium defeated Josich?”

“In a sense, my Lord Baron. It stopped him. It did not, however, catch him. He remained in a hidden empire of criminal organizations for a very long time, and he came here because, after more than a century, they finally did catch him, but at a point where the way here was opened.”

“And you are here, sacrificing your race, your future, everything you had, to continue to pursue him?”

Yeah, sure. “We are dedicated to such a goal, my Lord Baron!”

It wasn’t clear if the Baron believed that or not. Still he said, “I want you to come with me to Castle Oriamin. It has been suggested that you may be of great value in the coming fight. I am leading a delegation to this conference and I need to know much more before I go.”

“I would be honored, my Lord Baron, but is it not true that even your servants are of royal blood? Pardon, but I beg your understanding of my worries about such a situation. I fear that if I were to stay there, I would spend so much time bowing and addressing everyone as superior to the point where I would be less than nothing.”

The Baron seemed genuinely amused by the response, which covered an area that had never occurred to him. “Well, then, we’ll have to give you some kind of status. I cannot, of course, give you blood royal, since only birth can do that, but I can confer the status of concubine, which will give you status as a member of the household. We can have someone teach you the basics of being a courtesan. That way we will have you as a resource.”

“I—uh…” Tann Nakitt didn’t know what to say. It was everything she’d been trying to connive and more all rolled into one, and it had simply walked up and knocked!

The Baron mistook the hesitancy. “Please consider it. We need you, and, as I say, many in positions far beyond Ochoa believe you should be included in this. We will see to it that your friends here are well taken care of, if that is a consideration.”

Through the desire, through the sexual turn-on, through the shock at suddenly being “in,” Tann Nakitt’s basic nature, as they always warned about such types, came to the fore. “I shall be honored, my Lord Baron, if my friends are looked after and if my personal honor is satisfied as you suggest. I am always and forever at the command of my adopted nation.”

This type always loved to be stroked, she thought. She could see in his manner that he was pleased by this response.

“I have a busy schedule. Can you say your farewells and leave with me this day?” he asked her. “I should like to get you settled in before I need to go to a local conference with the military district.”

Tann Nakitt sighed. “Well, I would have loved to have said farewell to Haqua, who is a fisher today, and I am certain that she will be devastated at having missed your visit. Still, dear Czua, you will convey my deep affection to her when she returns, won’t you?”

Czua managed a puzzled look in her direction, and she knew it might have been a little thick. In fact, the look was a lot more like, I’m envious, you bastard! I hope you smother on his first embrace! Oh, well.

“Just let me gather together my few possessions and I am yours to command, my Lord Baron,” she said with as much humility as she could muster.

Hell, wasn’t this how Josich had started out under similar circumstances?

Look out, Well World! Tann Nakitt’s back in the game!

Well, not exactly back in her game.

Ochoans lived in the cliffs and hillsides and had made small cities out of buttes and mesas, but the nobles lived far better, higher up, of course, than the common cliff cities, and in massive castles hewn out of solid rock. As with the cities and towns below, there were no roads to these places, no ropes and pulleys and cables. When your population could fly, these weren’t necessary to get in and out, and when supplies were required, they could be brought in by strong flying teams or hoisted on steam-driven platforms that could also be quickly disassembled.

The grand, polished face of Castle Oriamin showed a dwelling of perhaps seven stories more than a kilometer in the air, as often as not above rather than below the clouds that formed as the winds blew over the warm ocean and were lifted up to climb the mountains. The castle was also hundreds of meters long, and clearly was the home to a great many people. There was no fetch and carry for water here, either; running water from the frequent rains and mists came right through the place, then exited as a series of smaller waterfalls. In between they were diverted to fountains for drinking, baths for bathing, and a system of cisterns that allowed wastes from the population to be carried out the bottom and drop with the spent water into the ocean far below.

Even Tann Nakitt was impressed. Now this was more like it!

The Baron had already gone to his next appointment; she was following Madama Kzu a Oriamin, one of the Baron’s very distant cousins and a part of his entourage, up and into the place.

It was only when you got very close to the face of the fortress that you saw the guns. Sleek, streamlined, the gunpowder cannon refined to the nth degree for safety, range, and efficiency, these bristled from gun mounts and ports. They looked too polished, though, to be imminently practical; if there was any drill and test firings, none had heard of it.

Still, if they did work, siege would be the only practical way to attack the place short of flying soldiers carrying rockets. Those flyers would face air-cooled machine-gun fire that would make accuracy a real problem, too, Nakitt thought, spotting the smaller weapons. Below was a broad bay that was quite deep and wouldn’t provide the best anchorage for floating gun platforms. They would, however, make nice targets for castle guns, which looked to have the range of the bay, and had gravity on their side.

Food would be the only problem, and even that might be more a hardship than a fatality. The snows of the peak almost certainly were used year round for cold storage, and the clouds and mist would mask those going up to get them, or even to supplement them.