«You were dreaming,» Camassia says. She is stroking his head as he sits in the study's leather chair.
«I was young again,» he replies, and there's the feel of the lean powerful dolphin pressed between his skinny legs as he rides across the lagoon, a tang of salt in his mouth. «We should introduce dolphins here, you know. Can't think why we never did. They are to the water what Ryker is to the air.»
«Sounds wonderful. When do I get to try one?»
«Ask Torreya.» He shakes some life into himself, focusing on the daily reports and accounts his cortical chip has assembled. But the candy bud memory is still resonating through his mind, twisting the blue neuroiconic graphs into waves crashing over coral. And all Torreya and Jante have to go on is what she reads.
«Laurus?» Camassia asks cautiously, sensitive to his mood.
«I want you and Abelia to be very nice to Torreya, become her friends.»
«We will. She's sweet.»
«I mean it.»
The dead tone brings a flash of fear into the girl's eyes. «Yes, Laurus.»
After she leaves he still cannot bring himself to do any work. Every time he considers the candy buds another possibility is opened.
What would it feel like if Torreya was to inscribe her sexual encounters into the candy buds? His breathing is unsteady as he imagines the three girls disrobing in some softly lit bedroom, their bodies entwining on the bed.
Yes. That would be the ultimate candy bud. Not just the physical sensation, the rip of orgasm, any cortical induction can deliver that; but the mind's longing and adoration, its wonder of discovery.
Nothing, but nothing is now more important than making Torreya and Jante happy; so that in a couple of years she will slide eagerly into the arms of her lovers.
He closes his eyes, calling silently for Ryker.
The eagle finds Torreya on the south side of the estate, busy exploring her vast new playground. He orbits overhead as she gambols about. She's a fey little creature, this untamed child. She doesn't walk, she dances.
Jante is sitting in a wicker chair on the patio outside the study, and Laurus can hear him whooping encouragement to his sister. Occasionally the boy lets out a squeal of excitement at some new discovery she makes for him.
«Stop! Stop!» Jante cries suddenly.
Laurus looks up sharply, wondering what the boy is seeing through the affinity bond, but he's smiling below his neat white bandage.
Ryker spirals lower. Torreya is standing frozen in the middle of a shaggy meadow, her hands pressed to her cheeks. A cloud of rainbow-hued butterflies is swirling around her, disturbed by her frantic passage.
«Hundreds,» she breathes tremulously. «Hundreds and hundreds.»
The expression on the face of both siblings is one of absolute enchantment. Laurus recalls his trip through Longthorpe, its soiled air, the stagnant puddles with their scum of dead, half-melted insects. She has probably never seen a butterfly in her life before.
His cargo agents are instructed to scan the inventory of every visiting starship in search of exotic caterpillars. The estate is going to be turned into a lepidopterist's heaven.
• • •
Today Torreya is all rakish smiles as she brings in Laurus's breakfast tray. He grins back at her as he takes the candy bud she holds out to him. This is going to become a ritual, he guesses.
«Another one?» Camassia asks.
«Yes!» Torreya shouts gleefully. «It's a fairy tale one. We've been thinking about it for a while, so it wasn't difficult. We just needed yesterday to make it right. The butterflies you've got here in the estate are beautiful, Laurus.»
Laurus pops the candy bud in his mouth. «Glad you like them.»
«I would have loved to see the forest Laurus talks about,» Camassia says wistfully.
Laurus notes a more than idle interest in the girl's tone.
«Why didn't you say?» Torreya asks.
«You mean you've still got one?»
«Course. The machine keeps growing them till Jante tells it to stop.»
«You mean you don't have to fill in each one separately?» Laurus asks.
«No.»
He sips his tea thoughtfully. The strange machine is even more complex than he originally expected. «Do you know if Jante's father transcribed a candy bud about how the machine was built?»
Torreya screws her face up, listening to some silent voice. «No, he didn't. Sorry.»
Laurus accepts that it isn't going to be easy, he never thought it would be. He will have to assemble a team of high-grade biotechnology experts, the most loyal ones he can find. They will analyse the machine's components and genetics to discover its secrets. Such research will have to be done circumspectly. If any hint of this breakthrough escapes, then every laboratory on Tropicana will launch a crash project to acquire candy-bud technology.
«What are we going to do today?» Torreya asks.
«Well, I've got a lot of work to do,» Laurus says. «But Camassia and Abelia are free, why don't you all go out for a picnic.»
• • •
In his youth, Laurus had been a prince of the Eldrath Kingdom, back in Earth's dawn times when the world was flat and the oceans ended in infinite waterfalls. He lived in a city of crystal spires that was built around one of the tallest mountains in the land. The royal palace sat atop the pinnacle, from where it was said you could see halfway across the world.
When the warning of marauders reached the citadel, he led his knight warriors in defence of his father's realm. There were thirty of them, in mirror-bright armour, flying to war on the back of their giant butterflies.
The village on the edge of the Desolation was besieged by trolls and goblins, with fires raging through the wattle-and-daub cottages, and the harsh cries of battle echoing through the air.
Laurus drew his silver longsword, holding it high. «In the name of the King and our Mother Goddess, I swear none of this fellowship shall rest until the Rok lord's spawn are driven from this land,» he shouted.
The other knight warriors drew their swords in unison, and shouted their accord. Together they urged their steeds down on the village.
The trolls and goblins they faced were huge scarred brutes with blue-green skin and yellow poisonous fangs. But their anger and viciousness made them cumbersome, and they had no true sword skill, just an urge to maim and kill. Their wild sword swings were always slow and inaccurate. Laurus weaved amongst them, using his longsword with terrible accuracy. A quick powerful thrust would send his enemy crashing to the ground, a dark yellow stain bubbling out of the wound.
The battle raged all day amid the black oily smoke, and flames, and muddy cobbles. Laurus eluded all injury, although the enemy directed their fiercest assaults against him; enraged by the sight of his slim golden crown denoting him a prince of the house of Eldrath.
Night was falling when the last goblin was dispatched. The village cheered their prince and his knight warriors. And a beautiful maiden with red hair falling to her waist came forward to offer him wine from a golden chalice.
Laurus could not forget the sensation of flying that incredible steed, with his long black hair flowing free, cheeks tingling in the wind, and mighty rainbow wings rippling effortlessly on either side of him.
• • •
And he's still flying. The three girls are below, resting in the long grass under the shade of a big magnolia
