A Civil Campaign

rest of it?'

Lord Dono leaned back in his seat, raised his chin, and stretched his legs out before him. 'I dumped it all back on Beta Colony. One case is all my Armsmen are expected to travel with, Ivan. Live and learn.'

Ivan noted the possessive, my Armsmen. 'Are they—' he nodded at Szabo, listening, 'are you all in on this?'

'Of course,' said Dono easily. 'Had to be. We all met together the night after Pierre died, Szabo and I presented the plan, and they swore themselves to me then.'

'Very, um . . . loyal of them.'

Szabo said, 'We've all had a number of years to watch Lady Donna help run the District. Even my men who were less than, mm, personally taken with the plan are District men bred and true. No one wanted to see it fall to Richars.'

'I suppose you all have had opportunities to watch him, too, over time,' allowed Ivan. He added after a moment, 'How'd he manage to piss you all off?'

'He didn't do it overnight,' said By. 'Richars isn't that heroic. It's taken him years of persistent effort.'

'I doubt,' said Dono in a suddenly clinical tone, 'that anyone would care, at this late date, that he tried to rape me when I was twelve, and when I fought him off, drowned my new puppy in retaliation. After all, no one cared at the time.'

'Er,' said Ivan.

'Give your family credit,' By put in, 'Richars convinced them all the puppy's death had been your fault. He's always been very good at that sort of thing.'

'You believed my version,' said Dono to By. 'Almost the only person to do so.'

'Ah, but I'd had my own experiences with Richars by then,' said By. He did not volunteer further details.

'I was not yet in your father's service,' Szabo pointed out, possibly in self-exculpation.

'Count yourself lucky,' sighed Dono. 'To describe that household as lax would be overly kind. And no one else could impose order till the old man finally stroked out.'

'Richars Vorrutyer,' Armsman Szabo continued to Ivan, 'observing Count Pierre's, er, nervous problems, has counted the Vorrutyer Countship and District as his property anytime these last twenty years. It was never in his interest to see poor Pierre get better, or form a family of his own. I know for a fact that he bribed the relatives of the first young lady to whom Pierre was engaged to break it off, and sell her elsewhere. Pierre's second effort at courtship, Richars thwarted by smuggling the girl's family certain of Pierre's private medical records. The third fianc?e's death in that flyer wreck was never proved to be anything but an accident. But Pierre didn't believe it was an accident.'

'Pierre . . . believed a lot of strange things,' Ivan noted nervously.

'I didn't think it was an accident either,' said Szabo dryly. 'One of my best men was driving. He was killed too.'

'Oh. Um. But Pierre's own death is not suspected . . . ?'

Szabo shrugged. 'I believe the family tendency to those circulatory diseases would not have killed Pierre if he hadn't been too depressed to take proper care of himself.'

'I tried , Szabo,' said Dono—Donna— bleakly. 'After that episode with the medical records, he was so incredibly paranoid about his doctors.'

'Yes, I know.' Szabo began to pat her hand, caught himself, and gave him a soft consoling punch in the shoulder instead. Dono's smile twisted in appreciation.

'In any case,' Szabo went on, 'it was abundantly plain that no Armsman who was loyal to Pierre—and we all were, God help the poor man—would last five minutes in Richars's service. His first step—and we'd all heard him say so—would be to make a clean sweep of everything and everyone loyal to Pierre, and install his own creatures. Pierre's sister being the first to go, of course.'

'If Richars had a gram of self-preservation,' murmured Dono fiercely.

'Could he do that?' asked Ivan doubtfully. 'Evict you from your home? Have you no rights under Pierre's will?'

'Home, District, and all.' Dono smiled grimly. 'Pierre made no will, Ivan. He didn't want to name Richars as his successor, wasn't all that fond of Richars's brothers or sons either, and was still, I think, even to the last, hoping to cut him out with an heir of his own body. Hell, Pierre might have expected to live forty more years, with modern medicine. All I would have had as Lady Donna was the pittance from my own dowries. The estate's in the most incredible mess.'

'I'm not surprised,' said Ivan. 'But do you really think you can make this work? I mean, Richars is heir-presumptive. And whatever you are now, you weren't Pierre's younger brother at the moment Pierre died.'

'That's the most important legal point in the plan. A Count's heir only inherits at the moment of his predecessor's death if he's already been sworn in before the Council. Otherwise, the District isn't inherited till the moment the Counts confirm it. And at that moment—some time in the next couple of weeks—I will be, demonstrably, Pierre's brother.'

Ivan's mouth screwed up, as he tried to work this through. Judging by the smooth fit of the black tunic, the lovely great breasts in which he'd once . . . never mind—anyway, they were clearly all gone now. 'You've really had surgery for . . . what did you do with . . . you didn't do that hermaphrodite thing, did you? Or where is . . . everything?'

'If you mean my former female organs, I jettisoned 'em with the rest of my luggage back on Beta. You can scarcely find the scars, the surgeon was so clever. They'd put in their time, God knows—can't say as I miss 'em.'

Ivan missed them already. Desperately. 'I wondered if you might have had them frozen. In case things don't work out, or you change your mind.' Ivan tried to keep the hopeful tone out of his voice. 'I know there are Betans who switch sexes back and forth three or four times in their lives.'

'Yes, I met some of them at the clinic. They were most helpful and friendly, I must say.'

Szabo rolled his eyes only slightly. Was Szabo acting as Lord Dono's personal valet now? It was customary for a Count's senior Armsman to do so. Szabo must have witnessed it all, in detail. Two witnesses. She took two witnesses, I see.

'No,' Dono went on, 'if I ever change back—which I have no plans to do, forty years were enough—I'd start all over with fresh cloned organs, just as I've done for this. I could be a virgin again. What a dreadful thought.'

Ivan hesitated. He finally asked, 'Didn't you need to add a Y chromosome from somewhere? Where'd you get it? Did the Betans supply it?' He glanced helplessly at Dono's crotch, and quickly away. 'Can Richars argue that the—the inheriting bit is part-Betan?'

'I thought of that. So I got it from Pierre.'

'You didn't have, um, your new male organs cloned from him?' Ivan boggled at this grotesque idea. It made his mind hurt. Was it some kind of techno-incest, or what?

'No, no! I admit, I did borrow a tiny tissue sample from my brother —he didn't need it, by then—and the Betan doctors did use part of a chromosome from it, just for my new cloned parts. My new testicles are a little less than two percent Pierre, I suppose, depending on how you calculate it. If I ever decide to give my prick a nickname, the way some fellows do, I suppose I ought to call it after him. I don't feel much inclined to do so, though. It feels very all-me.'