smoothed her collar of white feathers distractedly. 'You'll be everything as Queen that I made your mask to be.'
Moon felt her heart squeezed by a sudden, heavy hand. 'But not alone. I'll need help. I'll need people my people can trust ... and yours can. Will you help me?'
The feather collar rustled with Fate's nod. 'I'm in need of a new career. Whatever I can do to help I'll do gladly. Moon ... Your Majesty.'
The netted canopy shadowed them, and the Goodventure elder came up between them, gravely gay. 'Lady!' The other Goodven tures bowed around her. 'Your duties today are three: To go among the people and show them that the Mask Night has begun. To be carefree. To rejoice. And your duties tomorrow are three: To go down to the docks when dawn comes beyond the walls. To deliver Winter to the Sea. To rule in her place as the Lady wills.'
To deliver Winter to the Sea. Moon looked toward the palace. 'I I understand.'
'Then come with us, and let the people see you. Until tomorrow we are all between worlds, between Winter and Summer, between the past and the future. And you're the harbinger.' The Goodventure woman gestured Moon under the waiting canopy.
'Fate, will you come with me?'
'Oh, yes, I'll be along.' Fate smiled. 'This may be the last time I have a chance to see my fellow human beings in all their glory, and I want to make the most of it.' She touched her artificial eye with a loving fingertip, and sorrow. 'All my masks, a lifetime's work, will bloom and fade in this one night ... and soon my sight will go into the sea with the rest of Winter's bounty, good and bad together.'
'No!' Moon shook her head. 'I swear to you, Fate — this will be a real Change!' The crowd began to pry between them.
'Moon — what about Sparks?' Fate called it across the widening gap Moon stretched her hand fruitlessly, losing control, lost in the mob. 'I don't know! I don't know—' Strong arms lifted her up onto a garlanded litter, and she was borne away beneath the canopy down the Street, a leaf swirling on the stream.
Everywhere as she was carried along she saw masks appearing as the revelers hid their faces, cast off their own identities; becoming their fantasies, as the Summer Queen had — as she had done. To night there would be no Winter or Summer, off worlder or native, right or wrong. Everywhere costumes blossomed, music played, masked faces laughed and sang and shouted for the Queen. Every; where people followed alongside her litter, offering her food and I drink and gifts, trying simply to touch her for luck. It was her duty today, tonight, to be the merry mayfly, symbol of life's fleeting joy, because not until tomorrow would her rule and the world become I genuine again...
And she was grateful for the mask she wore that was all those things to them, that let her hide the truth that whenever she became a part of the moment time leaped ahead again for her, and tomorrow took away her laughter. Because if her plan had failed, if Sirus had failed her, tomorrow she would speak the words and give the sign as Summer Queen, and Sparks would drown...
Chapter 49
So she actually believes she's going to be chosen Summer Queen. She hears voices telling her she'll win. Jerusha paced slowly in the rattling emptiness of the Chief Justice's antechamber, too nervous to sit still on the forlorn assortment of abandoned furniture. Against odds of hundreds to one? No, Jerusha, the universe doesn't give a damn what she believes ... or you do, or anybody else. It doesn't matter.
There was nothing to distract her mind but the fuzzy negatives of places where things had been and no longer were in this sad, anciently naked room. But a new set of things, and people, would be back in their place when the Change came again to enduring Carbuncle. Things change all the time; but how much of it is real? Does any choice any of us ever makes, no matter how important it seems, really cause a ripple in the greater scheme of things? Passing the window, she saw herself superimposed on the image of the metamorphosing city, studied the reflection silently.
'Commander PalaThion. It was good of you to come. I know how busy you've been.' Chief Justice Hovanesse stood in the doorway, held up a hand in courteous welcome, and she managed to forget that she had been kept pacing out here well past the appointed time of the invitation.
She saluted. 'I'm never too busy to discuss the Hegemony's welfare, your honor.' Or mine. Or to watch a man eat his words... She touched his hand politely, and he gestured her ahead of him into the inner room. It was a meeting room, with a long table built out of smaller tables and cluttered with portable terminals. The usual assortment of local Hedge bureaucrats she had come to know and loathe sat around it, intermittent with actual assemblymen, mostly strangers to her. They had, she supposed, been making the last of the obligatory reports on every imaginable aspect of their occupation of Tiamat. Even on a world as unpopulated and underdeveloped as this one the process of departure was leviathan. The few Kharemoughi faces she could see clearly looked exceedingly bored. Thank the gods I'm only a Blue and not a bureaucrat. She remembered that since she had become Commander she had hardly been anything else. But yesterday I was a real officer again.
She stood listening to the patter of their applause, of palms against the table surface, absorbing their reception while she compared it mentally to the one she had been anticipating until yesterday. Most of the civil officials assigned here on Tiamat were from the same part of Newhaven, like most of the police; the Hegemony felt that cultural homogeneity made for more efficiency. And today, at least, the fact that she was one of their own being honored in the presence of Kharemoughis seemed to outweigh the fact that she was only a female. She bowed with dignity, acknowledging their tribute, and took a seat in the mismatched chair at the near end of the table.
'As I'm sure you all have heard by now,' the Chief Justice stood at his own place, 'Commander PalaThion uncovered, and at virtually the last moment thwarted, an attempt by Tiamat's Snow Queen to retain her power...'
Jerusha listened covetously to the report, savoring every flattering adjective like the scent of rare herbs. Gods, I could get used to this. Even though Hovanesse was a Kharemoughi himself, he was aware that as Chief Justice he reflected her glory today, and he was laying it on thick. He sipped frequently from a translucent cup; she wondered whether it was really water, or something to numb the pain of paying her compliments. '...Even though, as most of us here are aware, there was a certain amount of — controversy about appointing a woman Commander of Police, I think she has proved that she is capable of rising to a challenge. I doubt if our original choice for the post, Chief Inspector Mantagnes, could have handled the situation any better if their positions had been reversed.'
That's for damn sure. Jerusha glanced down in false modesty, hid— i'; ing the glass fragments in her smile. 'I was just doing my job, your honor; as I've tried to do it all along.' With no help from you, I could add. She bit her tongue.
'Nevertheless, Commander,' one of the Assembly members stood up expansively, 'you'll finish your service here with a commendation on your record. You're a credit to your world and your gender.' One or two Newhavenese coughed at that. 'It just goes to show that no one world, or race, or sex, has a complete monopoly on intelligence; all can and shall contribute to the greater good of the Hegemony, if not equally, at least according to their individual abilities. .'
'Who writes the graffiti inside his bra incase the Director of Public Health muttered sourly.
'I don't know,' behind her hand, 'but he's living proof that living for centuries doesn't have to teach you anything.' She saw his mouth twitch and his eyes roll in a fleeting moment of comradely aggravation.
'Would you care to say a few words, Commander?'
Jerusha flinched, until she realized the assemblyman hadn't even been aware of anyone speaking besides himself. Don't let me choke, gods. 'Uh, thank you, sir. I didn't really come here planning to make a speech, and I really don't have the time.' But wait a minute — 'But since I've got you all here listening to me, maybe there is a matter important enough to spend our time on.' She stood up, leaning forward on the slightly uneven tabletop. 'A few weeks ago I had a very disturbing question put to me: a question about the mers-the Tiamatan creatures we
