astrogation was more intuitive than logical, but since she had promise in other areas, her instructors worked with her, and she graduated near the top of our class anyway. You're a prince of the House of Winton. They're going to have real incentive to work with you.'
The intercom chimed, warning them that they would be expected at dinner within the quarter hour.
'Can we talk more about this?' Michael asked. He glanced at his father's desk as if he expected to see him sitting there. 'I want to do the right thing—and not just try to make Dad happy.'
'You bet,' Mike draped a hand around his shoulder. 'Would Your Royal Highness care to escort the Honorable Michelle to dinner?'
Michael laughed and took her arm with grace.
'In the absence of your fiance,' Calvin said, offering his arm to Elizabeth, 'may I escort Your Majesty?'
The playful fashion in which he used her new title reassured Elizabeth that her cousins were determined to treat her with respect—and not to let her get too far above herself. Happily, she lightly stroked Monroe good-bye, gathered Ariel, and accepted Calvin's arm.
When the door opened, Monroe raised his head as if listening for something. His head remained raised, his ears perked, long after the door had closed behind them.
'When do you need to be anywhere?' Daniel Chou asked Justin.
'I need to be at the Palace for the viewing later tonight. I bowed out of a dinner invitation though,' Justin said. 'The Henkes—King Roger's sister's family—are coming in.'
'Don't you like them?'
'I do, quite a bit, but I thought that the families might relax more if I wasn't present. They need the space to weep and, even if I am special to Elizabeth, to most of them I'm still something of a stranger.'
Chou smiled. 'I can see why Elizabeth chose you. You have an innate sense of protocol—very useful.'
'I think,' Justin said with complete honesty, 'that she chose me because I met her and liked her without realizing that she was the Heir. In fairy tales, the commoner is always discovered to be a princess in disguise. Having been a princess all her life, I think that Beth found being taken for just anyone a relief.'
'And soon you will be a prince,' Chou said.
'By marriage.' Justin turned to look at the old man. 'I never wanted to be part of the aristocracy. They have too many responsibilities. Now, in order to marry the woman I love, I need to take on those responsibilities. Strange, isn't it?'
'One of life's little ironies,' Chou agreed. 'Since you aren't expected anywhere for a few hours, let's go look at the grav ski and then—if you don't mind—get some dinner. My treat. You can drop me off on your way to the Palace.'
Justin nodded. 'That sounds good.'
They parked Justin's air car in a sheltered space near a small, nondescript, grey, rectangular building mingled in with other similar buildings. The place was not ugly; rooftop gardens spilled flowers down the walls. However, it did not register in the imagination.
'This place is constructed to be forgotten,' Justin commented.
'That it is,' Chou agreed. 'A good thing. Come inside.'
Justin got an indication of Chou's importance within whatever hierarchy he belonged to when his ID admitted them past checkpoint after checkpoint without need for query or confirmation. At last, Chou unlocked a door as plain and nondescript as the building itself.
'Here we are,' he said. 'All the materials from the crash were brought here. I've done some preliminary inspections, but I must admit that I haven't found anything significant. That's why I went back to the Indigo Salt Flats, to see if something might have been missed.'
'Did you find anything?'
'No.'
They inspected the shattered gear in companionable silence. Justin's area of expertise was tangential to grav technologies, but he had used grav units in the past, was familiar in theory with what made the compact device counter gravity. After a long, careful inspection he glanced at Chou.
'Anything?'
'Nothing.'
An idea, faint and insubstantial as an evening shadow came to Justin as he stood studying pieces of the broken ski.
'Adderson said that the King had planned to use a different ski set.'
'He said something about that to me, too.'
'Do you know what happened to it?'
'It was brought back here. It's in that case over in the corner.'
With a glance for permission, Justin picked up the case and swung it onto the counter.
'Can we run a diagnostic on this?'
'Sure.'
Chou did not chatter, merely handed Justin the instruments he needed. Only after Justin had run the check three times did Chou finally speak.
'Very, very interesting.'
'Yes.'
'There's nothing at all wrong with this ski set.'
Justin set down the diagnostic scanner. 'I didn't think there would be. Beth gave it to her father for his birthday. New sets are rather carefully checked—especially when they're being sold to the Crown Princess.'
'So that means that whoever directed the King away from using this set is in on the conspiracy,' Chou said. 'Or so we can hope. I'll do some checking on who was on duty that day, see if Adderson remembers specifics.'
'Would there be security videos?' Justin asked hopefully.
'Not in the chalet. That was the Royal Family's private area. Now, what do you want for dinner?'
'I don't know if I have much of a stomach for eating right now,' Justin answered. 'I don't think I really believed that someone murdered the King until this moment.'
'We don't have much evidence,' Chou cautioned. 'What we have is closer to the negative space in a sculpture—something that helps define what is there but is nothing in itself. A good defense council would laugh us right out of courts.'
'What do we do next?'
'Dinner.' Chou leaned and patted him on one arm. 'You'll want it later. We'll plan while we eat.'
Justin nodded. 'Let's go then. I'll let you to pick a place where we won't attract attention.'
'I know just the place,' Chou promised.
'Some super spy hangout?' Justin tried to joke, but his voice sounded flat even to him.
'Something like that,' Chou said. 'I was thinking of my apartment. I'm not a bad cook.'
'Let's go, then.'
They put away both the pieces of the shattered grav ski and the undamaged ski before they left.
'We haven't found much,' Chou said, looking into the room as he dimmed the light and closed the door. 'But it's a beginning.'
In a suite in a private hotel so committed to discretion that few people even knew it existed, Marvin Seltman and Jean Marrou watched the news service coverage of the first night of King Roger's wake.
'Look at them!' Seltman almost snarled. 'Most of them actively opposed the King, many of them probably raised a private toast when the word of his death came, but to see them weeping you would assume they'd lost their dearest friend.'
Jean Marrou turned her blind face toward the news screen. A small implant beneath one ear let her tune into special detailed commentary. The narration told her which august personages were paying their last respects to King Roger III of Manticore.
Tonight was reserved for the cream of the peerage. The new Queen and her family were present to greet
