He saluted. “Greeting, Mikel Belov,” said the likeness of Yusuf Hance formally, and, equally formally, “Be welcome” the likeness of Fiora Hance.
“I thank you, my lord and lady,” he replied.
Sesil came through an inner archway. A black gown over which star-points twinkled clung to her. She stopped. A hand went to her mouth. “Oh,” she breathed. Her eyes widened, as luminously dark as the fabric. “You. I hoped so much—Come, please come.” To the images: “By your leave.” She turned and led her visitor out, down a hall to a room where odors of jasmine drifted and colors played subtly through the walls. Though she turned back towards him, she made no move to join hands or to touch at all. “Please rest, my lord.” She made a ragged gesture at a lounger. “May I summon refreshment?”
He kept his feet. “You have not called me lord for more than a year,” he said. They had been close to betrothal. He stopped himself from adding “my lady.”
Her glance dropped. How long the lashes were on that delicate countenance. “No. It’s only—now—the tragedy befallen you—and now you will be Captain Belov.”
“If they elect me. That must wait a while.” Pain broke through. “Sesil, why haven’t I heard from you?”
She gestured at the holo cabinet. It came alight with the simulacra of her parents. She had seldom done that before—no impoliteness, for the realities would have left the young couple to themselves. “Did she want help?” Mikel repeated his question.
“You know why, my lord,” pseudo-Yusuf told him.
Sesil’s fingers twisted together. “I, I would have,” she stammered, “I wanted to, I wanted to, but—” She could not go on.
He finished for her. “But my father had done a deed of violence upon a fellow officer, and in the very Presence. His whole clan was in dishonor.”
“That was so unjust!” she cried.
Mikel addressed the images. “You”—he meant the realities—”would not thereafter deal with a Belov.”
Yusuf’s voice answered slowly: “We could not very well, could we?”
“Be honest, dear,” said Fiora’s. Analogue tears glimmered. “We dared not.”
Yes, Mikel thought, too many other Hances would feel you had tainted them also.“I quite understand, my lord and lady,” he said. “For my part, I had no wish to put you in a difficult position.”
Sesil raised her head and squared her frail shoulders. “But your honor is made clean again,” she said. The steadiness failed. “I hoped—I hoped—” She swallowed. “Yes, I wept for you, for him, but now—”
Mikel nodded. “Well, I might have come sooner.” He did not patronize with an apology. “My mother and I have been busy.”
“Of course.” He barely heard Sesil. “And I, I didn’t want to … break in. I waited. Now you are here.” She half reached for him.
Yusuf’s voice intervened. Her arms dropped. “With respect, my lord, that was a dreadful means of setting matters right. He could have gone into exile.”
Mikel’s fists clenched at his sides. “And drag through life among aliens, a friendless, helpless outsider?”
“Communication—telepresence—”
“That would have made it worse. We would have lived with the daily knowledge of his condition. No, my father made what he believed was a clean and final ending.”
Pseudo-Yusuf overlooked the rude interruption and replied mildly. “He has made total atonement. Thereby we can resume.”
Fiora’s voice: “We too will pay him honors, by name, at every Remembrance.”
Mikel shook his head. “As you like, my lady, and thank you for your generosity. But this is not yet done with. I do not accept that my father owed any atonement.” He looked back at Sesil. “I came to bid you goodbye.”
She shuddered. “What?”
“My father acted under intolerable provocation. Witnesses agree. The Regnant surely recognized this. He should have spoken it forth, called my father fully justified, pardoned the breach of Radiant dignity, and reprimanded Arkezhan Socorro. He did not.”
“What do you mean?” Sesil swallowed. “To do?”
“The Regnant shall proclaim the justification and the pardon, and lay the dishonor where it belongs,” Mikel stated.
The face of Yusuf went expressionless. “How do you propose to accomplish this?” the voice murmured.
“I will have men with me, my lord. Let that suffice.”
“More violence? No!” Sesil snatched after his hand. A fingernail scratched. She clung. “No, I beg you.”
“Wish you to disgrace your clan afresh?” pleaded phantom Fiora.
“Of course not.” The program in an ancient gun might have spoken as coldly as Mikel. “I have studied the historical database. Precedents exist.”
“Buried,” pseudo-Yusuf protested. “Essentially forgotten.” It/he must have made a hurried search. “Yes, you can invoke things done in desperate times, during the Oceanic Rebellion and the turbulence afterward. But that was long ago.”
“For generations they were the stuff of tales and ballads. The precedents they set have never been rescinded.”
“Because no one afterward ever imagined—” The simulacrum did not continue.
“My lord and ladies, I have told you what I have told you in privacy, as a guest in your home,” Mikel reminded.
Fiora’s image winced. “That was needless to say.”
“Yes, of course we will maintain confidentiality until you release us; and it is clear that debate would serve no purpose,” added Yusuf’s stark tone.
Sesil let go of Mikel. She took a backward step from him. “You… you’ve become a stranger. I didn’t know you could dream of such a thing.”
“I regret the necessity,” he said.
“That you call it a necessity—oh, horrible—”
Mikel saluted. “Good evening, my lord, my ladies.” He made his unescorted way back into the night.
6
The captain’s mansion of Clan Socorro lay surrounded by a garden of delights that hid it from the surrounding estate. Thereby the dozen men who came toward it afoot over the meadowland were also covered against sight, unless someone spied them by chance. Then they would rouse curiosity, but scarcely
