Grail

likes a well-composted bed,” Danilaw had said, and Perceval had stared at him for a full three seconds before realizing that he was being intentionally ridiculous. The Mean has a sense of humor. It did, in fact, endear him to her—just a little.

And so she fed them on the Bridge, at a table Nova built for the occasion—not too large, oval in shape, the glossy flat surface growing up from the grassy deck on twisted legs as if it had always been rooted there. The food was kept plain, though Head exercised all hir considerable ingenuity on making it also delicious. Sie always said it was more a test of the cook’s art and discrimination to make the simple great, anyway.

Perceval had wondered if her dinner guests would find the food strange, and as truth would have it, they seemed to. Not so strange, however, that they failed to apply themselves to the dishes with concentration.

She got a sense that their culture focused a kind of ritual attentiveness on food. They ate in small bites, carefully timed, and both of them inspected each mouthful before consuming it. Perceval hoped it wasn’t out of fear of toxicity. She’d had Nova analyze their metabolites—it wasn’t invasive, so she didn’t feel she needed to ask permissions—and it appeared that, within detectable tolerances, they could eat what she ate.

Could eat. Whether they habitually did eat it seemed questionable, given the scientific rigor with which they investigated their dinners. Perceval expected questions, but they did not quiz their hosts, just inspected, chewed, considered, and swallowed. Tristen and Mallory supported the conversation, the necromancer especially putting forth efforts to be sparkling, but Perceval could sense the awkwardness hovering between the two groups of diners.

And it was hard indeed to find common ground for conversation when gossip about common acquaintances and family business were off the table. Perceval had never realized before how much of what went on at the average meeting was devoted to navigating the complex relationships that linked Conn and Engine.

Mallory managed a fair trade in humorous anecdotes about long-dead Conns and Engineers, leaving enticing pauses in the narrative, but Perceval could not help but notice that Danilaw and Amanda seemed completely at a loss as to how to handle them. Finally, she set her utensils down, folded her hands in front of her mouth, and said, “I wouldn’t force conversation on you, but this feels awkward to me. Is there some manner in which the hospitality could be improved?”

Her alien guests did a lot of talking to each other with their eyes. They shared a glance now, lingering enough that she wondered if they were telepaths or had some sort of implant that allowed silent communication. Amanda finally looked back at Perceval and said, “It’s another of those cultural differences. We’re socialized from a young age to believe that eating is serious business, requiring attention and gratitude. Cookery is the performance of an art, and like any ephemera, it should be savored. Also, there is the matter of honoring the former existence of the food, and acknowledging the lives that go to feed us.”

Tristen frowned, but it seemed like the study of concentration rather than one of disagreement. “You honor the sacrifice?”

“That,” Amanda said, “would imply complicity on the part of the lunch. And in general, I suspect anything we eat would prefer to continue existing as something other than a source of fuel. No; we merely try to recognize our impact, so we may manage it.”

“Oh.” Mallory chased the rubbery coil of a steamed snail around the plate before cornering it in a small puddle of herbed oil. With fork tines poised before painted lips, the necromancer said, “We are insufficiently reverent of the dead.”

The aliens did that eye thing again. This time, Danilaw nodded and spoke. “After a fashion, though I might have left out the value judgment. We are attempting to engage with you without discrimination.”

“Or relativism,” Tristen said. “And we very much appreciate your consideration of the long centuries our people have been separated, and the time it will take to negotiate those alienations.”

“Not to mention,” Amanda said, “the time it will take even to identify them.”

Perceval let her fork lie alongside the plate, unwilling to risk disturbing the delicate balance of actual communication taking place. She leaned forward, minding her manners and keeping her elbows by her sides—it would have made her mother proud, she thought, with a pang—and started to say something that would continue the diplomacy that had somehow, organically, commenced.

Only Nova spoke in her head, soft and definite. “Cynric is about to enter the Bridge.”

16 a girl who had no wings

“These,” he said gravely, “are unpleasant facts; I know it. But then

most historical facts are unpleasant.”

—ALDOUS HUXLEY, Brave New World

When the door slid open on another of the generation ship natives—the Conn family, as they called themselves, and Danilaw was starting to understand that, indeed, they shared familial links as close as those uniting the First Families of Fortune—Danilaw laid his fork down somewhat reluctantly beside his plate. The strange food was, well, strange—but it was interesting, stimulating, and delicious, once he chose to ignore his genetic predisposition to fear novelty. Strange things, after all, could be poison, but he was reasonably certain that these strange people had more to gain by keeping him and Amanda alive, and he had the Captain’s assurances that everything on the table was safe.

He was beginning to trust the new people’s medical technology. That seemed far more advanced than anything Earth or Fortune had to offer—although he knew it came at a cost of illegal bioengineering.

This alien, like the others before, was attenuated and androgynous, straight hair falling in locks over white- clothed shoulders. It—she—paused within the door, allowing the hatch to spiral closed behind her with a fine, practiced sense of drama and how to frame herself for best effect. Danilaw wondered if she had a secondary as an actress.

He was amused to notice that he was already treating each new incursion of the Conn family into his presence with a wary, even jaundiced, eye and a sense that some fresh hell had found him. From the way both Perceval and Tristen looked up warily from the dinner table, he thought, in this case, it might not even be the culture shock talking.

“Aunt,” Perceval said, without rising. “I must admit, your presence is unexpected.”

“Of course,” said the newcomer. “I planned it that way. I hear there was an explosion.”

“Indeed there was,” Danilaw said, hoping he had understood the way the Jacobeans did not stand on ceremony. “Someone apparently sabotaged our scull. I am Danilaw Bakare, Administrator of Bad Landing. This is Captain Amanda Friar.”

“Cynric Conn,” she said. “I’m the head of bioengineering. I imagine I’ll be working closely with your ecologists in order to adapt our people as closely to Fortune as possible.”

She didn’t call his homeworld Grail—even though she spoke so casually of engineering her family, as if they were machines.

On the other hand, that flexibility might lead them to accept rightminding without too much trouble.

That’s my Dani, his mother would have said. Always on the bright side. She’d never known how much of that was effort and pretense.

Cynric extended her hand and he accepted it, startled when she gave a little squeeze. She was of a sameness with the other Conns—tall, planar, pale, and blue-featured. The jewel that flashed in her face reminded him of Amanda’s, but he thought it was a piercing rather than an implant. No Free Legates here.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.

If she noticed how noncommittal he was, she accepted it without a ripple. She let his hand drift out of hers and turned her attention to the people behind the table, touching Amanda lightly as well. After that, though, she