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  Na’er guffawed. “Uh-huh.”

  “They banter thus always?” Sediryl asked him in their tongue.

  “It relieves their anxiety. It is like you with your fingers picking at your clothing.”

  She stared up at him, mouth ajar, and he politely ignored her.

  “Mind-mage!” she accused.

  “It doesn’t take a special talent to see what is before one’s eyes,” Lisinthir said. And then, sobering, “Courage, perhaps, to admit to it. But talent?” He smiled down at her and cocked a brow. “A word people use when they prefer not to admit they are too lazy to develop the skill.”

  “You see?” Na’er said to Laniis. “Now they’re having a private conversation. Either that, or the Ambassador’s tweaking my ears.”

  “Can you blame me when they’re so tweakable?” Lisinthir said in Universal.

  That laughter Amber interrupted. “There they come!”

  Onto the green that Lisinthir had so recently covered himself, they were, in fact, coming: about twenty Chatcaava herded by a handful of Pelted guardians. How alien they looked amid the abbey’s buildings, avoiding the geese and the Pelted children, with the sun gleaming off the bare hides of the females and the horns of the males. For there were males, he was surprised to see: two in the vanguard, with two females in close attendance, one proudly apart, the other with a babe in arms and two children trotting after her like an honor guard. He was surprised to recognize the latter female as the mother he’d summoned the Surgeon to save.

  It was good, good to see them. His only regret was the lack of the single female he’d wanted most to greet. He accepted that the Queen had chosen to exercise her free will on their behalf, but oh, how he missed her.

  Amber had already advanced and was hailing the Tam-illee female accompanying the group. Lisinthir ignored them to head for the male Chatcaava, and sensed his Fleet personnel following… and Sediryl as well. One of the males was a muted silver with eyes that were dark for a Chatcaava, and his demeanor was grim. The other, taller and thicker through the shoulders and chest and wing-arms, seemed more phlegmatic. Or had, before he caught sight of Lisinthir.

  “You didn’t mention this part,” that male said to the other with interest.

  “Because I didn’t know about it. But I probably should have.” The male came to a halt in front of Lisinthir and glared up at him. “You were the one who put the idea in her head, weren’t you.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Lisinthir said, cordial. “I believe she had ideas in her head long before I was involved. Or did you think your Queen a dumb animal, incapable of imagining a fate separate from that designed for her by the males that trammeled her?”

  The second male made a sound suspiciously like a cough.

  “It’s not that,” the proud female said. “He’s just upset that she lied to him.”

  “I’m not talking to you,” the first male said between gritted teeth.

  “You’re talking to her now,” the second male pointed out.

  “I’m only talking to her to inform her that I still haven’t forgiven her.”

  The female sniffed. “As if I wanted your forgiveness.” She studied Lisinthir, curious, both sets of arms folded as she leaned toward him. “I remember you. You said we were ugly.”

  “I cannot have said anything of the sort,” Lisinthir said, startled.

  “When the Emperor offered you our use,” the female pressed. “You said that wings were our species’ most attractive feature. It was your reason for not wanting us.”

  “I believe what I said was that I was accustomed to two arms. Which, you will perceive, is only the truth.”

  “You see?” the first male said. “She is infuriating. You tell her something—or ask her something—and she creatively reinterprets it to suit herself!”

  The second male patted him on the shoulder. “Well, now she’s the Ambassador’s problem. You are the Ambassador, I assume.”

  “At the Exalted’s service, as I presume you are?”

  “You presume correctly,” the first male said stiffly. “I apologize for our discourtesy. I am the Knife, the male assigned by the Emperor to head the Queen Ransomed’s security. This male beside me is Uuvek, who served with me in the Navy as a computer specialist before I asked for his expertise in the palace.”

  “And we,” said the female, “are the Priestess. And the Mother.”

  “The Mother I have met before,” Lisinthir said, inclining his head to her. “Your child, I believe?”

  “The one you-my-better helped to save,” she said shyly. “Thank you.”

  “I am pleased beyond words to have done so. And these two drakes?”

  “Gale,” said the Mother. “And his brother, Whisper.”

  “We’re her guards,” Gale said. The stubborn scowl eased. “You were the one who gave the Queen the shape of the alien? The one she used to communicate with the tongueless attendants?”

  “I… did, yes,” Lisinthir said, startled. “Did she truly?”

  “She did!” Gale said. “It was amazing! I had no idea our nurses were thinking anything at all! I mean, I knew they had to be, but when you never hear those thoughts, you forget that people think them….”

  “Gale,” the Mother muttered.

  The Priestess reached over and swatted the boy on the head. Gently, Lisinthir noticed, but firmly. “You inherited the Emperor’s brain. Try to use it before you speak.”

  “It is true that we often become complacent when no one contradicts our beliefs,” Lisinthir said to Gale. “It is wise of you to have noticed. An observation befitting an Emperor’s son.”

  Gale scowled at the Priestess. “So why did she hit me?”

  “I’m afraid it was because you implied that females are dumb animals,” Lisinthir said. “You will also note that people who have been much maligned are more sensitive to such attitudes. You should choose your words more carefully around the disenfranchised.”

  The Priestess rolled her eyes. “I cuffed him because the Mother didn’t. Someone needs to teach him that females are not all meek and clawless.”

  “If he has met the Queen and see her in her power,” Lisinthir said, “then I think he knows that already. Do you not, Gale?”

  “Yes,” the boy said. “She’s fierce!”

  “In her own way,” Lisinthir agreed. To the Knife, “There is much I would ask of you, but we should see the frailer among you to shelter where they can rest. You and your redoubtable female companions I plan to wring for information, but babes and their wet nurses are another matter.”

  “Yes,” the Knife said, with such poorly concealed long-suffering that it was difficult for Lisinthir to conceal his amusement. “Yes, they are. Please, lead on.”

  Settling the noncombatants took some time; setting up the room for their conference still more. Sediryl fought her irritation—poorly—at the discovery that the Fleet personnel could provide translation via data tablet and telegem. “Why didn’t you do that for us when they first started arriving?” she asked Amber.

  “Because,” Amber replied, testy, “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s all of one computer in this entire abbey, and it’s embedded in the abbot’s room upstairs.”

  “There’s a thing called a data tablet,” Sediryl shot back. “I hear they’re cheap, particularly for people with our resources.”

  “I don’t see you waving your data tablet around,” he growled.

  That had given her pause, which Amber used to resume his conversations about preparing the room with those Fleet people. “Maia?” she asked, low. “Could you have fed me a translation?”

  A pause. Then, “The answer to that is… ordinarily, yes.”

  “Ordinarily,” she repeated.

  “The Ambassador’s trip to the Empire made it clear that our existing database on Chatcaavan is lacking in a great deal of necessary nuance,” the D-per replied. “It is currently being re-evaluated for veracity. Opinions vary over how true to the original our translati
ons would be, and when we are talking about translating the words of those who mean us harm….”

  “I see,” Sediryl said. She frowned, watching a stranger set out plates of food and drink. “Why are the Fleet people so confident, then?”

  “Because they have Lieutenant Baker. If records are correct, she just returned from almost a year, maybe longer, in the Empire. And, of course, the Ambassador, who also appears to know the language colloquially.”

  “Have you been listening?” she asked, interested. “Could you replay the exchange I just heard outside for me?”

  “I could, yes. I believe it would be eighty percent accurate.”

  “Well,” Sediryl said, taking a seat on a corner bench while the others finished setting up. “Let’s have it.”

  “Replaying now, alet. At a somewhat higher rate of speed.”

  While the others went about their business, then, Sediryl listened, trying to keep her mouth from betraying any mirth at some of the exchanges and marveling at her cousin’s fluency. She’d been forced to listen to the conversation as incomprehensible noise, and left without any meaning to interpret she’d fallen back on evaluating the rhythm and play of it… and Lisinthir had never hesitated, nor faltered in search for any word. Sediryl had learned Universal as a child, long before she had any clear memory of whether it had entailed any effort. She hadn’t attempted to acquire any language since, but she couldn’t imagine learning Chatcaavan this well in two years. Less than that, given that Lisinthir had no doubt been given a quick course in it and then flung into the Empire.

  There was nothing in that conversation relevant to their problems now, but it did suggest a very great many things about her cousin and his beliefs.

  When the four Chatcaava were led back in, the room looked very much as it had when they’d greeted their cousin, but with some exceptions. Food and drink, of course. And now translating telegems for everyone, including the Chatcaava. It was all very cool and dim and very Alliance despite its rustic facade. Sediryl wondered how the Chatcaava found it. Did they think it soft? Comforting?

  The Mother looked at the food with what seemed to be wistfulness, but didn’t reach for it. Glancing at her, the Priestess sighed and snagged a round red fruit. “I assume this is safe for us to eat,” she said to Lisinthir.

  “It would not be there otherwise.”

  The Priestess pressed it into the Mother’s hand. “Stop apologizing for existing.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” the Mother whispered in protest.

  “No, but you were thinking it.”

  Lisinthir cleared his throat, and strange it was indeed to hear him speaking a completely unintelligible language, and yet to hear the Universal less than a syllable later in her ear. His confidence, though, needed no translation. “Shall we begin, then? There is a matter that requires immediate address.”

  “That being?” the Knife asked, wary.

  “I require proof of your loyalties.”

  The two males stared at him so fixedly Sediryl’s shoulders tensed. Her cousin, she noted, showed no signs of discomfort at all.

  “You question our loyalty,” the Knife repeated.

  “As the ship that was carrying me back to the Alliance was attacked by a system lord’s militia in consort with a Naval vessel and Naval personnel… yes. The Emperor has been betrayed by those he trusted implicitly, so I can no longer take your profession as proof of your allegiance. I require that proof before we continue.”

  “I can’t argue that,” Na’er said, and if Lisinthir’s voice had been shocking in Chatcaavan, the Aera’s accented drawl was even more so.

  But the effect of her cousin’s statement on the Chatcaava was electric. The Knife was leaning forward, eyes so wide the pupils visibly contracted in them from the extra light. “You know this? You are certain!”

  “Completely.”

  The Knife stared at Uuvek. “She was right!”

  “If we hadn’t agreed with her, we wouldn’t have gone,” Uuvek replied, nonplussed.

  “I agreed it might be possible!” the Knife said. “I didn’t want to believe that it was true.” Shoulders slumping, and wings with them, he turned back to Lisinthir. “You must have your proof, then, though I don’t know how you plan to derive it. Unless…” He hesitated. “You will do as the Emperor did to me once?”

  “And what did he do?” Lisinthir asked with interest.

  “He touched me while wearing your shape in order to assess my fitness to be the Queen’s Knife.” The Chatcaavan canted his head. “Will you now do the same?”

  “How convenient for us all that you are familiar with the procedure,” Lisinthir said, and Sediryl hid a smile. Her cousin held out a hand. “Let us be quit of that quickly, for it is apparent we have a great deal to do.”

  The test of the Knife didn’t take long, and try as she might Sediryl couldn’t see any evidence that it was transpiring, or that it was disturbing her cousin’s peace. What must it be like, to be capable of that level of mindtouch? She had never been that good at even the easy parts, and had never thought of that lack as a liability. To have to wear dense, long sleeves, never able to push them up without worrying about whether she’d brush someone’s skin? Goddess save her from that kind of trouble.

  Lisinthir moved on to Uuvek, and opened an eye partway through that evaluation to quirk a brow at him.

  “Find something interesting?” the Chatcaavan asked.

  “You have a fascinating mind,” Lisinthir replied. “Very well organized.”

  “Thank you. I worked hard on it.”

  Lisinthir laughed. “Did you. Well, it shows.”

  To everyone’s surprise, he held out his hand to the Priestess afterwards. It was the Mother who exclaimed, “But we are females!”

  “And apparently he knows that females are capable of power and action and treachery if it suits them,” the Priestess said, eyeing Lisinthir with approval. “I think I am going to like the world we are being thrust into, if this is typical of people’s assumptions.”

  “It is typical of many of them,” Lisinthir said, and looked across the room at Sediryl. “Alas, you will find the occasional person who underestimates others based on criteria that have nothing to do with the quality of their will or spirits.”

  The Priestess sniffed. “Good. May there be many such among our enemies.” She rested her hand confidently in Lisinthir’s and watched him throughout the test with avid curiosity.

  That left the Mother, who regarded Lisinthir with trepidation.

  “You I ask this of only because someone may have used your mind as a trap,” Lisinthir said. “I do not fear for your loyalties. But let me be certain.”

  “Can… can that happen?” the Mother asked, aghast.

  “Even among powers without access to mind talents,” Lisinthir said. “The mind can be bent unexpectedly.”

  She gave him her hand, which was trembling visibly. Lisinthir caressed it softly with a thumb until she relaxed, and then kissed the back. “And you are safe, Mother.”

  “Again, thanks to you,” the Mother murmured.

  “Mostly due to my compatriots, this time, you’ll find.” Lisinthir leaned back. “So. The Navy has betrayed the Emperor. What made the Queen decide to flee?”

  Uuvek and the Knife exchanged glances. The latter said, “Second.”

  “Second?” Laniis asked.

  “A new Second, I presume,” Lisinthir said.

  “What is Second?” Amber interrupted.

  “What it sounds like,” Na’er said. “The Emperor’s chief minister.”

  “The new Second was Command-East.” The Knife rested his talons on the table, pressing lightly. “You know our sectors?”

  “Yes,” Lisinthir said.

  “Then you should know that the eastern quadrant is the densest, population and industry-wise,” the Knife said. “Our military has nodal bases in each of the four quadrants, but East is our largest and considered our headquarters. Second was the male charged wit
h the military administration of the entirety of the Eastern Navy: its supplies, its fixed defenses, its fleets, its personnel.”

  “Logical choice for a new minister, as long as he doesn’t turn on you,” Na’er said. “Is that what he did?”

  “He must have,” the Knife said. “Someone had to give the order to intercept you, Ambassador. But we had to leave before securing any proof or we would never have made it out.”

  “That’s why the Queen stayed, though,” Sediryl said. “Would she have been able to get you any information?”

  “We haven’t had access to any computers on our flight,” the Knife said. “So we wouldn’t know. Unless you received something, Ambassador?” At Lisinthir’s negation, the Chatcaavan said, “Then… we would have to check.”

  “Can you even reach your computers through ours? Don’t you… I don’t know. Secure your networks?” Amber asked.

  Uuvek huffed. “Give me a console. That’s all I need.”

  “But not the one in the abbey,” Sediryl said. “Which means mine.” She held up her tablet. “Do you know how to use our interfaces?”

  “I can walk him through it,” a voice murmured in her ear.

  “That would work, then.” Sediryl rose, leaned over the table, and set her tablet in front of the Chatcaavan. “My crewmember can help you. Her name’s Maia. She’s a D-Per—a digital personality—if you know what that is.”

  Lisinthir said something to the Chatcaava then that her translation blanked on.

  “A what?” the Knife said, startled. “That’s possible? But why would you do that?”

  Uuvek was staring at the data tablet with a look Sediryl had to describe as avarice. “Can I talk to this being?”

  “I am listening to you right now,” Maia offered through the data tablet’s speakers. In Chatcaavan, which made the simultaneous translation in the same voice in Sediryl’s ear bizarre.

  Uuvek’s head jerked back. Leaning forward slowly, he said, “This tablet. I can’t scratch it.”

  “No,” Sediryl said.

  Laniis added, “We have many species with claws or talons.”

  “Then, with your permission, I will withdraw to make the acquaintance of this… being. And I will find out if we have any messages. Knife?”