Page 64

As I walk through the ship to my chambers, I pass by open doorways into the technical rooms of the ships, where rooms of staff scan through star-maps and monitor the ship’s vitals.

My presence stops all conversation. People glance over, staring in the same way I used to look at the women who went to Colossus to join the harems. I can remember giggling with my younger sister, making comments.

They no longer see me as the gray, drab Prime Minister. They’re seeing me as something alien to them. They’ll gossip behind my back, that I’m sure of, and I know there will be a few choice words used that would have horrified me just a week ago.

I let their looks wash over me, ignoring the judgmental stares, my head high as I walk back to my chambers.

When I’m alone, I don’t feel like changing back into the grays of the administration. So I strip off the dress, carefully take off the jeweled choker, which I place on my desk, and change into new undergarments as I lie back in my bed.

My adrenaline was pouring through me when I was in the pleasure room with them, and now, as I lie back, I’m deeply exhausted.

Part of me wishes I was in bed with the three men, those huge arms cradling around me tightly, up against the safety of their power.

There’s a new defiance in me. The way I walked through the judgmental stares, knowing they saw the wet stains on my dress. I was completely unashamed. It’s a new kind of power. Their gazes mean nothing to me.

But then I sit up, shocked as a new wave of unease rushes through me.

Our next stop is Virelia. Every other planetary ritual means nothing to me, but I had always imagined one day planting the seeds of a tree with the love of my life. Now we’ll be planting four…

While my family watches.

I’m going to have to face my older brother. He was my biggest supporter when I told him my crazy dream, that me, a nobody from Virelia, wanted to work for the Administration. Neither of us could have imagined how quickly I would rise from a clerk to the Administration, and then to Prime Minster of Pentaris itself, but deep down, neither of us were too surprised. We both knew that Pentaris was hungry for young, fresh blood, the voice of the youth and the fiercely independent planets on the outskirts who needed a champion who would fight to protect Pentaris against Aurelian overreach and Toad incursions.

I’m not looking forward to seeing my parents, either. They are both respected wardens, protecting the forests frompoachers and managing the complex ecosystems of Virelia, keeping nature in balance as their predecessors did for millennia. They taught me from a young age how invasive species could wreak havoc.

And now I’m the one bringing Aurelians to our planet. The combat boots of the alien conquerors will trample Virelian soil, because I wasn’t strong enough to whip the votes against the trade deal.

I am the face of our submission. To the vast majority, I am the symbol of negotiating and bridging our two cultures, and I have already heard reports of parades and festivals, often with my face plastered on banners. The masses will have wealth and resources like never before. The age of scarcity, when all excess grain was pushed out to Frosthold, when factories worked non-stop to provide arms, is over.

But to my family, I will be the face of the first surrender of the principles we hold the most dear.

I lay back in bed and mumble the command to turn off the lights. Sleep finds me slowly, tossing and turning in bed, haunted by thoughts of what’s to come.

19

ADRIANA

Icouldn’t eat this morning. I couldn’t leave my ship, not wanting to see the green jewel of my home planet approaching in the viewports.

I’m still not sure if the Aurelians will come. They certainly aren’t use to being sent for like errand boys. I sent out a message through channels asking them to meet me in my ship, because I need to see them before we land on my home planet…

But I don’t trust myself around them anywhere near the pleasure room. It kept me up last night, my body on fire, tossing and turning.

It’s safer here, in the dull, gray corporate boardroom of my ship. I always found it ironic that the Administration paid a designer to give every inch of our ship the look of not wasting a single cent. It’s part of the image of frugality, because the planets don’t particularly like funding the federal government.

“The royal triad has arrived,” says one of my worker bees, leaning his head into the boardroom.

“Send them in.”

They have to turn sideways to come through the door.

“Thanks for coming,” I say. They’re wearing their battle-robes, the white, tighter togas that leave the right half of their bodies uncovered.

“This is bloody depressing,” says Titus, looking around the drab surrounding of the boardroom. His head nearly touches the ceiling, and Doman is hunched over to fit.

Doman pulls out one of the chairs, looking down at it skeptically. It’s definitely not rated for over five hundred pounds of alien.

I don’t want to ask my assistant to fill out a budget request for a new chair—who knows what rumors that would start. “Do you mind standing?”