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“Laughter is a gift.”

“Sometimes.”

I stand and dust my pants, giving the place one last look.

The garden isn’t as perfect as it was in memory. And neither was she. She was impatient. She could be spiteful for small reasons. But she was a girl. Not even seventeen. And she gave the most she could, did the best she could with what she had. That’s why I will always love her, and it is why I know whether or not she would give her blessing for what I go to do, my heart can’t stay here in this cage she herself has fled. It must move on.

48

The Magistrate

MineMagistrate Timony cu Podginus waits for me flanked with a coterie of Gray mine guards, now wearing their best and brightest uniforms. One carries a platter of cheese, dates, and Podginus’s best, and perhaps only, caviar. Ugly Dan is gone.

“Lord Andromedus, is it not?” Podginus croons with that supercilious inflection uppity Coppers favor. He is fatter. His hair thinner. And he sweats like a pig in heat as he fans open his heavily ringed fingers to favor me with a queer bow popular in the HC political dramas. “I was examining the ore compression facilities”—probably a whorehouse in nearby Yorkton, at the edge of the taiga—“when news of your visit came to me. I hurried back as best I could, but still I beg your forgiveness. I wonder, though, may I be so bold as to ask the purpose of your visit?” So he can sell the information to men like Pliny. Coppers rarely mean all that they say. “An inspection is not due for …”

“In polite society, it is considered rude not to introduce yourself, Copper.” I talk like a Peerless, not the Pixies he so eagerly emulates.

“My apologies!” he stammers in alarm, sweeping into a bow so deep I’d fear he might touch his nose to the floor were it not for the cushion of his substantial gut. “I am MineMagistrate Timony cu Podginus, your humble servant. And may I say, if it is not too bold”—he’s still bowing—“your aspect is grander than I had indeed expected! Not to say that I did not expect you to be broad and tall—the ArchGovernor has only the best of the best in his employ, naturally—but the HC does you the barest justice.”

“You may stop bowing.”

He straightens self-consciously and peers behind me into the garden, fiendishly seeking the reason someone like me came unannounced to his mine.

“As I know you’ve no doubt heard from others, the MineMagistrates were overjoyed to hear the planet had been liberated from Bellona control. War, those men may know, but mining? Pfah, amateurs.”

“They don’t know war either, apparently.”

Swallowing, he glances again to my razor and then to the garden.

“A beautiful space, is it not?” he asks. “It reminds me of my time on the Pyrrus River. The tulip blossoms there—oh, the color! Nothing like it, as I’m sure you know. And the trees, aren’t they so very like the birches that stretch along the steppes of the Olympus Mons? I stayed there at the Chateau le Breu.” He makes a strange expansive motion with his hands. “I know, I know, but sometimes one must treat oneself. In fact it is where I discovered the most unique sottocenere cheese.” He smiles proudly. “They call me Marco Polo, my friends, because I relish travel. It’s the culture I seek. Refined company, as you could no doubt guess, is the damnedest thing to find around here.…”

I don’t know how long he would continue trying to impress me if I didn’t look at his men’s best uniforms, then at his best rings, and frown.

“Is something the matter?” he asks.

“You’re right,” I say.

His beady eyes scurry back and forth between his best Grays, searching for signs of the inequity I noticed. It disgusts me how desperate he is to please me. This man stole from my family. He had me whipped. Watched Eo be killed. Hanged my father. He’s not wicked. He’s just pathetic in his greed.

“I am right about what?” he asks, blinking at me.

“That it is impossible to find refined company in places like this.” My eyes fall so heavily on him I fear he might burst out crying. Seeing him, seeing Dan, does nothing but fill me with a distant strangeness. I wanted them to be terrible, hideous monsters. But they aren’t. They are petty men who ruin lives and don’t even notice. How many others are there like

them?

In a panic, Podginus waves to the cheese plate.

“Sottocenere, my liege. It’s an Italian import with notes of licorice, winks of nutmeg, a dash of coriander and, a sprinkling of cloves, and a playful but mysterious bit of cinnamon and fennel coated onto the rind. I’m sure you’ll find it to your—”

“I did not come here for cheese.”

“No. No. Of course not.” He looks around nervously. “If I may beg to ask, what did you come here for, my liege?”

I begin walking. Podginus hurries to keep up. “Ragnar.” I nod to the titan, who pulls a small datapad from his pocket. Took Pebble less than an hour to teach him to use it.

“Your output of helium-3 has decreased by fourteen percent over the last quarter. Your projections show an expected shortfall of 13,500 kilos for the current fiscal quarter. Praetor Andromedus wishes you to explain.”

Podginus doesn’t know what to do. He looks back and forth between me, the Obsidian, and the datapad. He stammers a response. “I—I—we have had issues with the populace. Grafitti, illegal pamphlets.” He addresses me. “You know we were the nucleus of the Persephone movement …” Ragnar taps him heavily on the shoulder.