Princess of the Void

2.14. Killing Machine

“They’re going to swarm me, Grantyde. As soon as we’re landed at the cloudsprint.” Sykora flicks a wireframe display across the front window, which shows the skeletons of other shuttles surprisingly close to them, hidden in Ptolek’s blood-red cloud cover. “Some of these magnates have waited hectocycles for Baroness Konia and I to bury the hatchet. Everyone will want a piece. You’ll need to act the dutiful husband at first, but after everyone gets some cocktails in them, you can leave me to the feeding frenzy and watch the racers.”

“Should I stay close?” Grant scratches his temple, where his anticomp straps aren’t. To keep the fake ownership up, he isn’t wearing them today. Whenever he doesn’t have them at hand, he’s started feeling overexposed and self-conscious. It gives him the same feeling as being shirtless in public.

“I worry they’re going to self-censor or dawdle if you’re around,” Sykora says. “And I’d prefer to keep them talking turkey. We can figure out a useful con with that if you like, but it might be easier to just split up for a while.”

“And we, uh.” He drops his voice and glances at the backseat of the shuttle, where Chief Engineer Waian is sitting and fiddling with something on her omnipresent tablet. “We’re sure we can talk about this right now?”

“The command group knows you’re free, dove.” Sykora squeezes his knee. “All three of them.”

Grant straightens in shock. “Did you tell them?”

Waian glances up from her tablet. “Educated guess. You told Hyax you weren’t fucking Her Majesty till you were free, and now that’s all you do.”

“Jesus.” He scoffs. “How many people know?”

Waian’s lazy demeanor drops away for a moment into a hardline determination. “Command group keeps its mistress’s secrets, kid. You, her, us. That’s it.”

“I trust the Chief Engineer with my life, Grantyde,” Sykora says. “You can, too.”

“Okay. Uh.” Grant examines Waian, who’s tucked back into her tablet. Of all the command group, he knows her the least. “I guess let’s split up, then. Maybe I can network with the other husbands.”

“Ooh.” Sykora clicks her tongue. “Boy talk.”

He smirks. “But what should I do if I’m compelled? I play along, right?”

Sykora frowns. She clearly isn’t comfortable thinking about this. “If it’s something you’d be willing to do, yes. Play along until you get the chance to tell me. If they told you to forget, we’ll exact our revenge in a subtler way. But if they compel you to do something unacceptable, something that would hurt you, do not feel as though you have no choice. Overpower them if you can and run if you can’t. Get to me as quickly as possible. And I’ll kill them.”

He gives this an uncertain chuckle.

Waian clears her throat. “She’s not joking, boss.”

“No, I am not.” Sykora’s eyes darken. “One reprobate’s life isn’t worth the knowledge being circulated. We need to keep your secret. And even if we didn’t, I would enthusiastically murder anyone who’d do that to you.”

He feels a feathery anxiety rise in his chest. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. Adverse compulsion of a citizen is a grave crime. Adverse compulsion of the Prince Consort is an executable offense.”

“It is?”

“It is, because I say it is. I’m the Void Princess of this sector, and I say it’s treason. I’d be within my rights to sentence the offender to death and carry out their execution immediately, and I would. I’d kill them where they stood.” Her hand quests for his. He hesitantly gives it over. “You may not have your anticomps,” she says, “but remember that. I’m your shield. I have the power, the prowess, and the will. If anyone tries to hurt you, I’ll rip their fucking throat out, like I did to the last corpse who tried.”

“Sykora.” He rubs her palm, feels the tiny bones of her hand. “That spear fight, and the way you cleared out Archer West. I’ve wondered this before. Is every Taiikari that dangerous? Can I even overpower one?”

Waian laughs. “Goddamn, Grantyde. No wonder you were so skittish when you first showed up. No, Taiikari aren’t all badasses. Very few of us can do a fraction of what Her Majesty can do. Void Princesses are trained in combat as soon as they’re old enough to walk. Your wife’s a killing machine.”

His eyebrows nearly disappear into his hairline. “Oh.”

“A killing machine.” Sykora scoffs. “Really, Waian. How is that supposed to be a comfort to him?”

“What about the majordomo? And how she handled a spear?”

“Vora was a competition spear fighter as a kid,” Waian says. “She’s gotten onto the podium at planetary tournaments. Your wife clears her every time, with one hand tied behind her back.”

“Oh,” he says, again.

“Waian is gassing me up.” Sykora flicks the hailing light on and slows to a hover in the queue by the traffic tower. “We all have fangs, and we all have invisibility. But you have your size and your strength. Few of the ladies you’ll see learned to bite for anything beyond baby making. I give you a good chance against civilians.”

“Got it.” Grant’s only halfway paying attention. He’s looking at a tiny crescent of bruise poking out of Sykora’s collar from his thumb. He remembers giving that to her on top of the kitchen table, her neck encircled one-handed, her big wide eyes staring worshipfully up at him like she was helpless in his grasp.

Of course, she wasn’t. Of course, he’s known the whole time she could end him in seconds, whenever she wants. But it’s interesting to be reminded. His wife, the killing machine.

He examines the flutter in his stomach—is that fear? No. Well, a little. But it’s a piquant little spicing of fear on something larger and sweeter.

She glances over at him and responds to his stare with a soft smile. Hi, she mouths.

Hi, he mouths back.

Geometric clouds of lighter-than-air repulsorcraft hang at the edges of the starting line, sending rippling pulses across the sky to maintain the pocket of calm within Ptolek’s stormy atmosphere. Through the distant churn, the great span of the exo refinement ring provides the closest thing to a horizon. A flock of sky ships, linked by glittering bridge tunnels, hosts a raucous festival where exo magnates and pre-eminent Ptolekans rub shoulders with the Black Pike sector’s peerage. And every single one of them wants facetime with Grant’s wife.

Most of them, she cuts down to size. It’s bracing to see her in haughty mode again after getting to know her so intimately behind that cool mask. She’ll listen to some starry-eyed shipper hold forth breathlessly for a full minute about the opportunities presented by some experimental new form of exo storage, and then ask some probative question: “And when the first of these canisters detonates, how do you intend to prevent a chain reaction, Baroness?”

Grant knows her now; the only genuine enjoyment on her face is when her latest petitioner slinks away. He remembers when his wife was this merciless to him.

The fake smiles smear together through the weight of sheer volume (and the remarkably strong race-day cocktails). Between hobnobbers, Sykora tugs Grant’s ear to her level and whispers: “I free you, you know. Again. If you’d like to make your escape.”

“I might do that.” Grant looks around at the windows, which are shaking in their cherub-lined frames with the thudding bass of the event outside. “It sounds like things are kicking off.”

“Would you go out for me? Find out what number our skybox is?” She looks around at Waian, who’s playing the spoiler to the next merchant trying to get her fawning in.

“Sure.”

“Can we—” She glances at the jockeying Taiikari. “Forgive me. But can I compel you? We have scads of witnesses.”

He smirks. “Sure.”

Her eyes flash. They are so beautiful when they do that. “Find our skybox, dove, and message me when you do. Yes?”

He kisses her forehead. “Yes.”

“I think Wenzai and Paxea’s husbands are already out there. See if you can find them. You want to take Waian?”

“She’s the only thing keeping you from being eaten alive, baby. I’ll be all right.” He ruffles the top of her head and straightens up. “Love you.”

“Love you, dove.” Her smile transfers over to the next mingling mogul, going brittle as it travels. Grant slips away.

He glances over his shoulder at his wife, laughing artificially at her latest petitioner’s opening. That compulsion warmth, the one that all the other men talk about. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to get it from Sykora.

Easy, tiger. You’re a wife guy, now, but you’re not that much of a wife guy. Besides, she gives you plenty of other kinds of warmth that feel a lot better than a nice cup of tea.

He lowers his head at the lip of the skybridge and emerges into a hall branching into wide, balustraded boxes. He inches around the fascinated foot traffic and tries not to look at all the red eyes as he glances into each box, looking for one of the alien grooms he met at the gallery party.

“Prince Consort!”

He turns to see Tikani, dressed in a flowing linen tunic, strolling down the hall with a bottle and the stems of three glasses cluttered in his hand. An anticomp visor lays across his limpid eyes. His sleepy-looking purple wife is at his hip, her red eyes heavy-lidded, a long-stemmed cigarette holder in her lips. Just like at the gallery, the Countess of Korak is wearing all black, and not a lot of it. Grant is learning about the Taiikari every day: today’s fact is that they have fishnet tights, too.

“You looking for us, Prince Consort?” She points to a vaulted door. “That’s the box.”

“Thanks, Countess.” He kisses the signet on her finger.

She pats his arm. “Good to see you, sire. I’m gonna finish this outside so I don’t piss the box off, Tikky. ‘Kay?”

“Kay.” Tikani plucks the cigarette from her mouth and takes a drag. He kisses Wenzai and Grant sees the smoke billow out of her nose before he detaches. “They don’t know what they’re missing.”

Wenzai chuckles. “You’re gonna get me addicted to that.” She tips Tikani’s anticomps up to his forehead. On reflex, Grant turns from the flash. “Save a seat for me, handsome.”

Tikani gives her tail a playful bap as he heads into the box.

“Prince Consort.” Wenzai touches Grant’s hand as he goes to follow Tikani.

Grant pauses. “Countess?”

Wenzai looks him up and down, head tilted. The inky space buns she’s wearing her hair in shift a little with the motion, and he sees the half-extruded horns they’re concealing. She sees where his eyes are. She winks and leans forward. Her periwinkle chest spills softly out of her black gown.

“Just wanted a better look at you, hot stuff,” she says. Then she sashays away down the hall.

Grant steps furrow-browed after Tikani into skybox 5H, texting Sykora their designation. The place is full of overstuffed seats arranged in his-and-hers pairs. Marquis Consort Thror, the four-armed Amadari, hails Grant with two of them. Like Tikani, he’s anticomped. “There he is. The cloudsprint virgin.”

Tikani passes Grant a glass full of effervescent crocus-colored wine. “You all right, Prince Consort?”

“Just, uh.” Grant blinks at his own reflection in Tikani’s visor. “Wishing I could have some anticomps, I guess.”

“Right.” Tikani grimaces. “My sympathies, Prince Consort.”

“Don’t worry, brother. Nobody’ll try any funny business. They know who your wife is.” Thror looks around. “Where is she, by the way?”

“Fending off the new money. You two mind babysitting me for a while?”

Thror chuckles. “Not at all. We can be the alien husband squad.”

Grant grins as he surveys the panoramic crowd assembled around the starting line. “Tikani, Thror… I kind of wish I had a name that started with ?.”

Above and between the well-heeled skyships, a ramshackle assortment of civilian craft and repurposed refinement barges have conglomerated. Aboard them, blasting music, dancing, and day-drinking to cheerful excess, are Grant’s first civilians. He leans out and tries to get a better look at them.

A tap at his shoulder. Tikani’s offering him a pair of binoculars. “Need a better look at the masses, sire?”

“Thanks.” Grant thinks about bringing up Wenzai’s brief flirtation and decides against it, for now. He’ll find a private spot. He holds the binoculars up. Lots of orange-striped boiler suits in evidence across those barges. He supposes those are the exo refiners. They’re sticking together in hard-partying clumps. Almost all of them are men.

“Oh. Look alive, gents. Racers forty below.” Thror smiles and throws a salute downward.

A rolling round of applause sounds throughout the stands as the racers troop past on a suspended catwalk, leading into a huge warty carrier parked at the center of the track.

Grant lowers his binoculars. The pilots are pausing by the skyboxes, waving and exchanging hellos with the lavish crowd. “Is there a reason it’s all women?”

“Half tradition,” Tikani says. “Half because nobody over four feet’d fit in the skimmers.”

Grant scans the lineup. He sees a familiar face. “The ginger in the first row, over there. I think I met her at the gallery.”

“That’s Lady Lakai. Tenth cloudsprint. She nearly exploded on her first. Cute, no?” Thror gives her a wave. She grins up at the assembled alien grooms and does a quarter-turn. Her tail smacks her butt.

“Honestly.” Grant shrugs. “They’re all cute.”

“Well, yes. Of course. But spend enough time around them and you develop an understanding of the degrees. Lakai’s an all-timer.” Thror elbows Grant. “And she has a taste for aliens. Bet you could have a taste back, if you wanted.”

Just like at the party, Lakai’s violet horns are visible through her ginger locks. Grant blinks his vision away from them. “Dude. I’m a married man.”

Thror’s brows raise. “You and Sykora are nme’kzai, then?”

“What?” Grant picks his drink up from his seat’s cupholder. “The implant didn’t catch that.”

“It’s slang. Means exclusive.”

“Oh.” Grant’s lips purse. “Yes.”

“Ahh.” Tikani scratches his tendriled head. “Shame. I mean, who could blame you. If I were Sykora’s, I’d go nme’kzai, too.”

Thror scoffs. “No, you wouldn’t.”

Grant feels his face heat up. “Is that, uh… unusual? On Maekyon it’s the default.”

Tikani pats his shoulder. “Not unusual, no. Much more usual than it used to be. Just not exactly the default. Wen and I were going to ask if you two were interested in a barter.”

“A barter being…”

“Exactly what you think it is,” Thror says. “Tik and the Countess are fiends for it.”

“We’re not fiends.” Tikani petulantly puts his hands on his hips. “Thror’s always talking like we’re harlots. We’re just a pair of naturally inquisitive people. And it’s not like you haven’t taken advantage, man.”

“Have you two, uh…” Grant forms a criss-cross with his fingers. “Bartered?”

“Sure,” Thror says. “But it’s not as if it’s a requirement. Illegal to do it without the husband’s consent, these days.”

These days.

“That said, we are going to have to change your name to Trantyde,” Tikani says. “You’re messing up the alliteration the alien husbands have going.”

“Hi, boys.” Waian of the Black Pike steps onto the balcony and taps Grant with her fake arm. “I have to take this one. Sykora’s orders. Excuse us.”

Grant drains his drink and salutes his fellow husbands with the empty glass as Waian herds him off with alacrity.

“You okay with dipping, boss?” she whispers. “We can pretend it was just for a quick conversation if you wanna go back. But Kora’s caught in a sparring match with the Governess and didn’t want to leave you defenseless any longer. And I could use your help.”

“Of course.” He lowers his voice to match hers: “Where are we going? Did Sykora get something from Garuna?”

“Better.” Waian points at the carrier. “We’re hitting the skimmer bay. Marquess Paxea heard it at the cocktail table and passed it along: Azkaii of Clan Trimond is in this race.”

Grant feels the hairs down the back of his neck prickle. “And this is the perfect place to pick another Trimond off.”

“Exactly.” Waian’s tail thumps on the ground. “We need to get to Azkaii’s skimmer before she does. Cause I’ll bet you anything we’ll find sabotage.”