Princess of the Void-2.18. Nothing Like Them

“Belay that.” Sykora raises her hand. “We’re not arresting a union officer in front of a horde of exo refiners, Governess. If this Ondai character is a person of interest, put her on the list and I’ll investigate her.”

“Majesty, if you truly suspect ongoing foul play, the unionists are a stark frontrunner. Especially considering the links you proclaim to piracy.”

Baroness Trimond’s ears twitch at piracy; her eyes dart away from the Governess. Grant tries not to make his intrigue obvious.

“You may conduct your own investigation into whether unionists infiltrated this vessel, Governess,” Sykora says. “Only see that it doesn’t take priority over mine.”

“Where’s Azkaii? Where is my daughter?” The baroness points an unsteady finger. “If you’ve arrested her, I demand to know the charge and gain visitation.”

“Your daughter is in my protective custody.”

“What?” Trimond bristles. “Did she volunteer for this?”

“This is not voluntary. This is for her safety.” Sykora hands Grant her half-drained bottle. “Once we’re satisfied that her security against these attacks is assured, we’ll return her home. Until then, she will be our guest aboard the Black Pike.”

The Baroness’s eyes flare. “How dare you.”

A shift in Sykora’s mien. “How dare I?” The three foot tall woman seems suddenly to fill the room. “I dare a great deal, when I judge I am being lied to.”

“I—” Trimond shrinks back, but her glare is still affixed. “You go too far, Princess.”

Sykora takes a step forward. “This is in your analysis, Trimond?”

“Yes, Majesty. And I want my protest clearly recorded.”

“Lodge it with the clerks of the Imperial Core. If it’s ratified, your complaint will show up on the official record and a Core investigator will determine whether to issue an Imperial reprimand. The process takes a handful of cycles. But never fear. I heard you just now, quite clearly.” Sykora taps her forehead. The smile she wears reminds Grant of her sister. “And I’ll keep what you have said at the very front of my mind.”

She turns on her heels and strolls to the door.

“While you wait,” she says, “my suggestion is to cooperate fully with my investigation. The sooner I know exactly what is happening to the Trimonds, the sooner I can be assured of Azkaii’s safety, and my conscience can allow her to depart my protection. I am always reachable whenever you are ready to speak with me, good ladies.”

Garuna seems about to speak; she changes her mind when Sykora pauses in the doorway and turns, leaning back into the sparse chamber. The Princess’s voice is leaden and uncompromising:

“I trust that my mushroom’s growing on your logs.”

A chorus of “Yes, Majesty.”

“Splendid.” Her back straightens. Her eyes flicker at Grant. “Come, husband.”

“What the hell did you just tell them?” he whispers, under the tromping tread of their security escort leading them out. “Mushroom on their logs?”

“It means,” she replies, “that they know I’ve got them by the short-and-curlies. Did that one translate?”

“Crystal-clear, Majesty.”

They re-emerge into the festivities and dismiss their armor-clad escort. Grant turns toward the skybox hallway; Sykora’s tail tugs his pant leg. “Not yet,” she murmurs. “I think we have one more port of call.”

“What’s that?”

She nods to the barges on the other side of the raceway. “I told the Governess otherwise. But I want to meet this unionist she despises.”

Grant eyes the hard-bitten crowd aboard the barge and the retreating backs of their security detail. “Are you sure we should go there without goons?”

“I am not the sort of Princess who fears her own subjects,” Sykora says. “And besides. None of them protected me today.” Her tail tightens. “You did.”

He adjusts his collar as they move to the sky bridge. “I, uh, I don’t know if I’m ready for a repeat performance just yet.”

“You don’t need to be. Just look confident and huge.” She pinches his butt. “You’re halfway there.”

The skimmer cabbie Sykora orders to ferry them across does so with silent, obedient terror, glancing back in disbelief a few times at the Princess squeezed into her backseat. Grant has to curl up to fit in the cramped pod.

They’re dropped into a weatherbeaten and graffiti’d airlock that opens onto a freezing skybridge. The temperature here is low enough that Grant can see his own breath—the refiners clearly lack the heating he was taking for granted in the noble skyboxes.

Sykora strides through the ramshackle hall as if she’s aboard her own warship, and slams the door open into the barge's main floor with enough of a clang that a full third of the rowdy crowd looks her way. A wave of shock and nudging elbows silence the festivities.

“Citizens.” Sykora folds her hands behind her back and stands at a fearless parade rest. “I’d like to speak to your union representative. Is Corska Ondai present, please?”

Whispered conference. The crowd parts. At the other end of the barge is a long table covered in a steaming row of hot-plated foods. The unionist Grant saw from his box—the dirty blonde one who threw him the horns—leans against it. “That would be me.”

Sykora taps her foot. “Mind the rank, Ondai. I’m not your enemy. I can help you if you give me the deference I’m due.”

Ondai smirks and delivers a quarter-bow. Like she’s only a few ranks below the Princess, not a commoner. “Your Majesty,” she says.

The look on Sykora’s face isn’t thrilled, but she inclines her head back as she steps into the corridor formed by the refiners. “Better.”

“Didn’t expect to see you here, Majesty.” Ondai turns from the Princess, back to the plate she’s preparing. “Thought this gig was for the exo clique.”

“I was overdue for an appearance,” Sykora says. “A diverting race this year. My husband and I appreciated the soundtrack your barge supplied.”

“You a fan of Tremorlocc, then?”

“It was enjoyably bottom-heavy.” Sykora moves to Ondai’s side. A brawny union enforcer steps in front of her. Grant steps in front of him, and dwarfs him by a full head. He’s never thought of himself as a heavy-duty bruiser type dude. But he never tackled a man with a gun before today. And by sheer height, he seems to have the guy cowed, at least for the moment.

“I have taken the investigation into the Trimond case from the Governess,” Sykora says. “She pointed me your way as a person of interest.”

Ondai piles greasy pulled-protein from a tureen onto her clean-sliced roll. “What’s the Trimond case?”

“Someone’s killing Trimonds.”

“Shit.” Ondai chuckles and licks orange brine from her thumb. “And the Governess thinks it’s us.”

“It doesn’t matter what she thinks. She’ll accuse you. You’ve been unsubtle in antagonizing her, and this is her opportunity to hurt you.”

“Unsubtle.” Ondai’s grin drops a few degrees. “A riot cop’s unsubtle. A waiver that ensures you can't blame the corroded catwalks and the machines from last kilocycle, when they cripple you for life. That’s unsubtle. Just a conversation, that’s subtle as hell. You wouldn’t think it, the way your fellow owners treat it.”

The crowd is tightening around them.

“I’m not here to discuss ideology, Representative Ondai.” Sykora makes no sign she notices anything but the woman she’s talking to. “I’m here to warn you. The Governess has a ripe excuse to crack down on gatherings and recruitment and activism. She’s going to take advantage. Things will get worse for you, from now until this is solved. Whatever aid you can tender, you should.”

Ondai puts her plate on the table with a clack. She gives the Princess her full, frowning attention. “An excuse you're giving her.”

Sykora puts her hands on her hips. “So help me take it away again.”

The two women stare at one another across the yawning gap between their stations.

Ondai’s tail twitches as she makes her decision. “You want Trimond West.” She picks her plate back up and plops a grainy-looking sandwich roll onto it.

Sykora follows her down the table. “Trimond West? What’s special about it?”

“That’s the scab refinery. Only offworlders. Mercenaries, like. They don’t let normal folk in. If there’s something below the level happening, it’s happening on Trimond West.”

Sykora presses. “Below the level how?”

One of Ondai’s blue-sashed minions speaks up in a rebreather rasp. “You’d know more than we do, Majesty. You figure it out.”

Sykora turns her head on a smooth swivel to the man who spoke; she’s making sure to keep the entire crowd in her peripherals. “The pay irregularities you’d expect from a place like that don’t show up on my ledgers.”

Ondai shrugs as she parcels wilting vegetables onto her sandwich. “You gonna tell me exo baronesses never cook the books?”

“And this is all known and accommodated? By Governess Garuna?”

“Why not? It’s her dream come true. No unions, no Ptolek citizens, no drama.”

Sykora rubs her chin. “It would be wise of you to refrain from informing the Governess I was here.”

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Ondai shuts the roll over the sweating meat and takes a high-gravity bite. She asks around the mouthful: “You gonna try and ratfuck her, then?”

“I am going to ensure that the agents of the Empress are acting with the best interests of her Empire at heart,” Sykora says. “And if I find out that they haven’t, I will ratfuck them.”

A murmuring ripple of laughter from the assembled refiners.

“Your cooperation is appreciated, Citizen Ondai. If you have been honest with me today, I doubt we’ll meet again.” Sykora looks over her shoulder at Grant, who’s trading mean mugs with Ondai’s enforcer. “Come, Prince Consort.”

Grant follows her away from the cold and bewildered gazes. He’s so intent on getting away from them he almost forgets to duck the doorway back to the rattling skybridge.

"Your first taste of the working class," Sykora murmurs, as they walk. "I hope it didn’t put too much ash in your mouth."

"Oh, it’s all fine. It was familiar, actually. Reminded me of the crowd from Alberta back on Maekyon." Grant rubs warmth into his hands. "I guess in a way I was one of them once."

Sykora purses her lips as she looks from Grant to the roof they’ve departed. “I find that difficult to imagine.”

He smirks. “It’s true, Majesty. You married a lowborn energy refiner.”

She chuckles. “You are nothing like them, dove.”

He stops in his tracks. Her tail yanks a moment before she does, too, and looks quizzically back at him.

“Yes, I am,” he says. “If I’d been born Taiikari I’d be right back there.”

She observes the look on his face. “I didn’t—” She flushes. “That was boorish of me, Grantyde.”

“It’s okay.” He puts a hand on her back. “You’re working on their behalf.”

“I am.” She sighs. “It seems I could use reminding sometimes.”

He steps with her onto the cab platform. “I’ll be here to remind you, whenever you need me.” He folds an arm around her shoulders. “Promise.”

“I’m counting on it.” She smiles as they hail the same doe-eyed pilot who brought them over. “Insufferable Maekyonite.”