She liked it too much, was what. Liked it too much, too fast. Such a simple solution. So much easier than the rest of the situation she’d been detailing for herself.
“Tell Eighty-Four Twilight to get the Gravity Rose out of there,” she said. “Quiet and quick. Make sure she knows I don’t want to let the enemy know we know where they are. I want to make the most of this, Eighteen Chisel. Plan it right. Keep it quiet here, too. For now.”
He nodded again and went back to his console. Satisfied. Anticipatory. (And wasn’t she the same? Anticipatory? Eager?)
And then she thought again of Sixteen Moonrise, somewhere in the bowels of her ship, wandering and watching with an agenda of her own, and decided that some things, some things—well, some things even other Fleet Captains didn’t need to know about until their yaotlek decided they needed to know. She wanted Sixteen Moonrise off Weight for the Wheel. Now. So that she would have time to plan at all.
The Minister of War was extremely good at push-ups. Also handstand balances, lunges, punching a bag of sand, and running very fast without getting out of breath. Eight Antidote had watched her do these things in sequence three times now from his perch on the balcony level of the Outreaching Palms’ training gymnasium, and was beginning to despair about the prospects of his own physical fitness.
When the Minister rounded the corner of the track again, moving away from him in even, quick strides, her cheeks flushed red and the scar of her ear flushed redder, Eight Antidote sighed and headed down to intercept her. Not by running, of course. Even if he could keep up with her—and he wasn’t unfit, his genetics were pretty good for basic athleticism, it was just that mostly he never ran anywhere—he didn’t want to talk to her while panting. It seemed undignified. Also embarrassing. And he really didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of Three Azimuth, to a degree which was unexpectedly overwhelming. So instead he took himself over to the mats where she’d been doing the calisthenic portion of her training cycle and began, gamely and not without a certain dizzy thrill, to try to figure out a handstand balance himself.
He could do a handstand. If he sort of—threw himself forward onto his hands and kicked up, and squeezed his core muscles together very hard so he didn’t overbalance. But he’d never done a balance, going from kneeling on the ground, palms flat to the padded matting, and unfolding into the air. It was much harder. He was sure he was missing some vital instruction. He kept getting partially up and then collapsing, or tipping over. But that was the point. Of course he was missing vital instruction. That was what Three Azimuth was going to give him.
“Kid,” she said, and he tried very hard not to startle, and only succeeded in falling out of his latest attempt onto his back with a thump. The Minister of War was staring down at him, her breathing fast but regular from her run, an expression of complete amusement on her face. Eight Antidote refused to cringe. He wanted her to be interested in him. Amusement was a sort of interest, right? And it was funny that he kept falling over. (He was blushing anyway, which was dumb of him.)
“Good morning, Minister,” he said, from his prone position. “I think I’m not very good at balances.”
She sat down beside him, a graceful fold to crossed legs. Her eyebrows had climbed halfway up her forehead. “… You’re quite spectacularly bad at them, in fact,” she said. “Why are you trying to do push-handstands when you’re too young to have even started the Fleet training regimen?”
“I saw you do them,” said Eight Antidote, and sat up—it was too embarrassing to be flat, he couldn’t handle that and keep talking—“and I can do a normal handstand fine, so…”
Now she did laugh. He thought it was kind laughter. He hoped it was. (It was so inconvenient and awful that he liked the Minister of War and wanted her to like him too.) “So you thought you’d try, with your little arms. You are a dangerously ambitious child, Your Excellency. I’m sure you know that.”
Eight Antidote made his face as still as possible and said, “I have been told so. Though not in such direct terms before just now.”
“Stars,” said Three Azimuth. “I don’t know how they raise children in the palace, but they’ve done a number on you. All right. What do you want with push-handstands, aside from trying something you don’t know how to do?”
“To learn how to do something I don’t know how to do,” Eight Antidote said. “You do them. You’re the Minister of War. They must be useful.”
Three Azimuth sputtered with snickering, a delighted and uncontrolled noise. (Maybe that meant he was getting somewhere?) She said, “Not everything I do is useful, kid. The office does not confer usefulness on my morning gymnasium routine.”
“What does?” he asked.
She paused. Thought about it. (Let him see that she was thinking about it.) “It keeps me strong and agile, even at this desk job. And I know it well enough that I can do it without thinking too much, so it’s easy to maintain. That’s why it’s useful to me. Here. Come on, let me show you one of the things you’re doing wrong. Start again, hands on the mat.”
He started again. Hands flat on the mat, his legs tucked under him, balanced on the balls of his feet. Three Azimuth made a considering sound. And then she touched him—her hands over his hands, pressing his fingers apart and his palms into the mat. His mouth went dry. “Make your hands stars,” she said. “All the points spread out, and stars have heavy gravity pull, right? That gravity sinks your palms into the mat. Press. And then bend your elbows—good—lean forward—and put your knees on your elbows.”
What? Eight Antidote thought, utterly confused, and then tried anyway—hopping, his ass in the air, trying to land his knees onto his bent elbows.
He missed. The momentum took him into a forward roll, which at least let him come up to sitting and not flop over again.
“Sorry,” he said to the Minister of War.
She shook her head. “Hilarious, but not bad for a first try. Next time, one knee and then the other. And hold that balance before you try pushing up to a handstand. Got it?”
He nodded. He didn’t get it, but he thought he could probably figure it out—
“Now. What else do you want, kid, besides free lessons in strength exercises? You’ve been up in the balcony for my whole workout.”
Really, he needed to learn how not to blush. But it was so hard, when he got caught. And when it was Three Azimuth that caught him. He’d really thought he’d been quiet, unobserved, careful, and yet—
“I wanted to ask you about the Lsel Ambassador,” he blurted out, not knowing what else to do or how to talk to this woman at all. “Um. I met her once. And I don’t—I wanted to know what you thought of her, because I’m not sure, and at that meeting—thank you for allowing me to be there, Minister, I meant to say—”
She’d gone quite still, like a bird about to dive, prey-seeking. He shut his mouth. Swallowed against the dryness there.
The Minister ran a hand through her own hair, pushing it back in slick black strands from her forehead. “Did Eleven Laurel tell you to ask me that?”
“No,” Eight Antidote said. Not Eleven Laurel. The Emperor, the Edgeshine of a Knife.
“Are you lying to me, Your Excellency?”