Turns out this was a load of hooey all along; people hated that sort of self-responsibility. Always had. Only when it was inescapably universal, when there were no more corrupt or uncivilized “third worlds” to flee to, did it become clear that what people really wanted, in their secret hearts of hearts, was a charismatic monarch to admire and gossip about and blame all their problems on.
Unfortunately, over the millennia Earth’s monarchies had been deposed one by one, and since deposed monarchies had a habit of creeping back into power it had been necessary to murder them all—not simply the monarchs and their heirs and assigns and spouses and bastard cousins, but also their friends, supporters, beloved pets, and the occasional bystander, leaving as little chance of a miraculous restoration as possible.
There were de novo monarchs here and there, micronational leaders who’d declared their kingship or queenship on a lark, or in dire earnest and questionable mental health, but by the twenty-fifth century the only real, legitimate, globally recognized monarch left, the only one whose lineage extended back into sufficient historical murk, was King Longo Lutui, of the tiny Polynesian nation of Tonga. And as luck would have it, shortly before the scheduled Interplanetary Referendum on Constitutional Reform, King Longo, sailing the shark-filled straits between the islands of Tongatapu and Eua, chased a wine bottle over the side of his boat and was neither seen nor heard from again. He had left behind a single heir: one Princess Tamra.
You know what happened from there: Her coronation became the talk of the solar system, the duly modified referendum was held, and Tamra was elected the Queen of Sol by a stunning 93% supermajority. And since everyone knew that power corrupted, they were careful not to give her any, and to install a special prosecutor to chase after what little she managed to accumulate. Much was made of her sexual purity as well, and it was thought good and proper that she be humanity’s Virgin Queen for all time thenceforward.
The only trouble was, nobody had particularly consulted Tamra about any of this. Really, they were just taking their own burdens of personal accountability and heaping them onto her, which hardly seemed fair, and this whole virginity business had more to do with her being fifteen than with any inherent chastity of spirit. She just hadn’t worked up the nerve yet, was all. And while the immortality thing hadn’t quite happened by that time, the writing on the wall was clearly legible, and the thought of retaining her supposed purity for literally “all time thenceforward” did not amuse Tamra in the least.
So, once installed as Queen, once crowned and throned and petitioned for the royal edicts everyone so craved, her first act had been to Censure everyone responsible for putting her there. Her second act was to compel her physicians to see that her physical purity could regenerate itself in the manner of a lizard’s tail or a starfish’s arm. And her third had been a deliciously shocking call for suitors—low achievers need not apply.
The rest, as they say, is history.
So understand that the officer in charge of the grapple station crime scene, one Lieutenant Cheng Shiao of the Royal Constabulary, did a commendable job of not acting flabbergasted or starstruck when the expected First Philander stepped through the fax gate with the quite unexpected Queen of Sol in tow, plus a pair of dainty metal bodyguards, plus an extra Philander who was quite famous in his own right. Shiao bowed to each of them in turn and explained with perfect professionalism that in light of the victims’ rank and occupation, a more senior investigator had been called and was expected on the scene shortly. In the meantime, if he could just ask a few questions…
Marlon Sykes, for his part, did a commendable job of answering without visible emotion. Had he had any reason to expect violence? No. Had any threats been made against him? No. Did he have any enemies? Certainly, yes. A man in his position could hardly avoid it. But mortal enemies? He’d have to think about that one. He had just uncovered evidence of—
Presently, the fax gate spat out a disheveled young woman Bruno took a moment to recognize as Deliah van Skeltering. Dressed not in work shirt and trousers but in a rumpled saffron evening gown, she sported an arch of flowers above her off-kilter platinum braids and looked as if she’d been crying.
Her first words were, “This is a fine hello, isn’t it? Talk about going from bad to worse!”
“There there, miss,” Cheng Shiao consoled. His voice could be, all at once, soothing and professional and yet loud enough to drown out the whine of machinery.
“Hi,” Marlon added, disspiritedly.
“When you’re ready, miss, a few questions?”
“Oh. Of course, yes. Hello, Your Highness. It’s very nice of you to be here.”
Tamra inclined her head in acknowledgment.
The fax gate, its entrance already crowded, hummed for a moment before expelling another figure, this time a young girl in what looked like a school uniform: beige blouse, dark gray necktie, beige pleated skirt, dark gray socks, black shoes. Her eyes—the left one half-hidden by a VR monocle—fixed immediately on Shiao, then swept the rest of the assembled persons coolly. She looked, to Bruno’s inexperienced eye, about ten or eleven years old, on the threshold of puberty but still girlishly proportioned. Her carriage and posture and gait were all wrong, though. Or partly wrong, anyway, as if she’d spent too much time around grown-ups and had forgotten how to move like a child.
“Commandant-Inspector,” Shiao said at once, throwing his shoulders back, his chin up, his chest forward. “Thank you for relieving me. It will please me to assist you on this case in any way I can.”
Astonished, Bruno looked at the little girl again, more closely this time, noting that Shiao had made no such display of obsequity to a pair of Declarant-Philanders, nor even to the Queen of Sol herself. Commandant-Inspector? He’d always assumed that was a rank for octogenarians, senior police officers with decades of crime-fighting experience.
He noted, too, Tamra’s and Marlon’s and Deliah’s lack of surprise at the policeman’s reaction. They knew this girl, or knew of her, if indeed the word “girl” applied in any but the most outward sense. Perhaps it was a disguise, an invitation to underestimate the person beneath?
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the girl said. Then, curtseying to Tamra, “Good evening, Your Majesty. Sorry to meet you under these circumstances; I hadn’t heard you were at the scene. Declarant Sykes, Laureate van Skeltering, allow me to express my condolences.”
And this perplexed Bruno still further, because the voice was very much that of a young girl trying hard to act mature, and while she was speaking, her right foot twisted and dug at the floor’s metal decking, and her right hand grabbed a corner of her skirt and twisted it, then dropped it, smoothed it, and finally grabbed it again.
Bruno couldn’t help himself. “You’re the senior investigator?” he blurted.
The girl looked at him, again with that same sort of rapid, confident assessment that said she knew a thing or two about human beings. She didn’t appear overawed with what she saw. “Have we met, sir?”
“Er, I think not. I’m de Towaji.”
“De Towaji who?” Her voice was unimpressed.