Oscin Porrinyard
Skye Porrinyard
Loyal Jeck
Colette Wilson
Most of the words were mine, but the Bettelhines had inserted various corrections, the most notable being Philip’s, when he insisted that I refer to myself as his father’s “honored” guest.
“Good catch,” Jelaine said. “I should have spotted that myself.”
I finally registered the special emphasis that phrase had been given all day and night. “What am I missing?”
Philip flashed the startled look of a man who had just been reminded that he had yet to come to terms with my presence. “You don’t know? Nobody’s ever bothered to tell you what it means?”
“It’s not like I haven’t been asking.”
“No, I’m not talking about the reason you’re here, which as I’ve said is still a mystery to me. I’m talking about our various levels of guest protocol.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
He glared at Jason and Jelaine. “How could you not let her know?”
Jelaine’s hand fluttered to her mouth. “We were keeping things low-key. Until Father had a chance to talk to her.”
Philip shook his head in disbelief, then turned to me and said, “Here’s what they haven’t told you. For the past four generations or so the Family’s used rankings to denote the levels of hospitality afforded our visiting dignitaries. Special Guests and Corporate Guests are both offered privileges greater than those we provide the average run of visitors, and they’re both far below Personal Guests, who are offered the full hospitality and friendship of the Inner Family. We’ve never bestowed those rankings lightly. To put this into full perspective, Counselor, Dejah here is one of the most powerful industrialists in the history of human civilization and one of the most distinguished visitors that even this world has seen in quite some time. And yet, in protocol terms, it was judged unnecessary to declare her, or the Khaajiir before her, any more important than a Personal Guest.”
I felt the weight of all eyes upon me. “Then what’s an honored guest?”
“Somebody who’s entitled to all the privileges and courtesies afforded any member of the Inner Family, including a full share of Inner Family earnings while on Bettelhine soil. It makes you a temporary Bettelhine. Right now my father’s the only one authorized to declare such an honor, and as far as I know, he’s only done it twice, each time under extraordinary circumstances.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, then shot a glance at Jason and Jelaine, who were both nodding. Once again, I registered something greater than mere affection or admiration in the way they two of them looked at me. But now I saw what it was: love.
Through the blood pounding in my ears, I heard Philip conclude, “I still don’t know what this is all about, Counselor, but making your status clear in this document is the procedural equivalent of telling those troops that they should count not three Bettelhines aboard, but four….”
Wethers completed transcribing the letter, then read the entirety out loud in case anybody wanted to add a postscript. There were no further amendments.
Dejah, who’d been watching me closely in the several minutes since Philip’s bombshell, remarked, “I’ve got to hand it to you, Counselor. That’s a pretty formal document for a distress signal. Do you ever let your hair down, even for a moment?”
“Yes,” the Porrinyards said.
Wethers blinked at them for several seconds before processing what they’d meant and turning a bright shade of scarlet. “Oh.”
Jelaine took the document from him and slipped it into the vessel Philip had provided. It was an insulated airtight cylinder shielded against magnetic flux, temperature extremes, and most scanning technology; it was normally used to safeguard delicate recording media in transit from orbit, and would survive atmospheric reentry without any measurable damage to its contents. According to Philip, a magnetic charge in its base would be sufficient to secure it to the hull as long as we remained motionless outside the atmosphere. The combination lock was, in this circumstance, superfluous. We could activate the seal and still allow easy access to anybody who retrieved the container.
My idea, an improvement over Mendez’s offer to throw the container, was to let the forces surrounding us decide it was safe to retrieve it.
Jason said, “I should go.”
Mendez, who had suited up, the flexfabric of his Bettelhine-manufactured space suit forming a seal over everything but his unhelmeted head, winced at the very suggestion. “And just how would I justify allowing that, sir?”
Philip said, “I’d like to hear that explanation myself.”
Jason seemed to come up with about three or four potential answers, rejecting them all as insufficient, before coming up with a lame, unpersuasive, “I rebel at the thought of requiring other people to risk their lives for me.”
“Welcome to modern civilization,” said Dejah. “Let alone life as a Bettelhine. People have been risking their lives for yours since the day you were born.”
“Nevertheless.” Jason leaned in close and addressed Mendez eye to eye. “Arturo, you may think you owe us your allegiance, but you don’t. We forged that debt. Do you understand? It’s all us. You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s my duty, sir.” Mendez took the helmet from his hands, and pressing it to the contact ring at his shoulders. The flexfabric around the seal bubbled, flowed, and solidified in place over the neck joint, rendering the seam as invisible as the face behind the silver mask. I saw his chest expand as he took an experimental deep breath. Then he took the cylinder from Jelaine’s hands, and stood, moving toward the air lock.
Oscin, who was standing behind me, lowered his lips toward my ear. “This is wrong.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “But I don’t know why.”
“Neither do I.”
It felt more than wrong. It felt dark, corrupt, and dangerous. But the reason eluded me. Even as Mendez entered the air lock and the doors slid shut behind him, I searched the faces of the others, hoping for the epiphany that now seemed just beyond reach. Most didn’t seem to notice any underlying currents beneath the obvious drama of the moment. Jason and Jelaine wore stricken expressions, their strong resemblance now even more overt as they watched the Chief Steward’s departure with identical grimaces of guilt and displeasure. Dina Pearlman seemed darkly amused, Dejah as puzzled as I was. Vernon Wethers and Monday Brown were as unreadable as they usually were. Loyal Jeck just stood by, a stolid, charisma-challenged lump. Colette Wilson moved closer to Philip, resting her hand on his upper arm and taking a subtle calm from the gentle contact. The elder Bettelhine didn’t acknowledge it. He just watched the air lock cycle, and took an involuntary deep breath of his own as the other door opened to space and Arturo began to climb the access ladder to the carriage roof.
I felt the warm touch of the Porrinyards on my back, massaging my shoulders. Did I really look that pale?
Arturo was already on the roof and placing the cylinder in plain sight. The magnetic seal held it in place. In a few seconds he’d be back inside and the Stanley would be free to investigate, if so inclined.
I’d be over this uncharacteristic fear, if that’s what this was.
I knew it wasn’t.
The plan would work. Mendez would survive his brave climb in the face of all those brandished weapons. The Stanley clinging to the cable above us would descend and retrieve the message. The forces charged with protecting the Bettelhines and their guests, whether personal or honored, would break through the wall of silence that had so far cut off the explanation for how this thing that had happened to us.
My sudden trembling had come from a deeper place, the place that connected to my conscience and my humanity.