The Domination

Chapter One

PROVINCE OF ITALY

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

SEPTEMBER 1, 1968

It’s too crowded in here, Yolande Ingolfsson thought irritably.

The crowding was not physical. The van was an Angers-Kellerman autosteamer from the Trevithick Combine’s works in Milan, a big six-wheeler plantation sedan like a slope-fronted box with slab sides. There were five serfs and one young lady of landholding Citizen family in the roomy cabin; the muted sound of the engine was lost in the rush of wind and whine of the tires. None of them had been this way before.

Young Marco the driver was chattering with excitement, with stolid Deng sitting beside him giving an occasional snarl when the Italian’s hands swooped off the wheel. The Oriental was a stocky grizzle-haired man of fifty, his face round and ruddy. He had been the House foreman since forever; Father had brought him from China when he and Mother came to set up the plantation, after the War. Saved him from an impaling stake, the rebel’s fate, or so the rumor went, but neither of them would talk about it. Bianca and Lele were bouncing about on the benches running along either side of the vehicle, giggling and pointing out the sights to each other.

Not to me, Yolande thought with a slight sadness. Well, she was fourteen, that was getting far too grown-up to talk that way with servants.

The van had the highway mostly to itself on the drive down from Tuscany, past Rome and through the plantations of Campania; Italy was something of a backwater these days, and what industry there was clustered in the north. There was the odd passenger steamer, a few electric runabouts, drags hauling linked flats of produce or goods. Nevertheless the road was just as every other Class II way in the Domination of the Draka, an asphalt surface eight meters broad with a graveled verge and rows of trees on either side; cypress or eucalyptus here, but that varied with the climate.

Fields passed, seen through a flicker of trunks and latticed shadow slanting back from the westering sun, big square plots edged with shaggy hedges of multiflora. Fields of trellised vines, purple grapes peering out from the tattered autumnal lushness of their leaves; orchards of silvery gray olives, fruit trees, hard glossy citrus, and sere yellow-brown grain stubble. Fields of alfalfa under whirling sprinklers, circles of spray that filled the air with miniature rainbows and a heavy green smell that cut the hot dust scent. Melons lying like ruins of streaked green-and-white marble tumbled among vines, and strawberries starred red through the velvet plush of their beds.

Arch-and-pillar gateways marked the turnoffs to the estate manors, hints of colored roofs amid the treetops of their gardens. Yolande felt what she always did when she saw a gate: an impulse to open it. Like an itch in the head, to follow and see what was there, who the people were, and what their lives were like. Make up stories about them, or poems.

Silly, she thought. People were people; plantations were plantations, not much different from the one she grew up on.

Words and surfaces, hard shiny shells, that was all you could know of people. Yet the itch would not go away. You thought that you knew what they were like, especially when you were little; then a thing would happen that showed you were wrong . . . she shivered at certain memories.

The Draka girl leaned back with a sigh, feeling heavy and a little tired from the going-away party last night. She had the rear of the autosteamer—a semicircle couch like the fantail of a small yacht—nearly to herself: her Persian cat, Machiavelli, was curled up beside her. He always tried to sleep through an auto drive; at least he didn’t hide under a seat and puke anymore . . . The windows slanted over her head, up to the roof of the auto, open a little to let in a rush of warm dry afternoon air. She let her head fall back, looking through the glass up into the cloudless bowl of the sky, just beginning to darken at the zenith. Her face looked back at her, transparent against the sky, centered in a fan of pale silky hair that rippled in the breeze.

Like a ghost, she thought. Her mind could fill in the tinting, summer’s olive tan, hair and brows faded to white-gold, Mother’s coloring. Eyes the shade of granulated silver, rimmed with dark blue, a mixture from both her parents. Face her own, oval, high cheekbones and a short straight nose, wide full-lipped mouth, squared chin with a cleft; Pa was always saying there must be elf somewhere in the bloodlines. She turned her head and sucked in her cheeks; the puppy fat was definitely going, at long last. She was still obstinately short and slightly built, however much she tried to force growth with willpower.

At least I don’t have spots, she mused with relief. It was her first year at the new school, and her first in the Senior Section, as well.

“Bianca, get me a drink, please,” Yolande said, shifting restlessly and stretching. The drive had been a long one, and she felt grubby and dusty and sticky; the silk of her blouse was clinging to her back, and she could feel how it had wrinkled.

The air had a spicy-dry scent, like the idea of a sneeze. Yolande sipped moodily at the orange juice and watched as the auto turned south and east to skirt the fringe of Naples. Her mouth was dry despite the cold drink. She handed the glass back to the servant girl and wiped her palms down the sides of her jodhpurs, hitched at her gunbelt, ran fingers through the tangled mass of her hair, adjusted her cravat.

“Bianca, Lele, my hair’s a mess,” she said. “Fix it.” There was a sour taste at the back of her mouth, and a feeling like hard fluttering in her stomach.

Don’t fidget, she told herself as the tense muscles of her shoulders and neck eased at the familiar feel of fingers and hairbrush. It’s serfish. It was emotional to be frightened of going to a new school; they weren’t going to hurt her, after all. Children and serfs were expected to be emotional; a Citizen ruled herself with the mind. Bianca was humming as she used the pick on the end of her comb to untangle a knot. Yolande’s hair had always been feather-soft and flyaway.

The school was on the bay itself, surrounded by a thousand hectares of grounds. A herd of ibex raised their scimitar-horned heads from a pool, muzzles trailing drops that sparkled as they fell among the purple-and-white bowls of the water lilies.

“Turn right,” Yolande said, unnecessarily; there was a servant in the checkered livery of the school directing traffic.

The sun had sunk until it nearly touched the horizon, and the light-wand in the serf’s hand glowed translucent white. More servants waited at the brick-paved parking lot, a broad expanse of tessellated red and black divided by stone planters with miniature trees. The van eased into place, guided by a wench with a light-wand who walked backwards before them, and stopped; Yolande felt the dryness suddenly return to her mouth as she rose.

“Well,” she said into air that felt somehow motionless after the unvarying rush of wind on the road. “Let’s go.”

Deng pushed the driver back into his seat. “Not you, Marco,” he said.

The younger man gave him a resentful glare but sank down again. Deng was not like some bossboys; he did not use the strap or rubber hose all the time, but he was obeyed just the same.

Yolande ignored the stairs, stepping out and taking the chest-high drop with a flex of her knees. An eight-wheeler articulated steamer was unloading a stream of girls; that must be a shuttle from Naples, the ones coming in from the train and dirigible havens.

They were all dressed in the school uniform, a knee-length belted tunic of Egyptian linen dyed indigo blue, and sandals that strapped up the calf. She felt suddenly self-conscious in her young-planter outfit, even with the Tolgren 10mm and fighting knife she had been so proud of. They were mostly older than her; all the Junior Section would have arrived yesterday. Their friends were there to greet them, hugs and wristshakes and flower wreaths for their hair . . .

Yolande swallowed and forced herself to ignore them, the laughter and the shouts, ignored a tiltrotor taking off and turning north. She blinked; in half an hour it would be past Sienna. Past Badesse, past home. Over the tiny hilltop lights of Claestum; her parents might look up from the dining terrace at the sound of engines. Tantie Rahksan with her eternal piece of embroidery . . . Moths would be battering against the globes, and there would be a damp smell from the pools and fountains. Warm window-glow coming on in the Quarters down in the valley, and the sleepy evening sounds of the rambling Great House. Her own bedroom in the west tower would be dark, only moonlight making shadows on the comforter, her desk, airplane models, old dolls and posters . . .

This is ridiculous, she scolded herself, working at the knot of misery beneath her breastbone. The quarrel at the old school had not been her fault; even if somebody had to leave, it should have been Irene, not her. Would have been, if they had not valued peace over justice.

“Hello.”

She looked down with a start; a girl her own age was standing nearby, hands on hips and a smile on her face.

“You’re Yolande Ingolfsson, the one from up Tuscany way?”

She nodded, and grasped the offered wrist. Then blinked a little with surprise, feeling a shock as of recognition.

I must know someone who looks like her, she thought.

“Myfwany Venders,” she was saying. “Leontini, Sicily. I’m in you year, and from out-of-district, too, so I thought I’d help you get settled.”

The other girl was a centimeter taller, with brick-red hair and dark freckles on skin so white it had a bluish tinge, high cheekbones, and a snub nose; big hands and feet and long limbs that hinted at future growth. She grinned: “I know how it is. They pitched me in here last year and I went around bleating like a lost lamb. It’s not bad, really, once y’ get to know some people.”

“Thank you,” Yolande replied, a little more fervently than she would have liked. Myfwany shrugged, turned and put thumb and forefinger in her mouth to whistle sharply.

“It’s nothing, veramente. Let’s get the matron.”

“Missy.”

Yolande stretched and turned over, burrowing into the coverlet.

“Missy. Time to get up.”

That was Lele with the morning tray. She was wrapped in a robe, her own half-Asian face still cloudy with sleep.

“Thank you.” The Draka yawned and stretched, rolled out of bed, and drank down the glasses of juice and milk.

The other score or so of girls in her year and section were already gathering in the courtyard, dressed like her in rough cotton exercise tunics and openwork runner’s sandals, talking and yawning and helping each other stretch. Baiae School was laid out in rectangular blocks running inland from the water’s edge; it was slightly chilly in the shade of the colonnade that ran around three sides of the open space, and the sun was just rising over the higher two-story block at the east end. The low-peaked roof was black against the rose-pale sky, and the sound of birds was louder than the human chatter. In the center of the court was a long pool; water spouted from a marble dolphin, and she could feel a faint trailing of mist as she walked out into the garden.

A few heads turned her way as she rummaged among the equipment on a table—weights for the ankles, and to strap around her wrists—she bound back her hair with a sweatband, and sniffed longingly at the smells of coffee and cooking that drifted over the odor of dew-wet grass and roses. No food for an hour or two yet.

“Ingolfsson!” It was Myfwany Venders, the redheaded one who had greeted her at the parking lot. “Come on over here, meet the crew.” The girl from Sicily continued to her knot of friends: “This is Yolande Ingolfsson, down from the wilds of Tuscany.” She turned to the newcomer.

The introductions ended when the teacher came to lead them on their morning run. They inclined their heads respectfully. “Now, it’s six kilometers befo’ breakfast, and I’m hungry. Let’s go.”

Yolande hesitated at the entrance to the refectory, one of several scattered throughout the complex. There were seven hundred students at Baiae School, half of them in the senior years, and Draka did not believe in crowding their children. In theory you could pick the dining area you wanted from among half a dozen. In practice it was not a good idea to try pushing in where you were not wanted, and she had tagged along with Myfwany’s group from the baths where they had all showered and swum after the run.

I feel like a lost puppy following somebody home, she thought resentfully. Back at the old school she had had her recognized set, her own territory. Here . . . Oh, gods, don’t let me end up a goat, she thought. Yolande knew her own faults; enough adults had told her she was dreamy, impractical, hot tempered. School was a matter of cliques, and an outcast’s life was just barely worth living.

The dining room was in the shape of a T, a long glass-fronted room overlooking the bay with an unroofed terrace carried out over the water on arches. Yolande hesitated at the colonnade at the base of the terrace, then closed the distance at a wave from one of Myfwany’s friends. There were four of them, five with her, and they settled into one of the half-moon stone tables out at the end of the pier. It was after seven and the sun was well up, turning the rippled surface of the bay to a silver-blue glitter that flung eye-hurting hints of brightness back at her like a moving mirror, or mica rocks in sunlight.

There was shade over the table, an umbrella shape of wrought-iron openwork with a vine of Arabian jasmine trained through it. The long flowers hung above their heads translucent white, stirring gently in the breeze that moved the leaves and flickered dapples of dark and bright across the white marble and tableware. Yolande stood for a moment, looking back at the shore. You could see most of the main building from here, stretching back north. It was a long two-story rectangle like a comb with the back facing Vesuvius; the teeth were enclosed courtyards running down toward the sea. The walls were pale stone half overgrown with climbing vines, ivy or bougainvillea in sheets of hot pink, burgundy, and purple.

Formal gardens framed the courts and the white-sand beach. At the north end of the main block another pier ran out into the water from a low stone boathouse; little single-masted pleasure ketches were moored to it, and a small fishing boat that supplied the kitchens with fresh seafood. Beyond that she could see a pair of riders galloping along the sea’s edge, their horses’ hooves throwing sheets of spray higher than their manes.

“Pretty,” she said as she seated herself.

“Hmmm? Oh, yes, I suppose it is,” Myfwany said, pressing a button in the center of the table. “Everyone know what they want?”

“Coffee, gods, coffee,” one of the others said as the serving wench brought up a wheeled cart.

Yolande sniffed deeply, sighing with pleasure. The scent of the brewing pot mingled with the delicate sweetness of the flowers over their heads and the hot breads under their covers, iodine and seaweed from the ocean beneath their feet, and suddenly she was hungry. For food, for the day, for things that she could not know or name, except that they made her happy. She looked around at the faces of the others, and everything seemed clear and beautiful, everyone her friend. Even the serf, a swarthy thickset woman with a long coil of strong black hair; the identity number tattoo below her ear showed orange as she bent to fill the cup, and the coffee made an arc of dark brown from the silver spout to the pure cream color of the porcelain.

“Thank you,” she said to the servant, with a bright smile. “I’ll have some of those”—she pointed to a mound of biscuits, brown-topped and baked with walnuts—“and the fruit, and some of those egg pies.”

“Grapefruit,” Muriel said sourly, watching with envy as the others gave their orders and Yolande broke a roll. It steamed gently, and the soft yellow butter melted and sank in as soon as it was off the knife. The plump girl had lagged badly when they sprinted the last half-kilometer of the run, and bruised herself doing a front flip over one of the obstacles. The wench put two neatly sectioned halves before her. “I loathe grapefruit.”

“Then don’t be such a slug, Muri,” Myfwany said ruthlessly, looking up from a clipboard. “You were doing quite well last year, and then spent all summer lolling about stuffin’ youself with ricotta and noodle pie.”

Somebody else giggled, and Muriel’s face went scarlet; her expression went from sullen to angry, and then her eyes starred with unshed tears.

“Honest, Muri, everyone’s just tryin’ to help—” one girl began.

There was a rattle of crockery as Muriel pushed her half-eaten plate away, rose, and left at a quick walk that was almost a run. Myfwany scowled at the girl who had tittered.

“Veronica Adams, that was mean.”

“Well, I didn’t call her a slug, anyway.”

“An’ I didn’t laugh at her. Are we friends, or not? I thought you two were close.”

Veronica frowned and pushed strips of chicken breast and orange around her plate. “Oh, all right,” she muttered. A moment later: “I’ll tell her I’m sorry.” A sigh. “It’s just . . . all the trouble we went to, an’ she slides back down the hill when we stop pushin’.”

“Things aren’t easy fo’ her,” Myfwany continued, expertly filleting her grilled trout. Aside, to Yolande: “Her parents are religious.”

Yolande kept silent for a moment, biting into the biscuit and catching a crumble beneath her chin with her hand. Myfwany was obviously the leader of the group, and it would not do to offend . . . not while she was on probation.

There was a slight taste of honey and cinnamon to the pastry, blending with the richness of the butter and the hot morsels of nut. The egg pies looked good, too, baked in fluffy pastry shells with bits of bacon and scallion; she ate one in three swallows, feeling virtuous satisfaction. Her body felt good and strong and loose, warmed from the run and the swim, relaxed by the masseur’s fingers.

It would not do to look tongue-tied, either. She swallowed, looked up and raised a brow. Religious . . . That was unusual, these days. “Aesirtru?” she asked. You still found a scattering of neopagans about, though even in her grandfather’s time it had been mostly a fad.

“No, worse. Christians.”

Yolande made a small shocked sound, one hand going unconsciously to her mouth. Very unusual, and not altogether safe. Not forbidden, precisely. After all, only a few generations ago most Draka had been at least nominal Christians. But now . . . It was enough to attract the attention of the Security Directorate. Believers were tolerated, no more, provided they kept quiet and out of the way and gave no whisper of socially dangerous opinions. The secret police took the implications of the New Testament seriously, more so than most of its followers ever had; and it could kill any chances of a commission when you did your military service, even if the Krypteia could do no more to you than that.

She felt the eyes of the others on her. “Well, she’s a Citizen,” she said with renewed calm, undoing her hair and shaking it out over her shoulders. The sea breeze caught it and threw it back, trailing ends across her eyes. “She’s got a right to it, if she wants to.”

Myfwany smiled with approval. “Oh, it didn’t take,” she said waving her fork. “That’s part of the problem, we talked her out of it last year—partly us, some of the teachers helped—and then when she went home it was one quarrel with her parents after another, and she was gloomin’ all the time. She’ll snap out of it.” Another hard look at Veronica. “If we help her.”

“I said I’d say I was sorry,” the girl snapped back, then bridled herself with a visible effort. Softly: “I am sorry.” She was broad-shouldered, with a mane of curly dark-brown hair and the sharp flat accent of Alexandria and the Egyptian provinces. “What’s today?”

“Intro Secondary Math 0800 to 1030,” Myfwany said, glancing back at the clipboard. “Classical Lit from 1045 to 1215. Historical Geography till lunch, rest period, and then we’re back to Bruiser and The Beak. Shouldn’t be too bad, Beak’s givin’ us a familiarization lecture on rocket-launchers today.”

“Moo,” the third girl said. “Secondary Math.” Yolande fought to remember the name. Mandy Slauter. Tall and lanky and with hair sun-faded to white, pointed chin propped in one hand. “Tensor calculus, an’ Ah had trouble enough with basic. Euurg, yuk, moo.”

“Y’can’t make flying school without good math,” Myfwany said, reaching for a bunch of grapes from the bowl in the center of the table. She stripped one free, flicked it up between finger and thumb and caught it out of the air with a flash of white teeth. To Yolande: “You’ve fallen in among a nest of would-be spacers.”

They all gave an unconscious glance upward. It had only been a few years since the first flights to orbit, but that was a strong dream. Only a few thousand Draka had made the journey beyond Earth’s atmosphere as yet, and rather more Americans, but it was obvious that the two power blocs who dominated the planet were moving their rivalry into space. There would be thousands needed when the time came for their call-up in half a decade.

Yolande flushed. “Me, too,” she said. “Both my parents were pilots in the War.” With shy pride: “Pa was an ace. Twelve kills.” Some of the others looked impressed. Thank you, Pa, she thought. Well, it was impressive.

Mandy shrugged. “But tensor calculus . . . sometimes Ah’d rather just settle fo’ the infantry. Not so much like school, anyway.” She reached for a passion fruit, cracked the mottled egg-shaped shell, and dumped the speckled grayish contents into her mouth.

“How can you eat those things with your eyes open?” Veronica said. “They look like a double tablespoon of tadpoles glued together with snot.” In an aside to Yolande: “Mandy’s boy-crazy already, that’s why she’s considerin’ the infantry.” The pilot corps was two-thirds female, while the ground combat arms had a slight majority of men.

Mandy laughed and raised the fruit rind threateningly. “Ah am not boy-crazy—”

“Aren’t we all a little old fo’ food fights?” Myfwany said, looking at her watch. “Class time.”