The Domination

Chapter Five

PROVINCE OF SARMATIA

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

CRIMEAN MILITARY RESERVE, AIR TRAINING SECTION, 15,000 METERS

MARCH 10, 1973

“Beep. Beep. Beep.” The missile lock-on warning repeated itself with idiot persistence, a drone in the silenced cave-world of the pilot’s helmet, sharper than the subliminal moan of the engines.

“Shit,” Yolande muttered to herself, throwing the aircraft into a series of wild jinks and swerves, just enough to keep the beeps from merging into the continuous drone of launch.

She was half-reclining in the narrow cockpit of the Falcon VI turboram fighter, immobile in a hydraulic suit that cushioned her against acceleration and a clamshell couch that left nothing mobile but fingers and head. The sky above her was blue-black through the near-invisible canopy, here on the fringes of space; ahead was the smooth semicircle of crystal-sandwich screen, the virtual control panel with its multiple information displays. Mach 3.5 and climbing, and nothing on the fucking screens, nothing at all.

It was a testing exercise, another name for sadistic mental torture. They might have programmed an error into her machine. Or simply cut the input from its electrodetectors; it was resentfully acknowledged that the Alliance was ahead in ECM and sensor technology, and this could be a test of how she would deal with that in combat. Her lips curled away from her teeth behind the face mask. The Domination was not behind in engines and materials, so use that . . .

Her hands moved on the pressure-sensitive pads inside the restrainers. The Falcon pitched forward and power-dove straight down. Something soft and heavy and strong gripped her and pushed, pushed until she could feel the soft tissues trying to spread away from her bones and gray crept in at the corners of her eyes. The suit squeezed, fighting the Gs and pressing the blood back toward her brain, but nothing could make it easier to breathe or stop the feeling that her ribs were about to break back into her chest. Mach 4, and the altimeter unreeled; 15,000 meters was not far at these speeds. The indicator hesitated in its maddening beep, then resumed.

“Now!” she yelled to herself, and yanked at the pads, pulling the Falcon up in a wrenching curve that stressed it to ten-tenths of capacity. The pressure grew worse, crushing, vision fading, hands immobile but the AI would continue the curve. Hold Wotan damn it hold don’t grayout not now you stupid cow—The red telltales blinked back to amber: Mach 3.8, 6,000 meters; half the altitude gone in seconds. The orthodox maneuver, and not good enough, the lock-on was still sounding and altitude was so much easier to lose than regain. Air brakes. Dump velocity, emergency mode, cycle the vent. The high-pitched roar of the ramjet faltered, stopped.

The airplane shuddered, thrumming, rattling her teeth, ramming her body forward against the clamshell as it slowed; not as good a fit as a body-tailored squadron unit would be. Might be, if she passed. Her mind drew a picture of how it would look from outside: the long oval of the fighter’s fuselage, the stubby forward-swept wings, edges flexing and thuttering as the spoilers popped open along the trailing edge.

Far below, serfs in the plantations of the Kuban Valley paused for an instant at the flash of silver overhead, the rolling crack-crack as the fighters passed, then bent again to the immemorial rhythm of their hoes; it was a familiar thing, and the bossboys were watching.

Mach 1 and dropping. Lost him—shitshitshit! The scanning warning started up again, the beeps coming closer and closer together. The rubber taste of the mouthpiece was bitter against her tongue; he must be close now, very close. Still nothing on the detectors.

“Override stops,” she said. The computer acknowledged with a patterned light, releasing its control of maneuvers that threatened the integrity of the aircraft. Threatened to leave me as a long greasy smear on the landscape, she thought, and pushed it away.

Fingers moved, like an artist’s on the piano. Left-two-right-one-one. Fractional seconds, time floating by so calm, so leisurely. Touch, touch, crack the vent and bleed air into the turbines for low-altitude boost. Bring the vectored-thrust louvers online, still closed. Now.

The fighter flipped up, presenting its belly to the axis of flight. In the same moment the underside jets cut in, super-heated air pumping out like retrorocket thrust. Shock struck, like hitting a brick wall, and this time she did gray out, felt the jolt of the medicomp pushing stimulant into her veins. Something in the airframe pinged audibly, and a warning light began strobing crimson. And something flashed by outside, above, a streak from one side of the sky to the other. “Eeeeehaaa!” she shrieked exultantly, and pushed at the throttle. Speed crawled back up, then the ram cut in, building to maximum thrust, and the giant was back on her chest. Too low for optimum burn, too rich a mixture, the ramjet sound was wrong, thready. But the enemy was on her screens now, the thermal signature of a ramscoop engine centered in the weapons section. He had still been decelerating when she did the kick-up; Yolande’s Falcon must have disappeared from his board as if teleported out.

The release of tension was like neat brandy on an empty stomach, like orgasm after a long teasing tumble.

“Die, you shit, fuckin’ die!” she screamed happily. Closing, closing; the rearward sensors were less powerful than the ones in the nose, and her own ECM would help. Visual range, nothing fooled the ol’ Eyeball Mark 1, they were both accelerating fast but she had the edge. A touch and the gun sight sprang out on the weapons screen, with the green blips at the lower corners; a Falcon had two 30mm Gatlings at the wingroots, a concession to the dogfighting days. Not going to give him a lock-on warning, she thought. Closer still, and she remembered her mother’s advice: an ace is someone who climbs right up the enemy’s asshole before they shoot.

He dodged, too late and too point-blank now. Her fingers danced on the pads, and the slim form of the fighter was one with her, dancing in sky. The triple line of the vents filled the sight, and she fired. Ping-ping-ppng, and the computer stitched a line of hit marks across the instructor’s fuselage; his own machine went rock-steady and began a careful circle back to base, a sign that the AI had acknowledged defeat and taken control for landing. Yolande pulled her own plane back and drove for the upper levels. She was halfway through the second victory roll when the weakened vanes blew.

“That was, without any shadow of a doubt, the most stupid, arrogant, purely moronic thing you’ve done, in a course of study marked by mo’ than its share of fuckups, Ingolfsson.”

Yolande swallowed. The ejection had produced instant unconsciousness; the next thing she remembered was the murmur of Russian as the field hands lifted her out of the pod, their broad weathered faces whirling against a nauseatingly mobile sky. A day in the infirmary had taken the worst of the sting and ache away, but her neck still felt as if it had been wrenched all the way around twice and every vertebra in her back seemed to have been squashed into its neighbor. The medicomp weighing down her right forearm clicked and dribbled something into her veins, and the pain behind her eyes eased—the physical pain. Her stomach twisted, and she could taste acid at the back of her throat. Clammy sweat ran down her flanks from the armpits, and the light fabric of her garrison blacks was a clinging burden.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, bracing to attention and staring over the head of the seated Chief Instructor; she fixed her eyes on the crossed flags behind the desk. The national flag, the Drakon, a crimson bat-winged dragon on a black background, clutching the slave-fetter of mastery and the sword of death in its claws, a green-silver-gold sunburst on the shield across its chest. The Air Corps banner, the skull of an eagle in a circle of gold on black, with flames in its eye-sockets.

The Chief Instructor’s office was a plain white room in what had once been the Livadiya Palace, here in Yalta, looking out over the garden and with a view down to the Black Sea. The Livadiya was more than a century old, once a resort for Russian nobles. The time of the Tzars had passed, and it had been a playground for the more exalted of the Soviet nomenklatura. The Eurasian War came, and now for thirty years, the Crimean peninsula had been a training reserve of the Directorate of War.

“Well, have you anythin’ mo’ to say fo’ y’self?” Merarch Corinne Monragon was a small woman, no taller than Yolande; in her fifties, with an ugly beak nose and a receding chin and gray hair streaked with an indeterminate mousy color. There was an impressive array of ribbons over the left breast of her garrison blacks: the Flying Cross, for more than six confirmed kills in air-to-air combat, and the AntiPartisan medal.

Freya, not a washout. Disgrace, at this stage. Everyone carefully avoiding talking about it, not-friends commiserating. Two years driving some lumbering gun-truck groundstrike monstrosity with damn-all chance of space training. No chance of being posted to the same base as Myfwany. Black edged in around her sight.

“Ah . . . ” Yolande pulled on her training, clamping inwardly on the tremors that threatened to make her voice shake. Her face was expressionless, save for the beads of moisture along her hairline, and that could have been the crash trauma. The windows behind the big desk were slightly open on a pale winter noon gray with cloud, and chill damp air, which cuffed at the heavy silk of the banners, slid across her face.

“Ah, I won, ma’am.”

The officer sighed and touched a screen on the desk before her. “Records: Ingolfsson, Yolande, pilot-trainee.” She examined it in silence for a moment, then looked up.

“There is that, Ingolfsson. There is also this.” Her hand tapped the screen. “Which contains good news an’ bad, apart from the good-to-passable academics.” She folded her fingers and leaned forward, the nose with its pearl stud like the beak of a bird of prey. “The good is that when you good, you very, very good indeed, a shit-eatin’, bird-stompin’ wonder of a pilot.” The merarch’s voice rose slightly. “And when you bad, you is fuckin’ awful!”

Another sigh. “So this time, you suckered the best pilot instructor we got. Wonderful. Then you turned a 1,750,000-auric trainer into a large, smokin’ hole in a cherry orchard outside o’ Krasnodar by doin’ acerobatics—just didn’t notice the air-frame alarm, eh? We have an enemy to shoot down our aircraft, Ingolfsson, but you’ve decided they don’t deserve the privilege, eh? Well.”

Wotan, Yolande thought, impressed despite herself. That was half the price of a fully-stocked plantation. Some imp of the perverse spoke in her ear: They aren’t going to dock it out of my pay, are they, ma’am?

The instructor took a deep breath. “Well, you application fo’ scramjet or deep-space trainin’ is, of course, denied.” Those postings were reserved for people with squadron experience.

“I suspect if it weren’t fo’ you friend Venders’s steadyin’ influence, you’d have washed out into ground-support work, or even the infantry, a while ago.” A pause which grew long. The five friends who had entered pilot-selection training were down to three now; Muriel and Veronica had transferred out. “As it is, you’ve made it. Just. Barely. See the adjutant fo’ you orders; the usual two months’ leave, then report fo’ squadron service.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Yolande threw a cracking salute, right fist to chest. Calm. Why do I feel so calm?

“An’ Ingolfsson?”

“Ma’am?”

“Flyin’ fighters isn’t a game, Ingolfsson. I know there’s a killer instinct somewheres inside of you; find it. Or it may turn out to be a very good thing fo’ the Race that we have a deposit of you frozen ova, understand?” She rose and came around the table. “Congratulations,” she said, and they exchanged the wrist-grip Draka handshake. In her other hand was a box with pilot’s rank-tabs.

“Thank you, ma’am.” The ruby bars clipped onto the epaulets, and she tucked the old silver cadet’s pins into a pocket of the tunic. Yolande forced her face to gravity as she pulled the peak-billed cap from her shoulder strap, unfolded it, and settled it home on the regulation recruit’s inch-long haircut.

Now I can grow it long enough to comb, she thought gleefully as she did a smart about-face and marched into the outer office, past the desks and the gray-uniformed serf Auxiliaries. Out into the corridor, past the two motionless Janissaries, like giant insects in segmented impact armor and visored sensor helmets. She looked down; her hands were shaking. I didn’t even notice, she thought. She concentrated a moment; the floating feeling at the back of her skull diminished. Down the arched colonnade, thin rain falling on tiles and potted trees on her left, bas-reliefs of the Eurasian War on her right. Through more offices, into a waiting room.

Her pace picked up as she saw Mandy and Myfwany, turned to a jog as they saw her grin and wave. Then she was running, dodging tables and people in uniform, and flinging herself into the air, heedless of the jar to her bruises.

“Wnff!” Myfwany caught her in midleap; Yolande wound her legs tight around her friend’s waist and propped her elbows on the hard muscle of her shoulders. “Why, Cadet Ingolfsson, someone might think you’d had good news.”

Yolande clasped hands behind the red head, as close-shaven as her own, and kissed her. It turned long and passionate, until she felt herself as breathless as in a high-G turn, lost in touch and scent and taste. Taste of salt as two tears slid down her cheeks to the meeting of their lips. She turned her head aside and buried it in the collar of the other’s uniform.

“You hurting, love?” Myfwany whispered into her ear.

“No. Happy. We’ll be together.” Her hug turned fierce.

“Oh, moo,” Mandy said. “Y’all are always at it. Good news, you make out. Bad news, you make out. Nothin’ else to do, you make out. C’mon fellas, we’ve all gotten through Selection, let’s go celebrate.”

Yolande unlocked her legs and slid down to stand. “Well,” she said huskily, smiling up into Myfwany’s turquoise-green eyes. “Myfwany an’ I could celebrate by goin’ back to our room an’ fuckin’ our brains out—oof.” She broke off as the blonde jabbed her under the ribs with her fingertips. Myfwany laughed. “Do we complain at the boys y’ always dragging in?” she said.

“No, y’all steal ’em,” Mandy said.

“That’s not fair, we just borrowed a few; they are reusable, you knows,” Myfwany replied. “Anyways, you know what they say: ‘Men fo’ amusement, women fo’ pleasure, cucumbers fo’ ecstasy.’ ”

Yolande sighed, closed her eyes, and leaned into her friend’s side; they were just the right height for that, about a handspan’s difference. As far as she was concerned, Mandy could keep the men—it was as often uncomfortable as enjoyable—but she supposed Myfwany was right, you had to broaden your experience. I guess I’m just a prude, she thought regretfully. For that matter, she didn’t much like sleeping with serfs, either; it was always difficult to tell whether they really wanted to, and if they didn’t, why bother?

“There’s always the Flamingo Feather,” Mandy said.

The Crimea had been taken by amphibious assault in the fall of ’42, early in the War, and had become a major base area for the drive west, since the harbors had fallen relatively intact. Between the Germans and the Draka and the general chaos, there had been little of the native population left; when the European section of the Eurasian War wound down in ’45, it had seemed sensible to make it a military reservation, and the remaining locals were moved out to provide labor on the wheat plantations of the Ukraine. There were mountains, plains, seashore, forest, and steppe, a reasonable facsimile of a Mediterranean climate along the southern shore for barracks, and every other type of weather and terrain within easy reach. Recruit training became the major occupation as the settlement of the lands west of the Volga proceeded, and the Citizen population built up.

So the Crimea was not really part of the Province of Sarmatia, not really of any specific location. It was Army, an island in the archipelago, a way station in the Domination’s largest institution, and a cog in the slaughterous efficiency that had conquered two-thirds of the human race. That meant more than barracks and armories.

“Hoppin’ tonight,” Mandy said, as they pushed through the bead curtain. The Flamingo Feather was an aviators’ hangout, a dozen linked public rooms with the usual facilities, palaestra and baths and bedrooms.

“Everybody glad to be off restriction,” Myfwany replied. Few Draka used enough of anything to endanger their health; it was stupid, and illegal besides. Pilot-trainees were on an altogether stricter regimen, enforced by the medical monitors they wore at all times; there were even restrictions on sex, leading to a good deal of resentful graffiti about the Orgasm Police.

Yolande looked down on the sunken room. There was a haze of blue smoke under the rooftop lights, a little tobacco, considerably more Kenya Crown ganja. Tables scattered around the edges, a dais for the musicians and singer; dancers going through their paces in the center. Big murals on the walls, holograph copies. She recognized one: it had been done by her mother’s uncle’s daughter Tanya, who had been a cohortarch in the Archonal Guard until ’45. Gray shattered buildings under gray sky, with a column of tanks going through, mud squelching up from under their treads. Hond III, mid-Eurasian War models. The hatches were open, and the Draka crews showed head-and-shoulders out of the turrets. Wrapped and muffled against the cold, looking with a weary and disgusted boredom at the skeletal corpses lying rat-gnawed along the avenue.

“Eeugh,” she said, as they handed their rain cloaks to the serf and walked down the stairs. She had seen her share of bodies—Draka children were taken to public executions fairly early to cure them of squeamishness—but this was just purely ugly. “I like that one bettah.” The other side was a picture holo. A tropical beach, palm-fringed, backed by jade-green sugar cane and dark-green mountains beyond; the sun was setting over a stretch of purple sea speckled with white foam-crests, in a riotous banner of clouds in cream, gold, and rose. “Nosy-Be, isn’t it?”

They found an unoccupied table in a nook, settled back in against the cushioned settees. The attendants had seen their new-minted pilot’s bars; this was Graduation Week, after all. A bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne appeared, and finger food, grilled spiced prawns and crawfish.

“I think so,” Myfwany said. “Which raises the interestin’ point, where do we go after the Great Escape?” The next two months would be the longest leave they would have before they mustered out on their twenty-second birthdays.

Yolande halted with the glass halfway to her lips and set it down again on the smooth stone of the table. “It’s real,” she said dazedly. “It just hit me, we’re adults.” Her eyes were wide, and she felt a slight tug of alarm. The speeches and parades would come later that week, but it was official enough now. “We can . . . oh, we can vote. Get elected Archon.” She took a gulp of the wine, then slowed down as the chill piquant sweetness hit her mouth.

“Watch the sacrilege there, that’s Old Klik,” Myfwany said, and took up the game as she sipped at her own. “Or we can get called out in a duel. At least while we’re not Active Service.”

“Apply fo’ land grant. Or get married,” Mandy said, propping chin on a hand with a distant look.

The other two exchanged glances; their friend had been getting an awful lot of letters from Yolande’s brother John. It was a bit May-September, but the difference in ages mattered less as they grew older.

“Well, not much point in that,” Yolande said. “You’ve got to live in barracks fo’ the next twenty-six months at least. Not really practical to have children, either.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Myfwany said. “Use a brooder fo’ the children. These days, no need to incubate you own eggs. But it’s true there’s no point in marryin’ until you can set up house together; I wouldn’t consider it fo’ another three, five years, myself.”

Yolande felt a chill that ran down her spine and settled under her ribcage. With a too-familiar effort of will she shoved it aside and sprang up. “C’mon, love, let’s dance,” she said. “Shadowdance.”

Myfwany grinned back at her; the strong-boned young face was the most beautiful thing in the world. “Sure, sweet,” she said.

They rose and threaded their way hand in hand to the dance floor, their soft boots rutching on the tessellated mosaic of the surface. The band was just setting up for a new number: Hungarian Gypsies by their look, and in native costume, playing violin and flute and something like a hammer dulcimer. Except as horse handlers, Gypsies made poor workers, but they were fine entertainers and the leisure industries had bought up a good many of them. The lights dimmed. The music began low and sweet, with a swinging lilt; then it grew wilder, sorrowful, and with a hint of dark empty places and wind through faded grass. The singer stepped up to the edge of the dais and began a soft throaty lament; the hoop earrings bobbed against the toffee-colored skin of her neck, and the multicolored silk flounces of her dress glittered.

The two Draka stood face to face and extended their arms until their hands touched, very lightly, at the fingertips. Shadowdancing was a development of the martial arts, originally a method of training in anticipating another’s movements. Yolande half-closed her eyes and let the music take her, the gentle pressure on her fingertips, the whole-body sense of the other. They turned, circling, swooping, bending, the lead passing from Myfwany to Yolande and back with each dozen heartbeats. She felt the boundaries of her self blur; motion was uncaused, unthought, total control merging into total abandonment of will. The tempo picked up, and they were whirling, leaping, then suddenly slowing to half-time and a languorous drifting. It was a pleasure halfway between flying and making love, and like both it translated you outside yourself. They slowed almost to a halt, palm against palm on either side of their faces, feet skimming the tile with cat-soft precision.

The music stopped, and Yolande returned to herself with an inner walking down a step that wasn’t there. Sensation returned, and she knew she was breathing deeply, felt the prickle of sweat on her skin. The other dancers had emptied a circle around them, and a few were applauding. Myfwany was close enough for her to watch the pupils contract from their concentration flare, close enough to smell the clean warm scent of her body, like summer grass and fresh sheets.

“I watched you, not the teacher, all that long summer’s noon

Though he taught Leonardo, with loving respect

I was blinded by knowledge of where we’d be soon

And my eyes wandered dazed on the curve of your neck

Oh, statues and portraits, now to me you’re a part

Of my golden Myfwany; kisses and art.”

AIRCAR

100 KM SOUTH OF NANTES LOIRE DISTRICT

TOURAINE PROVINCE

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

APRIL 5, 1973

Nantes in ten minutes, Yolande thought, banking the aircar north toward the Loire estuary and beginning the descent. Chateau Retour in another fifteen after that.

The little aircraft dipped smoothly; the whole top was set transparent down to waist-height, crystal-sandwich luxury. Poitou wheeled beneath them, broad squares of plowland and vineyard and straight dusty roads, patterned with the shadows of a few fleecy white clouds on this bright spring morning. She had a temptation to swoop down and barnstorm—the aircar was as responsive as a fighter at low altitude—but resisted it with a caressing motion on the sidestick that waggled the wings. She is a honey, the Draka thought happily. A six-seater Bambara, Archona-made by Dos Santos Aerospatial. The very latest, twin ceramic axial flow turbines, vectored-thrust VTOL, variable-geometry wings that could fold right into the oval fuselage. Supersonic, just barely, though she ate fuel like a stone bitch if you tried to cruise above .9 Mach; obscenely comfortable by comparison to any sort of military issue. The four rear seats were recliners, swivel-mounted around a table-console and bar. Myfwany’s parents and hers had clubbed together to buy it for them, as a graduation present.

Myfwany and she had spent the first month of their furlough travelling in the Bambara. Money was no problem; they had the basic Citizen stipend now, their pilot’s pay, and their families had put them on an adult’s allowance from the joint enterprises, about as much again. Yolande looked over her shoulder at her lover, curled asleep on one of the rear seats with her hand under one cheek. It had been like school holidays again, only better, with nobody to tell them what to do. They had rented a little island for a week. Sleeping during the hot days, watching impossibly lurid sunsets, spearfishing, grilling their catch on the long empty white beach while the surf hissed phosphorescent under the huge soft stars, making love by moonlight and lying entangled under the palms until dawn. Visiting distant relatives had been fun, too: the parties and sports, the cities and museums and galleries and plays. Giving each other presents—Myfwany had found her a signed first edition of Ravens in a Morning Sky in Damascus, and Yolande had dug up a Muramachi blade someone had left in a dusty shop in Shanghai.

The serf sitting behind her craned to see the semicircle of the control panel, smiling a little uncertainly as the Draka caught her eye. Jolene, dammit, remember the name, Yolande told herself. Jolene had been their latest impulse buy. They had picked her up at an auction in Apollonaris, on the coast of western Africa, two days ago. Yolande frowned a little; it had been Myfwany’s idea, and in her opinion it was a bit reckless just to buy a serf like that. Ingolfssons did not sell their human chattel except for gross and deliberate fault, which meant you had to be careful. Mind you, travelling from base to base, they would need at least one literate bodyservant, someone in Category IV or V, trained to handle communications equipment and secretarial business. Jolene was well educated and beautifully trained, crèche reared and certified by Domarre & Ledermann, who specialized in high-skilled and fancy items. Very pretty besides, in a broad-nosed, high-cheeked Mandingo fashion—and pilots had a certain status to maintain in their personal gear. Skin the shade of ripe eggplant, almost purple-black, with natural yellow-blond hair and eyes like hot brass, the result of some sport of wandering genes. Yolande rather liked her; she was eager to please without being fawning, glad to be in good hands, and charmingly agog at seeing the world beyond the strait confines of the crèche.

“Nantes control, this is A7SD24 approachin’, requestin’ clearance fo’ in-district release,” the Draka said, touching the smooth surface of the control panel. “Headin’ upstream to Chateau Retour Plantation.”

“Is that—” the voice hesitated, as the ground-sensor computers queried the machine’s. “Greetings, Citizen.” A French accent, some serf technician. “Feeding clearance data for approach routes, central control under two thousand meters.”

“Ovah to AI,” Yolande said, lifting her hand from the stick. The aircraft turned east and then north to enter the in-city approach path, sliding down an invisible line in the sky and weaving its way among the busy low-level traffic over the Loire estuary. A Bambara did not extend to that sort of computer, but Nantes ground control would be handling it from here. She nodded toward the other forward seat. “C’mon up front, if’n you like,” she added.

“Thanks kindly, Mistis,” Jolene said, sliding forward and buttoning her blouse; she and Myfwany had been necking in a desultory sort of way until a little while ago. Alertly, the serf studied the controls. She was a Category V Literate, authorized to operate powered vehicles, but this board was all-virtual, touch-sensitive simulations of dials and screens, and that was just now coming in for the top-line civilian market. “May I?”

At Yolande’s nod, a slender black finger touched the upper quadrant screen. She ran through the menu quickly until a map of Nantes appeared; the Loire valley as far east as Trous. A light flicked on the bank of the river.

“This where we stayin’, Mistis?”

“Fo’ a few days. Meetin’ my second cousin Alexandra an’ my brothah John, a friend name of Mandy—family gatherin’,” Yolande said. “Then up east a ways, boar hunt.”

The aircar was slowing down to 500 kph and banking in for the approach path; you could always tell when a computer was flying . . . Jolene touched the screen again and hesitated until the Draka signed permission with a flick of her wrist. The sale contract from Domarre & Ledermann scrolled up.

“Eight hundred aurics?” Jolene said, disappointment in her voice. Ten times what a prime unskilled laborer cost, but less than might be expected for a special item like her.

“Notice,” Yolande said, indicating two clauses. “We suckered them. See, a buy-back option fo’ you, and a first-purchase option on any of you children.” At the serf’s questioning look, she continued: “We’re . . . my family doesn’t sell, ’cept in-house.”

“Oh.” The serf looked relieved.

Probably afraid we’d just picked her up for the holiday, Yolande thought.

Then, after a pause: “You don’t intends to breed me, either, Mistis?”

“Not fo’ sale, anyhows, or if you don’t want. Like children?”

“Oh, yes.” Jolene said, with a shy smile. “I helped out in the nursery a lot at the crèche. I—” another hesitation “—I was sort of hopin’ to be a nurse, had some of the trainin’ but . . . ” She made a gesture toward herself. The startling hair hung halfway down her back in a mass of loose curls; she had the long-limbed African build, slender neck, high firm breasts, buttocks that were rounded but showed the clench of muscle in the tight trousers. Carefully exercised, with a pleasant glow of youthful health.

Yolande nodded; not much chance the Agency would sell her at three hundred aurics as a medical technician when they could get two or three times that for a fancy.

“Well,” she said, “we might find you work in a plantation infirmary, later. Plannin’ on keeping you with us, while we’re in the Service.”

“Thanks, Mistis, I was . . . hmm, I was afraid I hadn’t been pleasin’.”

“Oh, that,” Yolande shrugged. “Don’t worry, that’s my fault. I’m sort of inhibited that way. Need to get to know you better befo’ it works proper fo’ me. Myfwany certainly enjoyed you. Not the main reason we bought you, anyhows.”

Reassured, the serf smiled. “Glad to hear it, Mistis. I’s lucky.” At Yolande’s questioning look: “Nightclubs and such-like were biddin’ on me, too.” She made a slight face. “Rather belong to folks I can get to know personal . . . Glad to get the auction an’ such ovah with ’s well, I mean, the waitin’ once you passes eighteen an’ all . . . We meeting you old servants down theres, Mistis?”

The Draka nodded; the other staff were nearly as important to a fresh purchase’s life as the owners, and just as much a matter of potluck. She thought for a moment; as Pa used to say, a little consideration went a long way in getting first-rate service. Besides that, as Ma always said, serfs were inferiors, but inferior people, not machinery; there was no point in making their lives more difficult than necessary.

“Lele, my maid, she won’t give you any trouble,” Yolande said judiciously. “Sensible wench. Sofia, she’s Myfwany’s, she gets, ah, a little jealous sometimes.” In fact, Yolande thought that deep down there were times when Sofia got jealous of her, which was ridiculous beyond words. Pitiful, in fact. “Don’t stand any nonsense, and I’m sure you’ll make friends soon enough.” That prompted another thought. “Oh, remind me when we get in, I’ll have you cleared with Central Communication to call back to you crèche, talk to you friends there when you’ve a mind to.”

“Oh, thank you, Mistis,” Jolene said, her face lighting.

There was a stirring behind them. “Thanks fo’ what?” Myfwany asked. The serf rose and slid back into the body of the aircar; Yolande heard a brief yelp-giggle before her friend sank down in the bucket seat, yawning and rubbing her hands over her face and hair, the red locks now just long enough to curl. They exchanged a brief kiss before the other Draka turned to run a quick eye over the displays.

“Damn, down to twenty-five percent, need to refuel again,” she said.

“Could be worse; they could have made this thing run on hydride ’stead of kerosene,” Yolande said, and laughed. Turboram and scramjets ran on hydrogen compounds.

“Not until they build ’em orbit-capable . . . What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothin’. Just happy, is all. Wishin’ this holiday could last fo’ever.” She stretched with her hands over her head, watching the other’s green eyes narrow in a silent grin. Myfwany’s face had more freckles now, and a faint golden bloom that was as much of a tan as her complexion and SolaScreen would allow, much lighter than Yolande’s toast-gold. The flight-school pallor and gauntness were gone; she looked relaxed, fit, sleeker.

“Know how you feel, love,” Myfwany said gently, brushing the back of her hand on the other’s cheek. “Though we’d get bored with it, soon enough.”

A beep from the machine, and they looked back to the board. The middle of the main screen had switched automatically to an underbelly shot, showing a city center of garden-green interspersed with roofs of umber tile and black slate. It shifted as the aircar banked, and then a message flashed: Manual control below one thousand.

“Jolene, number between one and ten,” Myfwany said, and looked at Yolande. “I’m six.”

“ ‘To’,” Yolande said.

“Mistis Yolande wins,” Jolene said; her voice slightly muffled, as she pressed her face against the side of the canopy.

“Shit,” Myfwany replied good-naturedly, and sat back. Yolande let her hand fall on the sidestick. “Initiatin’ sequence,” she said, and touched the console. “Manual.”

“Cleared, Citizen,” the Nantes control answered; a trifle grumpily, she thought. Probably prefer me to let the computer do it. Fuck that.

She throttled back to 400 kph, and the wings slid forward to right angles with the fuselage. The river wound below them, blue shimmer marked with the gold teardrop shapes of sandbars and the metallic silver of shallow water. Levees flanked the wandering braided stream, although the level was down from the wintertime floods; Yolande brought the aircar down to three hundred meters, close enough to see details. Much greener than Tuscany, where you could sense the earth’s dry hard bones even in the rains. They passed over Samur on its white cliffs, the pale stone of the castle blinding in the morning light; then the banks sank lower, only subtle changes in crop and growth showing where the sandy flood plain gave way to upland gatine.

“This it?” Myfwany asked.

“Mmm-hmm,” Yolande replied.

Unmistakable, an old chateau built in a checkerboard of white stone and red brick, with black Angers-slate roofs; four towers, and a big pool-reservoir behind the Great House with landscaped banks. The Quarters were to the east, the cottage roofs almost lost among the trees. Around the manor grounds were blocks of orchard, pink and white froth of apple and apricot and peach; dairy pasture down by the river, green-blue wheat and dark-green corn farther north, and long low slopes of vineyard black-shaggy with new growth. A hoe gang looked up as they passed, faces white under the conical straw hats, then bent again to their work.

“There’s the House landin’ field,” she continued. A square of asphalt among trees, on the border between the manor gardens and the croplands. She touched the transmitter control.

“Chateau Retour, Yolande here,” she said.

“Mistress Ingolfsson.” A serf’s voice, the plantation radio watch. “Please—”

“Hiyo.” A Citizen . . . yes, Aunt Tanya. A courtesy aunt, Yolande’s mother’s first cousin technically. “Y’all cleared. You stuff arrived yesterday.”

“Thanks, Tanya. See you in a bit.”

The near-inaudible whine of the turbines altered, as the slotted louvers beneath the aircar’s body cycled open. Motion slowed, turned sluggish as the Bambara dropped below aerodynamic stall speed and shifted to direct vertical lift. The inship systems balanced it effortlessly, and Yolande began to relax her grip on the pistol-trigger throttle built into the control column. It didn’t require much in the way of piloting, really, just a steady hand . . .

And memory, she thought, reaching out to touch the bypass fan initiator. There was a chung sound from behind the compartment, and a lower-pitched toning as the engines transferred some of their energy to pumping cool air through the nozzles. Ceramic turbines were adiabatic: they ran hot, hot enough to melt metal; that was what made them efficient. Also hot enough for the exhaust to damage an asphalt landing stage, and Edward and Tanya von Shrakenberg would best appreciate that. Sometimes I think I need a computer just to keep the relations straight, she thought idly.

The altimeter unreeled. She touched another part of the smooth glassy surface before her, and the wings folded back and in, disappearing in their slots as the wheels lowered. Engine noise mounted, and wisps of dust flew off the smooth pebbled surface of the stage. An indicator blinked as the wheels touched down. Yolande touched the ground mode button and the console rearranged itself; Bambaras were theoretically road and surface-water capable, although she felt that was a needless flourish.

The canopy above them split into three segments and half retracted to the rear. Air poured in, spring-chill and fresh, smelling intensely of blossom, greenery, very faintly of burnt fuel. Quiet struck, the ears ringing with the engines’ silence after so many hours. Nothing was louder than the ping of cooling metal; there was the murmur of wind in trees, bird sounds, no background city sound of engines. She had missed that country quiet, these last few days.

The landing field had a low hangar at one end, overshadowed with trees and vine-grown; Yolande could see a twin-engine winged tiltrotor craft within, a couple of ducted-fan aircars. Plantation servants were already loading a dolly with the suitcases from the Bambara’s luggage compartment. She and Myfwany rose, buckling their gunbelts and donning the Shantung silk jackets they had picked up in China. That prompted a thought; Yolande looked back and saw Jolene standing and staring about with an expression of half delight and half bewildered terror, the small carrying case that held all her kit in one hand.

And getting goosebumps. Yolande snapped her fingers for the serf’s attention, then took her hand and laid the palm against the screen. “Scan, identify,” she said. That would access the personal file from the Labor Directorate net. “We’ll have to have the plantation seamstress run you up a few outfits, Jolene.”

The two Draka vaulted out of the aircar; the compartment was only chest-high above the pavement, not worth the effort of opening the door, and Jolene clambered down more slowly to where Myfwany could grip her at the waist and swing her to the ground. Yolande could feel the residual heat of the jets on her legs through the linen of her trousers as she flipped up an access plate and touched the panel within. The canopy slid back above the passenger compartment and flashed from clear to mirror to a dull nonreflective black.

“Thumb here, Jolene,” Yolande said, and keyed. “All right, you’ve got vehicular access.” Not to the controls, of course. Raising her voice, she called one of the porters: “You, boy.” The stocky middle-aged French buck looked up from laying a cylindrical leather case of hunting javelins on top of the pile of baggage and bowed. “See this wench to our rooms along with the rest of our things.”

“Yolande Ingolfsson, kitten adopter, small birds rescued to order,” Myfwany said fondly, as they strolled arm in arm to the pathway that lead to the manor.

“I’ll spoil my half an’ you can flog the othah,” Yolande replied dryly.

“Nothin’ wrong with a kindly heart, love,” Myfwany said, and yawned again, stretching. “Now let’s lunch.”