Jatus waited on a bench for her hover transport across Captain Itef’s huge office complex. Three hours before, she’d been chasing down—trying to chase down—the smallest, most clearly unbanced young man she’d ever seen. Unless every sense had failed, he’d been apologizing to her with his eyes a few minutes before he flipped into nothingness like he’d never existed. She’d never seen him before, but she kept thinking he’d be around the corner. Her stomach had hurt somewhere nameless every time he wasn’t there.

  It had been three hours since that, but only two hours since she’d bumped into Princess Katherine (the Girl) in one of the lobbies. Three other guests had lined up outside her office to compin about the princess’s treatment.

  Her legs were tightly crossed. Her arms were tightly folded. She didn’t want to think about why she’d checked beneath the bench when she walked in.

  The two-seater transport puttered up the wide, seamless hall. When Jatus saw who was driving it, she loosened a little with relief. Miflis Fleez’s red hair was unmistakable. It refused to tame slick, no matter how much gel she used on it; when they were roommates at the Academy, Evit had gotten an eyeful of bright carroty frizz every morning. Miflis hadn’t apologized, but Evit hadn’t wanted her to.

  As the hover transport pulled to a gently bouncing stop, Jatus got up, but she felt like Evit for the first time in ages. Miflis was pale and shapely in the ways a Matil woman was meant to be, which expined why she had gotten the job she had, but a little too much for the average cut of the uniform. Her bust and hips pushed against the seams, like the bartender’s shoulders.

  She grinned as Evit swung herself into the transport’s passenger seat; Evit grinned back. “Been a little while,” she said. “How are things?”

  “Oh, you know!” Miflis twisted to look behind her and turned on the clicking indicator signal. “Dorrin finally got his nerve up and proposed, like you said he would. I don’t know yet, though—I told him to wait. It’s a huge commitment.”

  “Sure—the next thousand years is a lot.” Finally, someone to make her feel normal. She settled deeper into the seat as Miflis pulled away from the bench, just a hair above the regution angle. “Which way are you leaning?”

  “I just don’t know if I’m ready to be tied down!” Miflis sighed dramatically.

  “You’ve been seeing him for, what, 200 years already?” Evit raised an eyebrow. The little hovercar purred around a curve, where the hallway widened, and Miflis fit it gently into one of the pre-marked nes. She took her hands off the steering joystick and pressed a lever to lock back the seats.

  Both women buckled themselves in with shoulder belts. “More like 300, but who’s counting at that point? I want something…” Miflis scrunched her nose. “Something that’s not…”

  With a rattle, the hovercar slid into the speed-carry field of the ne and jerked away. “So damn boring?” Evit suggested, when she got her breath back. They shot into a wide curve, turning into Miflis so Evit’s body rang with pressure out toward the side of the hall.

  Miflis sighed again.

  “Well, I’m free,” Jatus said. Her loss felt like a missing tooth—her loss. It shouldn’t be like this. This was grief, but unlike when your pet thrat died, it wasn’t supposed to exist. “We could give it a go.” She wouldn’t mind Miflis for a few days or even a few centuries. She already knew they could live together.

  “Oh yeah. I heard about Moby.” Miflis sat back, considering. “I’m game. Let me tell Dorren tonight.”

  “Your pce or mine?”

  Miflis considered again. Some of her red hair whipped loose; Evit let herself appreciate it scattering and blowing over the other woman’s neck. “I like that little window you have.”

  “No window.” Evit squeezed Miflis’s knee, a naughty public dispy she wouldn’t have dared if they weren’t in the hovercar. She wanted to forget. “I got myself transferred. But the new pce is right on the Betrit promenade.”

  “Ooh, definitely yours. I’ll be over with my stuff by suppertime.” Miflis turned her head and smiled smugly, probably because she’d just nded in a plum spot. Evit could do that. “Betrit! Sounds riffing. How’d you nd that?”

  “Like I said, I got myself transferred.” She rubbed her thumb over Miflis’s knee, feeling the woolen pants over the cap, and the cool solidity of the thigh just above.

  “Where are you working now?”

  The hovercar swung wider, its force hood snapping into pce. Other transports—trams and trailers and a few other cars—belted along in their nes all around. Evit slipped her hand an inch higher. This was better, hearing someone’s breath catch alone in the humming quiet of a transport. “The resort,” she said.

  “No wonder Itef’s seeing you!” Miflis slipped her arm around Evit, denting a soft waist beneath her fingers, ughing. “The resort’s a cool assignment, though, from what I hear. All those different talking animals—it must be interesting.”

  “Right.” She wasn’t ready to bring this outside the resort except to one set of ears, but Miflis would be moving in tonight. Living with someone who didn’t know the truth…

  But Miflis would find out soon enough. Evit slid her hand two inches higher, so she couldn’t be mistaken for on the knee. She’d always thought Miflis would sound like this. “I’m looking forward to tonight.”

  “Me, too.” Miflis cupped her hip. They might as well have been taking off their clothes right then and there.

  What if we did? Evit thought wildly. I could—I could show her my body. She could show everyone the tiny scales scattered on her nippleless chest. Miflis had seen it. She let her hand slide higher, but she looked straight ahead, like every other rider. The view on the side opened to cold vacuum; they raced with all the others in a spiral around a core like a long white drop. The vast clutch of eggs floating in the void was briefly visible each time they rotated around.

  Evit rubbed between Miflis’s legs. What hot-blooded demon was in her? But there was fire in her heart she wanted to keep. When she looked over at Miflis, the other woman smiled vaguely like nothing was happening—but there was a sparkle and a faint vender flush.

  Evit looked away, her lips twitching against a smile. The panoplies of open space and brilliant white station fshed past, business as usual, but she and Miflis had a secret. The huge windows that csped Itef’s personal complex looked bright from within, big gaps in the white and the space. Miflis’s fingertips dipped into the back of her pants as the traffic flicked back inside the station at the very bottom of the drop—then withdrew.

  Evit put her hand back into her p. “That was fun,” Miflis hissed, low. “Definitely looking forward to it.” They slowed; the nes pulled each vehicle to a ptform that led up into the fat part of the teardrop. Evit squirmed, trying to become Jatus again, but her thighs rubbed together. She was as shameless as Bearach, but she wouldn’t pay for it the same way.

  At least, she hoped Frixm wouldn’t take note of her. Not that it isn’t too te for that, either. Frixm had set her a pile of busy work, and she was already behind because of the guests. She’d have to bring some of it home… maybe it wasn’t the best night to have Miflis move in. She sighed.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Mm. No.” She smiled again, wiping the concern from Miflis’s face. “Just thinking about work. Excited to not.”

  Miflis beamed as Evit climbed onto the covered dder in the ptform and saluted goodbye.

  There was another hovercar to take her through to Captain Itef. She’d never met the chauffeur, a sour-looking Average Man, but then, she’d only been in here once or twice before; this time, it took her breath away just as much. Itef’s were the only rooms she’d ever seen that weren’t egg-shaped. The ceilings soared. The atrium held one of the biggest force windows on the ship; it formed the back wall of the tall, narrow space. The rest was choked with green foliage, wrapped around every column and kept alive by the light of sun mps that beamed up and down.

  The man drove her through the jungle of the atrium and into the office. The ceiling soared higher, dark, almost out of view; the sound of cascading water rushed into her ears. The monstrous force window let in a vast square of faint light across the white floor; a slender white waterfall tumbled into a churning pool just to its left, looming out of the starlight. Evit shuddered; the driver noticed it and flicked her a gre as he steered toward the puddle of light to the left of the falls.

  She pretended he hadn’t. So what? I’ll never see him again. Probably.

  The shadows in the puddle of light resolved into figures. Other cars puttered across the dark to and fro, all directions from the epicenter, Itef’s lit white iceberg of a desk. It had several levels, the top of which he occupied like the Perfectly Average Matil he had always seemed to be, but why was he so eager to be kept apprised of the happenings in the resort? She hadn’t really expected to be able to see him, but it had been like a magic word when she spoke it to the under-under-undersecretary: resort. Miflis hadn’t been surprised. “No wonder he’s seeing you.”

  But the resort was such a small part of Captain Itef’s purview. She didn’t understand why he’d care. If she were a captain, she probably wouldn’t—but then, she might be missing something. The guests did provide fuel, without which the Empire couldn’t function. And it wasn’t like she had any other captains to compare him with. It just seemed…

  Excessive. Irregur. She hoped she was wrong. The waterfall thundered on and on. The closer they came to the desk, the taller it looked. By the time Evit debarked, it was thirty feet tall if it was an inch, and twice as long, a complex of smaller desks with Matil working in corners and niches made by the broken, multi-level surfaces.

  The driver let her off at the bottom of a white staircase that led straight to the top, where Itef sat working with some blue projections in midair. Someone else was coming down the stairs, but even without a rail, there was enough room to pass. Evit headed up, trying to remember to be Jatus. To keep her tongue behind her teeth. She stiffened a quick salute as a Lieutenant passed, then continued up the white staircase.

  The captain didn’t pause in his work when her footsteps rang on the hollow metal construction of the floor up here. It wasn’t long or broad at the top, but everywhere, the ideal forms and careful elegance the Matil favored were present. The desk where Captain Itef sat was a part of the jagged iceberg, growing from the metal floor: a single perfect, white egg. Pnts cascaded from the surfaces, softening the lines. She waited for acknowledgement in a rigid salute.

  Princess Katherine couldn’t know what this was like.

  “Ensign Jatus. It’s a considerable surprise to see you.” The captain didn’t look up from what he scrawled on his clipboard as he spoke. “One would think you knew better than to draw more attention.”

  “Yes, sir, one would think.” She spoke without inflection. “Captain, I’m sorry to involve you in the troubles at the resort, especially when there are so few guests, but they’re getting fussy.”

  Calm. She must be calm. Itef had raised his eyes to her.

  “I think I speak for everyone else aboard when I say I’d like to see Princess Katherine MacGregor continue to wear that bracelet, but sir, I’ve received three compints in reference already today, and Commander Frixm is—”

  “Capable of making decisions as always,” Itef said mildly.

  “Of course.” The words rushed out of her; she pulled her salute in tighter. “Sir, the manual states that guests are not to be confined to quarters except in rare cases to ensure their safety and health, but Commander Frixm has done so.” Jatus had reviewed the footage before coming here. “The reason he gave Bearach Rev Liedan was, ‘I want you to shut your mouth.’ A direct quote, sir,” she added. If nothing else, she’d thought hearing the name would… what? Produce some kind of effect in Itef. Since st night, she’d wanted to poke and prod everything she saw. Miflis. She almost smiled.

  Had the captain seen it? He regarded her carefully—so Matil of him—without speaking. At st, he said, “Bearach Rev Liedan, confined to quarters, and a miniature revolt already about Princess Katherine’s precious wrist.”

  “Yes.” Never mind the chaos with the little bearded man, or his eyes, pale, sharp like an eagle’s eyes. “If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, we desperately need your hand there. Commander Frixm is doing his best to keep things calm until we refill, but he’s going off book.”

  “I see.” Captain Itef sat back in his chair. It was white and smooth on the outside, a perfect egg on end, and had a bck cushioned heart. His uniform almost disappeared in it; only the colorful medals and lines of gold braid on his chest showed. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Ensign. Dismissed.”

  If Jatus had hoped for immediate action, she would have been in the wrong service, but disappointment still tasted sour in her sinuses. She stiffened her salute further, turned about, and marched down the stairs. Another Lieutenant came up as she did, so she had to stiffen even harder, and she didn’t know if it came off.

  This had probably been a waste of a few hours. As she climbed into another hovercar with a nod of greeting for the driver, she thought about the piles of busy paperwork sitting on her desk.

  Oh, well. Miflis was coming tonight. It could wait.