Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-crossed Love

Here’s a compelling drama set in deep space that reunites lovers long parted by rank, social status, and circumstance—although, as they both soon come to realize, it may not reunite them for very long…

A writer whose work crosses several mediums and genres, Melinda M. Snodgrass has written scripts for television shows such as Profiler and Star Trek: The Next Generation (for which she was also a story editor for several years), written a number of popular science fiction novels, and was one of the co-creators of the long-running Wild Cards series, for which she has also written and edited. Her novels include Circuit, Circuit Breaker, Final Circuit, The Edge of Reason, Runespear (with Victor Milan), High Stakes, Santa Fe, and Queen’s Gambit Declined. Her most recent novel is The Edge of Ruin, the sequel to The Edge of Reason. Her media novels include the Wild Cards novel Double Solitaire and the Star Trek novel The Tears of the Singers. She’s also the editor of the anthology A Very Large Array. She lives in New Mexico.

The Wayfarer’s Advice

We came out of Fold only twenty-three thousand kilometers from Kusatsu-Shirane. “Good job,” I started to say, but was interrupted by blaring impact alarms.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Melin at navigation chattered, and her fingers swept back and forth across the touch screen like a child finger painting. Our ship, the Selkie, obedient to Melin’s sweeping commands, fired its ram jet. My stomach was left resting against the ceiling and my balls seemed to leap into my throat as we dropped relative to our previous position.

A massive piece of steel and composite resin, edges jagged and blackened by an explosion, tumbled slowly past our front viewport. It had been four years since I’d been cashiered from the Imperial Navy of the Solar League, but the knowledge gained during the preceding twenty years was still with me.

“That was an Imperial ship,” I said. My eye caught writing on the hull. I had an impression of a name, and my gut closed down into an aching ball. It couldn’t be… but if it was… I had to know. I added an order. “Match trajectory and image-capture.”

Jax, the Tiponi Flute, piped through the breathing holes lining his sides, “Not good news for Kusatsu-Shirane if the League has found them.” The alien had several of its leafy tendrils wrapped around handholds welded to the walls, and his elongated body swayed with the swoops and dives of the ship.

“I’d call that the understatement of the year,” Baca grunted from his position at communication.

Three hundred years ago, humans had developed a faster-than-light drive and gone charging out into our arm of the Milky Way galaxy. There we had met up with a variety of alien races, kicked their butts, and subjugated them under human rule. But two hundred years before the human blitzkrieg began, there had been other ships that had headed to the stars. Long-view ships with humans in suspended animation, searching for new worlds.

Most of these pioneers were cranks and loons determined to set up their various ideas of utopia. Best guess was that probably eighty percent of them died either during the journey or shortly after locating on a planet. But some survived to create Reichart’s World, and Nirvana, and Kusatsu-Shirane, and numerous others.

The League called them Hidden Worlds, and took a very dim view of human-settled planets that weren’t part of the League. In fact, the League rectified that situation whenever they ran across one of these worlds. The technique was simple and brutal: The League arrived, used their superior firepower to force a surrender, then took away all the children under the age of sixteen and fostered them with families on League planets. They then brought in League settlers to swamp the colonists who remained behind.

But it hadn’t worked this time, because there were pieces of Imperial ships orbiting Kusatsu-Shirane. Something had killed a whole battle group. Whatever it was, I didn’t want it destroying my little trade vessel.

“Contact orbital control, and tell them we’re friendlies,” I ordered Baca.

“I’ve been trying, Tracy, but nobody’s answering. Worse, the whole planet’s gone silent. Nobody’s talking to nobody.”

“Some new Imperial weapon to knock out communications?” Melin asked.

“Are you picking up anything?” I asked.

“Music,” Baca replied.

We all exchanged glances; then I said, “Let’s hear it.”

Baca switched from headphone to speaker, and flipped through the communication channels from the planet. Slow, mournful music filled the bridge. It wasn’t all the same melody, but they all had one thing in common. Each melody was desperately sad.

Something terrible had happened on Kusatsu-Shirane, and judging by the debris, something equally terrible had happened in orbit. Periodically, Melin fired small maneuvering jets as she dodged through the ruins, but despite her best efforts the bridge echoed with pings and scrapes as debris impacted against the hull.

“Not the safest of neighborhoods, Captain,” came my executive officer’s voice in my left ear, and I jumped. Damn, the creature could move quietly! I gave a quick glance over my shoulder, and found myself looking directly into the Isanjo’s sherry-colored eyes. Jahan had settled onto the back of my chair like Alice’s Cheshire cat.

“We’ll grab an identification and get out,” I said.

Jahan wrapped her tail around my throat. I couldn’t tell if the gesture was meant to convey comfort or a threat. An Isanjo’s tail was powerful enough to snap a two-by-four. My neck would offer little challenge.

As if in answer to my statement, the screen on the arm of my jacket flared, adjusted contrast, and the name of the ship came into focus: Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. My impression had been correct. It had been her ship. I gave the bridge of my nose a hard squeeze, fighting to hold back tears.

“Holy crap, that’s a flagship!” Baca yelped as he accessed the computer files.

“Under the command of Mercedes de Arango, the Infanta who would have held the lives of countless millions of humans and aliens in her hands once her father died,” Jax recited in his piping tones. His encyclopedic memory baffled me. I had no idea how that much brain power could reside in something that looked like an oversized stalk of bamboo.

“Instead, she precedes him into oblivion,” Jahan said.

The attention of my crew was like a pinprick, the unspoken question hung between us. “Yes, I was at the Academy with her,” I said.

“So, did you know her?” Baca asked.

“I’m a tailor’s son. What do you think?”

Baca reacted to my tone. “Just asking,” he said sulkily.

A fur-covered hand swept lightly beneath my eyes. “You weep,” Jahan said, and I was glad she had used her knuckle. An Isanjo’s four-fingered hand is tipped with ferocious claws, capable of disemboweling another Isanjo or even a man. She leaned in closer and whispered, “And I note you did not actually answer the question.”

“Twelve ships were destroyed here. Six thousand starmen died. If things had fallen out differently, I might have been among them,” I said loudly. “Of course I’m upset.”

“They came here to do violence to the people of Kusatsu-Shirane,” Jax tweeted.

“It wasn’t a duty they would have relished.”

“But they would have done it,” Jahan said. “The Infanta would have ordered it done.”

I shrugged. “Orders are orders. I cleared a Hidden World once. When I was a newly minted lieutenant.”

“And now you trade with them and keep them secret,” Jahan said.

“Making me a traitor as well as a cashiered thief.” I changed the subject. “We need to find out what happened down the gravity well.”

“It will take a damn lot of fuel to set the ship down,” Jax tweeted. Flutes were famous for their mathematical ability, and Jax was no exception. He was our purchasing agent, and I was pretty damn sure he was the reason the Selkie ran at a profit. He counted every Reales and squeezed it twice.

“I’ll take the Wasp,” I said, referring to the small League fighter craft we’d picked up at a salvage auction. The cannons had been removed, but it was still screamingly fast and relatively cheap to fly.

Melin had given us enough gravity that I could grip the sides of the access ladder, and slide down to the level that held the docking bay. Even so, Jahan, using her four hands and prehensile tail, reached the lower deck before me.

“I take it that you’re coming along,” I said as I hauled a spacesuit out of a locker.

“I will need to report to the Council.”

“Chalking up another human atrocity,” I said with black humor.

“It’s what we do,” the creature said shortly and she removed her suit from its locker. Isanjo suits always looked strange. They were equipped with a tail because the aliens used their tails for their high-steel construction work.

“And what happens when the ledger gets filled?” I asked as I stepped into the lower half of my suit.

“We will act,” she said, and I knew that she was speaking of all the alien races. “There are a lot more of us than there are of you.”

“Yeah, but none of you are as mean as us.” I shrugged to settle the heavy oxygen pack onto my shoulders.

“But we’re more patient.”

“You’ve got me there.”

I reflected that Isanjos now built our skyscrapers and our spaceships. Under human supervision, of course, but my God, there was so much opportunity for mischief if the aliens decided that it was time for them to act! I had a vision of skyscrapers collapsing and ships exploding.

I thought about the Hajin who worked as servants in our households. How easy it would be to poison a human family.

And the Tiponi Flutes did our accounting. They could crash the economy.

Humans were fucked. Good thing I worked on a ship crewed mostly by aliens. Maybe they liked me enough to keep me around.

We secured each other’s helmets, and headed for the Wasp, which sat in the middle of the bay. Even sitting still, it looked like it was moving a million miles an hour. The needle nose and vertical tail screamed predator.

I took the front seat, and Jahan settled into the gunner’s chair. The canopy dropped, I flipped on the engines, instruments, and radio, and called to the bridge. “We’re ready.”

For a few seconds, we could hear the air being sucked out of the bay and back into the rest of the ship. No sense wasting atmosphere. It cost money to make, as Jax frequently pointed out. Once the wind sounds died, the great outer doors swung slowly and ponderously open. Our view was dominated by the curving rim of the planet. Green seas and a small continent rolled past us. Beyond the bulk of the world, the stars glittered ice-bright. I sent us out into space, and immediately dodged a piece of broken ship.

“Do mind the trash,” Jahan said.

Something was niggling at me. Something missing in the orbital mix—but I was too busy negotiating the floating debris to figure it out. Instead of heading directly to the planet, I took the time to explore the expanding circle of debris that had been the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción. We soon saw bits of floating detritus that had once been people. I studied each frozen face haloed with crystals of frozen blood.

“She’s dead,” Jahan said.

“I know,” I said. But I couldn’t accept it. She was the heir to the League. There may have been added protection for Mercedes. There had to have been. She could not be gone. Twenty minutes later, I admitted defeat, took us out of the debris field, and headed toward the planet.

We were passing relatively close to a small moon—Kusatsu-Shirane had five but the others weren’t presently in view—when I heard it. A distress beacon, sending its cry into the void. We locked on and followed it. The life capsule had clamped itself limpetlike to the stony surface of the moon. The tiny computer brain that controlled the capsule had rightly figured that it was safer for the occupant not to be floating in a battle zone, and found refuge.

I landed the Wasp, popped the canopy, and pushed out with such force that I almost hit escape velocity from the tiny planetoid. Jahan’s tail caught my ankle, and pulled me back.

Moving with a bit more caution, I approached the body-shaped container resting in a small crater. The black surface was etched with messages in every known League language, urging the finder to contact the navy headquarters on Hissilek. There was also a dire warning to any that might stumble upon the body that the DNA of the human inside was not to be harvested or touched in any way.

I brushed away the layer of fine dust and ice that covered the faceplate of the life capsule. It was Mercedes. Placed into a deep coma by drugs injected by the capsule. Her long dark brown hair, streaked now with silver at her temples, had been braided, and the braid lay across one shoulder. A few strands of hair had come loose, and caught in her lips at the moment that the capsule had slammed shut around her. I wanted to reach out and brush them away. I studied the long, patrician nose, the espresso-and-cream-colored skin. She was so beautiful—and she was alive.

“Hmm, I thought a princess would be prettier,” Jahan said.

“She’s beautiful!” I flared.

“Ah, I see now. You’re in love with her.”

WE RETURNED TO the Selkie. There was no way to fit the capsule inside the Wasp. I reprogrammed the clamps and secured Mercedes to the hull. It made me uncomfortable treating her in such a disrespectful way, but I couldn’t open the capsule in vacuum and I had no suit for her.

“That was a quick trip.” Baca’s voice filled my helmet.

“We found a survivor,” I radioed back as I brought us in through the bay doors and dropped the Wasp onto the deck.

It was the work of minutes to unclamp the capsule from the side of the Wasp, and blow the seals. I eyed the tangle of IV tubes and the pinpricks of blood that stained her arms and legs where the needles had driven through her clothes and into her veins. While I was trying to figure out how to remove them without causing her pain, the capsule sensed warmth and atmosphere, and withdrew the needles that kept her in a deathlike coma.

I slid my arms beneath her and picked her up. I’d like to say that I swept her into my arms, but at five feet eight inches tall, she was not much shorter than me, and I had to work to carry her.

“You could have waited for a stretcher,” Jahan said as she listened to my panting breaths, and noticed the way I braced myself against the wall of the lift. I shook my head, not wanting to waste the air. “And have you considered that you have put us all at grave risk by bringing her aboard? We were smuggling to a Hidden World. The League will not only imprison us for that, they will assume we know the location of other such worlds, and they won’t be gentle in trying to elicit that information.”

“I couldn’t just leave her there.”

“Because you’re in love with her.”

I summoned up a glare. I didn’t have the breath for a response. We reached the fourth deck level, and I carried Mercedes into our small, but well-equipped, sick bay.

DALEA WAS WAITING for us. I wasn’t sure if Dalea had a medical license, but whatever her training was, she was very good. There had to be a story about why she’d signed aboard a ship, because she was Hajin, and the herbivores weren’t common in space, but I hadn’t managed to worm it out of her yet.

Her coat was white with streaks of red-brown, and a thick shock of chestnut hair curled across her skull and ran down her long neck and even longer spine to disappear beneath the waistband of her slacks. Somewhere along the evolutionary chain, a creature like a cross between a zebra and a giraffe had stood upright, the front legs had shortened to become arms, and the split hoof that passed for feet developed a third digit that served as a thumb.

I laid Mercedes on the bed, and Dalea began her examination. I was jiggling, shifting my weight from foot to foot, waiting. Finally, I couldn’t contain my anxiety any longer.

“Is she hurt?”

“Bumps, bruises.” Dalea filled a hypodermic. “She took a pretty good dose of radiation, probably when the flagship blew. This will help.”

She gave Mercedes the injection. A few moments later there was a reaction. Mercedes stirred and moaned. I laid a hand on her forehead.

“She’s in pain. What was in that shot?” I asked, suddenly suspicious of my alien shipmate.

“Nanobots that will repair her damaged DNA. That’s not why she’s moaning. She’s coming out of a rapidly induced coma, and she’s got that feeling of pins-and-needles in her extremities.”

Dalea exchanged a glance with Jahan, who shrugged and said, “He’s in love with her. What else can you expect?”

“Would you stop saying that,” I said, exasperated.

“So stay with her,” said Dalea. “I’m assuming that if you love her, you must know her, and she should wake up to a familiar face.”

The two alien females left the sick bay. I broke the magnetic seal on a chair, pulled it over to the bedside, and sat down. I took Mercedes’s limp hand where it hung over the side of the bed, and softly stroked it. It was her left hand, and the elaborate wedding set seemed to cut at my fingers.

She should wake up to a familiar face. What would that have been like? To sleep next to this woman? To have her scent in my nostrils? To have her long hair catch in my lips? Once, twenty-two years ago, I had experienced only the last of those fantasies. We had violated lights out at the Academy and met on the Star Deck. We had kissed, and her hair, floating in free fall, had caressed my face.

I was lost in a daydream, tending toward an actual dream, when Mercedes sighed and her fingers tightened on mine. My eyes jerked open, and I shot up out of the chair. She looked up at me, smiled, and murmured,

“Tracy. I dreamed I heard your voice. But you can’t actually be here.”

“But I am, your highness.”

She frowned, and reached up. I leaned forward so she could touch my face. She looked around the tiny space, and she accepted the truth. “Once more you rescue me,” she murmured.

WALKING ONTO THE bridge, I was met with three conversations all taking place simultaneously.

“Why are we still here? No trade, no money,” from Jax.

“Are you going down?” from Baca.

“I think I know what killed the Imperials,” from Melin.

I answered them in order of complexity. “Because I say so. Yes. What?”

Melin picked the question out of my surly and laconic reply. “Kusatsu-Shirane only has three moons now.”

I sat down at my post. “They blew up two of their moons?”

“Yep. Apparently, the Imperials closed with the planet in their normal arrowhead formation. Given the regularity of the moons’ orbits, the folks on Kusatsu-Shirane picked the two moons closest to the ships to destroy. The resulting debris went through the ships like shotgun pellets through cheese. Boom!” Melin accompanied the word with an expressive gesture.

“That would imply that the other three are booby trapped too.”

“Most likely.”

“Madre de Dios! I landed us on one of the remaining moons.” I wiped away the sweat that had suddenly bloomed on my upper lip.

“I think it took a person with a finger on the trigger to set off the explosions,” Melin offered. It was comfort, but not much.

“New plan. Let’s stay away from the remaining moons,” I said to our navigator.

“Good plan,” she said, and turned back to her console.

Baca spoke up. “Then why the dirge from the planet? They won a mighty victory.”

“But short term,” Jahan said. I jumped. Damn it, she’d done it again. Her fur tickled my left ear.

I nodded. “What Jahan said. The battle group’s course was filed with Central Command on Hissilek. When they neither call home nor come home, the League will come looking for them. Kusatsu-Shirane is going to be discovered.”

“Tracy’s right.”

Mercedes’s voice had always had this little catch in it. Very endearing and very sexy. I stood and turned around. She was on the platform lift, and she looked shaky. I hurried to her side, and assisted her into the chair Baca hastily vacated. He was staring like a pole-axed bull. I couldn’t blame him. How often did an ordinary space tramp meet the heir to an empire?

“Uh… hello, ma’am, Luis Baca, communications. I’ll get a message off to Hissilek.”

“Where are you bound for next?” she asked me.

“Cuandru.”

“A message won’t reach League space faster than this ship. There will be military ships at Cuandru.” She was right about that; Cuandru was the largest shipyard in the League. Mercedes smiled at me, but I noticed that the expression never reached her eyes. They were dark and haunted. “You’re the captain.”

“I am,” I said.

“Congratulations. You finally made it.”

“On a trading vessel.” I hoped that the resentment didn’t show too badly.

“Believe me, it’s better than being an admiral,” Mercedes said softly.

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“So why are you still in orbit?” she asked.

“We have no communication from the planet,” Jax trilled. “We are uncertain if there is anyone to trade with.”

“Tracy was on his way to the planet when he picked up your distress signal,” Melin said.

“Did they evacuate?” Mercedes asked.

“It’s possible, but not likely. There were close to a million people on Kusatsu-Shirane,” I said.

Mercedes stood. “Then let us go and find out what has become of them.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I’m not asking. You’re still my subject.”

The final words came floating back over her shoulder. I followed her onto the lift.

THE WIND WHISPERED down the deserted streets of Edogowa. There were no vehicles parked on the streets. It was all very tidy and orderly. It was near sunset, and to the west magnificent thunderheads formed a vibrant palette of blues, grays, reds, and golds. Two long but very narrow bands of rain extended from the clouds to the chaparral below. The bands looked like sweeping tendrils of gray hair, and where the rain hit the ground, the dust on this high desert plateau boiled into the air like milk froth.

“Where is everybody?” Baca asked. His eyes darted nervously from side to side.

Jahan came scrambling down the wall of a four-story office building. “Nobody’s there. Lights are off. Computers shut down. It’s like everybody’s taken a holiday.”

Mercedes shivered. I started to put my arm around her shoulders, but thought better of it and drew back. “Let’s go to a house,” she said.

“Why?” Jahan asked.

“When you think something terrible is about to happen, you want to be with your loved ones,” Mercedes answered.

We had ended up landing the Selkie at the small spaceport. The Wasp could only comfortably carry two, and the melancholy music and the lack of human voices had me jumpy. I wanted backup. Jahan radioed our plan back to Melin, Jax, and Dalea.

Our footfalls echoed on the sidewalk and bounced off the sides of the buildings. I realized that something else was missing besides the people: the smell of cooking food. There were hundreds of restaurants in Edogowa. Most business was conducted over a meal, and deals were sealed with alcohol. Food was a ritual on Kusatsu-Shirane. But now all I smelled was that pungent mix of dust and rain and ozone as the storm approached.

The business district gave way to small wood houses with shoji screens on the windows, and graceful upturned edges on the roofs. Now we found vehicles, carefully parked at the houses. The clouds rolled in, dulling the color of the flowers in perfectly groomed beds. Overhead, thunder grumbled like a giant shifting in his sleep.

We picked a house at random and walked up to the front door. I knocked. Silence. I knocked again. Mercedes reached past me, grasped the knob and opened the door.

“Trusting kind of place,” Baca muttered.

“They want us to come in. To see,” Mercedes said in a hollow tone.

No one asked the obvious see what question. It had taken me longer, but I had finally come to the same point as Mercedes in my analysis. Japanese-influenced culture, imminent loss of their children and their way of life—for the people of Kusatsu-Shirane there was only one possible solution.

The family was in the bedroom. The children lay in their mother’s arms. Her lax hands were still over their eyes. She had a neat hole in her forehead. The children had been shot in the back of the head. The father slumped in a chair, chin resting on his chest. Blood formed a bib on the front of his shirt. The pistol had fallen from his hand.

Mercedes remained stone-faced as we toured more houses. It was the seventh house before she finally broke. A sob burst out, she turned toward me. My arms opened, and she buried her face against my chest. She was crying so hard that in a matter of moments, the front of my shirt was wet. It made me think of the father in the first house, his shirt wet with blood. I closed my arms tight around Mercedes, trying to hold back the horror.

“Why? They would have had a good life! Especially the children. Why would they do this? They’re insane!”

“Because the life we offered wasn’t the life they wanted,” I said softly. “This was the last choice they could make for themselves, and they made it. I’m not saying it’s a good choice, but I can understand it.”

“They killed their children,” Mercedes whispered. “Thousands of children.” She broke out of my embrace, dragged frantic fingers through her hair. “Why? To keep them from us? We’re not monsters!”

“That depends on where you’re sitting in the pecking order,” Jahan said in her dry way.

There was a silence for several long moments. Mercedes stood in the living room, surrounded by the dead. She looked lost and terribly frail. I stepped to her side and put my arm around her.

“Let’s go,” I said softly. “There’s nothing here.”

“Ghosts,” she whispered. “They’ll be here.”

MELIN PLOTTED OUR course for Cuandru, the Isanjo home world. We boosted out of orbit, heading for open vacuum between the planets before we entered the Fold.

I left the bridge and went to visit Jax in his office/cabin. He was standing in a wading pool of water rehydrating his leaves, and holding a computer while he ran figures. Nervous whistling emerged from the sound valves that lined his sides. Each valve emitted a different, discordant tone. It was like a dentist drilling.

“How bad?” I asked.

“Bad. We didn’t sell the low-tech farm equipment on Kusatsu-Shirane, which meant we didn’t pick up loads of lacquer knickknacks to sell to your jaded ruling class on League worlds. We must hope for a big reward for rescuing the Infanta,” Jax concluded.

“That’s it? That’s your only reaction to the death of a million people? We couldn’t make the sale?”

The seven ocular organs around the alien’s head swiveled to regard me. “What was it one of your ancient dictators said? One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic. And, bluntly, they were not my kind, nor is it a choice I can condone.”

And that’s why they call them alien, I thought as I left. I decided not to ask the other alien members of the crew how they felt.

The bizarre philosophical discussion had meant that I hadn’t voiced my real concern: that the League would decide we were somehow behind the destruction of the fleet and slap us in prison. It would be a black eye for the navy and the Infanta if the government had to admit that the citizens of a Hidden World had destroyed a battle group. Better to blame a slightly shady trading vessel commanded by a disgraced Imperial officer. I decided that it couldn’t hurt to clear things up with Mercedes.

I had given her my cabin. It was slightly larger than the crew cabins, and the bed could actually hold two assuming they were friendly. Privacy on ships is the opposite of what one might expect. You’d think that people living in close confines inside a tin can would want the closed door and a private place. Instead I found that crews tended to live in a constant state of togetherness, like a group hug. We walked in and out of each other’s cabins. When we weren’t on duty we played games that involved lots of people. I think it’s because space is so vast, so empty, and so cold that you want the comfort of contact with other living things.

Which is why I just walked in on Mercedes. She was kneeling in front of the small shrine I maintained to the Virgin, and she was saying the rosary. The click of the beads set a counterpoint to the bass throb of the engines, and I was startled when I realized she was using my rosary. But of course she would have to. Hers had been reduced to dust and atoms along with everything else aboard the Nuestra.

She gave me a brief nod, her lips continuing to move, and the familiar prayer just the barest of sound in the room. I sat down on the bed and waited. She wasn’t that far from the end.

I closed my eyes and took the opportunity to offer up a prayer for my father, still laboring away in the tailor shop on Hissilek. A stroke—brought on, I was convinced, by my court-martial and subsequent conviction—had left him with a crippled right leg, but he still worked, making uniforms for the very men who had ruined me. Sometimes it felt like the most personal of betrayals, and I hated him for it, but in more rational moments, I realized that he had to eat, and that he had spent a lifetime outfitting the officers of the Imperial Navy. It wasn’t like he could become a designer of ladies’ fashion at age sixty-eight.

I jumped and my eyes flew open when I felt cool fingers touch my cheek. Mercedes was standing directly in front of me, and so close. She jerked back her hand at my startled reaction. I didn’t want her to take my response as a rejection, so I reached out and grabbed her hand.

“It’s all right; you just startled me,” I said.

While at the same moment she was saying, “I’m sorry. You just had such a hurt and angry look on your face.”

“Memories.” I shrugged. “They’re never a good thing.”

“Really? I have some nice ones of you.”

“Don’t.” I stood up and brushed past her. “All this proves is that the universe is a bitch and she has a nasty sense of humor.”

“We were very good… friends once.”

“Yes, but that was years ago, and a marriage ago.” I couldn’t help it. I looked back, hoping I’d hurt her, and was embarrassed when I realized I had.

But it was hard, so hard. She had married my greatest enemy from the Academy. Honorius Sinclair Cullen, Knight of the Arches and Shells, Duke de Argento, known to his friends and enemies as BoHo. He was an admiral now, too. I touched the scar at my left temple, a gift from BoHo, and his mocking tones seemed to whisper in the throb of the engines. Lowborn scum.

Mercedes sank down on the bed. “We all do what we must. That must be what the people on Kusatsu-Shirane thought.” There was an ocean of grief in her dark brown eyes.

I walked back and sat down next to her. Sitting this close, I could see the web of crow’s-feet around her eyes, and the two small frown lines between her brows. We were forty-four years old, and I wondered if either of us had ever known a day of unadulterated happiness.

“Has it been so bad?”

She looked down at her hand, twisted the wedding set, and finally pulled it off. It left a red indentation like a brand on her finger. “The palace makes sure his affairs are conducted discreetly, and they vet the women to make sure they aren’t reporters or working for political opponents, and thank God there have been no bastards.” She paused and gave me a rueful smile. “Unfortunately, no legitimate children either. If I don’t whelp soon, my father may remove me from the succession.”

There was a flare of heat in my chest. If she wasn’t the Infanta, wasn’t the heir, she could live as she pleased. Maybe even with a tailor’s son. There was also a bitter pleasure in learning that BoHo was sterile.

“But look at you. Captain Belmanor. How did you come by this ship?”

“I won a share of it in a card game. It seemed great at first. Then I discovered how much was still owed on the damn thing. Sometimes I think Tregillis lost deliberately.”

Mercedes laughed. She knew me too well. “Admit it. You love it. You’re a captain, you go where you please, no orders from highborn twits with more braid than brains.”

“Yes, but I wanted to stay in the navy. To prove that one of my kind could be an effective officer.”

There was a silence; then she asked, “Were you guilty?”

“No.”

“I thought not. But the evidence against you was—”

“Overwhelming. Yes. That should always be a clue that someone’s being framed.” I sat frowning, shifting through all the old hurts and injustices.

She hesitantly touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I thought about doing something.”

“So why didn’t you?” And I realized that I was less angry than honestly curious.

“I was afraid…”

“Of—?” She held up her hand, cutting off the rest of my question.

“There would have been whispers.” We sat silent for a few minutes. The memory of the Star Deck returned. “Have you married?” she suddenly asked, pulling me back to the present.

“No. I never met anyone I wanted to marry.”

“Liar.” Her look challenged me. I realized that our thighs were touching, shoulders brushing. Her hair was tickling my ear and cheek. She smelled of sweat and faded perfume and woman.

“Mercedes, I’m… um…”

“You saved my life,” she said softly, and she took my hand and laid it on her breast.

I jumped up and looked down at her. “No. Not because you’re grateful. That would be worse than never having you.”

“You loved me once.”

“I still do.” She had tricked me, and I had said it. I fell back on the only defense and the source of my greatest pain. “And you’re another man’s wife.”

She stood. “Damn your middle-class morality! My life has been bound by expectations, rules, and protocol. I married a man I do not love. I became a military leader because of my father’s frustration over his lack of a son. And now I’ve led my fleet to destruction, and the very thought of me and what I represent has driven the population of an entire planet to commit suicide! But I’m forced to live on with all the loss and regret. Can’t I have one moment of happiness?” The agony in her voice nearly broke my resolve.

She turned away, hiding her tears. I gently took hold of her shoulders. “See if you still feel this way after a night’s sleep. I don’t want to add to those regrets.”

I left before temptation overcame scruples.

WE TOOK THE Selkie out to an area of open space, well away from any planetary bodies in the solar system, and folded. The ports now showed the strange gray filaments, like spiderweb or gray cotton candy, which was the hallmark of traveling past light-speed. I checked the watch implanted in the weave of my shirt. Midafternoon. I decided to check on Mercedes. There was no response to my gentle knock. Concerned, I slipped into the cabin and found her asleep, but there were traces of tears on her cheeks. She murmured disconsolately and her fingers plucked at the sheets. Feeling like a voyeur, I quietly left.

And was caught by Baca, who with unaccustomed seriousness said, “I was thinking about saying a Kaddish for the people, but I realized it was more Masada than Holocaust, and then I had to wonder if it was a righteous choice. To die rather than submit. Is that noble, or is it more noble to survive and persevere? What do you think?”

I looked at this stranger in Baca’s body, and tried to compose an answer. We had stood at the edge of a massive graveyard, and I couldn’t grasp it. All I knew was that this burden of guilt rested on the shoulders of the woman I loved. I couldn’t do anything for the battle group or for Kusatsu-Shirane, but maybe I could do something for Mercedes.

She joined us that evening for supper. With Mercedes, it was a tight fit around the small table in the mess, but we all squeezed in. Jahan had prepared a slow-simmered stew of rehydrated vegetables and lamb for the omnivores, and there was a vegetarian dish for Dalea and Jax. Like all Isanjo food, it was highly spiced, so I drank more beer than normal. Perhaps it was due more to sitting so close to Mercedes.

Once the plates were cleared, Melin brought me a reader. I was embarrassed to display this silly ship custom in front of Mercedes. I hedged. “I don’t remember where we were.”

“The chapter entitled ‘Wayfarers All,’ page 159, second paragraph,” Jax offered helpfully. I mentally cursed the creature for its perfect recall.

“What is this?” Mercedes asked.

“We read aloud after the final meal of the day,” Jahan said. “Each one of us picks a book from our species. You never really know a culture until you’ve heard their poetry and read their great literature.”

“An interesting way to spread understanding,” Mercedes said thoughtfully.

“Yes, you don’t allow it in your human schools and universities,” Dalea said.

Mercedes blushed and I glared at the Hajin.

“And what human book did you select?” Mercedes hurriedly asked me, to cover the awkward moment.

“The Wind in the Willows.”

Mercedes shifted her chair so she could better see me. “Please, do read.”

I was embarrassed, and cleared my throat several times before starting, but after a few sentences, the soft magic of the story and the music of the words made me forget my special listener.

“She will clothe herself with canvas; and then, once outside, the sounding slap of great green seas as she heels to the wind, pointing South! And you, you will come too, young brother; for the days pass, and never return, and the South still waits for you. Take the Adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!” My voice cracked on the final words. I coughed and reached for my beer and finished off the last sip. “That’s all the voice I have tonight,” I said.

There were a few groans of disappointment, but the party broke up, some of the crew to return to the bridge, others to their cabins to sleep. I escorted Mercedes back to the cabin.

We stopped at the door, and an awkward silence fell over us both. “I’ve slept a night,” she finally said quietly.

My collar suddenly grabbed my throat. I ran a finger around it. “Ah… yes, you have.”

“I believe I’ll take the wayfarer’s advice,” she murmured, and she kissed me.

I had enough wit, barely, to lock the door behind us.

LATER, WE LAY in the narrow bed. I liked that it was narrow. It meant that she had to stay close. Her head was on my shoulder, and I twined a strand of her hair through my fingers. I was very aware of the scent of Mercedes—the deep musk of our sex mingling, the spice and pine smell of her hair—her breath, which seemed to hold a hint of vanilla. I kissed her long and deep, then pulled back and smacked my lips.

“What?”

“You taste like vanilla too,” I answered. She blushed. It was adorable. She ran a hand through my dishwater blond hair. “I know, I’m shaggy. I’ll get a haircut on Cuandru.”

“I like it. It makes you look rakish. You were always so spit and polish.”

“I had to be. Everyone was waiting for the ‘lowborn scum’ to disgrace the service.”

She laid a hand across my mouth. “Don’t. Forget about them. Forget the slights.”

“Hard to do.”

“Don’t be a grievance collector,” Mercedes said. She changed the subject. “Lot of silver in there.”

I stroked the gray streaks at her temples. “Neither of us is as young as we used to be.”

“Really? I would never have known that if you hadn’t told me.” She pulled my hair, and we laughed together.

I was on the verge of dozing off when she suddenly rested a hand on my chest and pushed herself up. Her hair hung around her like a mahogany-colored veil. My good mood gave way to alarm, because she looked so serious.

“Tracy, do something for me?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t report that you’ve found me. Not just yet. I want a little more time.”

I did too. So I agreed.

Late in the sleep cycle, I was awakened by her cries. Tears slid from beneath her lashes and wet her cheeks though she was still asleep. She thrashed, fighting the covers. I caught her in my arms, and held her close.

“Mercedes, mi amor. Wake up. You’re safe.”

Her eyes opened and she blinked up at me in confusion. “They’re dead.” She gave a violent shiver, and covered her face with her hands, then looked in surprise at the tears clinging to her fingers. “I see those houses. The children. I killed them.”

I rocked her. “Shhh, hush, you didn’t.” But it was only a half-truth and she knew it. And she was only mentioning half the dead. There was no word of the battle group. The men she’d commanded, and who had died no less surely than the people of Kusatsu-Shirane.

Eventually, she fell back to sleep. I lay awake, holding her close and wondering when the full trauma would hit.

SINCE THERE WAS AN Imperial shipyard at Cuandru, I came out of Fold at the edge of the solar system. I didn’t want the big point-to-point guns deciding that we were some kind of threat. I ordered Baca to tight beam our information—ship registry, previous ports of call (excluding the Hidden Worlds, of course), and cargo—to the planetary control. My radio man gave me a look.

“We’re not mentioning the Infanta?”

“Not yet. Her orders,” I answered, striving to sound casual. Melin and Baca exchanged glances, and Melin rolled her eyes. I felt the flush rising up my neck, into my face, until it culminated at the top of my ears. Not for the first time, I cursed my fair complexion.

“Then she better be a crew member,” Jahan said. “Otherwise, they’ll think we’re white slavers and we kidnapped her.”

“She’s not young enough,” I said.

“Oh, boy,” Baca muttered.

“Better not let her hear you say that,” Jahan said.

“What?” I demanded.

Melin said, “Captain, somebody’s got to take you in hand and teach you how to be a boyfriend.”

“I’m not her boyfriend. She’s married. We’re friends.”

“Okay. Then you got a lot to learn about being a lover,” Melin said.

At that moment, I hated my crew. I made an inarticulate sound and clutched at my hair. “Get her on the crew list.” I stomped off the bridge.

I DECIDED TO take us in to dock at the station. I shooed Melin out of her post, and she proceeded to hover behind me like an overanxious mother. Through the horseshoe-shaped port, we could see the big cruisers under construction. Spacesuited figures, most of them Isanjos, clambered and darted around the massive skeletal forms. Against the black of space, the sparks off their welders were like newly born stars.

There was a light touch on my shoulder. I glanced up briefly. It was Mercedes, and sometime in the past few hours, she had cut her hair, dyed it red, and darkened her skin. Dalea loomed behind her.

“What’s this?” I asked, hating the loss of that glorious mane.

“We had to do something to keep her from being recognized,” Dalea said.

“I’m sure the port authorities will be expecting to find the Infanta aboard a tramp cargo ship,” I said sarcastically, as I tweaked the maneuvering jets.

Jahan, seated at my command station, said “Tracy, her face is on the money.”

And so it was. She graced the twenty Reales note. The picture was taken from an official portrait that had her wearing a tiara, long hair elaborately styled, and a diamond necklace at her throat. Now she wore a pair of my stained cargo pants, and one of Melin’s shirts.

Jax came rustling onto the bridge. Now the entire crew and Mercedes were watching, but I wasn’t nervous. I knew I was good. With brief bursts of fire from alternating jets, I took us through the maze of trading ships, station scooters, racing yachts, and military vessels. With a final burst of power from the starboard engines, I spun the ship ninety degrees and brought us to rest, like a butterfly landing on a flower, against a docking gantry at the main space station.

There was a brief outburst of applause. Mercedes leaned down and whispered, “You were the best pilot of our class.” The touch of her lips and the puff of her breath against my ear sent a shiver through me.

She straightened, and addressed the crew. “So what now?”

“We try to find someone to buy the farm equipment, and we pick up another cargo,” Jax fluted.

Melin stretched her arms over her head. “I want a martini and a massage. And maybe not in that order. Or maybe both at the same time.”

Jahan uncoiled from the back of the captain’s chair. “I’m going home to see my mates and kids.”

“If the captain will give me money, I’ll replenish our medical supplies,” Dalea said.

Mercedes smiled at Baca. “And what about you?”

He blushed. “I’m gonna find a concert. Maybe go to the opera, depending on what’s playing.”

Mercedes tugged my hair. “And you need a haircut.”

“I take it we’re going planetside?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Mercedes assured me.

Dalea’s makeover worked. The guards glanced briefly at my ship papers, and waved us through and onto a shuttle to the planet.

IT WAS FOOLISH, crazy even. I planned to check us into an exclusive hotel, a place frequented by aristocrats and famous actors. It was going to take most of my savings, but I wanted… I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted. To make sure she was comfortable. To show her that I could be her equal. Fortunately, Mercedes was wiser than me. When I outlined my plan, she took my face between her hands and gently shook my head back and forth.

“No. First, you don’t have to prove anything to me, and second, I’m likely to be recognized, red hair or no, and third, I’ve spent my life with these people. Let me have another life. A short time where I don’t have to remember…” But she didn’t finish the thought.

Jahan advised us, and we ended up in an Isanjo tree house hotel that sprawled through an old-growth forest on the outskirts of the capital city. To accommodate the occasional human visitor, there were swaying bridges between the trees, which Mercedes and I used with white-knuckled effort. As we crept across the swaying bridges, the Isanjo traveled branch to branch, and crossed the intervening spaces with great soaring leaps. The Isanjo were good enough to deliver meals to our aerie, so we spent our first day planetside in bed.

Wind whispered and then roared through the leaves as it brought down a storm from the mountains. It set our room to swaying. Lightning flashed through the wooden shutters, and thunder growled with a sound like a giant chewing on boulders. We clung to each other, torn between terror and delight. The rain came, hammering on the wooden roof, forcing its way through the shutters to spray lightly across our bodies. It broke the heat, and we shivered and snuggled close.

It would have been perfect except for her nightmares.

The next day, Mercedes took command. We went to explore the city, and to find a barber. Mercedes and the Hajin hairdresser discussed every cowlick, natural part, and the consistency of my hair before she would allow the alien to cut. Between them, they decided I should wear bangs. It felt strange, and I kept pushing them off my forehead, only to have my lady reach out and muss my hair each time I did.

We strolled through the Old Quarter, and I bought Mercedes a string of beads that she’d admired. We moved on, strolling along the river walk. Everyone seemed to be taking advantage of the good weather. Families spread blankets on the grass, children tussled like happy kittens, babies cried. Mercedes and I sat on a bench at the water’s edge, listening to the water gurgle and chuckle while we shared an ice cream cone.

We ate dinner at an outdoor café. The Isanjo, being almost complete carnivores, know how to cook meat. Our steaks arrived running blood, tender, and subtly flavored by having been stuffed with cheese. We polished off a bottle of deep red wine between us, and talked about books and music and the wonderful things we’d seen during the day. She scrupulously avoided all talk of the empire, the navy, or Kusatsu-Shirane. We shared a dessert, a lighter-than-air concoction of mangos, some local fruit, cream, and pistachio nuts. I drained my coffee, and steeled myself for a conversation that had to happen.

“Mercedes.”

“Yes?”

“You need to talk to someone. About what happened.”

“I will. This policy can’t stand. Not if it’s going to lead to mass suicide,” she said.

I shook my head. “Stop deflecting. You need to face what’s happened, and figure out why you’re identifying more with the people on Kusatsu-Shirane than you are with your own battle group.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.” She stayed silent. I left it there. “So, shall we go?”

“Yes.”

I left money on the table, and we walked out onto the street. The air was soft after the tumultuous storms of the night before. The restaurants were still busy, and the many voices and many languages wove into something that was almost music. Then we heard real music. Dance music. Mercedes turned to me.

“Do you like to dance?”

“No,” I said.

She grabbed my hand. “I love to dance.” And I came along like the tail on her kite. There was a small band playing on a pier that thrust out into the river. Multicolored lanterns hung overhead. The Isanjo danced on the narrow wires that supported the lanterns. The humans, earthbound and awkward, danced on the wooden pier. I felt graceless and stupid. There had been no deportment and dance lessons in my youth, but Mercedes was gifted with grace and rhythm. She made me look good.

The dance ended, and we went off to the small bar to buy drinks. She took a long sip, and then kissed me. I tasted rum and basil.

“So, I’m forgiven for poking at you?”

“At least you notice when I’m crazy,” she said.

“You’re not crazy. The people on Kusatsu-Shirane were crazy.”

“Were they? No one got to force them into a life—”

But she didn’t get to finish the thought because there were murmurs from the crowd. Everyone was looking up. We followed suit and watched pinpricks of light appear and flash like brilliant diamonds in the night sky.

“That’s a fleet coming in,” I said.

Mercedes gripped me tightly. “Take me home.”

It was a misnomer. We had no home, but I understood what she wanted. The comfort of bed, bodies pressed close, a roof to shut out the image of duty and responsibility now orbiting overhead.

We returned to the hotel and our lovemaking had a desperate quality. She clung to me, clawed at me as if she wanted to crawl inside my skin. Finally, I had nothing more to give. I lay gasping, body sweat-bathed, blood pounding in my ears.

Mercedes was curled up in a ball. I put an arm around her waist and spooned her. “Tracy.” It was barely audible.

“Hmmm?”

“Let me stay. Really be a member of your crew.” Tension and desperate longing etched every word, and her fingers clung like claws to my wrist. She turned over suddenly, her face inches from mine. “They think I’m dead. We can go away. Be together.”

For an instant, I was giddy at the prospect. I thought of the worlds we’d visit together. Nights in my cabin. Listening to her read to the crew. But reality returned.

“No, love, they know you survived. Your capsule was beaming out continuous messages. When those signals stopped, they know you were found and the capsule opened. They would search for us, and they could never admit that you joined us voluntarily.”

“And they would kill you,” she said, her voice flat and dull.

“And beyond personal concerns, what happens if you don’t take the throne? You know BoHo will try to rule in your place.” She shuddered at the prospect. “We’ve had this moment. We couldn’t expect it to last.”

“It will last. At least until morning.”

We didn’t sleep. It would have wasted the time we still had together.

SHE WANTED TO say good-bye to everyone. I called them, and the crew assembled at a popular, if low-rent, diner. I ordered huevos rancheros because I could stir it together and no one would notice that I hadn’t eaten. There was a brittle quality to our laughter, and only at the end did we discuss what lay between us.

Mercedes encompassed them all with a look. “Thank you all for your kindness. I’ll never forget you and what you did for me. I also wanted you to know that there are going to be changes when I take the throne. There won’t be another Kusatsu-Shirane, and I’ll see that there’s a review of the alien laws.”

The parting took a while because Dalea wanted to “make sure her patient was fit.” Mercedes and the Hajin retreated to the bathroom. Jahan joined me and stretched out her claws.

“Will you survive?”

“I’ll have to,” I said with forced lightness.

Mercedes and Dalea returned. Mercedes had an indescribable expression on her face. I briefly took her hand. “All good?” I asked.

“Yes. Oh, yes,” she said in a faraway voice.

Our next stop was the hair salon. My hairdresser from the day before stripped the red from Mercedes hair, and restored it to its lustrous dark brown. Once he was finished, the Hajin studied her closely. Mercedes went imperious on him.

“All you’ve seen is a remarkable resemblance.”

He stepped back, extended a front leg, and gave her a dignified bow. “Quite, ma’am.”

We took a cab to the League Embassy. Barricades and guards surrounded the building. The driver cranked around to look at us. “They won’t let me any closer than this,” he said.

“That’s fine,” I said.

Mercedes and I looked at each other. Mercedes’s eyes were awash with tears. I swallowed hard, trying to force down the painful lump that had settled in my throat.

“Good-bye,” she said. She started to reach out a hand, then threw herself into my arms and pressed her lips to mine. She pulled away, opened the door, and got out.

I got out too, and watched as she walked quickly toward the elaborate gates of the embassy. She didn’t look back. There was a flurry of reaction from the guards. The door of the embassy opened, and a flying wedge of men, led by BoHo, rushed out. Medals and ribbons glittered on the midnight blue of his uniform jacket, and the sunlight glinted off his jet-black hair. He was still handsome, though middle age had softened the lines of his jaw.

He went to kiss her, and Mercedes turned her face away.

MY THREE ALIEN crew members found me in a bar late that night.

“Go away.”

Jax shuffled closer. “The ship’s note’s been paid off, so we own her free and clear. And we got a reward. A most generous reward. The Infanta meets her obligations. And I’ve procured a new cargo. We’re ready to leave whenever you are.”

Jahan curled up on the bar stool next to me. “The fleet has withdrawn. They’re rushing back to Hissilek. Apparently, the emperor’s had a stroke.”

That pulled me out of my rapt contemplation of my scotch. I met those alien eyes, and I had that cold sensation of being surrounded by hidden forces that were plotting against humans.

“How… convenient,” I managed.

“I think she’ll be a good ruler,” Jahan said. “Now the final bit of news.” She gestured to Dalea.

“The Infanta is pregnant.” I gaped at the Hajin. “Congratulations,” Dalea added.

I’m going to be a father. My child will be the heir to the Solar League. I will never know him or her.

And I realized that maybe none of us ever gets to choose our lives. Our only choice is to live the life that comes to us, or go down into darkness.

I drained my scotch, and pushed back from the bar. “Let’s go see what tomorrow holds.”