“And while that’s happening,” Adele continued, feeling the tremble of barely controlled rage in her voice, “a detachment from my ship will be leveling Tanisard House. That won’t concern you, because you’ll have died here as you stand.”
The Tanisard glanced to his friends—and found they’d backed away. He lowered his eyes and did the same, snarling at the fellow servant who jostled him when the car rocked into motion again.
There was only one more shunt before the City Center terminus. The car whirred past it without slowing. Adele rode in a clear portion of a vehicle otherwise crowded; the Tanisards kept their backs to her. Her lips smiled, but her eyes were empty and a red rage filled her mind. She visualized Bosun Ellie Woetjans leading every member of the Princess Cecile’s crew who was still on Cinnabar; with hammers and come-alongs, and very likely a section of mast to batter down the door.
Tanisards! How dare they?
The car reached the great roundabout of Pentacrest Vale, paused, and pulled into a shunt as the car that had just loaded there reentered the main line. A score of those waiting tried to board before the present passengers had disembarked, but the furious Tanisards rammed them back like the jet from a spillway. Well-justified fear had kept them from trying conclusions with the lone warrant officer, but they were too young to accept what had happened with philosophical resignation.
Adele followed closely in the Tanisards’ wake, using the anger she’d engendered to shield her from the worst of the crowd’s buffeting. She smiled faintly: this was almost like having servants again.
She’d never thought much about the servants when she was a girl on Cinnabar. Between Chatsworth Major and the townhouse there must have been a staff of a hundred or more, but they had less conscious impact on Adele than her bedroom furniture did.
Still, they’d existed. Even on public transit Adele would never have been faced with anything like this, because the Mundy retainers escorting her would have cleared the Tanisards out with the same ruthless unconcern as they’d have ousted dogs who’d somehow gotten into the car.
Tanisards block the path of a Mundy? Not till the sky falls!
The sky had fallen on the Mundys; fallen within days of when Adele boarded the packet that carried her to Blythe to continue her education in the Academic Collections there. Blythe was a core world of the Alliance of Free Stars, but what did that matter to Adele? She was a librarian, a member of that higher aristocracy of knowledge which cared nothing for mere politics.
As it turned out, politics had mattered a great deal.
The Speaker’s Rock was a granite outcrop whose naturally level top had been improved by the first settlers; it stood at the west end of Pentacrest Vale. Adele edged out of the ruck around the transport terminus and eyed the Rock critically. Fifteen years ago the heads of her father, her mother, and her ten-year-old sister, Agatha, had hung from it in mesh bags to be viewed by all those who chose to do so.
There were many other heads as well, most of whom had as little to do with a conspiracy as Agatha did. Adele herself would have been there, save for the whim of sailing schedules. Political realities don’t care whether their victims feel superior to them.
Because she’d found herself looking at the Rock with new eyes, Adele paused to survey the whole setting for what was in a way the first time. Even before she reached age ten, she’d spent more of her waking hours on the Pentacrest than she had in the Mundy townhouse; but she’d never looked at it the way a stranger would, taking in its magnificence instead of simply accepting it the way fishes do the sea through which they swim.
The buildings on the five hills framing the Vale shone with marble, polished granite, and bronze. The only exception was the Old Senate House which had burned three centuries before during the Succession Riots. The shell of concrete with brick accents remained as a relic of Xenos—and Cinnabar—before the Hiatus.
The present Senate House embraced and towered above the original. The business of a planet had been conducted in the older building; the new one served an empire. As Adele watched, builders were working on an additional fourth floor in place of the Senate Roof Garden.