“I’m Signals Officer Mundy of the Princess Cecile, yes,” Adele said. She smiled, though she’d learned that didn’t help put others at their ease with her. Some called her smile wintry, while others were less charitable. “And you’re a Sexburgan, sir?”
“Ardis Cherry,” the fellow said with a deprecating laugh. “And not a Sexburgan, no, just an expatriate like yourself. My business is here on Sexburga, but I’m a citizen of Strymon. Quite a little party here, wouldn’t you say?”
Adele reached the head of the table. She took a plate and began plumping food onto it. Although normally abstemious, she’d been extremely poor for fifteen years. The habit of eating everything she could get at formal gatherings of this sort, common in Academe, was so deeply ingrained in her that it could be described as a conditioned response.
“I’m certainly impressed,” Adele said truthfully. The next dish looked like candied beetles. She took one; poverty was even better than travel for making one open to new experiences. “There must be three hundred people here.” According to Tovera, there were three hundred and forty-seven guests in addition to fifty-odd staff members and the guests’ two hundred servants. “Most of Sexburgan society, I would guess.”
“Sexburgan and expatriate,” Cherry agreed. He seemed somewhat surprised at the food piling up on Adele’s plate, then looked quickly away to avoid commenting on it. “Our two communities don’t interact a great deal, except for Residency functions like this. We expats have no share in the local government, but our off-planet connections are frequently advantageous in matters of business and the attendant profit. There’s rivalry but not hostility, thanks to the Resident Commissioners.”
The Residency and its several outbuildings stood on the cliff south of Flood Harbor. If you looked past the buffet tables through the fourth-floor windows—small with thick glazing against the frequent winter storms—you could watch the ocean tossing sullenly all the way to the horizon. The complex was much older than Sexburga’s agreement to become an Ally and Protectorate of the Republic early in the past century.
The stack on Adele’s plate had risen beyond the practical possibility of adding to it. With a longing glance at a tray of unfamiliar sliced meats, she stepped back—then paused to snatch a roll.
Tovera was outside in the van which had brought Adele to the party, watching a bank of images transmitted by tiny cameras secreted in every room of the Residence. Their fish-eye lenses distorted the views to the point Adele would have found them useless, but Tovera seemed to have no difficulty.
Adele didn’t see any reason for such paranoia; but then, she wouldn’t have suggested her servant bring a submachine gun to Delos Vaughn’s party on Cinnabar. She could certainly appreciate Tovera’s fastidious attention to the details of her profession.
Large though the Residency was, the present number of guests comfortably filled it. Most were well-fed and all but the Cinnabar nationals from the RCN and the Commissioner’s staff wore bright costumes, though they differed widely in style. Perhaps half the number were Sexburgans; the others came from at least a dozen other worlds within the Republic’s sphere of influence.
Lt. Mon got up with three locals who’d been crushed against him at a tiny table, apparently a father, mother, and their strikingly attractive daughter. Mon tossed off another tumbler of tawny liquor. He looked stunned by the attention. Adele was virtually certain that he’d never imagined he’d ever be part of a gathering like this. The daughter took his arm as the parents beamed.
Cherry and Adele moved to the just-vacated table as Mon and his new friends walked toward the stairs to the roof garden. “How often does the Resident have parties of this sort?” Adele asked as they waited for a servant to clear the table of litter.
“Admiral Torgis gave a similar do on Republic Day both years that he’s been here as Resident,” Cherry said, settling down opposite her. He was in his forties and well-fed, if not exactly fat. “This is obviously because of Mr. Leary’s presence.”
“Because of Kostroma, you mean?” Adele said. She started with the candied bug since it seemed to watch her sadly from its perch at the edge of her dish. “Because surely a great deal of RCN traffic passes through Sexburga in the course of a year? Vessels more prepossessing than a corvette, that is.”