“On the contrary.” The Prince shook his head with an expression of judicious concern. “The Mahahmbi tell us they can’t produce more than they do now, that we’ll just have to get along with what they give us.”
“Can’t the stuff be synthesized?” asked the Marshal.
The Countess shook her head, making her long cylindrical curls swing to and fro, like chimes. “Count Farmoor says perhaps it could be, on any technological world, but not here. Or, I should say, not economically. Only at astronomical cost, in fact. So he says.”
The Prince nodded agreement. “Since we’re the only planet affected by batfly fevers, the market offers little financial incentives to off-world manufacturers.”
The Marshal asked, “The stuff is herbal, isn’t it? What growth is it made from?”
The Prince frowned. “We have no way of knowing whether it is herbal or some animal by-product or some combination of both. It comes, so I’ve been informed, from the desert, but the Mahahmbi consider the desert to be sacred and foreigners aren’t allowed into it. They would be furious if we attempted to find out the details.”
“From what Daviger says, they’re always furious,” commented the Countess. “But I’m sure you’ll calm them down, Your Royal Highness.” She gave him a smile of guileful sweetness.
The Prince ignored the smile, responding with a ponderous nod. “I shall make that effort. At any rate, the Lord Paramount hopes it does come from vegetation of some kind and that we can study the way the thing grows and obtain seeds or scions which we can grow here on Haven, though our experts are not sanguine about the possibility. We have no desert, and it may grow only in the desert.”
“Also, the Mahahmbi may not want to lose the profit they make by having a monopoly,” remarked the Marshal.
“We’re prepared to pay a generous royalty for it, and if we can prove they’ll make more money letting us do it that way, they should accept . . .”
“And if we can’t,” interrupted the Countess, “We can expect the fevers to go right on killing our sweet children . . .” She sighed dramatically.
The rest of the conversation at the Marshal’s end of the table, though continuous, was unremarkable, while at Genevieve’s end the Duchess focused the talk largely upon the royal greenhouses, which she invited Genevieve to visit with her during the coming week. After dinner, Genevieve spoke with Duke Edoard, who took her hand, refused to release it, and invited her to attend the next concert of the Royal Orchestra.
“I will need to see what plans my father has made, Your Grace. And speaking of fathers, I much enjoyed my dinner table conversation with yours.”
He smiled. “Your expression of pleasure is polite but unlikely to be fully sincere,” he said. “Father usually talks either about the batfly problem or about fish.”
“I know little about the batfly problem, but fish can be interesting,” she said with a smile.
“Ocean fish, perhaps,” he commented, looking across her shoulder at someone else, and thereby missing the fact that his words had sent her somewhere else.
She saw a heaving deck, tilted toward a troubled sea, people actually in the sea, all trying desperately to do something with a portal in the deck, to open it or close it, and all around in the sea was a sound . . . a sound she thought she had heard before . . .
Then she was back, bowing herself away into a corner where she could catch her breath. Aufors was beside her at once, whispering, “What’s the matter, Jenny? Did that idiot say something to upset you? You’re pale. You look frightened.”
“It’s nothing.” She laughed. “Sometimes I get a little breathless in crowds, that’s all.” Though of course it wasn’t all. Until now, whenever this happened, she had had Mrs. Blessingham to run to, thereby removing—or perhaps only sharing—the curse of foreknowledge. Now she had no one. Certainly not the Marshal, who would be offended and insist upon having her looked over by doctors. Nor Delia who, though loyal, would tell her husband everything, and he, in turn, would tell everyone else he met.