“So that’s your work here, Kenri Shaun?” She smiled anew. “Yes, I can well picture you, with that funny tight expression, as if the problem were your personal enemy. Then you sigh, rumple your hair, and put your feet on the desk to think for a while. Am I right?”
“How did you guess, Freelady?” he asked, astounded.
“I’ve thought about you quite a lot lately.” She stared away from him, at the lurid blue-white clustering ahead.
Her fists doubled. “I wish you didn’t make me feel so futile,” she gasped.
“You — ”
She spoke fast. The words blurred on her lips. “I’ve said it before. This is life, this is reality. It’s not about what to wear for dinner and who was seen where with whom and what to do tonight when you’re too restless and unhappy to stay home. It’s not about traffic in goods and information, either. The laser beams only bring news from the settled worlds, and only what the senders choose to transmit. You bring us the news from beyond. You keep alive — in some of us — our kinship with the stars. Oh, I envy you, Kenri Shaun. I wish I were born into the Kith.”
“Freelady —”
She shook her head. “No use. Even if a ship would have me, I couldn’t go. I’m too late. I don’t have the skills or the character or the tradition that you took in with your mother’s milk. No, forget it, Nivala Tersis from Canda.” She blinked at tears. “When I get home, knowing now what you are in the Kith, will I try to help you? Will I work for common decency toward your people? No. I’ll realize it’s useless. I won’t have the stubbornness. The courage.”
“Don’t say that, Freelady,” he begged. “You would be wasting your effort.”
“No doubt,” she said. “You’re right, as usual. But in my place, you would try!”
They looked at one another.
That was the first time she kissed him.
The guards at the main entrance were giants bred, 230 centimeters of thick bone and boulderlike muscle. Their uniforms were sunburst splendor. Yet they were not ornaments. Stunners and fulgurators rested at their hips. A monogrammed plate in the paving between them could withdraw to let a cycler gun rise.
Kenri’s pain had subsided to a background ache. He approached fast, stopped, and craned his neck upward. “The Freelady Nivala from Canda is expecting me,” he said.
“Huh?” exploded a basso. “You sold your brain, tumy?”
Kenri extended the card she had given him. “Scan this.” He decided it was wise to add, “Please.”
“They’ve got a party going.”
“I know.” When I called her confidential number, she told me. I’d have waited till tomorrow, but she insisted this is actually a chance we should seize. Don’t hang back, Shaun. She’s counting on you.
The titans exchanged a glance. He guessed their thoughts. Could it be a stunt, a farce for the guests? Or could he be a secret agent or something? If he’s lying, do we arrest him or pulp him here and now? The one who held the card put it in a scanner. The screen came alight. He read, shook his head, and gave the card back. “All right,” he grumbled. “Go on in. First ascensor to your left, sixtieth floor. But watch yourself, tumy.”
It’d be pleasant, later, to summon him and make him crawl. No. Why? Kenri passed under the enormous curve of the doorway, into a vaulted reach of foyer where murals displayed bygone battles and honors. Most of that history had happened within his lifetime. Uniformed Standard servants goggled at him but drew aside, as if from his touch. He stepped onto the ascensor and punched for 60. It lifted into the shaft through a stillness beneath which his heartbeat racketed.
He emerged in an anteroom of crimson biofabric. More servants struggled not to gape. An arch gave him a view of motion, dance, a blaze of color. Music, talk, sporadic laughter bubbled out. As he neared, a footman mustered decision and blocked his way. “You can’t go in there!”
“I certainly can.” Kenri flashed the card and walked around him. Radiance poured from faceted crystals. The ballroom was huge and thronged. Dancers, waiters, performers — He stopped in confusion.