“So, I would imagine you have a story,” Rixie said to the large man, who was making breakfast in the galley of the WV White Shaar. They had picked him up in the Daraean system, one of the three men and one woman who would comprise her private guard. The man had a chrome artificial arm and leg, of a type that were large, imposing, and strong, but Rixie knew that type was less expensive, and not the best for sensation or comfort. What showed of his dark skin was crisscrossed with scars, including several on his head. Both eyes were artificial, and glowed a soft red.

The man shrugged. “Worked security for a mining company. Went after claim jumpers on a rock. Didn’t go so well for me. Would you like juice, Well-born?”

“Call me Rixie, and yes, please, Sebb. And I can get it myself if you’d like.”

The man turned back, and gave a half-smile. “Way I figure it, someday, maybe I can tell the story about how I made the Dronung breakfast. That’s worth the effort.”

Rixie sighed, but fought back the instinct to tell him that she didn’t want to be Dronung, that this was all ridiculous – true as it was, he was Jotnar, and could be one of her subjects someday.

“Subjects.” She shuddered at the thought.

Rixie had been trying to wrap her head around the possibility, and had finally decided that she should approach it like a new command. Nobody wanted to hear the Induperator complaining that he didn’t think he was cut out for the job; if he started saying stuff like that you needed to talk to his second-in-command immediately, and their duty was to check into it, and if necessary, report up the chain asking for the old man to be reassigned.

So she stowed her feelings, and said, “I suppose, if I am Dronung, I’m going to be an odd sort of one. I’m not comfortable with being waited on.”

“Well, you’re Jotnar, Well-born. Princess or not,” he said, setting rolls, butter, and her juice in front of her at the table. “We don’t need others taking care of us.”

“That, Sebb, is the truth,” Rixie said, raising her juice in a toast. “It’s why I married a human; he’s too small to do a lot of heavy lifting.”

“Was gonna ask about that. Suppose you end up taking care of him.”

Rixie took a sip of juice. “We take care of each other,” she said. “We just have different jobs. I do more moving furniture, he does more keeping me steady.”

Sebb nodded. “That’s good then. We can all use someone to keep us steady. Someday, maybe I’ll find someone. It’ll help if her eyesight isn’t too good.”

“The right one will see you just fine. Like I said…you have a story. And you’re Jotnar. I’m quite sure there are Jotnar women who are much more interested in someone with scars and a story behind them than someone without a mark on their skin – and without anything of note in their background.”

Sebb smiled. “May well be, well-born. And if I may borrow those words, I may use them someday – and tell people that the Dronung gave them to me.”

Rixie nodded, and smiled. “They are the truth,” she said.

She finished breakfast, and headed back to the spartan cabin that she was sharing with Alex; hopefully he was asleep. He’d been reading when she woke up, and getting ready to nod off. This was the most annoying part of their sleep schedule – when one of them was waking just as the other was done with their day. But there was nothing to be done about it. At least Alex was only down for eight hours or so. 51 hours or so from now, Rixie would just be setting into bed for a solid 26 hours (okay, 20 hours; there was no way she’d sleep well), and Alex would have almost a whole day on his own. Not that he couldn’t entertain himself – he’d been doing it for decades – but she knew that if Alex was sleeping 84 hours straight, she’d have seven or eight moments where she really wished he was awake. Maybe so they could talk about something, or share a joke, or just sit in a room and read together quietly – but the absence would bother her. And she knew it did for him, when she was asleep.

She knew, because she accepted that he loved her as much as she loved him. She wasn’t sure she deserved it, but he got to decide that.

She opened the door, and was glad to see that Alex wasn’t quite asleep; he’d just set his pad down on the desk, and was eyeing a leap to the bed.

“I’ll get you there, and if you want me to head out again so you can sleep, I can,” she said, offering him a hand.”

“I’ll take the assist, but nah, I’m used to it,” Alex said.

Alex stepped into her palm, and Rixie carried him gently to the small bed – well, small for her – and set him carefully upon it. He was so fragile. And he was so strong.

“So what were you reading?” she asked, grabbing her own pad.

“A book about the political transition between Throdr and Geastomylor,” Alex said.

“Ah, so a little light, fun reading,” Rixie chuckled.

“It’s interesting. You know, the whole reason you have to go deal with all of this is that the entire government of Jotnarherath is based on one conversation where a kid who was trying to get out of governing made a couple snap decisions?”

“Smart of her, really. One of the reasons Throdr is still beloved and remembered. Not many people will pass up absolute power when it’s offered.”

“Oh, she deserves it,” Alex said. “But it’s still funny. Yeah, you’ve got all kinds of precedents and stuff since then, but everything’s based on the foundation of ‘Throdr creates the Jotnardiggi’ and ‘Throdr declares Geastomylor to be the new Dronung.’ And because nobody else since did what Throdr did….”

Alex trailed off, long enough for Rixie to say, “What?”

“Rix…you said you’d take Throdr’s option. Nobody else has, you know, not since her.”

“Dronungs and Jofurs abdicate all the time,” Rixie said.

“Yeah, they do…when they’re old, and have served for a while, and want to pass it to their kid. But nobody’s done what Throdr did – quit in the first year. I…I mean, I’ve just read a book, I’m not an expert, probably should talk to one, but…Rixie…oh man, I’m going to regret saying this….”

Rixie sat down in the chair. “Well, won’t be the first thing you’ve regretted. Say it.”

Alex sighed. “You shouldn’t try to get out of being Dronung. You should make sure you take the throne.”

Rixie’s eyes widened. “What?!”

“It just hit me…if you become Dronung, you can reset everything. All the junk that’s accumulated around the Dronung’s succession, the stuff that let Aud have a shot at taking control. The weird rules that contradict each other. Everything – everything – is based on the power that Throdr had in that first year to make laws. None of that has ever been changed. It can’t be. Everything is based on that, so if you undo that power, you undo everything. And that means that in that first year, if you decide to abdicate and start a new dynasty – you can literally make any change in that time that you want.”

“I…don’t want to make changes though,” Rixie said. “I don’t want that responsibility. Alex…you know I don’t want to be Dronung!”

Alex looked up at his wife, about to object, but he stopped himself. “Yeah, I know, and…you can ignore me. It’s okay. I may not know what I’m talking about, I just read a book. But…look, you and I both know that it’s silly that there even is a Dronung. At least, I think we both do.”

“Oh, Gods, yes, we agree on that,” Rixie said. “Same with the Emperor. Heck, Tiernan said as much, to Tylum and me, when we were en route to Jutuneim to meet my…my dad. It’s silly, having someone in charge just because of who their parents were. I mean, if I end up Dronung it’s because my dad and mom hooked up when they were teenagers and had me by mistake. Gosh, that’s a great reason to put me in charge!”

“Exactly. Well, if you wanted to, you could get rid of the office completely. Replace it with a Governor or something. I’m not saying you should, but you could.”

Rixie sighed. “You know, Dia wanted you to be Secretary of Business, and you said you wanted to stay out of politics. I know, you claim not to want to be a senator, but you are lying when you say you don’t like politics.”

“I like politics in theory. That’s why it was fun helping put Avalon together,” Alex said, with a yawn. “You can try to make a system that works for everyone, that everyone’s okay with. That’s fun. But I don’t want to be a politician.”

“You are a senator, Alex, it’s too late.”

Alex chuckled. “Senator’s okay, I get to have a title and mouth off, but I don’t have to run for re-election. Ammer can have that headache, and I mean, look at the election – Lethior accusing him of being a traitor to humans because he married a Titan. I couldn’t have held it together the way he did. I’d have gone over and punched him. May still do it one of these days, Tiar’s deserved it for decades.

“But you’re right, I do like building the systems. And maybe that’s what I’m getting wound up about here. I mean, I could help put together a government for Jotnarherath, even if it was just kibbutzing. That would be pretty fun! But that’s a silly reason for you to be Dronung, really.”

Rixie smiled, and brushed his hair with her index finger. “It’s the only good reason I’ve heard so far. Well, that and keeping Aud off the throne. But as lucky as Jotnarherath would be to have you looking out for it…no. If we can work it so it passes to Vallero…let it be her headache. I’ve got enough headaches to last.”

“You married me, so…yeah,” Alex said.

“You are worth any headaches you give me,” Rixie said, quietly. “Now, get some sleep. We should be grounding in about ten hours.”

“Sounds good,” Alex said, with a yawn. “I love you, Rix. Good night.”

“Good night, Alex,” Rixie said. “I love you too.”

* * *

The WV Retchenu shuddered as it breached the atmosphere of Jutuneim. Margu swore a bit, and jammed his finger down on the gravitic controls. “It’ll only get bumpier, you probably want to grab him,” he said, not looking back at Xyly and Nonull.

Xyly was mildly spacesick, and Nonull was not mildly anything. “Doesn’t this thing have dampeners?” Nonull shouted.

“Iskolius class ships don’t have good internal gravitics. You get used to it,” Margu said, changing his vector slightly. He nodded at something said into his headset. “Affirm, Kaleva Control, this is Captain Ganeg, Retchenu. Affirm. Transferring control to automatic…now.”

The ship shook a bit, as computers at ground control took over the steering. Margu swung around, and said, “My guess is we’ve beat them, but I’m not certain of that. I know, based on the last communication we got, that they haven’t arrived at the hotel.”

“Rixie will wait a bit,” Nonull said. “She’ll want to minimize the time she’s exposed.”

“Agreed,” Margu said. “But that works to our advantage. We can get you in place easier if she isn’t there. Our contact is going to meet us at our dock; they’ll take you two from there. I’ll scout out the starbase, see what I can find out about her private security. I’ll relay it to you, Ms. Lusan.”

“We will need a moment on landing,” Xyly said, “to steady our cochleae.”

“Of course,” Margu said. “And don’t worry, I’ve got some pills aboard. And I’m willing to bet Mr. Tisenius knows exactly how much of a Titan dose to take.”

* * *

Skor Aljansen walked up the staircase to the attic of his parent’s home. His mother and wife were huddled in conference in the study downstairs; they had made it clear that they did not want further inquiries into their plans – and most certainly clear that they did not want any objections to them.

So he headed up into the attic. But it is not what you are picturing. Yes, at one point, it had been a dark and dingy space, but there were now six skylights in the roof, and the open space was filled with abstract paintings and surrealist portraits. In the center of this, an old man stared at a canvas; it was blank, save for a single black line that curved across its center.

Skor waited patiently for the man to finish staring, and add one short stroke, barely visible, crossing the line at the left of the canvas. Satisfied, he put his brush down. He turned, and appeared briefly startled.

“I didn’t hear you come up,” he said.

“I didn’t want to bother you. I know when you’re painting…well, I know you when you’re painting. How are you, dad?”

Ranu Aljansen gave his son a very slight smirk. “I am well, Skor. Thank you for asking. How is Audara?”

“She’s…that’s what I’m here about. I need your advice. And I need you to talk to mom.”

Ranu chuckled. “I see. Now that it’s starting to fall apart, you remember me.”

“Dad, I’ve seen you a half dozen times in the last month, I….”

“Oh, you ‘see’ me. Everyone ‘sees’ me. But none of you remember me. Well, except for Janta; she still actually talks to me like I have a mind.”

“Dad…we just…you always wanted to be left alone, to paint. You let mom decide everything, you just went along, and we….”

Ranu sighed. “Yes, well, I’m not going to deny that. It was your mother’s show from the moment I married her. And I was okay with that. Because I loved her. And eventually….”

He spread his arms out. “You’ve made the same mistake as I did, Skor. You loved Aud enough to give up everything for her. And now you have.”

“You didn’t give up – what are you talking about? You have this studio, you’re known across the Empire. And mom loves you!”

“She loves me like a pet. Like a possession. I think she’d be happier if I was human, to be honest; she could put me in a box at the end of the day when she was tired of looking at me. And the sad thing is, I’d let her – to be with her, that’s what I’d put up with.”

Ranu turned back to his painting, walked over to it, and ran a short scarlet line parallel to the original one on the right side. He then turned back to his son.

“So you’ve finally figured out that your mom is going to risk the House of Aljansen on this scheme. Risk her very freedom. And Aud’s. And yours.”

Skor swallowed hard. “Dad…did mom…is she going to have Rixie Carey murdered?”

Ranu laughed in his son’s face. “Of course she is!” he said. “She had Ljied and Tursas murdered, what’s one more?”

Skor’s stomach dropped. “What…what do you mean, she had Ljied murdered?”

Ranu looked at his son, and his countenance became suddenly very grim. “You hadn’t put it together. Oh, Skor, I am sorry. I thought you’d figured that part out.”

“She…she killed Ljied? But…how? Why?”

“How? Not sure. I know she was making arrangements. She didn’t think I heard. I heard. Why? Well, that’s obvious. To try to get your wife onto the Carba Throne, and to try to put humans back in their boxes, or at least keep them from sleeping with Titans. Your mom cares about that last part quite a bit, for reasons I can’t understand. Who the frak cares who’s sleeping with who? Well, she does, I guess. And so does your wife. And so do you, or so you’ve told me.”

Ranu shook his head. “Ljied did not care. Heck, Ljied was a kind and decent girl who you should have settled down with. That’s why she couldn’t be trusted to back the move against the Dronung. She didn’t have a problem with humans and Titans marrying. She thought it was just fine. And so she would have supported Vallero, and that meant she was a problem to be eliminated.”

“And Rajenvalt…he agreed with me on hybrids, and mom knew that. That’s why Tursas…Oh, Otna forgive me!”

“He won’t,” Ranu said, bluntly. “At least not without you doing what you know you have to do to be forgiven. And you aren’t going to turn Aud in.”

“How…I could!” Skor said. “I should tell….”

His voice choked off to a whisper. “I should tell someone….”

“You should. Granted, it will end with your wife imprisoned. And your mom imprisoned. If you turn them in, you’ll probably avoid prison yourself. Riggu and Siru, they might make out okay in the end. But Riggu will know that his grandma killed his mom – and did it to help your new wife take the throne. Do you think he’ll forgive that? Do you think he’ll forgive you?”

Ranu took a few steps closer to his son. “And most of all…your wife will hate you. Will blame you for turning her in. And she’ll be right.”

Skor looked down at his feet, a sickening cold numbness overwhelming everything.

“I told you, you made the same mistake I did,” Ranu said. “And it cost you everything.” He pulled Skor in, and held him close. “I’m sorry, son. I truly am.”

* * *

Siru didn’t want to leave her room. She didn’t want to do much of anything. But Aleks was asleep, and Siru knew that while she could just watch him sleep for the next eight hours while worrying about everything, that wouldn’t be particularly good for her state of mind, which was already fragile enough. And so she forced herself up off the bed, pulled what hair wasn’t braided into a pony tail, and making sure she wasn’t wearing the same clothes from yesterday, she used all her willpower to make herself leave the room and trudge toward the kitchen.

As she neared the gathering room by the hall to the kitchen, she heard a chipper, unfamiliar voice chattering away. Siru almost turned on her heel to go back to her room – she was not in the mood for chatter. But she kept on trudging, and soon enough, the sounds resolved into words.

“…looks great! So did you decide to use the quasi-orthogonal decoupled promethium phaser to save power?”

“Aye,” Naleu replied, “And A ken ‘tis mair siccer.”

“It would be more reliable. You’re keeping the refresh rate down, but not so much that it would be noticeable. At least not for normal usage. That’s so cool! I am definitely going to have to tell Shaar about this. If you don’t mind, of course – I don’t want to steal your credit.”

Siru turned the corner, and saw that Naleu was looking, rather nervously, at a short woman with a mop of frizzy red hair, who was looking at a holodrone, which was currently floating between the two of them. The woman was looking through augmented reality glasses, while Naleu’s goggles projected a heads-up display that ringed his head.

“Ye anes be peyin for ma schullin, A ken this belangt to you,” Naleu said.

“Not at all! You won that scholarship because you’re good at holography, and whether you come to work for Tremarla in the end, or go somewhere else, you being good at holography makes everyone better at holography. In fact, I want to let you know that if Shaar thinks this is worth pursuing, we’ll include you in the patent application as lead. I just need a witness – hey, there’s someone! You there, can you witness what I just said? I want to make sure Naleu receives credit for his very good insight about decoupling phase arrays. What’s your name?”

“Uh,” Siru said, realizing the woman was addressing her, “I’m…not really….”

“Oh, right, yeah, Rhionne said, none of you are officially there. Don’t worry, I’m sure Naleu just has a really nice house on campus, much nicer than the one we stayed in. Did Daz tell you that we were roommates in school, Naleu?”

“Aye, and you and aw.”

“Great! Did Rhionne tell you?” she asked.

Naleu blinked, but said, “Aye.”

“Great! That was such a great group. Rhionne, Daz, Pierce, Shaaar, Fara, Zhay, and Tylum – and it’s where I learned humans were smarter than most Titans, and that was neat! If not for Shaar, Tremarla Lumodynamics wouldn’t exist, you know – and that’s the thing, none of us do it ourselves, which is why I want to make sure Naleu gets credit, because there’s plenty to go around.”

“Well…I’m Siru Aljansen,” Siru said, hoping she wouldn’t regret this.

“Oh hey! Your stepmom is the one trying to do the thing! I’m Myona, nice to meet you. And don’t worry, I know I seem a bit scattered – you can admit it, Naleu, you think I’m a bit scattered.”

Naleu blanched, and said, “Nae. Ye hae a lanerly wey aboot ye, but ye’re gleg-ee’d, and that’s certaint.”

“Well! That’s a phrase I’m going to use on Shaar. ‘Gleg-ee’d.’ Not even sure what that means, but it sounds nice, and if it isn’t, I probably deserved it. Now, Siru, you remember that Naleu deserves credit, but don’t worry, Naleu – if this goes somewhere, there will be plenty of paperwork, and probably a decent credit transfer. And if it doesn’t, well, lots of stuff that Shaar and I and everyone else come up with doesn’t go anywhere, but it’s still fun to play with, isn’t it? So worst case, we play with it, it doesn’t work, I call you up and say, ‘Well, it didn’t work, but when it exploded, it was really exciting!’ So tell Daz that I’m really glad she asked me to talk to you, and that I hope I’ve been helpful.”

“Aye, ye hae, mem. A’m thankrif,” Naleu said. “And A’m honoured to gaither with ye.”

“The honor is mine, Naleu. And if I do not miss my guess, this will not be the last time we chat about your ideas. Anyhow, I’m late for a meeting, but this was more fun than that, so thanks! Nice to meet you, Siru, bye!” And with that, Myona’s hologram derezzed.

Naleu stared after for a moment, before saying, “That be the maist by-ordinar maument of ma hale life. That…that be Nuhoonah Bahluhdah! An she ruise’t me!”

Siru sighed, and forced a smile. “She seems nice.”

“She be a genie! Chief o’ Tluhnahluh Lunuhdahnaneks! She and hers helpit cleckit holography! An she ruise’t me.”

“Well, some of us deserve praise,” Siru said. “And if she’s that important, and she thinks your work is that good, you deserve it.”

Naleu nodded. “Thanks. But ye aw deser mense. Ye fendit the Queen, and aw Aleks. That was brave. Braver than A be.”

“I really wish I believed that,” Siru said.

“Aye, and wish A believed A wis deser ma ruise,” Naleu said, with a crooked smile.

“I just hope that this doesn’t end with anyone in my family being executed,” Siru said. “And I don’t know that it won’t.”