Starliner(57)

Any event which departed from the accepted matrix—a fight, a vehicular accident, a drunk returned from Tarek's Bay waving a liquor bottle—brought a human emergency services team. The teams had medical support and enough firepower to splatter a determined problem over a city block.

The New Port was run not by democrats but by an oligarchy of shipping corporations. Municipal services were carried out with brutal efficiency.

Vehicles passed in the street. No one looked toward Oanh and her captors with even the vaguest interest

"What's going on here?" someone demanded in a voice like gunshots. "You there—von Pohlitz! Let that woman go unless you plan to spend the rest of your life on a penal asteroid as soon as you next touch Grantholm soil!"

Oanh didn't recognize the voice. Her captor turned to face the question, carrying her with him.

She saw Franz, his face thinned into a hatchet by white fury.

The bar containing the rental vehicles dropped. A large van pulled from the rank.

"And just who are you to interfere with me and my girlfriend, little fellow?" the Grantholm leader asked in a harsh, contemptuous voice. He gripped Oanh even more firmly. Her knees buckled, but she remained standing like a skeleton clamped in a display stand.

The van swung around tightly in the street and pulled up where it blocked the nearest camera's view of Franz. One of the Grantholmers stepped close to trap the smaller man against the vehicle.

"Who am I?" Franz snarled. "I'm the nephew of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, you dogturds, I'm the grandson of the man who commanded the Grantholm Legion on Lusignan. I'm Franz Streseman, that's who I am!"

The Grantholm leader grunted as though he'd been gutshot. He released Oanh and stepped back. She started to fall. Franz caught her around the waist and shoulders and nestled her body against his. Her skin was flushed and she felt as though she was being dragged through a bed of nettles.

"Sir, we meant no—"one of the Grantholmers began.

"Get into that car and get out of New Port!" Franz snarled in the voice of a man Oanh hadn't met until this moment. "Don't come back until the Empress is ready to lift!"

There was a bustle of motion, big men scuttling into the van as though whips instead of words cracked against them.

"And if I see any of you faces during the rest of the voyage, it will be the worse for you when we reach Grantholm. I, Franz Streseman, promise it!"

The springs of the rental vehicle yelped as the last man leaped aboard. The engine wasn't powerful enough to chirp the tires as the driver stamped on the throttle, but the van continued to accelerate for as long as it remained in sight.

Oanh's vision was returning to normal. Her skin felt clammy. Franz kissed her.

"Darling," he murmured. "My love? Are you all right?"

"Franz, let's go inside," she said. Her voice was hoarse.

"Please!" he begged. He stepped back, holding her by both shoulders. "Please—now that you know. Is it . . . ?"

"I don't want to talk about it now," Oanh said. "Let's go up to the room."

She threw herself into his arms again and kissed him fiercely. She couldn't see for her tears. She knew that by her statement, she had answered Franz's question and all the questions behind it; all the questions he had been afraid to raise and she was afraid to look at, even now.

"I don't want to talk about it ever!" she shouted in a despairing voice as she clung to her lover.

* * *

The primary was at zenith, filling half the sky. The water in the lagoon boiled with moonfish, ten-centimeter disks of succulent flesh. They formed streamers of blue and silver and magenta, rotating and coalescing as they shifted. By now they covered most of the enclosed water, mimicking the primary's opalescent atmosphere with their own varihued skins.

She stretched over the air mattress, supporting herself on toes and fingertips with her pubic wedge the highest point of a perfect arch. Ran looked down at her. The primary mottled her pale skin with bands of color more intricate than the finest tattooing.

"Do you like it?" she asked softly. Her eyes were closed.

Ran knelt beside her on the mattress again. "It's beautiful," he said.

"I told you my planet was beautiful," she said. "Not just the moonfish, but the moonfish now. Of course, everything becomes beautiful in breeding season."

She held her position like a painted ivory bow. It was uncanny. He began to fondle her. Her vaginal muscles accepted his finger greedily, but the rest of her body remained frozen.

"Humans have the power here," she said. "That's not wrong—it's like the storms on the face of the primary. Nature can't be wrong. But they're the wrong kind of humans, don't you think?"