47 - At Your Discretion, Perrin

On Xanadu Prime was fuming.  He thumped his fist on the arm of his chair, broke two of his fingers, before his medical support suppressed the pain and began trying to rebuild the fragile old bones.  He sneered out over the ball being held by Baron Oberley, First Class.  The season was winding down and the Immoderates had not managed to find his missing son and the chit, his daughter.  They HAD to be on the planet still.  No shuttles had risen out of the atmosphere since Perrin the Fourth had disappeared.

The music played on without a hitch, his Third Class performers trained to a high point where even a riot on the ballroom floor would make them stumble.  He was blessed.  Anyone else on the Galactic Board would pay as much as an Anderson Spine Engine was worth for live human music, played on the ancient wood and brass instruments.  The First Class circled and laughed and chatted as if he hadn’t snarled a foul word along with the thump of his fist.

“Are we tiresome, Oh Font?” The Baron leaned over in a half-bow.  “Shall I dismiss the rabble?”

“No, no, Oberley. I was just thinking.  Let us withdraw for a bit, let the festivities go on for the lesser folk, hmm?  One needs to let them preen themselves and play pretty politics even if it has no bearing on the real world.  They think it does.” He waved at the glittering ballroom, his body support armour showing only as a faint gold sheen on his skin.  “You and I and the two other Barons know what’s going on.”

“Yes, Oh Font.  Roleigh and Jackson and I are most honoured among men, to be in your personal confidence.”

Prime snorted.  “Flattery will get you nowhere, Oberley, but you may keep trying.” He rose and the music checked, as did the dancers.  “Pray, continue your amusement,” he called and turned his back on them all, strolling out beside the Baron to his library.

The library was the symbol of power here, and Oberly was allowed the same galactic information that Prime was, except for the owner codes of course.  So the walls soared up to the lofty ceiling, covered in rank and row of leather bound volumes.  Antique flat screens flickered through data and pictures.  Quiescent holograms showed the 'ready' cascade. A veer booth stood off to one side, door open.

A row of globes marched up the centre of the room, each showing a different planet in the solar system, with Chishiki given pride of place, of course.  That globe was a hologram that spun on its own, suspended above them, showing the terminator as it rotated.  A pause and it swirled and transformed into what it would look like, once the oceans had filled enough… then back to current reality.  Orange and maroon and blinding white, with Xanadu showing a green bright enough to almost look like a toxic spatter of mold on the side of the globe.

“How is Chancey doing off planet?” Prime settled into the Baron’s own float chair and waved a hand at the second spinning globe, showing the planet Artemis.  “Fother’s Tech is good enough though it’s almost as liberal as anything on bloody Steinpeltz.”

“Nowhere is as liberal as Steinpelz,” the Baron agreed.  “I was astonished that they passed that law.”

Prime snarled.  “Aliens aren’t people.  How could they just declare them unhumanoid people?”  They’re monkeys.  We should have the right to come in and terraform any planet we want.”

“Of course, Prime.  May I ask how the new settlement on Hinnemon is coming?  I can send you another village or two of Illiterate boys if you need the manpower.”

“I’ll think on it, Jason.  Thank you.  The wildlife is proving somewhat vexatious.  We’ve got a dozen men down with injuries and rumblings of complaint that it’s too dangerous for their wives and… would you believe it… that they WANT their wives with them… all at the same time.  Madness.  Of course they breed like rabbits, and are feeling the want.”

“Send in some sex techs… they won’t get pregnant, or fall in love with an Illiterate.”  The Baron stepped over to pour a pair of brandy snifters full of Coalred Special Old.  “Here’s to successful ventures, Perrin.”

Prime grunted.  “Suck up.”

“Of course.  It’s part of my charm.  Besides, my share of the new settlement will pay for a great many things I have been wanting.”

“Like what?” Prime sipped his brandy and stared at his youngest Baron.

“I have two more sons to get off planet to various universities.”

Like an aggressive dog, calmed, Perrin let his suspicious hackles down.  “Of course.  You know, Jason, when the time comes I have enough contacts with the Board to pull some strings…”

The Baron stood, smiling into his snifter and waved a dismissive hand.  “Oh, I would never be in your debt, Perrin, not when I can pay.  By the way… are we actually starting to get oceans anywhere on the planet?”

“In the trenches.  Everything else is sand slurry.”

“Pity.  I look forward to sailing here at home one day.”

“You went to school at…” He stopped, thinking.

“On Aqua Regis.  All sailing,” Oberley supplied helpfully.

“Ah, yes.” Prime sipped his brandy again.  “Jason, you haven’t made any progress in the program that would let me kill my damn treasonous brat and his offspring yet, have you?”

“Not without endangering you, personally, Perrin.  My lab just cannot seem to refine it, even with your wife’s DNA.”

“It should have given you enough markers of difference.”

“It’s more complicated than that, I’m afraid.” Oberley looked solemn.  “I’m sorry he didn’t work out as your Heir.”

“I was thinking of offering for your Melinda, Jason.  Do you think she’d be a good breeder?”

“Could be, though she’s a bit young.” Behind his back, unseen, the Baron’s hand clenched hard, even as he kept his tone light.

“Oh, not immediately.  I’d certainly wait a year or two after mourning my poor, deluded son.”

“At your discretion, Perrin.”