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  “Did he say he was a builder?” Lhyn poked her head into the bathroom. “He’s not a builder. He’s a crafter. This is art.”

  “Why shouldn’t a builder make art with his hands?” Ekatya asked. “There must be overlap in the castes. I saw some of those Guards carrying what looked like musical instrument cases. They can’t be wholly defined by one aspect of their lives.”

  Lhyn ran a hand over the stonework surrounding the sink. “No, it’s never that simple. And the castes encompass a lot. When I first figured them out, I thought, only six? How would I choose?” She scooted past Ekatya and walked up the shower steps. “But then I thought about it. Even when I was a teenager, I would have known that the warrior caste was out of the question. And the producer caste, and crafter…”

  Ekatya watched her examining the shower tiles and shook her head with a smile. “You couldn’t have been anything but a scholar. Though I think you have some warrior tendencies, too.”

  “I think you had too many drinks last night. But speaking of warriors…did you notice that Andira and Salomen already turned on their privacy screen?”

  “What? They could hardly have gotten up the stairs yet.” Ekatya went back into the main room far enough to see the Bonding Bower. Sure enough, the formerly clear glass walls had taken on an opaque sheen.

  Lhyn’s arms slid around her waist from behind. “They could be having sex up against the glass right now,” she said in an amused tone. “With one Hades of a view. I’m envious.”

  “What do we do if we get in the bonding break mood?” Ekatya gestured at the open sides of their cabin. “I feel a bit on display.”

  “We close the walls. Didn’t you read your brochure?” Lhyn released her and walked to a switch on one side of the bed. With a faint hum, a thick cloth slid out from one of the unpeeled logs that braced that corner, stretched itself across the entire length of the cabin, and snicked into place in a slot Ekatya hadn’t noticed in the opposite log.

  “Hm.” Ekatya crossed to the other side of the bed, found the matching switch, and tested it. Soon their cabin was fully enclosed with two cloth walls, their off-white color letting in plenty of light while offering a large canvas for the hand-painted murals that covered them. Flowers of varying heights, trees, birds swooping through the air, animals she didn’t recognize perched in the trees and rustling through the underbrush, fish leaping out of water—Ekatya had a feeling she could examine these walls for hours and not find everything.

  Lhyn already was. “This is incredible!” she exclaimed, her finger brushing over a tiny rodent in the shadow of a tear-shaped leaf. “Like tapestries on spools. There must be spring tension inside the log, to keep the cloth tight when the walls aren’t fully open.” She went back to her switch, retracted the wall halfway, then stepped over and rapped her fingers against the cloth. It remained solid, with no ripple showing the impact of her knuckles. Next she moved to the far edge of the cloth and held her hand on the outside of it. Nearly touching her lips to the inside, she blew hard for a moment and straightened. “Thought so. Windproof.”

  “I’m guessing waterproof as well,” Ekatya said. “Ingenious. And so much easier than building a wooden wall. Probably cheaper as well.”

  “Sure, if you use plain cloth. These murals must have taken weeks to paint. Two cloth walls times nine cabins times four cabin rings… Jarnell kept some crafters very busy.”

  They fiddled with their walls a bit more, finding the perfect compromise between privacy and maximum breeze, then unpacked their bags into the beautiful cabinetry. Ekatya couldn’t leave without trying the shannel dispenser, so they sat at the tiny table for two—they were clearly not being encouraged to eat here—and shared a cup.

  “It tastes great to me, but I’m not as picky as you are.” Lhyn handed over the cup. “What’s your verdict?”

  “Divine,” Ekatya moaned after one sip.

  Lhyn watched her with a smile. “You do realize that’s your fourth cup and it’s not even midmeal. Shouldn’t you be starting a bit lower than full addict level?”

  “I am a full addict; what’s the use in pretending? Besides, it’s only three and a half cups.”

  When Ekatya finished her shannel—which made her total closer to three and three-quarters cups—it was nearly midmeal, so they walked across the circle of grass to the main cabin. Shikal and Colonel Micah were already there and enjoying a pink drink, which they explained was Jarnell’s specialty fruit blend. Greetings were shared, new glasses were poured, and before they had taken a sip, Nikin came in with Jaros. Lanaril was only a few minutes behind, and the group settled around the spacious dining table, making conversation as they waited for the new bondmates to arrive. As Shikal explained to a fascinated Lhyn, on this first day the bondmates would be expected to keep regular mealtimes, but after that all bets were off—unless they forgot to eat altogether, in which case the family would perform their duty and drag them out of the Bonding Bower.

  “Oh, I hope they forget,” Colonel Micah said.

  Shikal laughed and tapped their glasses together. “I’ll help you drag them down.”

  Ekatya was content to sip her spirits, listen to the others, and watch Lhyn in her element. She had not seen such a relaxed, happy expression on Lhyn’s face in too long. Then she noticed Lanaril watching her from across the table and knew she had been caught staring…or worse, caught feeling.

  Embarrassed, she took in the sights of the room, which was decorated with the same themes as their own cabin. Comfortable chairs and couches were sprinkled about in such a way that two or three people could converse quietly, or the entire family could gather in a large group. One wall was taken up by a food prep area, which Ekatya learned was stocked with pre-made meals for their first day and would continue to be stocked daily thereafter, depending on choices they all made from the electronic menu attached to the wall by the cooling unit. Guests would rotate through cleanup duties, though the bondmates were exempt.

  A roar of greetings brought her out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see Andira and Salomen entering hand in hand. They were not in the same clothing as when they had arrived, and Salomen’s throat was now as thoroughly marked as Andira’s.

  Ekatya grinned at them and raised her glass, but they were spared the worst of the teasing thanks to the presence of Jaros. Though Ekatya wasn’t certain when Alseans began their sex education, apparently it was sometime after the age of ten.

  After a delicious meal of a tender white fish, the name of which Ekatya did not catch, Shikal and Colonel Micah volunteered for dish duty while Lanaril cleared the table. The others wandered over to the sitting area, where Andira and Salomen took over a wide chair that forced them to sit close together, which did not seem to be an issue. Lhyn pulled Ekatya down on a couch opposite them, while Nikin and Jaros chose smaller chairs. Jaros, who had been somewhat quiet during the meal, took this opportunity to grill Ekatya about her ship and share his own impressions of the Caphenon. Andira had taken the Opahs on a tour not too long ago, and Jaros was particularly fascinated with the bridge.

  “How often do you use the full display?” he asked.

  “Quite a lot, because I appreciate knowing where I am visually. Without it, all we have are our control boards, and most of the information on those takes the form of numerical data and graphs. There’s nothing quite like being able to look around and see. But not every captain feels the same way. I know one who only uses the top hemisphere, because he says his crew gets queasy when all they have under their feet is space.” She leaned forward and added in a conspiratorial tone, “I think his crew is fine. He’s the one who gets queasy.”

  Jaros grinned. “But he can’t admit it.”

  “Oh no. Captains do not admit queasiness.”

  “What happens if he has to fight a battle and needs the whole display?”

  “Then he probably forgets all about feeling queasy until the
battle is over, after which he turns the bridge over to his second-in-command, retreats to his private washroom, and…does something very uncaptain-like.”

  “You mean vomit?”

  “What charming conversation we’re having over here,” Shikal said. The cleanup crew had arrived.

  “Captain Serrado says not all captains can use the full bridge display,” Jaros explained. “They get sick.”

  “Seems as if Fleet would screen for that sort of thing.” Colonel Micah settled into a chair next to Shikal.

  “They screen for everything you can think of and a few hundred more, but the captain I’m referring to flies a support ship. If he ever ends up in a battle, then something went very wrong.” Ekatya noticed that Lanaril moved across the room before sitting, choosing a seat that closed their circle. Did the woman do anything spontaneously, or was she always playing her role?

  “But you’ve fought so many. It must have been speedy, going home a hero,” Jaros said dramatically. “How many awards did you get?”

  Ekatya couldn’t stop the derisive snort. “I didn’t go home a hero.”

  It was as if a bolt of electricity had gone through the room. Andira in particular had straightened and was watching her with a keen stare.

  “I didn’t tell you everything,” Ekatya said. “There wasn’t anything you could do, and I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “What happened?” Andira demanded.

  Ekatya looked around the room, debating how much she could say given her current audience. Lhyn rested a hand on her thigh, offering silent support, and she relaxed. Other than Andira, no one here was involved in Protectorate politics. She would tell what she could and reserve the rest for later, when Jaros was not around.

  “It took us half a moon to get home,” she began. “By home, I don’t mean my own planet. I mean Tashar, where both Fleet and the Protectorate government are headquartered. Then it took another half moon to get through all of the debriefings. Then I was finally called in to Admiral Tsao’s office to get my next assignment.”

  CHAPTER 6:

  Reassignment

  Tashar, 22 stellar months (16 Alsean moons) earlier

  Ekatya stood still as the retinal scanner dropped in front of her face, lit up her eye, and returned to its position above her head.

  “Captain Ekatya Serrado. Pass,” said the computer.

  The thick door in front of her slid open, and she stepped onto the platform where the train was already waiting. Uniformed people streamed through its doors and jostled for seats, but the officers’ car was nearly empty. She chose a seat on the left side, knowing from long experience that it would have the best views as they traveled from the city of Galiomet to Command Dome.

  While waiting for the train to finish loading, she adjusted the cuffs of her newly altered uniform shirt and smoothed out her jacket. She had only brought two of her tailored uniforms out of the Caphenon, and in the past two weeks of her involuntary sequestering at Protectorate Fleet Central Command, her access to laundering facilities had been limited. Apparently, her superiors did not care how well her uniform fit. She had been forced to wear standard-sized uniforms to the unending debriefings, and when the days grew too long and the questions too repetitive, she found the chafing and ill fit to be a form of torture. On her bad days, she wondered if that had been intentional.

  When she was finally through and released from her “guest lodgings,” which were nothing more than nicely appointed prison accommodations no matter how Admiral Tsao tried to spin it, she had wasted no time getting out of Command Dome and into the blessed anonymity of Galiomet. The first thing she had done was get her tailored uniforms laundered; the second was to visit a well-regarded tailor and drop off six new generics for alteration. The tailor expressed surprise at being asked to alter Fleet uniforms when there were so many specialist shops inside Command Dome, but Ekatya had no intention of entering that dome again until she had to.

  Now she had to. After a mere two-day leave, most of which she spent in Lhyn’s arms wondering why they had ever left Alsea, she was headed back in.

  The train began to move, smoothly at first and acquiring a slight vibration as it picked up speed. It climbed onto the elevated track that allowed rapid passage across the city outskirts, then entered the agricultural fields and dropped to a lower track. Vehicle traffic could still pass beneath, but anything larger went to special crossings.

  Soon the city had been left far behind and the train began a gradual ascent, leaving the valley floor and moving into the higher elevations. It wound around a hill, passed through a tunnel, and emerged on the side of another hill looking down into a new valley.

  Command Dome took up all of it. At its center, the tall spires sparkled in the sunlight, their beauty belying the politics and short-sighted power mongering that took place inside. Surrounding them were vast warehouses, training facilities, housing, classrooms, laboratories, three hospitals with different specialties, restaurants featuring foods from all over the Protectorate, shops of every description, and countless offices. But the true power resided in those spires, and every Fleeter with an eye toward advancement dreamed of eventually having an office inside. Ekatya had once imagined it herself, and as a young ensign and then lieutenant, she had believed a captaincy would be her stepping stone into those buildings. Getting her own command taught her two things: she liked running her own show, and she hated politics. It had been some time since she wanted an office anywhere but onboard her own ship.

  Though her dreams of working here had changed long ago, she still loved her occasional trips back. This first view of the dome, after emerging from the tunnel, had been one of her favorites.

  But that was before she arrived from Alsea and was ordered to remain in her rooms on the fifty-eighth floor of Spire Three “for security purposes” until her debriefings were concluded. Being held a virtual prisoner did wonders for dulling her appreciation. She had not been allowed contact with her officers, which she expected, but being denied contact with her grandparents or Lhyn was shocking. Even if she had been taken into custody prior to a court-martial, she would have had the right to communication.

  Coming back here now felt like walking into a trap.

  She gazed out the window and tried to loosen the knot of anger in her stomach. For most of her adult life, this view had symbolized the best ideals of both Fleet and the Protectorate. The good people working and training here strove to protect the weak from those who would use or abuse them, to keep their part of the galaxy free from despots and their transport routes free from pirates, and to maintain a peace in which many planets with different cultures and political systems could coexist without prejudice.

  Those ideals had failed spectacularly when the Protectorate tried to sell Alsea to the Voloth. While it was true that most of the Fleet brass had not known the real facts of the deal, it was also true that even when they did know, they had punished her for doing something about it. She might have escaped court-martial, and she still had the promise of a Pulsar-class ship somewhere down the line, but two weeks of being imprisoned and subjected to the questioning of her loyalties had proven to her that not everyone in those spires believed in Fleet ideals. Worse, many of those who did not believe held very powerful positions—and she had angered them.

  The train twisted around a switchback, giving her a more relaxing view of the grassy hillside and the swathes of orange malkin flowers covering its flanks. She deliberately did not look across the car, did not look at the more open view, until the train rounded another switchback and Command Dome was once again looming outside her window.

  Arching over the entire gigantic complex was a dome-shaped shield, more easily visible now that she was closer. The central location of the spires was no accident—they were outfitted with shield emitters that linked to those on the perimeter, providing a seamless and redundant system of protection. In the early days the shie
ld had been transparent, since that was easier to construct, but there had been issues with wildlife. Birds flew straight into it, died, and slid down to pile up all around the edges; other wildlife either ran into it at ground level or got too close while scavenging on the carcasses. The city inhabitants had campaigned for change, but Ekatya wasn’t certain that anything would have been done about the issue if not for one prosaic fact: the piles of carcasses rotted and stank. The shield stopped weaponry; it did not stop airflow.

  Nowadays the shield was tweaked with a system that gave it visible form. While the buildings beneath were still in view, they seemed to be under a hazy dome with swirls of colors constantly moving over its surface. That was how Protectorate Fleet Central Command acquired its nickname of Command Dome. On the other side of the continent, the Protectorate government buildings were sheltered beneath a similar shield. No one called it anything but Gov Dome.

  The train rounded one more switchback, found its way to level ground, and then dove into an underground access, one of five around the dome’s perimeter. They were the only ways in or out. Ekatya sat quietly, watching the lights of the tunnel flash by, until the circular walls vanished and the train rose into the daylight. Most trains made several stops on their way into Spire Station, but this was an express. Nearly everyone on it was in uniform.

  Training fields and barracks passed by her window; the distant spires drew nearer, and the train sank underground before coming to a halt at the end of its line. Everyone in the car rose as the doors whooshed open, and Ekatya let them go, waiting until the car was clear before stepping onto the platform. Hundreds of Fleeters jostled ahead of her, exuding a sense of importance and urgency as they rushed toward the hub at the center of the five train lines. She watched them clear the platform, then craned her neck and gazed at the arched rock ceiling high above. The architects had done a good job of making a utilitarian transport hub with no natural light seem spacious and airy. She wondered how many of the people rushing into the hub ever noticed.