The main floor was immense, large enough for several dance areas separated by strolling lanes and table seating for conversation, drinks and eating. It was also, Julian discovered, inlaid with a stellar map mosaic. Every star in The Republic burned in cold tile. Common, yellow suns. Red dwarfs. Binary systems. Habitable planets surrounded the stars, each wrapped in atmospheres of blues, green, yellows, reds. Each named in a delicate scroll that circled the planet. Julian and Sandra waltzed among the stars of Vega and Moor and Styx. In the vicinity of Northwind they met Countess Tara Campbell talking to Callandre Kell and Jasek Kelswa-Steiner, also from the Lyran delegation. As a group, they strolled past Liao and Gan Singh (now under the aegis of the Capellan Confederation) and left the main floor by way of New Aragon, The Republic’s stronghold in Prefecture V.
Spreading up the stairs on the southeast stage, the young nobles had an excellent view of the entire hall. “Impressive,” Julian whispered to Sandra.
And it was. An entire wall of flawless ferroglass, three stories high, looked out over greensward and a private section of Magnum Park. Fireworks had begun shortly after the Davion contingent’s arrival, lighting up Terra’s twilight sky in a riot of color that caught and danced inside the glass. Along the opposite wall were set the serving stations for those wishing to sample fare from all across the Inner Sphere. The “wall,” Julian noticed, was actually a holographic projection. Servers walked right through it, appearing as ghosts within the golden shimmer, then stepping into the hall to deposit laden trays on the long tables shrouded in linens of white and gold.
Sandra caught Julian’s hand and pointed overhead, where more holographic projectors suddenly filled the ballroom’s pristine dome with a display of stellar phenomena to rival the outside fireworks. Red-hot nebulae boiled away into the dark reaches of space. Comets with long icy tails showered overhead, followed by the Slow Birth of a World as composed by renowned graphic artist Jai Yuen Kanto.
It was better, Julian was forced to admit privately, than anything they had at home.
Meanwhile, Callandre Kell, always eager to set the standard, had found a young, dangerous-looking man in Clan leathers and was walking him through an easy minuet on the lower floor. Sandra escorted Jasek away for the remainder of the dance, leaving Julian in the company of Tara and, strolling up, Lars Magnusson, whom Julian had met during the tour of Athens.
A Ghost Bear crest tattoo centered on Lars’ right temple and covered part of his face, so there was no denying the young man’s heritage, though he wore a nobleman’s robes rather than his military uniform. A trueborn of the Rasalhague Dominion and of royal blood as well, Lars was one of few Clan warriors allowed outside Geneva’s “neutral grounds,” because he made such distinctions. For this journey, he’d explained to Julian, he had set aside his rank and codex. He had no standing as a warrior, which did not sit well with others from the Dominion.
“On your own again?” Julian asked. He quickly explained Lars’ voluntary discommendation to Tara.
Lars combed fingers back through unruly, ash white hair. “My companions stormed the southwest stage.” He nodded across the way, where Khan Dalia Bekker stood at the top of the stairs as if she presided over the Exarch’s Ball, surrounded by a coterie of warriors. Obviously, more than one with Elemental blood. Huge, hulking brutes. “I was not bid into the Khan’s escort.”
“Their loss is our gain,” Tara welcomed the Clan patriot. She, too, had eschewed military dress, trading her Highlander’s uniform for a red-sequined gown that slimmed her figure and drew attention.
Small talk, however, was beyond them. Conversation quickly turned to troubles within The Republic, and throughout the entire Inner Sphere.
“No more problems out of Germany?” Julian asked.
Having kept abreast of the situation between Republic forces and those who had gone over to the ex-patriot senators, he knew Tara and Paladin Heather GioAvanti had retaken Stuttgart but also that ex-Knight Conner Rhys-Monroe had organized a firm defense in Mannheim and Essen.
“At this point,” Tara said, “I have to think that your local intelligence assets are beating even Terra’s free press corps in acquiring facts and distilling them into full reports.
Neither man admitted to anything, though Julian felt his own face harden slightly, which in itself was a tell.
“No,” Tara admitted, taking an appetizer off a passing try. The men joined her. “The senators left on-world seem comfortable, at the moment, to wait us out. It’s what is happening out in The Republic that worries me. We had two senators go native after the Confederation invaded. I’m afraid the exarch’s decree to disband the Senate will cause more such defections.”
Julian tasted the appetizer—two pepper-stuffed olives on a silver skewer—and enjoyed the hot, salty flavor, especially the way it burned pleasantly up into his sinuses. “You believe the exarch should have waited?”
“Or did he wait too long?” Lars asked, preempting Tara’s reply. “When Clan Ghost Bear merged with the Free Rasalhague Republic, we faced similar challenges among some of the older noble families. The strategy of leaving off until tomorrow never worked.”
“I guess we will have to wait and see how it turns out,” Tara said, obviously hesitant to second-guess her exarch. But she unbent enough to admit, “With House Liao now pressing us in Prefecture V, and the Jade Falcons holding onto their captured territory with a steel grip, it does seem as if Exarch Levin has opened up a third front at home that we can hardly afford.”
“It was already a live battlefield,” Jasek said, returning with Sandra on his arm. He handed her off to Julian with an affable nod. “At least now you have some forces on the ground.” The man’s dark blue eyes—nearly indigo—and his dusky skin gave him an exotic look. His accent, though, was pure Skye aristocrat, with a touch of Old Mediterranean.
With a strange mixture of embarrassment and pleasure, Tara made the needed introductions. Lars and Jasek shook hands. Now it was the five of them holding court, with Tara Campbell presiding only by a few years seniority and her higher noble title.
There was also Tara’s mantle as a media icon, a role, Julian felt certain, to which she’d been born.
Not that he minded the opportunity to step back with Sandra at his side and observe. The floor, after all, was getting rather crowded with faces he recognized from the many intelligence briefings Harrison had insisted Julian attend. By some hidden signal, or possibly just following a law of mutual fascination, the southeast stage had become a lodestone to attract the younger crowd. Paladin Gareth Sinclair showed up with Dame Christine Sandoval on his arm. Some cousin of Erik Sandoval-Groell, if Julian remembered correctly, but not a friend of the Swordsworn officer. Anson Marik’s son, Kenyan, patrolled the area like a shark scenting blood. Alone. Always ready to strike. Even Caleb ended up on the southeast stage, eventually, having made rounds with some of the Inner Sphere leaders for his father or on his own behalf.
Most of the young scions circled around and by each other with careful conversation and wary eyes. Conditioned by intelligence operatives to give nothing away. Counseled by cultural experts to offer no offense. But not everyone worried about such caution. Caleb’s arrival, in fact, coincided with the sonorous voice of a herald rolling over the music and low buzz of a hundred conversations to announce the arrival of the evening’s third captain-general. This one of the Regulan Fiefs.
Caleb laughed openly, not bothering to hide his disdain. “How many captains-general does it take to put a broken lightbulb back together?”