She turned to scan her surroundings more fully, blinking at the shaft of harsh sunlight flooding in through the grilles of an arched window behind her. All around the low chamber were scattered plump cushions and crumpled furs. The recumbent forms of dozing nobles were arrayed amongst them, although she could not see Naal anywhere. Somehow, that fact neither surprised nor disturbed her. Empty bottles, glasses and vials were abandoned close by each body, and she looked closer at those nearest, seeing how the elaborately applied makeup and powder, on both men and women, now appeared so soiled, and even ugly. One man, who had the previous evening, appeared to Brielle a handsome and charming individual, looked by the wan morning light an ineffectual, painted fop, his make-up smeared half across his face and half across the rump of the woman upon whose body he slept.
The woman, Brielle noticed, was draped in fine chains, hundreds of small jewels dangling from them. Each jewel was lit from within by a slowly pulsing light, lending the woman's skin a multihued aspect that appeared quite sickly and unnatural in the light of day. Brielle had a sudden flash of recall, a vision of those same chains spinning, the light merging into blurred streaks as their owner danced.
She was unsure whether the vision was a memory or a dream. She leant over, reaching out an arm, cautiously, towards the woman, and taking one of the tiny jewels between her forefinger and thumb. She pulled gently until the chain gave way, slipping from the woman's thigh. As Brielle lifted the jewel to examine it, it took on a deep, green hue, reminding her of something she had seen before.
Something she had seen in the hold of her vessel returning from Q-77. The alien device she had examined had glowed with the exact same green, inner light. This woman was wearing items of jewellery obviously of alien manufacture, yet somehow this realisation neither surprised nor outraged Brielle. This entire world, she realised, was enamoured of the exotic, enamoured, quite literally, of the alien.
The woman groaned softly in her sleep, rolling languidly onto her side. The man sleeping next to her grumbled in response, forced to reposition his head lest it roll from its resting place. Brielle froze, for some unknown reason not wishing to awaken any of the sleeping nobles. By the number of empty glass vials beside them, she doubted they would wake for some time. The couple's dozing having resumed, Brielle let out a breath, and looked around for the clothes that she had, evidently, discarded at some unremembered point during the previous evening.
Stepping over the dozing forms of the guards, Brielle left the establishment. She could only imagine it was some private bordello, reserved for the use of the idle and decadent rich. She stood in the wan morning light, blinking against the glare, unsure of her location in relation to Luneberg's palace. Fractured details of the previous evening came to her, unbidden. She recalled having met Luneberg's functionary, Naal, at a trading house in the merchants' quarter. Thinking of Naal, she recalled snatches of conversation, made blurred and incoherent by the evening's excesses. No matter, it would come to her in time, when her head had eventually cleared.
Standing in the centre of the narrow, empty street, Brielle turned slowly around, her head pitched upwards towards the morning sky. She realised she had no clue in which direction the palace lay, and so continued slowly revolving until instinct, or folly, told her which direction to walk in. East, she decided, and set off.
The street down which she walked was by all appearances rarely travelled, at this time of the day at least, for although it contained the detritus of any city the size of Chasmata Capitalis, it was deserted of Luneberg's subjects. Reaching a junction, Brielle looked around, growing increasingly aware of the fact that few, if in fact any, people were out and about. The thought struck her that perhaps all of the citizens of this world were as pampered and idle as the nobles with whom she had passed the night. Could it really be that an entire society could function thus? What of the workers and the indentured serfs? What of the ever-present and largely invisible underclasses upon which most worlds relied? Did they lie abed too, dozing in a drug-induced haze upon the soft bellies of their lovers?
She considered this notion, blinking against the sunlight as a floating lumen hovered slowly by, its light no longer required as the day began. She studied it quizzically, wondering who performed the myriad duties she, in her own life, had always taken for granted as being carried out by others. She considered the hundreds of crew serving upon the Fairlight, the thousands serving under her father in the flotilla as a whole. Many were the scions of families indentured to the Arcadius generations previously, others were press-ganged at those ports where the dynasty was granted the right to recruit. Still more were even less willing, convicted of petty crimes, death sentences commuted to service aboard Navy or merchant vessels. Others were servitors, lobotomised creatures, part man, mostly machine, and despite being consecrated by the officers of the Creed, and highly valued, unthinking things of cold flesh. What if, she wondered, as she avoided a pile of stinking rubbish on the ground, what if all those hundreds and thousands of men, women and machines were offered the choice of whether or not they would serve? Would they continue to serve, for the good of all, or would their own selfish desires win out, as they appeared to here upon Mundus Chasmata?
The thought occurred to her that the people of this world, or the ruling classes at least, were weak and foolish, yet there was undeniably an underlying hint of coherent dogma in their apparently mindless hedonism. Snatches of conversation from the previous night came to her once more, a vision of Naal's face as he expounded upon the nature of life upon Mundus Chasmata. She shook her head, mildly frustrated with herself for having such trouble recalling the details of what was dearly an evening of some importance.
Wandering down an avenue lined with closed up drinking dens and establishments of no doubt ill repute, Brielle at last caught sight of Luneberg's palace, tall, gilded spires silhouetted against the sunrise. She realised with a stab of apprehension that she must soon face up to her actions, and make her play once and for all, but what was it she needed to achieve? She forced herself to focus on the situation at hand, to address the task that she must now undertake.
If she really was to take a hand in the future of the dynasty, she must do so now, she pondered. The deal with Luneberg was against the interests of the Arcadius, of that much she was sure, and she was growing increasingly confident in her belief that it was she, and not Korvane, who should be preparing to take over the dynasty, and who should have their father's ear until doing so. Hadn't Naal told her as much? He had, she realised, another small part of the previous evening coming back to her in a flash. She had spoken at some length with Luneberg's functionary, and he had shared, even fostered, her opinion that Korvane was weak.
If she wished to usurp her stepbrother's position, she would need to take a hand in the immediate, short-term fortunes of the Arcadius. She would need to undermine him to such an extent that he would never be able to recover his influence. Perhaps she should go further, she thought. In fact, hadn't Naal said that she should?
She halted, suddenly shocked by her own train of thought. Had she really discussed such things with a stranger? She realised she had, and much more besides. She recalled Naal promising to lend her aid. All she need do, she remembered him saying, was to give him the word, when she judged that the time was right.