Ky blinked at him. They both knew—because she was sending it—that she was seeing him with a vibrating pink halo, and they also knew this was a transient visual phenomenon common to implant insertions, like the other sensory auras she was having—the smell of freshly ground pepper, the echo effect to all sounds. It would be gone after a good night’s sleep, during which time the implant and her biological brain would have some kind of serious discussion without her consciousness around to kibitz. “No problems,” Ky said, aloud this time.

“Good. Call me at once if you experience sensory auras tomorrow, or any difficulties with coordination, balance, after one hour from now. My recommendation is that you go to sleep as soon as you can.”

“I will,” Ky said. Her father took her back to the main house, where she staggered only a couple of times going down the hall to her room. She remembered her first insertion experience very clearly; she had been seven, getting a child’s school expansion kit, and she had insisted that her balance wasn’t affected, she didn’t need to lie down and take a nap… all the way to the ground when she fell off the pony. I’m fine, she’d said, lying on the ground and looking up at a pony hazed in a supernatural golden glow, its wings waving gently in the breeze. My pony has wings, she’d said. No one had believed her. She’d woken from that nap with a bruise on her rump and her brothers prancing around the room waving their arms, pretending to be flying ponies.

Enhanced memory was one side effect of implants and their insertion. She pulled off her clothes, put on a gown, turned off the light, and lay down.

She had been sure she wouldn’t sleep, but the moment her head hit the pillow, she was out. She woke, remembering no dreams, at first disoriented because sunlight played on the opposite wall from the garden window in her room—and she expected instead the cold dim light of a winter dawn in the capital. Misery hit her again, and she rolled over, burying her face in the pillow. Her career. Her hopes. Her friends. Hal… he wouldn’t even know what happened. She hadn’t actually started crying when something landed with a thump on her back.

“Rise and shine, lazybones,” came her brother’s voice. “You’ve got to hit the books.”

Ky rolled out of bed, threw the offending roll of towels back at her brother—wet, he must have just come in from swimming—and stalked into the ’fresher with as much dignity as possible. Her implant offered the time, the temperature, the humidity, water temperature of the ’fresher, her own pulse and respiration if she wanted it. She didn’t. She ate a hasty breakfast in a corner of the kitchen, and then settled down to the pile of data cubes her father had left for her to read. Everything there was to know about Glennys Jones, about the route she was to take, everything she needed to know about the Vatta Transport codes. At intervals her attention drifted to her disgrace, but she yanked it back to the matter at hand. She could not think about it… any of it… without going to pieces. If she was to be a cargo ship captain, she had better things to do than feel sorry for herself. The implant fed her accessory information whenever she asked. She was deep in the revised space regulations applicable to licensed carriers Class C and below when her father and brother came home for lunch.

“How’s it going?” her father asked.

“These are done,” Ky said, pointing to that stack. “I’m into space regs. Why on earth did they restrict Class Bs from carrying nutrient components? Seems to me that’s what they’re ideally suited for.”

“Politics,” San said. “But I’m not supposed to say that.”

Her father gave San a look. “P & L,” he said. “They’ve moved into nutrient component production, over onChelsea. They transport the stuff very efficiently in purpose-built Class Ds; they’re just protecting their investment.”

“Closing out competitors, both producers and shippers,” San said.

“San.”

“They’re our competitors; I don’t see why we can’t be plainspoken at least at home,” San said.

“They’re also our friends. You might have married the girl—”

“Not me,” San said.

Ky watched this interchange with interest. San arguing with her father? That was new.

“Lunch,” her father said firmly, leading the way to the veranda. At midday, it was shady, breezy, scented with roses and jasmine. Her mother didn’t appear. She often skipped lunch with the family. Ky wasn’t hungry—she’d done nothing all morning but read—but she picked at a salad. Her father frowned at her. “You should get out a little,Ky.If you don’t eat, your mother will pester me.”

“I need to finish these,” Ky said.

“Not today. I didn’t think you’d be half so far along. Take the afternoon off.”

Two hours later, Ky lay stretched on a towel by the pool. An hour’s swim had worked out kinks she hadn’t realized she had, and now she dozed in the warm shade. Her father had been right. She had needed the break.

“Kylara Vatta, what do you think you’re doing?” That voice, harsh as a parrot’s cry, nearly sent her rolling into the pool in a defensive maneuver.Aunt Gracie Lane.Aunt Gracie Lane, who disapproved of idleness at any time, and also had strong views on appropriate bathing costume. “Anyone could see you!”

Anyone who was a member of the family, or a guest. Possibly a lascivious gardener peeking over the wall of the pool enclosure, but certainly no one else.

“I’m resting after swimming, Aunt Gracie,” Ky said.

“You’re lazing about doing nothing useful,” Aunt Gracie said. “Get some proper clothes on and get busy. You’re supposed to be helping your mother arrange your wardrobe.”

Her mother, just coming to the pool behind Aunt Gracie, shrugged.

“Yes, Aunt Gracie,” Ky said, scrambling to her knees with the towel clutched to her.

“I would have thought the Academy would teach you some discipline, but clearly… I suppose that’s why you quit.”

Too many things wrong with that to argue. Ky held the towel between her and Aunt Gracie’s disapproval, and sidled around, pricking herself on one of the gardenia bushes, to back gingerly toward the house. The moment Aunt Gracie transferred her gaze to something else, she whipped the towel all the way around her and scuttled for the veranda. Some things never changed.

Clad in slacks and shirt, she emerged from her room to hear Aunt Gracie’s voice down the hall. “—do something about that girl, Myris, you’ll be sorry! I can’t believe you and Gerard are actually letting her go off alone, unsupervised—”

Ky thought of running away, sneaking out through her window, but Aunt Gracie would certainly have something to say about that, too. It was going to be a very long four days. Three point threeeight, her implant said.

Chapter Three

Most of the ordering could be done remotely. The next day Ky flew the single-seat herself toHarborTownwhere Bond Tailoring’s senior fitter checked her mother’s measurements and admitted that they’d been correct. Ky picked out ship boots, dock boots, formal and informal shoes for nonbusiness wear. Despite her mother’s complaints about her shape, she was close enough to stock measurements that only slight alterations would fit her for most things. The captain’s tunic, however, had to be custom-made.

“Still, that cuts a day off our estimate,” the fitter said. “Only four items. We’ll have them tomorrow evening.”

“What time?”

“Oh, you should plan on picking them up the next day,” the fitter said. “Just in case.”

Ky left the shop with her footwear, stopped by Amerson’s for some personal items her mother didn’t need to know about. If she was going to be off on her own alone, and not under military discipline, she could choose the lotions and scents she preferred, ignoring her mother’s ideas of appropriateness. Her crew would just have to put up with it. Then she walked back up the street to catch the shuttle to the airport. She was back home by lunch… or rather, back at the home airfield. She stopped by the office to tell her father when the clothes would be ready.