25

Arienrhod sat patiently, resting her hands on the veined marble of the wide desk top, as the latest in the day’s progression of local and off world petitioners stated his proposals and laid down his plans. She listened with half an ear as he mangled the language — a native speaker of Umick, from D’doille, she decided — without letting him lapse into his own. She knew Umick, among the nearly one hundred other languages and dialects she had absorbed over the years; but she enjoyed forcing the off worlders to speak her own when they came to court her favor.

The merchant droned on about shipping costs and profit margins, gradually becoming invisible. She found herself looking through him, back along an endless procession of echoes, others like him-different, but the same. How many? She wished suddenly that she had kept count. It would give the past proportion, a sense of the absolute. It all became gray with age, dust-gray with disuse; a blur, stultifying and meaningless. Just once she would like to have brought into her presence a new off worlder who did not look at her and see a woman before he saw a ruler, a barbarian before an experienced head of state…

“…time in — uh, sallak — transit. That means I couldn’t much make a good profit on the salts, anyway, which is why I cannot offer but only—”

“Correction, Master Trader.” She leaned forward across the desk top. “The transit time from here to Tsieh-pun is in fact five months less than you claim, which puts you exactly in synch with their collody cycle. That makes the shipping of our manganese salts to Tsieh-pun extremely profitable.”

The merchant’s jaw twitched. Arienrhod smiled sardonically and popped the presentation disc out of her tape reader. She tossed it out, letting it slide across the polished marble into his outstretched hands. They might come to her expecting a naive weakling once; but they never did it again. “Perhaps you’d better come back when you’ve got your facts straight.”

“Your Majesty, I—” He ducked his head, afraid to look her in the eye: an arrogant aging whelp with his tail abruptly between his legs. “Of course, you’re so right, it was a stupid — uh, oversight. I can’t think how I could do such a mistake. The terms you offer would be — agreeable, now that I see my mistake.”

She smiled again, with no more kindness. “When you’ve seen as many ‘mistakes’ made as I have, Master Trader, you learn not to make many of your own.” She looked back into the distant beginning, when she had stumbled over every lying “mistake” the off worlders had thrown in her path — when she had had to consult her Starbucks about every decision, no matter how great or small, obvious or obscure. And the kind of information they had brought her was not always the kind she needed… But as the months, years, decades went by, she had seen the cost of her mistakes; and the lessons she had learned from experience she never forgot, the mistakes were never repeated. “Well, since you’ve seen the error of your calculations, I’m inclined to go against my judgment and grant you the shipping and trade agreements. In fact—” she waited until he was looking directly at her again, hanging on each word, “I might even have a little added business I could direct your way, now that I think of it. To our mutual benefit, of course. I know of a trader just in who has a small hoard of ledoptra that he intends to carry to Samathe.” But only as a last resort. “Ledoptra would bring a much higher price on Tsieh-pun, as you know.” And so does he, but he doesn’t know you’re in port. “For a reasonable commission, I’d be willing to convince him that you’ll gladly take the ledoptra off his hands.”

Greed licked the trader’s face, and doubt. “I am not sure I have enough — cargo stabilizers for such a soft — uh — fragile load, Your Majesty.”

“You would if you left the computerized library system you’re transporting to Tsieh-pun here on Tiamat instead.”

He gaped. “How did you… I mean, that would be — uh, unlawful.”

All the more reason why such a resource belongs here, where it’s really needed. “An accident. An oversight. It happens all the time in shipping goods across a galaxy. It’s happened to you before, I’m sure,” insinuating more than she was sure of, following his face.

He didn’t answer, but a kind of wild panic showed, far down in his dark eyes.

Yes, I know everything about you… I’ve seen your echoes for a hundred and fifty years. “The ledoptra is by far the more profitable cargo. And once you reach Tsieh-pun, and the mistake is discovered, it will be too late to do anything about it — the Gate will have closed. It’s all very simple, you see. Even simple enough for you. Profit — that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?” A profit in knowledge for Winter; a reward that money can’t buy. She smiled inwardly, at the secret knowledge of all the similar profits she had accumulated, in similar ways, down the long years; quietly stockpiling technology and information against the coming time of famine.

The trader nodded, his eyes still searching the corners of the room furtively. “Yes, Your Majesty. If you say so.”

“Then I’ll see that it’s arranged. You may go.”

He went, without further urging. She looked down, speaking reference notes into her desk recorder.

When she looked up again Starbuck stood in the doorway, bemused admiration showing in his eyes.

“I see… Well, is that all, then?” Arienrhod leaned against the cushioned back of the chair at her desk, listened to it sigh familiarly as she set it gently rocking.

“

“Is that all?”“ Starbuck laughed, with an aggrieved edge on it. “I’ve been out on the Street all day long busting my ass to please you. Don’t I bring you a big enough load of rumors? Doesn’t that bitch Blue have more trouble than she can handle already, without me buying her more? Doesn’t—”

“There was a time, you know, when that question would have cut you to the quick.” Arienrhod leaned forward again, into the cup of her hands. “Sparks Dawntreader used to sail on my smile, and quiver at my frown. If I had said “Is that all?” he would have gone down on his knees and begged me to set him another task; anything, if only it made me happy.” She set her lips in a petulant pout, but the words wrapped razors, and cut her inside.

“And you laughed at him for being a sap.” Starbuck’s black gloved fists rested on his hips defiantly. But she sat without responding, letting the words do their work; and after a moment his hands dropped, and his gaze with them. “I am what you wanted me to be,” softly, almost inaudibly. “I’m sorry if you don’t like it.”

Yes ,… and so am I. Once she had known the warmth of a forgotten summer when she looked at him, when he held her. But he had forgotten Summer, and she saw no past in his changeable green eyes; not hers, not even his own. Only her own reflection: the Snow Queen, eternal Winter. Why must I always be too strong for them? Always too strong… send me someone I can’t destroy.

“Are you sorry? Sorry you let it happen — let me become Star buck? Haven’t I done the job?” He was not defiant any more.

“No, I’m not sorry. It was inevitable.” But I am sorry that it was inevitable… She found a smile, an answer for the insecure boy who had stolen away his voice. “And you have done very well.” Too well. “Take off your mask, Starbuck.”

He reached up and pulled the black helmet off, held it under his arm. She smiled at the blaze of hair spilling out, the fair face still the same, fresh and youthful… no, not really the same. Not any more. Not any more than her own was. Her eyes stopped smiling behind her smile; she watched his smile fade in response. They looked at each other for a space of time, silently.

He broke free at last; stretched, struck a pose with feline self awareness. “You mind if I sit? It’s been a long day.”