 
New Ceres

Issue 1

Edited by Alisa Krasnostein

New Ceres Issue 1

Copyright © Twelfth Planet Press, 2006 and 2013

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#  Table of Contents

Introducing New Ceres

Fiction

"Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright" by Maxine McArthur

"Scandal at the Feast of Saturn" by Tansy Rayner Roberts

"She Walks in Beauty" by Dirk Flinthart

New Ceres Non-Fiction

Postcards from Georgiana

Tale of the Veremaurs

Acknowledgements

Also from Twelfth Planet Press on Kindle...

#  Introducing New Ceres

Meet the world of New Ceres, an exciting and dangerous place. Its water is green and its inhabitants are sophisticates.

New Ceres is precarious: its New Enlightenment constrains society as well as liberating old thoughts and literature and drinking customs. The planet plays interstellar politics to defend its independence and it recruits refugees from Old Earth and the conquered New Alliance planets to maintain some dangerous habits.

On New Ceres you will find coffee houses and highwaymen, drinks, gambling and illegal high technology.

#  "Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright" by Maxine McArthur

At the top of the incline the caddy dug in all four hooves and stopped dead; Clarissa, who had been watching Io's shaded disc rise over the darkening hills, slipped over its shoulder and slid off onto her backside.

For a moment all she could think of was the pain of rocks digging into tissue already tender from unaccustomed riding. Stupid creature. She tugged petulantly on the guide rope.

The caddy ignored her and, after snuffling hopefully among the rocks for non-existent strands of vegetation, cocked one back leg and appeared to fall into a trance.

Clarissa pulled herself upright again, one hand on the caddy's rigging. The slick soles of her new boots, guaranteed by the third-best cobbler in Prosperine, skidded disconcertingly on the rubble. This area had been re-soiled in the first wave of terraforming and should have been properly vegetated by now.

She checked the rigging. Her cases of equipment were still firmly attached. At least the superstitious villagers knew how to tie knots.

At the thought of the villagers she kicked moodily at the pebbles. If they hadn't started seeing things, she wouldn't be here. If the irresponsible Prosperine Herald hadn't pushed the 'failed terraforming' angle of the story, she'd have been at home attending the first theatre of the Season. And if that greedy fool Ignatieff hadn't eaten three helpings of what even she could see was probably untreated bovcream, she wouldn't be stuck out here without an assistant — and the sun about to set.

###

"We must be seen to take some official notice of these speculations." Miles Estaban, Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Environment in the Ministry of the Interior, steepled his gloriously manicured fingers and leaned back in his chair. Even his smile was manicured.

Clarissa shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She always felt like a truant child in front of Estaban's desk. Of real Earth timber, it occupied almost a quarter of the office with stolid black mastery.

"I just don't see why it has to come to us, sir." She sounded churlish, but couldn't stop herself. The very idea of having to leave Prosperine churned her stomach with cold dread. And at the best time of the year...

"You are the Rural Lands and Terraforming Board, are you not?" Estaban frowned.

Not me personally, Clarissa wanted to say, but didn't.

"The Minister is concerned at the speculation that the, er, creature is a native life form missed during terraforming," said Estaban.

"With respect, sir, that's not possible," said Clarissa, the prospect of missing the start of the Season lending her courage. "Even if the terraforming was not thorough, which it was, what has the creature been doing for seventy years? A large carnivore has to eat something."

"The Minister wants an investigation." Estaban's tone said this was the end of the matter.

A shaft of sunlight lay on the thick carpet, and through the open window came the sounds of people laughing in the street below. Spring had arrived.

"The local policeman thinks it was feral hounds," muttered Clarissa sullenly.

"Go and get some evidence to prove it, then."

###

One of the pebbles Clarissa had kicked struck another with a clack that sounded far too loud. It echoed in the narrow, rocky pass, then the silence grew thicker. No birdsong, even. In Prosperine sparrows and pigeons — at least, winged constructs that on New Ceres were called sparrows and pigeons — twittered and chirped at sundown.

The alien-ness of the landscape shocked her. Why? She was third-generation New Ceres, after all. But even though she had never seen the 'terra' upon which the terraforming was based, she knew it should look like the country around Prosperine and the coastal farm-belts: rolling fields of many-coloured crops, belts of leafy trees, neat strips of roads and landing zones. Banks of flowers. That country was alien no longer. Few humans could remember its original contours. The native ecosystems were gone — that's why talk of a 'leftover' lifeform was so ridiculous.

Yet here in the hills, the bones of the land showed through.

Still alien.

Waiting.

She shivered, cold now the sun was gone. Those stupid farmers in the hamlet, Black Creek, had said there was a herder's hut in the hills that she could use if she couldn't get back by dark. Follow the path, they said. The caddy knows the way.

The caddy. Why did it stop? Clarissa trod gingerly over the rocks until she could see past the creature. She kept a firm grip on the guide rope but the caddy just blinked at her with placid disinterest.

Five hundred metres or so away, the ground flattened into a valley between rocky outcrops. Upright fuzz covered it in patches, pasture perhaps, dotted with small whitish rocks. More importantly, on the far side up against the hill, a thin trail of smoke rose straight into the still air. The herder's hut, round with a conical roof like the hamlet dwellings.

If someone else was staying there, too bad. Clarissa was on official business. They would have to make other arrangements.

Then she dropped her gaze to the path ahead and groaned.

The entire slope down was covered in a mess of rocks and rubble. A landslide must have covered the path. How was she to get down?

The person in the herder's hut must have got down somehow. Or... she could go home and say she needed an aircar to access the site. But if she turned back now, she'd have to spend the night in the open. It had taken her over half a day to walk from Black Creek. If only she hadn't been so impatient! Unwilling to spend any more time than she had to in this benighted place, she'd thought she could get to the site, do her tests, and return before nightfall. She hadn't reckoned on the rough country or the glacial pace of the caddy.

She inspected the caddy's cloven hooves doubtfully. Could it clamber over rocks? A tug on the rope only made it ground both back legs firmly. You'd think the bio-designers could have come up with a construct better able to cover varied terrain. She certainly couldn't haul the equipment and pick her way. Unless...

One of the rigging packs yielded its treasure — a redcam, infrared goggles with adjustable sensor. Although it might not be able to send its recording to her workstation — satcom coverage was lousy in the provinces — it would store data until she could return and analyse it.

More importantly, the redcam could be adjusted to show minute differences in ground surface temperature, which might show her the easiest way through the rocks.

As the goggles activated, the world darkened to shades of black. Too dark... She fiddled with the controls, and made the discovery that the small whitish rocks dotted around the valley floor were alive. They showed as vaguely oval yellow glows, the smaller ones orange. Lum, maybe. Her mouth watered at the memory of roast lum in her favourite restaurant. What a pity these lums would have to be sent away and treated before they were edible...

Further adjustment of the goggles blurred everything but the rocks, a haphazard overlay of lighter grey on darker. She stared until her neck muscles cramped, but it all looked like the same layer. Then, as she tilted her neck to get some relief, she saw a patch of flatter ground on her left.

Excited, she stepped towards it, only to be brought up short by the guide rope.

"Come on." She tugged irritably at the caddy, which appeared as a bright yellow blur with a red core. It laid back its lime-green ears and edged towards the side of the canyon.

"No, stupid, you can't climb the walls!"

Using a combination of pushing, pulling, threats and cajoling, she managed to get the caddy to follow her on a tortuous course down the scree. The animal kept its balance, but Clarissa several times skinned her knees and barked her shins.

They slid the last few metres in a shower of dust and rubble. Clarissa brushed herself down, exhausted and bruised, but satisfied. She would stay the night here in the hut, do the tests early, and be back in the village by evening. Maybe even back in Prosperine.

"There's a path along the edge, y'know," said a deep, harsh voice behind her.

She spun, saw a huge bright shape, squeaked in fright, then remembered the goggles. When she snatched them off, the fading light seemed very gold and translucent. Far too beautiful to waste illuminating the bearded face of the man who stood behind her.

"You shouldn't creep up on people," she said primly.

The man still stared rudely, so she added, "I'm Clarissa de Gent, with the Board of Rural Lands and Terraforming. I've come to investigate the reports of an unknown carnivore. Have you heard of these sightings?"

The man kept staring. His gingery beard contained dry crusted things. His many layers of clothes had merged into a frayed mass. The smell that rose off him was so pungent that Clarissa felt if she put on the goggles again it might show as a lurid green or purple aura.

He cleared his throat, spat noisily to one side while somehow keeping his eyes on Clarissa, and said, "Jacob Wood."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr Wood," Clarissa's mouth said, while mentally she withdrew several steps.

Then her eyes widened. He had a gun.

She could not have mistaken it for anything else. Long, dark, with a flared muzzle, it hung in the crook of Jacob Wood's arm with smug menace.

"Is that your hut? The people in the village said I could stay the night there." She packed the redcam away in its box as she spoke.

Wood grunted, whether in assent or puzzlement, she wasn't sure. Carefully not looking at the gun, she tugged on the guide rope and started walking across the valley floor. The caddy stepped out happily now, perhaps aware that the end of the journey was near.

Jacob Wood strode beside her. "What's that you had on your head, then?" He nodded at the equipment boxes.

"It's a portable infrared scanner. A bit dated, I know, but useful."

"Do your own eyes not work well enough?" He said everything in the same argumentative, insolent tone; she couldn't tell if it was an insult or not. No wonder the government was having trouble with the farmers, if Jacob Wood was a typical example.

"Not in the dark, no," she retorted. As if to confirm this, she tripped on a tussock. "And the reports said the unidentified creature appeared on a misty day."

A thought struck her and she reluctantly looked at him directly.

"I don't suppose you saw it, did you?" No name had been mentioned in the policeman's report, just 'two farmers from Black Creek hamlet'.

"They sent one girlie with a pair of goggles to find a tyger?" Wood scoffed.

Girlie? Clarissa opened her mouth, shut it again. Decided to concentrate on the essentials.

"What do you mean, 'tyger'? There aren't any tygers on New Ceres." A tyger was an extinct Earth carnivore, she knew. Big and striped, cat family... or was it dog? No New Ceres constructs like that, anyway.

"Figure of speech," he said unexpectedly. "Meaning a dangerous animal."

"Yes, well, I expect they don't believe there's any danger. Not," she added hastily, thinking of the gun and the solitude, "that I can't protect myself."

It sounded less convincing than she'd hoped.

As they walked, the lums dotted around the valley converged on them, so that by the time they reached the other side they were surrounded by a warm, woolly mass, silent except for the occasional bleat and the patter of many feet.

The hut seemed smaller in the almost-complete darkness. She fumbled in the rigging for a lamp and switched it on. The swathe of white light gave her a glimpse of crude resaik walls, cracked and peeling, before Wood reached over and snatched the lamp from her hands.

"Hey!"

He switched it off immediately and passed it back. "No light outside. Attracts... things."

Clarissa groaned inwardly. How could a simple job become so difficult?

"Whatever you say. Thank you for bringing me to the hut. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow."

He chuckled into his beard. "Hut's open to travellers. But that don't mean I move out."

"Pardon me, but I do represent a Ministry in your planetary government," she said irritably. "The Board in the Department of the Ministry that directly administers your interests. I rather expected more respectful treatment."

The man hawked and spat again. "What's your bloody Ministry ever done for us? Grind us down, that's all."

Clarissa did not, at all, want to spend the night in a small space with this man. On the other hand... the night air was very cold. The hills stood black against a clouded, starless sky. Up in the hills something called, with a click-click-click that ended in a high-pitched squeal.

At least inside the hut she'd be warm.

"Do what you like," rumbled Wood. "I'll be putting the flock abed."

He disappeared into the darkness, followed by the shuffling mass of lums. She could hear them moving behind the hut, then with a faint hum, several long thin green lines snapped on.

"Hot corral. Battery charges during the day." Wood stood beside her again.

"Don't you have hounds?" she said. Dogs were dogs, as they'd always been, not mixed-gene constructs. Nobody had ever wanted to change them.

"Dogs died," Wood said gruffly. "Get your gear off that caddy and I'll set up a corner for it with some hay."

She hadn't thought what she'd do with the caddy overnight. Vaguely she'd imagined it would park itself somewhere, like an aircar. She certainly hadn't carried food for it — why would she, when she didn't bring food for herself, assuming her inn would provide.

Staggering slightly under the weight of the boxes and rigging — to think that the caddy carried all this and Clarissa — she stumbled up dirt steps and into the hut.

###

She had to admit, the soup was good.

She'd had an initial moment of panic — what if the soup contained untreated meat or milk? What if Jacob Wood was one of those militant Union farmers and would poison her to make a political statement? What if he was going to drug her and steal her equipment? What if...

She watched him slurp soup and dribble into his beard with evident enjoyment, and decided it was better to die full than live hungry.

Once she was full, she could pay more attention to the hut and its owner. The smell of the charcoal burning in the firepit almost cancelled out the smell of Wood himself. Despite the chimney-shaft in the roof above the pit, the walls were blackened from smoke. No windows. It was all terribly primitive. Unhealthy.

On one wall three shelves stuck out like bunks. Another shelf stuck out on the opposite wall. The gun lay beside it. Clarissa made a mental note to take the top bunk.

"Do you live here all year?" she blurted out. Nothing in the hut hinted at personal belongings. Walls, floor, cooking pot, utensils.

Wood grunted and stretched his legs beside the fire. "In winter we stay down near the river," he said.

Clarissa wondered if by 'we', he meant him and the lums. Or maybe him and the dead dogs.

"What happened to your dogs?"

He was silent for so long that she wondered if he hadn't heard. The fire popped once. A lum bleated sleepily outside.

Jacob Wood reached over and pulled a pouch from beside the stone edge of the firepit. He took a pipe from the pouch and tamped tabac into it with flat, ridged fingers wider than the bowl.

"The dogs was killed by your tyger," he said. Watery, bloodshot blue eyes watched her warily.

"My... that wasn't in the report." This is ridiculous, the Prosperine Clarissa thought. There are no tygers or anything like them on New Ceres. But the Clarissa who sat in the hut in the dark hills felt a chill of doubt.

"Would you tell me your version?" she asked humbly.

Wood lit his pipe from the coals, bending down to suck on it so that Clarissa feared his beard would catch light also.

"Why do you want to know?"

"It's my job to find out what happened."

"What'll you do if you find out?"

"When I find out, I'll report to the Board."

"What'll they do?"

"They'll... make sure everyone knows the truth." That there are no monsters. And if she found otherwise, what would the Board do then?

"You're a scientist, then?" Wood puffed a cloud of poisonous smoke up into the chimney shaft. It curled in the lamplight.

"Ye-es." She did have a degree in geomatics. Not that she'd used her knowledge for years. In fact — and the thought filled her with unaccustomed dissatisfaction — for years she'd been no more than an elevated clerk. "Can we get back to this sighting?"

"I sighted nothing," he said. "I was in here having breakfast with a mate. Heavy morning, thunder around. We hear the dogs start barking. Real barks, means an intruder."

Clarissa privately doubted an animal's noise could have meaning, but she let it pass.

"We grab the guns and go out. Mist's as thick as a citysider." He grinned sideways at her. "Couldn't see your hand held out. The dogs is barking over by the pen. That's what we thought, but you know how sound jumps around in a mist. We rush over, but the dogs aren't there. The lums is stuck up one end, shitting themselves. Never seen them so scared. Then the dogs stop barking."

Clarissa found she was holding her breath and let it out in annoyance.

"When we found them, about an hour later, they was halfway up the hill." He jerked his head in the direction of the slope behind the hut. "We only found bones and bits of fur. Whatever it was ate most of them right there."

So far, Clarissa hadn't heard anything to contradict the village policeman's theory. When she tested the area tomorrow, she'd find forensic proof.

"Don't you think it could have been feral hounds?" she said.

Wood shook his head. "No hounds around here. Nothing to eat. And we would've heard them. And my dogs would've stayed with the flock."

"The thing is, Mr Wood, we know what animals live on this planet, because we put them here. There are no large carnivorous constructs, except dogs, and no native ones."

"You sure about that?"

"Of course I'm sure. I work at the Board of Terraforming, remember? The early work was absolutely thorough. It's well documented."

"Documented. Right." Wood knocked his pipe clean on the edge of the firepit and stood up stiffly.

He beckoned Clarissa to the door. "How many of your documenters have spent time in the hills lately?"

He opened the door. Yellow lamplight illuminated the dirt path, the stubbly grasses. Nothing else.

Clarissa was about to make a remark, when the rustling started. It got closer, turned into a pittering like raindrops. Like many tiny feet.

Many, many feet. Covering the ground completely.

The things undulated in segments, but not in the familiar way of Earth arthropods. There was something asymmetrical about the movement. They were flat, but not all the time. Whiskery antennae-like appendages, all turned towards the doorway. Skittering this way...

Wood slammed the door and leaned against it as Clarissa jumped back with an involuntary cry. He didn't need to comment. Those things were alien.

"I reckon," Wood said slowly, after a while, "You can't expect a whole planet to ignore invaders."

Clarissa smoothed her jacket, trying to slow her racing heart. "It doesn't mean whatever attacked your dogs was native."

"Not if it's inconvenient for the Government, I bet it doesn't." He slapped the doorframe. "We've lived out here since the first domes. Don't you think we know more about the planet than some fat Earth politician in the capital?"

"Why do the farmers hate the Government so much?" She'd never really thought about it until now.

"Is that what they tell you?"

"Well, all the strikes, the Union, the demands..." Reported in lurid detail in the press.

"Demands to be treated fairly." His blue eyes flashed. "We slave to produce the basics of life, then the Government takes them away for treatment and taxes us on it. How would you like it if someone took the results of your work without proper payment, and didn't acknowledge the value of it?"

Happens to me all the time, thought Clarissa. When was the last occasion my name appeared on a report? I haven't had a pay rise in five years. And the work gets more boring every day.

"I might not like it," she said, "But I don't strike and put people in danger of eating untreated food."

He sniffed. "Plenty of foods don't need treating. Withholding produce is the only power we have."

At least he had some power. Clarissa's backside was sore, her feet were cold, and she'd wanted to use the outside privy again until she saw the flat things.

"I'm sure my tests will give us some answers in the morning," she said tiredly. "Where should I sleep?"

"Please yourself," growled Wood. He shuffled back to the firepit and lit his pipe again.

Ten minutes later, as she curled on the top shelf under the one thin blanket — it felt more like a sack, but she resolutely thought of it as 'blanket' — Wood's footsteps made the floor creak and something heavy landed on the foot of the shelf.

"Don't touch it," was the surly reminder.

'It' was a stone from the fire, wrapped in noisome cloths. But it kept her warm the night long.

###

She slept badly, chased in her dreams by barking, crawling monsters smelling of smoke. When she woke, Jacob Wood had gone. The fire smouldered. She helped herself to more soup. It had thickened during the night and now resembled porridge.

Then she looked around for her equipment... gone! Cursing Wood for a thief and herself for a gullible fool, she threw open the door.

The caddy raised its head in surprise, ears flicking. It stood tethered at the bottom of the path, her gear loaded and ready.

Sorry, Mr Jacob Wood. Clarissa swallowed the bad taste of her own prejudice and closed the door quietly behind her.

The caddy nuzzled her arm when she untied the guide rope, as if it recognised her. Tentatively she scratched behind its ears, wrinkling her nose at the greasy feel of the coarse, curly hair, then smiling as it leaned into the scratching with its eyes half-closed in pleasure.

"Come on, then."

She picked her way along the track that led around the hut to the hill behind. That was where Wood had found his dogs.

The caddy ambled beside her, breaking into a few steps of trot when she got ahead. Perhaps Wood's hay had done it some good.

Low cloud hung over the valley and concealed the tops of the hills. The dull grey light was almost as dark as evening. Clarissa felt she walked in the bottom of a covered bowl. A cold, clammy bowl. But the severe, rocky landscape didn't bother her as much today, even after the scares of last night. It was as if by sleeping here, she had innoculated herself.

She began taking samples and readings at the base of the hill. Never mind Wood's opinion of terraformers. Never mind those skittering creatures. First get the facts.

The caddy stood patiently as she stopped every twenty metres or so to unload and reload.

The readings were what she'd expected — mainly Earth-derived vegetation and soil organisms, with the usual sprinkling of stubborn New Ceres microbes and lichens, especially on the rock surfaces. She dutifully recorded lum droppings and traces of lum genetic material in their footprints and stray curls of wool. She even found human genetic material on a flat rock halfway up the hill where, judging by a charred piece of earth close by, Wood or another herder was in the habit of stopping for a break.

As she reloaded the scanners, she noticed that the caddy's coat was covered in fine droplets. Her own hair, too, was soaked. While she had been intent on recording data, the clouds had dropped further. Should she go back to the hut?

She stood irresolute, alone in a damp grey world of silence. The track below her and the rocks on the valley floor were distinct, but ahead she could see only a few metres.

No, she'd come this far. The place Wood mentioned should be about here, 'halfway up' the hill. She tugged on the caddy's guide rope. It dawdled reluctantly now. About fifty metres on, the path widened into a flat area in the lee of several boulders. Clarissa scraped samples from the boulders and dirt, and from a flat stone beside the boulders.

Aha. She squinted at the scanner screen in the gloom, lightened the backdrop. Her fingers, numb with cold, tried one adjustment, then another. An unknown element interfered with the familiar Earth-derivative and native material, including particles of canine hair and skin.

The scanner might be malfunctioning. She wiped condensation off the screen again. It wasn't designed to function wet. Either that, or the early terraformers had missed something. Could the 'tyger' really exist?

Thunder rumbled in the distance. The caddy stirred, flicking its ears uneasily.

She was no bioengineer, for sure, but that unknown material looked like nothing she'd ever seen in the Board's database, for Earth or New Ceres. Could it have somehow come from the other New Ceres landmass?

The caddy snorted and threw up its head, hooves skidding as it tried to spin around but was brought up by the guide rope Clarissa had looped over a rock. Gone was the placid pack-animal. In its place was a rolling-eyed ball of panicked muscle and flying hooves.

"Stop! Steady... oh shit." Clarissa tried to catch her boxes as the rigging buckles snapped and her luggage slid off.

The straps caught around the caddy's legs, forcing it to stand, sides heaving and breath pumping. It was shaking, and both ears pointed stiffly up the hill.

"Damn, damn." Clarissa gathered the equipment together. "Stupid animal, it's only thunder."

The lid had come off the soil sample cases, and samples lay scattered. Stupid, stupid animal. Clarissa picked up the samples carefully, fuming. Animals were supposed to be in tune with nature, not jumping at every shadow.

Like when it tried to tell you about the path around the scree? said a cautious voice inside her.

What was it looking at?

She clicked the lid onto the box and stared up the hill. Cloud rolled over the uneven ground, softening the outline of the boulders and making it impossible to see anything clearly.

She reached out slowly and patted the caddy's neck, warm and damp with sweat. It kept shivering.

"It's all right, nothing's there."

As soon as she said it, she knew it was a lie. Something waited in the cloud. Its presence reached out and tickled the nape of her neck.

"Whoever you are, I'm armed!" Clarissa yelled into the murk. If only she could see...

The goggles! She fumbled in the box, dragged them out and over her head, ignoring the pain of pulled hair. She swiftly adjusted them so that the rainbow shape of the caddy was clear. Now she'd find whatever it was.

She swept the area in a slow arc, from the jumble of boulders on her left, up and across the hill, back down to where the path rose behind her. Nothing.

She tried again. Not one yellow flicker, not even a blue or green glow. If there was anything alive out there, it wasn't producing any heat. Impossible.

A cough, wet and throaty. Quick thuds.

The caddy squealed and plunged away, she could see the flush of energy as it tried to untangle its legs, squealing all the time.

"What is it, what..." She looked everywhere, but no colours except the caddy.

Something buffeted her. A terrible smell, sweet-sour ammonia. She screamed, too, swung around but there was nothing there, what's happening...

The caddy's squeal choked. It lay on the ground, threshing, then stilled as she watched. Its limbs grew yellower.

Clarissa tore off the goggles, and screamed again, staggering back.

The tyger was real. It had teeth, lots of them, in a jaw that was in the wrong place on a body, not a head, overlapping scaly skin and big jumping legs and small clawed legs.

Her ears buzzed. If she fainted, at least she wouldn't feel any pain.

It spoke. Hard syllables crackling up and down a non-human scale.

No stripes, she thought hysterically. It's not really a tyger.

It spoke again. Only this time in a human voice. "...preserve anonymity at all costs." Followed by more crackly alien sounds.

Clarissa wondered if she were going mad. The human voice was Assistant Secretary Estaban.

Then she realised that the voice came from a line of metal seemingly embedded in the creature's ridged skin. A communication device?

"Help!" she tried. "Don't hurt me!"

The creature made a rumbling sound in the back of its body and crept closer. She couldn't take her eyes off the teeth, or rather, long serrated lines of gum. Blood and pieces of grey hair stuck to them.

Alien voices creaked from the metal device. Then Estaban again. "I'm terribly sorry about this, de Gent. We can't risk anyone else knowing. Nothing personal."

The relief Clarissa had felt dissolved into cold fear again. "What do you mean? What's going on?"

"We didn't expect you to find anything." Estaban's voice was overlaid by the alien sounds. Crackling, abrupt sounds, like an order.

The foul-smelling thing seemed to grin at her. She didn't bother stepping back. Estaban was playing some game with these... aliens. Real aliens, not New Ceres natives.

Her life did not flash before her, but she did think hopelessly of the time she'd wasted. All the things she'd have no chance of doing...

The creature coughed, like when it attacked the caddy. She felt sorry for the caddy. If only she'd fastened those rigging buckles properly.

She shut her eyes, mostly against the sting of the ammonia.

Then fell backwards, sharp pain in her ears from the sound of the explosion.

Explosion?

Cautiously she opened her eyes. The alien lay twitching in a mass of purplish liquid. It half-rose, and another explosion echoed around the hills. Its jaws split and bits of flesh and liquid spattered her legs.

Jacob Wood smiled grimly at her. "Told you we had tygers."

###

She couldn't stop crying, to her embarrassment, and blurted out the story of the voices and Estaban. Wood brought his boot down hard on the communication device and shot it again for good measure. Then he retrieved the bloodstained rigging from the caddy's body, clicking his tongue at the waste.

"What will I do?" wailed Clarissa. "I can't go back to Prosperine." "You said they want to hush this up, right?" Wood squatted beside her. "They won't follow it up. If you go to ground for a while, you'll be right. Get a new identity."

"But where?" She wiped her face forlornly.

He patted her back clumsily. "It's a big planet."

# "Scandal at the Feast of Saturn" by Tansy Rayner Roberts

With apologies to Agatha Christie for the theft of her Christmas pudding.

Part I: Coffee and Scandal

You could tell by the look on her face that Mme. Valeria Marchmont thought she had done something exceedingly original. Her dining parlour was decked out as one of Prosperine's more upmarket coffee houses, complete with trestle tables, newspapers and an official food license displayed above the counter.

My mistress, Duchesse Claudine Augustille Recherche Dubois — known more generally as 'La Duchesse' or, in certain circles, 'The Great Detective' — smiled, and refrained from mentioning that she had attended several parties employing exactly this theme in the last week.

Do not think that by 'mistress' I mean that I am La Duchesse's lover. I serve her in the far more useful position of secretary, biographer and occasional source for scandal. Among La Duchesse's peers, it is necessary to create at least three major scandals a year in order to preserve some degree of social status. Having a male secretary who sleeps, always, in an adjoining room to my lady serves as a kind of default scandal, freeing up her time from the usual tiresome amours with married government officials, starving artists and philandering rakes.

As Mme. Marchmont swung away from La Duchesse to greet her other guests, I took the opportunity to enquire (discreetly, of course) whether our hostess had yet revealed why she had invited us to her country house party.

"Afraid not, Pepin," said La Duchesse. We'll have to settle our wager later."

During our long and uncomfortable journey in the hired phaeton, we had debated why the wife of the Anglais Ambassador was so eager to include us both (and at such short notice) in what is usually a family festival. I was convinced that our hostess intended to use this weekend to confront the long-established rumour that her husband had conducted an affair with La Duchesse one year earlier; La Duchesse maintained that Mme. Marchmont was too obsessed with propriety to tread such dangerous social territory, and that we had instead been summoned to solve a murder, or clear up some equally embarrassing mystery within the family.

"It must be something interesting, Pepin," she had stated with barely-suppressed glee, "If my fame for swift and faultlessly discreet investigations has outweighed Valeria's intolerance for scandalous women like myself."

Unwisely, I had wagered thirty sous on the matter.

Mme. Marchmont ushered her other houseguests towards us. "May I introduce Bob and Catherine Stevens? Recently from Earth," she added with exaggerated discretion.

"Refugees," said Bob Stevens, bluntly. "Ms. Marchmont was kind enough to take us into her household until we get on our feet again."

We all smiled, as if we did not know that the high public status of the Ambassador made it impossible for Mme. Marchmont to not take in a refugee family. La Duchesse's eccentric habit of living in hotels rather than maintaining properties in all of her favourite cities (except the mansion in New Switzerland where she kept her imaginary invalid husband) was the only reason that she had been spared a similar display of public duty.

We all sat at the 'public table' in the centre of the room. Mme. Marchmont clapped her hands, and her trained baristas came forward to pour coffee from shoulder-height into elegant dishes.

"Such a tragedy, what happened to Earth," said La Duchesse, intellectually curious rather than actually sympathetic. "But what an adventure, to start again on another world. What do you think of New Ceres, my dear?" she asked Catherine Stevens.

"It's beautiful," said the Earth woman and then, falling for La Duchesse's expression of interest, "but so overwhelming. It's like stepping back through time!"

Bob Stevens took a loud slurp of coffee. "Just how long has it been the Eighteenth Century around here anyway?"

There was a tangible moment of silence in the room. Catherine reddened a little, as if aware of her husband's faux pas, but Bob simply looked past the women to exchange a 'men of the world' look with me. I smiled politely, and inhaled the heavily spiced aroma from my own dish.

"Nearly two hundred years," said M. Ambrose Marchmont, the Anglais Ambassador to Europa, as he entered the room with his sixteen-year-old daughter Sarah on his arm. "Give or take. I'm afraid we've grown rather attached to it."

His wife laughed dutifully, a beat too late. Then, quite casually: "Have you met the Duchesse Recherche Dubois, my dear, and her secretary M. Pepin?"

The ambassador took this with reasonable humour. "My dear Duchesse, how nice to see you again," he said, kissing La Duchesse's hand with the exact quantity of briskness required. "And... Pepin, is it? A pleasure," as if he and I had not broken our fast together on numerous occasions, consuming fruit and rolls while we waited for our mistress to arise from her slumber.

"And now we are seven," said Mme. Marchmont, sounding pleased with herself.

La Duchesse managed valiantly not to roll her eyes. She quite despises the outdated tradition that the number of dining guests be always divisible by seven, and takes pleasure in thwarting such attempts at any opportunity. She returned to the discussion with Catherine Stevens. "What did you do, my dear, back on Earth?" It was a question that showed her expertise in Earth matters; one would never ask such a question of a New Ceresian in our circles. Being is far more important than doing, unless one is civilised enough to perform some kind of artistic endeavour.

"Software engineer," grunted Bob Stevens, before realising the question had not been directed at him. "Lot of use that is in a theme park like this," he added beneath his breath. No wonder he was angry at the universe — not only was he now a planetary orphan dependent on the kindness of strangers, but his professional skills had been rendered useless as soon as he set foot on this world.

"I was a writer," said Catherine.

"Still are, surely?" said La Duchesse.

"Well, yes... they confiscated my latest novel at Customs," Catherine said forcefully. "I mean, not just the data crystals and e-book library, I expected that, but they took the manuscript too! I had been hoping it might be of interest to people here, that it might help to establish my credentials..."

"Was it scandalous?" asked La Duchesse.

"I wouldn't have thought so."

"Sex and spaceships," said Bob disparagingly. "Popular sort of trash for women with too much time on their hands." He directed his comments at the Ambassador and myself, and we were both gentlemanly enough to smile politely and say nothing.

"Well, no one minds sex around here," said La Duchesse to Catherine. "It will be the spaceships that were the problem. Anything smacking of scientifiction is illegal on New Ceres, most days of the year. Spaceport or no spaceport, we're not supposed to acknowledge that such things exist."

"Not until tomorrow, in any case," said the Anglais Ambassador with a grin.

La Duchesse laughed. "Twelve blissful days of being able to read a 'Lady Heinlein' novel without fearing persecution."

"As if you fear anything," he shot back, then covered the slip of familiarity with a deep draught from his coffee dish.

"What's so special about tomorrow?" asked Bob Stevens.

"The Saturnalis, of course," said young Sarah Marchmont, her eyes sparkling.

"Until Twelfth Night, the world is allowed to be topsy turvy — at home in Anglais, the servants dress up as masters and mistresses, and husbands swap clothing with their wives. The conventions are a little less personal here on Europa," said the Anglais Ambassador, smiling fondly at his daughter. "But the restrictions against technology and offworld literature are relaxed at this time. The Prosperine sky is a riot of airships and light-shuttles — and the Conservatives grind their teeth."

"So I could have a career as a... scientifiction author for twelve days out of the year?' said Catherine Stevens. "I think I'll stick to the sex. After a few months here I should be able to try my hand at stories set on New Ceres. I've been brushing up on my Regency literature."

"Excellent," said La Duchesse. "And in the mean time, you could always take a page out of the book of the pseudonymous 'Lady Heinlein'. Her techno-romances have sparked off a thriving black market in Prosperine in the last few years."

"I didn't hear that," said the Ambassador.

La Duchesse concealed a smile. "I'll repeat the suggestion at breakfast, your Grace, when the subject of the black market will have temporarily misplaced its illegality."

"Did someone say black market?" hallooed a false male voice in the hall. "I knew this was the right party for us, Savon!"

There was no mistaking Everard Dray, the most infamous fop of both continents. He entered the room in a cloud of caramel perfume, ribbons and powdered wig gleaming. "Sister, I brought a friend to join us. You don't mind?"

Mme. Marchmont's face was a picture of horror as a second man — just as carefully dressed as Everard, but far less theatrical — entered the room. Her perfectly calculated party of seven had suddenly exploded into a party of nine — an unlucky number in Anglais. "Everard, I wasn't expecting you back from the health spa until Twelfth Night."

"Ye-es," said Everard. "But there's only so much seaweed and high-priced mud a man can slap on his nether regions, you know. And then I met my new best friend here — may I introduce Drusus Savon, by the way — and he mentioned a rumour that the Great Detective was spending Saturnalis at my very own sister's house! I couldn't resist that, now could I? How dee do, Claudine."

"Charmed as ever, Everard," said my mistress with a knowing smile. She enjoys the pretention of fops. They take the pressure off her to be the most outrageous person in the room.

"Oh, I say," said Everard, staring around as if he had only just noticed the decor. "How daringly gauche, Valeria. Easy to squeeze in another guest if you're not bothering with chairs and seating arrangements and all that fizz." He sounded almost disappointed.

"Kind of you to include me, Mme. Marchmont," said Drusus Savon as he chose — deliberately — to sit beside La Duchesse.

Everard squeezed in beside Savon, and clapped with delight as the baristas came forward to pour his coffee. "Do we have syrups? I'll have a vanilla musk, my sweetheart," he told the maid who was playing a waitress. "And easy on the cinnamon — it gives me wind."

"I can't quite place your accent, M. Savon," said Mme. Marchmont. "Are you Anglaise or Europan?"

"Martian, madame," said Drusus Savon. I myself had already guessed his offworld origins from his manner: as if he were tensing himself to run for the door at any moment. He was not quite as uncomfortable in his garb as Bob Stevens, but still wore the cravat and pantaloons as if they were a somewhat bewildering costume.

"Savon here was wild to meet the scandalous Great Detective," volunteered Everard. "Couldn't disappoint the old boy, not when he'd just beaten me dry at whist."

"Scandalous — me?" said La Duchesse. "Hardly that. I'm a staid old lady by the standards of your set. The days are gone when my slightly outré neckline caused comment in any fashionable circles."

"I'm sure you're too modest, La Duchesse," said Drusus Savon. "Why, they don't bother to print an afternoon edition of the Prosperine Times unless there's a mention of your latest hairstyle in the social pages."

A look of annoyance crossed Everard's face, but he covered with a veneer of bitchiness. "Didn't you say the same thing about me last week?"

"Too good a compliment to waste on a man," smiled La Duchesse, though her eyes revealed that she wasn't fooled by Savon's flattery.

I myself had long since ceased listening to the girlish prattle of Sarah Marchmont (who was attempting somewhat clumsily to flirt with me) in observing this flinty exchange. Could Everard Dray have something to do with our unexpected invitation? Having now met Mme. Marchmont, I had no doubt that her natural inclinations railed against bringing my mistress within a hundred miles of her husband. More than that — Mme. Marchmont was very pale, as if her brother's arrival was personally devastating to her.

The waiters brought trays of food to the table. In keeping with the theme, these were the usual snacks of a coffee house: nut pastries, chilled pottage and the like. Bob Stevens looked quite glum at the slight repast, but made up for it by grabbing four pastries at once.

Everard drained his coffee dish to the dregs with deliberate uncouthness, and gestured to the waitress for a refill. "I must say, this makes a nice change from the usual culinary bore that we're accustomed to at the Feast of Saturn. No stodgy pudding or dry old poultry dishes."

Mme. Marchmont gave him a dirty look. "We shall be having a formal Saturnalis dinner tomorrow, Everard."

"Excellent," he said without missing a beat. "And as the resident youngster, I hope my niece is planning something splendid in the way of a festive gambol?"

Sarah Marchmont looked startled at being addressed. "Me, Uncle Evie?"

"Come now," said Everard. "If Saturnalis isn't an excuse for grossly inappropriate theatrics from the younger generation, what is it good for?"

"I hardly think that would be appropriate," Mme. Marchmont said stiffly. "The child tells stories enough without being encouraged."

When her mother wasn't looking, Sarah made a face at her.

La Duchesse motioned for a refill of her own dish, and sat unflinching as the scalding hot coffee was poured from two feet above her shoulder. "Personally," she said, "I consider any festive occasion a dismal failure unless at least three of the party have been revealed as secret lovers, three more accused of being golden priests, government agents or 'Lady Heinlein' in diguise, and a further three criticised for wearing unfashionable perfume."

"Are you 'Lady Heinlein'?" asked Drusus Savon, only half joking.

La Duchesse sipped her coffee. "My dear, if I had the time for writing novels, I could rule the world."

###

Late that evening, I knocked discreetly on the interconnecting door between my chamber and that of La Duchesse. As usual, she was enmeshed in the chaos that is the inevitable result of removing a hairpiece without patience, expertise or a personal maid.

My mistress loses maids the way other women lose gloves, and I have long since learned to attend to her hair myself.

"Did our esteemed hostess finally admit why she had invited us?" I asked, taking her comb from her and attempting to repair the worst of the damage.

"You owe me thirty sous, Pip. We have been commissioned to solve a mystery."

"An interesting case?"

"No, a dreadful bore. Her family ruby has gone missing, can you believe it? It's like something out of a penny novel. Valeria is intriguingly distressed about the matter — yet she expects me to solve it without involving the servants, or mentioning the existence of the jewel to anyone up to and including her own family members."

"Not actually a family ruby, then," I said.

"Oh, I agree, a data crystal is far more likely. That's why she needs the case solved between now and Twelfth Night — so she can be certain I won't report the thing to the golden priests. I asked the wretched woman how she expected me to solve the case without questioning anyone and she said, "Claudine, I thought you had a reputation for working miracles."

I smiled a little to myself. "Not untrue, my lady."

"I'll warrant she suspects her refugees and won't admit it. I finally told her she was being ridiculous, and I couldn't help her. You and I will escape as soon as propriety allows — which, unfortunately for us, is after this dreadful dinner tomorrow." La Duchesse shuddered. "Christmas pudding should have been outlawed centuries ago, I can't think why the settlers from Earth thought it was a good idea to import that particular tradition. We may as well eat each other's livers and be done with it."

"Did anyone overhear your discussion with Mme. Marchmont?' I asked.

"You mean Everard's unconvincing friend Savon? He made a good attempt, but my darling Ambassador asked him a question about Martian football at the last moment, and he was quite distracted away from us. You've been worried about him, I suppose." It wasn't a question.

"He has the eyes of a policeman," I said grimly. "And — Mars."

Her cool fingers reached out and gripped mine. "Stiff upper lip, Pepin."

My mistress always knows exactly what to say.

Part II — Death, and Pudding

Everard Dray was found dead at the foot of the stairs, shortly before breakfast. I heard Sarah Marchmont's scream as she discovered the body, and then the slamming of doors as various people (including La Duchesse) ran to deal with the situation.

I dressed quickly but carefully before stepping out on the landing, still tying my cravat.

"Took you a while," noticed Drusus Savon. He wore an embroidered dressing gown.

"My lady attracts murders like a dog attracts fleas," I said. "I have learned that it is best, at such times, to be fully clothed."

"Hard not to be sorry that your mistress thinks differently," said Savon. From where we stood, we both had an excellent view down at the negligee-wrapped cleavage of La Duchesse, as she leaned over the body.

The Anglais Ambassador emerged from his own bedroom at the far end of the wing, and strolled across to join us both. Like myself, he had taken the time to dress properly. "Everard's gambol, I suppose," he said in annoyance.

Drusus Savon leaned on the polished stair rail. "I was expecting something rather more original."

"Perhaps he couldn't get his scriptwriter to do a rush job?" I suggested, earning a bark of laughter from them both.

From the hall below, La Duchesse regarded us with great irritation. "You do realise this man is actually dead?"

Sarah Marchmont let out a stream of giggles. "It's a joke, don't you see? A Saturnalian gambol for the Great Detective! It was Uncle Evie's idea."

"Hilarious," said my mistress. "I particularly like the way he's managed to stop both his breathing and his pulse. Such an eye for detail."

###

As the household waited for La Policia, it fell to Drusus Savon and myself to carry the perfumed but undeniably deceased gentleman on a makeshift stretcher from the hallway to a suitably quiet place which turned out to be a glass-walled observatory filled with exotic plants.

"If Sarah Marchmont saw her uncle lie down to stage the murder," he said, "There was a very small window of opportunity for anyone to kill him. Particularly since Sarah was in the hallway the whole time, and only took her eyes off her uncle when she closed her eyes to scream."

Assuming, of course, it was not Sarah who had killed him — a possibility no one had yet voiced.

"La Duchesse will solve the matter to everyone's satisfaction," I said aloud, as we manoeuvred our burden towards a clear table.

"Funny," said Drusus Savon. "I was just thinking that the person with the easiest means of killing him was La Duchesse herself, when she leaned over the body. Is she trustworthy, your mistress?"

"Always," I said, swallowing the natural qualification of, Except when she is up to something.

"Then why are you both pretending that you are a man?"

I dropped my end of the stretcher, and Everard's cold dead corpse slid on to the tiled floor. "What did you say?" Even in shock, my voice did not rise from its calculated deeper tones. I had been doing this a very long time.

"I know what you are," said Savon. "Did Everard Dray know your secret? Is that why you and your mistress decided he had to die?"

I turned and walked out of the observatory.

###

I found La Duchesse in Everard Dray's bedchamber. "Poison," she said as I entered. "That much is evident. But how was it applied, Pip? I was certainly in an excellent position to jab the poor man with a syringe, but I would rather we considered some alternative suspects to myself."

I thought of Drusus Savon, watching from the balcony. "A blowpipe?"

"Excellent," said La Duchesse, rummaging through a tallboy drawer. "But why no dart on the body? Oh, of course — I removed it. At least that demotes me from murderer to accomplice." She held up a newspaper clipping from the society pages of the Prosperine Times, and read it aloud. "Spotted at Madame D'Avignon's salon, the ever scandalous Everard Dray, indecently clad in the golden robes of a priest."

"He liked to court controversy," I noted.

"Masquerading as a Suncatcher is more than controversial, Pepin. It's positively irreligious. Valeria must be constantly holding her breath, wondering what scandal he will bring upon the family next." She held up a sheaf of receipts. "Interesting, then, that she seems to be funding his lifestyle. In the last month, she has signed her names to a dozen of his bills — to his tailor, to his bookie, and to that very extravagant spa that was supposed to keep him occupied over the Saturnal."

"Perhaps she was paying him to stay away?"

"But why now — to keep him away from me? From the refugees?"

"How can it have been poison?" I said suddenly. "Surely he wouldn't have died so quietly — Sarah Marchmont barely took her eye off him. Most poisons bring frothing at the mouth, or convulsions, a gasp or two at the very least."

"Oh, you noticed that?" said my mistress with a secret smile. "Well done, Pepin."

"A stroke or an embolism?" I proposed. "The excitement at the joke over-stimulated him... Natural causes."

My mistress laughed. "Darling Pepin, always finding order in the madness. Naturally there doesn't have to be a murderer. And yet... somehow, there always is. Anyway, didn't you smell the body?"

"Kimchee blossom," I said. "What of it? A man like Everard Dray always tricks himself out with the most fashionable perfumes."

"Exactly. As you should well be aware, Pip, the fashion for gentlemen's scents this season is towards the caramel, almond, vanilla... kimchee blossom isn't even chic for grannies and kitchen maids. No, the how of the thing isn't worrying me. It's the why that I'm still working on."

"Am I intruding?" asked Drusus Savon, in the doorway.

"Of course you are," said my mistress, the laughter fading from her voice. "That's your job, isn't it?"

He tilted his head a little. "You think I belong to La Policia, or some other agency of your government? I am sorry to disappoint you, Madame."

"Not them, perhaps," said La Duchesse. "What's the Martian equivalent, Pepin?" Too late, she saw the danger in my eyes. "Ridiculous of me. How would you know?"

"She would know," said Drusus Savon, "because Mademoiselle Pepin's father is the Chief of the Justice Ministry on Mars, and he is personally responsible for the Martian Investigative Cohorts. But I'm not one of them, either."

La Duchesse's eyes went very cold. "So what are you, M. Savon, apart from an impostor and a bully?"

"I am a friend," said Drusus Savon. "Believe it or not. And now, Mme. Marchmont wishes us to gather in the dining room for the Feast of Saturn while the police examine the body."

"How pragmatic of Mme. Marchmont," said La Duchesse. "An extravagant five course meal is just what we all need." She held her hand to me, and I escorted her to dinner.

###

Mme. Marchmont had embraced the traditions of the Feast of Saturn with the same gusto as with the coffee house reproduction. The windows of the dining parlour were decked with boughs of greenery, and the centrepiece of the room was an immense tub containing a yew tree (an actual Earth type yew rather than the usual New Ceresian plantation pine) from which hung sweetmeats, almonds in paper, silvered raisins and small lighted candles.

Mme. Marchmont herself, garbed in a gown with sleeves so up-to-the-minute in fashion that she must have had it delivered that very morning from Prosperine, presided over the table with a satisfied air, possibly because the death of her brother had ensured that her Feast of Saturn was, if not the fashionable seven, then at least not the deeply unfashionable nine.

Now, there was a motive for murder I hadn't previously considered.

Far from the sparse pickings of the night before, the table groaned with a mixture of exotic and traditional dishes. Catherine Stevens and Drusus Savon both looked startled at the gross array of food, though Bob Stevens — in no better mood than the night before — merely grunted at the vision of honeyed goose, ladypork, figs-in-jelly and spicy Minervan lump-eel pie.

As is traditional, the 'Christmas pudding' emerged at the time when all diners were least prepared to deal with it, somewhere between the third and fourth courses. It loomed, black and ominous, from its bright silver platter, and the Ambassador (no more enthusiastic than the rest of us) was handed a matching silver knife with which to carve the beast.

It was at this moment that the local representative of La Policia arrived, a sergeant in a rumpled uniform. "Our physician's having a look at the body now," he announced. "Not that there will be much point to it, but your honour may find his report useful." He nodded to the Ambassador.

"Would you like some dinner?" the Ambassador offered politely, oblivious to his wife's tension about seating arrangements. "A slice of pudding, perhaps? Or some turkey croquembouche?"

The sergeant wore the expression of a man who had never seen poultry served in caramelised pastry. "No thank you, your honour. My wife's got my dinner on at home, and I'll be off in a minute or two."

"So what do you mean, nothing you can do?" said Bob Stevens belligerently. "Don't you people investigate murder?"

"Not in this instance," said the sergeant. "Not with the Lady-Governor's new law going into effect as of midnight last night."

"Good grief," said the Ambassador. "She hasn't actually passed The Diplomatic Land Act, has she?"

"Yes, your honour. This property of yours is now Diplomatic Land and that means La Policia have no grounds to investigate any crimes committed here, saving for High Treason and Contraband Smuggling. Murder's right out — if you do figure out who did it, though, you can file a civil suit."

"Sue a murderer for depriving me of my brother-in-law," said the Ambassador. "How novel."

Bob Stevens, the only one of us who had made inroads on his pudding, started coughing.

"As you were, sirs and madames," said the sergeant, making to leave.

"Bob?" said Catherine Stevens, looking alarmed as her husband continued to cough violently. "I think he's choking!"

With a swift movement, the Policia sergeant stepped behind the large man and gave him a solid whack between the shoulder blades. Something hard and shiny flew out of Bob's mouth and landed with a ringing sound in La Duchesse's pudding dish.

It looked like a ruby the size of a thumbnail.

"My," said La Duchesse, wiping the gem with her napkin.

"That's rum, that is," said the sergeant. "My wife only ever puts a silver sou in our pud."

La Duchesse held the ruby up to the light. "Is this yours, Valeria?"

"I've never seen it before," said Mme. Marchmont.

"Oh really?" La Duchesse flicked her finger back and forth. If it were an illegal offworld data crystal rather than a family jewel, she was awfully close to the release catch. "How interesting."

"Ah, you're all here!" said a cheerful voice that belonged — it seemed — to the Policia physician. "Doctor Tilyard, how-dee-do. Anyone interested in how this Everard fellow died?"

"I know I am," said Drusus Savon.

"Oh, yes," said La Duchesse, practically batting her eyelashes. "Do tell."

"Aspherida," said the physician, sounding proud of himself. "A nicely rare poison, what with it being so hard to get, and only working on about a quarter of the population. It was the pink stains on the fingertips that gave it away — hard to spot if you're not looking for them."

La Duchesse beamed at him. "It would have been the smell, of course, that alerted you to the possibility. An ordinary person might dismiss it as kimchee blossom, a common perfume, but a smart man like yourself would know that a famous dandy like Everard would never wear a common perfume."

The physician looked a little startled, and rather less pleased with himself. "As you say, Madame."

"Aspherida," she mused. "It induces stroke, doesn't it? No wonder he died so quietly. I didn't know anyone used the stuff outside stage farces. How exactly did he come into contact with it? His morning coffee, a poisoned glove?"

"Actually, I think I found the culprit in his pyjama pocket," said the physician, lifting up a glass jar containing a second, identical ruby.

Bob Stevens almost choked for a second time.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry," said La Duchesse. "If the one in the pudding was contaminated with Aspherida, several of us would be dead by now. Those with a genetic link to Everard would be the most likely victims — am I right, Valeria?"

"I don't know why you're asking me," said our hostess, sounding affronted.

La Duchesse dropped the pudding ruby on the hardwood floor. "Oops," she said with great emphasis.

A page of holographic text rose from the gem and the name 'Lady Heinlein' scrolled across the empty air.

The sergeant coughed. "And that would be a properly registered piece of technology for the Saturnal, would it, your grace?"

"Indeed," said the Ambassador between clenched teeth. "I'm sure that when you report it to the Lumoscenti after Twelfth Night, and they come to investigate the matter, they will find that I hold the appropriate paperwork."

"Of course, your grace," said the sergeant. "I'd... well, you know how them golden monks are, sir. Doesn't pay to try and keep things from them."

"I quite understand," said the Ambassador. He rose from the table politely. "If I might see you gentlemen out?"

There was silence at the table for a minute or two. Mme. Marchmont's knuckles had gone white. Sarah Marchmont was staring at the flickering text of the 'ruby' data crystal that bore the name 'Lady Heinlein'.

"Is this another one of those gambols you guys are so fond of?" Bob Stevens asked.

"That depends on your definition of entertainment," La Duchesse murmured.

The Ambassador returned. "What exactly has been going on in my household?" he demanded to the room at large.

La Duchesse coughed discreetly. "I might be able to suggest an explanation."

"This isn't one of your cases, Claudine."

"Actually, it is. But that's hardly the point." La Duchesse picked up the fallen data crystal and placed it on the table so that the holographic text scrolled out across the Saturnalis dishes. "There are three mysteries here. One: how did this data crystal containing a new 'Lady Heinlein' novella, if I'm not mistaken, end up in the Christmas pudding? Two: who killed Everard Dray? And three: why, to both of the above? Am I right in thinking that this pudding was not originally intended for the Feast of Saturn?" She looked beyond the expectant faces to the nearest serving maid.

"Permission to speak, Molly," said the Ambassador.

"Um," said the girl. "That's right, Madame. Something went wonky with the mould, and the pudding broke up on the plate. So Cook got out the spare."

"And that is the answer to part of question three, why anyone would conceal a data crystal in a pudding," said my mistress triumphantly. "They thought it would stay safely undetected in there until Twelfth Night, when presumably they wished it to come to light. Now to question one: who? I would think we can limit this to those resident in the house on the day that the puddings were mixed and boiled."

"That was before we arrived," said Catherine Stevens. "I remember, they were hanging in the back stair when Mme. Marchmont showed us around the house. That was three weeks ago."

"Excellent," said La Duchesse. "Was Everard Dray visiting when the puddings were mixed?" Again, she addressed the question to Molly the maid.

"Yes, Madame. He's always ducking in and out of the kitchen — I remember him trying to get a taste of the mixture, and Cook rapped him over the knuckles with her wooden spoon." Molly giggled, and then suddenly went quite teary.

"There we are," said La Duchesse. "I find it most likely that the culprit in this case was Everard himself."

"Are you suggesting that my brother was a smuggler of contraband?" asked Mme. Marchmont in outrage.

"No, Valeria," said my mistress patiently. "I think he was a blackmailer. I'm suggesting that you are the smuggler of contraband, though obviously I haven't explained that part yet."

"I think you had better, then," said the Ambassador. "Never mind the dramatic tension, Claudine. Plain and simple language will do."

"Plain and simple," agreed the Great Detective. "It's all about the timing, Ambrose. Your brother-in-law discovered this data crystal somewhere in the house, before Saturnalis rendered the thing temporarily legal. Everard hid the thing in the Twelfth Night pudding, knowing it would not come to light until a few hours before the anti-tech sanction descended once more. He then used his knowledge of the crystal's existence to tease his sister mercilessly." She glanced briefly at Mme. Marchmont. "I don't believe that he knew of its true significance, or even he might not have been so frivolous. He blackmailed Valeria into giving him treats — a new suit of clothes, a holiday at a spa, his bills paid for a month."

"Your allegations are insulting," said Mme. Marchmont stiffly.

"But at the spa," my mistress continued, "Everard met Drusus Savon. Savon was interested in meeting me... for reasons of his own... and having discovered that I was due to stay here over Saturnalis, he introduced himself to Everard in the hope of procuring an invitation. When Everard heard that I was a guest in his sister's household, he guessed she had hired me to locate her 'missing jewel' and hastened back here to join the fun."

"So these data crystals are yours?" the Ambassador said, rounding on his wife. "Saturnalis or no Saturnalis, I'm going to have to get forged papers to justify the damn things to the Suncatchers — do you realise what kind of a position you've put me in?"

Mme. Marchmont burst into tears.

"Don't shout at her!" said Sarah Marchmont. "It's not her fault, it's mine! I'm 'Lady Heinlein', so there!"

There was a long pause.

"Well, I was getting to that," said La Duchesse. "Mme. Stevens, do you notice anything in particular about this novel?" She handed the 'Lady Heinlein' data crystal to Catherine Stevens.

The novelist thumbed the data crystal, scrolling through several pages of text. "This isn't a published book. There are line edits marked in the margins. These are corrected proofs. Only a publisher... or an author would have these."

The Ambassador stared at his daughter.

"Sarah," said Mme. Marchmont. "Stop telling your silly little stories..." Her mouth closed with a snap.

"You've been saying that since I was six years old," Sarah said triumphantly. "That's why I started writing them down. Honestly, mother. I've been writing scientifiction novellas since I was fourteen, and no one's even suspected I was 'Lady Heinlein' until you started snooping around my bedroom. Another year and I'd have earned enough to send myself to university on one of the colonies."

"You are the most notorious black market novelist in Europa," said the Ambassador to his daughter.

"Yes, daddy."

He turned on his wife. "And you knew?"

"Only recently," she said. "I did everything I could to keep the matter from becoming a public scandal."

He stared at her in disbelief. "If you think inviting the Great Detective into our household and then murdering your brother under her nose counts as discreet, then what would you do to intentionally cause a scandal?"

"I didn't murder anyone," said Mme. Marchmont.

The Ambassador's eyes flicked to my mistress. "Claudine?"

"Someone left a second data crystal where Everard could find it — presumably someone who knew he had stolen the first one. But the second was smeared with Aspherida. That same someone had to know that Everard Dray was one of the quarter of the population who would be affected by Aspherida, which suggests a member of his family. Then there's the timing of the thing..."

"The Diplomatic Land Act," said the Ambassador.

La Duchesse agreed. "As of midnight last night, no one can be prosecuted for a murder on the personal property of an ambassador, unless he chooses to bring a civil suit against them. The timing is rather fortunate."

"I didn't know the law had been passed," said Mme. Marchmont.

"Your husband didn't know," corrected La Duchesse. "I believe he relies on his wife to keep him up to date on such matters?"

"That's right," said the Ambassador, sounding stunned. "The Diplomatic Land Act would have been announced in the last Governance Gazette, Valeria, and you told me there was nothing relevant to us in there."

"I didn't have time to read the thing." Mme. Marchmont rose from the table with great dignity. "I refuse to be interrogated like this in my own house."

"Indeed," said the Ambassador. "I think perhaps we should discuss the matter in private." He motioned to the door, and his wife walked stiffly out of the room. "You too, Lady Heinlein," he said in an ominous voice. His daughter followed him rather reluctantly.

That left five of us at the table: myself and La Duchesse, the Stevenses, and Drusus Savon.

"Well," said Bob Stevens in a jovial voice. "Is Saturnalis always this fun around here?"

"Extraordinary, La Duchesse," I said, pushing my congealed pudding aside for the serving maid to remove. "What made you first suspect that Valeria could have murdered her brother?"

"You mean, apart from the motive, opportunity and the fact that I don't like her very much?" said La Duchesse, reaching for her glass of sweet wine. "No reason at all, my dear Pepin. She didn't kill Everard Dray."

There was a long pause.

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Catherine Stevens.

"I was wondering that myself," said Drusus Savon.

"The Lumoscenti," said La Duchesse. "Suncatchers. Golden monks. You ask a lot of questions about our culture, M. and Mme. Stevens, but not once did either of you ask what those words meant. I wonder why that is."

Catherine Stevens coloured faintly. "It seemed a sensitive matter."

"Never discuss religious or politics," Bob Stevens said proudly.

"Indeed," said La Duchesse. "And there I was thinking that you weren't asking the question because you had reason to know exactly what the answer was. Oh, dear. My pudding's cold. I think I'll have another piece of turkey croquembouche instead."

"Go on," said Drusus Savon with interest. "I know of the Lumoscenti, of course. They're the ones who police the... historical integrity of New Ceresian culture, am I right?"

"Interesting phrasing," said La Duchesse. "Of course, M. Savon. You would have been briefed before your arrival."

"Not much of a brief," he said with disgust. "None of the official material goes anywhere close to explaining how much power the golden monks actually have. Half the planet seems terrified of them. Offworld, if anyone's heard of them at all, it's as a — cultural oddity. Like the Santa Claus cult on Minerva."

"Indeed," said La Duchesse. "Tell me, M. and Mme. Stevens. When exactly did you meet a representative of the Lumoscenti?"

"I don't know what you mean," said Bob Stevens. "And frankly, I'm insulted."

"It's a common practice," La Duchesse went on as if he hadn't spoken, mainly addressing her comments to Savon. "Refugees arrive here with nothing — the lucky ones are processed immediately and placed with a patron to support them for a few months. But what then? A life of indentured servitude must seem terrifying to people who are used to earning an independent living — and their skills are irrelevant to this world. How are they to survive?"

"Unmarried women tend to marry immediately," I said, with a veiled look at Drusus Savon. "Or find themselves some other kind of protector. They have to, or end up on the streets. A married couple wouldn't even have that option."

"But the refugees have one currency," said La Duchesse. "Temporary but free entry into a native New Ceresian household. And a certain invisibility, because no one expects them to involve themselves in our politics. A certain religious organisation has been known to use this situation to their advantage, promising wealth and independence in return for a single, well-planned act of assassination. The perfect arrangement of timing, duplicate jewels and family complications has their signature all over it."

Drusus Savon sucked in a breath. "A man like Everard — what could he have done to invite the wrath of the Lumoscenti?"

"I knew Everard well," said La Duchesse, a little sadly. "He had the knack for saying the wrong thing, and aligning with the wrong people." She unfolded the newspaper clipping I had seen in Everard's room. "In this instance, he wore the golden robes to a masquerade. I have no doubt that, as with the matter of his niece's data-crystal, he simply took a joke too far — some unfortunate remarks, perhaps, which fell into the wrong ears? The Suncatchers do not take lightly to being mocked."

Catherine Stevens drew in a breath, and her husband stilled her with a hand on her arm.

"You thought perhaps that he was an enemy of the state?" La Duchesse said lightly. "A dangerous political adversary? A spy? That our highest religious order had a very good reason for wanting him assassinated? I'm afraid that is very unlikely."

"It's not like we had much choice," said Bob Stevens.

"Don't say anything," his wife cautioned.

"Perhaps you didn't even know that the data crystal they asked you to leave on his bedside table was poisoned," said La Duchesse. "It doesn't matter. It's the Feast of Saturn — you can't even be charged with the handling of a data crystal. I imagine the golden monks rewarded you sufficiently to set up a new life somewhere on this world. All you have to do now is pack your bags and leave this house before the Ambassador realises that his wife is not a fratricide, and brings a civil suit against you. Even in the civil courts, murder carries the minimum sentence of transportation. If you think New Ceres is a hard society to survive in, I guarantee you would not enjoy the Nullus Continent. Not that the Suncatchers would let you survive to expose their involvement in court... I suggest you hurry."

"Why?" said Catherine Stevens. "Why accuse Mme. Marchmont and give us this opportunity to escape?"

La Duchesse smiled a flinty smile. "Perhaps I just don't like her very much."

"You can't help yourself, can you?" I asked as the Stevenses fled the room. "Rescuing people, I mean."

La Duchesse patted my hand. "When one has a talent, I believe one should exercise it as often as possible."

###

We left the Marchmont estate not long after, my mistress and I. Bob and Catherine Stevens had already departed, and the Ambassador and his family were still closeted in a parlour upstairs, shrieking at each other. "Do you not feel at all guilty about that?" I asked my mistress.

"I have left them a note, attached to the Saturnalis tree," she said cheerfully. "That should clear the matter up to reasonable satisfaction. But I agree it might be an idea to remove ourselves from Prosperine society for a while. New Switzerland, do you think?"

Drusus Savon was waiting for us by the door, though La Duchesse had pointedly not offered him a seat in the phaeton she had hired for our own transport.

She gave him a hard stare as he helped her into her travelling stole. "You went to a lot of trouble to meet me, M. Savon. Cultivating a man you hardly knew, tangling yourself in a murder and a house party, both equally dire. Was it worth it?"

"To meet a legend, Duchesse?" he said gallantly. "But of course. It was also a great honour to meet M. Pepin, considering my acquaintance with his father. You will be pleased to know that I am not currently in that gentleman's employ. My investigation into Pepin's identity was... a matter of private curiosity only."

La Duchesse frowned. "And can we count on your discretion in this matter, as a gentleman? I would not like to see this 'investigation' of yours go any further."

"Ah, but like you, madame," said Drusus Savon, "I dislike a mystery to go unsolved."

"You mistake me, dear sir," said the Great Detective. "There are many questions in this world that I should hate to see answered. Good day."

We swept out of the door and towards the hired phaeton. "Shall we have him killed?" she asked me in an undertone.

Despite the fear that had gripped my stomach since Savon first revealed that he knew my secret, I found myself smiling. "Not yet, perhaps."

La Duchesse shook her head as I assisted her into the phaeton. "You are a better man than I, Pepin."

My mistress always knows exactly what to say.

# "She Walks in Beauty" by Dirk Flinthart

"Though darkness veils thy lovely face

Still we remember lady, who gave us birth

Though the days of your passing wax long

We are yet thy wayward children, O Earth..."

The knocking came again. With a curse, Gordon flung down his quill, spattering ink across the page. "Blast and damn you, Stilton," he snarled, yanking open the door. "I told you I was not to be disturbed!"

"Sorry, sir," said the manservant, his sallow face impassive. "I'm afraid it's young Wilde. He insists on seeing you at once. A matter of some urgency, he claims."

"Wilde, is it?" said Gordon. Whatever else might have risen to his lips was drowned by the clatter of boots on the spiral stairs that led up to the the tower study.

"Gordon? I say, Gordon? You're up there, aren't you?" Blithely assured of his welcome in Gordon's sanctum sanctorum Dorian Wilde, self-styled poet and social reformer, appeared behind Stilton. "There you are," he announced, beaming delightedly. "You'll never guess what's happened!"

"You're in love," said Gordon. He shot a look at Stilton, who rolled his eyes mournfully. "Again."

"I'm in love," Wilde continued, pushing past Stilton until he was in the study proper. "It's absolutely glorious, Gordon. Of course, a cynic like you couldn't possibly understand, so just take my word for it. It's wonderful!"

"Congratulations," said Gordon, dismissing Stilton with a gesture. When he turned, Wilde was scrabbling at the ornate writing desk under the window. In two long strides, the older man crossed the room and seized Wilde by the wrist. "What do you think you're doing?"

Wilde straightened up and wrested his hand free. "Looking for some of that Old Earth brandy you keep in here, of course. Really, man, you're not going to let something like this pass without a toast, are you?"

Shouldering the younger man aside, Gordon pressed a hidden latch, and produced a bottle from a concealed drawer. Casting about, he spotted a moderately clean pair of glasses tucked inside the cabinet of an ancient grandfather clock, and poured a couple of measures. "A toast, then," he said, offering Wilde a glass. "After all, I've a drinking man's reputation to maintain. Although frankly I think that Old Earth Armagnac should probably be reserved for an occasion more remarkable than yet another Dorian Wilde love affair — something like rain, for example. Or foot fungus."

"Very funny, Gordon," said Wilde. "I'll have you know it's the real thing, this time. Why, I've even—"

"I notice that while you're talking, you don't seem to be drinking," drawled Gordon, lifting his glass. "I'm concerned for your priorities, Wilde." With an elaborate twist of the wrist, he tossed the spirit down his throat, and closed his eyes in rapture. "All right," he said, a few moments later. "I believe I'm adequately fortified now. You may speak to me of this paragon of femininity while I pour another bracer, just to be certain."

Clutching his glass, Wilde sank to the floor with his back against the wall, a faraway expression on his face. He flicked a long, wavy lock of dark hair from his eyes with a careless gesture which had broken more than one girl's heart, and sighed. "She's a marvel, Gordon. She's so — I'm lost for words, I tell you. I don't even know where to begin."

Gordon cocked an eyebrow. "Dorian Wilde speechless," he said. "Now there's an event worthy of Armagnac." He sat down again and crossed his ankles. "If speaking of this Aphrodite is too heroic an effort for you, perhaps you might care to explain what brings you here?"

Wilde gazed at him, wide-eyed. "Why George," he said. "You're my best, my dearest friend in all New Ceres. Is it not natural that I wish to share this most excellent news with you?"

For a long moment, the two men simply stared at each other. Then they burst into laughter. At last, Gordon poured another measure of brandy for both, and slapped Wilde on the shoulder. "Damn you for a fool, boy," he said. "What have you done this time?"

The younger man let his head fall until he was looking at the rug. "It's Grace," he said. "That's her name. She's a refugee."

"A refu— Christ!" Only a truly heroic effort stemming from his reverence for genuine Armagnac kept Gordon from spraying the stuff out his nose in surprise. "What has your father said?" Obadiah Wilde was not only one of New Ceres' richest landholders, but a leading figure in the most conservative faction of the planetary government. The relationship between father and son was strained at the best of times, and clearly, this was far from the best of times.

"Oh, the usual." Wilde attempted to sound light-hearted, and failed miserably. "A lot of blather about disinheriting me, or sending me offworld like some sort of modern-day remittance man. He'll get over it, I'm sure. He always does. In the meantime, I thought it might be a good idea for Grace and me to be out of his way for some little time."

"Aha," Gordon savoured the remnants of his Armagnac, and squinted out the window at the dying sunset. "So here you are, far from the press and the hurly-burly, seeking privacy in the depths of the country. Wilde in the wild, as it were. But no," he turned back to the young man. "You would never leave your lady-love downstairs on her own for all this time. She's somewhere else, isn't she? What's the plan, Wilde?"

The young man grinned lopsidedly. "I hope Father's people aren't as quick as you, George. You're quite right. I've come here to your famous Tower of Silence on the shores of the Long Lake, supposedly in the highest of dudgeons after a royal dust-up with the old man. Naturally, while I'm in seclusion here I expect to see and hear nobody — except you, my old friend. Everyone knows how jealously you guard your privacy, so nobody will be surprised if you turn father's people away from the door. Meanwhile, a trusted accomplice has conveyed the lady Grace to a certain house in Far Millway, on the other side of the Long Lake, and—"

Gordon slapped himself on the forehead. "You've installed her in my little hideaway there, haven't you? And you're going to sneak across the lake in my boat to be with her, leaving me to stay here and tell your father's bloodhounds to go piss up a rope."

"That's about the size of it," admitted Wilde. "Are you game?"

Gordon rolled his rangy shoulders, stretching the muscles in his back and neck. "Nothing would give me greater pleasure," he said. "It's been some little time since I behaved scandalously. Will your father mind very much, do you think, if I damage one or two of his flunkies in the process of escorting them off the property?"

"I'm sure of it," said Wilde. "In fact, he's taken on a new chap he's very proud of — an outworlder with some sort of history as a soldier. Name of Benton. I'd take it as a personal favour if you happened to knock him down a peg or two."

A wolfish grin spread across Gordon's face. "Consider it done," he said. He glanced out the window again. "It will be dark enough soon to set sail unseen. Care for another brandy in the meantime?"

"I thought you'd never ask," said Wilde, and he held out his glass.

###

Perhaps two hours later, there came thunderous knocking at the heavy wooden door of Gordon's tower. He settled comfortably into his favourite leather chair, which he had moved to command a clear view of the doorway. "It isn't locked," he called.

The door swung in, revealing a squat, scarred man in a dark suit. Gordon gave him a scant second or so to recognize the flintlock in his hand before he pulled the trigger. There was a crack, and the air filled with the sharp smell of gunpowder. Putting the gun down beside his chair, Gordon picked up his brandy balloon, and took a healthy swig, relishing the heady warmth of the liquor. "Are you still out there?" he called after a moment.

Cautiously, a face peered around the doorframe. Gordon smiled, and lifted his glass. "I rarely lock my door out here in the wilderness," he said. "But I most definitely didn't invite you in. Who are you, and what is your business here?"

The man moved as though to enter, and Gordon brought his other hand into sight, zeroing the second duelling pistol at about crotch height. "Another step," he said, "And I will certainly attempt to geld you. You can answer perfectly well from where you are." He tipped the glass again and swirled the fiery brandy in his mouth, but the gun didn't waver for an instant.

The scarred man froze, then pulled himself together. "My name is Rudolf Benton," he said. "I work for Obadiah Wilde. I'm here for Dorian Wilde."

"Really?" Gordon arched an eyebrow.

Benton waited. When it became apparent that Gordon intended to say nothing else, he coughed, and shuffled his feet. Glancing around the interior, his eyes lighted upon the stairwell that curved up the wall to the floors above. "Would you be so good as to send him down?" he asked finally.

"No," said Gordon. "Wilde is a grown man, and I'm not his messenger boy." He sipped at his brandy again, enjoying the growing bafflement on Benton's face.

"Can I come and get him, then?" asked Benton.

Gordon grinned. "You might try," he said. "Then I might well shoot you, and then, of course, I might have to explain myself to someone in authority. On the other hand, since there's nobody to say you introduced yourself, I might simply claim I caught you breaking into my house."

"I see," said Benton. Under the heavy suit he was a powerfully built man, Gordon noted, with the physique of a wrestler. His hair was clipped short and flat, accentuating the square, chunky face under it. "What can I do to bring forth Dorian Wilde?"

After a moment's consideration, Gordon shrugged. "Nothing springs to mind."

"But he is here," said Benton, confronting Gordon with a cold stare.

"Are you equipped with some form of warrant, or legal writ?" Gordon asked. "Because I do not feel inclined to answer any questions unless required by law. And between you and me, I probably wouldn't answer truthfully."

Benton regarded him for a long moment. "I see," he said finally. "Well, if by any chance you should see young master Wilde, I'm sure his father would be very grateful if you'd tell him to come home."

"Anything else?" said Gordon. "Young Wilde is indeed a close friend of mine, as you may have heard. It is entirely conceivable he might take it into his head to call on me here."

"I think that will do, Mister Gordon," said Benton. "I've had enough of your hospitality."

"As you wish," Gordon replied. "Close the door behind you, please. I believe I may even lock it." He locked eyes with Benton, and smiled as evilly as he knew how. "Some nasty characters about lately."

The door shut with a thump. Gordon waited, pistol levelled, until he heard footsteps on the stair behind him. "Has he gone, Stilton?" he called without looking.

"That he has, sir, and his three men with him." Stilton moved into view, carefully keeping his angular frame out of the line of fire.

"Lock the door, there's a good fellow," said Gordon. "Three others that you saw, eh? Notice anything interesting about them?"

The manservant slid a heavy bolt into place, securing the door, and heaved a quiet sigh as Gordon spun his pistol round his finger before tucking it back into the concealed holster on the side of the chair. "I do wish you wouldn't do that, sir."

"Eh?" Gordon glanced down to see what Stilton was looking at. "The pistol? Oh, Stilton — you know me better than that. I have to take occasional shots at people. It's part of my reputation." He tossed the empty gun to Stilton, who caught it gingerly. "Reload that for me, would you?"

Gordon went to the sideboard, and refreshed his drink before continuing. "Benton was an interesting fellow, you know. If I had to guess, I'd pick him for a high-gravity type. Since we both know that Obadiah Wilde positively refuses to employee refugees in any position of responsibility, we must conclude that Benton is not a refugee. That makes him what — a mercenary? Hard to understand. There's plenty of work offworld for such men. New Ceres won't make his fortune. So why is he here?"

"Couldn't say, sir," Stilton offered, pushing a soft, clean rag into the barrel of the flintlock. "His men seemed uncommon interested in the boat-house, mind you. Took him down to see it after he finished his talk with you."

Gordon winced. "Damnation," he said. "A boat-house should probably have a boat in it, don't you think Stilton?"

"Most like," Stilton agreed. He poured a tiny measure of powder into the gun with a steady hand. "Specially when there's all manner of trappings to suggest a boat. Could well lead a man to think the boat was elsewhere."

"Indeed," said Gordon. "Ah well. I'm awfully glad it's summer, Stilton."

"Why is that, sir?" Gently, Stilton tamped a piece of wadding into the barrel to keep the powder in place, and forced a lead ball after it.

"Because I rather dislike swimming the Long Lake at other times of the year." Gordon stripped his linen shirt and tossed it to the floor, revealing a deep, powerful chest and muscular arms. "Don't wait up, Stilton," he said cheerfully. "I expect I'll be some time."

###

His chest was still bare and his dark hair fell in sodden ringlets to his shoulders as Gordon swaggered into the main room of his pied-a-terre in the town of Far Millway, a lissome young blonde under one arm, and a bottle of red wine in his hand. "Look alive, Dorian," he roared, striding to the fire and turning to warm his backside. "There's trouble afoot, or I'm much mistaken."

On the far side of the room, a door opened and Dorian Wilde appeared, sleep-tousled and wrapped in a coverlet. "God in heaven, Gordon," he said, rubbing at his eyes. "What the devil are you doing? What's all this racket?"

"Come, Wilde," said Gordon. "Tempus fugit! Wake yourself and get dressed. Your father's hounds were cleverer than we hoped. It will take them longer to ride twenty miles around the Long Lake than it took me to swim the mile across, but there can't be much in it. Have you met young Rosaline, here?" He struck his blonde companion a resounding swat on the arse, and she giggled.

Wilde blinked owlishly. "I have no idea what you think you're doing, Gordon. Have you any idea of the time?"

"Yes," snarled Gordon. "Almost too late. Where's the minx, boy? We've much to do and little time to do it."

"Dorian?" A lovely blonde woman appeared beside Wilde in the doorway. Unlike Wilde, she lacked even the modesty of a coverlet. Gordon guffawed outright, while Rosaline coyly turned her head and looked into the fire.

"Grace, please," said Wilde, his face scarlet, and he enfolded her in the coverlet with him. "Remember where you are."

"I'm sorry, Dorian," she said, running a gentle hand down the contour of his jaw. "I keep forgetting the nudity taboo on your planet. I'll get dressed."

"You needn't be concerned on my account," Gordon called after her. "I'm quite partial to naked women."

"Quiet, Gordon," snapped Wilde. "Grace is still getting used to New Ceres. I'd hoped to keep her clear of bad examples until she found her feet."

"At least she's the right size and shape," said Gordon, looking critically at Rosaline. "Perhaps our Rosaline is a touch more callipygian, but it suits her. Your Grace could use a little more meat on her bones. Still, I think she'll pass."

Wilde flicked the hair from his eyes and peered at Gordon. "All right. I can see you've got some sort of plan in mind. I'm too tired to argue, so you'd better just explain as I get dressed." He turned and went back into the bedroom, and Gordon could hear him scuffling about in the darkness, swearing as he banged a shin against the low bed.

"It's much the same as last time," said Gordon. He glanced around for a corkscrew, and remembered that he'd thrown the last one at an especially persistent Scientologist missionary just a few weeks ago. With a practiced motion, he knocked the top of the bottle against the stone fireplace. There was a set of large glass tumblers in a rough wooden cabinet under one window. Gordon filled one from the jagged neck of the bottle, then raised it and turned it this way and that against the firelight. "Shouldn't do this sort of thing with red wine," he remarked. "Damned hard to tell if you've poured yourself a cupful of shards."

Wilde emerged from the bedroom, looping a silken cravat beneath his chin. "The plan, Gordon," he said. "Oh, and you can pour me a glass while you explain."

"Take mine," Gordon offered, and filled a second tumbler while Wilde drank. "It's simple. I've a phaeton at the livery stable. You collect it, and hire a pair of horses. Then you pick up a blonde, female passenger dressed in Grace's clothing, and head for the nearest sizable town. Dennington, I think — it's big enough for a couple of people to get lost easily enough. Of course, it's Rosaline you take with you. Meanwhile, as soon as the coast is clear I slip away with Grace in tow. Once she's set up in a suitably safe location, I give you the signal, and you rendezvous with your lady-love."

"Seems complicated," said Wilde, setting down his glass. "Why don't I just take Grace with me in the first place?"

"Where will you go?" countered Gordon. "Your father knows all your bolt-holes, Wilde, but I promise you he doesn't know mine. I can hide Grace in perfect safety, and we can smuggle you to her side as soon as matters cool a little."

"It makes sense, Dorian." Grace stood in the bedroom door, demure in a floor-length dress of forest green. "We only made it this far by using Mister Gordon's house."

Gordon made a conscious effort to breathe evenly. Suddenly, it was easy to understand how Dorian had lost his head over the woman. Naked, Grace had been disturbingly attractive, provoking a kind of fluttering in Gordon's belly that he'd almost forgotten. Clothed, now...The soft drapery of the green gown lent a mystery to her willowy form, and Gordon found his pulse racing as he looked into her wide, dark eyes. Deliberately, he turned away and slid his arm around Rosaline's shoulders. "There you are, Wilde. Even your lass agrees." He gave Rosaline a gentle shove. "See if you can fit into one of Grace's outfits, Rosaline. And Wilde," he said as the women disappeared into the bedroom to practice their mysterious female magic, "Treat the young lady nicely, will you? Take her to the theatre, buy her a few new things — this is quite a favour she's doing you, after all."

Wilde glanced back over his shoulder to be sure the women were out of earshot. Then he turned a serious face on Gordon. "And you," he said. "Treat Grace properly, please. None of your usual Lord Byron performance art routines. She's very special to me. I've only known her a little time, but it seems like..." he searched for words. "I don't know," he admitted finally. "She takes my breath away, Gordon."

Gordon shook his head, damp locks shedding water. "Ah, Dorian. You'll break half the hearts in New Ceres with this news." Smiling gravely, he laid his hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I'll do the best I can by her, Dorian. You know well enough what that means."

Briefly, Dorian laid his hand on Gordon's, and met his friend's gaze candidly. "Thank you," he said. "You're the best friend a man could ask for, Gordon. I'm in your debt."

"Nonsense," replied Gordon. "Really, I think you're doing me a favour. I do love antagonising your father, and this latest escapade of yours seems likely to render him apoplectic. How could I possibly refuse?"

Wilde laughed, and dropped his hand. He tossed the last of his wine down his throat, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'd best fetch that phaeton of yours," he said, moving with some reluctance towards the exit. He glanced longingly back toward the bedroom, and sighed. "Send Rosaline down as soon as you hear me. I shan't come up."

Gordon nodded, and pushed him out the door.

Wilde must have paid the liverymen well, for the phaeton appeared behind a fully harnessed pair of horses in only a few minutes longer than it took to dress Rosaline in one of the fashionable gowns Wilde had bought for Grace. Draped in a travelling cloak complete with hood, Rosaline was bundled down the stairway and into the little carriage with sufficient noise and fuss to ensure that curious small-town eyes and ears were certain to notice, despite the hour. Gordon watched from the top of the stairs until the phaeton disappeared into the mist off the lake. At last, he turned and went inside, barring the door behind him.

"Now," he said to Grace, who sat on a low wooden chair, staring moodily into the dying fire, "What are we going to do with you?"

She stirred, and glanced at him. Once again, the touch of that dark gaze made him shiver, and he looked out the window to escape it.

"I thought I'd try to sleep," she said. "But there's only the one bed."

"I'll stay out here," said Gordon quickly. "In case someone comes."

She came close, rising on her tiptoes to put her arms around his shoulders. The scent of her was like roses and the sea and fresh bread and all manner of lovely, heady things. Gordon clenched his fists, and kept his arms at his sides as she kissed his cheek. "Thank you," she whispered in his ear. Her breath was hot, and Gordon thought she must surely feel the pounding of his heart, but she slipped away and closed the bedroom door behind her, and he sighed out a great, heaving breath he did not know he had been holding.

"Oh Dorian," he murmured. "The things I do for you."

Then he built up the fire until it blazed cheerfully, and settled himself into the big, leather chair that faced it. He had a great deal to think about.

###

The rattle of someone trying the door brought Gordon from a fitful doze. He shook his head to clear it, and quietly pulled the heavy brass poker from its place by the fire.

The door rattled again. Then, before Gordon could think to move, it burst inward, the heavy wooden bar yanking free of the wall with a crash. For just an instant the doorway was filled by the square bulk of Rudolf Benton, but he flowed with disturbing grace into a roll which brought him to his feet in the centre of the room, poised in a fighting crouch.

Gordon offered him a slow handclap. "I don't suppose it occurred to you to knock?" he drawled.

"You!" Benton's lips curled back from square, yellowish teeth. "Where's the girl?"

"Interesting," said Gordon. He rose to his feet, and casually prodded at the fire until it flared. Rather than returning to his seat, he chose instead to lean on the back of the chair, putting its bulk between him and the other man. "I thought it was Dorian who concerned you."

Benton hesitated. "Of course," he said. "But the girl too."

Gordon shrugged. "It is of no account. Both have gone. They took a phaeton perhaps an hour ago, after I warned them of your interest in my missing boat."

"There was a second boat, then?" Benton had a voice like rocks being ground together. Thicker vocal chords, Gordon assumed. Something to do with a heavy-gravity background, no doubt.

"There was no second boat. I swam. I'm fond of swimming." Gordon watched the other man warily. "You may leave now. If you act swiftly, you and your men may overtake them on the road to Dennington." There was no point in lying. Benton would automatically assume he had lied in any case.

The offworlder turned his blocky head this way and that. "I will search the premises first," he said. "Then I will leave. My men are already in pursuit of the phaeton. There is no need for me to hurry carelessly."

"This is a private residence," said Gordon carefully. "You have no legal authority to search it. I am not inclined to permit such a search. I will act as I am legally entitled in defense of my home."

Benton pulled himself upright, and splayed his broad hands. "I am a Heavy Man," he said. "I am adapted to half again the gravity of this world. I am very fast, and very strong, and my training is extensive."

"Hum," said Gordon. He raised the brass poker and held it like a sword in the St George guard above his head. "If we are exchanging warnings, I must say that I am not without resources of my own. I have considerable experience at swordplay, for example."

The two men eyed each other for a moment. Finally Benton nodded. "All right. I will explain. The matter is complex. The girl is not what she seems. She is an agent of Free Minerva. Her purpose in coming to New Ceres is to create sympathy for her movement, and to shift New Ceres politics to favour them in the struggle. Your world will suffer as a consequence."

"Seems quite a task for a young girl," said Gordon. He maintained his defensive position, watching Benton intently.

"She is adapted for her work," said Benton. "Biologically engineered with technologies near impossible to detect. I have been assigned to neutralize her."

"Nevertheless," said Gordon. "You have no authority to do so under New Ceres law. The girl has entered this world legally, as a refugee. Until she commits an illegal act, she has the protection of New Ceres."

The Heavy Man took a deliberate forward step. "Do not interfere," he said. "You are respected locally as a poet and a public figure. I don't want to hurt you."

"Nevertheless," said Gordon, and he slid cat-like from behind the chair in a fencer's crouch.

Benton took another step and waited, his eyes dead.

Gordon shuffled a half-step, aware of the uncertain grip afforded by his stockinged feet on the rough woollen carpet. Benton stood at ease, arms by his side. A direct attack would be certain to fail, Gordon knew. Stratagems must suffice.

With a cry, Gordon sprang forward and slashed at the Heavy Man's knee with the poker. At the last instant, his foot slipped on the rug, and he stumbled. Seizing the opportunity, Benton moved in close, arms wide like a wrestler — but Gordon turned the feigned slip into an extension, and whipped the poker round with redoubled speed to smash into the offworlder's head.

At least, that was the plan. What actually happened was something else again. Benton, without so much as looking at the poker, lifted his left hand and caught it with a loud slap. His arm didn't even quiver under the impact.

"Damnation," said Gordon, yanking ineffectually at his weapon.

"I am faster, stronger, and better trained," said Benton in his grinding voice. He tightened his fist on the poker, tendons standing out on his forearm, and the brass rod bent. "Get out of my way, or you will be hurt."

Gordon glanced at the trapped poker, then met Benton's eyes with a cool, level gaze. "I think not," he said. "There's one more thing I'd like to try first."

"Eh?" That was all Benton had time to say before there was a sharp crackling noise, and a sudden stink of burning pork. Still clutching the poker, Benton seemed to hurl himself backwards, high-gravity muscles propelling him in a flat arc which ended with a crash at the wall. He collapsed to the floor and twitched fitfully for a moment, then subsided. Quickly, Gordon knelt beside him and lay a hand on his throat. "Dead," he said. "Good riddance."

"What happened? How did you do that?"

Gordon looked around, to see that Grace had appeared in the bedroom door. At least this time she'd remembered to wear a robe. He quickly searched what was left of Benton, clumsy and shapeless in death, palming a certain small but very interesting object before he rose to his feet. "Ah, Grace," he said. "Truly, you are a vision. How much of it is real, I wonder?"

She looked from Benton's corpse to Gordon, her face a pale mask in the wan firelight. "I don't understand. He — he seemed to jump in the air. You didn't do anything, but he was dead."

There was a loose skirting board next to the fireplace. Gordon kicked it, and it fell away. From the cavity behind, he withdrew a dusty bottle, and held it up. "Old Earth Burgundy," he announced. "I've been saving it for an occasion. This would qualify, I think." He broke the neck against the fireplace, and filled a glass which he held out to Grace. "Drink?"

She shook her head, staring at him with something like horror on her face.

"Never mind," said Gordon. "You don't know what you're missing." He looked down at Benton, lying on the floor, and raised the glass in salute. "To the better man." He drained the wine in one long swallow, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and turned once more to Grace. "When you took on this assignment, you didn't really imagine New Ceres was completely defenceless, did you? Please —" he held up a hand, forestalling whatever she might have said. "Don't bother lying. Benton knew perfectly well what you are, and why you are here. He was sent to prevent your efforts to destabilise New Ceres for your advantage, and possibly to achieve such advantage as he could for his own side." Contemptuously, Gordon spat a shard of glass onto the floor next to Benton's body, and poured another glass of wine.

Grace looked sorrowful. "So you believe what he told you?"

Gordon spat out another shard of glass. "I didn't need him to tell me. I've been expecting you, or someone like you. Poor Dorian. Eligible bachelor, son of a prominent government figure, and hopeless, romantic champion of the downtrodden masses. What better target could you hope for? We of New Ceres may eschew technology, but we're far from stupid. With this influx of refugees, it was always obvious that some would be provocateurs."

The robe slipped from her shoulders as Grace put her hands on her hips. Gordon doubted it was an accident. "Who are you?" she said, challenging him with a look.

"My title is Proctor," he replied, "Though you will not find it listed anywhere. I was born long ago on Old Earth, and hired by the government of New Ceres for my talents, which are many. Particularly, they include a certain amount of biological engineering. I carry genes from the electric eel of Old Earth, which was capable of generating enough voltage to kill a grown man. I am much larger, and correspondingly more efficient." He took a mouthful of wine, savouring the bouquet for a moment. When Grace said nothing, he continued. "And you? They've done something to make you more attractive to men, I know." He glanced down at his crotch briefly, and laughed. "Yes. Obvious, really. Is it pheromonal?"

"Partially." She had the decency to look embarrassed. "The human vomeronasal organs aren't really very good at handling pheromones. I can also control far more of my musculature and circulation than you. I can dilate my pupils at will, for example."

"Of course," said Gordon. "A classic sign of arousal, near subliminal in effect. Very good."

"There are other things," she said, and she peeled back her robe in a way which was no accident. "Engorgement of the nipples is under my conscious control — you see? And the labia, too. Much of my internal musculature likewise."

"Indeed," said Gordon, resisting the desire to trace with his finger the line from her chin to her heated, glistening sex. "Quite a piece of work."

She gazed at him for a long moment, then closed her robe again. "I should have known better," she said. "You are very old, aren't you?"

"In mind, if not body," admitted Gordon. "More than one rejuv."

"It's harder to work with older men." She extended a hand. "That drink — may I?"

"Of course." He topped up the glass, and handed it to her.

She sipped it, and smiled. "It's good. I didn't know. I rarely drink good wine. Your life here, as a virtual aristocrat — it must be pleasant." At Gordon's nod, she continued. "Do you ever think of the people under you? All the hundreds of thousands who live as near-slaves to make your life easy? The original Lord Byron — yes, I recognise you, George Gordon, athlete, marksman, swordsman, poet and sexual omnivore — I seem to remember he fought against oppression."

"You see yourself as fighting oppression?" He poured the last of the wine into the second tumbler, left behind by Wilde earlier in the night.

"Of course," she said. "Who would fight if they thought they were on the side of evil? I come as a liberator to the people of New Ceres."

Gordon finished his wine, and deliberately stepped back two paces. "Enough," he said. "I make no apologies for New Ceres, but I note that refugees choose to come here, rather than elsewhere — to your worlds, for example." He saw her face flush at that. "People live here in peace, if not in plenty. I cannot permit you to carry out your plans."

"So," she said sadly. "Now I must kill you." Muscles rippled under her beautiful skin. Veins stood out against her flesh. She breathed heavily, in gusts, and he smelled her sweat.

"If you must," said Gordon. He retreated another pace, and brought his hands up protectively. "How will you explain it to Dorian?"

"Benton did it," she said. "My control extends to the adrenal system. You shouldn't have talked so long, George Gordon. I have had time to prime myself. For the next ten minutes, I have speed and strength and physical endurance far beyond your abilities. After that, when I am found collapsed over your battered form, nobody will doubt that Benton's great strength overwhelmed you even as you managed to kill him."

"The berserker state," he said, wonderingly. "But with a conscious, thinking mind behind it. Benton was right. You are very dangerous indeed. It is fortunate that he killed you when he did."

"Eh?" Like Benton before her, Grace managed only the single syllable before the cloud of near-microscopic needles fired from the illegal flechette pistol Gordon had taken from the corpse tore her chest apart in a spray of blood and flesh. Despite her bioengineered strength, one shot from the wicked little gun was more than enough, and Gordon turned away from the ruin of her fine body. He tucked the pistol into Benton's cooling hand, and stepped back to survey his handiwork.

"I'm sorry, Grace," he said, though she was long past hearing. "No doubt Dorian will write you a lovely elegy, but I suppose that is small comfort. You were wrong about me. I know there is oppression here. I know that New Ceres is a vulnerable, artificial construct — a ridiculous English hothouse full of exotic flowers, surrounded by the howling winds of winter. If it resists the pressures from without, one day it is certain to fall of its own accord, brought down by the will of the people who live here, and make the world what it is. And that is the liberation for which I will struggle," said Gordon. "The day will come, and I will be here to see it. What you offered is not liberation. It is only another form of enslavement, with a different face. Freedom has to be won, not granted."

Then he made his way to the kitchens and found another bottle. He climbed with it onto the sloping, shingled roof, where he waited, alone, for the dawn.

# The Martian Eye

#  Postcards from Georgiana

# a New Ceres travel column

# by Gi Brite

I come in from orbit on a ship filled with refugees — all pre-approved by the New Ceres government, clinging to the few personal possessions they were able to save from Earth before it all went to hell.

I've interviewed a few of them, and chatted to more. Two-thirds of them seem to be artists, or musicians, or writers, or artisans. There are a few engineers, and other tech-types, but most of them have been brought along with an artistic spouse or sibling.

I'm getting a sense that the New Ceres migration department are very, very choosy.

The spaceport in New Ceres is discreetly placed in a valley a long distance from the capital city, Prosperine. When you're all geared up for crinolines and horse-drawn carriages, it's a little strange to step off the shuttle into a gleaming white spaceport just like any other planet in the systems.

The official at Customs barely glances at my tourist visa. "Authentic or alien?"

Authentic, of course.

I'm sent with the refugees down a long corridor to a hall full of quill-wielding bureaucrats who write our travel certificates out by hand. My dictaware and other tech tools have already been confiscated until my departure, and I'm itching to write down my notes so far, but I can see this is going to take some time. Pen and ink looks hard.

My personal calligrapher writes me a set of papers for "Georgiana Barrowbright." I feel the need to point out to him that "Gi" isn't short for anything, and certainly not Georgiana — I was named for Gi Xuan, Twentieth Century It Girl and Pop Princess.

"You asked for the authentic experience," he mutters like he says those words a million times a day. Probably he does.

The refugees take longer to be processed than the tourists. I'm slapped into a rental gown and wig, to keep me looking the part until I can cash in my pre-paid Regency Makeover certificate in the city, and make my way to the Prosperine shuttle.

It's a boat. A curved, covered gondola the size of a bus. I squeeze myself and my skirts in with a crowd of native New Ceresians returning home, and Alien tourists who are still hanging on to their own clothes.

The journey into the city is livened up by the presence of Jacques, an attractive youngster who decides to play travel guide to me. He's wearing a mixture of offworld clothing and New Ceres chic — apparently it's the style amongst the kids these days, and has just returned from visiting his father offworld.

Jacques takes great delight in pointing out to me the different levels of authenticity in the garb of our fellow travellers — some that I thought were natives are actually tourists in hired clothes like my own, and several natives are wearing their offworld clothing like a badge of honour. He glances through my papers and advises me to cash my Makeover certificate at Marguerite's — apparently the best of the "tourist" outfitters, and a mine for local gossip.

As our gondola shuttle moves into the city, I spot a group of men in golden robes wearing what look like plague doctor masks — all beaky nose and gilded leather. "Where did they get their outfits?" I exclaim, but it doesn't provoke the laugh I intended.

"You didn't smuggle anything in with you?" Jacques asks in an undertone. "No offworld tech, nothing disallowed by the Book of Light?"

I read the Book of Light Guidelines for Tourists pamphlet on the shuttle, and I'm pretty sure I'm answering truthfully when I tell him I'm clean.

He relaxes a little. "You should be fine, then. Though they're likely to keep an eye on you — journalists are renowned for trying to smuggle in recording tech."

"Who are they?"

"The Lumoscenti," he says in a half whisper, though our graceful boat has already left the creepy golden men long behind. "The Priests of Light. They're the ones who decide what is and isn't... New Ceres."

"Oh, the Authenticity Police."

The nervous look on this cocky, confident boy's face tells me that is isn't a joking matter. This is the story I came here to find — not girlie gossip about how hard it is to struggle into a corset, or how to find yourself a genuine Mr Darcy on a white horse.

No one ever talks about the darker side of New Ceres — the ethical questions raised by a society that deliberately limits its citizens to the technology available in Earth's eighteenth century. Are New Ceresians empowered, or repressed? I can't help thinking that those golden monks might be the key to answering that question...

Next Column: What's living in the wigs?

# Tale of the Veremaurs

# Excerpt: New Ceres Field Notes of Dr Meredith Perle, Assoc. Prof.,

# Chair of Anthropology, University of Minerva.

During one of my many information-gathering forays through the anachronistic society of New Ceres, I heard of a man called only 'The Raconteur' who knew all the old tales of early New Ceresian history and legend. I finally discovered him in a back street coffee house in the coastal city of Celestine — an old man now. At my request, he related the following tale.

###

"Well my friends, you ask me for a tale, and I think tonight, I shall give you one. Gather round, and listen closely, for I shall tell you the tale of the Veremaurs. In the old country, the Veremaurs had existed for as far back as any of us raconteurs can remember, and we remember far back into history let me assure you. There have been stories about various members of the Veremaur family that would make the hair stand up at the back of your neck. They were a very, very strange family, with a gift that was most unusual. Some of you probably know psychics...some of you may even have had your fortune told... have you? With cards, or coffee grains left in your cup? These are party tricks to the Veremaurs... party tricks... even the least talented of that family could do that.

No, the special gift the Veremaurs had was that they could see far into your soul. They could tell you where you have been and what you are doing and where you will go... and not just with this lifetime, but with all lifetimes. They could sense things that we do not even know — they could sense intentions, and thoughts — frightening what they could tell you. Not all family members — that is true... but in each generation there is one or two, and what they see is frightening. I have heard of one Veremaur who could lie on a grave and tell you about the corpse beneath. He was always accurate too... very seldom missed. Strange man was Ivan Veremaur. He never liked to use his gift... but every now and again old Ivan would creep out and trouble followed. Always.

Some of the Veremaurs could pick up a drunk cup of coffee, look deep into it and go into a trance, and tell you things about who had drunk the coffee, and what intention that person had. Some of the Veremaurs went to the dark side. Well... they had a gift and it could be used for light or dark. Just like, say, electricity... you plug something into a socket, and it can turn on a light, or work an electric prod... same thing with the Veremaurs. They could just tap into their gift, and use it how they liked. Born to it, they were. Stuff they did couldn't be taught. Some had it very powerfully, some only a little, some not at all, but like I said, in every generation there were some very powerful Veremaurs. Some turned to healing, and some to scrying, some taught, some tried politics.

But eventually the powers that be took fright, and decided to wipe out the family. Too frightening for them. Knew too much of course... so then the slaughter began... and not just slaughter. No, that wasn't good enough apparently. They decided to separate the head from the body, and the arms and legs from the torso... that way they said the head would never find its neck, nor the arms and legs the where withal to conjure up their magic tricks. Magic tricks. What a laugh... they didn't do magic tricks... what they had was real, and powerful, and too powerful. That's the truth.

But, some of the children survived. I heard one or two young ones were taken in by the Mathematicians... and of course that was out of the frying pan into the fire wasn't it. Techos they were called and had their own problems. But probably some of the young babes were taken in somewhere, so don't be surprised if one day you hear of the Veremaurs again. Power like that doesn't die... it changes shape, it evolves, it grows cunning and sly, and finds ways to maintain itself. Veremaurs will be back in some form or other... just wait and watch, but while you do that, my friends, be vigilant and frightented, 'cos who knows how the power will play out when it does."

###

When I returned the next evening to confirm some details of my transcription, the Raconteur was nowhere to be found. It was three months before I would discover him again, and he claimed no knowledge of me or the story I have presented here.

# Acknowledgements

"Postcards from Georgiana" written by Tansy Rayner Roberts

"Tale of the Veremaurs" written by Ruth Krasnostein and Tansy Rayner Roberts

