In The Beginning, Gail Daley [red white royal blue .TXT] 📗

Lucinda and Juliette both glared at her and Rupert smiled in a way that boded trouble.

"I don’t see why we have to come anyway," Roderick complained. "There won’t be anything to do there."

"You won’t have to stay very long," Katherine reminded him. Jayne will send the car to pick you up after dinner, and then you can play games until we get back."

"I guess," Roderick said morosely.

Zack laughed, but reinforced Katherine’s warning. It was a tight fit with all of them in the car as Katherine had been unable to secure her usual transport due to the heavy usage of the cars for this event. Corrine and Vernal had come separately, and watching them alight from the vehicle, Corrine remarked in an aside to Vernal, "reminds me of the time at Planting Festival when a bunch of us tried to see how many of us we could fit into an airboat."

Vernal choked trying not to laugh. "Woman you’ll be the death of me yet!"

"Hush! Here comes the Governor’s aide to present us," Katherine hissed.

The dinner went off without any overt gagging or puking noises from the children, although Katherine noticed that a considerable amount of food seemed to disappear from the children’s plates without being eaten. Wisely, she said nothing about it.

There was a dance after dinner and the Governor honored each of the Ladies of the three Clans with a dance in the order of their seniority, so Katherine was first. Knowing this ahead of time, she had arranged for Zack to dance the first dance with Juliette and for Gideon to do the same with Jayla. Lucas drew Lucinda, and Rupert danced with Violet. Corrine got the Mayor. Roderick and Vernal were able to sit on the sidelines, but they would have to take a turn later.

Katherine was unsurprised to see Colonel Lewiston appear with Donna Sabina of Clan DeMedici, having heard that the other clan had accepted his unit in much the same way she had accepted Gideon’s. She was taken aback to see Darla Lister accompanying them, not having realized that Lister was so high ranking. Nü-Huang Ishmara of Clan Yang was accompanied by a tall oriental looking man who despite owning the name Captain Mike Mullins, was of obvious Asian ancestry.

This wasn’t unusual as once men immigrated into space, names and ethnic backgrounds soon had little in common with their early origins. Before this trip, Katherine had not previously had many dealings with Nü-Huang Toshi of the Yang Clan. Since Yang clan holdings were on the Northern side of Port Recovery where the capital city of Vensoog was located and Glass Isle was in the south, they had never had cause to negotiate against each other in Parliament.

Five dances later, she was finally able to get away from protocol partners and dance with Zack. The dance was an old-fashioned waltz and their steps matched perfectly. It was the first real chance they had to be alone since returning from the police station. With seven children underfoot and everyone packing for the journey, privacy had been a scarce commodity.

"Are we having fun yet?" she asked.

"Well, I am now," he retorted. "Actually, dancing with the girls was fun if a little awkward. I don’t think any of them have been taught how to dance with a man."

"Humn, dancing is quite popular at home. I guess we will have to employ a dancing master. For the boys as well, I suppose?"

"Well I didn’t get a good look at Roderick and Violet, but Vernal told me it was quite funny watching them step all over each other."

While Katherine and Zac were preoccupied with each other, the children in question had finally managed to escape adult supervision long enough to slip into an alcove decorated with enormous potted plants for a private conference.

"Well, at least that’s over!" Rupert exclaimed.

"Oh, I don’t know, it was kind of nice dancing with Uncle Zack," Lucinda replied.

"Shhh!" hissed Juliette. "There’s that Darla Lister. I want to hear what she’s saying because I’m almost sure it was her that sent us to Ole Ben’s Cyclomart."

"Those were Grouter’s men who jumped us," protested Roderick. "I saw them once when they were reporting from a collection job."

"Yeah, but they were hanging out around the base watching us," pointed out Lucinda. "I saw them. They couldn’t get inside the buildings but they were skulking over by the gate a lot."

"If we saw them maybe Lister did too," suggested Juliette.

"Everyone knew about Grouter meeting with the base command to try and get us back after we stole his files," Rupert pointed out.

"You’re thinking she saw them and told them where we were going just make trouble, aren’t you?" suggested Lucinda.

"Sssh! Here they come," Juliette warned again.

Darla and Colonel Lewiston had paused just in front of the alcove in the midst of a heated argument.

"I’m telling you to lay off Lady Katherine. What if those thugs you sicced on her had lived? They might have queered our deal with the DeMedici’s if they talked."

"They didn’t know who I was," she retorted.

Lewiston snorted. "Don’t bet your life on it. And I’m telling you, if you queer this for us you will be betting your life."

She glared at him. "Don’t threaten me Major. You mess with me and I might just let it slip to that DeMedici bitch about the stuff you’ve been feeding her."

"Go ahead. Submit won’t show up on a tox screen even if she believed you. Besides, I haven’t given her much of it. As long as I perform in bed she’s pretty pleased with me."

"Did you meet with Niche about the weapons? I want them loaded onto the ship tonight," he continued without a pause.

She shrugged. "Already done. He’s got them listed on the manifest as some kind of ore they want on the planet. I’m more interested to know how you plan to sneak them onto Vensoog. Distance weapons like those are on the banned import list and I hear they’re pretty strict