There have been few revolutions in human history that have worked out generally for the benefit of those on whose behalf the revolutions were ostensibly launched. The first Red Tsar of Volga, for example, launched his revolution with the stated aim of uplifting the workers and peasants. (Though, in fact, his greater aim was rationalizing war production and asserting a more general societal control to serve the needs of the Great Global War.) The effect, in any case, of the Red Tsar's revolution was, at the lowest socio-economic levels, to return those same workers and peasants to the state of serfdom from which they had previously escaped. At higher levels, on the other hand, the Red Tsar merely substituted or supplemented his then existing nobility with a new nobility uplifted from Volga's previous middle and professional classes, the very same people who had, for their own interests, fallen in behind him in his revolutionary bid.
Observation of this phenomenon is not restricted to our planet and goes back not merely to Old Earth, but to ancient Old Earth. For his play, The Assemblywomen, for example, Athenian playwright Aristophanes has his proletarian heroine, Praxagora, respond to the question, "But who will till the soil?" with the simple answer, "The slaves."
Indeed, what we can tell from the scattered stories that have come down to us, from those who came to our planet at the very end of the wave of immigration, is that on Old Earth the largely peaceful revolution that gave that planet a world government also had the effect of reducing more than ninety percent of humanity there to a state of servitude.—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,
Historia y Filosofia Moral,
Legionary Press, Balboa,
Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468
Despite her new and exalted caste and rank, Class One and Marchioness, vice Lucretia Arbeit, of Amnesty, Wallenstein wore no fashionable diadem. And when she saw her senior staff and shuttle deck crew in full proskynesis on the deck—
She didn't have to feign fury. Marguerite was furious. "Get up! Get up, dammit! I'm no stinking, head in the clouds idiot. I don't need to be fooled into an unreal sense of my own importance. I'm not so deep down convinced that I'm a walking turd that I need this kind of reassurance that I'm not. On your feet!"
Sheepishly, hesitatingly, the staff and deck crew stood. First to stand was Khan, the male, Chief of Intelligence. At Wallenstein's command he first raised his face from the cold metal deck and stole a glance to see if she seemed serious. It seemed she did. Khan pushed his upper torso off the deck and rocked back. After tapping his wife, Khan from Sociology, he grasped her arm in one hand and pulled her up along with himself.
Around them, others likewise arose from their postures of submission and humiliation. There was a clear correlation between caste and speed with which the crew obeyed the new High Admiral's command. Indeed, it wasn't until Wallenstein walked down the shuttle's ramp and stormed across the deck to where the mostly Class Three, Four and Five deck crew lay, and said, "Yes, that means everybody," that those lessers began to get to their feet.
"Staff meeting in half an hour," Wallenstein announced, turning and walking off toward the hatch that led from the shuttle deck.
* * *
There have always been classes and castes, thought Marguerite, alone in the Admiral's quarters. There will always be classes and castes. And those who cry out against the injustice of it all only want to displace those at the top and put themselves there. At least, that's the way to read it from the results they get. And can't people be presumed to really desire what they actually achieve? At least when they do so well by it?
She quickly skinned out of the dress uniform, all black and silver, she'd worn for the trip up from Earth, replacing it with a more comfortable shipboard undress uniform. This was still the black of space, but of a softer material and a more yielding cut. And, best of all, it lacked the stiff high collar that some fashion maven had inflicted on the Peace Fleet centuries before. She didn't bother to hang the dress uniform up, tossing it instead over the desk across which the former High Admiral had so often used her body. Housekeeping wasn't her job.
All right then, she thought, running a finger up a seam to seal the garment to her hips, so it's unavoidable. Is this such a bad thing? Isn't it most important that the Earth be well governed? Isn't displacing a class gone rotten and replacing it with a better one the only way to achieve that?
She stopped dressing for a moment to apply her new rank insignia, silver crossed batons surrounded by a wreath, to her old uniform. Eventually, so she supposed, she'd pick an aide de camp or two to handle things like that for her.
"Odd, really," she said aloud, as she finished affixing the rank to her collar herself. "I thought it would feel better to do this. Somehow, it doesn't feel like anything. Then, too, I didn't feel as much as I expected to when the Secretary General publically elevated me to Class One and enfeoffed me with Amnesty."
Wallenstein laughed at herself and her circumstance, then said, "Sic transit gloria mundi." Thus flees the glory of the world.
On the other hand, she thought, tugging on her tunic, the tithes that go with Amnesty will also help with the fleet. I do so hope Mr. Brown can get a good price on Cygnus House, too. I couldn't continue to own it anyway, not after I saw and smelled that sick, twisted bitch's dungeon.
Boots went on last, calf length and supple black leather to match the undress uniform. With those, Wallenstein stood and walked to the mirror on one wall of the Admiral's quarters.
"Best I can do," she sighed, though she was, in fact, still the attractive woman she'd been since becoming a woman. "And now, to meet my public."
* * *
"Gentlebeings, the High Admiral," the Adjutant announced as the oval hatchway to the ship's conference room sphinctered open and Wallenstein walked in. The hatch closed behind her as soon as it sensed she was past. Each officer present pushed their chairs back from the massive Terra Novan silverwood conference table and stood immediately to attention. With a nod, Wallenstein walked between the staff's chairs and the room's iridescent ironwood-paneled walls.
Even before taking her own seat, she ordered, "Seats."
Just as they had when ordered out from proskynesis, the crew hesitated.
Wallenstein glared. "I said, 'seats,' dammit. I don't have time . . . we don't have time, for meaningless formalities. Sit!"
Marguerite didn't wait to see if the staff obeyed. Rather, she swung her chair almost one hundred and eighty degrees to face the large Kurosawa viewscreen on one wall of the conference room. Not far from that was the hatch leading to the Admiral's Bridge, a feature so far little used.
"Computer," she said. "View of the boneyard." Instantly the screen went from blank to filled with rank upon rank of ghost ships, their lightsails furled, the dark side of the moon visible on one corner of the screen.
"We're going there," Wallenstein announced. "We're going to get several of those running. Six, I think, right now, enough for a resupply every four to six months, indefinitely. They are going to become our lifeline to Earth. Don't bother asking where the credit is coming from; suffice to say that His Excellency, the SecGen, has approved a considerable increase to the fleet's budget and a major reallocation of industrial and personnel resources to our support."
"This ship," she continued, before anyone could even register surprise, "is going to be skimmed for cadre to command those transports. The rest of the crews will be coming from the academy and from weeding out some likely prospects from Fleet Base, both on Earth and on Luna. Those, and eventually the crews that were beached on Atlantis Base because we cannibalized their ships. The new commanders will have to train their crews themselves and with a minimum cadre.
"Job One, however, will be restoring the ships we need to full functionality. That should help with the training. Hopefully, we'll be able to restore one or two, then head back to Terra Nova, ourselves, leaving stay-behinds to finish the restoration on the rest.
"Our first target for restoration will be the Jean Monnet. It's almost the newest ship out there. It was the last mothballed. And its maintenance records indicate that it is likely in the best shape of the lot.
"Oh, one more thing. I have no intention of burning up in a defective shuttle. We're going to be taking every shuttle we can cram aboard the Peace, plus every shuttle we can cram aboard the first few of our restored ships, plus all the parts we can loot."
A large cargo shuttle, recovered from one of the abandoned transports, was having obvious difficulty maneuvering to dock at that transport. The shuttle, Marguerite saw from the manifest, was carrying one hundred and twelve early-graduated midshipmen and cadets from the Fleet Academy, along with about ninety tons of Class Fours and Fives for scut work.
The problem, Marguerite thought, watching from the observation deck of Peace as the shuttle applied reversed thrust and backed off for a second attempt, is half that none of my people are used to dealing with the unusual or the unexpected. There's no surprise there and maybe not any blame either. After all, the Fleet spent centuries in orbit about Terra Nova and in all that time there were precisely two unusual events. At least only two that made it into the records. The other half is that I just don't have enough qualified people, for all my brave talk to the SecGen.
She watched further as the shuttle missed its second attempt, pulling up this time and barely missing a collision with the edge of the open bay.
Marguerite shook her head with disgust. Reaching over to a small box mounted next to the large, clear viewing port, she pressed a button and said, "Operations. Here's a general rule for you. Write it into the SOP, as a matter of fact. WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO TRAIN PEOPLE RIGHT NOW ON THE FINER POINTS OF—ELDER GODS PRESERVE ME!—DOCKING WITH A STATIONARY, NON-ROTATING, SHIP. Have the comp take over docking on shuttle flight"—she glanced down at the manifest—"number one seven two.
"Training we'll have time for when we've got a full recovery crew aboard the Jean Monnet. Until then, priority is personnel and materials. Got it?"
"Aye, Aye, High Admiral," answered the voice from the box. Before the box went silent again, Wallenstein heard a different voice commanding, "Shuttle One Seven Two, Shuttle One Seven Two. Halt in place and get your butterfingered hands off the controls. We are taking over your docking from here."
* * *
One problem I didn't anticipate, thought Marguerite, alone in the High Admiral's quarters, was that I can't get laid! For all my planning, I just completely missed that little inconvenience.
It was never a problem before, not since I took command of the flagship. Here, there was always a High Admiral to fuck . . . or whatever. Now, I'm in charge and the only way to have sex is to use a subordinate. Even if I were willing to do to someone aboard what's been done to me for so long—and I'm not—how the hell does someone take me seriously after they've seen me panting like a dog in heat or moaning all the idiocies people do in the throes of passion? How do they even look at my face without remembering the last time they saw a dick growing out of it?
Might not be such an issue with a woman, I suppose, but that is not my actual preference. Besides, the only one I find really attractive is Khan and she's a submissive. And, in bed, I prefer to be the submissive, as a relief from having to be in charge all the rest of the time. Fuck.
I foresee a miserable decade or two ahead.
Hmmm . . . bring a boy toy up? It's permitted but . . . no . . . that's contemptible. Then everyone would imagine seeing a dick growing out of my mouth but would not associate the dick with a real man.
Misery, misery.
* * *
"High Admiral on the bridge," the junior watch officer announced as Wallenstein stepped out of the elevator and through the oval hatchway.
She looked grumpy. No one knew why and few thought they could make even an educated guess. After all, hadn't the strange woman dispensed with the hallowed tradition of proskynesis? Who knew what other bizarrenesses lurked in her feverish brain. She'd never been so hard to figure out when she'd been a mere, non-ennobled captain.
"Report," Marguerite ordered, taking her seat and then listening with only half an ear and a quarter of a brain as the watch officer went through the daily log.
Note to self, she thought. This is not my job. Captain for the Spirit of Peace: Appoint, soonest. But who? My old exec isn't up to command and knows it.
"High Admiral, this completes my report," the watch officer said, finally.
Wallenstein nodded. She looked up to determine that the relief was already on station, then tilted her head toward the hatchway and said, "Dismissed." She stood, saying, "I'll be in my day cabin if I'm needed." Even though I really should be down in the Admiral's Bridge, planning for the future.
* * *
"Call from His Excellency, the Secretary General, High Admiral," the intercom announced. "I am piping it through to you now."
"Only to me," Wallenstein ordered.
"Of course, High Admiral," the intercom announced.
"My dear Marchioness," the SecGen greeted as his face appeared on Marguerite's viewscreen.
"Your Excellency," she returned.
"I've been thinking about your personnel problems and I believe I have a partial solution for you."
"Indeed?" Wallenstein tried and, so she supposed, likely failed, to sound enthusiastic.
The SecGen's face split in an I've-got-just-the-car-for-you grin. "Why, indeed, yes. I have a nephew, the Earl of Care, a wonderful boy, of the very best breeding. He's always been enthused about space. He's in the Academy's class of 2526 but, I thought, given his flawless parentage and the precedent you've set with graduating the Class of 2525 early, that he'd be just perfect to command the Spirit of Peace. And the boy could hardly hope for a better mentor than yourself."
"A spy, you mean." Marguerite kept her face carefully blank.
"A spy," the SecGen happily agreed. He then added, somewhat ruefully, "Marguerite, he's the price I have to pay to keep your little program going. Be thankful I was able to come up with someone in my own family. The World Food Organization faction wanted to put up the Count of TransIsthmia, Julio Castro-Nyere. I was only able to beg off by citing to the growing troubles there."
Marguerite sighed and said, "I appreciate your intervention, Your Excellency, but have you any idea just how troublesome an untrained captain commanding my flagship will be to me."
"I do, actually," the SecGen agreed, nodding shallowly on the screen. "Some idea, anyway. Have you any idea how troublesome Count Castro-Nyere or one of his children would be to you?"
Wallenstein smiled thinly. "Since you put it that way, Your Excellency, I look forward to the assignment of the Earl of Care as Commanding Officer, UEPF Spirit of Peace, with enthusiasm."
"I knew you would understand . . . Marguerite, Richard's not a bad boy; trust me on that. And remember, we didn't make the world, we just have to deal with it."
No, she thought. We didn't make it; our great-great-grandparents did. The bastards.
* * *
'Not a bad boy,' Wallenstein thought, eyes closed and body leaning back in her chair. I wonder what 'not a bad boy' means in a day when diadems are the latest fashion statement and our ruling class gathers about a monument to peace to watch young girls have their hearts torn out while the cameras transmit the lesson to the masses. Does he restrict himself to pulling the wings from flies? Is that what 'not a bad boy' means in this enlightened age?
On the other hand, based on intelligence reports from TransIsthmia, Count Castro-Nyere would never content himself with pulling the wings from mere flies. That is one sick branch of the human family tree, arguably even worse than my predecessor as Marchioness of Amnesty.
Briefly, Marguerite indulged in a daydream of a future in which she could return to Old Earth, triumphant and vengeful, weeding the ruling class out with a fine tooth comb and elevating to power decent Class Twos and—who knew?—perhaps even some worthy Threes.
But I won't cut their hearts out, she thought. The Earth has plenty of rope and plenty of trees. Those will be good enough.
Wallenstein's face suddenly brightened. Well . . . let's suppose Richard, Earl of Care is a right bastard. So what? I'm High Admiral, after all. If I must, I'll just space the little wretch once we're underway.
* * *
In the shadow of the moon, Jean Monnet's sail began to unfurl as gas was released into the inflatable ring about its perimeter. Had anyone bothered to dig into the records they would have discovered that the orbit that kept the ghost fleet on the dark side of the moon had been chosen for the boneyard precisely so that the sails could be inspected without the worry of the sun's light pushing the ships out of orbit. The little light reflected from the Earth, at the current angle, was not expected to be a problem for the duration of the exercise.
The hull of the Monnet was lit now, in places, both from navigation lights and, emanating from the interior through portholes, light from recovered and repowered cabins. There was still no gravity inside, a situation that in some ways aided but more generally interfered with recovery efforts. Neither would there be any gravity, barring only the moon's insignificant tug, until the crew was certain enough of Monnet's structural integrity to begin to spin her up. And, should they discover that there were problems with the hull, that spin up would not take place until the ship was maneuvered to the only site in the solar system capable of dealing with such problems, the toroidal shipyard just sunward from the system's asteroid belt.
And if we've got to use the shipyard, Marguerite thought, we're just screwed. At least with Monnet. I picked this one because it seemed likely to be our best and easiest recovery. I don't have—Earth doesn't have—the skilled space workers to do a serious repair anymore. I'm hoping that these repairs will go some ways towards fixing that lack.
The sail continued to spread as the filling gas forced the sail's ring further and further outward. It was really quite magnificent in its way, as much so as wind filling the sails of wet navy ships had been in an earlier day. Whatever the Monnet's sail lacked in ruffle and snap, moreover, it more than made up for in size. It was simply huge, even staggeringly huge. Looked at from the side, it utterly dwarfed the ship it was designed to propel, even though that elongated, egg-shaped ship was approximately the size of an old style, wet navy super carrier.
You can't hear the crack of a flapping sail, thought Peace's chief engineer, Commander McFarland, detached to command the Monnet until he could train a replacement. You can't hear it but you can feel it.
That was true enough. As the sail's ring filled and it stretched out, it also stretched the thousands of filaments—the sheets—that bound it to the ship, sending a vibration even through that massive vessel, through the bearing that connected the bridge to that vessel, and through the captain's chair to which McFarland was strapped in the absence of gravity. Since, even when underway, the bridge of the Monnet contra-rotated against the spin of the main hull, there was never any gravity there anyway.
Others would go out later, in shuttles, to inspect the forward side of the sail. From where the engineer—no, the captain, now—stood, however, things looked—
"She's nearly as good as the day she was launched, skipper," said one of bridge crew. "Ninety-seven percent of the sheets show up as solid. We've enough in ship's stores to replace those which aren't."
McFarland nodded, then keyed his intercom for his propulsion section. "Your crew ready to get in their EVA suits and inspect the inside of the sail, Mr. Buthelezi?" he asked.
Came the answer, "As ready as they're going to be, skipper. They're already suited and lined up at the mast locks."
"Very good," McFarland said. "Do it."
* * *
In the very beginning, centuries past, it had been determined that lightships would require a mast to support the sail and for the sail to rest against when furled. Moreover, since the ships' primary means of both propulsion and breaking would be the light of a sun, either there would have to be two sails, or the entire ship would have to rotate to set the sail for braking, which would require reaction mass, or the mast and sail would have to rotate around the ship, which would require structural mass, machinery and, in a word, complications. It had been a very close call at the time. Nonetheless, the consensus had finally settled upon a rotating mast as being no more difficult to build and, in operation, somewhat cheaper.
Rumors that the decision was driven more by the particulars of ownership of the consortium that would build the rotating machinery were, of course, ruthlessly suppressed.
It was up this hollow mast, devoid of gravity but for the trivial tug of Luna, far below, that Buthelezi and two dozen suited midshipmen pulled themselves, hand over hand, through hard vacuum. Behind them, behind the closed hatch of the air lock, another group of twenty-five was already preparing to take their places.
EVA work was both tiring and dangerous.
At this distance even image intensification couldn't make the boys and girls inspecting and repairing Monnet's sail anything more than dots that occasionally sparked as they used their suits' backpack maneuver units to move across and above the inner surface of the sail.
Wallenstein found that she actually cared about these boys and girls. And why not? They're my people? And they're so damned eager to please they almost make me think the system has a chance. Elder gods, was I ever so innocent?
While Class One parents had not just pulled strings but formed circle and weighed anchors to keep their precious little darlings from being graduated early and dragged off, Class Twos had tended to see the early graduation as an opportunity. It was an absolute fact that, excepting only Richard, Earl of Care, not one Class One middie was scheduled to join Wallenstein's fleet and not one young Class Two or Three had objected to joining.
Marguerite listened, smiling, to the chatter over the radio as the midshipmen found little rips in the fabric of the sail and swooped down to seal the rips with strips of tape specially made for the purpose some long ago day. They didn't find many such rips. That there were rips at all was a result of orbiting astral debris that could even puncture the hull of ship. Indeed, that had been the major job in bringing the Monnet back on line, finding and fixing hundreds of leaks, large and small, in the hull from strikes from fast moving particles, some of them no larger than grains of sand.
On the other hand, Wallenstein thought, it's not as if there are all that many children of Class Ones anyway, or that all that many of those attend the academy. And my Twos and Threes are at least the real children of real people.
Thinking about children—and the middies were, compared to her own century and a half, little more than children—started Marguerite to thinking of other children, younger ones, on a different planet. She'd been able to push it from her mind, for the most part, for decades. But ever since she'd seen the sacrifice at the Ara Pacis, everything she'd tried to suppress had come flooding back.
And I helped raise money for explosives to blow innocent people up, she mentally sighed. How many incarnations is that going to—rightly and justifiably—cost me?
Time to make an appointment with the chaplain, I think.
* * *
It has sometimes been said that, after Saint Patrick came to Ireland, the Catholics moved right in and took over from the druids with hardly a ripple, adopting many of the mannerisms and customs of the druids, the better to spread their own faith. It surprised no one then, that when Christianity was suppressed by United Earth, the druids in many places came back and took over from the priests, again with nary a ripple, and in turn adopting and adapting many Catholic customs. One of these was confession.
* * *
"Bless me, Druid, for I have sinned," said Wallenstein, sitting opposite the chaplain, approximately lotus-style, on the floor of her quarters.
"Speak to me of this," the Druid answered. The chaplain sat at the opposite corner from Marguerite. "Hold nothing back, for the Elder God or Gods, however many or few there be, will know if you do."
Marguerite took a deep breath before answering, "I am a murderess, or—if I remember my Fleet Law class correctly—at least an accessory before the fact to murder, many times over. Back on Terra Nova, while the war on the Islamics was raging, I arranged for many pseudo-kidnappings, the ransoms of which went to buy arms and explosives for the killing of innocents."
The druid nodded, his artificially grayed beard rustling on the robes over his chest as he did. "The Elder God or Gods knew this. What else?"
"I am almost as guilty of attempted megacide, though at least there I was foiled."
"And?" the Druid asked.
She shook her head. "That's all I think, all that was past my duty in any event. Oh . . ."
"Yes?"
"I betrayed the former High Admiral, Martin Robinson, to his enemies, partially in revenge and partially so that I could take over his position.
"And that's really all. Except . . ."
"Go on."
"I arranged victims from among the lowers for the former Marchioness of Amnesty to torture in her sexual games." Marguerite gulped as her eyes grew wide. "Oh, gods, I'm going to be reincarnated as a toad, aren't I?"
Marguerite thought she saw a thin smile on the druid's face, but the beard concealed so much of that she couldn't be sure.
"Quite possibly," he answered. "And that might be a best case." The druid's face grew dark as he added, sotto voce, "Though for all that, I can hardly say you've done anything worse than have my orthodox brethren, of late."
"What was that, Chaplain?"
"Nothing," the druid said. "Just thinking aloud."
Wallenstein suspected she knew what her chaplain had muttered.
"You have a serious problem, Marguerite," the druid said.
"I know that, Druid. Why do you suppose I asked to confess?"
The smile shone through the beard now, without doubt or question. "Oh, maybe because it's been decades," the druid observed.
"No, that's not it," Wallenstein insisted. "Then again, I'm not sure what it is."
That's a lie, a little voice whispered in Marguerite's head. It's that after being used for well over a century you finally realized that you were being used, and to no good end for anyone except those who used you. And you know it, just as you know that you were complicit in your own degradation, and for unworthy goals.
But I have no need to tell him that.
Don't you? the little voice insisted.
No. Not for what I plan.
Suit yourself. You will anyway.
Yes, and isn't that a nice change?
"Well," said the druid, "it doesn't really matter. Ours is a religion somewhat short on mandatory ritual. As least, we of the Reformed Druidic faith are short on mandatory ritual."
The Druid smiled again, asking, "Have you never thought about our religion, Marguerite? I mean really thought about it? How is it that a faith that was essentially extirpated by the seventh century found a rebirth in the seventeenth? And what of what was lost in those thousand years? What of what was lost between when Vespasian overran the Isle of Wight and when Suetonius Paulus destroyed our center at Anglesey?"
"It's never really been my job to think about it," Marguerite answered. "My mother was a priestess and so she raised me in it."
"The answer is simple, in any event," the druid said. "It doesn't matter in the slightest," he shrugged. "It doesn't matter because our faith really isn't about gods anymore, if it ever was. Rather, it speaks to human needs. The God or gods—oh, yes, I believe he or she or they exist—can fend for themselves and hardly need us.
"Instead, we are a philosophy, a philosophy concerned with people living well, and reasonably virtuously. The religious aspects are tacked on tatters and scavenged rags, not even good whole cloth. And none of that matters because we are not about God or gods, but about people.
"It is our reason that leads us to the religious convictions we have. It is our reason that leads us to reject the notion of Heaven and Hell and substitute for them reincarnation, something theologically almost indistinct from the old Catholic notion of Purgatory, just as our reason and our understanding of people has caused us to adopt the old Catholic sacrament of Confession, along with much of the pomp and ceremony.
"You asked to confess because you have a cancer in your soul and need a way to excise it. I would answer you that by confessing you have in goodly part already excised it. I would say to you too that, just as one can never cross the same river twice, so you, too, have changed and are hardly the same person who did the things that are eating at your soul. Finally, I would say to you that to be whole and pure again, you must do some great good for your people, or indeed all people."
'Some great good,' mused Wallenstein. How hard it is to do a 'great good.' Even so, I can still do some little ones.
The newly ennobled High Admiral, escorted by a half dozen Marines, moved through the market on foot. She stopped here and there to inspect the merchandise, sometimes pulling a chin down to check teeth. The hawkers came up to her at each stop she made. Some had the girls and boys bow. Others tapped the goods with short whips to make them turn to display their wares.
One girl in particular caught Marguerite's attention. She was a lovely little brown creature, perhaps fourteen years of age or a bit more.
"Where are you from child?" the High Admiral asked.
"TransIsthmia, your highness," the girl answered.
"How did you end up here?" Wallenstein asked.
The vendor supplied the answer. "She's a rebel brat, sold by Count Castro-Nyere. If she isn't sold quick, a buyer from the Orthodox Druids has expressed an interest."
Marguerite nodded. "And your name?" she asked.
"Whatever you want to call me," the child said, casting a fearful look at her owner and vendor.
"I want to call you what those whom you grew up with called you."
"Esmeralda, then, your highness."
Wallenstein nodded began to turn away.
"You worthless little twat," the vendor said, frustrated at the apparently lost sale. The frustration was all the worse because he hadn't a clue how the wretched bitch had screwed it up. He raised a scream from the girl when he struck her across her budding breasts with his short whip. He raised his arm to strike his property again. Before the blow could land, the vendor felt his wrist held in a firm grasp. Turning, he saw the blond woman in the black uniform, a wicked grin splitting her face and her fingers wrapped around his whip hand.
"That will be quite enough," Marguerite announced. She released the hand and then turned to one of her Marines. "Call in the troops," she ordered.
The Marine spoke into his communicator. Almost immediately the air was split with the sonic boom of a dozen or more shuttles. These landed and began disgorging troops to surround the largest and oldest slave market on the Continent. Indeed, it was so old it had actually been established by the long since defunct United States of America.
Turning back to the vendor, Marguerite said, "Fetch me the owner of this place, and any vendors who wish to make a claim for recompense on their . . . property . . . before I seize it for service to the Fleet by the authority of the Secretary General of the Consensus."