We Few

"—and I'm very much looking forward to the Imperial Festival, my love."

Her voice changed abruptly, crisp decisiveness melting into cloying sweetness, and she gazed at Roger with soulful eyes.

"As am I," Roger said. His expression had frozen into an iron mask as the Empress' had changed to one of adoration. "It is about that time, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, my dear," the Empress crooned. "What will you be wearing? I want to make sure we're simply the loveliest couple—"

"I'm not sure, yet," Roger interrupted calmly, gently. "But I think, Alexandra, that this meeting's gone on long enough, don't you?" He waved to one of the guards by the door. "Let me call your ladies in waiting. That way you can make yourself fresh and beautiful again," he added, glancing sideways at Catrone, who gave a brief nod of approval.

When the docile Empress had been led from the room, Roger stood and swept the people still seated around the conference table with eyes of emerald ice.

"Not a word," he said. "Not one pocking damned word. Meeting adjourned."

"Well?" Roger said, looking up from yet another of the endless reports floating in the holographic display above his desk. Decisions had to be made, and by default, he was making them, despite the fact that his mother had yet to define precisely what authority, if any, was his. Nobody was raising the issue, however.

Not more than once.

"It's a bad one," Catrone said.

His face was drawn, his eyes worried, as he sat down in one of the office's float chairs at Roger's wave.

"Really bad," he continued. "She's... changing. She's not asking for Adoula as much, not since we got the worst of the drugs scrubbed out of her system and told her he's gone off to his sector for a while. She still asking for New Madrid, but..." Catrone swallowed, and his face worked. "But not as often."

"What's wrong?" Roger asked.

"Christ, Your Highness," Catrone said in an anguished voice, dropping his face into his hands. "Now she's coming on to me! That bastard. That stinking bastard!"

"Pock!" Roger leaned back and grabbed his ponytail.

He stared at the older man for several seconds, then inhaled deeply.

"Tomcat, I know how hard this is for you. But you have to stay with her. You have to stay with us!"

"I will," Catrone said. He raised his head, tears ru

"Be her paladin, Tomcat," Roger said then, his face set. "If needs be, damn it, be more than her paladin."

"Roger!"

"You just said it yourself. If you're not there for her, someone else will be. Someone who's not as good a man as you are. Someone I can't trust like you. Someone she can't trust like you. You're on this post until relieved, Sergeant Major. Is that understood? And you'll do whatever it takes to stand your post, Marine. Clear?"

"Clear," Catrone grated. "Order received and understood, and I will comply. You bastard."

"That I am." Roger gri

"And I think we should inform Mistress Tompkins that I'll need a new dress, don't you?" Alexandra said softly.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Lady Russell agreed.

They sat in a gazebo, watching cold rain fall beyond the force screen. Lady Russell was expertly sewing a tapestry, while the Empress mangled a needlepoint of a puppy in a basket.

"I'll never know how you do that so well," the Empress said, smiling politely.

"Years of practice, Your Majesty," Lady Russell replied.

"I'll have many years to practice—

"—two carrier squadrons to the Marduk System," Alexandra said, her face hard. "Given what Roger's said about—"

She stopped, and looked around, frowning.

"Where am I?" she asked in a voice which was suddenly cold and dead.

"The gazebo, Your Majesty," Lady Russell said softly, and looked at her half-fearfully. "Are you well?"

"I was in the conference room," Alexandra said tightly. "I was in a meeting!It was su