“I put a dummy camera on the opposite side. They saw it and now they’re trying to shield their plot from view.”
“Sly dog, you.”
“Thank you.”
I snuggled closer to him. I hadn’t seen him since dinner. After leaving Caldenia and Lady Wexyn, I headed back to the Ocean dining hall, but the Kai delegation informed me that one of their members had developed a twitch in his middle left limb, which was a matter of grave concern to the entire delegation, so I detoured to their quarters. After an hour of medical scans, it was confirmed that the twitch was a stress response, so I created a sensory respite area in their quarters where they could destress.
After that, Resven wanted to fight with me over the Holy Ecclesiarch’s meal, which I shut down flat by presenting him with Orro’s resume. A chef of Orro’s training and experience had more than enough expertise to make sure his food didn’t adversely affect digestion of elderly sislafs. That shut Resven up but didn’t endear me to him in the slightest.
After that I received a request from the oomboles who explained to me that the water plants in their habitat failed to provide enough privacy. I doubled the number of plants, but they didn’t like their color and felt there was not enough variety, so I sent Gaston out to the Baha-char to get different plants. They were now cycling in the quarantine tank, so I could add them to the habitat tomorrow provided they were free of disease and contaminants.
“How did it go with the otrokars?” I asked.
“Do you remember that cartoon we watched where Thor is an environmentalist?”
“The one where he kept peacefully protesting ‘until he was provoked?’”
“That’s the one. The otrokars want to be provoked. Very badly.”
“Ugh.”
We sat in silence for a couple of minutes.
“How likely is she to go after Kosandion?” he asked.
“Caldenia?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know. I reminded her that the survival of the inn is at stake. Previously, when there were conflicts involving the inn, she was always a neutral third party. This isn’t a neutral matter. It’s family and painful memories. Kosandion is a reminder of why she lost everything and now lives in exile.”
He frowned.
“What?” I asked.
“Wonder if she’s considering going out in a blaze of glory. She’s already infamous. Murdering Kosandion would make her a legend.”
One of the Dushegubs split. Its thick trunk opened. The other Dushegub thrust roots into it and withdrew a large, industrial drill, the kind used in asteroid mining.
“Huh,” Sean said.
“It’s probably an old injury. They shoved the drill in there and glued the trunk back together with sap.”
“And it didn’t show up on weapon scans.”
“Apparently not.”
The Dushegubs struggled with the drill’s controls. It was made for someone with slender digits rather than thick roots.
“If Caldenia wanted to go out in a ‘blaze of glory’ she’s had plenty of opportunities to do so.”
Sean shook his head. “But none like this. Killing her nephew, the Sovereign, on Earth, in an inn, live, or almost live on galactic television. It would be even bigger than killing her brother.”
“I don’t think she’ll do it.”
“She could though.”
“But she won’t.”
The drill flashed with lights. The Dushegubs flailed their roots.
“Do you trust her that much?”
“I don’t trust her. I trust her survival instincts. Sean, this woman ruled over six star systems. She gave it all up to come live at this inn where she drinks Mello Yello and tries to murder tomatoes in her garden with her lack of nurturing skills. She did it because it was the only way to survive. Her will to live is that strong.”
“Why did she kill her brother?”
“Nobody knows.”
Sean sighed. “And that’s the problem. If she gave up six star systems to eliminate her brother, would she give up exile in the inn to eliminate her nephew?”
The Dushegubs planted the drill against the wall and turned it on. Sparks flew.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I said.
“True. It’s not like we have a choice.”
The only choice would be to exclude Caldenia completely by confining her to her quarters, and neither of us would do that.
Sean looked at the world a little differently than I did. I kept track of various possibilities, but I was decent at predicting what would happen. Sean concentrated on what could happen, and there was a vast difference between the two. It made us a good team.
The Dushegub closest to the hole got hit with a spray of sparks and slithered away, hissing up a storm.
“There’s one thing that puzzles me,” Sean said. “You’re Kosandion. Your aunt killed your father and started an interstellar war. You see her, finally, after all this time, and you are civil to her. You are completely unbothered by her presence. Your heart rate doesn’t rise, your pupils don’t dilate, your breathing stays even. He wasn’t pretending. He was cool as a cucumber. Why?”
I spread my arms.
The Dushegubs withdrew the drill and inspected the quarter inch deep hole they’d managed to make. Branches shook, roots slithered, and they put the drill back in.
“Far enough?” I wondered.
“Yeah,” Sean agreed.
The leading Dushegub turned the drill on. An electric arc splayed out of the hole, hitting the drill dead center. The drill exploded. The miner Dushegub flew back, smoking, and landed on mud island. The rest of the killer trees chased it and tried to roll it into the water.
Sean smiled.
“People are complicated,” I said.
He leaned over and kissed me. “At least these idiots are easy. Come to bed. We have a big day tomorrow.”
I smiled at him, and we left for our bedroom.
13
What an eventful first day for the spouse competition! Long lost family, first impressions of the spouse candidates, and a flurry of guests keeping the innkeepers on their toes.
Let’s take a closer look at the man in the center of it all.
I stood on the balcony in Kosandion’s private quarters and watched Resven struggle to contain his irritation at my presence. Being included in a very private discussion of the Dominion’s state secrets wasn’t in my plans, but Kosandion requested my attendance during the breakfast, and here we were.
I had built the Dominion suite to remind Kosandion of the Palace. The trick wasn’t to replicate his home but to nod at it subtly with the right shades and familiar contours. New experiences were an essential part of travelling. I tinted the colors slightly warmer, relaxed the geometric harshness, and threw a few unexpected shapes, like the asymmetric arches. The asymmetry showed in their haircuts and clothes, but a lot of the Dominion architecture was old and incorporating the new trend would give the suite some freshness.
My original design didn’t incorporate a balcony, but after watching Kosandion contemplate the orange ocean during dinner, I moved his suite to Kolinda’s door.
Once an inn’s branch reached a new planet and the inn opened a door leading there, it would begin to root through that space, claiming a section of the world. Some rootings were tiny, barely enough for the human-sized door. Others were vast. Kolinda’s rooting covered over one square mile. Gertrude Hunt’s door opened onto a small island, a chunk of jagged rock that thrust from the depths of the ocean, and the entire island belonged to us.