It had been months, and only now was the rigid rank structure breaking down. The first wives of the Rangers had each run her own household without interference from the other first wives—Primas, they were all called. Prima Bowie, the one Waltraude felt she knew best, actually ranked second in the hierarchy; the Ranger Captain's first wife outranked her. That was Prima Travis, but she was older and had less vitality than Prima Bowie. Usually she let Prima Bowie make decisions, but not today.
They were arguing about schools again. Under Familias law, the children—all of them—were supposed to be in school. Parents could choose from a wide variety of schools, or school their children at home, and the requirements were—to an academic like Waltraude—minimal. All children must become literate in at least two languages, study some very basic science and mathematics, and the Code of Citizens. But these women had steadfastly resisted sending the children to school from the beginning. No one had been able to figure out why, because the women would not explain what they considered self-explanatory. Now, in the argument, Waltraude began to grasp the problem.
"Boys and girls together! I think not!" Prima Travis was holding firm on that. "They'd become Abominations!"
"There are single-sex schools," Prima Bowie said. "Most are religious—"
"Not our religion!" Prima Travis sniffed again. "They're heathens, or worse."
"But—"
"We should never have come," Prima Travis said. "I—I was wrong to come. We should go back." Behind her, Waltraude saw several of the junior Travis wives nodding, but one pinched her mouth up and looked stubborn. Waltraude counted—third back, that was Tertia.
"The men lied to us," Prima Bowie said. "They killed mothers—"
"You said," replied Prima Travis. "I never saw that picture you said you saw."
"You heard Patience—Hazel," Prima Bowie said. "She's a good girl . . ."
"She is not a good girl; she is one of them. Prima Bowie, has your brains run out your ears, or what? She is one of them, an Abomination. She runs around wearing men's pants, messing about with machines—"
"I'll bet she has an implant," sneered Secunda Travis. Prima Travis whirled and slapped her on the mouth.
"Don't you be saying those bad words, girl!"
"I just—"
"And don't you be arguin' with me! You see what it comes to, Prima Bowie? We left our rightful place, and now we have this—this arguin' and usin' bad language."
"We can't go back," Prima Bowie said. "They'd kill us—"
"And so they should," Prima Travis said. "Our children to grow up no proper way—"
"So you think we should just go back, die, let our children be orphans?"
"No, but we got to find a right way to live. Not hived up like bees with nowhere to gather honey." Having delivered this, Prima Travis led her family out of the common room, back to their own little hive. More stingers than honey, the way Waltraude saw it.
Waltraude shut off the recorder and waited until the remaining women were seated, back at their endless handwork.
"Prima—"
"Call me Ruth Ann," Prima said. "I'm not a first wife anymore. Mitch is dead, and that boy won't actually marry me—I see that now."
"Ruth Ann, fine. Listen—where do you think you would be happy?"
"I won't be." The woman's broad, rounded face contracted in a scowl. "Not in this kind of world."
"There are many worlds in the Familias," Waltraude said. "What sort of place, can you tell me? A city? A smaller town?"
"Hazel said there was, but how can we go there? We can't just up and ask some spaceship to take us, even if I knew. If I can't be home . . . I guess I'd like a quiet place. There's always noise here, machine noise. I'd like it where it's quiet. Open. Maybe where I could see the fields. I always missed that, after Mitch moved us to the city, not having the fields outside. The garden just wasn't the same, big as it was. Someplace where people didn't laugh at me for not being schooled, someplace where what I can do is worth something. But I doubt you got anyplace like that in your fancy confederation or whatever it is."
Waltraude grinned. "Oh, but we do, Ruth Ann. What you need first of all is to be on a planet, not on a station in space. And then you need the kind of world where the basic skills you have are desperately needed. Your gardening, weaving, sewing, cooking . . . and tell me, do your boys know anything of tools?"
"The older ones do. Boys make most of the furniture in a house—they're so rough on it, they have to learn to fix it and make it."
"Your world had trees, didn't it? Wood for manufacture?"
"Yes, of course." Ruth Ann paused, brow wrinkled. "Are there worlds without trees?"
"Nearly without, yes. Ruth Ann . . . the Familias has hundreds of populated worlds, and is opening new ones to colonization all the time. And the colony worlds need pioneers. As you pointed out so succinctly today, most of us can't boil water without a computer. You know how to build fires. You know how to make bread from wheat—and I'll bet some of your older boys know how to make a mill."
"Of course they do," Ruth Ann said. Waltraude could almost feel the slow smile working its way out of her confused heart, and just as she expected, it finally smoothed out the ridged brow. "You really believe we could get to such a place? How? We have no money. . . ."
"I know someone who does," Waltraude said. "And they owe you a lot. The only problem is making the connection. But that's what scholars do."
"Make connections?"
"Yes. It's our job, though most people don't think it is. They think of us in terms of collecting information—silly, anyone can do that. What we do is notice which bits make new connections."
"You will help us? Why? You think we're ignorant . . ."
"Of history, yes. Of life, no. And of course I'll help you. Any decent person helps others; it's one of the things people are for."
"What . . . religion are you?"
"You wouldn't recognize it, and it would only bother you." Waltraude picked up her bag. "Prima—Ruth Ann, I'm going to be gone for several weeks; I've been asked to escort a diplomat from the Lone Star Confederation back to Castle Rock. But let me just show you—" She took out some hardcopy ads for colony worlds. "See this? You might like something—"
"But what would our protector say? He'd have to say it was all right—"
Waltraude thought of the scuttlebutt she'd heard about young Barin Serrano and his problems with the women. "I think he'd be delighted if you found a place you could be happy."
"And living the right way," the woman said, the scowl returning for a moment. "Happiness isn't everything. Just because our men did wrong things doesn't mean they was wrong about everything. I want my children to grow up to be good, Godfearin' men and women."
"I'm sure there's a place, Ruth Ann," Waltraude said. "When I get back, I'll help."
Rockhouse Major had everything that two young officers in love could want, Esmay knew . . . if she could only get there. It should have been simple to get from the R.S.S. Shrike, over in Sector Seven, to Sector Seven HQ, and from there to the Castle Rock system. She had finally heard from Barin; Castle Rock was the one place they could reasonably meet, since Gyrfalcon would be there several days. Castle Rock lay on her route to her new duty station, and was admirably provided with shipping and passenger lines. But one thing after another had delayed her. She imagined Barin, on Gyrfalcon, making an effortless smooth transit . . . only to wait around wondering if she was even going to show up. He might even leave before she arrived, if this miserable tub of a ship didn't get a move on.
Barin saw Esmay just a moment before she saw him: saw her face with that harder edge, that warier expression. Then their eyes met, and she grinned.
"How long do you have?" she asked, as they settled at an empty table in the concourse.
"Four hours," Barin said, angry all over again. "It was supposed to be forty-eight hours on station, minimum, but all of a sudden—"
"Same with us," Esmay said. "I should have been here
three days ago, but the blasted ship had a pressure-lock problem; we hung around for hours and hours at SecSev HQ, then they transferred us to old Bowfin, without time to send any messages, and then she couldn't generate more than seventy-two percent of her normal power, and we just came limping in . . . I was afraid you'd have left already."
"So was I. I left a message for you at the mail drop already, just in case." Barin put his head to one side and grinned. "Surely, all this scramble can't be just to keep us apart," he said. "That's an expensive abuse of Fleet resources."
"Whatever it is, it's a nuisance. Is your family still against us?"
"Yes. They think we should wait until the NewTex women are all taken care of. How am I supposed to do that? It could be years. What about you?"
Esmay handed over the message that had finally arrived, tied and stamped formally. "The Landholders are upset. Can you read Kurlik script? Basically it says that it is unacceptable for a Landbride to marry offworld at all, and particularly to marry a foreign military officer."
"But we're not foreign," Barin said.
"I know that. You know that. But Altiplano—"
"I don't want to take away anything you have," Barin said. "You've explained about being Landbride—it's a wonderful thing—"
"It's a nuisance," Esmay said. She straightened. "I never expected to be Landbride, and I thought I'd lost you . . . and . . . anyway, I accepted it in a time of crisis, but that's past. My father realized very early that I might resign in favor of a legitimate heir. It's not done often—" It had never been done except in cases of insanity or other permanent disability or extreme old age. She didn't like to think of marriage as equivalent to insanity or permanent disability. "But there is a ritual procedure. The hard part is going to be getting leave to go there. I can appoint a stand-in, but that's not the same thing as the next Landbride. My father says if I marry you, even though I've appointed someone, the Landmen's Guild could challenge, and intervene in our family affairs. And that would be bad."
"I can see that." Barin shook his head. "And we still haven't figured a way around the Fleet regulations; even if you do resign as Landbride, you can't quit being a sector commander's daughter. Does it seem to you that this is a lot harder than we thought it would be?"
"Yes. if it were this hard for everyone, nobody would get married."
They stared gloomily at each other for several minutes. Then Esmay sat up. "Let's not waste it. We have four hours—or rather, three hours and forty-two minutes."
"I don't suppose we could get married in three hours and forty-two minutes?" Barin said wistfully. "Maybe an hour to get married, and two hours to enjoy it?"
Esmay laughed. "It takes a lot longer; we couldn't possibly. But we can do something cheerier than sit here eating bad food in a noisy place."
"Right. But you'll have to pay. I'm flat broke." For some reason, this struck both of them as funny rather than annoying, and they thoroughly enjoyed their dinner.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
J.C. Chandler, President of the Lone Star Confederation,
watched the newscube with his lower lip tucked under. This was trouble with a big T, and he didn't know how he was going to deal with it. They had had problems enough with the Familias Regnant, over the years, without this kind of nonsense.
"Looks bad, J.C.," Millicent said.
"There's always crazies in the world," Ramie said, leaning back with his hands folded over his belly. "It's not our fault they call themselves Texans."
The two obvious responses, J.C. thought, and neither of them useful right now. He said nothing while the newscube ran through the whole summary, then turned off the reader and put his hands on the table. Time to talk seriously.
"That new administration has closed the border to Lone Star citizens," he said without more preamble. "They say they can't guarantee our safety, and they did send this to explain why. And they haven't withdrawn their embassy staff."
"But it wasn't us," Millicent said. "Those idiots are all the way across Familias space—"
"More like the length of it," Ramie said, not moving. "If you look at the actual geometry—"
"What matters," J.C. said, "is that they've done it—closed the border. Frozen our assets in their banks, too—"
"They can't do that—" Ramie said, sitting up so suddenly that his chair rolled back. "The Treaty of Poldek clearly states—"
"They've done it." J.C. tried not to enjoy interrupting Ramie again, but it was hard—the older man was so annoyingly difficult to get a rise out of, and here he'd actually made Ramie sit up.
"But I moved most of the family's liquid capital into Goodrich & Scanlon only a year ago; it's not reasonable—"
"They claim we might be financing our `countrymen' as they call them, even if we aren't personally involved. They want to be sure what our money's doing."
"Making more money, just like theirs." Ramie huffed his reddening cheeks out. "What do they take us for, ignorant rubes?"
Probably they did, J.C. thought, but that wasn't at issue right now. "What I want to do," J.C. said, "is tell the Cabinet and Congress that we're sending some investigators to help 'em out."
"Help them? Help them what? Steal us blind?"
"No—help them with specifically Texan issues. They seem to be blundering around not knowing the difference between those idiots and the rest of us. We could help."
"They've got a scholar, they said. That Meyerson woman."
"Milly, why do you call her `that Meyerson woman'? That won't help our image."
"I liked Professor Lemon," Millicent said frankly. "He used to send me the nicest notes . . . all right, it's not fair. You're right. We should help them—even Meyerson—if they'll let us."
From sheer force of habit and a fondness for tradition when it didn't get in the way, the Lone Star Confederation had retained the term "Rangers" for its internal security forces. This hadn't bothered anyone—not even the Familias Regnant with their hoity-toity attitudes—in centuries, but obviously, the Familias Regnant had a reason to react badly to the title now. The abuse of the same word by the New Texas Godfearing Militia nuts made real Rangers wish they'd trademarked the name somewhere back down in history.
Still, it wasn't the fault of the Lone Star Confederation. Rangers had the right training to pursue an investigation—and they weren't about to change their names just to satisfy a twitchy Familias Regnant. They'd send a Ranger.
Which Ranger then became the issue . . . but not for long, because Katherine Anne Briarly was the obvious best choice. A woman like Katie Anne, and they'd know that Lone Star's Rangers weren't like those others in any way, shape or form. Especially shape.
And besides, it would get Katie Anne out of everyone's hair for a few months. She had been getting a mite big for her britches, though not in a physical way, ever since her uncle Beau got appointed to the Supreme Court. She'd taken to being even more Texan than the Texans could stand.
* * *
Ranger Katherine Anne Briarly arrived at the Familias Regnant embassy wearing a red two-piece suit that emphasized every asset she had except brains, which—in Kate's view—couldn't be put on view anyway without making someone puke. A tumble of ash-blonde hair swirled over her shoulders; her bright blue eyes twinkled at the R.S.S. marine guards by the gate. Neither twinkled back.
"Hi," she said, holding out her ID case. "I'm Kate Briarly, and y'all are expecting me."
The gate opened behind the motionless guards, and she was facing a squad of them. The leader or whatever came out and took her ID case, then looked from the image inside to her.
"You're Ranger Katherine Anne Briarly?"
"Yup. But that's an official picture, in uniform, and I didn't see any reason to get gussied up in uniform for just a friendly visit. I figured y'all'd have an ID scan unit anyway."
"Quite so. If you'd come this way." She followed the young man toward a portable booth set up in the courtyard, ignoring the scrape of feet as the squad fell in behind her. This wa
s going to be fun.
She was who she said she was—retinals, fingerprints, voiceprints, the whole shebang—and in another ten minutes she was upstairs waiting to meet the ambassador.
"Sera—Ranger—Briarly—"
"Oh, just call me Kate," Kate said, widening her smile. He blinked.
"It's irregular," he murmured.
"I know," Kate said. "But who's to tell on you? Not me."
"I have received permission for two Rangers to enter Familias space and help with inquiries—"
"You don't need two," Kate said. "I'll just go by myself, thanks."
"But—"
"It'll be simpler," Kate said. "Less cost to you, too, keeping track of just one. Besides, it's traditional."
She had seen the ambassador before, while running security at the Cattlemen's Association Ball three years before, but she'd been in uniform then, her hair slicked back into a neat French braid. He didn't remember her, she could tell that. All the better.
"Now I realize y'all are concerned that we might have some connection to those NewTex nuts—"
"Concern was expressed," the ambassador said. "Not by me; I've tried to reassure the Grand Council that you all . . . er . . . you . . . here, the Lone Star Confederation . . . are not part of that group."
"Heavens, no," Kate said. "I'd like to see anyone making us wear clothes like that! And bare feet—shoot, I was as tomboy as they come, but you don't see me shuffling around in bare feet." She pointed a long, elegant foot clad in a feminine version of the Texas style: high-heeled, but not a boot.
"It's the new government," the ambassador said. "We have a new Speaker and a new Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense; one doesn't like to say it's inexperience, but they're just not listening to me. You've travelled in Familias space before, Sera . . . er . . . Ranger . . . ?"
"Kate," she said again. "No, not me. I've been to Bluebonnet and West and Panhandle, but not to Familias. It'll be fun."
At the border, Kate found she had an escort at the end of the docking tube.