Star's End

  “Ah, well, this is a bit of bad news.”

  Esme frowned. “What? What is it?”

  “She married a Tarcza diplomat.”

  Esme was relieved to find that Adrienne hadn’t turned to illegal means to erase her family. A diplomat—that sounded like her. Esme remembered the dinners where Adrienne wore the latest dresses and styled her hair the way girls did in the fashion feeds. She knew better than any of the sisters that fashion was a perfect shield. Fashion and courtesy. Esme was surprised that Adrienne hadn’t become a diplomat herself.

  But a diplomatic block was still a hindrance.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Coromina,” Gerald said. “I can’t lift the block without permission from the Tarcza government. You know they don’t trust corpocratic systems.”

  “Yes,” Esme said quietly, and disappointment settled around her.

  “I can request the permission, if you wish.”

  Esme shook her head; there was no point. Adrienne would refuse it. Adrienne understood the importance of propriety. But she also knew how to hold a grudge.

  “Thank you,” she said, and she stood up, her emotions a bewildering churn in her belly. Pride at who Adrienne had become; disappointment that she was locked out completely.

  Esme swept out of the office. Will. The R-Troops were spread out across all the militaries, including in Tarcza’s house military—that was why there was a Tarczan embassy in the Coromina system in the first place. Will would be able to connect with those soldiers, maybe find her the information she wanted to know. If Will went after information about the diplomat and his wife, it would not tip off Adrienne as much if it were Esme asking questions.

  Perhaps this was a sly way to approach the problem, but, Esme was sure, it would be worth it in the end.

  • • •

  That afternoon, after Esme contacted Will and told him her plan—he agreed, cheerfully, said he hoped he’d be able to find the information she needed—a driver showed up at Esme’s office. Her admin assistant showed her in, and she blinked at Esme with the blank eyes all drivers have when they are not connected to a car.

  “Your father,” the driver said in a flat voice, “has requested you come to his home immediately.”

  Esme froze, her fingers lifted to her lightscreen. She stared at the driver.

  “His home?” she said. “You mean he’s not in the office?”

  The driver shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything more, only that it’s urgent.”

  He’s dead. The thought slammed into her like a punch. He’d looked terrible on the holo. But no—if he’d died, she wouldn’t have found out this way. He wouldn’t have been able to send a driver, for one. But he could be close. It could still be too late to bring home her sisters.

  She gathered her things and followed the driver out of the office. On the ride to her father’s home in the company enclave, she sent an encrypted message to Will: We may have to hurry on finding my sisters, something’s happened. More later. Then she slumped down in the seat while the scenery whisked by. Her lightbox chimed; it was from Will. Good luck. She closed her eyes. Took deep breaths. The car slowed, and when she looked out the window, she saw they were passing by the big sprawling houses that belonged to the members of Coromina Group upper management. One of them could be hers if she’d wanted it. But she’d never bothered to upgrade.

  Her father’s house was tucked away in a cul-de-sac, surrounded by camphor trees and plumeria shrubs. The sight of them always made her chest hurt; but these plants were not sculpted like the plumeria at Star’s End had been. They were not genetically engineered. They were just ordinary flowers.

  A soldier stood outside the door, light rifle slung over his shoulder. He was linked into a scanner, and when he looked at Esme, she felt his eyes go straight through her. But he gestured for her to go in, and she did. Her father’s house felt more like a tomb than it usually did. Everything was cold and sterile and there was a shivering reverberation as her heels clicked against the stone tiles. “Hello!” she called out into the foyer. “Dad? What’s happened?”

  “Esme.” Miguel stepped out of one of the side rooms. “You made it. Thank God. He’s been asking about you.”

  Esme felt a twinge of anger—why the hell did Miguel find out everything before she did? “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I just got here. He won’t tell me anything without you.”

  Esme blinked in surprise. That was new.

  “He looks bad, though. You may want to—to brace yourself.”

  Esme nodded. Her mind raced with worry. She and Miguel walked side by side, unspeaking, up the stairs. Esme realized she had no idea where her father’s bedroom was in this house.

  It didn’t matter, though; a doctor was waiting at the end of the hallway, her back pressed against the wall, her hand pressed against her forehead. She lifted her gaze as Miguel and Esme approached and gave them a thin smile. “Good,” she said. “You’re here.”

  “Is he dying?” Esme spat out, even though it was a stupid question. Of course he was dying. But the doctor seemed to understand what she meant.

  “He still has time. But he’s getting worse, and he needs to . . .” The doctor took a deep breath. “He has to transfer power before the board finds out. I advised him to do it now.”

  Every cell in Esme’s body went still. Transfer power. It was finally happening. Everything she had been groomed for since the moment she was born. At the same time, though, it felt too soon. Her plans with the immortality treatments—they weren’t quite ready. And she had so much else to worry about.

  And why was Miguel there? Was this one last trick of her father’s, one twist of the knife?

  “Go in,” the doctor said. “He’s waiting.” She pushed the door open. Miguel stood back, let Esme go in first.

  The room smelled of medicine, sharp and chemical. Her father sat in a tremendous bed in the center of the room, blankets folded around his waist. Seeing him was a shock. He looked even more like a corpse, like a skeleton, than he had on the holo. The final stages of zamia came on fast. He lifted his head, blinked his sunken eyes.

  “Esme,” he said roughly. “I’m sorry you have to see me like this.”

  Esme stumbled forward. Her eyes were heavy, like she might start crying. She didn’t know what exactly she would be crying over—was she really going to grieve for him the way she had grieved for her mother? It seemed impossible. But maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe it was just that seeing him reminded her that death eventually came for everyone.

  “Philip,” Miguel said. His voice startled Esme. He rushed to the side of the bed. “You look—”

  “I look like a three-hundred-year-old man dying of galazamia.” Esme’s father croaked out a laugh. “I’m sure both of you know why you are here.”

  Did they? Esme glanced over at Miguel again, but he was just staring at her father in horror.

  “I’m not dead yet,” her father said. “And the doctor says I have a few months left in me.” He turned his gaze on Esme when he said this, and she knew that it was his way of warning her—You have two months to get your sisters back to me. “But I can’t go into the office looking like this. The board’s already started asking questions.”

  Esme’s chest was getting tighter and tighter. She squeezed at the cuffs of her jacket, her palms damp with sweat.

  “We need to change over the power,” her father said. “Esme, you will take my place as CEO.”

  All her life, she had known this would happen. And yet hearing it now felt like a cold wind.

  “Miguel, you will take on Esme’s old job, of Vice President of Genetics. You two will run the company in my stead.” Her father looked between them. His neck was so thin, it seemed incapable of balancing his head. His mouth seemed too red. “The board may try to wrest power from you. Don’t let them. Work together to protect yourselves.”

  A cough rose up in her father’s chest, like tectonic plates shifting beneath the su
rface of a planet. He doubled over, spots of blood splattering across the bedsheets. Esme’s stomach twisted. The doctor rushed in—Esme hadn’t even realized she was in the room—and pressed a med needle against the side of his neck. The coughing subsided and he rolled to his back, swatted the doctor away. She stepped back, her face grim.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “We need to make everything official. I have the files set up on my lightbox. You two just need to get scanned.”

  Miguel nodded, his eyes wide with barely concealed excitement. Esme felt dizzy. All this power being handed over to her. It was early, yes, but she could still finally run the company the way she wanted, the way she’d promised herself all those years earlier. And it wasn’t as if she were completely unprepared. She would just have to contact the scientists working on the immortality treatments, let them know it was time to switch over, that their research needed to focus on eradicating diseases, not living forever.

  Her father pressed a button laid into the frame of his bed, and a holoscreen appeared, flooding the room with light. There were the files, just as he promised. Esme stared at hers, at her official image staring back at her. It had been taken last year, and even then there was a tiredness around her eyes.

  “It needs your DNA signature,” her father said. “I have it set with a scanner. Just walk right through. Miguel, you go first.”

  Miguel glanced over at Esme. He was beaming. She gave him a thin smile in return and wondered if he would try to undermine her somehow, try to find a way to steal her power. He was ambitious enough, but his ambition had always felt benign.

  He took a deep breath and stepped through the holo. The image shimmered around him like stars. When he was on the other side, the official title on his file had changed: VICE PRESIDENT, GENETICS.

  “Esme.” Her father’s voice was rough in her ear. Power, she thought. All the power in the Coromina Group. She could do whatever she wanted.

  Maybe she could finally become someone other than her father.

  Esme could feel her father watching her. She wondered if he’d ever thought it would be this easy. Just watch her walk through a curtain of light and have everything taken away from him.

  She stepped up to the holo. She could feel the energy radiating off it. And when she crossed the boundary, she held her breath. The scanner pricked at her skin like tiny needles, and when she came through to the other side, she felt as if a layer of herself had been stripped clean away.

  “It’s imperative you find your sisters,” her father said suddenly, his voice startling her. “I need them in person, too.”

  Esme turned to look at him. The prickling dizziness of the holo faded away. Of course. She had always known it wasn’t just about redemption.

  “The board,” her father said, coughing a little. “The board could use them. They have to abdicate their portions of the company—I’m just trying to protect you, Esme. Protect you both.”

  “Of course,” Miguel said.

  Esme nodded. She glanced over at the holo, the light filling up the room. It wasn’t the abdication itself that bothered her—the truth was, it would protect them, too. They could no longer be used for bargaining pieces if the board found them first. But some part of Esme had hoped her father had changed, even if she hadn’t let herself believe it. Some part of her had hoped he really had just wanted to apologize.

  She should have known better.

  • • •

  Esme invited Will to have dinner at her condominium, and to talk about what to do next. It felt like the safest option. She certainly wasn’t willing to discuss things at the office, where the board might have found a way to listen. Out in public wasn’t always safe either. But in her own home, where she controlled the surveillance, she felt secure.

  She laid out the food she had ordered on the table—herb-crusted fish, a rice pilaf, vegetables that were grown in the Coromina Group gardens—and then poured herself a glass of sweet white wine. She knew not to offer Will any; the R-Troops never drank alcohol. It interfered with their system of unspoken communication.

  “I have some good news,” Will said, cutting into his fish. “I think I found Adrienne.”

  Esme looked up at him. She had been so preoccupied with her promotion that she hadn’t given much thought to Will’s own search. “And you didn’t tell me when I contacted you earlier?”

  Will grinned. “I wanted to tell you in person. See your expression.”

  Esme smiled, shook her head. She hadn’t told him she was CEO of the company yet. She wondered if that would change the way he treated her.

  Or if he’d already been treating her the way he would a CEO. Technically, she owned him. Technically, she could control him if she wanted.

  “She’s in the system,” Will went on. “On Amana.”

  “Really?” That was a stroke of luck, that Esme wouldn’t have to make the jump to the Tarcza system. It would be easier to get to Adrienne, at least.

  “Yeah. I’ll give you the address and such when we’re done with dinner. I didn’t want to transmit it over Connectivity, even encrypted.” He looked up at her, his fork hovering in midair. His eyes gleamed. “Given the way I, ah, acquired the information. I don’t imagine either CG or Tarcza would be happy to know that I linked up with a Tarczan R-Trooper.”

  The food on Esme’s plate suddenly looked lumpish and unappetizing. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do that,” she murmured, before taking a long pull of her wine. When she set it aside, Will was staring at her, frowning.

  “I didn’t mind,” he said.

  Did he mean it? Esme studied him. She couldn’t tell. Sometimes, he kept his emotions tucked away inside of him. She couldn’t always read his expressions.

  “Well, I appreciate it,” she said. She hesitated. Her mouth felt too dry. “I have some news of my own, by the way.”

  “Oh?”

  Esme nodded. She lifted her gaze to meet Will’s. He blinked at her, expectant.

  “Dad made the transfer,” she said. Just spit it out, get it over with. “I’m CEO of the Coromina Group now.”

  It felt wrong, saying it out loud, as if the rules of the universe were coming undone. For a moment, the room drowned in silence. Then Will broke into a bright smile, and he became more human than Radiance. “Congratulations!” he said. “Shouldn’t you be drinking something nicer than that?” He nodded at the wine. “Or, for that matter, having dinner out at the Veiled Garden or something?”

  Esme’s cheeks warmed. “I’m perfectly fine having dinner at home.” With you, she thought, although she didn’t say it.

  Will laughed. “Staying humble, then. That’s good.”

  They ate for a few moments longer—well, Will ate, and Esme picked at her food, her stomach still roiling around, so she didn’t have much of an appetite. Then she said, “I think I’ll go see Adrienne in person.”

  Will paused. “Yes,” he said. “I think that would be a good idea.”

  “I should do it as soon as possible.” Esme pushed her food around. “Dad’s probably going to die soon.” A knot formed in the base of her throat as she thought back to the sight of her father in his bed, as if his atoms were collapsing in on themselves. She could never imagine him dying. Even when she had received word that her mother had died, in battle, the way she would have wanted—even when faced with that reality, Esme couldn’t imagine her father dying. Her mother, she had expected to die someday. Her father had expected to find immortality, to cheat the universe of his death.

  And he lost. One of the few failures in his life. But she could use his failure to shape the future of the company.

  Esme pushed away from the table and grabbed her lightbox. She felt a weight on her shoulder—Will’s hand, she realized with a start. She looked over her shoulder at him.

  “She’s living in Santos,” he said softly. “Her house has a name instead of an address. Let me get the information for you.”

  Esme nodded. Santos. It made sense. It was one of the more fashio
nable cities in the Four Sisters. A place artists lived, trying to keep away from the scrutiny of the company.

  “Here,” Will said, taking her lightbox. He pressed his own lightbox against it, like a kiss, and then activated her lightscreen. The information flowered into place. Adrienne Lanka, wife to the Tarczan diplomat Oliver Lanka. So, she really had stripped all remnants of her family. Hadn’t even kept her name, as was custom here and on Tarcza too. No Adrienne Coromina Lanka, like tradition dictated. No attempt at honoring her father’s name.

  “There,” Will said. “Winslow Place. Should be easy to locate.”

  “Yes.” Winslow Place. The name wasn’t familiar to Esme, but that probably just meant that it was some embassy house belonging to Tarcza.

  The alert light began blinking on Esme’s lightbox. Bright white and urgent. She sighed, tapped it. A holo of Asenka Wymer, one of the board members, materialized in the air of Esme’s apartment. She jerked back, startled.

  “I see it’s already starting,” Will murmured.

  “This encrypted message is for Esme Coromina only,” Asenka’s holo said in a prim, stiff voice. “Room scan will begin in ten, nine, eight . . .”

  Esme looked at Will apologetically. “Guess you better wait outside.”

  “I wonder what would happen if I stayed?” he asked, although he was already on his way to the door.

  “Nothing good.”

  He slipped out into the hallway just as Asenka said, “One.” A bright blue light flashed out of Esme’s lightbox, blinding her for half a second. Then it faded, leaving ghostly impressions glimmering in its wake.

  “Room clear,” Asenka said, and the holo flickered; Asenka’s image jerked to the left, leaving her in a different position from where she started. “Esme,” she said, her voice still prim. “Let me be the first to congratulate on your promotion to CEO.”

  Esme smiled, because really, it was Will who held that honor.

  “I look forward to working with you. Because of the sudden nature of this changing of the guard, so to speak, the rest of the board and I have agreed it best to call a meeting tomorrow morning, to discuss what these changes mean for the company and how we wish to proceed. Your presence, of course, is strongly requested.”