An Imperfect Princess (22 page)

“James, don’t be
silly,” Clarissa replied with a grin.  “We are as mortal as you.  And I am
about to mortally be sick from nervousness.”  She took another breath.  “Come,
Marilyn.  Let us greet our guests.”

They left the
room, and Eneria shut the door behind them, locking her and Aijo into their
lead cage.

“Elevated
hormonal levels again, Enny,” Aijo warned.  “It’s not healthy to get attached
to him.  We have to go back.”

“Back to where?”
Eneria said bitterly, leaning against the shut door, closing her eyes.  “There’s
nothing for us on Lathlor.  And I won’t go to Montares.  So my life will
continue to consist of running around trying not to get caught.”  She opened
one eye and stared at her best friend.  “Wouldn’t it be better if I carved out
my own safe place?”

“No,” Aijo said
flatly.  “You cannot stay here.”

But I love him,
Eneria thought to herself, balling up her fists.  Her chest hurt at the
prospect of leaving James. “Think about it logically, Aijo.  If we can convince
the Konkastians I am dead, then there is no value in them staying on this
world.  As primitive as it is, it isn’t so bad.  We’ll be rich, and we can live
out our days in peace and security!”  She threw her hands toward the heavens for
emphasis.

“You can,” Aijo
said softly.  “And I’ll spend eternity alone.”

Eneria abruptly
dropped her hands, her shoulders slumping in defeat.  “You’re right.  I didn’t
think about that.  Pharinae are social creatures, after all.  If there were
some natives here for you, it might not be so bad.”

“Yeah…” Aijo
sighed.  “I’ve been thinking about that some more, actually,” she said, fluttering
toward the window to look at the London skyline.  “I believe they went into
hiding.”

“Huh?”  Eneria
followed her, looking outside as well.  The sun was just setting, and the lamps
outside were being manually lit by hired staff so that guests coming in
carriages after dark could see.  “Why would they hide?  Where would they go?”

“I don’t know
where, but I think I know the why.”  Aijo alighted onto Eneria’s hair, settling
onto the perfectly coiffed strands without disturbing them.  “Your James is an
exception, but these people do not trust things that they cannot understand. 
They seem to be deeply religious and dogmatic, and if ever once the Pharinae
were considered forces of evil, and not good, they would set about killing them
through whatever means necessary.”

Eneria poked the
fairy, her finger going through her glowing body.  “You’re a race of conniving
minxes, but you’re not
evil. 
Nor are you that good, for that matter. 
You’re... well, normal.”

“No we’re not,”
Aijo argued.  “Most baryonic beings we co-evolve with consider us to be
divine.”

“Well, if you
view God as the ones who created a race in His or Her image, then yes, you
are.”

            Aijo
sat up straight on her perch, the illusion of gravity on her light matter body
making her look less supernatural. “But what if a whole organized religion came
out against us?  We’d go from being gods to devils.”

Eneria raised an
eyebrow, a gesture she’d been practicing lately to imitate James. “Ironic for a
race of atheists.”

“I think that’s
what happened here,” Aijo persisted.  “The fairy tales end during a period of
time known as the Dark Ages, after the collapse of a large empire that
stretched across the main Continent collapsed.  Stories of friendly fairies are
replaced with tales of evil beings that corrupt and tempt the pious mortals.”

“Well, maybe
that does possibly answer the why,” Eneria conceded.  “But it doesn’t answer
the
where.
”

“I’d rather not
be stuck here long enough to find out.”

James smiled
brightly as old friends, acquaintances, and people who were important even if
he didn’t know them came in, one by one, to be announced by the doorman. 
Clarissa stood next to him, her face flushed with excitement.  She received
scores of compliments, a few comments that were a little improper from some of
the younger, randier men, and quite a few envious looks from the other young
women who were also in their first Season. 

He was not
surprised when a group of men walked down the street in precision with one
another.  The Konkastian unit had been invited after all, and they were in some
ways the guests of honor.  They really were beautiful people, he thought
bemusedly.  Their hair was silvery white, some with blue or pinkish undertones
tones, their skin was pale and unblemished, and their eyes to a man a cool,
calculating silver.  They were tall and fit and looked every inch like a unit
from a foreign Nordic army.

Their leader was
a man named Captain Kordan, who spoke in a frosty tone with a thick accent that
made him sound exotic and dangerous. 

James shook the
captain’s hand, put off a bit by the overly strong grip.

“Greetings to
you, Lord Holding,” the alien said, clipping the tones.  Unlike Eneria, he hadn’t
worked to perfect his English beyond correct syntax.  “We are pleased at your
invitation.  However, my entire battalion cannot attend, even if we are merely
on holiday in this country before returning to the war.  So I have brought
twenty of my men.”

“So good of you
to come,” James replied, nodding to the neat rows of men.  “All of you would
have been welcome, but I have no doubt those who are here will have an
enjoyable time nonetheless.”

They all
remained impassive as their captain escorted them to the dining room.  No one,
looking upon them, would believe they were men on vacation.  They did not seem
to care.

Once they were
all inside, it was Marilyn’s cue to disable all their weapons and computers. 
She did not disappoint; she bowed prettily and curtsied before them, and then
surreptitiously pressed the button on her bracelet.

Twenty grown men
suddenly whimpered all at once as their implanted computer chips fried.

The captain’s
face hardened and he frowned.  Marilyn blinked innocently before him.  “Is
something the matter, sir?” she asked sweetly.

“Nothing,” the
captain barked, and then turned around to face his men.  “Disperse and mingle,”
he said tersely.  “Find out what that was.”

Marilyn grinned
to herself now that her job was done, and then scampered upstairs.  Aijo could
come out to play!

So could Eneria,
now.  She stood at the top of the stairs and sucked in her breath much like
Clarissa always did, mustering every iota of hauteur she had absorbed over the
years.  She was the Princess of Lestonia, a visiting royal who had consented to
bestow her blessing on the most eligible debutante this Season. 

She slipped down
the stairs, grateful that her kid slippers were flats.  The last thing she
needed was to trip over her own two feet.

“The Princess of
Lestonia,” the doorman announced as she descended.  Her costume included a
lorgnette which she held at the snobbiest possible angle, one pinky extended,
with which she surveyed the crowded sitting room below.  This party was for
Clarissa, but it was her largesse that had allowed it to be so grand, and
Eneria felt a genuine rush of pleasure at the thought.  Even if Clarissa’s
heart was no longer in her Season, tonight was a ball that any young girl would
be proud to have in her honor.

She joined
Clarissa and James at the door to greet guests, now that the danger from the
Konkastians had passed. 

“You look
lovelier downstairs than you did above stairs,” he murmured.

“It’s the
brighter lighting here, it would flatter anyone,” she scoffed, arching one
eyebrow frostily as James did, trying not to giggle.  Her practice had paid
off.

The rest of the
guests filed in, and Eneria found herself in the uncomfortable position of
being the center of attention again.  She had hoped to lie low as much as she could,
to convince the Konkastians that there was nothing interesting for them to view
in this house, or this city, or this planet for that matter, but the character
of a wealthy, flamboyant princess from another country had been a bad choice. 
She was forced to interact with everyone in the room at least once.

She had been
terrified when Captain Kordan took her hand and kissed it, assuming he would
recognize her olive skin and murder her right then and there.  Konkastians were
not known for being merciful.  But they were careful; they would not cause a
ruckus if they could avoid it.

But the moment
passed, and she realized how much of a giveaway her hair normally was.  The
brilliant blue hair that was her maternal family’s legacy stood out like a
banner among a crowd, and even her own subdued blue brown shade was distinctive
no matter where she went in the Local Cluster.  But the henna had done its job,
and her straight tresses were a nondescript dark auburn now.  Kordon had only
seen her in on the view screen for a few moments, and the lorgnette obscured
her hazel eyes. 

By now, Aijo had
dug into their network and altered their findings and their orders.  She was a
master hacker when push came to shove, and with luck it would be a long time
before they realized that they had been misled.

Eneria nearly
wilted with relief when James rescued her, pulling her toward a circle of his
academic friends.  “I think you’ll find their conversation quite stimulating,”
he said with a smile into her ear.

He was correct,
it turned out.  They were discussing Lessell’s latest paper on some of the
objects he was finding with his telescope.  She had known that their level of
astrophysics was practically nonexistent on this world, but listening to some
of the brighter minds discuss fuzzy objects that looked like stars to the eye
but blossomed into galaxies and nebulae with a telescope was quite enlightening
in its own way.  They were on the cusp of great things.  Soon, they would begin
to build rockets to space.  If they really tried, within a hundred years they
could land on their own moon.  Another two hundred would take them to their
nearest neighboring planets.  At some point within a few more centuries, they
would discover the immense power of the dark matter engines and begin to travel
through the wormholes of space and time themselves.

And then they
would too be conquered by the Konkastians, eventually.

Naturally
habitable planets were scarcities.  In this system, their nearest planetary
neighbors could be terraformed, but other solar systems were not so lucky. 
Many had planets too close to the star or too far away or too crowded with
erratic orbits, making them unsuitable for humanoid life.  It didn’t stop the
Pharinae, who had been born in a nebula and lived wherever there was light, but
baryonic beings needed firm planets with stable seasons and predictable night
and day.  Montares boasted the largest number of truly habitable worlds, with
five terraformed planets and moons and countless outposts.

“Ah, I heard
about that fireball that was witnessed over Cornwall,” one of the men was
saying, and Eneria remembered that he was the president of the Royal Society
that James was always talking about.  “Did you get to see that yourself,
Courtland?”

“I did indeed,”
James said, with an interesting gleam in his eye.  “The girls and I were
viewing with my own telescope that night.   It flew by too fast for me to train
my view on it, however.”

“What a pity.  
If there were any remains they surely fell into the ocean then.”

“Perhaps.” 
James tilted his head toward the ballroom.  “If you will excuse me, the music
is starting up, and I have promised my first dance to Clarissa.”

The portly man
took the opportunity to bow to Eneria.  She smiled at him; he reminded her of
her late Uncle Gordani. “My lady Princess, would you care to dance with me?”

Taking a deep
breath and giving him a regal nod, she held out her hand.  “I would be
honored.”

And so the party
continued on.

Dinner was
served promptly at eight.  Much to her consternation, she had been seated kitty
corner across from Captain Kordan.  Even with James at her side–as she was the
co-host tonight too–she felt nervous down to her toes.

He doesn’t
know
it’s you, she told herself.

James touched
her foot reassuringly throughout the conversation.

“So tell me
about your situation,” her dance partner said from two seats away.  “You are
from this country, Lestonia, which is in the midst of a civil war?  I am not
familiar with that kingdom.”

“It is very
tiny,” Eneria said.  “Most people have never heard of it, and even
cartographers would be hard pressed to remember it.  Unremarkable, but we are
known for our jewelers.”  She pointed to her diamond and platinum ear bobs.

“So you have
natural resources then,” Captain Kordan said. “A reason to take over a country,
yes?”

She shook her
head in disagreement.  He thought like a Konkastian, all right.  “Few
resources, just talent.  And we’re in the midst of a civil war.”  She sighed
prettily, fluttering her lashes flirtatiously.  Prim, proper Eneria of Lathlor
would never do something as vulgar as flutter her lashes, but Princess Elinor
of Lestonia was supposed to be a flamboyant socialite, an improper princess if
there ever was one.  Eneria of Lathlor was merely an imperfect one.

“If every woman
is as ravishing as the Princess is in her country, no wonder they are
fighting,” the Marquis of Northampton said jovially.  She tittered at the
compliment, and then desperately tried to change the subject.

“In your
country, Captain, what are you famed for?” 

Captain Kordan
gave her an impassive look.  “Military might,” he said simply.

She foolishly
decided to play a little game with the captain.  “Of course.  During the war,
you allied yourself with the English, did you not?” 

He blinked
slowly, like a lizard, and darted his eyes around.  Aha! Eneria thought.  You
didn’t really do your research, did you?  You don’t know anything about the
Napoleonic wars. Computer brain programming is quite inferior to using a
Pharinae–it teaches you the language, but teaches you next to nothing about the
culture.