Plan B by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Read Free Book Online

to get distance from the shock of the picture and the tension focused now on her. "I'm guessing," she told tel'Vosti. "She's dressed like a pilot—and there ain't any reason to choose Surebleak, when you got the whole galaxy ahead."

    "So," he said, and looked ready to say more.

    "There will be a gene test," Emrith Tiazan snapped. "Med Tech, attend your duty!"

    The tech came to her feet, looking open-mouthed from the picture to Miri. She looked finally at the old lady and bowed, rearranging her face into an expression of cool interest.

    "As you say," she murmured, and drew a flat kit from her utility pocket. "If the young lady will attend me here. . ."

     

    The blue dress felt nice.

    It looked nice, too, Miri decided. In fact, she looked amazingly respectable for a woman who had lately been a mercenary master sergeant, a bodyguard, a fugitive from justice, a woman of all work, and a singer.

    Whether she looked respectable enough to please the circus gathering in the reception room below was something she'd find out far too soon.

    She took one last turn before the mirror, admiring the way the bluestone necklace lay just right against her throat. She was wearing her hair loose, held back with a set of deceptively simple silver combs. Central stores, located in the cavernous belowstairs had provided dress and combs. The necklace and matching ring were hers, gifts from Val Con, from a time when gifts from Val Con were potentially deadly.

    "Very elegant," she told her reflection, and bowed pleasure at making acquaintance, remembering to include the hand-gesture one used toward newly-met kin.

    "Gods," she said, and came slowly erect, as if the woman in the mirror might jump her. "Oh, gods, Robertson, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?"

    Val Con's dressing room—the 'apartment' set aside for their use was bigger than Zhena Trelu's whole house, back on Vandar—was on the opposite side of the bedroom. There were three other rooms—a parlor, an office and a bookroom, plus a bathroom the size of Lytaxin spaceport and a balcony that looked out over the East Garden.

    A huge bed commanded the bedroom. Flowering vines grew up two of the posts and all over the canopy, dripping long tendrils like flowering curtains around the sides. Miri shook her head. Liadens . . . A whole room just to dress in, a garden growing in the bedroom, and a bunch of other stuff, here and there, apparently just done for pretty. She bit her lip, recalling the apartments she'd lived in as a kid, an endless succession of rats, peeling synth-lam walls and near-paneless windows leaking Surebleak's frigid winter winds.

    "Forget it, Robertson," she whispered; "you ain't going back there. Never going back there."

    The bed-flowers were pale blue with soft white stripes, lightly and agreeably perfumed. On impulse, she pulled one free and tucked it behind an ear as she continued across the cream-and-blue carpet to Val Con's dressing room.

    He caught her eyes in the mirror as the door opened, and smiled.

    "Cha'trez."

    She tried to smile back—saw her reflection's mouth wobble and then straighten in distress as the big gray eyes got bigger, taking in the ruffled white shirt, the rich dark trousers, the green ear-drop and finger-ring—all the accouterments of a Liaden gentlemen about to attend a formal dinner.

    Val Con spun, eyes and face serious.

    "Miri? What is wrong?"

    "I—" she shook her head and managed to dredge up a half-convincing grin. "You look like a Liaden, boss."

    "Ah." His face relaxed and he came across to her, lifting a hand to touch her hair. "But, you see, I am a Liaden, which no doubt accounts for it."

    "That's probably it," she agreed and sighed. "You ready to go face the lions?"

    One brow rose. "Clan Erob? Hardly lions."

    "Yeah, and suppose that gene test comes out negative? You're OK, but I ain't the kind Erob usually has to supper."

    "And the portrait of Miri-eklykt'i?" He touched the flower behind her ear