“We are doing right, quiaff?” Sha glanced over his shoulder at one of his most trusted Star colonels, Coleen Nagasawa. Her overlarge eyes held a doubt mirrored in the wrinkling of her expansive forehead.

“Aff,” Sha responded softly. “How can bringing glory to Clan Sea Fox not be right?”

“But are we bringing glory to the Clan? Or only to Spina Khanate? Only to Beta Aimag?” She moved down the short aisle and stopped just out of touching distance. Sha entertained an errant thought; her neck appeared too thin to support such a massive cranium, and he wondered if she could only survive in the relatively gravityless environment of space. Her longish hair, having slipped from its coil, floated lazily.

Sha eyed the hair disapprovingly. “Is it the Falcons? I know your particular… distaste… for them, but we cannot choose where the next deal may take us, or who may sit across from us at the table.”

“I know that as well as you, ovKhan,” she responded; her momentary anger did not touch him. “I may wish their genetic material flushed out the nearest airlock, but I will deal with them and take their honor and resources like any other.”

“Then what?” The genesis of the goal toward which he had worked so long and hard now lay just behind several centimeters of metal; after all this time, suddenly she became timid, like a first-year trader?

“What we are about to do…”

Sha saw the struggle of her thoughts as clearly as if a Star of ’Mechs battled across her face.

“What we are about to do is prove, in a way none can deny, that our Khan has become a weak old man whose only desire is to suck the rest of the Khanates dry, while his ilKhanate feasts on the fatted calves of our labor.” Though his voice never wavered from its soft, low-pitched cadence, Coleen’s jaw snapped shut like the clink of a Gauss rifle cycling its last round into the chamber. Power swam in his words.

He turned away, moved forward and undogged the hatch. Pulling it open, he ducked through before his security detail could protest. Stepping out on the other side, he straightened to see three individuals sheathed in the formal black and jade uniforms of Clan Jade Falcon. The Falconers’ almost ostentatious dress made his own deep blue single-suit seem shabby by comparison; their eyes confirmed this impression. He bowed low in the tradition of all Sea Fox Clansmen in the opening salvos of negotiations and his lips twitched in a smile his adversaries could not see; their arrogance would be their undoing.

Blood in the water.

Clan Sea Fox CargoShip Voidswimmer

Nadir Jump Point, Savannah System

Prefecture VII, The Republic

4 July 3134

Petr once again entered the Scientist Quarter, this time wearing his ceremonial leathers. The detailed sea fox stitched across the torso of his suit conveyed dignity and power; he’d need both in officiating this trial.

Moving through the corridors of the scientists’ berths, he could feel the wash of babbling voices eddying around him as he drew near the main conference room. Grasping the handhold at the entryway, he tucked his knees up, spun himself through the opening and performed a half twist to plant his legs against the bulkhead on the inside; he paused a moment to make sure his path lay clear, then pushed, shooting toward the central dais at the top of the inverted half-sphere.

With practiced ease, he grasped the pole set into the armrest of the ovKhan’s chair (only used for such occasions), spun around once to slough off extra inertia and expertly settled himself into the seat; nodules across the surface felt his presence and turned on their static charge, lightly but insistently pulling at his suit, keeping him stationary.

The half-bowl held a panoply of scientists, all adhered to their seats by static charges, each wearing the single-suit of a Sea Fox Clansman. The shoulders of their suits were colored to match their subcastes: yellow for teachers, green for doctors, red for the eugenics specialists and so on—a flowering bed of the Clan’s brightest minds, filled with equal parts genius, their own kind of arrogance and naiveté.

That last quality, of course, was the reason Petr found himself here.

At times Petr thought perhaps all castes should undergo the same rigorous training the warriors endured. Naiveté did not last long under the grueling physical and mental exercises begun at the age of seven, or the ruthless pummeling of a shiv-trainer molding a new warrior to suit his ultimate calling.

Jesup flowed into the room. The man arrowed toward him, grabbed the same pole Petr used, then spun around to the back of the chair, coming to rest with his magnetic slips adhering to the deck.

“Are you ever not early, oh precipitous one?” Jesup mocked.

Petr smiled. “Someday I might be late, but hopefully you will not see it.” They both chuckled, then grew somber as scientist Kif entered. The man appeared to have aged a decade in the fourteen days since the disastrous results of his experiment.

“I do believe he is ready for a solahma unit,” Jesup said, his own tone warring between humor and horror.

“I have never heard of a scientific solahma unit. Age does not inhibit them as it does us. After all, unlike a warrior, they cannot die in one last attempt at glory and honor for the Clan they failed.”

“Oh, but they could. For example, Kif could have been on the ship he destroyed,” Jesup responded, deadpan.

Petr turned so quickly that he nearly broke the static charge and floated free. He saw humor dancing in the other man’s eyes, though a slight crease in Jesup’s forehead made Petr think his aide believed Kif (or any person, perhaps—another dig?) should be put directly in the path of his choices, to suffer the consequences immediately and not allow them to be ignored or to affect others.

Petr slowly shook his head and fought a smile (it was ironic to think of the man going down with his ship). “One of these days you will reach too far, Jesup.”

He swept a flourishing bow. “As you say, oh mighty one.”

“But until then you will be my court jester, as though I am a spheroid tyrant?” Petr cocked an eyebrow, waiting for the response.

Jesup swallowed, then looked slightly abashed.

“Do I find you tongue-tied?”

“Naturally not, ovKhan, but—we are ready to begin.”

Petr looked at the two benches directly in front of him and found scientist Jonnic already present, the waiting throngs silent and peering at him quizzically. He gave Jesup a dirty look before turning to the crowd.

He stood, tapping his feet to the deck to attach his slips, then bowed formally in a mimicry of the sea fox, a mark of respect for those present. “Scientists, we have gathered this day for a Trial of Grievance. Because both individuals hail from the same subcaste, there is no need for a quorum of Bloodnamed from the Clan Council extant in our flotilla. Instead, scientist Kif will be judged by his peers. I, as ovKhan of Delta Aimag, will mete out the final sentence. In this, we shall not deny justice. In this, we shall all prosper.”

“Seyla,” echoed around the room, the scientists sealing the trial with affirmation.

All bowed formally in return.

“Scientist Jonnic, proceed,” he said, then resumed his seat.

A tall woman stood, pale of hair and flesh, with fingers that reminded Petr of spider legs in their length and skeletal appearance, not to mention their almost constant flickering. Disengaging her slips, she used the small pneumatic air pump at the small of her back to smoothly maneuver into the air, then spread her arms to bow once more, and began.

“Scientists, I am present to prove unequivocally that scientist Kif grossly underestimated the challenges involved in this experiment, and wasted precious Clan resources, in the destruction of the JumpShip and in the wasted man-hours of the scientists on his development team and the technician and labor castemen tasked with the construction of the failed prototype,” she began, her sonorous voice weaving a cadence that immediately enthralled her audience. Petr wondered how she found the breath for such long sentences in her emaciated-looking body.