“Del Azarchel? He likes blondes?”

That made her smile. She curled a finger around a lock of her hair. “No, I like blondes. I had the hue adjusted by RNA spoofing. If wolves and rabbits change their hairs for their seasons, to match their backgrounds, I may do the same for the social season, which is my surrounding. Do you like my eye color? I jinxed it to match my gown.”

“Gah. My mom would not approve. She always said you had to stay as God made you.”

“There is much wisdom in the notion, and much vanity would be foresworn if it were followed—but the conceit cannot apply to me. The Hermeticists are less than omniscient, even if I had good cause to follow their wishes.”

Menelaus said nothing. He could think of a good cause why she should stop following their wishes, but he was reluctant to speak.

Her face was dreamlike, distant, melancholy. She said softly, “Am I human? Sometimes, when I feel rain of April upon my face, or see the children playing chase, or wonder at the Arc de Triomphe or St. Paul’s Cathedral, my heart expands with emotions I know all my fellow humans feel. I cry at funerals and dance at weddings. Whatever was added to me did not subtract from that. Sometimes, when I see the cruelties and stupidities of the race, I doubt my humanity, and would gladly leave them all behind.”

She turned toward him, looking up into his eyes. She continued: “But we all feel this way, at times, do we not? I am haunted by the doubts that haunt all young women, who wonder if any understand the great unexpressed truths they know. They wonder where the rainbow lands; they wonder if the air of spring was newly-made for them alone.”

Her eyes were lovely, but he turned his gaze toward the floor. “You owe them nothing! They murdered your father.” His reluctance to tell her why she should stop following their wishes had lasted, after all, only a moment.

“They also gave me life, the Hermeticists, and raised and cherished me. They sacrificed rations to feed me, and went hungry for me. So the matter is complex. I cannot in good conscience act against them. But I can serve a purpose higher than theirs.”

He raised his eyes. “What purpose?”

“I am born a messenger. Like you, I am a living emulation of a universal virtual machine, constructed following Monument logic-gates, and meant both to serve as a computing substrate and as a translating mechanism: I was born to read that Monument. I have no other purpose, really. And—can you understand this pain of mine?”

“What pain, Princess?”

“The Hermeticists did not translate something right, or a code was transposed, or the human frame is too small to hold what I should be. I am not suited to my purpose in life. The key does not fit the lock.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I can’t read it.” She put her white-silk-gloved hand out toward the writing on the walls, toward the mirror. The mirror flickered, and displayed the concentric circles and angles and lines of alien hieroglyphs, a labyrinth of signs within signs. “I am broken. I was put together wrong.”

And all of a sudden, she was sobbing and he was holding her in his arms, patting her awkwardly, and saying, “There, there.”

It happened so naturally, so automatically, that it was not until he was embracing her that he realized what he had done.

When a woman cries, you got to hold her: that’s nature. She rubbed her cheek on his shoulder, and he raised his thumb to wipe most gently one tear-streak clean. But there were more tears.

He knew he should not be kissing his friend’s woman. Del Azarchel was dangerous when crossed. But you cannot hold a beautiful and golden woman in your arms, her head tucked neatly just under your chin, and think such things for long. You have to push her away or hold her tighter, and you only have a split second to decide.

Damn Del Azarchel! Damn the world! Was the world or its master any more to be feared than gun barrels?

And he lowered his head and kissed her tears away, just as he was supposed to.

4. The Proposal

A tinkle of suspicion, soft as a spider, crawled through his brain. “Funny you saying you cannot read the Monument—you just were reading it now.”

She was still in his arms, and she turned her face (sweet as the face of a child, and streaked with tears) up to him. “The simple parts. I cannot do what you do. I can understand your work, but cannot decipher the next step! There is more to the message, much more! The human race is not destined merely for servitude to alien machines in the Hyades! But I cannot read what it says next!”

“Take your drug. The one you just gave me—”

That made her squirm out of his arms. She turned her back coyly, and drew out a handkerchief to daub her eyes. “That corrects what is wrong with you. It adds supportive infrastructure to your midbrain and hindbrain. It solves the scaling problem.”

“And what is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know. My fathers did not know what they were doing when they made me. They copied your work, but not all of it, not correctly, not right. Will you help me?”

With those words she turned again, and somehow her warm, supple, satin-clad body was in his arms, pressed up against his buckskin-clad chest.

“Oh, hell! Princess, I am yours to command!”

“Then take your medicine,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Marry me. We will depart the Earth, and return in the Hermetic to the Diamond Star, leaving this unhappy world to its fate.”

Montrose listened, rapt, breathless and unable to speak.

“Over Del Azarchel’s opposition, I have been outfitting, repairing, and restoring my beautiful ship, my world, my home,” said Rania in tones of silver. “I have selected cadets from among the psychoi order to serve aboard her. I am within my rights: The Landing Party cannot bind me to this world, merely because it wishes to conquer, rule, and live here. The future of the human race is at the Diamond Star, and written into the Monument that circles it! Will you obey my orders? I command you to reach with me for the stars!”

“Uh-h … Did you say marry?”

5. The Arrest

Her expression did not change, but her pupils did. Her saw the dark part of her eyes expand suddenly, her eyes move left and right so quickly that they seemed to vibrate. At the same time, a blush of red began to spread, delicate as a rose, through her face, cheeks, and neck. He was holding Miss Hyde. At no time did she show surprise or shock on her face, albeit she must have been shocked. Her eyes were focused behind him. They had been overheard.

Montrose spun. There, on his silent, sliding throne of black, was Ximen Del Azarchel, Master of the World, his face (old again, silver-haired, lined and weathered and kingly) in such pain and sorrow that he seemed on the verge of fainting, or of tears. His eyes were hollow.

“You liar!” croaked Del Azarchel in a voice as weak as a mummy’s. “Gusano! You lying worm! You said there was nothing between you! Is this how you repay me!”

There were six Conquistadores with him, dark against the festive lights shining through the open door behind them. Despite their comic-opera costumes, they had the calm, hard look of professional veterans; men who had seen combat, seen friends die, and were willing to see it again.

So when Del Azarchel said in a hoarse voice, “Arrest him! Arrest that traitor!” the soldiers did not hesitate, but brought their pikes to the ready, and came forward at a quickstep, moving to flank him left and right.

Princess Rania stepped in the way, small as a golden doll, blazing with majestic ire. “He is my crewman! Space claims him, and you Earthmen have no authority. Miguel! Raum! Raeul! Do not step forward! Where is your warrant?”