Getting to his ship a few days later was a madhouse for Anton. Queen Elizabeth had waited until the last minute to leak the news, but the Star Kingdom's paparazzi had the same lightning reflexes possessed by that breed throughout the galaxy. By the time Anton and his entourage reached the gate to the landing field where the orbital shuttle awaited them, the area was mobbed with journalists.

For all that he'd planned for it, Anton still found the whole situation a bit infuriating. For one thing, he'd become so accustomed to working in the shadows that he'd overlooked how much he would be an item of avid interest. As many of the paparazzi seemed interested in getting holopics of him as they were of the Princess.

Glumly, he could imagine the tabloid headlines.

Disgraced officer on mystery trip with royalty!

Captain Zilwicki tosses over the Countess for the Princess!

Catherine Montaigne heartbroken! "My lover left me for a younger woman!"

Another scandal in a scandalous career!

It didn't help any when Berry, filled with excitement at the occasion, planted a sloppy impromptu kiss on his cheek right in front of the journalist mob. That it was a daughter's kiss and not a lover's should have been blindingly obvious to anyone nearby. But the paparazzi were kept at a distance by the police, and all their carefully cropped holopics would show was the sight of a pretty young woman dressed up like a princess apparently slobbering over a much older man.

Something of his unease must have shown. Behind him, he heard Princess Ruth murmur with amusement: "Oh, stop worrying, Captain. The proper news media will carry the official version of the story, and who pays any attention to the scandal sheet tabloids anyway?"

About two-thirds of the population of Manticore, thought Anton sourly. Ninety percent, on Gryphon. I'll never be able to show my face in the highlands again.

Despite the sourness of the moment, he was pleased with Ruth herself. The young royal was playing her part in the charade to perfection. She was ambling casually along a few paces behind, engrossed in a conversation with Web Du Havel except when making wisecracks to her purported "father." The spitting image of a bright and none-too-respectful daughter.

Nevertheless, he couldn't help wincing at the sheer number of paparazzi present at the landing field. Like locusts swarming over ripe grain.

Great, just great. And now I'll be an item myself. The notorious Cap'n Zilwicki, rogue of the spaceways.

Modern holopic technology did not involve the dramatic flashbulbs of ancient times. But, at that moment, Anton felt as if every spotlight in the universe was focused on him.

He didn't feel any better once they reached orbit and transferred from the shuttle into Pottawatomie Creek , the ship the Anti-Slavery League had provided for the voyage. There hadn't been any physical problem getting through the landing gate, of course. Paparazzi took scuffling with police for granted, in order to get closer to their targets, but not even they were crazy enough to meddle with royal bodyguards from the Queen's Own Regiment. Lieutenant Griggs and the other troopers in Griggs' unit detached from the regiment as an escort for the Princess in her trip were heavily armed, scowling as ferociously as such well-trained and disciplined soldiers ever did, and making absolutely clear with their body language alone that they would instantly gun down any paparazzi who managed to break through the police line. Gun them down and probably gut the corpse for good measure.

The problem lay elsewhere. Princess Ruth was as much of a political junkie as Anton had expected she'd be, given her fascination with intelligence work. So, the moment they'd entered the ship, she'd made a beeline for the wardroom's HD and turned it on. Even after the ship left orbit, there'd be time to catch the evening news broadcasts before they were out of reception range.

Not to Anton's surprise, the show Ruth turned to was the prestigious talk show The Star Kingdom Today. The show's moderator, Yael Underwood, had a flair for presenting serious news in a manner which captured popular interest. Personally, Anton thought Underwood was a much shallower thinker than he managed to project. But he'd readily admit the man was an expert showman, and his news did have more substance than the usual fire-and-a-freak fare.

He caught the last part of a question posed by Underwood to his panel of guests.

"—think there's no truth, then, to the rumors regarding a romantic tie between Captain Zilwicki and Princess Ruth?"

"Oh, for God's sake!" exclaimed one of the guests. Anton recognized her as one of Underwood's regulars. A woman named Harriet Jilla, who'd once been some kind of academic specialist in who-can-remember-what but had long since traded that in for a more lucrative career as a Professional Talking Head.

"Not even the tabloids are going to push that for more than a day or two," she jibed. "If for no other reason than that they're going to suffer from schizophrenia, seeing as how they'll also want to run all the holopics they got from Montaigne's townhouse. I'm told the paparazzi were almost as thick on the ground there as they were at the landing field."

Underwood gave the audience his patented knowing smile. It was quite a superb thing, combining shrewd intelligence and savoir-faire with just the right touch of slightly sardonic humor.

"I'd say you're right, Harriet. In fact—" He glanced away for a moment, as if checking something with an off-stage technician. "Yes. Let's run a little footage of our own from that scene."

Anton had time to wonder about the origin of the peculiar term footage, used throughout the news industry to refer to imagery despite its apparent meaninglessness, before the scene itself came on.

"Goddamit," he growled. "Is there any privacy left?"

"That's a little rich coming from you, Daddy," retorted Berry. "Mr. Supersnoop."

Anton silently admitted the justice of her remark. But it still didn't make him feel any better seeing his parting embrace—kiss, too, and a damn passionate one, as usual with Cathy, public spectacle be damned, when did she ever care?—from the former Countess of the Tor and current candidate for Parliament. Now plastered all over Manticore's news media for untold millions to watch.

Still...

From a professional point of view, now that he could see it from a distance, Cathy had performed perfectly. He took a certain personal comfort, as well, in the fact that the embrace and kiss she'd given him at the doorway of their house would certainly put paid to any notions that Anton was lusting after another woman.

Objectively speaking, true, Catherine Montaigne wasn't perhaps all that physically attractive. Anton thought otherwise, but he was dispassionately willing to admit that was his own emotional involvement speaking. Cathy was far too slender, for one thing, and if her face had an open pleasantness about it, it was hardly the sort of face most people would associate with female beauty.

But none of it mattered, as Anton could see for himself watching the newscast. Cathy's kiss was a kiss, and the long leg half-looped around his thigh as part of the embrace made clear to umpteen million Manticoran viewers that whatever problems Captain Anton Zilwicki might have, getting laid—well, and often—was not one of them.

"Gosh, Berry, your mother is so sexy ," murmured Ruth. "I bet she just got another twenty thousand votes."

Anton ignored the first part of the remark, in a properly aloof fatherly manner. As for the second...

He wasn't sure. Cathy Montaigne's let-it-all-hang-out-and-damn-the-bluenoses style, in her personal life as well as her political one, was a two edged-sword. It could easily slice her up—as, indeed, years before it had led to her expulsion from the House of Lords. On the other hand, if it caught the mood of the public...

Yeah, maybe. God knows she's a breath of fresh air in Manticore's politics. Nobody's going to believe Countess New Kiev balls her husband's brains out. And if New Kiev's political partner Baron High Ridge has any balls at all, he's keeping them well under wraps.

The professional side of him, however, was primarily interested in the rest of it. Following Cathy's farewell embrace of Anton, she bestowed one just as energetically upon Princess Ruth. In this case, of course, a maternal embrace rather than a romantic one. But Anton was certain that not one of the tens of millions of people watching would suspect for an instant that the casually dressed apparent teenager upon whom Cathy bestowed that hug was anyone other than her quasi-adopted daughter Berry. Just as they wouldn't suspect that the warm but far more reserved handshake which she then gave to Berry herself was the salutation given to a royal princess.

"Perfect!" exclaimed Ruth, clapping her hands. She grinned at Anton. "It's going to work just like you said it would."

Even Anton was not impervious to that intense a degree of admiration. But he allowed himself only a moment's pleasure, because a slight frown was beginning to gather on his brow. Or, at least, gather in his mind.

Belatedly, Anton was realizing that there was something not quite right about the way Underwood was covering this issue. Granted, Underwood was not above dipping into items of popular interest for the sake of keeping up the ratings for The Star Kingdom Today. Still, the man was always careful to link such an item to something of deeper significance. Or, at least, provide depth to the item itself.

In this instance...

For a moment, the view in the display moved back and Anton was able for the first time to see all the panelists on the show that night. His eyes were immediately drawn to the man sitting on the far right. Snapped to him, more properly.

His daughter was sitting next to him, and her eyes followed his. "Who's he?" Berry asked.

"I have no idea," replied Anton, shaking his head. "But I can tell you this. He's no Talking Head. And, unless I miss my guess..."

Damn—damn—damn—

"He's in the trade himself. First cousin, anyway."

Sure enough. After spending a minute or so polling his panel to get a general consensus that whatever was involved with Captain Zilwicki and Princess Ruth's voyage to Erewhon, it was not a romantic escapade, Underwood allowed the well-oiled-and-practiced panel to segue into a learned (but not too learned) analysis of the political subtleties involved in the affair.