Chapter Thirty-Eight - Respectful Suggestions

  Missy gred across the table at Ivil, her fiapping a quie-two-three-four beat. She kept it up for a surprisingly long time before stopping suddenly and crossing her arms. "I don't trust you," she said.

  "That's... uandable, I suppose," Ivil said. "But I respectfully suggest that you do trust me."

  "You... respectfully wao trust you?" Missy asked.

  Ivil focused on her fully. It ainful to exclude Aurora from this discussion, but she felt like she was losing Missy at the moment. "Yes. Think of me in the abstract, if you would. I'm someone who is, to put it modestly, someowerful. I use that power to my own ends. I use it to get what I want, and in this particur situation we find ourselves in, I could use it to get what I want out of you. But I don't, and I won't."

  Missy tilted her head to the side a little, eyes still narrowed. "I'm not used to discussing this kind of thing so pinly," she said.

  "Why not? We could dance around the subject, if that's what you prefer, but I've always been a very straightforward kind of woman."

  Missy chuckled mirthlessly. "Alright. I... I guess I 't say you didn't help. That's respectable, at least. What do you want for it?"

  "For the help I rendered?" Ivil asked.

  The Warmime shrugged a shoulder, then leaned against the table. "Nothing's free," she said.

  "That's true," Ivil said. "What if I said I have ulterior, personal motives?"

  "I'd believe that."

  "And if I said that I just saved you because I didn't want to see you or the others hurt?" Ivil asked.

  Missy grinned. "That, I'm afraid, I wouldirely believe."

  Ivil shook her head, but smiled a little herself. "You didn't strike me as the sort that waits falnt knight to swoop in and save her, in any case."

  "My life's been devoid of galnt knights," Missy agreed. "But maybe I wouldn't mind pying the part of the desperate... nah, nevermind." Missy stood up, casually tugging the edge of the table to stop herself from being thrown towards the ceiling. "I'm gonna che Twenty-Six. Then the rest of this ship. I refuse to believe it isn't trapped in some way."

  Ivil nodded and watched her go. Missy floated with a powerful fidence. Ivil wasn't sure if she deserved it, exactly, but it was alluring all the same. Missy leaving had left her aloh Aurora.

  The noblewoman was sitting her hands on her p, but on seeing Ivil notig her again, she sat up straighter. "I don't have the same sort of suspis as miss... Missy," Aurora replied.

  "That's... good," Ivil said.

  Aurora was both harder and easier to uand than Missy. Her motivations were more political, and more abstract. "I want to hire you."

  "Pardon?"

  "I won't presume to know your history, or why you were on the Held Together. Instead I'll judge you based on what I saw. A petent woman, able to keep myself and others safe in a situation where most would have folded. You're very good. As I said, I won't presume to know why you're on the move from Ceres, but I guess. I think someone in your position might appreciate a job. Somethiimate, which would offer you some prote in turn."

  Ivil blihen allowed herself a small smile. "Go on, what kind of job?"

  "Bodyguarding duty," Aurora asked. "It's not very gmorous work, but--"

  "No thank you," Ivil said.

  Aurora froze for just a moment. "I see. The work doesn't i you?"

  "Oh, it does," Ivil said. "But I don't like the position it would put me in. Bodyguards sit bad watch for threats, they protect their charge. Most of all, they're passive. If you wao keep you safe, Miss Sterlingworth, then you only o ask. If you wao make it my busio keep you safe, then we're going to o enter into something more than just a t-employee retionship."

  Aurora blihen nodded slowly. "You want to bee business partners, then."

  Well, Ivil supposed that it wasn't the worst first step. "Sure. You entice me with whatever pns you have for the future, and I help you make them e true."

  Aurora nodded while sitting a little straighter. "Okay. Do you have any abilities that might make the part of this discussion more... private?"

  "Yes, sure," Ivil replied. She muffled some of the noise of the ship around them and created a small bubble where vibrations were dampened down into illegibility. "Go on?"

  "I'm trusting you with a lot here," Aurora said. "But... I trust you." She ughed.

  "Trusting me is funny?"

  "A little, yes. Five me. I don't e from a background where trust is gained easily. In any case, I'll extend the olive branch, because you deserve that much. If you run off with this information, then I'll be in quite a bit of trouble, but knowing who I'm dealing with, I've no doubt that things have leaked already."

  "Go on," Ivil said.

  Aurora took a deep breath. "Are you familiar with the League of Free Moons?"

  "It's a political anisation, almost more of a joke in system-wide politics. They formed after the... sed inter-system war and basically formed a fourth bloc, of sorts."

  Aurora nodded. "I figured that your history as an astro archeologist wasirely made up."

  "I know my history. The more ret stuff, at least," Ivil replied. She was in the history books, after all.

  "In any case, the League is, in fact, something of a joke. You're right. The League ostensibly coordinates and runs something like forty moons, spread out across the sor system, but the actual trol it has over these moons is... somewhat parable to the twenty-first tury United Nations. It's all on paper, and very little of its power is tangible. But that's about to ge in a big way."

  "Oh?" Ivil asked.

  Aurora raongue across her lips. "Yes." She took a deep breath. "A minor ta, but are you aware of the in of cores?"

  "More so than most," Ivil said. "They're extra-system devices. Alien."

  "Yes. I think Mars once found a probe-like object captured by Sol's gravity well which had a few cores built into it."

  Ivil was relutly impressed. That was more than a little cssified. "Iing."

  "It's happened again," Aurora said. "But this time it's bigger. A Jovian-Saturnian exploration ship, crewed by a crew of stists w for the League, discovered a new asteroid. One which has been slipping in and out of our sor system for... ever. It's a, on a looping trajectory opposite the sor p was an oddity, so they went out to explore it."

  "And they found something?" Ivil asked.

  "A cache of Cores," Aurora said. "Larger than the one found on Deimos, parable to the Martian one."

  Ivil might have found her breath catg if she still o breathe. "How many?"

  "Several hundred cores. Maybe a thousand? You have to uand, these are new cores. We don't know their power or potential. They've never been split. They're whole cores. So if the League wants, they could split all of them right away and double the amount."

  "A thousand cores is enough to start a war," Ivil said. "Given to a single person, you'd end up with a new A-Csser. How many A-Cssers does the League have?"

  "Now? A few dozen B-Cssers," Aurora replied. "This single find is huge, and the League is trying to leverage it into... legitimacy."

  "How so?" Ivil asked.

  "The current head of the League is a political genius. She's... dangerous, but smart. She climbed the ranks at an absurd rate and isn't to be uimated. A lot of people ignored her climb because the League itself is... well, unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But now, with a thousand cores to share between all of the participating moons in the system? Every moon is sending representatives to the Jovian system."

  "I didn't hear anything about this," Ivil said.

  Aurora nodded. "That's normal. There's a full media bckout. The League's spy agency, as rather pathetic as it is, is running interference. Every moon knows that if news gets out, their ces are screwed. So there's lots of infighting, trying to discredit each other and slip a ko the petition before they attend."

  "Ah," Ivil said.

  "Of course, the Empress of Mars helped."

  Ivil blinked. "She did? She's aware of this?"

  "Oh, god no, it would be a nightmare if she were. If any of the other emperors found out it would be a disaster. you imagine any more of those greedy idiots finding out? There would be a war, instantly. But, in any case, the Empress of Mars moved aire battlefleet across the system for no apparent reason and it sent every intelligence agen the system into a tizzy."

  "Well, that's fortunate," Ivil said. "It must be a ce, I'm sure."

  ***

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