RVA: The Visitors, Prologue
Wrote a up prologue to The Visitors, which I want to try and finish before beating my head against a potential For Your Safety novel.
***
“You know, vacations are usually for relaxation,” Melanie observed dryly. Rolas’ wife was dressed in Commoner culottes and a crop top shirt, sitting in half-lotus atop a workbench in the car barn, one leg dangling idly over the edge. The wooden barn held a small steam tender Rolas had been puttering over for the past week, the large doors propped open to let a breeze into the un-air conditioned space.
Rolas was finishing lowering a superheater tube into the boiler of the small, colorfully painted narrow-gauge steam engine, his shirt off, dressed only in his shorts and a pair of heavy leather foot protectors to save his toes from being sliced off by errant bits of iron.
“This is relaxing,” he said, biceps straining under his brown pelt, paws holding on tight to the chain running through the block and tackle. He lowered the tube down the last few centimeters into its waiting slot, and then secured the loose end of the chain to a bolt set in a nearby pillar.
“It’d be more relaxing if you used a proper tractor-pressor unit to save you from all of that work,” she pointed out.
“I’m trying to use original materials and techniques while I restore this,” he replied proudly, slipping the foot protectors off and setting them on the workbench.
“The original Mr. Puff is sitting in a museum back in town. The one you’re working on is a replica that was built two hundred years ago using modern techniques,” Melanie said, hopping off the bench and pressing up against him. Rolas smelled very male today, sweating from the work and summer’s heat, with a perfume of machine oil.
“Principle’s the same,” he replied, voice a bit muffled as he nuzzled her neck. She let out a pleased purr, her tail waving happily as he pushed her back against the workbench, feeling his paw reach under her shirt to stroke her back. Yes, with just the two of them here, without even servants at this small country estate in the deep woods, well away from the nearest town, this was the most privacy they’d had since their children had gone to visit their aunts on Greenholme.
“Mmmm, hmm. Less engineering, more sex,” Melanie advised, nibbling his ear tip.
Rolas snorted a laugh into her pelt. “Not even advanced hydraulics?”
“Well that I could get into…”
There was a startled gasp from the direction of the open barn door. Surprised, Rolas released Melanie, and they both turned to find a young human woman, with light brown skin, in her mid-twenties from the looks of her, standing the doorway, her cheeks flushed red from either the heat or stumbling upon the two foxen.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said. “I was looking around for somebody and I saw the open door here and I thought. Um, sorry to interrupt.” She was dressed in knee length shorts and a sweat stained t-shirt with Ski Australia! emblazoned upon it in Galactic Basic, a large backpack slung over one arm.
“Who are you and how did you even get here? There’s no road here and we didn’t hear an air skimmer,” Melanie demanded, pulling her shirt back into place somewhat irritably.
“I walked,” the girl told them. “I did have a ground skimmer rental, but there weren’t any roads like you said, so I asked at the town and they said the set of little train tracks led from the town through the woods all the way over here.”
“That’s over ten kilometers!” Rolas said, startled.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “I should have asked how far it was first before I started walking. Do you have any place that I can sit down?” Without waiting for an answer she sat on the oil stained concrete floor of the car barn, leaning back against the door frame. Rolas, thoughtful as always, reached into the small refrigeration unit beside the bench, pulling out a bottle of water and handing it to her, which she accepted gratefully. “Thank you. I’m Alesha Rodriguez by the way,” she said between gulps. “I was hoping you could let me know where I could find Lord Rolas Darktail.”
Rolas raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “That would be me. What brings you here, Ms. Rodriguez?”
Rodriguez’s eyes opened wide in startlement again, and she nearly sprayed water through her nose as she rose hastily to her feet. “Lord Darktail, I’m sorry,” she gasped, dropping the water. “It’s just… I thought you’d be in the house across the gardens over there. And you’re not dressed… I mean, you’re not dressed like I was expecting, with the house uniform and stuff.”
“We don’t dress like that when we’re on vacation,” Melanie told her, emphasizing the last word sharply, feeling increasingly hot, sweaty, and more than a little irritated at the interruption.
“Oh, oh dear.” Rodriguez ran her palm through her hair. “I’m going about this all wrong. Let me start over from the beginning. I’m a graduate student in xeno-history at the University of Alberta, specializing in the history of First Contact between the Terran Confederation and Foxen Prime. I was hoping to search through House Darktail’s archives for more information about the events leading up to formal relations opening up between Terran Confederation and the Foxen Protectorate.”
Rolas shared a glance with Melanie, and motioned for the young girl to follow them as they began walking across the gardens to the small vacation manor that they’d been staying in the past few days. It was a rustic brick structure pre-dating the meeting between foxen and humans, without air-conditioning, or even a modern com system, though it did have running water courtesy of a well, and a modern kitchen powered by a solar panel farm discreetly tucked into one corner of the land.
“House Darktail’s historical archives are kept at the university library back in the district capitol,” Rolas told the young human. “Why did you come all the way out here? We’re two hundred kilometers away.”
“They didn’t have what I was looking for,” she told them. “Look, I should explain. One of my ancestors was Alesha Jackson, the mission commander of the expedition that discovered Foxen Prime over five hundred years ago. Her handwritten diary of the events is part of my own family’s library. I’ve got a scanned copy of it on my palm comp if you’d like to look at it. In it, she mentioned that met your ancestor, the first Lord Rolas Darktail.”
“I never heard this story,” Melanie said in surprise, as they reached the shade and pleasant breeze of the covered porch. At a gesture from Rolas they all sat around a small table tucked off to one side. “Your family was involved in the First Contact?” she asked him. “I’d think you’d be very proud of that.”
“It isn’t much of a story,” Rolas demurred. “Old Lord Rollie wasn’t even originally Noble caste. He was Military, a Mother Country airship engineer that fought in the last pre-Contact war between the MC and Gerwart. He married into the family of Lady Midnight Pleasantfield, and because there was apparently some bad blood between her and her elder sisters, she choose to abandon her last name, if not her title, and elevate old Rollie Darktail to the Noble caste. Some years afterward he got involved as a technical liaison between the MC and Gerwart, helping with the ‘Wartie’s rocketry program. That project got tossed into the wastebin when the Endeavour discovered us of course, though I gather old Lord Rollie did have a function in some of the technical aspects of the friendship accords drawn up between us and the Confederation.”
“That’s the thing,” Rodriguez said earnestly. “I need access to your archives, anything, that might be stored here, instead of in the official records, because Commander Jackson says in her diary that she visited this manor. It’s nowhere in the Confederation’s official histories, but her diary says she was here, and I think it was almost of a year before First Contact was announced publicly.” At their mutual disbelieving look, Rodriguez plowed on. “The histories state that during the period her diary says she was here, the Endeavour was still surveying the Groombridge-1830 system. I can’t explain the discrepancy.”
Mel quirked an ear in Rolas’ direction. “Rolas, have you ever heard anything about this?”
“Not a word,” he admitted. “What does the diary say about her visit?”
The human girl shrugged helplessly. “That’s just it… the details are… weird.”
“Define ‘weird’.” Melanie asked.
“It’s on the historical record that Commander Jackson became pregnant and bore a son during the voyage,” Rodriguez explained. “It was a big problem. Back then interstellar voyages could take years, not weeks, and the trip from Sol system to Foxen Prime and back was a three year trip one way. In fact, it was over ten years before the Endeavour came home, mostly because they spent so much time on Foxen Prime establishing relations. Because of this, women and men were required to be use birth control during a voyage. For the mission commander to just drop that and have a child in the middle of the mission was a pretty big breach of regulations.”
“I can imagine,” Mel agreed. She’d studied the old interstellar ships as part of the history lessons she’d absorbed while growing up. To call them cramped was being charitable. To imagine raising a child in those corridors and tiny staterooms, for potentially years, was abhorrent.
“Most of it seems to be just language notes,” Rodriguez continued. “Mother Country words, translations and pronunciations. But the last entry is ‘Born this day: Thomas Alvin Jackson, in the house of Lord Rolas Darktail. Weight: 3.5 kilos, Healthy boy. I hope he can stay free.”
“‘Stay free?’” Melanie repeated in surprise.
“Yeah.” Rodriguez shrugged. “I don’t understand it.”
“Are you sure she wasn’t at Darktail Manor?” Mel asked.
Rolas shook his head. “There was no Darktail Manor as such back then. These woods, the manor, and the town beyond was all of the family’s holdings. It wasn’t until a year or two after the First Contact accords were signed that Old Lord Rollie and Lady Midnight were elevated and given dominion over what would become Darktail Domain.” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Though come to think of it, that was a rather extravagant reward given my ancestor’s supposed minor role in the whole affair.” He tapped a claw thoughtfully on the table, then finally said, “You’re welcome to look through what records we have here. I can’t guarantee there’s anything quite that old, though I know there’s a sealed container pumped with argon for the really the delicate paper items up in the attic. I’m not sure if any of it has been scanned previously, so you might want to start there.”
The young girl sighed in relief, and only then did Melanie realize how much tension had been in her body language previously. “Thank you, Lord Darktail,” she said gratefully.
“Just Rolas, please,” he said. He gave her directions on how to find the attic’s entrance, and the girl scurried off.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Rolas?” Melanie said cautiously. “I mean, we don’t know who this girl really is.”
“She seems harmless enough, and I can’t imagine she hiked ten kilometers up a three degree slope just to rifle through any non-existent jewelry might be stored upstairs,” Rolas said, then added, “Though I will check on her in a few minutes, there’s only the one small window up there and it’s beastly hot today.”
Melanie nodded, and was just to stand up and get an iced tea for them both when a grey, unmarked air skimmer came down out of the sky, anti-grav plates humming loudly as it dumped speed, landing with a thump on the front lawn, barely missing a bed of flowers. The canopy opened, and out came an vixen official in the uniform of the Ministry of Prudence, accompanied by a human woman wearing a business suit.
“Lord Rolas, Lady Melanie?” the ministry officer asked as they approached. “I’m Col. Greengrass, Ministry of Prudence, Investigation Division.” She gestured to the human woman. “This is Assistant Ambassador Laurie Kelso, of the Terran Confederation.”
Melanie shared a surprised glance with Rolas. “And what can House Darktail do to help the Ministry today?” he asked. It was the Ministry of Prudence’s job to evaluate the local laws and behavior of Noble districts and their behavior in general, so as to minimise any disruptive effects on the relations between Nobles, the other castes, and more rarely on relations between the other governments that made up the Allied Worlds. The “prudes” as they were often called behind their backs, had no official ability to prosecute or censure Nobles, but they did have complete immunity to Noble backlash, giving them the less than completely inaccurate nickname “Ministry of Gadflying.” A prude investigation often led up to the Ministry of Justice getting involved, which rather encouraged Nobles to stay on their best behavior.
“We’re looking for a young human woman,” Ambassador Kelso began. “Her name is Alesha Rodriguez, a student from Earth. She’s wanted on suspicion of attempting to access sealed records without a security clearance. We suspect she’s part of a fringe movement that wishes to disrupt relations between the Confederation and the Foxen Protectorate. We know she requested access to the records in the Darktail Manor archives, and we suspect she was coming here to find other materials related to the cause she supports.” She held a palm comp, and a holographic image of Rodriguez’s face appeared
Melanie saw that Rolas’ ears had turned forward in concern. “Forgive me, but having a Ministry official and a Confederation diplomat show up on our doorstep for such a minor matter seems a bit of overkill. Is she considered a criminal?”
“No,” the Prudence official admitted, “but her line of inquiry would feed the usual conspiracy theorists who delight in latching onto the most negative stereotypes between our species.”
“All we want to do is return her home to her family,” Ambassador Kelso added.
“I see,” Melanie said. She put on her most glib expression. “Well, she did come by and asked to see our records. Walked ten kilometers in this ghastly heat if you can believe it. When we told her that we certainly weren’t going to allow anyone to just wander onto our property and start poking through the attic she left.”
“Did she tell you what she was looking for?” Greengrass asked.
“Something about the First Contact,” Rolas answered. “Can’t imagine what she thought she’d find here. My ancestor was a minor functionary during that period. Hardly on level where he’d get a mention in the history books, even family history.”
The official and the ambassador exchanged a look. “How long ago was this?”
“Goodness, I didn’t think to check the time.” Rolas turned to Melanie. “Er, about an hour ago, wouldn’t you say, Mel?”
“About that, maybe a little more,” she agreed.
The two visitors exchanged a look between them, obviously calculating how fast a hot and tired young woman could walk down the trail beside the railroad tracks. From the silent agreement they seemed to reach, they were betting they could catch up to her. “Thank you for your time, Lord Rolas, Lady Melanie,” Greengrass said. “We won’t take up anymore of your time.”
“If you see her again, contact our embassy immediately,” Kelso added, handing over a card. Then the two visitors spoke their goodbyes, hurried back to their air skimmer, and were soon out of sight.
“I was under the impression that you didn’t like Miss Rodriguez that much,” Rolas said to her.
Melanie nodded in agreement. “I don’t, but I’m rather allergic to the Prudes poking into my business, as you can imagine.”
“That I can. Let’s check on her, shall we?” She followed Rolas upstairs, to the hatch with built in folding ladder that led up to attic.
At Rolas’ call, Rodriguez cautiously stuck her head over the edge of the hatch, her face and hair soaked with sweat. “Are they gone?” she asked.
“Yes, dear. You can come down now,” Melanie reassured her.
The young girl half slid, half fell down the ladder, a small leatherbound book under one arm. Rolas just managed to catch her before she landed in a nasty fall. “Thanks,” she huffed.
“Find anything interesting?” Melanie asked, gesturing to the book.
“I’m not sure,” Rodriguez admitted. “It’s a personal diary. My palm comp can’t read handwriting in the Mother Tongue, but I recognize the House Darktail seal on the cover, plus Lord Rolas’ name, and I think the dates are from the period I’m looking for.”
“Let’s have a look,” Rolas said. She handed the book over to him carefully, handling it with a cotton handkerchief to prevent contamination with body sweat. Rolas took them both, opening the book carefully, mindful of the dried and cracked cover. “Hmm,” he said after a moment’s examination. “It’s not a diary exactly, more of a reminiscence. I think the dates correspond to the events he’s trying to record. It appears to be from the time period you’re interested in.”
“What’s it say?” Melanie asked.
“‘In the Mother Goddess’ name, I Lord Rolas Darktail, swear upon my honor, with full knowledge and without coercion, that the events I record in this book are truthful, to the best of my recollection. I record this not for history, not for posterity, but…’” Rolas paused, frowned, and then went on, “‘...but to expiate my sins. May the Mother Goddess be merciful, and unlock the chain of sin that binds my soul when I enter the Cold and Dark. With all the lies and pain I perpetuated, I know that it is so very heavy.
“‘Everything began one cold day on the Gerwart coast, at the rocket testing facility…’”
***
“You know, vacations are usually for relaxation,” Melanie observed dryly. Rolas’ wife was dressed in Commoner culottes and a crop top shirt, sitting in half-lotus atop a workbench in the car barn, one leg dangling idly over the edge. The wooden barn held a small steam tender Rolas had been puttering over for the past week, the large doors propped open to let a breeze into the un-air conditioned space.
Rolas was finishing lowering a superheater tube into the boiler of the small, colorfully painted narrow-gauge steam engine, his shirt off, dressed only in his shorts and a pair of heavy leather foot protectors to save his toes from being sliced off by errant bits of iron.
“This is relaxing,” he said, biceps straining under his brown pelt, paws holding on tight to the chain running through the block and tackle. He lowered the tube down the last few centimeters into its waiting slot, and then secured the loose end of the chain to a bolt set in a nearby pillar.
“It’d be more relaxing if you used a proper tractor-pressor unit to save you from all of that work,” she pointed out.
“I’m trying to use original materials and techniques while I restore this,” he replied proudly, slipping the foot protectors off and setting them on the workbench.
“The original Mr. Puff is sitting in a museum back in town. The one you’re working on is a replica that was built two hundred years ago using modern techniques,” Melanie said, hopping off the bench and pressing up against him. Rolas smelled very male today, sweating from the work and summer’s heat, with a perfume of machine oil.
“Principle’s the same,” he replied, voice a bit muffled as he nuzzled her neck. She let out a pleased purr, her tail waving happily as he pushed her back against the workbench, feeling his paw reach under her shirt to stroke her back. Yes, with just the two of them here, without even servants at this small country estate in the deep woods, well away from the nearest town, this was the most privacy they’d had since their children had gone to visit their aunts on Greenholme.
“Mmmm, hmm. Less engineering, more sex,” Melanie advised, nibbling his ear tip.
Rolas snorted a laugh into her pelt. “Not even advanced hydraulics?”
“Well that I could get into…”
There was a startled gasp from the direction of the open barn door. Surprised, Rolas released Melanie, and they both turned to find a young human woman, with light brown skin, in her mid-twenties from the looks of her, standing the doorway, her cheeks flushed red from either the heat or stumbling upon the two foxen.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said. “I was looking around for somebody and I saw the open door here and I thought. Um, sorry to interrupt.” She was dressed in knee length shorts and a sweat stained t-shirt with Ski Australia! emblazoned upon it in Galactic Basic, a large backpack slung over one arm.
“Who are you and how did you even get here? There’s no road here and we didn’t hear an air skimmer,” Melanie demanded, pulling her shirt back into place somewhat irritably.
“I walked,” the girl told them. “I did have a ground skimmer rental, but there weren’t any roads like you said, so I asked at the town and they said the set of little train tracks led from the town through the woods all the way over here.”
“That’s over ten kilometers!” Rolas said, startled.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “I should have asked how far it was first before I started walking. Do you have any place that I can sit down?” Without waiting for an answer she sat on the oil stained concrete floor of the car barn, leaning back against the door frame. Rolas, thoughtful as always, reached into the small refrigeration unit beside the bench, pulling out a bottle of water and handing it to her, which she accepted gratefully. “Thank you. I’m Alesha Rodriguez by the way,” she said between gulps. “I was hoping you could let me know where I could find Lord Rolas Darktail.”
Rolas raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “That would be me. What brings you here, Ms. Rodriguez?”
Rodriguez’s eyes opened wide in startlement again, and she nearly sprayed water through her nose as she rose hastily to her feet. “Lord Darktail, I’m sorry,” she gasped, dropping the water. “It’s just… I thought you’d be in the house across the gardens over there. And you’re not dressed… I mean, you’re not dressed like I was expecting, with the house uniform and stuff.”
“We don’t dress like that when we’re on vacation,” Melanie told her, emphasizing the last word sharply, feeling increasingly hot, sweaty, and more than a little irritated at the interruption.
“Oh, oh dear.” Rodriguez ran her palm through her hair. “I’m going about this all wrong. Let me start over from the beginning. I’m a graduate student in xeno-history at the University of Alberta, specializing in the history of First Contact between the Terran Confederation and Foxen Prime. I was hoping to search through House Darktail’s archives for more information about the events leading up to formal relations opening up between Terran Confederation and the Foxen Protectorate.”
Rolas shared a glance with Melanie, and motioned for the young girl to follow them as they began walking across the gardens to the small vacation manor that they’d been staying in the past few days. It was a rustic brick structure pre-dating the meeting between foxen and humans, without air-conditioning, or even a modern com system, though it did have running water courtesy of a well, and a modern kitchen powered by a solar panel farm discreetly tucked into one corner of the land.
“House Darktail’s historical archives are kept at the university library back in the district capitol,” Rolas told the young human. “Why did you come all the way out here? We’re two hundred kilometers away.”
“They didn’t have what I was looking for,” she told them. “Look, I should explain. One of my ancestors was Alesha Jackson, the mission commander of the expedition that discovered Foxen Prime over five hundred years ago. Her handwritten diary of the events is part of my own family’s library. I’ve got a scanned copy of it on my palm comp if you’d like to look at it. In it, she mentioned that met your ancestor, the first Lord Rolas Darktail.”
“I never heard this story,” Melanie said in surprise, as they reached the shade and pleasant breeze of the covered porch. At a gesture from Rolas they all sat around a small table tucked off to one side. “Your family was involved in the First Contact?” she asked him. “I’d think you’d be very proud of that.”
“It isn’t much of a story,” Rolas demurred. “Old Lord Rollie wasn’t even originally Noble caste. He was Military, a Mother Country airship engineer that fought in the last pre-Contact war between the MC and Gerwart. He married into the family of Lady Midnight Pleasantfield, and because there was apparently some bad blood between her and her elder sisters, she choose to abandon her last name, if not her title, and elevate old Rollie Darktail to the Noble caste. Some years afterward he got involved as a technical liaison between the MC and Gerwart, helping with the ‘Wartie’s rocketry program. That project got tossed into the wastebin when the Endeavour discovered us of course, though I gather old Lord Rollie did have a function in some of the technical aspects of the friendship accords drawn up between us and the Confederation.”
“That’s the thing,” Rodriguez said earnestly. “I need access to your archives, anything, that might be stored here, instead of in the official records, because Commander Jackson says in her diary that she visited this manor. It’s nowhere in the Confederation’s official histories, but her diary says she was here, and I think it was almost of a year before First Contact was announced publicly.” At their mutual disbelieving look, Rodriguez plowed on. “The histories state that during the period her diary says she was here, the Endeavour was still surveying the Groombridge-1830 system. I can’t explain the discrepancy.”
Mel quirked an ear in Rolas’ direction. “Rolas, have you ever heard anything about this?”
“Not a word,” he admitted. “What does the diary say about her visit?”
The human girl shrugged helplessly. “That’s just it… the details are… weird.”
“Define ‘weird’.” Melanie asked.
“It’s on the historical record that Commander Jackson became pregnant and bore a son during the voyage,” Rodriguez explained. “It was a big problem. Back then interstellar voyages could take years, not weeks, and the trip from Sol system to Foxen Prime and back was a three year trip one way. In fact, it was over ten years before the Endeavour came home, mostly because they spent so much time on Foxen Prime establishing relations. Because of this, women and men were required to be use birth control during a voyage. For the mission commander to just drop that and have a child in the middle of the mission was a pretty big breach of regulations.”
“I can imagine,” Mel agreed. She’d studied the old interstellar ships as part of the history lessons she’d absorbed while growing up. To call them cramped was being charitable. To imagine raising a child in those corridors and tiny staterooms, for potentially years, was abhorrent.
“Most of it seems to be just language notes,” Rodriguez continued. “Mother Country words, translations and pronunciations. But the last entry is ‘Born this day: Thomas Alvin Jackson, in the house of Lord Rolas Darktail. Weight: 3.5 kilos, Healthy boy. I hope he can stay free.”
“‘Stay free?’” Melanie repeated in surprise.
“Yeah.” Rodriguez shrugged. “I don’t understand it.”
“Are you sure she wasn’t at Darktail Manor?” Mel asked.
Rolas shook his head. “There was no Darktail Manor as such back then. These woods, the manor, and the town beyond was all of the family’s holdings. It wasn’t until a year or two after the First Contact accords were signed that Old Lord Rollie and Lady Midnight were elevated and given dominion over what would become Darktail Domain.” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Though come to think of it, that was a rather extravagant reward given my ancestor’s supposed minor role in the whole affair.” He tapped a claw thoughtfully on the table, then finally said, “You’re welcome to look through what records we have here. I can’t guarantee there’s anything quite that old, though I know there’s a sealed container pumped with argon for the really the delicate paper items up in the attic. I’m not sure if any of it has been scanned previously, so you might want to start there.”
The young girl sighed in relief, and only then did Melanie realize how much tension had been in her body language previously. “Thank you, Lord Darktail,” she said gratefully.
“Just Rolas, please,” he said. He gave her directions on how to find the attic’s entrance, and the girl scurried off.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Rolas?” Melanie said cautiously. “I mean, we don’t know who this girl really is.”
“She seems harmless enough, and I can’t imagine she hiked ten kilometers up a three degree slope just to rifle through any non-existent jewelry might be stored upstairs,” Rolas said, then added, “Though I will check on her in a few minutes, there’s only the one small window up there and it’s beastly hot today.”
Melanie nodded, and was just to stand up and get an iced tea for them both when a grey, unmarked air skimmer came down out of the sky, anti-grav plates humming loudly as it dumped speed, landing with a thump on the front lawn, barely missing a bed of flowers. The canopy opened, and out came an vixen official in the uniform of the Ministry of Prudence, accompanied by a human woman wearing a business suit.
“Lord Rolas, Lady Melanie?” the ministry officer asked as they approached. “I’m Col. Greengrass, Ministry of Prudence, Investigation Division.” She gestured to the human woman. “This is Assistant Ambassador Laurie Kelso, of the Terran Confederation.”
Melanie shared a surprised glance with Rolas. “And what can House Darktail do to help the Ministry today?” he asked. It was the Ministry of Prudence’s job to evaluate the local laws and behavior of Noble districts and their behavior in general, so as to minimise any disruptive effects on the relations between Nobles, the other castes, and more rarely on relations between the other governments that made up the Allied Worlds. The “prudes” as they were often called behind their backs, had no official ability to prosecute or censure Nobles, but they did have complete immunity to Noble backlash, giving them the less than completely inaccurate nickname “Ministry of Gadflying.” A prude investigation often led up to the Ministry of Justice getting involved, which rather encouraged Nobles to stay on their best behavior.
“We’re looking for a young human woman,” Ambassador Kelso began. “Her name is Alesha Rodriguez, a student from Earth. She’s wanted on suspicion of attempting to access sealed records without a security clearance. We suspect she’s part of a fringe movement that wishes to disrupt relations between the Confederation and the Foxen Protectorate. We know she requested access to the records in the Darktail Manor archives, and we suspect she was coming here to find other materials related to the cause she supports.” She held a palm comp, and a holographic image of Rodriguez’s face appeared
Melanie saw that Rolas’ ears had turned forward in concern. “Forgive me, but having a Ministry official and a Confederation diplomat show up on our doorstep for such a minor matter seems a bit of overkill. Is she considered a criminal?”
“No,” the Prudence official admitted, “but her line of inquiry would feed the usual conspiracy theorists who delight in latching onto the most negative stereotypes between our species.”
“All we want to do is return her home to her family,” Ambassador Kelso added.
“I see,” Melanie said. She put on her most glib expression. “Well, she did come by and asked to see our records. Walked ten kilometers in this ghastly heat if you can believe it. When we told her that we certainly weren’t going to allow anyone to just wander onto our property and start poking through the attic she left.”
“Did she tell you what she was looking for?” Greengrass asked.
“Something about the First Contact,” Rolas answered. “Can’t imagine what she thought she’d find here. My ancestor was a minor functionary during that period. Hardly on level where he’d get a mention in the history books, even family history.”
The official and the ambassador exchanged a look. “How long ago was this?”
“Goodness, I didn’t think to check the time.” Rolas turned to Melanie. “Er, about an hour ago, wouldn’t you say, Mel?”
“About that, maybe a little more,” she agreed.
The two visitors exchanged a look between them, obviously calculating how fast a hot and tired young woman could walk down the trail beside the railroad tracks. From the silent agreement they seemed to reach, they were betting they could catch up to her. “Thank you for your time, Lord Rolas, Lady Melanie,” Greengrass said. “We won’t take up anymore of your time.”
“If you see her again, contact our embassy immediately,” Kelso added, handing over a card. Then the two visitors spoke their goodbyes, hurried back to their air skimmer, and were soon out of sight.
“I was under the impression that you didn’t like Miss Rodriguez that much,” Rolas said to her.
Melanie nodded in agreement. “I don’t, but I’m rather allergic to the Prudes poking into my business, as you can imagine.”
“That I can. Let’s check on her, shall we?” She followed Rolas upstairs, to the hatch with built in folding ladder that led up to attic.
At Rolas’ call, Rodriguez cautiously stuck her head over the edge of the hatch, her face and hair soaked with sweat. “Are they gone?” she asked.
“Yes, dear. You can come down now,” Melanie reassured her.
The young girl half slid, half fell down the ladder, a small leatherbound book under one arm. Rolas just managed to catch her before she landed in a nasty fall. “Thanks,” she huffed.
“Find anything interesting?” Melanie asked, gesturing to the book.
“I’m not sure,” Rodriguez admitted. “It’s a personal diary. My palm comp can’t read handwriting in the Mother Tongue, but I recognize the House Darktail seal on the cover, plus Lord Rolas’ name, and I think the dates are from the period I’m looking for.”
“Let’s have a look,” Rolas said. She handed the book over to him carefully, handling it with a cotton handkerchief to prevent contamination with body sweat. Rolas took them both, opening the book carefully, mindful of the dried and cracked cover. “Hmm,” he said after a moment’s examination. “It’s not a diary exactly, more of a reminiscence. I think the dates correspond to the events he’s trying to record. It appears to be from the time period you’re interested in.”
“What’s it say?” Melanie asked.
“‘In the Mother Goddess’ name, I Lord Rolas Darktail, swear upon my honor, with full knowledge and without coercion, that the events I record in this book are truthful, to the best of my recollection. I record this not for history, not for posterity, but…’” Rolas paused, frowned, and then went on, “‘...but to expiate my sins. May the Mother Goddess be merciful, and unlock the chain of sin that binds my soul when I enter the Cold and Dark. With all the lies and pain I perpetuated, I know that it is so very heavy.
“‘Everything began one cold day on the Gerwart coast, at the rocket testing facility…’”