“That’s the last, ma petite!” Henri told her as he jogged up the ramp.

“Then get aboard, baudet!” she told him, and he gave a wild laugh, paused just long enough to drag her head down for a burning kiss, and ran past her. She looked up to see Jesus Ramirez laughing and shook a fist at him, and then the two of them followed Dessouix up the ramp and the hatch hissed closed behind them.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“THERE it is, Ma’am,” Scotty Tremaine said very quietly, and Honor nodded. The island of Styx was a blur of green and brown on the wrinkled blue of the DuQuesne Ocean, named for the powerful Legislaturalist who had been the architect behind the PRH’s original plan of conquest.

Funny thing to call an ocean on a planet StateSec owns, she reflected absently. Wonder why they didn’t change its “elitist” name to something more proletarian when they took over the lease?

Not that it mattered. It was just another of those distractions a human mind sought when the tension ratcheted high, and she knew it.

“I see it, Scotty,” she said, and keyed the intercom. “All right, people. We’re about five minutes out. Stand by.” She released the stud, gave Nimitz a light caress, and looked at Tremaine. “The bird is yours,” she said simply.

Citizen Major Ceilia Steiner rubbed the tip of her nose and contemplated the coming change of shift. She and several friends had a date to spend the afternoon surfing, and she was looking forward to trying out that new stud Citizen Captain Harper had brought back from Delta One-Niner last month. He was a political who’d been a big cheese in the Treasury Department under the old regime, and that lent a certain spice to demanding “command performances” from him. Besides, Steiner had always been a sucker for that distinguished, silver-temple look, and if he was even half as good in bed as he was in the looks department, it should be quite an experience.

She smiled lazily at the thought. I wonder what “the People” would think if they knew how damned much fun we have out here? she wondered. I know I never would’ve thought there was a post like this one! Sure it’s boring when you’re actually on duty—too much of the same old, same old to be any other way. But there are the off-duty perks, now aren’t there? Sort of makes you understand why all those rotten old Legislaturalists got such a charge out of being lords of creation, doesn’t it? Well, it’s our turn now, and I, for one, intend to enjoy it just as much as they ever did.

She chuckled, yet in the back of her mind was the memory of the day she’d joined StateSec, all bright and shiny with her desire to protect the People from their enemies. It hadn’t taken long for the shininess to rub off, and deep inside she had never stopped mourning the fact that it hadn’t. But the real world wasn’t like dreams, or the promises people like Cordelia Ransom had made. The real world was where you did the best you could, and you looked out for number one, and you watched your own ass, because it was for damned sure no one else would.