Without their father, the Aguerras were starting out behind most other people. His mother had known he was smart; she brought him books when she could. Now, though he would never see her again, he still wanted to make her proud of him, if only in his memories.

He swayed a bit, as if thunder had struck through his chest, still hollow and devastated at any reminder of the disastrous fire that had destroyed the building where his family lived. Only through sheer luck had he been gone that night, running errands, trying to scrape together a few amenities. Now they were all dead, and he—an underprivileged boy from the wrong side of the economic curve—had an extravagant, pampered life that went beyond anything he’d ever imagined.

“I am glad to have such an eager student,” OX said, “for there is a great deal I have been instructed to teach you.”

Raymond dove under the water, swimming until his lungs ached. He finally burst up again, spluttering, to draw a deep breath. He laughed and swam back to the Teacher compy. “If more classrooms could be made out of swimming pools, OX, students would be much more interested in going to school.”

He felt a vibrating hum in the water, and geyser jets sprayed around the opposite edge of the pool. Underwater hatches opened, and Raymond swam into a deeper area as gray bulletlike shapes darted out. Three playful bottlenose dolphins, their eyes bright, darted around him. Laughing, he splashed around in circles, and the dolphins cruised on one side and then the other, coming close enough for him to touch their rubbery skin, to grasp two dorsal fins and let them carry him along. A week earlier, Raymond had made a comment to OX about how he wanted to see a dolphin. The very next time he’d gone swimming, the dolphins had appeared.

Raymond had no doubt he was being watched and monitored, that Chairman Wenceslas and his numerous assistants must be recording every step of his progress. The lack of privacy annoyed him, but he could not argue against it. He owed these people everything. Though he hadn’t been allowed outside the Whisper Palace, he had wandered through tunnels and chambers, maintenance halls, secret connecting catacombs. Every corner of the Palace, even the places few people ever saw, was clean and bright, lavishly decorated. He wasn’t going to complain, though his concept of what constituted a “King” had changed since learning the truth about Frederick and his nonexistent royal family.

“How did this all start, OX? Earth had so many different governmental systems, developing democracies, dictatorships, and military-run countries, but a King seems so … old-fashioned. Why did the Hansa reestablish royalty?”

OX paused as if loading a file and assembling a story, and then he began to lecture. The dolphins continued to frolic around Raymond while he tried to listen.