Queen & Commander (Book One of the Hive Queen Saga)

Chapter Five: Number Six

Before another pointless post-Test class, Rhiannon checked off-campus students’ Test results. They’d been posted alphabetically on a leaf-thin board in front of the school. But, of course, there wasn’t enough room on the board, so the name-and-score rotated every few minutes. A-J. K-Q. R-Z.

And the Administration doesn’t think that might cause traffic accidents?

To meet the minimum qualifications for the Cauldron, she needed one more crew member. And she didn’t have any good options amongst the boys she knew.

Approaching strangers was risky, yes. They might tell someone official about her intended Hive’s unorthodox makeup—it includes a rival female, Your Honor!—or about the sketchy Devotion levels her crew felt. Or about the fact that absolutely none of them were qualified to do anything on a spaceship.

But the alternative was going short, and that was guaranteed to fail. Oh, she supposed Victor and Gavin might know another disaffected youth. But she didn’t want to rule Victor’s Hive. She was going to have her own.

She’d been pleasantly surprised by Gavin. Did Victor understand just how well-suited to Devotion his vocally-subversive friend really was? During lunch, she’d met with him to pore over his essays. They’d talked about goals and dreams, as well as his off-planet history. For someone who didn’t understand Devotion or even the local fashions, Gavin said all the right things. He trusted her judgment. He’d do well in her service, so long as the others kept him in line regarding what it meant.

After school, she and Gwyn borrowed her dad’s roadskimmer and went out to visit one Alan Jones, M.Phil., M.S., number eight on the results board she’d checked that morning. Dad hadn’t seemed at all worried that she wanted to check out a university in the Senedd, one that she wasn’t going to attend and didn’t know anybody taking classes at. If Mom were still around—

But Mom wasn’t around. Hadn’t been for seven years.

That was fine. Mom might even have understood why she wanted to do this thing, form this Hive. Mom might have been proud of her for agreeing to help friends in need. Mom always said loved ones came first, and she’d definitely have liked Gwyn, if they’d ever met.

Mom wouldn’t have been able to help her, though, approval or not. Four generations, and Rhiannon would be the first Queen in the family line. No Queens, no Devoted, before her.

But she came from a line of quick minds. Perceivers followed invisible threads of logic, and Rhiannon’s peers had never kept up with her quick thoughts. Mom could, though. Sometimes she wondered if her mother had hidden just how good her analytical skills were, for fear that she’d be taken away from her family.

Maybe Rhiannon wasn’t the first one in her family to misdirect the Test.

“This’ll only take a few minutes, I hope,” Rhiannon said, eyes on the road. “But after that, we’ll go into the capital and check out the covered market. Won’t be able to do that once we’re in space, right?” Ever since they’d been old enough to go on their own, she and Gwyn made a point of getting out to the giant market once a month. Crammed with rickety booths, stacked high with silly trinkets you’d never need and precious goods you couldn’t afford. The covered market always made for good looking, if not actual shopping.

Gwyn sighed. “Right,” she said. Her voice was low, muffled. Unless the other girl was buried in her pad, getting an early start on no-longer-all-that-relevant homework, then something was wrong. And Rhiannon thought she might know what.

“We don’t have to apply for the ship, you know. Don’t let Victor talk you into things you don’t want to do.” Bran’s blood, it’s hard to be comforting or confrontational while driving. She hadn’t liked the way Victor talked on Gwyn’s behalf the day before.