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

Chapter Five: Number Six

“I want to.” A quaver in Gwyn’s voice belied the sentiment.

Rhiannon wanted to ask Are you sure that you’re sure?, but there wasn’t a good way to do that. Rhiannon knew what it meant to be a good best friend, though. She’d keep quiet and make sure Gwyn got the future she deserved.

They drove in silence. Gwyn had always been quiet, ever since they’d met in grammar school. Rhiannon had forgotten her pad at home that day, and Gwyn had tilted hers. Sharing. Like children were supposed to do. Back then, Gwyn’s name was Lois, before Rhiannon had nicknamed her for her white-blonde hair.

And when the teacher’s wrath came down on them for socializing during a class period, Gwyn hadn’t acknowledged the teacher’s diatribe at all, soundlessly continuing to let Rhiannon read over her shoulder. Best friends ever since: Gwyn the silent support, Rhiannon the confrontationalist.

Still, Gwyn’s silence held a different flavor today. A flavor that worried Rhiannon. Maybe this Hive-building wasn’t a good idea.

They approached the university. When they spotted its short spires that defied the firstcomers’ underground cities as well as the second wave’s atmospheric domes, Gwyn exhaled loudly and rushed into a soliloquy. “It’s just, I want to stay with Victor, yeah, but leave Dyfed? My family live here. And,” she choked through her indecision, “what was the point of my parents’ exiling my brother from our home if I’m not going to take what’s been offered? I’m going to be the first person in my family since Settlement who gets to go to university, and I’ve got this brilliant future in animal husbandry. My parents are thrilled, more thrilled than they were the day I told them that you’d nicknamed me Gwyn.” The de Vries family had celebrated their youngest’s ascension to society’s rarefied ranks in the most overblown way—like a proper Welsh girl. As if a name could affect Test results.

But today, neither young woman laughed at the anecdote. Because it was true. Gwyn had more options than anyone in her family for generations. Going along with Victor’s scheme might make her happy in the short run but it’d ruin her family’s plans. Not to mention what her brother would think.

Rhiannon chanced a look over as she drove slowly, cruising for a parking spot.

Gwyn’s hands were clenched on her pad, its screen dark, while she looked out the window at the roadskimmer jungle. “Yeah, Jack got into trouble in the neighborhood, but my parents wouldn’t have sent him away if they hadn’t thought I was going places. Sometimes I wish I’d never had a brother, or met Victor, or even,” she hesitated but ploughed on, “become friends with you. If I didn’t have you, the teachers wouldn’t take me as seriously, and my parents would still call me Lois instead of insisting on your nickname. And I love you, and I love my life, but if I’d just been Jack Mark Two, then I wouldn’t be choosing right now.”

Rhiannon knew she was the only person Gwyn could or would talk to this way. It roused a warm rush of affection at the trust it implied. She didunderstand, but she couldn’t make up Gwyn’s mind or sort her feelings for her. She could only ensure that the other girl had choices.

Choices which Victor might deny her in his zeal for the plan.

Rhiannon parked the skimmer and turned to her best friend. “Whatever you choose to do,” she vowed, “I’ll make sure it’s got a tidy solution. Just because I’m sounding out this Alan Jones, just because the other guys are writing essays and Devoting right and left, it doesn’t mean we have to go through with this. You tell me what you want, today or tomorrow or next week, and it’ll happen for you. Okay?”

Rhiannon had never felt more like a good friend, like a good family member. Never felt more like a real Queen, promising to look after someone else with all the influence she could muster. She thought of her mother, the way she’d always insisted on family loyalty.