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.
“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.
This is my family, Mom. And she needs me.
“I can put a stop to this whole thing. No one can get a Hive ship without a Hive Queen, and the guys won’t find anyone else in time.” She put a hand on Gwyn’s thigh, right where the paler girl’s gaze rested. “The boys aren’t important. They’ll get over the disappointment. You just let me know what you really want.”
Gwyn nodded, teary eyed, but not actually crying.
Rhiannon took that as a good sign.
“You stay here while I go meet y dyn hwn. Gotta keep our options open.” The other girl was too delicate for strangers right now. “Take some time to think, or to write some mails, or whatever. I’ll be back flash-quick.”
With that, Rhiannon left the rows of skimmers behind. A campus map directed her to the university’s science building. Usually on an excursion to a new place, her stomach would jump and jitter. But her successful attempt at comforting a member of her Hive reassured her. The nervous bucks weren’t a bother. She could ignore them.
She didn’t know for sure if this Alan Jones would be in the science building. But it seemed like the place to start hunting for a sixteen-year-old Devoted. Particularly for a potential CreaTech with two degrees, including a Master’s of Science.
Inside the building, professors in faded mad-scientist coats—complete with super-tight sleeves that wouldn’t dip into potions and acids—strode from room to room, mumbling deep thoughts. Students staggered behind them, loaded with overfull carryalls and odd contraptions she didn’t recognize.
The floors were a much sturdier stone than the ones at her school. The ceilings appeared to be supported by knotwork columns. She had no idea how knotwork columns might function. If that wasn’t an optical illusion, maybe Alan could build her something like it. If he joined her. If his specialty was spatial relations and building things.
“Excuse me.” She interrupted a university student walking a little slower than the others. “Do you happen to know Alan Jones? He’s about my age.”
The older student growled—actually growled. “That bastard kicked me out of a computer lab. Three times. He’s just a kid, but oooh noo. He’s all the professors’ favorite. Damn him.”
Before she could thank him, the young man stormed off. At least she knew she was in the right place. She knew Alan liked computer labs, possibly ones in this area. She knew that people could identify him.
She traced the path her recent informant might have taken until she found something that qualified as a computer lab. Through a glass-plated door, she could glimpse rows and rows of connected stations. One whole wall was a still life of snaking wires and dancing connectors. Only two people were inside, one young and one in his seventies. They were ignoring each other. She’d take the chance that this was a free-for-all kind of place.
She walked near-silently on cushioned floors until she reached the younger looking one.
“Excuse me?”
“Augh!” He turned his seat faster than the teleportation myth. His wide shoulders were heavily muscled from lifting either weights or computer stations. Hazel eyes focused on her from a rounded face with obscenely plump lips that made her think about kissing.
Not that she wanted to kiss him. Or anyone. They’d only just met.
“Well?” he prompted.
She’d studied him for too long. She refused to blush. “Do you happen to know an Alan Jones? I’m looking for him.”
Before he could answer, the older gentleman stood up.
“I’ll just be leaving, then,” he said. When he reached the door, he paused to give her a little bow. “Ma’am.”
She wanted to ask the young man who that had been, but he didn’t give her the chance. “What do you want with Alan Jones?”
Rhiannon didn’t like his attitude. “None of your business.” Whatever she had to say—even if she was just here to do a survey on preferred beer flavors among university students—that was for Alan’s ears only. This boy had no right to pry into Alan’s affairs. How did he know she wasn’t his long-term girlfriend who wanted to talk about a pregnancy scare?
Whether Alan joined her Hive or not, she’d make sure he knew this kid had tried to worm into his private life.
The young man’s eyes widened at her vehemence. His pink lips quirked up on the left. “It’s very much my business, little girl. I’m Alan Jones.”
Well, she could understand why the student in the hall hadn’t liked him. It was as though he knew that calling her little girl would be so condescending, so embarrassing that she’d be tempted to leave. Just like he’d made the student in the hall leave. Had the kid really been kicked out or just annoyed out?
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Actually, it was funny in a cruel way. She held out a hand for him to shake.
“Rhiannon,” she introduced herself, “soon to be Queen-Commander Ceridwen.”
He went back to his computer screen. “No thanks. Send Professor Cantor back in if you see him.”
I won’t be dismissed out of hand. “No what?”
He deliberately angled the screen towards her and opened up a match-3 game. “No to whatever you want me to build for you.”
“What if what I wanted to build was your own future?”
His game ended with cascading explosions. He started a new one.
“Not interested in being your prodigal slave either. I’ve met plenty of Queen-Commanders. I’m not desperate.”
He certainly had a straightforward way about him. He wasn’t going to be fooled by the veneer of Hive, only to be disappointed when he realized just how makeshift her group was.
“I bet you have,” she said. “I bet the older Queens and Commanders wanted to control you, for your own benefit, of course.” She saw him stop playing, even though the timer on his game continued to count down. “I bet the younger Queens don’t treat you like a real person, preferring to tease you for being a kid.”
He stilled and quirked his head to the side, but he didn’t look at her. He also didn’t interrupt.
“I bet your funding is about to run out for your projects because soon you’ll be a normal student’s age instead of a curious prodigy. I bet you’re interested in working on larger projects, not smaller ones, but can’t get assigned or permission for anything because you’re all alone and without a Queen’s voice.
“I bet you do want to find your own Queen. One who trusts you. One who treats you like a full Hive member. One who understands that you’ll be just as interested in your research as you will be in her. One who doesn’t expect you to dance attendance, but who does provide structure for your days and opportunity to mingle with other brilliant people. One who will make sure those other people take you seriously as well. One who likes you for you, not for your skills or the prestige you bring her.”
She stopped and waited. She didn’t say I bet you’re going to join my Hive. She’d planted the fruit tree, but would it bear citrus?
He focused on her now, with all the intensity of that brilliant mind. He’d said he’d met plenty of Queens, but had he ever met one like her?
“You’re not a Commander at all, are you? You’re a Perceiver!”
She tried to smirk mysteriously. Give the man some clues, and he’d seen through her charade. A good sign. “That’s not what the Test says.” She could fool a computerized test, but she couldn’t fool a man with a lot at stake. She just had to hope that he, too, had been so frustrated by his situation that going non-traditional made sense.
The smile he gave her grew across his face, eventually making extra lines all the way back next to his jaw. “Congratulations.”
She giggled, surprising herself with her delight, and perched on the table behind her. He understood! He understood what she’d done and how she’d done it. He appreciated the skill.
“Now I want to do the same for you. Join my Hive.”
He shook his head. “What exactly do you want to do for me? Because I don’t need you to change my Test scores.”
She shrugged and leaned back on the desk to cross her legs. “I couldn’t do that anyway. But I can be the Commander you need.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “Don’t tell me you want a standard Queen instead of a Commander. Queens need so much more attention and are much less interested in helping you organize your projects and coworkers.”
He nodded and gestured for her to continue.
“Here’s the deal. I’m putting together a very small, very unconventional Hive. I can’t promise you anything right away. We’re just getting together, very young, and we’re not backed by any clout other than the fact that we’re a Hive. But! But I can promise to listen to whatever you tell me, to depend on you for original ideas, to make sure everyone treats you fairly, and to fight for your interests whenever you need me to.”
His smile faded again. He leaned back, mocking her posture. “Will it be worth it, Perceiver-Queen?”
She tilted forward, keeping the same distance between them, as though his motion had drawn her there. He sounded disinterested. He looked disinterested. But she almost had him. She could feel it.
“I don’t know,” she said. “And I won’t lie to you about it.”
The muscles around his eyes relaxed when she refused to make false promises.
“Sold,” he said. “Well, provisionally.”
“Provisionally?”
“The university is required to allow each student two provisional Devotions. It’s part of their public charter.” His voice turned rueful. “And you’re right. I really like this lab and Professor Cantor, but I’m going to be fifty before I find the Commander I need.” With exaggerated grace, he fell to the floor at her feet. “I pledge you my Devotion. My life and my hands are yours for a year and a day,” he swore. “May we choose never to part.”
She put her hand on his brown, shaggy head. He needed a haircut, unless this was an intentional look. “I accept your life and your hands, and pledge you my consideration and attention for a year and a day. May our partnership continue forever.”
Oh, I hope those were the right words for this situation. Everything she knew about this aspect of Devotion came from dubiously accurate cinema. But he rose and clasped her hands, one over the other to cement the edges of their trial period. It must’ve been good enough for him.
“So, what’re you working on?” she asked. Now that she had him, it’d be good to find out his expertise. Maybe he even knew things about spaceships.
His reply sounded like a memorized speech. “The Myddfai-spatial tensor hypothesis is central to my dee-phil thesis. In my spare time, I work on miniaturizing Alcubierre tensor jets and singing traditional choral pieces.” His eyes widened towards this speech’s end. “How can you not know this? Why didn’t you know this before you came to me?”
She bit her lip to keep from grinning. “I didn’t need to know what you did, only who you are.”
His hands waved in the air. “What does that even mean? Sweet goddess of mercy, I’ve pledged myself to someone insane.”
She gave up the fight to contain the grin and patted him on the shoulder. She was pretty sure he liked her a lot. “Maybe crazy is what you need.”
She sidled towards the door before he could make any further arguments. “I’ll let you know how things go with the ship I mentioned. We leave in a week if we get it. I’ll send you the details tonight.”
She made it into the hall before he shrieked again, wordless. The older gentleman, presumably Professor Cantor, was leaning against the wall. “Best of luck, Commander,” he said, jerking a thumb in her new Devoted’s direction.
“Thanks.” That. That right there. That made her sure she was doing the right thing. This official, experienced person recognized something in her as a Queen and Commander. This official person believed she had the right to gather up the brilliant and irascible man inside that room. This official person hadn’t kicked her out or demanded to see her credentials.
“Can you handle him like this?” she asked.
The older man just shoved his hands in his pockets and walked back into the lab, humming a tune she’d never heard. She guessed that meant yes.
Before rejoining Gwyn in the skimmer, she sent Gavin a quick message, letting him know the names and positions of the two crew members he’d never met. Luciano Totti and Alan Jones, my Devoted.
Mine. Not men already in love with someone else, like Victor. Not women or revolutionaries. These two were hers and hers alone. Devoted to their Queen-Commander.
She received Gavin’s reply in moments. He’d sent the packet to the commissioning agent. She was required to report to an address in the downtown capital for in-person interview this weekend.
Back in the skimmer, she regaled Gwyn with the story of Alan’s agreement, complete with an impersonation of his helpless shrieking.
She’d done it. She’d gotten them a Hive the right size to crew the Cauldron.
“He couldn’t believe I didn’t know anything about his thesis project. That’s something to do with getting a degree, right?”
She and Gwyn laughed over a job well done. They ignored all the implications for the time being. They could worry later. For now, there were bizarre handicrafts and artisanal foods calling their names. The covered market beckoned.
Gwyn produced a bottle of blackcurrant from somewhere beneath her seat and took a delicate sip. Without bothering to wipe the plastic rim, she handed the bottle across to Rhiannon. Sharing drinks, sharing germs. They were self-chosen family, and family shared everything.
Just tell me what you want, Gwyn. I’ll stand up to make it happen for you, just like you’ve always stood up for me.
A/N: You can buy this book at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, iBooks, and Smashwords. You can sign up for my newsletter, follow me on Twitter, or ask questions on tumblr. For more information, see janinesouthard.com. Your support is appreciated. Thanks for reading!