LEGACY LOST (5 page)

When her legs wound around his hips, Dax hesitated, but he allowed it. When her bare heels dug into the small of his back and he felt the subtle but provocative rhythm of her sex against his, he drew a sharp breath and slightly extricated himself from her embrace.

“Leg,” he said, peering down at her with even greater concern. But when her eyes panned to his, they were frantic and mindless. He went to wipe the tear tracks from her face, but her hands moved too; they went to unfasten his rebreather.

Legacy had never, ever approved of his removal of the device before, but now she pulled its strap loose without even asking and clutched his mouth to hers.

For a moment, he responded with a strength and desperation that nearly matched hers, and then, as quickly as it had begun, the moment was over. Dax released his hold on her body and untangled her limbs from his trunk.

“Leg,” he repeated, now grim. “We can’t – I don’t–”

Legacy’s brow furrowed. “What?” she snapped. “We can’t what? You don’t what?”

“I don’t want to do it like this!” he snapped back, refastening the leather mask onto his nose and mouth. He sat upright, arranging the sheet over his traitorous erection, and ran a hand through his hair. He took a deep breath, agitated, and coughed dryly. “I don’t want it to just be . . .” He frittered a hand in the air, signifying nothing, dust and wind. “. . . a way to vent, you know? Some coping mechanism.”

“Forget it,” Legacy hissed, vaulting off the bed and scrambling into her old skirt and blouse.

“You know I – Leg – I didn’t–”

“I said forget it! I’m going to sleep in some other bunk! It’s daylight! People should be up, I’m sure there’s one to spare!”

“Leg–”

But she wrenched the door of the cabin open and exited, slamming it behind her.

              Coal-Radia, having followed the couple by slinking along between the walls, watched them fly apart, wondering at the mention of this father she supposedly had. She’d never really wondered about who her parents had been before.

              When Kaizen ascended the castle keep stairwell, intending to alleviate Johannes of his shift at the helm, Claude was already there, patiently shifting the spokes of the wheel and steering the island ever closer to their destination of Celestine. “Ah, good morning, Duke Taliko,” Claude greeted. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

              Kaizen frowned. “I thought I was relieving Johannes.”

              “You were, but you – needed sleep,” Claude explained, smile barely faltering. “So I offered to take over. Besides, you know, I’ve never cared much for omelets.”

“Well, it’s – it’s just as well,” Kaizen said, waving his hand dismissively and settling near the parapet. “I could use some of your advice, actually. You know, on more than one occasion, it’s been implied that you are a rebel sympathizer, Claude.”

The steward blanched and lost his tongue.

“So I would be most interested to hear your thoughts on this,” Kaizen continued, fishing the Hermetic device from a pocket within his trousers. He depressed the button and allowed the pompous monarch’s thinly veiled threat to play for his most humane courtier. Certain phrases sprang forward as particularly antagonistic. Tenuous grip. Scapegoat. A threat to be tangibly snuffed out. When the light of Ferraday’s voice ceased its flickering, Kaizen closed the silver ball again and re-deposited it into his pocket. “I wish to be no innocent man’s executioner,” Kaizen added. “Nor do I wish to sacrifice myself.”

Claude considered. “No innocent man’s executioner,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Well. Let us consider the crime to be the collapse of Icarus. Now, shall we examine, most factually, the factors which contributed to it?”

Kaizen nodded, listening.

“There was, first, The Coronal Massacre, perpetrated by Chance for Choice. In this regard, perhaps it would look better if Exa Legacy were to be apprehended, considering that it would appear you’ve absolved Trimpot after offering him a position amongst the court in exchange for information. Of course, though, Exa Legacy is undoubtedly dead.”

Kaizen nodded again, breaking eye contact. “Yes. There is no chance she would have survived the collapse.”

Claude continued, hardly noticing the falter. “But Trimpot is here. And he was the leader of Chance for Choice long before Exa Legacy was a household name.” The suddenly mischievous steward paused, allowing this information to fully sink in. “I mean,” he repeated, “he is right here. Like a . . . How does the saying go? A sitting goose?”

“A sitting duck,” Kaizen corrected him. He knew an unusual amount of Old Earth sayings, thanks to his father.

“Better than you,” Claude concluded. “After all, you didn’t do anything, did you? Maybe Exa Legacy would’ve been easier to blame; she got on the radio in an effort to spread the name of Chance for Choice throughout the New Earth and she hadn’t been publicly pardoned by the throne for The Coronal Massacre, no known immunity from the courts, but she’s dead.”

“She is dead,” Kaizen agreed tonelessly.

Unseen by either man, a hot pink up-do disappeared back down the twisting stairwell of the castle keep.

Neon Trimpot had to admit that he was pleased with himself. He rarely offered to help anyone, but when he finally did, it had this handy tendency to benefit him immensely, at which point it would immediately cease in its altruistic nature. For example, the moment he decided to extend a hand to Exa Legacy, inviting her to his headquarters and offering her the position of “speechwriter.” Never had he dreamed she would also supply him with a legally advantageous fall guy – or lady, as the case may be. This particular boon was a doozy in the same vein, and even now, even catching wind of an indirect murder plot targeting his marvelous head, he couldn’t help but smirk.

He’d been alerted through the magic of eavesdropping that Monarch Ferraday wanted someone’s head on a platter to be presented to the people of New Earth, gestured to, and said about it: “This is the one we all should blame, but sleep tight, my obedient working class, for they have been judged, sentenced, and executed.”

Trimpot spilled down into the machinist’s chamber, out and through his own makeshift bunk, another spiral of stairs.

That trusting nobody, Claude, was ready to believe Kaizen Taliko, as if the honorable duke had no motive to lie. He was ready to believe that Exa Legacy was dead simply because he hadn’t yet seen her alive personally.

Well, that was the difference between him and Claude. He had. He’d seen the delightful bitch piloting the
Albatropus,
of all things, which meant that not only was she alive, but a portion of Chance for Choice remained to struggle against the elements, like some tiny candle guttering.

Trimpot strode purposefully toward the parallel wing, where the girl – what was her name? – where Sophie stayed. Trimpot’s lip quirked. Kaizen’s attempt to obfuscate the identity of the madwoman had been noble, but simple. Without the lurking guard staff of automata to apprehend him, he’d investigated these halls thoroughly. And the girl, Sophie. Her room was directly across from Kaizen’s. As if they were on the same level in this family, as if they always had been. Siblings.

What an oddity to New Earth.

Trimpot knocked at Sophie’s door. “Hello? Is there a pretty girl inside?”

No answer. Well, if she wasn’t in Master Addler’s chamber, and she wasn’t in her bedchamber, there was only one other place she would be on these grounds: the arbor, a wooden lattice overgrown with vines and foliage, the centerpiece of a small garden-and-menagerie at the back of the palace. Trimpot grimaced and receded along the rotunda yet again.

Claude was right about one thing: people would rather blame Legacy than blame him. She’d started the riot at the Fifty-Second Centennial. She’d been the voice on
City of Icarus News-3,
informing New Earth of Chance for Choice’s mission statement
.
She’d been invited to formally debate with the duke. The court had no record of granting immunity to her. How many laws had she broken? It was even arguable that the collapse of Icarus was her literal fault. If she hadn’t wrapped Dax around her little finger, he’d likely have never formulated that insane assassination plot. Then, Malthus would still be alive, and Trimpot never would’ve had to give up the location of the CC headquarters, where the police had grabbed Vector’s electrical cannon, wrested by hoodlums in the riots and fired into the dome.

Trimpot exited onto the castle grounds, looping toward the garden, the overgrown arbor cropped up in the middle.

It was just too easy for them to give
him
up; he was right here. Claude was right about that. But what if . . . what if Legacy was right here, too? After all, that potbelly airship couldn’t be far ahead. If he could get his hands on the wheel, he’d ensure they reconnected with the vessel. Reconnected, and performed reconnaissance.

But he had no say in this court. Even that sycophant, Claude, was of higher station than he. Even the miserable hunchback, Addler, was of higher station.

Sophie, however . . .

She was the secret duchess of the Taliko nobility, her madness and her vulnerability securing her as the sympathetic favorite of both Kaizen and Olympia.

Trimpot ascended the back of the crowded arbor, winding his arms around its wooden supports and swinging downward, toward its bench.

“Pretty girl?” he called again.

“Here I am,” Olympia Taliko replied, smiling indulgently.

Trimpot pulled up short, almost confused. He wanted to ask her where Sophie was . . . but realized that, doing so, he would utterly ruin whatever sense of satisfaction was allowing the former duchess such a proud simper. She reclined on the arbor’s swinging bench, dressed in a light, silken, empire-waisted robe which was almost . . . see-through. Her thick blonde mane tumbled over her shoulders and obscured her breasts.

“Here you
are
indeed,” Trimpot agreed, taking a seat beside the former duchess. “And what are you doing?”

Olympia slung an arm around the back of the bench and shifted toward him. She was a dazzling woman, confident and voluptuous, and Trimpot could tell that she had been a stunning beauty in her youth. She brought to mind Sophie’s soft features, the lips, the pale blue eyes, but her overuse of powders and creams served to outline the fine lines developing around her eyes.

“Just thinking about the plight of the rebels,” Olympia said, walking two fingers over Trimpot’s shoulder and trailing up into his hair. He would have been shocked, but then again, Olympia did strike him as a lonely woman who was very used to getting her way. “Tell me again about their passionate struggle.”

Trimpot leaned forward, whispering roughly into Olympia’s ear. He wasn’t one to deny the requests of a potential ally. “So many
came together
at night that you could hardly walk without finding yourself
thrust
against a stranger.”

The former duchess giggled and clutched a fistful of hair at the nape of Trimpot’s neck. “More,” she purred.

“We were
dirty,
and
wild,
and
free.
”

His teeth captured her ear, and a cloud of white butterflies crossed the arbor, migrating from the blushing poppies to the open petals of the fire lily, as a discarded spill of skirt splashed out onto the step.

Kaizen stood at the gate to the aerial dock, considering the Hermetic device in his hand. He depressed its button and spoke into the light of its fresh reel. “Ferraday castle,” he addressed the transmitter. “Monarch Ferraday the Third, this is Duke Kaizen Taliko, reporting status of the royal family as unharmed and en route to Celestine for supplies and harbor until further notice. I assure you that we are of one mind in regard to the offering of a scapegoat to soothe the troubled peoples of New Earth. I have detained one such rebel and will transfer him into your care within the week. Please accept my sincerest apologies that the rebel group grew so quickly and wildly out of hand. Know that they are now entirely snuffed, save this single revolutionary in our midst, one Neon Trimpot.”

Depressing the button again, closing the lightweight silver orb, its wings sprang to attention and began their manic flutter, seeming desperate to begin the journey. Stepping onto the metallic grid of the dock, he heaved this Hermetic device into the cloudless sky beyond, winds tugging at his clothes and hair, Old Earth sprawling below: a muddied, otherwise nondescript wasteland, save the bleached carapaces of long-dead beasts, legs curled in, tilting imperceptibly in the dry breeze.

Kaizen reached into his pocket and extracted another Hermetic device, this linked to the Taliko castle itself. He depressed its shell and addressed it to the only name he knew her to be registered under anymore: “Audio Swan.” He spoke into the flickering light of the recorder. “I saw you, and I know you – you saw me, and–” Why could he speak so much more easily to a threatening monarch than to a felonious peasant girl? “–and I just wanted to make sure that you’re all right.” Suddenly all the more unsure of himself, he added, “It’s me. Uh. The duke. Kaizen.”

He could no longer see the potbelly airship, but maybe it was that black grain on the horizon. Regardless, he depressed the button again, sealing the device, and its wings sprang to attention, fluttering madly. Kaizen released this one with as much tenderness as if it was a living dove, eyes following the silver wink of its veneer until the tiny messenger disappeared into the distance.