Uncle Atar’s words crash over me. I bring my fist to my mouth and try to hold it back, but I can’t. The party, the hangover, the look in Charlie’s eyes, my dying uncle, and now this.
I turn my head. Pokey the medbot extends a small receptacle, but not fast enough.
I vomit all over the imperial furniture.
“Birdie, are you all right?” Atar asks.
A crownchaser. A godsdamned crownchaser.
EMPEROR ATAR FAROSHTI DEAD
The monarch lost his battle with a mysterious illness late last night, leaving his throne without an heir
KINGSHIP ANNOUNCES FIRST CROWNCHASE IN SEVEN CENTURIES
Imperial envoy Charles Viqtorial releases statement declaring the contest was Emperor Atar’s dying wish
ENKINDLER WYTHE TO ACT AS STEWARD OF THE EMPIRE
With the crownchase announced, Imperial Council elects a neutral party to hold the throne until a winner emerges
GAMBLING SURGES ACROSS THE QUADRANT
Bookie networks report overwhelming traffic as imperial citizens seek to place bets on historical race for the throne
THE VOLES FAMILY HOLDINGS ON THE PLANET HELIX
EDGAR VOLES CAN’T BRING HIMSELF TO GO TO BED.
He knows there isn’t really a point to double-checking the numbers on this presentation. He’s analyzed them again and again over the past several months, studied the materials he’s put together until they haunted his dreams, done everything he could possibly do to prepare. He should go to bed so he can be well rested in the morning.
But he’s still awake.
All three large touch screens on the wall of his quarters are filled with design schematics and material lists, efficiency simulations and timetables. His eyes are dry and a little blurry. He knows he’s rereading things he’s read a thousand times.
But if he misses anything . . . If someone asks a question he’s not thoroughly prepared to answer . . .
The door to his room slides open—no knock—and he turns on his heel, thinking for one heart-freezing moment that it might be his father. But instead he sees the efficient movements and sleek alloy lines of NL7, and his shoulders relax.
“Edgar Voles, we expected to find you sleeping,” it says. There isn’t what one might call “emotion” in the android’s voice, but Edgar has known NL7 all his life, was essentially raised by it. He can hear modulations in its voice mechanics that others can’t.
“Are you scolding me, NL7?”
“We are certainly programmed to be capable of scolding, if it is so required.”
Edgar doesn’t smile. He isn’t much of a smiler—he finds it makes his face look more boyish, less likely to command the fear and respect owed to a Voles. But his expression softens as he turns back to the data-filled screens. “I just wanted to go over things one last time. Before I meet with Father in the morning.” He waves a hand at the schematics. “What do you think, NL7? I value your thoughts.”
The android steps up beside him, making hardly a sound. Edgar doesn’t know of any other android that can move so silently. In his opinion, it is a true testament to the superiority of NL7’s creation. And the woman who created it. “It is a very effective and efficient design, Edgar Voles.”
“Would . . .” He hesitates to ask, but he can’t help himself. “Would my mother approve of it, do you think?”
“It is impossible to speak for those who no longer exist.” Edgar’s face falls, but he nods. He feels NL7 analyzing his expression, his body language. And then it adds, “But we can estimate, based on her known skills and characteristics, and we believe she would approve.”
Edgar straightens, a warm feeling filling his chest. That means more than almost anything to him. Almost more than the outcome of the meeting tomorrow.
Only a fool would not see all the benefits in what Edgar plans to present, and William Voles is no fool. Edgar has created the most effective, efficient farming android that has ever been designed, relatively cheap to produce and replace, capable of harvesting and processing an assigned crop in half the time a humanoid could. This will be the answer to all the wage riots and labor protests and welfare lawsuits by the workers on Homestead. So often, his father complains about how the biological farmhands on that planet cost them money, cost the Helix government time and energy and resources.
And now Edgar will hand him the solution. And his father will finally see just how much value Edgar brings to their family.
A corner of the main touch screen flashes red, drawing his eye. An urgent communication.
“Are you expecting news, Edgar Voles?” asks NL7.
He frowns. No, he isn’t. Reaching up, he swipes down on the message, expanding it to fill the screen.
It redirects him to a breaking news alert on the Daily Worlds. One of their correspondents stands beside a liftship in a hanger bay that Edgar recognizes as belonging to the kingship on Apex. Edgar has been in that hangar many times over the course of his life, but never for very long. His father always hustled him quickly to the guest quarters and left him to stare out at the Eastern Sea until it was time to leave again.
Now the hanger bay appears to be packed with liftships and journalists, all talking urgently into camera drones. Edgar turns the volume up on the screen.
“. . . reporting that Emperor Atar Faroshti has passed away at the age of seventy-four, an extremely young age for a hallüdraen. Immediately on the heels of this, Charles Viqtorial, imperial envoy and the emperor’s husband of twenty-seven years, announced that a crownchase will now be initiated to determine the emperor’s successor . . .”
The screen flashes again, and this time Edgar doesn’t hesitate to open it. He knows who the message is from.
William Voles’s severe face fills the screen, not a live communication but a video he must’ve just recorded. “Edgar, it is time to prove your worth. Don’t fail us.”
Edgar closes the message and swipes the screens clear, dismissing every file, every schematic, every simulation.
None of it matters now.
He has new plans to make.
SIX YEARS AGO . . .
IMPERIAL SCHOOLROOM, THE KINGSHIP, APEX
“. . . MISS FAROSHTI?”
I drag my eyes away from the big window that overlooks the restless Eastern Sea. My tutor stands over me, arms crossed, frowning. I wonder what his face looks like without that frown. I’ve never really seen him without it. Mostly because I don’t ever give him much reason to smile.
“Have you been paying attention at all, Miss Faroshti?”
I fold my hands on the desk in front of me and sit up straight. “Nope. Sorry, Mr. Odo. Haven’t heard a thing.”
He rolls his eyes skyward. Like the ceiling might know what to do with me. “I don’t know why I even bother to try to teach you on weeks like this.”
He means on quarter-council weeks. Once every few months, all the heads of the imperial prime families convene on the kingship to deal with whatever super-important stuff they need to argue about and make decisions on. That’s the general gist I’ve gotten from Uncle Atar, anyway. Dead honest? I don’t really care about what the grown-ups do. I care about quarter-council weeks because the prime family heirs get to come on the kingship too.