Cheers erupted, and Cla­jak couldn’t help but chuckle. Such news in­deed war­ranted in­ter­rupt­ing the em­peror. No one would take of­fense at the out­burst. Sur­round­ing coun­cil­men pounded Ra­jhir’s back hard enough to bruise him for weeks. He grinned, cheer­fully ac­cept­ing the ac­co­lades due his clan. It had been his clan who’d claimed the first Earther Matara and dis­cov­ered the re­pro­duc­tive com­pat­i­bil­ity be­tween the two races. Ev­ery­one on Kalquor was far too aware of the specter of ex­tinc­tion that hung over them, and the birth of two healthy chil­dren de­served thun­der­ous ap­plause for the next cen­tury.

  Even those who ob­jected to the se­duc­tions and ab­duc­tions of so many Earther women and the con­se­quences that could come of co­erced clan­nings could not naysay such glo­ri­ous news, Cla­jak thought. He only hoped the news of Jes­sica’s preg­nancy would be half as well re­ceived.

  At last the cel­e­bra­tion calmed and Zarl was able to con­tinue. “Let us now ex­tend our pub­lic con­grat­u­la­tions to your clan, Ra­jhir.”

  Ra­jhir rose and bowed to the royal fam­ily. “Many thanks, my em­per­ors and my princes. I hope we can con­tinue to serve Kalquor so well. My clan will cer­tainly try.”

  That was greeted with a roar of laugh­ter and more ap­plause as Ra­jhir sat back down. I will have to re­visit my opin­ion of that man be­ing too duty-driven Cla­jak thought, clap­ping with the rest of them. He was dis­cov­er­ing he liked Ra­jhir.

  “Now onto other busi­ness,” Zarl said, and ev­ery­one calmed once more. The at­mos­phere was still ex­pec­tant but much more re­laxed. Cla­jak’s ner­vous­ness eased.

  “Many, if not all of you, have heard the ru­mor Prince Cla­jak’s clan has taken an Earther Matara them­selves. The ru­mor is true. Not only that, an heir is now ex­pected. We of­fer our con­grat­u­la­tions to them as well—”

  “Con­grat­u­la­tions in­deed,” a low, an­gry voice in­ter­rupted, and all heads turned to the source.

  Head Coun­cil­man Pwal­dur stood in the door­way of the coun­cil cham­ber, his wide face grave. Over his shoul­der, Cla­jak spied Coun­cil­man Wag­nox, stand­ing in Pwal­dur’s shadow as usual.

  Pwal­dur strode into the room, his blue-robed fig­ure im­pres­sive in its strength. Big­ger than most Kalquo­ri­ans, his size leant him the im­por­tance he so care­fully cul­ti­vated. De­spite be­ing mid­dle-aged, he showed lit­tle of it, his hair still the solid blue-black of his youth. Only the frown lines etched at the cor­ners of his mouth and fore­head be­trayed his ma­tu­rity.

  Wag­nox hur­ried be­hind Pwal­dur, his ex­pres­sion se­cre­tive. Wag­nox al­ways looked like he knew some­thing dirty about ev­ery­one’s mother, Cla­jak thought, his dis­taste for the man ris­ing anew. Wag­nox showed the years Pwal­dur re­fused to, sil­ver glint­ing in streaks through his un­fash­ion­ably short hair. His face was lined al­most as heav­ily as the Zarl’s de­spite be­ing fifty years younger.

  Pwal­dur stood in the cen­ter of the coun­cil floor as Wag­nox took a seat on the low­est step. The head coun­cil­man lost no time in ad­dress­ing the as­sem­bled. His voice and ex­pres­sion were po­lite, though he raked the princes with his dark gaze. “How mar­velous the royal line is as­sured, my em­per­ors, though it be wa­tered down with Earther blood.”

  Yuder’s dis­ap­prov­ing voice sounded be­hind Cla­jak. “How mar­velous the head coun­cil­man has deigned to join this ses­sion, though he be late.”

  Pwal­dur bowed low be­fore them, ig­nor­ing the few snick­ers from other coun­cil­men. “I was un­avoid­ably de­tained. I have been blessed with a child of my own, as you know, and she is most be­reaved by re­cent hap­pen­ings. I had to see to her com­fort and care be­fore I could think of leav­ing my home this morn­ing.”

  Here we go, Cla­jak thought.

  “Did Nar­pok not re­ceive her weekly al­lot­ment of jew­els and new clothes? Poor child.” Yuder was un­sym­pa­thetic.

  There were more muf­fled snick­ers and Cla­jak fought to keep his own ex­pres­sion bland.

  Pwal­dur al­lowed some anger to creep in around the edges. “Make light of her pain, my em­peror, if it pleases you. The fact re­mains the princes of Kalquor have yet again aban­doned their duty to their peo­ple.”

  Cla­jak leaned for­ward, ar­rang­ing his fea­tures into a mask of earnest con­cern. “I am not aware of these ne­glected du­ties of which you speak, Head Coun­cil­man. I al­low we have bro­ken an ar­ranged clan­ning with your daugh­ter for a woman we deemed more suit­able to our needs, a most re­gret­table cir­cum­stance for which we apol­o­gize. Speak on, for I will hear your al­le­ga­tions of my clan’s aban­don­ment of Kalquor.”

  He knew he was open­ing the door for a great deal of crit­i­cism. Cla­jak also re­al­ized his past had to be put to rest in or­der to con­tinue con­struc­tively into the fu­ture.

  Pwal­dur was more than happy to help. Cla­jak could al­most see him men­tally rub­bing his hands in an­tic­i­pa­tion of tear­ing the young prince down. “You are not en­tirely to blame, my prince,” he said rea­son­ably. “In youth, men are eas­ily dis­tracted by plea­sures and ad­ven­ture. In the last forty years you have spent far more time away from Kalquor than on it.”

  Cla­jak chuck­led with an ease he didn’t feel. “Con­duct­ing treaties, ne­go­ti­at­ing trade routes, and shoring up al­liances on be­half of Kalquor can hardly be deemed as ne­glect.”

  The sat­is­fac­tion be­hind Pwal­dur’s smile let Cla­jak know the head coun­cil­man thought he’d cor­nered the prince. “Oh, I know you’ve fit some of­fi­cial du­ties in be­tween your frol­ics on Dan­to­van, Pla­sius and half a dozen other worlds where the sex is plen­ti­ful and women most ac­com­mo­dat­ing.”

  “I have earned a rep­u­ta­tion, haven’t I?” Cla­jak’s smile grew as Pwal­dur’s slipped away. You self-sat­is­fied gurluck. You didn’t ex­pect me to ad­mit to my past with­out be­ing de­fen­sive, did you? “I have en­joyed my­self im­mensely, of­ten to the great dis­tress of my fa­thers and clan­mates. How­ever, at some point even reck­less aban­don loses its ap­peal. One looks for­ward to the chal­lenges he avoided in the past.”

  Cla­jak looked away from Pwal­dur to ad­dress the coun­cil. “I am home. My roam­ing is at an end. Serv­ing my peo­ple and as­sur­ing their sur­vival has be­come the ad­ven­ture. The joy of a life­time with the woman I love is the great­est plea­sure I can en­vi­sion.”

  Pwal­dur’s hands thud­ded to­gether in sar­cas­tic ap­plause. “How very mov­ing, my prince. You’ll for­give us if we re­main skep­ti­cal. It is hard to be­lieve a man of your well-pub­li­cized ap­petites is truly ready to set­tle down with one woman.” He turned away to ad­dress the coun­cil, though his words were still aimed at Cla­jak. “If this change of heart is valid, it is tragic your clan has turned its col­lec­tive back on a woman who was promised to you decades ago, a woman who just yes­ter­day was con­firmed fer­tile and able to pro­duce pure­blood Kalquo­rian heirs.”

  That prompted a swell of mut­ter­ing from the coun­cil and the gallery above. Cla­jak’s guts tight­ened at his words.

  Egilka an­swered, his voice steady. “Any child Nar­pok bears is not guar­an­teed to be fer­tile it­self, par­tic­u­larly if it is fe­male. The virus dam­age re­mains in the ge­netic struc­ture of ev­ery Kalquo­rian.”

  Pwal­dur turned on the Imdiko, his thick lips curled in a sneer. “Yes my prince, your re­peated fail­ures to erad­i­cate the virus dam­age to our DNA are well known.”

  Be­vau hissed un­der his breath. Cla­jak con­trolled his im­pulse to de­fend Egilka, hid­ing his clenched fists in the folds of his robe.

  Egilka’s voice be­trayed none of the pain Cla­jak knew he felt. “In­deed, a cure has eluded me. By com­mand of my em­per­ors, my work to achieve such is at an end. I have ac­cepted that. It is time to move on.”

  “Plac­ing an Earther on the throne can be de­layed for at least one more gen­er­a­tion though,” Pwal­dur ar­gued, his voice sug­gest­ing he was the most rea­son­able per­son on the planet. “If this Jes­sica McIn­ness is al­lowed to usurp Nar­pok’s place, our planet will find it­self un­der the rule of half-Earth­ers sooner rather than later.”

  Ra­jhir stood, and all eyes fell on him. He might have been a ju­nior coucil­man, but he was no stranger to those as­sem­bled. His fa­ther had been a leg­end on this very floor and Ra­jhir had once served as an aide to an­other well-known coun­cil­man. Most of the peo­ple here knew of his honor. Even Pwal­dur did not chal­lenge the younger man’s right to speak.

  Ra­jhir said, “In two hun­dred years, the ma­jor­ity of Kalquor’s pop­u­la­tion will be mixed blood any­way … if we are for­tu­nate in our breed­ing ef­forts. Why should the royal fam­ily be dif­fer­ent? Why should pure­blood Kalquo­ri­ans rule those who are not pure­blood Kalquo­ri­ans?”

  Pwal­dur’s shoul­ders were stiff at this ar­gu­ment from an un­ex­pected source. “It is not so much a mat­ter of who rules as who is fit to rule. This woman they’ve brought back has no train­ing. There is far more to be­ing Kalquor’s em­press than drop­ping babes!”

  His pow­er­ful voice rose in right­eous anger. “The role of em­press is what my daugh­ter has been groomed for her en­tire life! She is one of us, not an out­sider from a back­wards so­ci­ety run by re­li­gious fa­nat­ics. In the fu­ture all of Kalquor will be made up of the mixed races, but it is too early to make that tran­si­tion in the high­est role of our em­pire. We need strong lead­er­ship, and Nar­pok is ready to take on her re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.”

  He looked up to­ward the em­per­ors’ tier to be­seech them, his ex­pres­sion plead­ing. “My em­per­ors, you can­not hand the em­pire to a man who has not yet proven his grasp of re­spon­si­bil­ity, nor to the naïve alien fe­male who’s body just hap­pened to quicken to his clan’s seed. As an elected rep­re­sen­ta­tive of your peo­ple, I tell you they will not have it! The crown prince’s in­fat­u­a­tion has no ba­sis for ruler­ship!”

  Cla­jak had been breath­ing deeply dur­ing the head coun­cil­man’s emo­tional rant, keep­ing his heart rate nor­mal. He an­swered Pwal­dur in a rea­son­able voice. “Princess Jes­sica has proven her­self ca­pa­ble of learn­ing all she needs to know to as­sume the role of em­press. My clan has no doubt she is up to the task.”

  Pwal­dur grinned at Cla­jak, and the prince felt him­self go still. What­ever the head coun­cil­man was about to say, he wasn’t go­ing to like it. He was right.

  “Then, my prince, you’ll have no prob­lem let­ting her prove her wor­thi­ness to this coun­cil. Let Jes­sica McIn­ness speak on her own be­half if you are in­deed so con­vinced of her abil­i­ties.”

  Pwal­dur looked up at the hun­dreds of faces star­ing down from the gallery. In Eng­lish he called, “Come down to the coun­cil floor, my would-be princess, and im­press us, if you please.”

  Cla­jak jerked his gaze up to the gallery, to the fe­male faces of the Earth­ers mixed with the mas­cu­line ones of the Kalquo­ri­ans. His breath caught to see Jes­sica and Michaela in the front row, their eyes wide at hav­ing been dis­cov­ered.

  Be­vau cursed un­der his breath. Be­side Cla­jak, Egilka stiff­ened.

  Pwal­dur grinned even wider as he saw the princes’ shock. He shook with sup­pressed laugh­ter. “Novice, show her down,” he called to a Kalquo­rian page. The young man jumped to be ad­dressed and hur­ried to carry out his or­ders.

  Cla­jak’s stom­ach churned with anger at and fear for Jes­sica. Her pres­ence may have changed ev­ery­thing.

  * * * *

  Jes­sica fol­lowed the page down the steps from the gallery to the coun­cil floor. She felt sick in­side.

  She and Michaela had snuck into the gallery, sure they could watch the pro­ceed­ings with­out any­one be­ing the wiser. With their clans back to their usual du­ties, it had been easy for the Earth­ers to join the crowds stream­ing to the coun­cil ses­sion. The women had planned to re­turn to the Royal House be­fore the mid­day meal, keep­ing their foray a se­cret.

  Jes­sica couldn’t imag­ine how Pwal­dur had dis­cov­ered her pres­ence. It was enough he had. She was in big trou­ble with her clan, and not the kind of trou­ble she’d come to en­joy. No, she’d in­curred real penal­ties this time. She’d seen it on the men’s thun­der­ous faces when they’d looked up at her in the gallery.

  She en­tered the coun­cil cham­ber, the floor an im­mense stretch of space. In the cen­ter the mas­sive beast Pwal­dur waited for her, his eyes bright with an­tic­i­pa­tion.

  He greeted her in her own lan­guage with a hearti­ness that made her feel even more un­easy, if it was pos­si­ble. “Come my dear and join me. You don’t mind speak­ing to the coun­cil, do you?”

  Jes­sica did mind. She wished she could look to her clan for sup­port, but she was too afraid of what she’d see.

  Cla­jak’s voice rang out, his hon­eyed voice car­ry­ing the un­der­cur­rent of anger. “Her place is on this dais with her clan. Come sit next to me, Princess Jes­sica.”

  “She will not!” Pwal­dur roared at the dais, his face red­den­ing. “I chal­lenge her right to take the throne of the heirs!”

  Jes­sica stood frozen, dar­ing to look at Cla­jak. Her Dramok mate stood be­fore his chair, glar­ing down at Pwal­dur. Egilka and Be­vau re­mained seated, but they too glow­ered at the head coun­cil­man. Jes­sica swal­lowed a lump in her throat. An­gry as they might be, they were still ready to de­fend her.

  “We have taken her as our Matara. She is our clan­mate and mother of our un­born. Your chal­lenge is with­out merit.” Cla­jak’s con­trol over his tem­per im­pressed Jes­sica.

  “I am Head Coun­cil­man, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the peo­ple. In the in­ter­ests of the com­mon man, I have ev­ery right to ques­tion her fit­ness as his ruler.” Pwal­dur looked up at the em­per­ors and sketched a very slight bow. “It is within my rights, as set down in the laws of Kalquor, my em­per­ors.”

  Zarl glanced at Jes­sica, the weari­ness in his face much too ev­i­dent for her lik­ing. “In­deed it is, Pwal­dur. How do you pro­pose to pro­ceed?”

  Pwal­dur gave him a smirk that set Jes­sica’s teeth on edge. “First, my em­peror, let her have a trans­la­tor vid. I wish to ques­tion her, and I don’t want her hid­ing be­hind the ex­cuse she can’t un­der­stand me.”

  His con­de­scen­sion grated on Jes­sica’s nerves, and she gave in to the flash of tem­per that drove back some of her fear. “I un­der­stand you fine, Head Coun­cil­man. A trans­la­tor is un­nec­es­sary.”

  Pwal­dur started to hear her speak in heav­ily ac­cented, but gram­mat­i­cally per­fect Kalquo­rian. Whis­pers erupted among the sur­prised coun­cil­men.

  His eyes nar­rowed, and Jes­sica fought down a tiny flare of tri­umph. She would not un­der­es­ti­mate Pwal­dur. She would not.

  The head coun­cil­man man­aged to smile at her, the ex­pres­sion never reach­ing his sharp eyes. “Ex­cel­lent, lit­tle Earther. I am im­pressed you’ve made the ef­fort to learn our lan­guage. Let the ques­tion­ing be­gin then, and we will dis­cover what lit­tle else you may know.”

  Egilka stood with a rus­tle of his pur­ple robes. He looked up to ad­dress Zarl. “I must protest this, my em­per­ors. Jes­sica is preg­nant and should not be ex­posed to an in­ter­ro­ga­tion.”

  Tidro nod­ded. “I agree. Ex­pec­tant fe­males are never to be stressed for fear of com­pli­ca­tions.”

  Pwal­dur waved the con­cerns off. “If she was Kalquo­rian per­haps that would be true, but Earth­ers drops babes by the thou­sands each week.” The smile he gave Jes­sica was more like a sneer, and she stiff­ened. “Surely such a strong breed feels ca­pa­ble of an­swer­ing a few sim­ple ques­tions, yes? Or do you think you’ll abort on the coun­cil cham­ber floor?”

  Which would be worse, Jes­sica won­dered; ris­ing to his bait and let­ting him ask ques­tions she may not have good an­swers to … or fall­ing back on the Kalquo­rian prej­u­dice of fe­male weak­ness? Even that might give Pwal­dur the am­mu­ni­tion he needed to chal­lenge her.

  With no good op­tion be­fore her, she re­turned his hate­ful smirk. “If I feel a mis­car­riage com­ing on, I’ll warn you in time to catch it, Head Coun­cil­man.”

  Jes­sica saw a flash of anger on his face. The coun­cil mem­bers again whis­pered amongst them­selves, amuse­ment on sev­eral faces. Ra­jhir quirked a half-smile at her, and he in­clined his head slightly. The show of sup­port bol­stered her con­fi­dence, and she looked Pwal­dur in the eye.

  Be­hind her, Zarl sounded not quite so tired. “A few ques­tions, then. In def­er­ence to Matara Jes­sica’s con­di­tion, you will keep your de­meanor re­spect­ful, Head Coun­cil­man.”

  Pwal­dur bowed to­wards the voice, but his gaze re­mained riv­eted on Jes­sica. “Of course, my em­peror. I would not dream of caus­ing her un­due stress.”

  I just bet you wouldn’t, Jes­sica thought. She steeled her­self for what­ever he was up to.

  Pwal­dur put his hands be­hind his back, quiet for a mo­ment as if con­tem­plat­ing how to pro­ceed. Jes­sica wasn’t fooled. This man had no doubt planned ex­actly what he would say in hopes of get­ting this op­por­tu­nity. She knew that as cer­tainly as she did her own name.

  The first ques­tion seemed in­nocu­ous enough. “Fe­males on Earth work much as the men do. What form of em­ploy­ment did you en­gage in on your home planet?”

  “I was a nurse.”

  His eyes widened in pre­tended sur­prise. “I thought you were a dancer. Is that not how you met the princes of Kalquor?”