you.”
Comments like that always make me uncomfortable, as if being seen as some kind of moral paragon driven by principle amounts to a guarantee that I’d someday prove a disappointment. “From the hints they dropped, they expect me to embrace whatever they have to say.”
“The Bettelhines didn’t get where they are by being bad salesmen, even when all they were selling was death. Whatever they want of you, they will make it sound like the greatest offer you ever had.”
“Present company excluded,” I said.
The Porrinyards grinned together. “Quite right.”
“What do you make of these two in particular?”
Oscin said, “You did notice that Jason did almost all the talking, and that Jelaine came in only when it was time to seal the deal.”
“Of course. Do you think she’s in charge of, well, whatever this is?”
They spoke together again. “My perception of that will depend entirely on how much Hans Bettelhine involves himself. But no. To the extent these two are active players, I think both siblings are in charge, and that each is as formidable as the other. I think Jason’s the face of this business. Whatever hurt him—and I know the way you think, so don’t be surprised, I agree that something has hurt him—may even be the motivating force, in some manner. But I also think Jelaine’s behind her brother, backing up his moves, and picking up the slack whenever his own considerable resources prove insufficient. I think she is, if you allow the phrase,the will that drives his determination. Does that make sense to you?”
It was much what I’d been thinking, and I usually trusted their shared perceptions over my own when it came to questions of human behavior. But right now their assurances failed to satisfy. I didn’t know what it was, but something about the young Bettelhines reeked of illicit secrets. Incest? Maybe. As I’d already noted, the Bettelhines were nothing if not royals on their own ground, and the one immutable element of life as a royal is the way it relegates every other human being to the level of social inferior. No doubt their family kept this in mind, and that the local social season was in large part an exercise in providing these two, and their approximately one dozen siblings, with potential mates of appropriate station. But that would not be enough to prevent all possible infatuations among siblings segregated to a family estate. It certainly fit the bond I’d sensed between them, in those few minutes we’d spent together. But so would any number of sibling conspiracies, such as being of like age and the closest of confidantes when they were raised.
Still, it was odd that my instincts had gone directly to that.
I sensedsomething between them.
“Andrea?”
I felt a jerk, a brief moment of subaural vibration, and then movement. The Carriage had disengaged from Layabout. The view through the transparent wall looked exactly the same as before, as was only reasonable given our measured rate of descent; we couldn’t even see Layabout, as it was now in our blind spot, somewhere above us. But any chance we’d had of backing away from the Bettelhine plans for us, and returning to New London, without further involvement were now in the past. We were committed.
4
PORRINYARDS
Life with the Porrinyards had its counterintuitive aspects.
They meshed so well that it was easy to forget that they’d ever been anything else. But they’d begun their lives as two people, lovers with a tempestuous relationship who had found that, as much as they needed each other, they could not coexist as individuals. They’d seen cylinking as the one way they could have a future together.
Was this the utter failure or the ultimate triumph of romantic love?
Answer: Yes.
And also: No.
The damnable thing was that both answers were equally accurate.
The shared being they were now was neither the boy who’d owned the body now occupied by Oscin or the girl who’d owned the body now
Comments like that always make me uncomfortable, as if being seen as some kind of moral paragon driven by principle amounts to a guarantee that I’d someday prove a disappointment. “From the hints they dropped, they expect me to embrace whatever they have to say.”
“The Bettelhines didn’t get where they are by being bad salesmen, even when all they were selling was death. Whatever they want of you, they will make it sound like the greatest offer you ever had.”
“Present company excluded,” I said.
The Porrinyards grinned together. “Quite right.”
“What do you make of these two in particular?”
Oscin said, “You did notice that Jason did almost all the talking, and that Jelaine came in only when it was time to seal the deal.”
“Of course. Do you think she’s in charge of, well, whatever this is?”
They spoke together again. “My perception of that will depend entirely on how much Hans Bettelhine involves himself. But no. To the extent these two are active players, I think both siblings are in charge, and that each is as formidable as the other. I think Jason’s the face of this business. Whatever hurt him—and I know the way you think, so don’t be surprised, I agree that something has hurt him—may even be the motivating force, in some manner. But I also think Jelaine’s behind her brother, backing up his moves, and picking up the slack whenever his own considerable resources prove insufficient. I think she is, if you allow the phrase,the will that drives his determination. Does that make sense to you?”
It was much what I’d been thinking, and I usually trusted their shared perceptions over my own when it came to questions of human behavior. But right now their assurances failed to satisfy. I didn’t know what it was, but something about the young Bettelhines reeked of illicit secrets. Incest? Maybe. As I’d already noted, the Bettelhines were nothing if not royals on their own ground, and the one immutable element of life as a royal is the way it relegates every other human being to the level of social inferior. No doubt their family kept this in mind, and that the local social season was in large part an exercise in providing these two, and their approximately one dozen siblings, with potential mates of appropriate station. But that would not be enough to prevent all possible infatuations among siblings segregated to a family estate. It certainly fit the bond I’d sensed between them, in those few minutes we’d spent together. But so would any number of sibling conspiracies, such as being of like age and the closest of confidantes when they were raised.
Still, it was odd that my instincts had gone directly to that.
I sensedsomething between them.
“Andrea?”
I felt a jerk, a brief moment of subaural vibration, and then movement. The Carriage had disengaged from Layabout. The view through the transparent wall looked exactly the same as before, as was only reasonable given our measured rate of descent; we couldn’t even see Layabout, as it was now in our blind spot, somewhere above us. But any chance we’d had of backing away from the Bettelhine plans for us, and returning to New London, without further involvement were now in the past. We were committed.
4
PORRINYARDS
Life with the Porrinyards had its counterintuitive aspects.
They meshed so well that it was easy to forget that they’d ever been anything else. But they’d begun their lives as two people, lovers with a tempestuous relationship who had found that, as much as they needed each other, they could not coexist as individuals. They’d seen cylinking as the one way they could have a future together.
Was this the utter failure or the ultimate triumph of romantic love?
Answer: Yes.
And also: No.
The damnable thing was that both answers were equally accurate.
The shared being they were now was neither the boy who’d owned the body now occupied by Oscin or the girl who’d owned the body now
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