“That sounds perfect. Okay if I ride in the back till we get there?” The lad punched a pretend sequence into the dash between the buttons.

“No problem. Won’t be very long, I know a place in Betacort,” replied the Captain. Toller poked his way to the hold, mussing his short black hair with a hand. A moment where looking presentable was not required. He took a seat on the floor against the wall, as he felt the smooth action of the ship’s low-altitude scoot. He dug into his pocket and brought out the slip of paper with thirteen words written on it in three lines.

parboiled generous diverticulated immediate
crystalline veracity conjugation aorta sphinx
keratinaceous quorum zenith wander

Maybe someone could make sense of it, but he didn’t want to try. She said he could bring this seal to the management to run it through their system, if he wanted, and they would let him in. He’d have a place to stay, and get to receive the finest schooling the Pan-Galactic Imperium had to offer. Tell them, full ride with dorm. She said her younger brothers would be in school with him, and that Cristobal was very close to his age. She said it all carefully, without commanding him in any way, only that this was possible and that he may go if he liked. Her even, careful tone communicated trust in whatsoever he felt he should do or say, and her penetrating gaze gave him her opinion that this may be something that he, or she, or they, would very much like to happen. Toller worked on memorizing the words in order, in case he lost the slip of paper. Sometimes even pants get left behind.

Wendel spoke over the com, “I’m parking now at Diner Vertris. Serious comfort food, order whatever you want. I know I will!”

The diner had simple booths, and the walls were muraled with vertrisian foliage. They shared an appetizer, took their time over an entree each, and then got dessert. Chuckles between comfortable silences, and gazing through the window onto a sunny afternoon. Halfway through dessert, Toller put down his fork and said, “Hey, I’m going to split and walk around for a while. Be just myself again.”

Wendel slowed her chewing as she read his look, quirking her mouth in a smile. “Going to enjoy terra firma? I can understand that. We had a long and distant voyage.” The Captain pulled out her cash folio and slapped a stack of bills on his side of the table, which the boy pocketed. “It’s enough for a backpack, supplies, and a fare. You know my CD signal.” She also produced one each of four different contact cards. “You can use any of these to get in touch, depending on your area and your order of business. Anytime, whatever I’m doing, I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

Toller chased together one more pile of jungleberry cobbler. “I believe you. Thanks.” Delivering the bite to his mouth, he tapped the table with his hands as he stood, scooting out of the booth. He walked through the door and past the windows, meeting glances with Wendel as he headed away. Smiling, she quietly finished her dessert, and then finished the rest of his.

There was frequent traffic through the back loading bay, since it was still pre-banquet and pre-fashion show. The pair was waved in when they flashed their obviously relevant item; the important checkpoints were internal, so door security acted mainly as helpers and emergency watch.

As the two walked purposefully through the hotel map, Derringer eyed the perceivable form of Yrenn Tiche, pinched her practical outfit, and poked her soft arm. “Wow, that’s convincing,” he muttered to one side. “I could forget that you’re the Princess. But I won’t.”

It would be worth it. Soleil said what she could use, and the krewe said what they could do. It was lock and key, demand meets skill. It helped that they were at the ebullient age where they had new talent and enjoyed flexing it to prove themselves. Drift X handled the contact like it was a regular Vedani aetherscape interface terminal, utilizing one of the text monitors with flattened-output letter-based imagery translation. They planned on bouncing the program module back and forth a couple more times, mostly building in Soleil’s access flap and broadening hardware versatility. She had time now to scope an entry.

The Captain let her borrow her infosheet again. This time, Wendel showed Soleil how to open the programming reroute to use more computer capabilities than the infosheet firmware. One of her recent contracts, a green-haired scientist, had ramified the transport driver’s infosheet upon interest, for the favor of using it. The lightcloth design was so handy, no wonder it was a popular device. Soleil took it with her for more solo time in the gunnery.

Princess Soleil hadn’t used her masque in a long time, and it would be nice to know how well it still worked. She had tied together this anonymous communications access route way back when she was a teenager exploring outside the confines of privilege. The average bedroom window escape in the form of a virtual peephole that only used modified Trailknife freeware, her setup still floating in a forgotten corner of academic history.

An innocent prank of yore was was putting herself onto invite lists. No lists of record, since that could come back to her. Not necessarily because she could go, but maybe she’d want to. Not as many events think to invite the Princess as one might guess, but certainly they’d be glad if she’d like to go.

Soleil opened a series of individual windows and fell into the step-by-step rhythm of gaining anonymity, and creating a new identity that fit the system she was entering. Boot/log/open/encrypt/access/select/search/encrypt/route/access/closewindows/erasetrail. Masque. After that, Yrenn Tiches was now a listed volunteer for the Women’s Leadership Symposium, in case she needed to officialize, and she would appear as the alias, Yrenn. Princess Soleil tasted the irony of hardly using her dragon’s boon of perceptual disguise until she was back home. She felt done. That was it. She folded the infosheet and waved it in the air as she went forward to talk to the others.

Derringer, Wendel, and Toller were chatting up front, facing the eerie view of a darkened orbit cluster. Captain Wendel accepted her infosheet from the Princess. Soleil leaned up casually as if just to join their conversation, though they’d gone quiet in expectation. To the private investigator, she said, “You’ll be happy. We’re going back to Alisandre.”

“Mm.” Derringer took this in with the slightest of nods. “Okay.” He didn’t expect to be dunking the puck straight in the bucket, but he could keep the prizewinner in good condition with his eye out for deal closure. If he tried to control her, he’d lose her. There’s no strongarming this one, not if he wants to keep his good name when she reaches power.

“Alright,” said Wendel as she readied. Toller secured himself in the copilot’s chair. “Let’s fire up this woodstove.” They knew she was referring to the potbellied unit installed by the Vedani, which glowed a little when Drift X was engaging in jump. “Nice and toasty.”