20 Are You Actually a Decent Person? #2
Temmi’s gaze traced back to a love seat in the ballroom’s opposite corner where Spie was sitting thigh to thigh with Iasha, a contestant from the Hirain System.
They’d joined (read: had been annexed by ) the Expan Empire something like fifty-five years earlier (Temmi was shoddy on the exact details.) Hirain was said to be humanity’s last holdout, their reluctance in folding into the empire thought to be the result of their cohabiting with the Swimmers, the only known sapient nonhuman alien species that lived within the galaxy.
Iasha’s skin was a deep burnt copper, her head fully shaved (or maybe her people didn’t grow hair?). Swirling purple tattoos marked every surface of her skin, including her scalp and face. Temmi found the effect simultaneously alluring and disconcerting.
Spie leaned in and whispered something in Iasha’s ear. The Hirain System contestant demurely raised a tattooed hand to her mouth, her shoulders shifting up and down as though in amusement. She only ever spoke with her mouth covered. Some polite cultural tic.
A hovering camera drone dropped closer to them. Gently, Spie removed Iasha’s hand from her mouth. The princess’s white-gloved hand slid its way up the side of Iasha’s neck, her perfect royal lips pressing against tattooed ones.
Temmi tore her gaze away, hating the way her stomach turned to ash at the sight.
She retrieved her wineglass and tossed back the remainder of the bitter alcohol.
Of course, Spie Expani would kiss Iasha.
She’d probably kiss more than one contestant tonight.
That was the whole reason for the damn show.
Temmi tapped her CB. Drafted another message.
How’s it feel to whore yourself to the empire? Delete.
Does she taste as good as you imagine I do? Do you imagine how I taste? Delete. Delete.
“Who are you bridging with such intensity?”
Temmi dropped her empty wineglass into her lap.
Arbora VinVanxin had returned and was now lounging on the love seat’s armrest, one leg thrown casually over the other.
“No one. Justine.” Temmi had never been particularly adept at dissembling, even when sober.
Arbora arched a pierced brow. “Which is it? No one or Justine?”
Temmi closed her eyes in embarrassment. She was tired. Her brain was tired. It was way past her bedtime. She’d never been a night owl.
“I see. Someone other than no one and Justine.” Arbora swung her legs over the armrest and settled onto the empty seat beside Temmi.
She leaned in close, her voice a dry whisper tickling Temmi’s skin.
“It’s her, isn’t it? You have her bridge frequency already?
That crude little patch-up job on your dress—those are her pins.
I guess I should be thanking you; I always preferred her with her hair down.
” She pulled back, a broad smile on her face.
“Why, Ambassador Ialan, I do believe we’re going to be great friends. ”
This was what Temmi had wanted: an official offer of allyship from Arbora.
But something about the Moons’ contestant put her on edge.
Arbora was too smooth, too storied, too good at the game of knowing the right thing to say.
Every time she spoke, Temmi got the impression something was being left unsaid.
And then there was the matter of her unrestricted CB. How’d she manage to smuggle it in?
“Have you spoken with Her Highness yet?” Temmi asked. She plucked her wineglass off her lap and set it on a passing hover-tray. A camera drone hummed its way toward them. Temmi was going to spend the rest of her life having nightmares about those awful things.
“Of course. Face time with the heirs is crucial this early on. We shared a slow dance and reminisced of times past.”
“Do you think it’s possible to fix whatever broke the two of you up?” Temmi told herself she was asking for the sake of politeness, not for any personal curiosity.
“Possible? I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t believe that.” The words, however, were for the camera.
Temmi was suddenly very curious to know if that answer would change when there was no one around to overhear it. She followed Arbora’s gaze to where Spie was very publicly laughing and cuddling with Iasha.
“Does it bother you?” Temmi asked. “Watching her with the other women?”
She was surprised when Arbora’s shrug seemed genuine.
“Not at all. I want her to be certain when she chooses me.” Her dark gaze slipped from Spie to Temmi.
Being the object of Arbora VinVanxin’s attention was like being sliced open by a surgeon’s laser.
“Why? Does it bother you ? By the goddess, it does, doesn’t it? ”
By what goddess? There were no goddesses. If a deity existed, where exactly were they hiding? But maybe that was the X-er in Temmi. Her people’s religion was drink.
“You know what?” Temmi stood abruptly, entirely ignoring Arbora’s far-too-astute observation. “I think it’s about time I shared a moment with His Highness.”
As she carefully stepped her way around the love seat and onto the dance floor, she couldn’t shake the burn of Arbora’s knowing gaze.
· · ·
Nix had retreated to yet another private love seat (the ballroom was full of them) with the Pikliminian ambassador. The dark-haired beauty had her gaze clearly set on his lips. While Temmi slowly approached from the side, Kya Ep-Kmin went in twice for a kiss and was twice denied.
“Your Highness,” Temmi intoned in what she hoped was a sweet voice, interrupting Kya’s third attempt. This time, she’d managed to get her long-nailed fingers along his jaw. The prince looked supremely uncomfortable. “Could I steal a moment of your time?”
“Ambassador Ialan!” Nix grabbed the Pikliminian’s hand and removed it from his face.
“What an unexpected pleasure.” He turned to Kya, who was, for her part, staring daggers at Temmi.
But daggers were far preferable to the knowing incision of Arbora’s gaze.
“Kya, perhaps we might continue our conversation at another time? Your insights into the recent generator failures on your station have been most illuminating.” His tone commanded her dismissal.
“Your Highness,” Kya said, standing and bowing. She didn’t acknowledge Temmi, who couldn’t have cared less.
“Artemis.” Nix offered her a polite smile. Not his real one, the one she’d grown used to seeing on the star cruiser while they debated bioorganic theories, but his princely camera smile. “I have to send a bridge. Wait for me?”
Temmi nodded and Nix swept to his feet and out of the ballroom. He returned not three minutes later, two camera drones humming after him.
“Thank you for your patience.” He sank back into the love seat and beckoned for her to join him. “Please, tell me how you are. I was terribly sorry about your dress.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got an X-er’s luck,” Temmi said, joining him.
The deep burgundy of his suit made his violet eyes burn almost red, like smoldering coals.
Temmi found herself oddly at ease in his presence.
If not for the cameras, they might’ve been back in the ship’s library.
She sought for something else to say. “Uh, what about you? Tired of conversations yet?”
“Desperately.” There appeared a hint, a ghost, of his real smile.
But like a ghost, it slipped quickly away.
“So many wonderful suitors from loyal and exemplary territories. Our empire is blessed. And I most of all, to have the privilege to get to know all of you. But it is, inevitably, tiring. How I’m ever to choose, I don’t know.
I’m grateful for the weeks ahead. Tell me, Artemis, I’ve heard you’re a scholar of the sciences like myself? ”
“ Scholar ’s a bit pretentious. I’m only self-taught.”
“Aren’t we all self-taught in the end? Some of us just have greater privilege in the resources used as a vehicle for our learning. Would you, perhaps, like to join me in the observatory? The stars are magnificent this time of night.”
“I— Yes.” Temmi was caught off guard by the invitation.
Some fatal instinct wriggled at the nape of her neck, and she turned her head abruptly.
For the first time all evening, Spie Expani was watching her.
The knowledge made a hazy warmth ignite in her gut.
The self-congratulatory kind. “Lead the way.”