After showing the interpersonal politics between Robert and Nadia, I quickly wanted to show that this is not just a marriage forced on them by their respective rulers. They met, talked, had a (small) chance to say “no.” Any marriage is work; constant day-after-day work. I’ve been at it for over thirty years. No time off for good behavior.

Even a crown prince must defer to their sovereign, so Robert makes a call. At this point in her life (Fussy is fifty now), I think she is a jerk just for jerk’s sake. St Petersburg to Huntsville in a few hours? I wonder how he’ll pull that off…

“I I I” isn’t even out yet and I’m already writing spoilers.

Mild content warning for what’s below.

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Back to their suite of rooms in the Imperial Palace, with the servants dismissed for now, they both shed layer after layer of clothes.  These people, of which, I guess, I’m a graft, keep their buildings too hot.  And I’m used to summers on our Gulf Coast.

Naked now, they stepped into one another’s arms.  Well, arm.  From their wedding night, Nadia had been put off enough by his artificial left arm and leg that she sat up out of their bed, her breath short.  After losing those limbs to Cartaphilus, Robert reviewed the replacement designs from Somi Corporation in Osaka, Japan, makers of androids that could perfectly pass for humans.  Thinking it a form of deception, he chose a design from twenty years ago:  soft plastic, not flesh.  The joint articulations obvious.  While responsive to the commands from his brain, they needed to be recharged every three days.  Daily, if in combat.

Not that I see combat anymore, he thought with a mental sigh, rubbing his right hand down his wife’s strong back.  Compact but not fat, even the small bulge of her belly made her more attractive, he had watched her hold her own when they went hunting for wild boar, armed only with large caliber pistols.  My months, barely one year, as a legionary came to an abrupt end once I had to rescue Eloise from the Canadian secret police.  She became my bound concubine at the same time mother, the empress, negotiated this marriage.  I know Nadia intellectually apprehended what had happened to me but I guess seeing it was another.  After all these years, she still prefers I do not touch her with that side of me.

“I miss our vodka before bed,” she sighed, climbing into their bed before looking back at him.  “But that will be back to normal in a half-year.”

“Unless I get you pregnant again, right after,” he smiled, kneeling behind her.  “And I’ll be working extra hard on that.”

“Hush, Robert.” This time, it was a purr.

As important as the subject was, he sat at a video terminal just after they had finished breakfast.  Nadia was still in a negligee and had just added a little butter to their hot tea.  His mother, Empress Faustina, looked out at him.

“Robert.” She almost smiled.  Even with just video, she probably already knows where this is going.

“No, but do go on.” Now a smile.  Predatory, but a smile.

He quickly laid out Nadia’s proposal, his counter, and their agreement.

“…but I cannot do any of this without your sanction, of course,” he concluded, watching the smile fade.

“I do not like being dictated to by foreigners,” she huffed.

“Nadia is my wife, Mom.  And on the other side of the table, listening.  Unless it’s state secrets of the imperium, I neither lie to her nor keep her in the dark,” he snarked right back.

“How noble of you, son.  Mrs. Hartmann?” she raised her voice.  “Pull up a chair next to your husband, please.”

She did.  To his right.

“Empress Faustina,” Nadia said carefully.  She had plenty of experience with her own imperial family.

“What?  Not calling me ‘mom,’ too?  How rude.” She went on before either could respond.  “There is a party not represented here who must also agree.  She might break from you, Robert.”

“I’m aware of the possibility; I think it unlikely, especially if we frame this one, as a special commission to the Martian project, and two, a great adventure for your granddaughters.”

“And,” he concluded, “if she does freak out, we can have Aurie rewrite her mind again.”

“Robert!” Nadia exclaimed.  She knew of her cousin-in-law’s powers but was a little shocked to hear him suggest it so easily.

“Calm down, Wife,” he said leaning over to kiss her.  “Just a thought.  And I’m sure Mom’s already considered it.”

“Anyway,” Faustina concluded, “I’ve work.  Can you be at my house in Huntsville by nineteen hundred, local, today?  I want this resolved.”

When demi-humans want something done, he thought, it happens fast.

“Yes, Mom,” he nodded.  “I’m rather well connected after all.  I’ll send a message when we’re on our way.”

The screen was blank.  Robert turned to Nadia.

“Call your cousin, Anastasia,” he directed.  “We’ll need fast transport around fourteen hundred.  You, of course, are free to tell Annie as much as you like.  After your call, let’s take a bath.”

“Robert!” she ghosted a smile, reaching for her phone.  “Again?”