I’ve mentally finished the story. Parts 7 and 8 next week. I’m very pleased with it and expect Stephen to cut it to shreds come copyedit time.

In book 19 we will meet Stephen Johnston a few stories before this one. Quiet but very clever; I think that’s why Fussy’s eyes landed on him for her second husband. We get a glimpse of that here, just before the empress shows up to be an asshole.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

“I told you before our first meeting:  never, ever try to lie to one of us.  And, my step-dad is fully human.  I think my mother likes them; and, it has mellowed her a little bit.”

Good Lord, I’d hate to have known her went she wasn’t ‘mellow!’  About to go in first, rank, Josh stepped ahead.  I’m the man in this proto-family, after all.  There was a man with sandy hair and a gray business suit dictating something softly into a tablet.  Noting their entrance, he stood and came around the oval meeting table with his right hand out and a genuine smile.

“Stephen Johnston, Prince Consort,” he said with a firm clasp of Josh’s hand.  “You must be the young man about to start a civil war in the imperium!”

“Uh…”

“Father, please,” Liz sighed.  Her step-father released the guest’s hand and gave the young woman a hug about her shoulders.  “And, thank you for being nice to my Intended.  He’s been around me for six months, but things have become complicated.”

“You compartmentalized again,” Johnston said, leaning back but hands still on her shoulders.  “So this lad didn’t have the slightest idea how fast girls in your family are?”

“I’m aware that my mother proposed both to Robert and to you after only knowing you for days,” she agreed.  “But Joshua and I were together eighteen hours a day for a half-year.  That does not sound fast.”

Josh watched him lower eyes and sigh before returning his attention to him.  “Did she ever smile at you?  Give you the slightest clue?”

“No, sir, she did not,” he admitted.  “I, honestly, didn’t think she liked me and I would be sent home any day.”

“You see my point, Liz,” he snarked without looking at her.  “And then, Mister Harvest, she probably proposed, catching you totally on the back foot?”

“We were in freefall over the Moon, so there was no foot to stand on, sir.” The Prince Concert waved at the air.

“Stop it with the ‘sir’ talk,” he said, walking back to his tablet after hearing a chime.  “Once we talk my wife around, you’ll be a son-in-law to me, after all.  It’s Stephen, please.”

“I do like it,” came a dangerous voice from the doorway as the empress walked in, “that my husband, first born, and a total stranger think my will is so malleable.” She made a gesture over her shoulder as two aides came in with a cart of food and drinks.

“We will eat and make small talk, first,” she announced.  “I want the human’s thoughts about the radar array.  Afterwards, we can fight.  Questions?”

There were none.  Josh noted that no one sat to eat and that Liz had been correct:  cold cuts of meat, small blocks of cheeses, a sampling of vegetables.  Next to them were two bottles and some glasses.  One bottle held something clear, the other, brown.  I know Liz told me she doesn’t drink alcohol, so why is, er, Stephen pouring a splash into the four shot glasses.

“Because, human –”

“Mother, please,” Liz objected.

“Because it is our culture that any meeting which begins without a drink is inherently hostile.  So even our kind can make a tiny exception to how we are made.” She picked up a glass and once again glared at him.  “Unless you want it to be?”

He said nothing as he and the others took theirs.  They all turned to Faustina.

“Worlds without end.  Deus vult,” she said, tossing the little bit back, and making a grimace right after.  I cannot see why, Josh thought.  This is excellent whiskey.

The empress poured herself some water and drank that.  Looking at the three, she just said, “Eat.”