Graf and Pai get their orders, to some extent, and he gets dinner. I touch very lightly on one of Aurie’s most personal secrets. I am still trying very, very hard to start a religious war.

Where they are in Frankfort was/is a real place. I was there when it was being rebuilt and later opened as “St. George and the Dragon” pub. It changed hands and was renamed “The Dragon.” That folded and it was closed for a year or so. Now, it’s called Bourbon on Main.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

The ship was just a few yards over the front lawn of what had once been the Capital Building of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, now a province of the imperium.  Both Graf and Pai were pleased there was no official welcome as they were not of any importance, no matter how they travelled there.  Jumping down to the freshly-mowed grass, they were beckoned by a man in a gray business suit standing next to a small car.  Confirming who they were, he opened the back doors for them and said they would be at their destination in only a few minutes.

“Not meeting in the main building?” Graf asked as it retreated behind them as they drove north.

“Guess not.  Nor the Prefect’s Palace, over there to the right,” Pai agreed.  “The message to me was from, well, you know, not a flunky, so I’m not sure what’s up.”

She rephrased at the last moment to not let our driver know more than he should.  I am still so young at all this.

Down a gently sloping hill with very old houses to either side, he looked about.  “Seems mostly intact.  Change?”

Pai shook her head.  “During the Breakup, the leading edge, Louisville and Lexington lost about eighty percent of their populations.  Frankfort was smaller, had a river for water, and only a tiny population of troublemakers.  Over the last hundred years, Louisville has recovered to some degree, but Lexington remains a small village”

They crossed a bridge over a river and the car turned left and immediately pulled over and stopped.  The driver leapt out and opened her door.

“Just there, across the street,” he said, indicating what looked to Graf like a pub.  The George and Dragon, he read. 

“Thank you,” he told the man, taking his wife’s hand and walking across the road.  Opening the front door, a bell announced their entrance.  An older man with a green apron smiled at them and asked what they might want.  The display of bourbons is amazing, but I think drinking liquor before a meeting is not a good idea.  Graf asked for a pint of the local ale while Pai just smiled and shook her head.  Glass before him, the man indicated that they should take the stairs behind him up to the second floor.

Ahead of Pai, at the top of the stairs, he immediately recognized the figure sitting at a large, round table, covered in paper.  She looked up and they both gave a polite bow.  Empress Aurelia indicated for them to sit.

“This was where my brother, Roland, used to come and work,” she said without preamble.  “Met a gal who later became his wife, a barmaid here.  Boy, was Fussy pissed off about that.”

Pai’s saying nothing, so neither am I.

“I didn’t want to make a local splash, so no one really knows I’m here,” she carried on.  “Were I up at the capital building, it would be speeches, meetings, dah dee dah.  I’ve no time for that.  Can you fly an S-2?”

That was directed at Pai.

“Of course.  I can fly anything.”

“You,” the empress looked to Graf, “get a good meal here and both of you, I don’t know, sleep on a bench or something.  There’s signal, so you can do your communion thing.  At oh-seven-hundred, both of you are leaving for points north – I’ll tell you later, Pai – under my direct authority.  Clear?”

“Clear,” they both said.

Aurelia leaned back and looked over her right shoulder out the window.

“You saw something,” Pai said quietly.  What does that mean?

“Yes,” she allowed after a few moments.  “Time is fixed but we can tinker about the edges.  The ship, INS Caper, will have provisions for you, Graf, and weapons for the both of you.  Tomorrow morning, it will be where you were dropped off a few minutes ago.”

She gathered her papers and stood, waving them back down.  “I’ll send a waitress up with a menu.  You’ll get my orders shortly, Mrs. Winstead.  Deus vult.

“Deus vult,” they again said together as she was already halfway down the stairs.

“What just happened?” Graf asked, as a waitress came up with two menus.  Maybe I should get one of those bourbons…

“No,” Pai replied.  “I know your drinking habits and metabolism, probably better than you do, Husband.  Just keep with your beer so I don’t have to carry you later tonight or in the morning.”

“Yes, Dear.” He asked the waitress for another ale and, as a counterpoint to breakfast, ordered fish and chips.  Pai looked around and asked for an extension cord.

“We are not yet on a mission,” she said to his looked question, “and are secure in the province.  I do not need to hide what I am.  Thank you.”

The last was to the waitress.  Pai stood and went to a far wall, plugged that in, then her cord to it, then into back of her neck as she sat back down.  Coming back with his second ale, the woman managed to mute her surprise.

“You have an idea what we’ll be doing,” he asked.

“An idea, yes.  She has our eyewitness report from the front range – and I passed to her mind what Alix told us about icons in Wilmington – so I think she wants our eyes to find out what is up with her cousin Ildi, the one remade into an angel.” A blink.  “I lost you.”

“I may have seen a picture, but really?  Yes, you did,” he admitted.

“When we walk back to the Capital Grounds, I’ll tell you the story.  Oh, here’s your food.”

While setting it before him, the server had a hard time keeping her eyes from Pai and her cable.  The android smiled at her.

“I know my kind are very rare in the imperium, for cultural reasons, hence Alix’s mother having another reason to hate me, so I guess I’m something of a curiosity.”

“Are we really sleeping on a bench?” Graf asked, more concerned with whether he’d be able to stand in the morning.

“Fret not, I’ll find you a nice spot under a tree, somewhere, My Husband.”

“Pai?”

“Yes?”

“I am so very glad you fell off your ship those years ago.”

“I love you, too.  Now, eat.”