An astonishing sense of displacement struck Naira so forcefully as she stepped out of the speeder onto the soil of her homeland that she had to stop mid-step, until Eti impatiently tugged at her to follow.
It was home, and this Palace was certainly nearly as familiar to her in some ways as was the estate where she'd grown up, but it was as if she'd never seen the place before. And the funniest thing was that she understood; without hardly thinking about it she knew: It is I who've changed.
Out of habit, she let Eti lead her, but she did speak up, once they had a turbolift to themselves, to ask where they were going.
"Just a little scouting," said the younger Neris, preoccupied. "I want to know what's been going on in the Palace while we were away. Lady Atner will have noted my absence by now, of course, so I must take care in approaching her."
"You don't suppose she'll approve of your little vacation," Naira smiled.
Eti tossed her hair in a way her sister recognized as a cover for nervousness. "Oh, I imagine she won't mind so much. After all, I was only trying to advance her own plans. I just need to find a way to explain that to her before she takes any wrong conclusions."
The turbolift stopped. Eti stepped out. Naira did not follow.
"Come on, Naira," Eti frowned.
"Why don't you just go and tell her?" Naira said.
"What?" Eti looked shocked.
Naira glanced at the turbolift's controls. "Three more floors up for Llessur's suites, isn't it? Might as well get this over with. I'll tell you, Eti, I'm going to just go on up. She has to hear what happened sooner or later, and you know the Queen Mother, sooner is better than later. You can come if you like." She moved to press the button for the Queen Mother's floor. Eti looked panicked, her mouth open but making no sounds.
Naira looked a question at her. The lift doors began to close.
With a furious squeal under her breath, Eti darted between them, back into the turbolift, then stood there fuming against Naira's calm smile as they traveled the last three floors.
~
The knowing grin with which Sisi greeted them when she opened the door of the Queen Mother's chambers to them-the look, thought Naira, of an onlooker eagerly awaiting an execution-did nothing to bolster Eti's sinking spirits. Thus it was necessary for Naira almost to shove her sister through the door into the room.
"Her Majesty will see you now, I'm sure," Sisi promised gleefully before disappearing into the side room where Llessur most often sat this time of day. The young lady was back before Eti had a chance to run, beckoning the sisters on into the Queen Mother's sitting room.
"Etidorhpa Neris," Llessur greeted her attendant with a smirk. "How is that leg of yours now?"
Eti fidgeted, caught off guard by the pleasantry. "Oh . . . um . . . it's much better now, thank you, m'lady."
The Queen Mother gestured for them to seat themselves. "It is amazing, is it not, what wonders are worked with that alien technology they use now in our Palace clinic? Why, I should've expected you to be bedridden several more days at least."
"Er . . . yes, m'lady," Eti said uncertainly.
"Simply amazing," Llessur repeated, smiling. "Especially when I learned that the clinic had discharged you-last Wednesday."
Eti blanched.
"You can imagine," Llessur's tone remained light, friendly, "how it perplexed me to wonder what had become of you, since until today I had seen nothing of you in the-what is it?-six days since the doctors verified you ready to return to your duties."
"My lady-I can explain-" Eti stammered.
"Please, don't bother," Llessur waved a hand casually. "Just go find Sisi, will you, dear, and she'll inform you of your new assignment."
"Ah . . . assignment?" Eti dared.
"Yes, of course. Your extended absence left quite a burden on my other ladies, you must realize. And some things, dear, there just isn't anyone else to do so . . . well . . . as you do. So there's quite a bit of work piled up for you. Go on now."
Relief that Llessur was asking no questions about their absence battled with distaste at the thought of actual work on Eti's face, but in the end she simply obeyed. Naira made to follow her out the door. Llessur, however, called the elder sister back.
"Stay a moment-Dohrnaira Neris, is it? Yes, I recall you. You served as one of my ladies some months ago."
"Yes, your Majesty," Naira allowed, hovering near the door, glancing after Eti.
"Well, sit down, will you, girl?" Llessur's words were brisk but her smile had a touch of kindness in it-nearly making her unrecognizable to the former lady-in-waiting, who had known the Queen Mother in what was arguably not one of her better years. "I'm afraid I have not kept in touch with the ladies who have left my service as well as I should like. Might I trouble you to sit with me a while? I should enjoy talking with you."
Naira sat. Amazed beyond response, she stared wide-eyed at the much-changed Lady Atner.
Llessur gave a short laugh, a sound that Naira found difficult to reconcile with her memories of her old mistress. "Good grace, you look so frightened. I shan't eat you."
"Why did you wish to speak with me?" Naira managed, speaking as softly and politely as she was able.
Llessur studied her face for a long moment. "I'm really not sure," she admitted at last. "It's just-well, would you know what I meant if I said: You are not your sister?"
A smile flickered over Naira's face. "Perhaps I would."
"I wasn't surprised to see you here with her, actually. Not today nor all the times you and she met here last week-oh, yes, I was aware of it, don't look so shocked. Even after the circumstances in which you left my service, it was quite natural that you should be back to support Etidorhpa in hers. But when you came in here today, there was something different about you. I remember what you were like when you waited on me: a beautiful girl, but consumed from the inside with ambitions and bitterness." She sighed. "Not all your own ambitions, I know, nor your own bitterness, but you had the ill fortune to be the vessel your family found. I must apologize, Dohrnaira, that I tried to add my own ambitions to your load."
Naira stared at her in amazement. "But you must know that I wanted to . . . it wasn't your . . ." Her mouth worked in vain for a silent moment; finally she blurted out, "But how can you know this? So much about me? You barely ever spoke to me when I-" Realizing her impertinence, she stopped and clapped a hand over her mouth.
Llessur still smiled. "One does develop a certain talent for, well, reading people, in my position. But more than that: a soul has a way of knowing-recognizing-its own image in another." She paused. "Perhaps that also goes to explain the difference I saw in you today."
"What difference?" Naira asked.
"You are not the driven and miserable creature you were when last I saw you. I don't know what has changed you-but it occurred to me that I should like to have a talk with you."
Naira found she couldn't stop herself being impertinent at this point. "Because you've changed too?" she asked.
Llessur chuckled. "What makes you say that?"
"You never smiled so much when I worked for you. At least-not so nicely."
"As I said, the soul recognizes itself in another," Llessur shrugged. "Suffice to say that-if I read you aright-we have both abandoned our ambitions."
Llessur's contagious smile established itself full in Naira's countenance at last.
"What will you do now?" she asked the Queen Mother.
"Right my wrongs, I think," Llessur said lightly. "Or at the least I shall keep out of people's way. I have caused enough trouble for one old woman."
"No you haven't," Naira grinned. "You mustn't stay too much out of the way. They will need you."
Llessur looked puzzled.
"You're going to let Lord Atner marry the Terra Group lady now, aren't you?" Naira asked.
Llessur sighed. "I can't prevent him."
"She will need you," Naira continued, "as much as he will."
Llessur looked surprised. "Why do you say that?"
"It's . . . well . . ." Naira struggled for a way to explain. "She'll be quite fine as his bride, you see. They are well matched. But she knows nothing of Mendellia-of society-of your world, my lady."
"How do you know this?" asked Llessur, regarding her with a new curiosity.
Naira flushed. "Oh. I, um, seeing them together . . ."
Llessur's eyebrow arched patiently, and Naira broke down and told the whole story. How she and Eti had-willingly or not-stowed away with the Terra Group team to Jerusalem. How they had seen Thayer's chosen queen there at some mission, though of course she and her teammate would not tell the Nerises what that mission was. The explosion on Ben Yehuda Street, the cause of which had yet to be explained to Naira. Eti's insane scheme of spying on the agents, and their interrogation by them-and their surprise when Lieutenant Bush argued to let them go. Their wanderings in Jerusalem, lost and penniless, and the strange device they had found in the place where the explosion had occurred. The dangerous men who pursued them through the streets, wanting this device, and the woman in the uniform of the Israel Defense Force who had rescued them-and then tried to bargain with them for the device herself.
She told, too, how Eti, unwilling to accept the woman's terms, had staged their escape from her, so that they returned to wandering Jerusalem-until Jedi Boyd caught up with them-Jedi Boyd, and all the friends of the dangerous men who had first chased them for the strange device. She told how the device, its identity still unknown to the Nerises, had passed into Terra Group's keeping-good riddance, as Naira thought-and the sisters themselves had passed into Lieutenant Bush's keeping, how she-who-would-be-queen had guided and protected them through the firefight-until he-who-would-be-king himself had rescued them all. And brought them back to the safety of Terra Group's ships-
Naira cut her story short when it came to the Major's talk with them.
She concluded: "So some of their agents had to come back here, bringing back one who was injured, and they sent us home along with them. And now . . ." She paused, uncertain how to end her story. "Don't be too angry with Eti, my lady. . . . She didn't really mean to be gone so long. Though we oughtn't to have been in Terra Group's ship in the first place, I know."
Llessur sat in thought a while. "Quite an adventure," she said at last.
Naira nodded, lost in thought of those last few hours they had spent with Terra Group. Was it then that things had begun to change? She couldn't tell for sure, as she still wasn't sure what had changed.
Unless it was, as Llessur had said, a relinquishing of ambition.
"Thank you for telling me," Llessur said softly. "I doubt I would have ever got the story from Etidorhpa. And . . . I had wondered where Thayer had gone."
"He didn't say?"
"He left no word, but departed rather suddenly. About the same time as several of Terra Group, so I had my suspicions-but no way to be certain till now."
"Are you angry?"
"No. I suppose not." Llessur sighed. "He's a grown man now-strange as that must always seem to any man's mother! He'll do what he thinks best."
"And what will you do, m'lady?" Naira asked again.
"Let him," Llessur smiled. "And try to stay out of his way-but not too much, as you advise me."
"I'm glad. I do think they'll need you."
"They may not think so; but it's kind of you." Llessur shifted in her seat. "Dohrnaira Neris, I should ask you your own question. What will you do now?"
Naira hesitated, an odd look on her face. "Funny . . . You're the second today to ask me that. I should return home, I suppose. My parents are still wrapped up in their search for a suitable marriage alliance that began the day Lord Atner sent me away, you know." She allowed herself half a smile at the realization that this thought no longer carried the bitterness it once had for her. "Yet I'd as soon not. I've had a taste of independence since I first left my parents' house for your service, and that's hard to give up. I should like to find some way to spend my life while it remains my own." She shrugged. "I just haven't yet found a way I'm suited for."
"I wonder if I could prevail upon you to return to my service, then?"
Naira looked up, surprised. "A lady in waiting?"
"For a time, at least. I have not always been wise in my choice of attendants," Llessur said drily. "But I think this would be a wise choice. You are not what you were when first you served me, but then, I think, neither am I. And I should enjoy your company. Nor should you feel this to be a loss of independence-think rather that it will be a step towards whatever career you will find for yourself."
"I would be honored," Naira said.
"Done, then," said Llessur. "Go and see Sisi, if you will, about arranging chambers for you and that sort of thing. And while you're there," she almost winked, "perhaps you should have a look in on Eti and see how she's getting along with her new . . . duties."
Returning the Queen Mother's smile, Naira rose, and curtseyed, and went.