Think him as a serpent's egg,
Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous,
And kill him in the shell.
- William Shakespeare
Aiken
My Mistress and I, walking the halls of her ship, going from one place to another - I don't remember why - when ahead of us, around the bend in the curving hall, came the sounds of voices.
Loud, those voices were. Uragiru was loud, anyway. Frost wasn't, but there was a sort of rumble to his voice that tended to carry. My Mistress hadn't yet heard, and we'd went on another ten steps before I found the voice to speak up.
She brought up a hand for silence before I'd spoken a first word, and hissed, "Quiet, Aiken." She perked her head up to listen, and then began to move forward again, slowly now, sneaking. I skulked after, careful not to make any noise that might give the game away.
"I only thought to suggest the possibly of opening the matter to consideration," Frost was saying. Wrong, that he should try to smooth her down like that. That was the reason she got away with as much as she did; he let her.
"I only thought to suggest the possibly of opening the matter to consideration," Frost was saying. Wrong, that he should try to smooth her down like that. That was the reason she got away with as much as she did; he let her.
"You're going to put everything we've worked for at risk," she spat back quickly, so loud and venomous that my Mistress came to a stunned and sudden stop, and didn't try to come any closer to those two. "You are talking about risking everything."
"Uragiru," he said, and there was a tone of warning in his voice now, but still he tried to reason with her. Frost could be really stupid sometimes. "I believe that any risks can be mitigated. I can keep the situation under control."
"Bullshit," she said, and then rushed on, "You're acting no different from the others, do you know that? No better. Selfish and short-sighted and not careless of anything except getting what you want for yourself."
"I've earned the right to want this," he said. "I've taken every risk for them. There are billions alive now because I stuck my neck out for them. When's it my turn?"
"You will never make up for it," she told him. "It is never going to be okay. It's never going to be enough." Then, on the heel of that; breezily, mocking; "The entire point's moot, anyway. She'll never consent to letting you hatch some new little monster. That much can be said for her, at least."
Every year there was an egg. I knew that, even if I'd never seen one. Every year there was an egg, and every year it was left alone to go cold, whether there was a little speck of life in it or not. My Mistress came from very good stock, and there was no knowing ahead of time to what extent that might have bred true in any child of hers. She had no intentions of unleashing something she might not be able to control.
There are whole planets that'll tell you my Mistress never did a single good thing for their benefit. But every year there was that unhatched egg.
"Do not forget who you are," Frost warned her, and the icy rage in his voice was somehow worse for the way he managed even then to keep it so carefully in check. "Even I have my limits, Uragiru."
My Mistress and I waited, listening to hear what would be said next, but the silence drew on. Then there was the sudden click of her boots on the floor as she whirled away from Frost and started down the hallway, coming quickly toward us.
"Aiken!" my Mistress whispered urgently. I stepped around the corner quickly, stopping Uragiru with a show of bluster while my Mistress slipped away.
She froze Frost out for almost a year after that, put me at her door to keep him from their quarters at night, barely spoke to him during the day. Lost time, when it turned out there wasn't a whole lot left. By the time she was ready to have him back the sickness already had its teeth in him.