Apologies for the extended absence. Holidays, and then my laptop died, and there was this sea monster...never mind. I'm trying to be more timely in future.

The necklace concept is cheerfully and blatantly lifted from L.M. Bujold's marvelous novel Komarr.


It was one of the weirdest times of Jupiter's life - and given recent events, that was saying something. She'd often dreamed of high-society dinners and parties, the gatherings Katharine described and that she and her family often cleaned up after.

She'd imagined being the center of attention, charming a circle of wealthy admirers with wit and style, wearing something extremely gorgeous and expensive, dripping with jewelry. Being it, if only for the space of a dream.

Be careful what you wish for, I guess?

Now she had all that, and it was a weird mix of really cool and really disturbing.

Sure, she was technically the most powerful person in the room - but despite Kalique's patient instruction and endless sheaves about Entitled etiquette, Jupiter still felt like she was missing all the cues.

And this is the informal stuff. What's it going to be like when the Season really starts?

Part of the problem was that the society of the First Estate had endless layers, and each interaction, no matter how casual, involved a subtle balancing between rank, circumstances, and history. And Entitled had a lot of history.

Jupiter could definitely see that Entitled were constantly jockeying for power and influence, much more than they were trying to enjoy each other's company. One good thing for me; I'm starting at the top.

"Tell me again why I need all these people?" Jupiter skimmed the sheave she was currently taking notes on. "I mean, I get the guards, but - "

Kalique smiled. "Your retinue provides service and consequence as well as protection. You require servants to tend to your needs as well as courtiers to attend you."

Jupiter didn't point out that she couldn't imagine needing six people to do things for her at any one time, let alone in the middle of a party. Besides her rotating cast of Stormbreakers and sometimes a set of synth guards, she had chosen a few people from Windy City to trail her around and look useful, as a stopgap measure until she got a handle on the whole thing.

The position of courtier, on the other hand, was currently handled by the duchesses that Kalique had assigned to her. Hector and Dorcata (both women, though Jupiter's brain kept hiccuping over the former) were, Kalique claimed, distant cousins of a sort. They were both very beautiful, in the smooth fashion that Jupiter was beginning to recognize as a trait of someone who used Regenex; they were older than her by several centuries, but Jupiter suspected that their age was the equivalent of the late teens in an Earth human.

And Aggie agrees with me.

One of the weirdest things about the whole situation, Jupiter decided, was feeling older than a couple of girls who were more than ten times her age.

"Your rank really requires more, though," Kalique continued. "I can recommend any number of worthy young women, or men or sa, if you prefer - peers of impeccable reputation and perfect manners."

Jupiter hid a grimace and scrolled further down her sheave. "I need to think about that."

Kalique didn't press the point, but Jupiter could tell Kalique was impatient with Jupiter's delay on the matter. It might be different if I'd met anyone I could actually be friends with. But so far they've all been...artificial. Masks. And Kalique kept warning her not to trust anyone until she had more experience.

A gentle throat-clearing had them both looking up. Officer Percadium stood in the nearest archway of Kalique's room, bowing deferentially. "Your pardon, your Majesty, your Grace, but it's time for her Majesty to leave."

"Oops." Jupiter shut off the sheave and stood up, shaking out the skirts of her gown so they settled around her feet. "Kalique, sorry, I have to go if I'm going to make that meeting."

"Not at all." Kalique rose too, with languid grace that Jupiter studied covertly, with an eye to imitating it. "You'll return afterwards for my little soiree?"

"Wouldn't miss it," Jupiter said, smiling, and leaned over to press her cheek against Kalique's. There was only one more party on Kalique's roster before the big one that opened the Season; Jupiter was thinking of swinging home for a quick visit between the two, but she wasn't sure she'd have time.

Kalique smiled back and waved Jupiter off. Phylo escorted her out of the room, and Jupiter had become familiar enough with her guards falling in around her that she didn't count heads any more.

"Sorry, Majesty," Phylo said, less formal but still apologetic as they moved briskly towards the alcazar's landing pad. "I waited as long as I could."

"No, my fault." Jupiter handed him the sheave so she could catch up her skirt. "I totally forgot."

The meeting was some kind of tax committee thing, somehow related to taxing planets - Jupiter wasn't clear on the details despite her studies. It was going to be her first official appearance as a ruling queen; not quite proper, according to Kalique, since Jupiter hadn't formally been presented to Entitled society, but the committee only met once a decade. So it's now, or wait until I'm past thirty.

She'd survived so far. She could survive this.

The mistico was waiting above the landing pad, with more Skyjackers in the air around it. Jupiter could see weapons in their hands, though Cerise was supposed to be safe; but there was no gainsaying Stinger's edicts when it came to safety. Her escort swept along to the transport beam, with Jupiter going first and the Skyjackers circling around her in the air. She pulled her skirts close as Phylo stepped into the beam below her - not that she thought he would peek, but it was still weird.

Aggie was waiting as Jupiter stepped on board the mistico. "Are you absolutely sure you want me along for this?" she asked, sounding nervous.

Jupiter patted her arm. "This is economics," she pointed out. "And apparently I'm expected to bring a bunch of people with me even to one of these things. So if you really don't mind pretending to be an attendant…"

Aggie snorted. "You can carry your own sheaves."

But she looked more relaxed, and Jupiter grinned. "Somewhere in all this universe somebody has to have invented a virtual notebook or something. We'll have to find them."

The mistico had a small private suite, and Aggie waited outside the door while Jupiter changed clothes. The full-skirted gown she was wearing had been deemed by Kalique to be fine for "casual wear", but business apparently required something more formal. Which, according to the design team, was something a lot like what she'd worn to visit the ship repair station - a top and slacks, and an ankle-length coat over it. It all felt like silk but looked like dark blue velvet, and the coat was embroidered with golden thread and heavy with gems.

The best part about it, Jupiter felt, was that the three-bee symbol was worked into the design, though it wasn't obvious. The more she saw the bees, the more she liked them. They got me into this, in a sense. They saved my life.

They don't lie.

I hope.

Jupiter pulled on the coat, settled a narrow diadem of gold set with sapphires on her hair (always wear a token of rank in public, my dear) and popped back out of the suite to collect her anti-nausea meds from the mistico's first mate, in preparation for portaling. Aggie toasted her with a glass of water, and swallowed her own pills.

"Does one's stomach ever get used to portaling?" Aggie asked when she set down her glass.

"I have no idea," Jupiter admitted. "It's supposed to be only an Entitled thing, but Kiza takes them sometimes."

Aggie made a face. "Given how it feels with the pills, I'm not inclined to experiment."

"With you on that," Jupiter agreed. She didn't have a clue how portaling actually worked - there was way too much other stuff to learn about right then - but her stomach definitely noticed when they did it.

As if prompted, the first mate touched their comm implant. "Your Majesty, we are ready to portal."

"Let's go," Jupiter said, and a few seconds later her stomach rolled unpleasantly. She swallowed firmly and grinned. "Aggie, you have to see this!"

She led Aggie to the mistico's bridge, and enjoyed the sight of Aggie's mouth dropping open at the sight of Orus spread out on the screen, all its rings and satellites and ships in a dizzying, tangled array.

"That's...not…possible," Aggie said faintly, and Jupiter just grinned wider.


The committee meeting was fascinating, and Agatha was glad she'd learned how to use the quicktext function on sheaves, because she was taking continuous notes - partly for her own use, and partly because Jupiter was spending more time trying to look royal and in control than in making her own notations.

That was fine; it was, after all, her job, and Agatha knew Jupiter had to project power right off or lose points. And the overarching theme of the meeting was apparently pretty much to maintain the status quo, which was the taxation of certain kinds of planets. Not the planets' production or population, but the planets themselves, which was also interesting; the taxes were paid by whoever owned them.

Agatha had no idea how a small group of Entitled had the power to decide this particular taxation scheme, but that could be researched later. In the meantime she listened, and observed as best she could in between notes.

The meeting room was more like a small ornamental greenhouse than anything else, except not quite so humid, and there was no part of it open to the sky - or, more to the point, to space, since they were outside Orus' atmosphere. But vines cloaked the walls, and small trees stood in the corners, and there was some kind of fragrant moss underfoot.

The committee members reclined on floating couches, except for the three who were present through hologram images. Various guards and assistants stood along the walls. All except Agatha, who had a chair, because when they'd come in and seen the situation, Jupiter had muttered something rude under her breath and requested that their guide to the location find another chair.

And after a startled and frankly disbelieving look, the guide - an android - had bowed acquiescence and summoned a servitant. With a chair.

When the meeting concluded, most of the participants left immediately - two of them steered their couches right out the door without even getting up - but one of them drifted over to Jupiter. Agatha sharpened her ears as she shut down her sheave.

"Seraphi. It's good to see you again," the tall man said languidly, exchanging a touch of hands with Jupiter. "Your presence has been missed."

Jupiter's eyes narrowed, and Agatha waited for her to correct the man, but instead she cocked her head. "Thank you, Governor Furnor."

The governor had black hair braided in intricate patterns down to his waist, and looked to Agatha as if he might have hailed from Peru if he'd been born on Earth. "I wanted to inquire if you are still of the same mind on that little matter of the Rever system and its environs."

The name sounded faintly familiar to Agatha - it might have floated past on a list of Jupiter's holdings, but there were so many of them - and she winced a little, since Jupiter probably had no better idea of what it was.

But Jupiter's expression of cool interest didn't change. "I've been a little busy lately, I'm sure you understand. Tell you what - why don't you send me a precis on the issue, and I'll look it over and get back to you. Refresh my memory."

Furnor inclined his head. "I'll do that. As ever, a pleasure." He bowed slightly; Jupiter nodded, and he turned to leave, drifting out without so much as looking around to make sure his guards followed.

His exit left Jupiter and her entourage in possession of the room. Agatha stood up and went over to Jupiter, shutting down her sheave. "Well, that was interesting."

"Parts of it, anyway. I think my butt is numb." Jupiter wiped her hand on her coat. "Ugh, that guy was, like, psychically slimy."

She glanced around. "And why didn't anybody tell me we could phone in to these things? I so would have done that."

"No, you wouldn't," said Agatha, amused, and Jupiter shrugged, lips quirking.

"Okay, maybe not the first time. Anyway, let's get out of here before somebody comes back to talk to me about something I'm clueless about."

Moving from planet to planet did make it difficult to keep track of time, but Agatha's analog watch still worked fine; she glanced at it. "You're not due back at Cerise right away, are you? Can we look around a bit?"

Jupiter made a face. "This is the place Caine and I spent a day standing in lines. It's not exactly a tourist attraction."

Caine, who was one of the four Skyjackers chosen for this particular guard duty, cleared his throat. "There are portions of Orus that are, your Majesty. Bureaucracy is only one of its functions."

"Really?" Jupiter looked up at him. "What else have they got?"

Twenty minutes and a shuttle flight later they were walking down a wide arcade that looked to Agatha like a 1980s dream of a solarpunk future crossed with...well, she couldn't quite think of what it was crossed with, unless it was the Champs-Élysées. Shops lined the arcade on either side and rose several stories overhead; various holographic displays on ground level showed goods, and melodious voices murmured sales pitches if one got close enough. Blue transport beams waited to lift shoppers to the higher locations, and various richly dressed people stood around - either to entice potential shoppers or to keep out those not worthy, Agatha saw.

It took her a little while, though; the whole thing was dazzling, and while the displays of clothes and jewelry were obvious, she couldn't begin to guess what some of the other things were.

The other shoppers were equally interesting. There were groups much like Jupiter's, with one or two Entitled surrounded by guards and assistants, most of them dressed in outfits that looked insanely dramatic to Agatha; there were single shoppers, or the occasional pair or trio, but still obviously very wealthy.

Others darted through the thin crowd, androids and Splices and pure humans - employees or servants on errands, she guessed, since they were dressed more plainly and didn't stop to look at the displays.

Jupiter dropped back a step to walk at Agatha's side. "See anything you like?" she asked with a grin.

Agatha shook her head, more in wonder than denial. "It's dizzying. Have you noticed how the shops seem to be stratified by class? The most exclusive ones are the highest up."

Rush, on Agatha's other side, nodded. "The top tier is for Entitled only, no matter how wealthy a shopper is. Watch - "

He nodded towards a transport beam ahead on their left. As they watched, a portly man in thick robes was smoothly diverted from it by the large, uniformed Splice with wide horns who waited by the beam. The Splice stood impassive to the shopper's angry words, and stepped back into place as soon as the man stomped away.

"How did he know?" Jupiter murmured, and Rush smiled faintly.

"It's his job to know who's Entitled and who's not. Also, he may have an infrared implant to check for sigils like your own."

"That would make it simpler, yes." Agatha shook her head.

"Ooh, how about that place?" Jupiter was staring at a jewelry store, one on the ground level. Rush blinked.

"If your Majesty wishes, of course," he said cautiously. "The ground-level shops are not usually frequented by Entitled, though."

"Don't be snobby." Jupiter punched his arm lightly, and Agatha noted with amusement that this garnered only a slightly put-upon look. "Come on."

Jupiter wasn't "on" as an Entitled when she stepped into the store, Agatha noted, but that didn't keep the owner from nearly having a panic attack at the sight of four Skyjackers and one economist surrounding the young woman wearing the gold diadem. Agatha wasn't sure how the man knew, since Jupiter's wrist sigil wasn't showing, but in a flash the two other browsing customers were ushered out, the door was closed, and the owner - who reminded Agatha vaguely of a shorter and smarmier Paul Newman - was bowing and scraping to Jupiter. Maybe he has an implant too.

Agatha knew Jupiter didn't like being toadied to, but there wasn't anything Agatha could do about it, and she seemed to be coping, so Agatha drifted off to look at the jewelry on display.

It was spectacular stuff, quite different from the Earth styles Agatha had seen. Impossibly delicate webs of metal, many with gems that were polished round instead of faceted; necklaces whose pendants hovered instead of being attached to the chain; rings with floating stones. There were ornaments that didn't seem to be anything she was familiar with, neither necklace nor bracelet nor brooch, and there were some she stared at for almost a minute before realizing that they were for more intimate areas - not something one usually saw in a high-end jewelry shop.

It was the hovering necklaces that drew Agatha back, though. Some used chains, while others used thin collars of metal, but the astonishing part was the pendant - whether a chunk of rough-cut wood or a gem cut into a infinity-loop shape, they all floated in the air near the necklace, with no visible attachments. Agatha had no idea how it was done, or even if it was actually some kind of illusion, but the effect was amazing.

"Ooh, those are cool," Jupiter commented behind her, and Agatha turned a bit to see Jupiter peering over her shoulder. "How does that work?"

"You're asking me?" Agatha said, amused. "For all I know it's an illusion caused by the shop lighting."

"Let's find out." Jupiter waved at the proprietor, who was currently fussing behind the bulk of Rush and Banti, who had formed a discreet buffer zone. The man bustled forward at the gesture, his smile nervous and gleaming, and Agatha braced herself.

Unfortunately, the explanation was technobabble as far as she was concerned, though Jupiter nodded and made encouraging noises. Agatha didn't try to listen too closely, instead playing with the necklaces and rings that the man retrieved from the case. The effect wasn't an illusion; she could pinch a pendant between her fingers or even hide it in her fist, but no matter how she pulled it wouldn't go more than two inches from its chain.

"Fascinating," she muttered.

Jupiter shot her a grin. "Analysis, Mr. Spock?"

Agatha rolled her eyes. "Dammit, Majesty, I'm an economist, not an engineer."

Jupiter laughed out loud, baffling the proprietor. "Check this one out, it looks like a little planet." She held up a necklace whose sphere pendant spun lazily. The shifting white patterns on its lavender background did look like clouds, Agatha had to admit.

"It is, your Majesty," the proprietor said eagerly. "Sentus Seven, in fact. We have quite an array of them, in necklaces, rings, and bracelets - would your Majesty care to see Orus itself?"

Jupiter blinked. "How do you get all the satellites and rings in?"

"Allow me to demonstrate." The man tapped at the counter, and a hologram sprang into life; a catalogue, Agatha saw, as it began to display various pendants much larger than life. Orus was vastly simplified, with just its artificial rings displayed, but it really would have to be, Agatha admitted. At such a small size, including all the traffic would just make it a cloud, and not an attractive one.

"Huh." Jupiter eyed it. "Hey, do you do custom ones?"

When the man assured her that they did, Jupiter grinned at Agatha again. "How would you like to wear Earth?"

"That's - " Agatha halted, suddenly aware that she would like it, but also aware of what had to be a mind-boggling price tag.

Jupiter gave her a sympathetic glance. "Look," she said quietly. "We can use funds from some of the manufacturing side. But we might as well get some fun out of the whole thing, you know?"

There were so many reasons she should refuse; but Agatha decided to be selfish for once, aware that it was probably a bad idea but too tempted to care. "I...all right. But you have to get one too."

"Holy crap, yes," Jupiter said gleefully, and Agatha had to laugh. "But not Earth. Here, let me see the catalogue - "

It took a little discussion, and Banti's assistance with galactic coordinates, but eventually they came away with two gaudily packaged boxes; one containing Earth on a necklace for Agatha, and one holding Jupiter's choice - a ring of her namesake planet. Behind them the proprietor was nearly incoherent with joy over the sale - and the cachet, Agatha suspected.

Jupiter herself looked almost sad as they headed back down the concourse. "What's the matter?" Agatha asked quietly, and Jupiter shrugged.

"I was just thinking how much my father would have loved this," she said.

Agatha nodded, and patted Jupiter's arm sympathetically. "Do you want to check out one of the more exclusive stores?"

Jupiter tilted her head back to look up at the one they were passing, whose sign glowed softly two stories above their heads. "Let's leave it for later."

Agatha nodded again, and didn't press.