Jellicoe Frixm sat in a well-proportioned chair before a rge bank of monitors. His morning cup of kaja steamed exactly where it had yesterday on the coaster that was just where it was meant to be. He lifted it and blew for exactly 2 seconds, then took a sip as he watched.

  The new guests were settling in badly. Princess Katherine suffered, but that was as ordered. On the view from her clock, he watched her dressers push her fraying body into a skirt suit and kitten heels. She tottered into the vanity chair and let them cover her with cosmetics.

  Bearach draped a long neck cloth around his neck; the dressers stood by, ready to primp him. Sleek, that was Bearach, overly slippery—but with surprising, angry barbs. He had rocked Frixm back on his heels; unfortunate, that he’d managed to capture the captain’s attention.

  Perhaps unfortunate for Bearach. Captain Itef pyed in the resort when it suited him to do so, often enough that it could be taken for eagerness.

  Of course, that would never be mentioned. A good Matil never mentioned such a thing, but Frixm supposed all important men must have fws. Itef’s stared one in the face: a marked tendency toward bestiality.

  He had had three of the previous guests in his quarters at once. The rebellion had begun there, but these three had never discovered the Matil were not subject to death. Itef’s bare hands had done for them.

  Dirty dealings from a foul man meant to embody the Ideal, the Perfect Average. Frixm sat back and tugged his uniform razor straight, all he was willing to do, and that in private. He wished Bearach joy of that one. On another camera, the view outside Princess Katherine’s room, the Rev Liedan resettled a pin suit he had made somehow rakish with styled hair and jewelry. He thought himself attractive.

  Frixm’s wife, Nareen, was all that was Average. She made Bearach look overblown and overdone, and had given him six children, none of whom lived with them any longer. They did their work on the ship—his at the resort, hers in a bakery—and had for ages now. If they grew bored, they might have more children yet; it had tely been a topic of discussion at the supper table, especially since he had obtained the promotion to Commander.

  A stroke of luck—but he ought never to have trusted it. He ought to have stayed in line. He hadn’t survived this long by standing out.

  He watched Princess Katherine stagger out of her accommodations into Bearach’s reaching arms. Her ankles twisted in the low heels; her face was gzed with sweat. He didn’t use his face to smile, but inside he rolled on a sunny rock at noon. Seeing her pain evoked a most un-Matil-like pleasure in him—and, as it turned out, all the rest of the crew.

  It was perfectly average to hate her, but he had a nasty, sinking feeling people had enjoyed Bearach’s dispy at his expense. He was perhaps not as well-liked as most of the rest. Certainly not as well as Evit Jatus.

  There was a chime at the door behind him. He spun in the chair and pressed the doors open from his desk. His clipboard sat perfectly in the center; a pen rested on top. As Minuet snapped efficiently into the room, the doors slipped shut behind her. “Commander, three of the guests have come to register a word with you.”

  “Have they attempted to go through the proper channels?” They would not have.

  “No, Commander, but they tell me they feel this will be of particur interest to you.”

  Likely it was the towels again. He’d fielded hundreds of compints from new guests in his time. He wished the budget would flex this once. “Very well. I’ll see them.” The guests were unlikely to have seen anything so intimidating as Frixm in his office. He settled and took a breath, bringing himself back to the Mean.

  He must not allow one or two hateful animals to pull him aside. Why deviate now? Neither Bearach Rev Liedan nor Princess Katherine was worth his beautiful, acceptable life. Minuet showed the guests through the sliding doors: three young females who had been sitting at a table in the lounge st night. They had seen Frixm’s humiliation then—but they had come to him instead of anyone else. Bckmail? They were already beautifully dressed for the daily brunch.

  “Commander, there’s something you may wish to know,” one of them said, swaying pertly ahead of the others, seemingly undeterred by the sight of Frixm at the white desk in front of the huge monitor bank. All around him, the business of the resort carried on in two dimensions on dozens of separate screens, but the Grand Duchess of Catswall didn’t seem to care. Down her neck, she had a spray of delicate spots like an Earth cheetah’s, but purple. “The three of us personally witnessed the captain escort that beautiful man to his door st night.” She struggled over man as if it couldn’t quite encapsute Bearach’s presence.

  “Very well.” Far be it from Frixm to speak ill of a superior, whatever he thought. He sat back in his chair. “I see nothing amiss with that, Your Grace. Surely you can see why Captain Itef might have occasion—”

  “Not with his hair like that!” Another of the females, Princess Regent Misteria of Achens, smothered a giggle behind a translucent hand. “It was completely trashed! Like he was having sex!”

  He had known that well; he had to ape average surprise. Itef wouldn’t have turned down the offer when repellent, immodest Bearach showed no qualm in making it, and he wouldn’t pay for using the livestock’s holes. Who could punish him?

  “Is that so?” Frixm said mildly, appearing to press. Though he wasn’t allowed to care, he must seem to; they had long since learned this approach pacified the guests. It had appeared in his textbooks at school.

  “Oh, yes.” The third young female appeared to be bored out of her mind; her brow ridge hung low over her eyes. She examined the bright violet beds of her keratin cws, tossing back hair in rainbow colors. “It was undoubtedly sex hair. Fraternization is frowned upon here, isn’t it?” When he caught her gnce, she looked briefly harried.

  Time to smooth things a bit, he would warrant. Frixm rose. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a golden flicker on the egglike indentation holding the screens. Bearach was moving to brunch. “Come. If it pleases you dies, I’ll escort you to brunch myself. No one is receiving… special attention from my staff, I assure you, but I’ll take what you’ve told me under confidential advisement. Come, come!”

  None of the young cows seemed entirely mollified, but things were tense just now. When the resort filled up again, they would be distracted by one another. Frixm strode to the door; he hoped the harvesting crews were more successful this cycle. “Come,” he said once more, calm, just a touch inviting. “Let us tempt your pates, august friends.” If nothing else, he could check, in person, the progress the odious Princess Katherine had made overnight. He was unused to his work providing such pleasure.

  Without another word, Frixm led the way to the brunch room. The females trailed behind for a moment, whispering amongst themselves, before they caught up in their bell-like morning dresses and pillbox hats and white gloves. The holograms on the walls and the furniture produced by the Illusomatic made it seem as if brunch was being served at an outdoor cafe with a view of the stars above and a neat sidewalk beneath the feet. It was quite charming, if he did say so himself. One of his better ideas.

  Princess Katherine and Bearach Rev Liedan occupied the back side of a back table, just beyond which the cheery sidewalk decorated with ferns dropped off into the void. The princess prodded a pile of eggs with her fork, looking delightfully green in the gnds. Frixm almost smiled again to see her, but the desire slipped away as quickly when he truly id eyes on Bearach.

  Rakish, yes—that was the word. A wicked hot-blooded devil dwelt in his frame. A narrow-brimmed hat rested on the table nearby. He wore a white three-piece suit with a pocket square and a diamond stickpin so fine it would have made anyone’s eyes water—but not Frixm’s. Then again, Frixm knew the sumptuous budget set aside for the quantity of jewelry one such as the Rev Liedan required. Behind him, the females checked, whispering again.

  He made for a table toward the center of the room, insuted from those two influences as he could hope without being too obvious. “Come, august guests. In no time at all, I’ll have you settled in and enjoying the finest resort in any universe.”

  “We were supposed to join Bearach.” The Grand Duchess of Catswall tried to transfix him on slit-pupiled green eyes. She fancied herself powerful, but in the machine she had been middling, and anyway, none of the guests knew what power truly was.

  Frixm didn’t trouble to employ his nictitating membrane. He blinked a few times, rapidly, as if surprised by the information. In truth, very little surprised him about the behavior of the guests. “Of course, Your Grace. Right this way.”

  He made as if to shepherd the females toward their destination, but of course, they were eager enough to go. The distractions of the other guests had begun to take hold among them already, but he could have hoped Bearach wouldn’t matter so much. The Grand Duchess must have been quite determined, given her stare at the limp, charred lettuce leaf that was Princess Katherine.

  She looked ghastly, and ghastlier still as he approached. He smiled after all, behind the backs of the three females. Sweat glistened in her hairline. Her face was gray with pain as she bent over the eggs on her pte. Bearach watched her closely from eyes like gleaming amber, a monster’s eyes that shone with molten va. No wonder they had taken up together. They were both devils whose very blood ran hot. He could split them apart, if he chose. He needed only to wait for the right moment.

  The Grand Duchess flounced down in the empty seat next to Bearach. It was a four-person table. She id her soft hand over his where it rested on the white surface, which looked like wrought iron—again a suggestion of Frixm’s. “Good morning, Rev Liedan,” she said, giving him a brilliant smile.

  He withdrew his hand with a delicate gesture. “Good morning, Your Grace.” Princess Katherine mumbled something that made him smile—devils, the both.

  “Please, let’s dispense with the formality, at least on your part.” The Grand Duchess beamed more sunnily than she ought to be able to, since she had only just been informing on him, but perhaps she’d intended to inform on Captain Itef. “I hope you’ll call me Melinda.”

  “I think not, Your Grace.” Bearach examined his cuticles, turning his body aside, as Frixm had seen him do st night, and the rage it provoked was a shock. “You see, that would give you the illusion you’re intimate with me, and I certainly don’t consider you thus.” He looked her over thoroughly as she sat agape. “Nor am I likely to.” He was hideously direct.

  Frixm backed a step, certain it would infect him if he remained any longer, but as the Princess Regent leaned closer over the empty spot at the table, he stepped swiftly forward again. “Good morning, Princess Katherine. Good morning, Rev Liedan. I trust after st night’s disruption you’re finding your stay comfortable?” He fervently hoped not. He hoped it too much.

  “Fuck you,” the Princess spat out, raising a cup of tea with a shaking hand. It rattled on the saucer she held in the other.

  The foul-mouthed harlot devils cwed at Frixm’s insides with every word they spoke. It must be them forcing him to be so angry.

  “Yes, I find myself in complete agreement.” Bearach lifted his own teacup near plush lips. In a pleasant voice, he said, “Fuck you, and fuck off. All of you.”

  “Who do you think you are?” The Princess Regent of Misteria rose indignantly off her vestigial feet as Bearach sipped primly from his cup. Her ssh wings whirred soundlessly in the void between atoms.

  “Hmm.” He set the cup down with a small cck. “I seem to recall Misteria is a client state of Shirith—and the Grand Duchy of New Frimingham likewise. I’m well within my rights to tell you to get lost.”

  “I’ve heard you’re as mean as your father, but he never spoke to me this way!” The Misterian Princess Regent flickered in midair, then appeared facing the opposite direction. She flickered again, in one spot, and then again in another—and was gone.

  The magic dampeners on that one hadn’t been strong enough. Frixm hated to lose a guest, but he made a mental note as he opened his arms slightly to Bearach. “Rev Liedan, if you wish to enjoy your peace and rexation, by all means. Please continue to avail yourself of the many activities prepared for you. We will speak again,” he added, nearly shivering when he delivered something so close to a threat. It was delicious.

  “I’m sure we shall.” Bearach waved a dismissive hand.

  Frixm went back to his comfortable, wide egg of an office to watch his cameras.