Altiplano, Estancia Suiza After lunch, Luci followed Esmay into the Landbride's quarters with obvious intent. Esmay, who'd been hoping for a time alone to think things over, decided she would have more peace if she let Luci talk herself out. "So what is it now?" she asked, half laughing. "Do you have five other schemes for the estancia, or are you planning to take over the government?"

Luci, it seemed, loved a boy-young man, actually-in a neighboring household. "Your father is set against it-I don't know why," she said. "It's a good family-"

"Who is it?" asked Esmay, who had a suspicion. At the name, she nodded. "I know why, but I think he's wrong."

"Is this another of those things you can't tell me about?" Luci asked with a pettish note in her voice. "Because if it is, I think it's mean to let me know you know . . ."

"Come all the way in, and sit down," Esmay said, shutting the door carefully. No one would disturb them now. She gestured to one of the comfortable chintz-covered chairs, and sat in another one herself. "I'll tell you, but it's not a pleasant tale. You know I was miserable the last time I was here, and I suppose no one told you why . . ."

"No one knew," Luci said. "Except that you had some kind of fight with your father."

"Yes. Well . . . there are too many secrets going around, and now that I'm Landbride, I'm going to do things differently. Back before you were born, when I was a small child, and my mother had died, I ran away."

"You!"

"Yes. I wanted to find my father, who was off at war. I didn't understand about war . . . it had been safe, here. Anyway, I ended up in a very dangerous-" Her throat closed, and she cleared it.

"A village right in the middle of the war. Soldiers came."

"Oh-Esmay-"

"I was . . . assaulted. Raped. Then one of my father's troops found me-but I was very sick . . ."

"Esmay, I never heard of this-"

"No, you wouldn't have. They hushed it up. Because the soldier that did it was in my father's brigade."

"No-!" Luci's face was white to the lips.

"Yes. He was killed-old Seb Coron killed him, in fact. But they told me it was all a bad dream-that I'd caught my mother's fever, which I may have, and anything else was a fever dream.

All those nightmares I had-they made me think I was crazy."

"And you found out, finally-?"

"Seb Coron told me, because he thought I knew already-that Fleet's psych exams would have found it and cured me." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So . . . I confronted Father, and when I identified the face in the regimental rolls, he admitted it. That it had happened, that I remembered correctly."

From white, Luci went rage-red. "That's-hideous! Lying to you like that! I would've-"

"And the thing is," Esmay went on, remotely cheered by Luci's response. "The thing is, the person

who did it was of that family. The man you love is his nephew, his older brother's son-"

Luci's face whitened again. "Arlen? You can't mean Arlen. But he was killed in action-they have a shrine to him in the front hall."

"I know. He was killed in action-by Seb Coron for assaulting a child-me."

"Oh . . . my." Luci sat back. "And his father was commanding something-so your father didn't tell him-? Or did he?"

"I don't know if his family knows anything at all, but even if they do it was all kept quiet. He

got his medals; he got his shrine in the front hall." She could not quite keep the bitterness out of her voice.

"And your father doesn't want anything to do with their family . . . I understand . . ."

"No . . . they stayed friends, or at least close professionally. I think my father considered it an aberration, nothing to do with his family. I danced with his younger brother when I was fourteen, and he said nothing. He'd have been delighted if I'd married Carl. But he's worried now, because he knows I know, and he isn't sure what I'll do."

"I'll-I'll break it off, Esmay." Luci's eyes glittered with unshed tears.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Esmay leaned forward. "If you love him, there's no reason to break it off on my account."

"You wouldn't mind?"

"I . . . don't know how I'd react, if he looks much like Arlen did. But that shouldn't matter, to

you or the family, if he's suitable otherwise. Is he a good man?"

"I think so," Luci said, "but girls in love are supposed to be bad judges of character." That with a hint of mischief.

"Seriously . . ."

"Seriously . . . he makes my knees weak, my heart pound, and I've seen him at work-he wants to be

a doctor, and he helps out in the estancia clinic. He's gentle."

"Well, then," Esmay said, "for what good it will do, I'm on your side."

"What good it will do? Don't be silly-you're the Landbride. If you approve a match, no one's going

to argue with you."

That had not occurred to her, having never contemplated a match herself. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I am!" Luci grinned. "Didn't you realize? What happened when you-" She sobered

suddenly. "Oh. Did it-what happened-make you not want to marry?"

"It may have," Esmay said, ever more uncomfortable with where this was heading, onto turf that

Luci clearly knew well. "I didn't think of it at the time-I just wanted off-planet. Away from it all."

"But surely you've met someone, sometime, who made your knees weak?"

Before she could say anything, she felt the telltale heat rushing to her face. Luci nodded.

"You did . . . and you don't want anyone to know . . . Is it something . . . outworldly?"

"Outworldly?" Barin was an outworlder, but she wasn't sure that's what Luci had meant.

Now it was Luci blushing. "You know-those things people do that-we don't do here. Or at least, not

officially."

Esmay laughed, surprising both of them. "No, it's nothing like that. I've met people like that, of course-they don't think anything of it, and they're quite ordinary."

Luci had turned brick red by now. "I always wondered," she muttered. "How . . ."

"We had that in the Academy prep school," Esmay said, grinning as she remembered her own

paralyzing embarrassment. "It was part of the classes on health maintenance and I nearly crawled

under the desk."

"Don't tell me; you can show me the data cube," Luci said, looking away. Then she looked back.

"But I do want to know about him-whoever it was-is?"

"Was," Esmay said firmly, though pain stabbed her. "Another Fleet officer. Good family."

"Did he not love you?" Luci asked. She went on without waiting for an answer. "That happened to

me-the second time I fell in love, he didn't care a fig about me. Told me so quite frankly. I thought I'd die . . . I used to ride out in the woods and cry."