Free Generation Warriors by Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Moon Page B

hauler's mess: he had eaten well enough on the Zaid-Dayan , and at plenty of elegant restaurants in several Sectors. No, this was special, a level of cuisine he had never even imagined. Nothing looked like what it was, or tasted the way he thought it would, and it all made "good" or "delicious" into inadequate words. If only his unsteady stomach had not suffered through the tanker crew's cookery, he'd have been in culinary heaven.
    Conversation, on the other hand, was limited, Madame Flaubert kept giving Ford meaningful looks, but said nothing except to ask for the return of certain dishes. Spiritual advising was evidently hungry work; she ate twice as much as Auntie Q, and even more than Ford. Auntie Q asked Ford perfunctory questions about his family, and was satisfied with the barest outline of answers. He had the feeling that normally she'd want to know what color stockings his sister's bridesmaids had worn at her wedding, and who had given what gift, but something was distracting her. Suddenly, while Madame Flaubert still had a mouthful of food, Auntie Q pushed back her chair.
    "We shall retire," she said, "while you enjoy your port."
    Madame Flaubert flushed, swallowed gracelessly but without choking, and stood. Ford was already on his feet, and bowed them out. Port? After clearing away, the servant had returned, carrying a tray with bottle, glass, and a box of cigars. Ford eyed them. He did not smoke, and everything he'd read about cigars warned him not to start now. The port was something else. Would it settle his stomach or make things worse? And how long was he supposed to wait before rejoining the ladies? For that matter, what did the ladies do while waiting for the gentleman to finish his port?
    He took a cautious sip, and smiled in spite of himself. Wherever Auntie Q had found this, it was grand stuff for a stomach-ache, warming all the way down. He stretched his legs beneath the table and tried to imagine himself lord of all he surveyed. With the exception of Auntie Q, who would rule whatever domain she happened to be in.
    After a time, the same servant appeared to take away the tray, and direct Ford to "Madame's drawing room." Originally a withdrawing room, Ford recalled, to which the ladies withdrew while the menfolk made noise and rude smells with their cigars.

    His aunt's drawing room was furnished with more restraint than Ford would have expected. A small instrument with black and white keys, reversed from the usual, and too small for a piano. Ford wondered what it was, but did not ask. Several elegant but sturdy chairs, each different. A low table of some remarkable wood, sawn across knots and knurls to show the intricate graining. A single tall cabinet, its polished doors closed, and two graceful etchings on the walls but none of the cluttered knick-knacks her other mannerisms had suggested.
    Madame Flaubert lounged in a brocaded armchair, a pose he suspected of concealing more tension than she would admit. She fondled a furry shape he gradually recognized as a dog of some sort. Its coat had been brushed into fanciful whirls, and it had a jeweled collar around its tiny neck. Two bright black eyes glittered at him, and it gave one minute yip before subsiding into Madame Flaubert's ample lap. His aunt, on the contrary, sat upright before a tapestry frame.
    "I remember your father," Auntie Q said. "Hardly more than a boy, he was then. Seemed afraid of me, for some reason. Very stiff."
    Ford gave her the smile that had worked with other women. "If I'd been a boy, you'd have frightened me."
    "I doubt that." She snipped the needle free and threaded a length of blue. "I know what your side of the family thinks of me. Too rich to be reasonable, too old to know what she's doing, troublesome. Isn't that right?" Her eye on him was as sharp as her needle's point.
    Ford grinned and shrugged. "Spoiled, overbearing, arrogant, and tiresome, actually. As you, without doubt, already know."
    She flashed a smile at him.