Free The Wellstone by Wil McCarthy Page A

didn’t display any.
    “Why did you leave the camp?” Leslie asked him, for the second time.
    He shrugged. “We weren’t prisoners.”
    “You could have requested a pass. And an escort. And permission from your parents. Instead, we have a counselor assaulted and a Palace Guard vandalized.”
    “I didn’t do any of that.”
    “But you were there when it happened.”
    Conrad didn’t answer. They knew he was there. Between sensor records and skin cells and ghostly electromagnetic imprints, the Constabulary could probably trace just about every move he’d ever made.
    Smiling, Leslie tried a different approach. “Conrad, you’re not in trouble. Not very much trouble. No one was seriously hurt, and there’s no evidence you did anything other than follow your friends and then witness a crime. We just want to find out what happened.”
    He shrugged again. “You already know.”
    “Well, yes. But I’d like to hear it from you.” She was wearing a green sweater with buttons made from what looked like live dandelion heads. Her hair was coppery red, and very short. He supposed she was beautiful—he’d never met anyone who wasn’t—but she spoke and moved like the women of his mother’s generation. Two hundred years out of date; born into a mortal world, and then “saved” from it by the rise of the Queendom. He wondered if faxes of this same woman were interrogating all the other boys as well.
    “You don’t know anything,” he told her, not in a nasty way but just factually. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t explain it to you. There’s not even anything to explain.” Then he disappointed himself by adding, “I want my mother.”
    Leslie just nodded, with a sympathy that seemed annoyingly genuine. “Both your parents have been briefed on the situation, and have asked to send copies of themselves here. The request is under review. However, as I’m sure you can understand, the involvement of Prince Bascal is a complicating factor.”
    Again, Conrad had nothing to say that would actually help the situation, so he said nothing, and Leslie simply started her questioning again, from the top. They went around and around like that for nearly an hour. Finally, when Conrad was halfway nuts with the repetition, a disc of yellow light appeared on the tabletop, and a little speaker formed beside it and emitted a soft chime.
    “Well,” Leslie said, eyeing it, “we tried, anyway. You seem like a nice young man; you should try opening up a little.”
    “Oh yeah? Why?” Conrad couldn’t help asking.
    To her credit, she thought about that for a couple of seconds before replying, “Because childhood doesn’t excuse rudeness, not at your age. Whatever problems you believe you’re facing, communication is really the only way to tackle them. You’ll understand this someday, when you and your friends are the ones in charge.”
    Conrad didn’t even try to suppress his sneer. “What day is that, Leslie?”
    She really looked at him then, rolling her tongue around behind a set of pursed lips. Finally, she said, “Look, we’ve all made adjustments. Nobody said life was perfect. But we do have forever to work it out, yes?” She rose to her feet then, and motioned for him to do the same. “Come on. As I feared, the case has been placed under palace jurisdiction. Back to the fax with you, I’m afraid.”
    For some reason, Conrad felt a shiver of fear. “Why? Where am I going?”
    “To the palace. Didn’t I just say that? Best behavior, Conrad; you’re going to meet the king and queen.”
    The throne room of Their Majesties, Bruno de Towaji and Tamra-Tamatra Lutui, looked exactly like it did on TV. The same reed mats over wellstone floors, the same Catalan tapestries over wellstone walls, the same gilded wellstone scrollwork along the ceiling and floorboards and high, vaulted doorways. It was daytime here; the ceiling was clear at the moment, and light streamed down through it from a blue-white sky, much paler