Free Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright

you.”
    “I keep regular office hours. Walk-ins welcome.”
    “Yeah, but he’s afraid you might be dead tomorrow.”
    “Pshaw!” said Menelaus. “Mike Nails ain’t putting me in the ground.”
    “He says it’s your destiny.”
    “What?”
    “You’re destined for greater things, he says. To go to the stars, not die down here in the mud.”
    “Issat what he said?”
    “It sure is.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Ronny-yay. The Seventh.”
    “Come again?”
    “His Serene Highness, Rainier VII Sovereign Prince of Monaco, Duke of Valentinois, Marquis of Baux, Count of Polignac, Baron of this, Lord of that, Sire of somemother damn thing. You know how Euros are. Ever since their lands shrunk up, their damn titles get longer. But get this: He’s got the mark on his head.”
    “What kinda mark?”
    Leonidas solemnly touched finger to brow. “Right there. Hindu caste mark. He’s a Brahmin.”
    “Damnation,” whispered Menelaus, impressed in spite of himself. “Ain’t so many White Men get that. No wonder he’s rich … I … Leo, I know who this is. It’s Grimaldi! It’s him !”
    “Him? Him who?”
    “Him, the Captain!”
    Leonidas looked left and right, unhurriedly, but clearly scoping out escape routes. “Captain of what?” His voice betrayed his tension.
    “Not that kind of captain, not a trooper-captain, a ship-captain. The ship!”
    “So who is he?”
    Menelaus had to grin. “Smartest man alive. Luckiest, too. The Hindus and the Spaniards could not agree on anyone else. He showed up at Sriharikota Island, at the main launch-site, with a bankful of his own money. Monaco had not signed the anti-space proliferation treaty, so if the whole project was in his name, the Sinosphere couldn’t stop it, so they made him Captain! It was in all the chatterboxes. They have a setting for verbal, if’n you can’t be troubled to read ’em.”
    “O-Ooh. You mean that ship what ain’t never going to sail?” replied Leonidas. “’Course you do. What the plague other ship you ever the plague talk about? They been building that ship for ten years now.”
    Takes a fair piece of time to build a cathedral, Menelaus said. But he did not say it aloud.
    Menelaus stared at the dark ground, the tall, straight, beautiful trees. Then he craned his neck up and inspected the sky. One bright star still hung overhead. Perhaps it was an artificial satellite, a Hindu Sputnik. Just like the Americans used to put up, back before civilization threw a shoe, fell, broke its leg, and had to be put down.
    They were out there. He was down here.
    Down here with his family. His reputation would not survive if he walked away from the settlement, just to go talk to the Star Captain. Even if he walked off the field for a minute, five minutes, the whispers would start.
    The more he thought on it, the stranger it seemed. What was Amiens thinking? The breach of secrecy was unheard-of. Menelaus could claim grounds to walk away, but then … would he have the nerve to come back here again?
    He never wanted to do anything more ferociously in his life. The desire to go see the man who would fly to the stars boiled like bad whiskey in Menelaus’s belly, it was so strong.
    “Tell him to go rut himself,” Menelaus said. “Tell him to get lost. He can see me during office hours. But talk fine, Leon, like Mama…”
    “Sure, Meany. Just like Mama says. My principle is affronted at this breach of the security, and politely demands the extraneous party to remove him beyond the bounds set aside for this exercise. How’s that?”
    “Like you was born in a skyscraper with running water, little brother.”
    2. Mike Nails
    The pink sky was now bright enough, merely. Amiens, acting as judge, inspected first one duelist and his weapon, and then the other. He took up his position.
    Amiens, in a loud voice, politely asked the Seconds if their Principals could settle the matter in any other way. “Even now, if an accommodation can be reached, both