Free Empress of Eternity by L. E. Modesitt Page B

gray, as were the window casements and door frames. The front of the house was twenty yards wide, roughly as wide as the canal station, with a centered main entry a mere two steps above the antique sand brick walk that led from the gates. Maertyn’s boots clicked slightly on the bricks.
    As he stepped under the entry portico roof, the door opened, held by a muscular figure in black trousers and a deep green jacket.
    “Lord Maertyn, welcome home.” The man bowed slightly, then stepped back
    “Thank you, Rhesten.” Maertyn smiled. “It’s good to be here.” Safely.
    Rhesten closed the door and turned to face Maertyn. “Will you require dining, sir?”
    “I’ll have a light supper in the study. Just bring it in when it’s ready.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Thank you.”
    Maertyn walked through the modest two-story entry hall and took the second door on the left, into the study. The lights eased on as he closed the door, revealing the desk with the comfortable swivel behind it, the side windows, now blanked for the evening, and the settee flanked by two chairs, each with a now-concealed reading screen.
    Stark—that had been how Maarlyna had always described it.
    He shook his head. Simple, he would have said, but he never had, at first because it hadn’t mattered, and then, later, because it had mattered too much.
    He set the shoulder bag on the narrow shelf to the left of the ebony panels that concealed the working screens, then turned to stand beside the wide and empty desk, a desk, for all its polished ebony finish, that felt ever more alien each time he returned.
    As had doubtless always been the case, nothing was quite as it seemed on the surface, or perhaps it was better said that nothing was all that it seemed, either on the surface or beneath.

14
    25 Quad 2471 R.E.
    Eltyn stood to one side of the “window” in the upper chamber that served as Faelyna’s laboratory. After one glance, he did not look toward the corner that held her pallet bed. He tried not to shift his feet from one side to the other as she went through the checklist for the array of equipment centered on the modified and overpowered polariton generator/imager.
    Estimate three minutes before initial probe. Faelyna made some adjustments that Eltyn could not follow.
    Second time you’ve said three minutes. [irony]
    You want me to focus unshielded PG/I on you? [humor]
    Not possible…before I move. [wide grin]
    Her response was a feminine snort.
    What Faelyna had earlier hoped would be several hours, or less than a day, had turned into two days and then three, before she had judged that the equipment was properly set and positioned. Then she had discovered a need for an additional modification. While she had worked on that, Eltyn had made some changes to the station equipment and power system, particularly in the reporting monitors—in reaction to the totally irrational periodic demands for station power reductions. He’d also isolate-blocked the internal net against probes from outside, but in a way that simply indicated that the entire comm system had been shut down except for emergency comm. All incoming probes and messages were quarantined so that he could view and analyze them without contaminating or compromising the station systems.
    Two minutes.
    Ready. Eltyn looked at her, trying to maintain a calm and unworried expression while not showing any sign of what he had begun to feel about her. To do otherwise would be unRuchelike.
    The command comm level seared a white priority pulse across all CommNet channels. URGENT! URGENT! All stations! Mandatory reduction of power usage to minimum. Discontinue all routine and [low] priority usage. Nonessential energy usage will result in disciplinary action…
    Faelyna glanced at Eltyn.
    Eltyn triggered the shield-system he’d developed in reaction to the power hysteria coming from Hururia, a hysteria he suspected was being generated by the RF fanatics among The Fifty.
    ????? questioned