Free A Princess of the Aerie by John Barnes Page B

gripliners came in from Arm Eight, in about five minutes.
    It was an icy five minutes. Myx and Dujuv stared out windows in opposite directions, despite the fact that all there is to
     see out a Pertrans window is either the tunnel wall or the instantaneous flash of a passing window. Jak could see no way to
     get them to even start being civil to each other. He was beginning to miss the imposed courtesy of the battlesphere.
    Near the ticket counter in the gripliner station, they found some public access terminal booths. All three of them piled into
     a large booth and locked the door; then Jak told his purse to get Sesh on a fresh back channel.
    The woman whose image appeared on the screen was
very
not Sesh. She had pale beige skin, big prominent teeth, and little green piggy eyes that glared at them around the nose of
     an unsuccessful ex-boxer. Her hair was that mud-gray color of age familiar from old photos, but Jak had never seen it on a
     living person before. Perhaps she was a follower of one of the Tolerated Faiths, rather than the Wager? According to the Solar
     System Ethnography class, many of them prohibited anti-aging treatments.
    “My name is Jordesta Mattanga, and I need to know immediately why you are attempting an unauthorized communications access
     to Princess Shyf. I also need your names and citizenship.”
    “Myxenna Bonxiao, Hive.” “Dujuv Gonzawara, Hive.” “Jak Jinnaka, Hive. Uh, we’re her friends, and we came at her specific request—”
    Mattanga looked annoyed. “I have no record of any such request.”
    “I don’t know if you necessarily would,” Jak said; “because I don’t know your communications and security arrangements, but
     the Princess requested us through back channels, and she specifically asked that we not recontact her till this point in the
     mission, for security reasons. I am unaware of who else she might have told.”
    “I see. One moment.” The screen froze, leaving Jordesta Mattanga’s image glaring, one big lumpy gray eyebrow raised like a
     caterpillar crossing something that hurt its feet.
    Of course, their camera was still on, so they couldn’t do anything without being observed. Down by Jak’s knee, Dujuv’s hand
     signaled,
Weird-bad … weird-bad … weird-bad. …
    There was a clanging noise as the overrides barred the booth door. Mattanga’s image began to move again. “Talk to Princess
     Shyf. She has graciously agreed to give you an exact two minutes of her time. You had better persuade someone that this is
     not the stupidest youthful prank ever pulled, because if we don’t like what we’re hearing, we will send out security agents
     to bring you here by force and jail you all till we hear answers we like. You have two minutes.”
    Sesh came on the screen. “What are you three idiots doing here? I know Jak has to be the idiot-in-chief, but how could either
     of you be stupid enough to follow him? And Jak, I know you’re not the brightest thing that ever put on trousers, but this
     is dumber even than I’d have expected from you. Didn’t you get my message?”
    “That’s why we came,” Jak protested.
    “How could you be that unbelievably stupid? Didn’t I say not to communicate in any way? And how in all of Nakasen’s theorems
     could you have afforded to get here anyway?”
    “You paid our passage,” Dujuv said.
    Sesh stared at him as if he’d really gone mad. “Is that what Jak told you?”
    “It’s true,” Jak said. “You arranged CUPV passage for all three of us—”
    “Ridiculous!”
    “And you specifically asked us to come and not to call you till we got here.”
    Sesh’s eyes were flashing fire. “A one-minute message that said I didn’t want to hear from you, ever again, and not to try
     to contact me—how could—”
    “It was almost twenty minutes long, Sesh—”
    “I am Princess Shyf. You will address me as ‘Princess Shyf,’ or as ‘Your Utmost Grace,’ idiot boy.”
    Jak fought down his own rising