Free The Serrano Connection by Elizabeth Moon Page B

close. She knew that her walk from the shuttle through the terminal to the waiting car would be only one clip in the finished story, narrated by a senior "analyst." No one would try to interview her; here that was considered rude and disrespectful.
     
    Her father, backed by a wedge of other officers, gave her the same formal salute Berthol had; she returned it, and he gave her the semiformal hug and kisses, not fatherly, but from commander to junior about to be honored. She was introduced to his senior aide, to the next senior; she was led through a corridor where a solid block of militia provided complete privacy—in their terms, which meant from civilian eyes—for her few moments in the ladies' retiring room, where she found two tiring maids ready to apply fresh makeup and attempt to do something about her flyaway hair. That ended in a spritz of scented stuff which would leave her scalp itchy for two days—but this once, she didn't mind. In moments they had whisked off her R.S.S. uniform jacket, pressed it, and after a look at the shirt beneath, insisted on replacing it with a clean one from her luggage.
     
    Refreshed, and to her surprise cheered by these ministrations, Esmay came back out, into the midst of a low-voiced argument between her father and her uncle.
     
    "It's only one cloud," her uncle was saying. "And it might not rain—"
     
    "It's only one bullet," her father said. "And it might miss. I'm not taking the chance. When her hair gets wet—Oh, there you are, Esmaya. There's a line of storms moving into the city; we're going to go by car—"
     
    "It's not nearly as impressive," Berthol grumbled. "And it's not as if you expected her to do any real riding."
     
    She had assumed by car; she'd forgotten that on Altiplano all ceremony involved horses. She thanked some unknown deity for the gift of a possible rainstorm and her father's distaste for the frizzy mess her hair became if it got damp. At least no one from Fleet was here, to make a joke about a backwoods military that still used horses.
     
    Of course the parade still had horses, even though she was in a car. From the protection of the car, she watched the perfectly drilled cavalry swing into position before and behind, the horses moving in unison, their glossy haunches bunching and relaxing. The riders, their backs upright, hands quiet, faces set in a neutral expression that would not vary if a horse stood up on its hind legs . . . not that one of those well-trained animals would. Beyond the horses, a crowd on the sidewalks, faces peering from the windows of the taller buildings. Some of them waved the gold and red Altiplano colors.
     
    She had not been home for just over ten standard years. She had left as a gawky teenager, who in memory seemed the very model of adolescent incapacity. Nothing had fit, not her body nor her mind nor her emotions. From not fitting at home to not fitting in the Fleet prep school had been a tiny, natural transition. By the time she had graduated from the Academy, she had expected to be the odd one out, the one whose reactions were not natural.
     
    She had not realized how much those feelings had been due to age and then the real displacement of leaving her home world before her adult identity had solidified. Now, in the light of Altiplano's sun, with her body held by Altiplano's gravity, she began to relax, feeling at home in a way she had not since she was a little girl. The colors were right in a way they had not been for years; her very bones knew that this gravity, not one standard G, was the right gravity.
     
    When she stepped out of the car, and walked up the red stone steps of the palace, her feet found the right intervals without effort. These steps were the right height, the right depth; this stone felt solid enough; this doorway welcomed; this air—she took another long breath—this air smelled right, and felt right all the way down to the bottom of her lungs.
     
    She looked around at the people now