Sykora’s tail lashes around the back of Axyna’s neck like a shepherd’s crook around a hack comedian, and yanks the goggled woman forward into her blazing glare. “What have you done?”

  “Don’t blame me,” Axyna gasps. “Blame your male and his bizarre alien supercum. This is the second law of genetics he’s broken over his knee.” Her eyes dart Grant’s way. “You really should be more careful, Prince.”

  “She’ll be as tall as him?” Sykora wrenches Axyna’s attention back. “She’ll be taller than her brother?”

  “She won’t be as tall as Grantyde,” Axyna says. “Maekyonite females are shorter. Bit under 160 centimeters. And her brother will be rather tall for a male Taiikari. So perhaps they’ll be eye-to-eye.”

  Sykora trembles with rage. “You’ve made my babies giants.”

  “One of your babies is a giant. Your others are just going to be tall. Taiikari-tall, not giant-tall.” Axyna squirms in Sykora’s grip. “Look, you kidnapped the skyscraping alien. I can’t take all the blame here.”

  Sykora winches her tail tighter around the Lieutenant-Gefreiter’s neck.

  “I can reverse it, Majesty.” Axyna’s grin falters. “We are early days yet. I can splice it out.”

  “Don’t talk.” Sykora says it through gritted teeth. “Don’t say another word or I will pull your serpent tongue from your useless mouth. Leave the room now.”

  “I—”

  “LEAVE.”

  Axyna scurries from the room.

  “Hey. It’s okay.” Grant tries to ground Sykora with his usual touch, but his hand is shaking, too. “We can change her back. We caught it.”

  Sykora’s chest heaves with her labored breath. She slumps into the examination chair and tugs the diodes off her stomach.

  “We can,” she says.

  She looks up at him.

  “Should we?”

  Grant drags the injection-mold chair from the corner of the room over next to her. “What do you mean?”

  “The way we re-encode. Do you know why Taiikari only ever have Taiikari?”

  “I hadn’t thought so hard about it. I guess I thought it was the only way.”

  “It is the only way,” she says. “Because nobody has been allowed to find another. We could easily engineer a way to give ourselves alien children. But the Empire has never permitted that research. To ensure that every alien brought into the peerage has only Taiikari. To keep the nobility strictly to my species, and their invited guests.”

  Grant tilts his head. Suddenly it’s obvious. Of course they could figure out how to give Kovikan kids to Wen and Tik, or Maekyonites to Grant and Sykora. And the terrible logic is obvious, too.

  “But there is something about Maekyonites and Taiikari,” Sykora says. “Something different. Something important. I have always suspected it. The way you find us all beautiful, and vice versa. I think… you’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “Never.”

  “I think we were fated to be with each other.” She turns onto her side on the chair, stares intensely at her husband. “Our species. I think Ziavra is proof.”

  Grant remembers it. The feeling of rightness the first time he made love to Sykora. The whispered conversations. He tries to find a bit of levity in the face of Sykora’s solemn gaze. “You want Ziavra to be the tall one?”

  “I already know she is,” Sykora says. “One with Maekyonite immunity, one with Maekyonite height, one with a Maekyonite name. They will be Taiikari. But I want them to bear the mark of their father-world, too. I want the Empire to see. And when we bring Maekyon into the Empire, there’ll be more.”

  “But when would that be?” Grant asks.

  “What if…”

  Sykora shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. She opens them.

  “What if it’s soon?”

  Grant sits back. “Soon like how soon?”

  “Before the secret is forced from our children,” Sykora says. “Before Ziavra’s body changes and Kiar’s mind can be touched by language. Before they must grow up hiding their gifts, without knowing both halves of their heritage. Maekyon is in the Empress’s sights and her schemes. A Maekyonite is the Empire’s rising celebrity. What if, when our children arrive in the Empire, Maekyon follows?”

  Grant finds his feet rooted to the spot. “You’re asking me to call for the invasion of my world, Sykora.”

  “Yes,” she says. “I am.”

  She takes his hand and puts it on her exposed bump. So hot under his palm.

  “We don’t have to plan it overnight,” she says. “But once they’re born, once they’re in our arms. We take our first steps before they do. Surely that’s better than simply sitting by and allowing ourselves to be caught offguard.”

  “I can’t—”

  Grant tries to take a deep inhale; there’s a shallow anxiety blocking his breath.

  “I can’t talk about this yet,” he says.

  “But do you see my point?”

  “Sykora. I can’t—I really—I’m sorry.”

  “Shh.” Sykora sits up on her knees and puts a finger to his lips. “Don’t be sorry, Grant. And don’t be afraid. Just listen to me for a moment. I have been thinking a long time about saying this to you. And every day you prove to me more and more that you’re ready to hear it. So.”

  She takes a deep breath.

  “You told me when we first spoke of our babies to consider the unthinkable,” she says. “To name a dream that I refused to allow myself, because my upbringing told me it would be impossible and intolerable. Because it spoke against everything I thought was right. And now I’m living it. I’m growing it inside me. You told me you’d fight for it, and if I wanted you not to, I had to tell you. You made me choose. And I chose this, and I couldn’t even resent you, because every day I feel right here—” she touches her stomach. “And I am so, so infinitely grateful. And now it’s your turn.”

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  She takes both his hands.

  “Here’s what I am going to do,” she says.

  “I am going to call Axyna back into this room. And I am going to tell her that we need more time. We can’t decide yet whether we need intervention. And we’ll see what she says. If she says that’s fine, take your time, we will take our time. We’ll put this off for another day. But if she says we have to pick now, right now, I will keep Ziavra as you gave her to me. As the first of a new generation of Taiikari, with their Maekyonite blood visible and proud.

  “And I’ll ensure that her birth is not some malfunction of our genomes, and that she is not some unique curiosity. I’ll ensure that our daughter doesn’t have to be changed to have other people who look like her. I’ll ensure that our son doesn’t have to view the world through anticomp amber. I’ll bring a reckoning to the Empire’s supposedly ironclad conception of men who are compelled and women who compel. I’ll do what we fought for, you and I, when we annexed Eqtora.”

  His heart thunders against his ribcage hard enough to ache.

  Her fingers walk their way along his arm. “Before your son’s immunity and your daughter’s stature are discovered, I will claim your world, Grantyde. For you and for our children. And we will rule it together. And the next generation to grow from it will be the first in Imperial history to proudly stand as tall and uncompellable as their alien fathers. And we will be something new together. Earth will change the Empire as invariably as the Empire changes Earth.”

  She uses his world’s English name. Erf, so unfamiliar on her tongue.

  “Now tell me not to,” she whispers. “Command, and I’ll obey.”

  His voice catches in his throat. Every decision he’s refused to make comes crashing against his skull. There is no escaping this one.

  “Say no, and I won’t.” Sykora’s palm ends up on his cheek. “We’ll give Ziavra her normal Taiikari body. We’ll celebrate the other, quieter ways she’s special. We’ll return to our hiding place and our holding pattern. If you don’t want me to fight for this, tell me right now. Say it, Majesty.”

  No.

  No. Say no, Grant. She wants to conquer your homeworld. You are the only human who can stop her. Tell her no.

  Her nose presses against his. His heart hammers.

  He can’t say it. God help him. He can’t say no. He realizes he hasn’t been trying to put it off because he fears Earth’s annexation. It’s because he fears the truth:

  He wants this.

  He thinks of the world he left behind and feels nothing but pity for its state, and contempt for its leaders, and relief that he escaped the nothing, nowhere life he led on it. And he allows himself to unseal it, feels it shift him. The unspeakable conclusion he has been ignoring for he doesn’t even know how long. One that has deepened with every promise she’s kept, every kindness she’s shown, every day their babies grow inside her.

  He doesn’t care that she’s an Imperial subject. She can make them love her as much as he loves her, as much as the screaming admirers on her other worlds. She can keep them all safe from the Core and its regressives. He’ll help her. He trusts her. He loves her.

  He wants his wife to rule Earth.

  He doesn’t just hate it the least of all the alternatives. He isn’t simply holding his nose and making the best of a terrible decision. He wants it.

  “Be brave, my love,” she whispers. “Say it.”

  “Yes,” he whispers.

  The Princess of the Black Pike kisses him. He exhales sharply through his nose as their lips meet, and then he kisses her back, terrified and euphoric.

  Her hands lace into his hair and still him as she parts from their kiss. She slowly climbs from his lap and backs toward the door. Her eyes never leave his. He watches her palm raise to the door’s handle with the deliberate irreversibility of an astronomical impact event.

  She opens the door.

  “Axyna,” she calls. “Return.” And she steps aside to let the Lieutenant-Gefreiter in.

  Axyna rubs her neck as she takes her position back at the examination console. “I see we are looking rattled and resolved,” she says. “What did I miss?”

  “This change,” Sykora says. “It’s a result of some strange interaction between Maekyonite and Taiikari gametes, yes?”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “So when the Maekyonite and Taiikari populations interbreed, there will be more.”

  “Yes, Majesty.” Axyna leers. “Provided I institute no fix.”

  “And Ziavra will be able to have children of her own? She won’t be sterile?”

  “If she chooses to, Majesty.”

  “She’ll be healthy?”

  “Big and healthy, Majesty.”

  “And she won’t kill me on her way out?”

  “She’ll be perfectly normal until her growth spurts start.”

  “Should I discover you are wrong about any of this,” Sykora says, “and should we refrain from intervention, I expect you to work tirelessly to repair her to health and comfort, Axyna.”

  “Majesty.” Axyna clicks her tongue. “Did I or did I not tell you how dearly I adore the strangeness of my designer offspring? She will be well. Auntie Axyna will see to it.”

  “Don’t call yourself that.”

  Axyna shrugs and grins.

  “One last question,” Sykora says. “My husband and I are still unsure of our course. Must we decide now, or do we have time?”

  Grant’s stomach tightens like a vise.

  “You have time.” Axyna gives a blithe shrug. “But the sooner we get to her, the better the chance it’ll be a seamless adjustment. Wait too long, and a certain verticality might bake itself in deep enough I’d be hesitant to touch it. Let’s say by your next check-in at the fifth cycle.”

  “So two cycles from now,” Sykora says.

  “Excellent arithmetic, Majesty.”

  “You will bring news of this to the Empress,” Sykora says. “And word of our intent. Should she oppose the decision you will accept the blame and rectify your error. But until then, you will leave Ziavra untouched.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry.” Axyna lifts her anticomps and winks. “She’s been informed.”

  “You test my politeness, Lieutenant-Gefreiter.”

  “You pass, Majesty. Congratulations.”

  Sykora rubs her temples. “Has she replied?”

  “She has. With the conclusion that such things are for the mother to decide.” Axyna hits a few buttons on her console. “Now let’s get our firmament-shaking secrecies out, if you please, and try to get your husband looking slightly less pale. Because there’s other Core-sent business waiting for you outside.”

  Grant shakes himself and forces a deep breath. They have time. They have two more cycles.

  But you said yes, Grant. The conquest of your species. The onset of Imperial Earth. You said yes.

  “Grantyde.” His wife’s gentle voice finally tugs him back to solid ground.

  He gets to his feet and helps her from her seat. She moves toward the door and pauses as she feels his planted stance. She looks back up at him in confusion.

  “Hold on,” he says. “I think we have our answer, Axyna.”

  Axyna pauses at the door. “You do?”

  Sykora’s eyes shine. “We do?”

  “We do,” he says. “We’re keeping Ziavra as she is.”

  Axyna’s fangs gleam as she grins at Sykora. “Are we, now?”

  Sykora squeezes Grant’s palm tight, staring at him as a tempest of gratitude and anxiety and unalloyed love crosses her face. “That’s right,” she says. “We are.”

  The firmament stills as though history were taking a deep breath and holding it.

  “Okey-dokey,” Axyna says. “One big beautiful blue baby, as you order. Let’s fuck along, then.”

  She breezes from the room. The Prince and Princess follow her, in a shared and stupefied silence.

  The Lieutenant-Gefreiter pokes her head out of the service corridor into a waiting area. “All done here.”

  The handful of finely appointed coreworlder attendants frown at their colleague’s askew uniform and bruised neck. One of them, an early middle-aged woman with a geometrically perfect bob of dark hair, its forelock fretted with a silver skunk stripe, departs the bench she was seated at and drops into a kneeling bow on the floor. “I am Majordomo Lomanza. It is a true honor to meet you, Majesty. I have been thoroughly trained in both Frontier and Core protocols by the Academy Astral on Taiikar. And I am equipped with the latest cognitive stimulant suite.”

  “Charmed, Lomanza.” Sykora extends her hand out from the private reverie she was sharing with Grant. “And, uh, congratulations, I suppose.”

  “Thank you, Majesty.” Lomanza gets to her feet and brushes the knee that made contact with the seaweed rug.

  “Whose majordomo are you?” Sykora asks.

  Lomanza’s brow furrows. She looks to Axyna, who grins, and the other coreworlders, who don’t. “Yours, Majesty,” she says.

  “But I have one already,” Sykora says. “Majordomo Vora. Surely you’ve spoken with her; she booked your accommodations.”

  Lomanza laughs politely. “I fear there must have been a misunderstanding. This ought to have been communicated to you by the clerks who processed your ascension, but I suppose it is an extraordinary case. Your majordomo is not accredited to serve under a Princess Margrave, and has neither the training nor the modifications required to gain sufficient clearance. You require a majordomo with Core training.”

  Sykora’s brows knit with aghast recognition. Grant catches up a moment later.

  Lomanza says what they’ve both realized: “The Empress has sent me to replace Majordomo Vora.”