Honour's Knight Read Online Free PDF Page B

to give up.
    “Are you certain you don’t wish to come?” Nova asked again, smoothing out her star-spangled dress one last time. “Basil’s coming.”
    If I’d been on the fence, that would have knocked me right off. The last thing I wanted to do was go anywhere on this crowded, dirty world with a picky bird. “Thanks again,” I said. “But I’ll pass.”
    Nova’s face fell, which made me feel like a jerk. Before I could tell her I was sorry, though, she said, “Maybe I should ask Mr. Charkov?”
    I frowned. “Who?”
    Nova blinked at me. “Rupert Charkov? The cook?”
    “Is that his name?” I said, trying to remember.
    Nova stared at me in confusion for a moment, then looked away, her pale cheeks going red. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just thought that you and he were…” She trailed off, going redder still before she turned away and started brushing her hair frantically. “Never mind. It’s just, his aura has been even dimmer than usual, and I assumed, well, never mind.”
    She was talking so fast by the end that the words were running together. I had no idea what she was on about. If the cook’s aura was dim, it couldn’t be my fault. Other than his seeming inability to keep his eyes to himself, there was less than nothing between me and—
    I stopped. Even though Nova had just told me, I couldn’t remember the cook’s name. It had just slipped through my mind. That was strange; I wasn’t usually forgetful about stuff like this. What was his name? I was about to ask Nova to repeat it when Basil squawked from the hallway that they were going to be late.
    Nova darted out the door, yelling over her shoulder for me to have a good evening. I didn’t feel comfortable with the ship full of strangers, so I got up too, following her into the lounge where Basil was waiting. This dinner must have been quite the thing, because our aeon navigator was dressed up as well. I’d never seen Basil wear anything over his feathers, but tonight he had some kind of black silk cape thing tied over his back and wings. The little square of black cloth on the back of an alien who looked like a giant ostrich was so stupid looking I forgot all about the cook in my struggle not to burst out laughing.
    “Is something funny, Morris?” Basil snapped, swiveling his long neck down to put his sharp yellow beak right in my face.
    “No sir,” I said, trying not to choke. “I was just admiring your cape.”
    Basil rolled his huge yellow eyes. “It’s a mark of respect . I’m not about to embarrass myself going out without my black on Remembrance Day.”
    “What day?”
    Basil’s beak fell open. “You’ve worked in the Terran Republic for how many years and you don’t know about Remembrance Day?”
    “Do I look Terran to you?” I asked, crossing my arms. “The Blackbirds took Republic jobs, but we’re a Paradoxian outfit. We celebrated the five high holy days and King Stephen’s birthday. Besides, Terrans have like ten thousand holidays. You can’t expect me to keep up with all of them.”
    “There are a lot,” Nova admitted. “But Remembrance Day is special. Unlike the regional celebrations, Remembrance Day is one of the thirty-seven mandated holidays celebrated on every planet in the Republic.”
    I shook my head. Mandated holidays. How Terran. “What are they remembering anyway?” Because if it was some giant defeat at the hands of the Paradoxian army, I was having another beer to celebrate.
    “The destruction of Svenya,” Basil said, his whistling voice taking on what he probably meant to be a somber tone. “It was a colony world even older and bigger than Wuxia, but sixty-some-odd years ago its orbit spontaneously destabilized and the planet broke apart.”
    Now that Basil mentioned it, I dimly remembered hearing about the tragedy of Svenya back in school, usually as an example of what happened to those who did not have a living saint to rule them. “Didn’t some absurd number of people