So Vile a Sin Read Online Free PDF Page B

the dreams and the episodes were a good thing.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because otherwise my head would explode.’

    33
    Kibero Patera, Io: 31 December 2981
    The dress was unique: a one-off exclusive from the House of Scheherazade. A simple strapless sheath of burgundy silk that clung to Genevieve’s body from armpit to ankle. Panels cut in the fabric exposed precisely delineated strips of her skin, at waist, thigh and the underside of her breasts.
    She wore matching slingbacks with eight-centimetre force-field spikes. Her shoulders were dusted with sparkle, her lips and nails painted gold and silver. A single glittering circle held her yellow hair in its elaborate style – an ancient compact-compact disc made into a clasp, an inch across and five centuries old.
    The fashion thread of the TopTenPercent media feed later described it as a statement, daringly high-tech in a scene given over to ethnic bad. ‘Retro dela retro,’ said the pundits. ‘What the well-dressed concubine wears to the ball and of course, darling, it eliminates any chance that she’ll wear the same dress as the Duchess.’ (That would have been impossible. Genevieve had already cleared the dress with the event fashion coordinator.) She spent the flight to Kibero sitting carefully upright so as not to crease the dress. A solitary splash of colour among the tasteful grey upholstery of the Ducal shuttle.
    There was colour outside the shuttle as well: the ochre, yellow and chrome green of Io herself. The only Galilean moon never to be terraformed and the only planetoid of any size to fall within the fiefdom of baronetcy.
    The pilot interrupted her thoughts to point out an active volcano visible to starboard. Genevieve turned her perfect face to the window and watched the plume of sulphur dioxide rise over the limb of the moon as the shuttle began its final descent.
    There had been a castle built of grey stone by the sea, and around the castle a town of narrow streets and steep slate roofs. Every tenday Genevieve and her father had ridden out, horses’ hooves sparking on the cobbled streets, to sit in judgement in the villages and farms. There had been banquets and games and falconry.
    There had been laughter and music.
    34
    She had been raised to believe in the ancient ideals of the nobility. But it had all been taken away by the rise of the Liberal Reconstructionists on Tara. Genevieve had never understood it –
    her father had always been a just man.
    She’d heard the castle was a municipal health spa now.
    Anybody who is anybody, they said, spends New Year’s Eve at Kibero.
    The ball was held on a wide balcony that jutted out of the caldera’s rim. Standing at the white marble balustrade, it was possible to look out over the rolling grasslands of the caldera proper.
    A forest was a smudge on Io’s close horizon. Genevieve could see animals moving about, a glimpse of something big and grey among the trees. Above, the dome gave the illusion of a clear blue sky. Jupiter was a vast indigo shadow directly overhead, the sun an improbably small point of brilliant light. You couldn’t see the far wall of the caldera at all.
    Other guests were looking out as well: a party wearing formal suits and sashes marked with corporate symbols. Genevieve recognized the chair of IIe Aiye, a core system conglomerate with defence interests. She was talking to a small man wearing a purple IMC sash.
    Genevieve caught a woman from ElleryCorp watching her. The woman turned away and whispered something to her companion.
    Gossip no doubt. About the Duke of Callisto’s new concubine.
    An aristo. You’re kidding me! I swear it’s true. A provincial family, but old. Who would have thought Walid had the time for such things? What does his wife think? Do you really think he cares?
    ‘Lady Genevieve, I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you.’
    Lady Leabie Susan Inyathi Forrester, fifteenth Baroness of Io, was a slender dark-skinned woman with black eyes. Platinum, silver and