Victory Conditions Read Online Free

mine.”
    “Would you tell me something of your—and I assume Toby’s—world?”
    “I grew up onplanet,” Stella said. “The main family house was in the country, though my father’s business took him to the city much of the time—” She noticed that Sera Louarri’s face relaxed. Was it the country, or the city? “Slotter Key has four main continents and a lot of good-sized islands. The family as a whole has tik plantations on several subtropical islands, but we lived in a temperate zone—stone fruits in our orchards, lovely in the spring. My cousin Ky—you have heard of her, I know—lived on one of the tropical islands, with reefs just offshore on the east side. We visited each other often.”
    “You could grow Old Earth stone fruits in quantity?”
    “Oh, yes. Exported the fruit and nursery stock offworld—for some reason, the result of terraforming there worked for all the rose-family plants, and our family lands had varied terrain so we could grow just about all of them. The first time I went outsystem, I was amazed to find that not all planets could grow them, even after terraforming.”
    “You must have traveled a lot,” Sera Louarri said, sounding wistful. “And so young. Did your family approve?”
    Surely she had heard…Stella explained, as if no one could be expected to have done research. The family business, the habit of sending young people out to sample the universe.
    “I also grew up onplanet,” Sera Louarri said. “My family has—had—timberland. We export hardwoods, you know. The native vegetation, not Terran.”
    “But for food?”
    “Oh, farmland’s terraformed, of course. But not the forests; the native trees have incredible wood. My family were Firsters.” She seemed more relaxed now, more confident. “We had a grant that covered all the ground from the coast to the inland range, for a thousand kilometers.”
    “We called them Chartered,” Stella said, smiling. “The first colonists on Slotter Key. Vatta’s Chartered.”
    “You are?” Sera Louarri peered at her a moment. “But that’s the same—?”
    “If I understand Firsters. Your family goes back to the colony foundation, and you were investors, right?”
    “Right.” Now Sera Louarri sat back a little, and her smile widened. “And your nephew, he grew up the same?”
    “Not exactly. His parents live in another system, running a branch operation. I’m not really familiar with his home world.”
    “My husband’s business also operates in multiple systems,” Sera Louarri said. “But you—you’re not married?”
    “No,” Stella said.
    “And your family does not mind? They do not press you for an alliance with another?”
    “My family,” Stella said, carefully controlling her tone, “is mostly dead. But my father wanted me to have experience, he said, before I married. If I married.”
    “Zori is too young to marry.”
    Stella just managed not to laugh. “So is Toby, of course. But young people—they will form attachments.”
    Sera Louarri’s gaze wandered away and back. “I think my husband is not coming, and we should go in to lunch.”
    Cascadian custom prohibited business discussion at most meals—certainly in a place like The Glade—and Stella wondered if the follies of youth were considered business. Through the appetizer, Sera Louarri said nothing of the youngsters, commenting only on the food.
    With the next course, she made a few comments about Zori’s upbringing, the importance of their traditional religious rites. “And your family?” she said.
    “We are not of the same faith as you,” Stella said. “But if I understand correctly, yours originated from the Modulan, did it not?”
    Sera Louarri nodded. “Our beliefs are also descended from Modulans. So…you are opposed to unnecessary conflict? Our emphasis on courtesy and serenity does not seem excessive to you?”
    “Not at all,” Stella said.
    Not until dessert came did Sera Louarri bring up the matter at hand. “I