Victory Conditions Read Online Free Page B

he had to do what she said.
    Zori patted his arm. “Don’t worry—I’m not upset with you. After what happened with your family, I can understand her feelings. But really—we’re in the safest area of the station. You don’t need your guards there, I promise.”
    “I know,” Toby said. “I know that, but—she didn’t just tell me; she told them. And they listen to her.” He cleared his throat. “How angry will your parents be?”
    “Kafadit,” Zori said. “Tiagri banta zo. But she’ll have told them, I’m sure, and they’ll be upset with her, not you.”
    They were near the security gate now. Toby felt the prickle of sweat under his arms. “Kzuret,” he said softly. “Zurinfar kzuret tsim.”
    She blushed. “Kzuret adin,” she said. “But we had better not say that around my parents.”
    “I wish you knew what language it was,” Toby said, as she punched in the code. “What root, anyway…”
    “Commercial code, my father says,” Zori said, as the gate slid aside and she led him through. “Don’t you Vattas have something similar?”
    “Yes, but it’s based on one of the Slotter Key languages, extinct now. Tam-something.”
    A yell from behind made him turn around. The gate had shut before his security could get through.
    “What happened?” Toby said.
    Zori scowled. “Your cousin must not have told my father that you were bringing them. The gate was set for only the two of us. Well, that’s one way of getting rid of them—”
    “I can’t,” Toby said. The two men were glaring at him through the gate. “Stella would—” He moderated his first thought, shaping it to Cascadian terms. “—be most upset.”
    Zori gave him a challenging look. “My parents were most upset about you, remember? And I faced them down. Are you that—” He could see the effort she made to frame it in courteous terms and then she shifted to their slang. “—that protvin?”
    That stung. “It’s not a matter of courage,” he started; her brows went up, the expression on her face all scorn and utterly beautiful at once. Toby felt his heart turn over. Kzuret adin, she’d said. She loved him. He still didn’t know why she loved him, but cowardice certainly wasn’t the reason. He could still feel her warm breath on his ear when she’d said it; he could still smell her fragrance. “I have to explain to them,” he said. “That’s only polite.” She nodded, her face relaxing now.
    Toby walked the few steps back to the gate. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But apparently Stella didn’t tell Zori’s father that I would have an escort. The gate’s set for only two, and Zori doesn’t have the right to let anyone else in. When I get to her place, I’ll ask her parents to let you in, but really—you can see, you know, it’s The Cone. Nothing bad happens here. I’ll be fine.”
    “You should come out. You know that. Your cousin told you—”
    Toby shrugged. “She wants me safe; I understand that. But I’m perfectly safe here. It’s The Cone, after all.”
    “It’s our job; we’re supposed to be with you at all times—” And they had been, and he and Zori had not been able to do anything without those watchful and—he feared—amused adult gazes on them.
    “I’m not coming out,” Toby said. “I’m just going to meet Zori’s parents, and it would be rude to be late. You can explain to Stella.”
    “We certainly will,” said the elder.
    A few minutes later, in the elegant salon of Zori’s place, Toby returned the polite bow of the older man—Zori’s father—whose perfectly tailored suit and polished shoes seemed impregnable as a suit of armor.
    “And this is my wife, Zori’s mother,” he said, gesturing to a dark-haired woman in a gown of pale green. She had not risen from her chair. Like all the others in the room, it had thin curved legs and a narrow seat upholstered in stripes of green and cream.
    Toby bowed again, this time more deeply as appropriate for a young man to an