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Jupiter has discovered one flaw in her plan. The plan where she goes back to a normal life, a life that doesn't involve bee-dancing or escaping from mortal peril every six hours, one where she scrubs toilets and thinks about the ways power can make people into monsters, and whether there's any way to have the power without the monstrosity. It's not leaving a lot of time for reading. Especially through the complete set of information she was handed. It's one thing to skim the code for relevant kidnapping rules (thank god for indexes, right?), and another to read the whole thing cover to cover.
"Years," she tells Caine, "at my current rate." She hasn't been much for reading since high school, from around the time when she figured out how hard it would be to swing a real college degree with her, let's call it imprecise legal status. Finances aside. There are ways around that. They require paperwork. She's had enough paperwork for a lifetime. "Don't they have an easier version? The Complete Idiot's Guide To Royalty?"
She's pretty sure she's joking. It's more fun to fly over the city and pay attention to the way his wings work--surely they shouldn't work, not really, maybe in lower gravity but not here, but they've all established she doesn't understand genetics--than to think about all the things she ought to know and doesn't know.
But three dates later, Caine shows up with a book. A pamphlet? A "sheave" in his words. Courtesy of Stinger, thank you very much, who did try to explain things once in a while, and still knows where to requisition useful literature while he's off doing whatever sort of space cop things he does now, back in the Legion. Probably important things that involve lots of explosions. (Enough for a lifetime, there too.) The so-called sheave is one of those voice-and-hologram tablets, and it starts off with cheery fanfare over gold lettering.
So You're The Recurrence Of An Entitled!
It takes her two minutes to figure out how to turn off the sound and get text instead, since she refuses to ask Caine for help on this one. And Jupiter's pretty sure this was designed for children.
When the lights go out that night, she opens up the tablet under her blankets--as if she is a child again, getting in a comic book after her bedtime--and tries out the index.
What does it mean to be entitled?
That's a very complicated question! The universe is full of different governmental systems, united by a complex series of treaties. Sometimes these treaties break down, and governments go to war. But you don't have to worry about that! There are very strict rules about not harming the entitled. Tap here to see the full legal code on hostage-taking and ransoms.
#
"Another date," her mother says, in that voice that's poised right between pride and chiding. "When do we meet this boy?"
"Soon," Jupiter lies, and deflects more questions all the way out the door. She's getting better at deflection. Better at lying, if she wants to put it that way, and maybe she doesn't, okay? Maybe she wants to think about it as putting things off until a better moment and not, oh, forestalling the inevitable or lying through her teeth to the people she loves. Those are lousy ways to look at what's nothing more than necessity.
She spins through the air on antigrav boots, and thinks about how the next time, she's not going to be the one plummeting helplessly. Getting caught is great. Not needing the catch is even better.
"When does the ship arrive?" she asks Caine.
"Tomorrow night."
He doesn't ask if she can get the night off. Sometimes she's pretty sure that it doesn't occur to him that arranging for off-planet bureaucratic maneuvers might be a problem with her family life and its own schedule. She's an entitled ("It's hereditary, your majesty" and "Bees can sense royalty" and it still feels like a mistake) and she sets her own schedule.
She cannot imagine Kalique sneaking out of the house or lying to her mother, ninety-one-thousand-year-old terror of the galaxy, about a weekend trip with old school friends, just to get some paperwork filed.
#
What should I tell my family?
You don't have to tell them anything! You have a new family now that can take care of little details like that. Many people in your position have left their families behind and never looked back. But even if you like your family, it's best to say nothing about this to them. Primitive worlds don't understand these things. It's just like in the story of INSERT CULTURAL REFERENCE HERE. You too have discovered your true heritage, just like INSERT CULTURAL REFERENCE HERE, and are moving on to greater things. Tap here for a list of excellent companies you can hire to seamlessly remove traces of you from your previous world, while leaving your old family quite happy!
#
Jupiter crosses her arms over her chest, and tries to stare down Stinger. This would be easier if he were still kneeling, but it seems like everyone got over that move as soon as they realized she wasn't going to order anyone beheaded for not complying. (Can she behead people? She's not sure. Probably there's a difference between "can I do this legally" and "can I get away with this in practice" anyway.) "This is for children," she says. "Isn't it. And you didn't even fill out the 'insert name here' parts!"
"Knew I forgot something," Stinger says, unapologetic. He's looking sharper these days. Back in uniform, with his own wings back, and he fits in on the bridge of Captain Tsing's ship as well as anyone else. Better than her, even if they're wearing the same kinds of clothing.
He doesn't look any younger, which is good. She's figured out a few things about how these people work in retrospect, thinking back on what people said before she knew what some of their words meant, and oh, she's putting off the day when she talks to anyone she likes about that, too.
Countess Bathory bathed in the blood of, what, a hundred virgins? A hundred, let's call it. As much as it takes to fill a single bottle of the best Regenex, which isn't so picky as to require virgins. It'll take anyone. Men and women, infants and the elderly. As fair as any type of indiscriminate murder can get. Jupiter worked out the math, roughly. For how many people had to die to pull a few decades off Stinger. Or Caine. Every damn time, and that's not even counting other uses of that Soylent Green horror for medical work.
She's putting off looking at that the way she's putting off telling her family about anything.
"I'm not a little girl," she says.
"Of course not, your majesty." Stinger can do polite and bland with the best of them, and she's not going to get better out of him. "We can get you something more advanced at Orous--"
"No," she says. "I don't even want to know what's required to apply for a library card around here."
#
Why can I understand what everyone says?
That's a simple question with a very complicated answer! On your world, you probably think about languages as something that come in lots of different types, and that you can't speak without growing up speaking them, or spending a lot of time learning how. It turns out that there's an easy way around that kind of hard work. But your world doesn't have the science for it yet. Maybe some day, if you like, you could learn about this type of science too! Tap here for more information about advanced degrees in geno-linguistics programs across the galaxy.
#
Advocate Bob looks exactly the same as last time. (There's a reflex flinch that moves through the crew just on seeing him. Something about the paperwork.) He is, if possible, smiling even more widely, for having been requested by name.
It took three forms and half an hour in line to make sure they'd requested the same Advocate Bob as before, but Jupiter was firm on this point. She wanted someone she knew, and who hadn't--as far as she knew--betrayed her even once, to take her through this bureaucratic process. He did it before, he can do it again. No sudden replacement of Advocate Stranger who might be working for an enemy.
Apparently she has enemies.
"It's so good to work for you again, your majesty!" Bob chirps, as he strides down one of the endless corridors towards an elevator that will take them to another corridor and at some point, really, to the next office necessary. "I have complete confidence in the smooth working of the entire legislative process on your visit! Why, they've given you a pre-trial hearing slot already, and usually the wait is over seven years!"
"Is it because I'm entitled?" Jupiter asks.
"Naturally! You are entitled to many things. For instance, complimentary beverages from the vending clerks in waiting areas." He stops at a wall flashing directions, arrows and names that are in...English? Russian?
Jupiter honestly can't tell which language they're written in. If she focuses, they seem to be in English, and that's definitive, right? But it makes no sense that the universe at large would speak the same language. Maybe the sheave is right, and she just shouldn't think about it.
She's getting a long list of things not think about.
"...complimentary replacement guards in neutral zones," Advocate Bob is saying, and she realizes he's been going on about her entitlements while she zoned out. Maybe she can ask Caine for a recap later; he's still keeping at her back like a proper bodyguard, silent and alert. Or maybe just bored. "Along with front row seating in the festival arena at all standard games and those sponsored by families not under legally sanctioned blood feud with yours! You are also entitled to place preferred bids on government contracts for standard employees there."
"Sure," Jupiter says. "Are we almost at the courtroom?"
"Almost!" says Advocate Bob.
#
How do I claim what I willed to myself?
All you have to do is go to the nearest bureaucratic center authorized to handle entitled inheritance, and a complementary advocate will walk you through the whole process. If your family has contacted you, that's even easier! A trusted family retainer will handle everything, and all you'll need to do is show up at the end to confirm it's really you and receive your mark. Tap here for more information about how to fill out forms.
#
She's sipping a complimentary beverage from a beverage-dispensing clerk--it looks unnervingly like the cannon-armed bodyguards Kalique had stomping about, except that its arms dispense some sort of honey-lemon nectar instead of ammunition--when she figures out what he meant.
"Holy shit," Jupiter says, and Caine's on alert, just like that.
"Your majesty? Is something wrong?"
"He was saying that I could buy him," Jupiter says. "Is that--are all the people in the bureaucracy owned? Under contract? Or--I don't get how this even works, with who can just sell people or what."
Caine shifts his stance a little. The version that means he's trying to figure out how upset she's going to be about this fact of intergalactic life, so that he can decide how to phrase it: the way he would for an entitled, or the way he would for the inhabitant of a primitive world. "Splices and androids can be made and sold," he says. So he's trying for the simple, calm version. "Once they're under contract, they tend to stay there, but it doesn't have to be forever. They have some rights."
He's saying they and not we, and Jupiter can't tell if it's because he doesn't want to group himself together with the robots, or because he doesn't like to think about this part. Stinger wasn't shy about discussing the making-and-selling of splices, back when she met him, but she's figuring out that Stinger's not actually a great example of normal for people in the Aegis.
"Do I need an advocate of my own?" Jupiter stops, and thinks about what she just said. "Do I have an advocate of my own?" It's weird enough to think about owning planets, but somehow owning people is even stranger. A planet's almost too big to think about, except as a bright dot in the sky. A person's easy to conceptualize. A person can stand right in the same room as you.
"Right here, your majesty!" Advocate Bob calls, pushing his way across the room to where she's been waiting. Royalty gets to sit in a single dingy chair right by the beverage dispenser, with an equally dingy rope marking off the reserved area. The government-assigned advocate gets to push through the crowd of plebeians to stand in line for her. It doesn't seem fair.
Of course it's not fair. If it were fair, it wouldn't be royalty.
#
Someone older than me is calling me INSERT FAMILY TITLE HERE! What does that mean?
It can mean as much or as little as the two of you like! Some recurrences like to step right back into the family place they inhabited in a previous life. Others like to be treated like a distant relative who has inherited and moved in with the family. Legally speaking, you're a new person, inheriting the titles of the dead person you're the recurrence of, along with anything that person willed to you. Sometimes this is an awful lot, and sometimes it's not much at all. Of course, you'll want to make your own will too! Tap here for more information about inheritance law.
#
"The marriage isn't legally binding, the mark not having been completed at the ceremony," says the lawyer at the front of the room. She's a glossy inhuman pink-white, decorated in elegant gold filigree. Unlike Advocate Bob, she hasn't smiled once through this entire interminable process. "Consequently, the prosecuting party, Jupiter Jones, is not entitled to any of the data from standard recording devices owned by the defendant, Titus Abrasax, under subsection 17-D of the applicable legal codes--"
"I object!" Advocate Bob is nearly vibrating at the declaration stand he's been given, even as he swaps between a stack of sheaves that covers the surface of the stand. "The information request has clearly been made under the standards of the Li-Santon Act, section 5, such that the marital status of the defendant is irrelevant!"
"So you admit that the marital status is irrelevant," said the filigreed lawyer, her finger-segments flying across the sheaves in front of her. "When before you stated--"
"Irrelevant only in the sense of that specific application of the information request--"
The judge, who looked to have been spliced from an owl, pressed a control on the arm of the chair she was seated in on high. A flicker of blue shock passed across Titus's lawyer and Advocate Bob both, silencing the two of them. "Counsel will restrain themselves," she said wearily, "and remember that at this hearing we are only entering the preliminary facts as laid out in the standard informational packet, not attempting to try the case. Counsel will restrain themselves or be put into restraints. Am I clear?"
"Yes, your honor," chorused the androids meekly.
Jupiter leaned over in her chair to whisper to Caine, "How much longer does this part go on?"
"At least another day," he muttered back. "Unless someone breaks in and tries to kill you, first."
It wasn't that he wanted anyone to do her harm, Jupiter decided, that had him sounding so wistful about that. He just wanted to see a little action. Another three hours of court proceedings, and she might even agree with him.
#
But what about all the plans I had for my life before I found this out?
It's good to have dreams. You'll soon find that your dreams can become so much grander than anything you imagined before. Now that you're entitled, you can do things that were impossible on your primitive planet! If you meant to study INSERT CULTURAL REFERENCE HERE, you'll find that it's been superseded entirely by INSERT MODERN TECHNOLOGICAL REFERENCE HERE. So why would you want to pursue those old goals, when you could do bigger things! Tap here for more information about city design and administration. Tap here for more information about gene splicing. Tap here for more information about applied robotics and artificial intelligence. Tap here for more information about socio-cultural manipulation studies. Tap here for more information about modern fashion and interior design.
#
Titus looks exactly like he did at the wedding. Smug. Serene. Too pretty, as her uncle would say, though Jupiter doesn't think Titus's problem is being too pretty. His problem is that he's gotten what he wanted for so long, he never learned how to cope with not getting what he wants.
Or as her junior year English teacher would've said, Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Jupiter's never been quite sure what that meant. Right now, though, she's sure it applies to the man standing in front of the judge, swearing up and down that he never intended to cause a single moment of harm to the recurrence of his beloved mother. That the Aegis jumped the gun, and attacked his ship, interrupted his wedding, on the hasty word of a splice who, well, let's be honest, had some issues in the past with entitled, now, didn't he? Who Titus had requested a pardon for out of sheer goodwill and an attempt to please his future bride, and who had responded to that gesture of peace and friendship with nothing but rabble-rousing. Violence. Assault on his property and his very person.
"No one's going to believe him," Jupiter whispers, "right? He tried to space you! You heard what he said!"
"His word against mine, when he's entitled and I'm a splice?" Caine's mouth twists as they listen to Titus give his speech.
The man who is not her youngest son, whatever people might say--surely if they really meant that, he never would've tried to marry her--lies just as well in front of the judge as he lied in front of her. He's so good at it.
Jupiter wonders if she's going to be that good at it, after a few more months of lying to her family. Or if it takes millennia of practice to get that good at being a liar.
"I'm an entitled too," Jupiter says. "They have to listen to me."
#
What if I don't get along with my new family?
Sometimes your new family can still be upset about things that happened before you were even born. It can be rough for a while! But if you have patience and show them the sort of person you are now, you can form new relationships with them that will make everyone happier. Tap here for more information about inter-familial social etiquette.
#
"I can't believe she said that," Jupiter says. Right. Maybe she's snarling a little, but entitled don't snarl, they...declare. Really. She's royalty, she gets to say that she's being calm even if people are backing away from her like she's Moses parting the Red Sea as she stomps down the corridor. Maybe it's the grim pointy-eared bodyguard, maybe it's the android making little fluttery gestures warning people off, maybe it's that somehow she's finally figured out how to emote I'm royalty so get right out of may way at crowds of strangers.
"No one will take her testimony seriously," Bob says earnestly, scurrying to keep up with her. "Everyone knows that a family retainer such as that would lie to preserve the reputation, alibi, and preferred statements of their employer! Judges take that into account when weighing how to proceed!"
"She threw Caine into space! She was standing right there and--he could have died!"
"I didn't," Caine points out. He's not having any trouble keeping up with her. Jupiter suspects she could be sprinting and he'd keep up without needing to so much as break into a jog. "She's not going to admit any culpability. Titus would blame everything on her in an instant if she broke with his story."
"Everyone knows that family retainers--"
Jupiter stops. "Everyone knows! I didn't know. No one told me that when the captain filed charges, it was going to be followed by everyone involved lying blatantly to the judge."
"I have an explanatory sheave," Bob begins. He stops at her expression. "...or perhaps it's time for a complementary beverage from that kiosk!"
"I want to go back to the ship," Jupiter says.
The nice thing about being royalty is that she gets a yes your majesty from everyone involved. All the way back. On another day she might appreciate it.
#
Do I have enemies now that I'm a very important person?
You certainly do! Anyone worth anything has enemies. But you don't need to worry about that. Your family only has enemies it's equipped to handle, or it wouldn't still be around to be your family, now, would it? And you get a free set of guards from the Aegis! Lots of entitled replace these with their own guards, but you can feel safer for now knowing that the very best military in the universe is watching out personally for your well-being. Tap here for more information about blood feuds.
#
"At least back home I know the legal system's...corrupt, and inefficient, and can't do anything for anyone," Jupiter says. She's talking more to herself than to her supposed audience. "I thought maybe royalty could get some justice."
"Perhaps you still can," Captain Tsing says. She's as solemn as the lawyer with all the gold filigree, and more intimidating. But more comforting, too. "I did not file charges on the expectation that this was a meaningless gesture, your majesty."
"I don't have enough proof. We don't have recordings of anything he did unless the information request goes through, and then it's just Caine and me against him and every single person on his ship who'll swear it was--a mistake! Me misunderstanding things, with my primitive ways, and they're making out Caine to be some kind of psycho who just wants to attack entitled--"
"I did not attack that ship based on nothing but hearsay," Captain Tsing says. "Our records of retrieving Mr. Wise from the void, in equipment marked with with serial numbers that will be traced to that ship, have been submitted to the judge. This is not our first rodeo, your majesty."
"Please don't call me that," Jupiter says. "And--I'm pretty sure you didn't say that, exactly."
"What?"
"About rodeos. I mean, there has to be a technological thing translating or..." Jupiter slumps down onto the padded bench that stands in for a bed and a chair and every other sort of special furniture in this room. Special furniture for special quarters for special people, and it's still smaller than Katherine's bedroom. Compare that to Titus's dining room on his ship. Now that's the difference between space cops and space royalty, right there. "Never mind. I just thought this would be easier. He tried to marry me and kill me to steal what I owned, and he acts like he's going to get away with everything."
"If he seemed concerned about being convicted," Captain Tsing says, "how do you think the judge would take that?"
It's a good point. It almost makes Jupiter feel better.
#
How will I ever catch up with the rest of my family? They were all born into this, and I only got here just now!
Study the code, and read this book! You'll catch up in no time. After a few centuries, no one will ever be able to tell the difference between a recurrence and someone who was born from an exo-womb like the rest of your family. A thousand years from now, you'll look back at all your questions now and won't worry about them in the slightest, just like you didn't worry about INSERT CULTURAL REFERENCE HERE when you reached INSERT CURRENT AGE HERE. Tap here for more information on entitled etiquette.
#
Jupiter looks Titus right in the eyes when she gives her testimony. And she doesn't flinch back from his smile or his confidence. So he's used to lying to people before trying to kill them? That means she has some kind of morality on her side, and she will take all the confidence she can from that. Even in this world, that will murder billions so a few hundred can live out those years of stolen lives, the court system frowns on murdering royalty.
She's not sure she likes being royalty. It feels like buying in to something bigger and meaner than she is. Stepping right up on top of the tank while it rolls over the bodies. But she's sure that she can get more done from up on top than while she's getting crushed beneath its treads.
Start small. Work her way up. Figure out how to stop the tank in its tracks. What's the bureaucratic equivalent of a Molotov cocktail when you need one, anyway?
The judge rules that there's enough evidence to proceed to an actual trial.
Titus tries to make a warm gesture towards her while they're both leaving the courtroom, and Caine's right in the way, teeth showing. As if Jupiter would ever let that man touch her again. As if she wants to exchange two words in a row with him, after what he did.
The bodyguard thing is one of the better perks of royalty, all told. Definitely better than the beverage service.
"I'm going to need a lawyer," she tells Caine. "A lawyer of my own. Would it be rude to try to buy Advocate Bob's contract?"
"You may have better lawyers already," he says. "From what was willed to you."
"Ones that Balem had possession of for all this time. Even if they're better, I can't trust any of them. Can I?"
"No," he says.
"So I stick with the people I trust," she says, "and then I--make things work. I don't know how, but I'm going to make this work. You have my back, and I have... Well."
There's a lot to do, and she can't even figure out where to start. Stop lying to her family, reclaim the rest of her inheritance, figure out how to stop the harvesting of places she'd never heard existed a month ago, buy an android, talk to someone about her full honor guard, get better walking shoes if she's going to spend this much time standing in line and stomping through bureaucratic offices.
She pulls out the sheave, and turns it back on. Welcome back, INSERT NAME HERE! says the projection.
Caine gives it a dubious look. "You have that?"
Jupiter shrugs, and taps through to the advanced information on inheritance. "A lot of reading to do."