GROUND / CH. 28:SAILING
SPACE
[Magdalena?] James called, [Tsarevna Anastasia of Russia would like to think to you.]
[I'm honoured!] Magdalena said, putting down her report.
[I'm excited that it looks like I'm coming to work with you, Magdalena Karella John. But my father wishes to bully... sorry, persuade Atlantis that a plan he came up with over tea last night has merit, and he'd like your formal support.]
[The Tsar of Russia wishes to have my support?] Magdalena asked, intensely surprised.
[Yes. It goes like this: He has agreed to allow me to come to Ground and study the geology. Mikhail Krista Boris, another geologist with whom I walk, will also come. His sister and my brother have secretly — at least from me and Mikhail — been walking together this past academic year and are now semi-betrothed, and may be named the ambassadors of Russia to Ground. Father does not want the four of us to be so far from home when there are just not enough ships to evacuate everyone. I'm not going too fast am I?]
[No, I think I can keep up. What do you mean semi-betrothed?]
[Tibor, my brother, has vowed he will marry Svetlana if she'll have him, he wouldn't let her vow she'd marry him, because he's been Mr Mysterious Incognito until yesterday, so apparently she said 'Of course I'll marry you, you great big romantic, now get up off your knees and give me a kiss and name a date. And don't say next week, we've got exams. Oh, will it upset the great Russian people if I marry you wearing scale and carrying my knife?']
[She and Mikhail are Mer?]
[Three of their grandparents were born in Atlantis: one full-blooded Mer, one full-blooded Jersais, one full-blooded Russian, and the other grandmother's half Mer half-Russian.]
[Well that's more Mer blood than me, and it sounds like she knows how to disembowel sharks.]
[Yes, and apparently she swapped her wrist-unit battery for fusion power and a personal forcefield while staying with an artificer cousin last summer, so she's getting some pearls accruing in Atlantis for the design idea.]
[That sounds a handy modification. Not to mention a nice income stream.]
[But anyway, with two or four of us coming to Ground, not enough space to sensibly evacuate if we find out that one of the suns is about to go unstable or something, and the possibility that we'll find out that Ground needs some water delivered, Dad declared that what Ground really needs is two or three bubble-drive equipped Celestia mark-V transports. If you need a comet, then open cargo hold, grab comet and either just turn the engines up full or drop into bubble-space and take it to Ground orbit, or maybe both, depending on what physics says we can and can't do.]
[Wow. And he wants my support convincing Atlantis?]
[Yes.]
[What sort of quid-pro-quo are we talking about?]
[Well, kudos, of course and diplomatic relationships, those sorts of things. And then either Atlantis says it's a great idea, we'll provide the bubble drive free for any ships you decide to make for the project or preferably the royal family get declared to have demonstrated 3 generations of peace-loving attitude and under appropriate oaths allowed to use forcefield and drive technology and access Mer artificers. Which we've almost got with Svetlana, especially if she were to put into practice the physics which for good diplomatic reasons we've pretended we didn't know Svetlana's family have been passing down from generation to generation. Well, Svetlana's mother wasn't really interested so Svetlana's grandpa taught it all to her before he died.]
[Her grandfather worked on the bubble-ship programme?]
[No. His mother was Mrs Ambassador to Atlantis, though. If the name Yelena Petrichna means anything at all, it was her.]
[It does, yes. Quite the electronics genius,] Magdalena said.
[She utterly infuriated the Secret Service though: she got Emperor Rudolph to declare all her best work a secret of the deep.]
[What did your Imperial grandmother say to that?] James asked.
[She said that she wanted peace as much as it depends on her, so please stop shouting about her friends. There's a very heavily protected attic in
Svetlana's home — it's quite big — where the children were apparently allowed to squirt peas out of a forcefield at a dart-board, fly around on an anti-gravity mat, and other such fun games, assuming they'd been good. Not to mention a quantum decoder.]
[A quantum decoder?] Magdalena asked.
[Yes.]
[In private hands?] James asked, in shock.
[Svetlana's right now, she's the only one with the access code to the attic, other than the Mer ambassador, just in case. But you see, what's in Svetlana's attic isn't Mer technology, it isn't Mars technology, it's Russian technology. She learned a bit, asked around a bit, and then she experimented and made her own things. But because we knew the risks, and because back in grandma's time we weren't that confident we'd win the battle against corruption and stuff like that, the fact of its existence has been a secret. I didn't know about it, Tibor had no idea until Svetlana was sure he was going to propose, and even then she just hinted, not even Mum knew, just Dad and the Mer ambassador once Dad had told him he had a duty to go see the family, and Svetlana's grandad proved it wasn't just an elaborate 'embarrass the ambassador' thing. So.. ideally Dad would really like a section of the Imperial University, or maybe Smolensk, to have full equality with Mars university, eventually teaching this stuff on a similar basis to Mars. And if, as Rachel said, you're going to be teaching forcefields and fusion to Ground, then Yelena's tech is probably a better starting place. The circuits sit on glass, not crystal, for instance.]
[Yelena made a fusion generator too?] James asked.
[That's what powers the defences, apparently.]
[Using direct conversion?]
[Yes.]
[And the Tsar has known this technology existed and done precisely nothing about it?]
[Oh, he's done something: there's a law that declares the attic a top secret research area, which only family members, the Mer ambassador, and people acting on explicit instructions from the Tsar can enter without permission, on pain of summary execution. Svetlana's father apparently had great fun showing the imperial seal to a housing inspector last year, who thought they must be housing some kind of illegal factory up there because they couldn't scan it.]
[Trying to scan it wasn't illegal, then?]
[Just pointless and dangerous. Their drones fell out of the sky, that sort of thing. Apparently Yelena's son and my Grandma set up a prize fund for an annual competition for Secret Services to try to find out anything about the inside layout without detection. On other days the defenses are on full automatic, so detection means high signal jamming, high powered lasers, that sort of thing. After a while, they gave up. Like I said, it's very well protected.]
[Well, if it contains secrets of the deep, I'm not surprised. And you've proven that a few in Russia can keep secrets of the deep. But you know why the Mer have been very cagey about letting those technologies enter the general Earth population.]
[Because a lot of Earth-folk are sharks, and an aggressive Russia with this technology would be unstoppable.]
[Exactly.] Magdalena agreed.
[Has the Restored Kingdom abused the Mer's trust?]
[I don't believe we have, no.] Magdalena said, [And nor have Svetlana the Great nor any of her descendants.]
[Thank you. But I've deviated a long way from what I wished to ask. Would a small fleet of Bubble-drive equipped Celestia class ships be useful? Do you as expedition leader like the idea?]
[I love the idea that we would not need to always be pulling probes from other research any time someone has a toothache. I love the idea of having the capability to move heavy lifting equipment and so on here. And yes, I do like the idea of delivering comets to orbit chunk by chunk, though I don't know if the numbers actually add up. Even the little comets like the one that hit Restoration weighed hundreds of kilotonnes each.]
[Oops, that'll embarrass dad. How big were they?]
[Oh! The Celestia class are a few hundred meters diameter, aren't they? Yes, one of those would fit in the cargo hold, it's just the mass wouldn't work with conventional engines. I think you need to speak to Heather or actually, maybe Maggie, Rachel's grandmother. She's the lady who invented the black-hole avoidance detector. There just might be a problem with filling a bubble with comet.]
[Oh. How do I get in contact with her?]
[I can get her a message,] James thought, [if you don't mind her knowing how you were talking to Magdalena?]
[I don't mind.]
----------------------------------------
ST PETERSBURG
[Imperial Tsarevna,] Maggie called Anastasia [I understand you want to talk to me about physics I've not used in decades.]
[Mystery?] Anastasia asked, recognising the mental voice.
[Shh, don't let on. I'm Maggie, in this conversation, Tsarevna.]
[But in other conversations...]
[We've spoken before, Tsarevna. We probably will again. I don't know if you know about memory-balls; you can learn how to give and receive them, but they become your memories then, so it's dangerous. Believe me; I know. But with this gift memory balls can be a library, and a wrapped up memory doesn't give me nearly as many sleepless nights, so I try to keep Mystery's memories wrapped up in memory balls. If you need me to remember something we've discussed as Mystery, then I can look it up, but don't assume I remember it normally.]
[That sounds... odd but very useful.]
[It is. I can even look up memories the Mystery your grandmother knew about passed on to me, which is also useful sometimes. But ask your question, young one.]
[Father had an idea; delivering comets to Ground via bubble ship. Would it work? Magdalena thought it might be risky.]
[You wouldn't get much comet in a scout ship.]
[What about in a Celestia mark-V class transport? Cargo volume with collapsed cabins is a hundred metres long, two hundred and fifty metres diameter, with a fifty metre diameter core.]
[And it has to be a cylindrical?]
[I don't think so.]
[Just the bubble has to be spherical. Also, the modern Celestia classes still have the engines on a long tail-gantry, don't they?]
[The older marks yes. The five series have them on telescopic arms, which apparently helps if the load is a bit offset, and also so they can be pulled closer when docked. I think they can be pulled in to about fifty metres away from the back of the ship.]
[Hmm. OK, let's assume someone can help you get the emitters into the right places, so you don't need to rebuild the whole thing entirely. But Magdalena was worried it would be dangerous?]
[I think she was thinking you don't normally put four million cubic metres of comet material into a bubble.]
[That's how much volume you've just told me about? You have, haven't you.]
[Four point seven, actually.]
[Hmm, and the ship itself won't weigh nothing, will it? Let me get my calculator. And if we assume that it's a bit mucky then your comet might come in with a density of more than one. So, let's give ourselves a nice big margin for error, and lets say ten megatonnes. Sounds explosive already, doesn't it? Schwartzchild radius for ten megatonnes is one point lets call it one point five times ten to the minus seventeen metres. You want to see so your minimum aperture is a couple of wavelengths of light, or ten to the minus six metres. You're not going to make a black hole once things are stable. But... I do see Magdalena's point. Initially they're not stable, which is why we once feared there might be very briefly, a one hundred kilogram black hole heading off in the general direction of the centre of the galaxy.]
[Only briefly? What would have happened to it?]
[Hawking radiation would have turned it into a burst of light that started a hundred times brighter than the sun and then got brighter and brighter until it vanished in a puff of extreme gamma rays, all in a matter of pico seconds. Someone forgot that getting brighter problem, to start with, so we briefly toyed with the idea of testing a heavier probe, or testing the theory from ten astronomical units away, but decided that that the gamma ray and neutrino flux might not be healthy even at that distance. So, we put the probe away and worked for a few more months. Eventually I had the idea of what if we didn't actively pull spacetime right into a bubble, and then try to stop it contracting more, but merely pulled it a fraction past open, and let it spring back itself. Then we could make sure it all happened a bit more gently. We even worked out how to give some more gentle pulls to make sure everything happened in microseconds rather than picoseconds.]
[So the problem's all solved?]
[No. Space-time's snap-back is dependant on the total mass density of what's in the bubble, and the bubble drive needs to be programmed to get things roughly right. You can't just hit the button and then measure how things are going, because of slow boring lightspeed the 'slow-down' pulses need to get triggered before any measurements are possible. Humans don't normally weigh that much compared to a ship, so there's enough slack, normally to get things roughly right. And once things are roughly right you've got time to measure space-time curvature and get things really right. But if you go loading a cargo that weighs far more than the ship and don't calculate the initiation parameters for the bubble drive based on the total density to within about ten percent, modelling predicts you're going to be in trouble.]
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
[But what actually happens has not been tested?]
[One short test series was done, once we'd worked out all the other issues and parameters. We then sent two automatic probes out, about a light-year away, if I remember correctly, one as data recorder, one as test device. First the mass density was overestimated by five percent; result, all OK. Next the mass density was overestimated by ten percent; result was a rather messy transition, lots of antimatter loss but it survived. Then they tried five percent under. That worked OK too. Claiming the density ten percent under reality, the data sent back from the probe says the curvature got really really close to singularity. Then they tried fifteen percent overestimation. The pulse that should have slowed down the collapse flung the probe back into normal space but the circuits weren't expecting that at all. Based on telemetry, we guessed there was a massive voltage surge and the antimatter containment circuitry got fried. Certainly there was no sign of a black hole forming, but there was sufficient radiation exposure to the recording probe that it ended up radioactive. We didn't want to go near it, and instead we got it to to fly through a comet on its way to the sun, gathering some more data and depleting its antimatter battery.]
[Ouch.]
[So... my conclusion: it is possible, but only if you've got some pretty accurate scales.]
[Which we don't.]
[No? What are those engines, then? I went to Mars University on the Celestia-2, when I was eighteen. You're not going to convince me all that measuring mass down to a fifty grams was to make sure they had enough fuel.]
[No, It was so they could set the engines to the right power to get the necessary acceleration.] Anastasia thought.
[So you've got scales, if you can measure the acceleration accurately, which I admit is going to be a complete pain in deep space with low numbers and without very much available as a reference point. But it can be done. Probably not quickly, but it's possible. Then all you'd need to do is convince everyone that the bubble generator needs to be redesigned to allow for a variable mass density: that's hard-coded on most bubble probes these days. Oh, and also convince the captain and quite frankly the whole crew how absolutely critical it is that nobody makes any guesses.]
[Not to mention never ask for a few hundred kilos of rock samples to be flown home on a bubble probe.]
[You haven't, have you?] Maggie asked, horrified.
[We had a discussion about how useful it might be with Mars University's geology department. Professor Bethany Stephens.]
[And she probably wouldn't know how dangerous that is. I'll get in touch with people to make sure she does know.]
[Thank you, Maggie.]
[Am I assuming his Imperial Majesty is planning on donating a Celestia?]
[He doesn't like the idea of not being able to evacuate everyone from Ground if there's some kind of problem.]
[Sensible man. Concerned for you?]
[Not just me. There's a possibility that Tibor and Svetlana will come too, and Mikhail of course.]
[Tibor being your brother?]
[Yes. It's a weird coincidence, but Tibor has just announced that he's not only got a girlfriend but they have been going out for almost a year and he hopes no one minds him asking her to marry him, and in the mean time I've started walking with Mikhail, her big brother.]
[I take it there were no family objections?]
[None whatsoever, long-standing family links: Their mother grew up at the palace, daughter to Grandma's secretary, and told Dad he ought to be dating Mum. Their father's descended from the Merwoman who flew my mother's grandparents to Atlantis.]
[You're not talking about Boris Zelda Thomas's kids are you?]
[Yes.]
[Well! Small world. Say 'Hi' to Boris for me, and tell young Svetlana that my offer to her when she was ten is still remembered and valid, but I perfectly understand if she has other plans now.]
[Will she remember?]
[If she doesn't, then tell her to look up 'Blackwood cabins'. Your mother's looking for you by the way. Tell her from me... I guess as Mystery, actually,
'yes', and 'definitely'.]
[That's suitably mysterious.]
[I'm sure she'll fill you in if she feels fit. Go find her in the library, Anastasia, she's worried. Also tell her I'm happy to help. I'll check where you are every few minutes or so. If you're in the same room as your mother and beside a window, then I'll take that as a sign you want me to intervene. OK?]
[Urm. OK. This sounds serious.]
[This is certainly me being Mystery, sorry.]
Getting near the library, Anastasia saw her mother. “Mystery says you're looking for me, and I need to say 'yes' and 'definitely', and she's available to help.”
“She's listening in now?”
“No. If I want her to then I need to be in the same room as you, and beside a window.”
“Window, sit there, please.” the Tsarina said “I spoke to Ludmilla yesterday. I told her she'd have stood a chance with Tibor if she hadn't been so anti-God, and then told her her behaviour was dishonouring herself and the nobility, did she prefer her lifestyle or her title?”
“And she's now gone missing?”
“Sort of. Last seen going sailing in the company of the Mer ambassador's son. You know they used to be in each other's company a lot before university.”
“I also know he's a Christian, and so does she.”
“So the questions I was asking myself are is this this a dangerous or good, and is this because of what I said to her.”
“To which the answers are 'yes' and 'definitely'. That's not exactly encouraging.”
“But not disasterous either. So I guess she's not planning to throw herself off the boat or something like that.”
[She hasn't totally rejected that idea.] Mystery said. Anastasia passed on that message.
“Can you say more?”
“Mystery says 'I was talking to Anastasia about something totally different, when I felt that I ought to check on Ludmilla. She's churning over different conflicting thoughts. Some are about the unfairness of what you said to her, Tsarina, some are her feelings towards Tulag, some are suicidal, others are about God. So, my guess is she's on a knife-edge.'”
“What are Tulag's thoughts about?”
“Mystery says, 'Roughly speaking, he's on a knife edge too. He's out at sea in a boat with half-clad temptress half-heartedly asking questions about God, and he's not got his Bible with him. My gut feeling is lots of prayer. My guess is if he rejects her then she'll reject God, if he falls then oath-breakers the pair of them and she'll reject God.'”
“What about if someone were to deliver a picnic hamper and a pair of Bibles?” Tsarina Valentina asked.
“It might depend who,” Anastasia said.
“I know just the man,” Valentina said, with a smile.
----------------------------------------
OFF THE RUSSIAN COAST, NEAR ST PETERSBURG
“You're not concentrating,” Ludmilla accused.
“Oh Sorry,” Tulag said, “Blame the circumstances, I mean, here I am, miles from the coast, not having eaten any breakfast, with a very beautiful non-Christian girl I've been attracted to since I was about twelve, who's admitted that she'd be very happy for me to give into her charms, even though she ought to know that means breaking my oath to God and making me sharkfood, and for some reason the idea's actually tempting, and every time I try to tell her about God she flutters her eyelids at me, and I think, if only this dangerous shark wasn't my best friend I could just tip her into the ocean with a clean conscience but maybe she's just testing me and she really is interested in turning from her blatant sins and getting right with God, in which case she'd be a gorgeous, beautiful forgiven ex-dangerous shark and I wouldn't need to feel a total fraud of a Christian for being in love with her for the past decade and crying myself to sleep about what she's been doing to herself for the past year. The whole situation makes it quite hard to think, you know, Ludmilla? It never was easy for me to think clearly around you.”
“You've been in love with me for a decade?” Ludmilla asked, surprised.
“Roughly. I mean, 'in love' ought to be two sided, so it's probably more like 'lusting after' but, well, no, it's more dignified than that because I've been praying for you too...”
“You never said.”
“What's the point? I don't want to break my oath to the God I love. And now you've got another weapon to tempt me away from God. Please don't, Ludmilla.”
“And you've been crying abut my behaviour?”
“Crying to God, yes. Sad prayers. I mean, you've been all over the papers basically treating yourself like you've no value to anyone! Why would anyone do that? You're smarter than that, surely?”
“Me just being in your boat is going to harm your reputation, isn't it?”
He shrugged, “Not if I manage to convince you to change your mind about God.”
He watched her face, hoping for some sign he was getting through to her.
“What would you do if I just took off all my clothes? “, she asked conversationally.
“Turn my back, ask you to put them on again, and if you didn't, swim away. I know it's my duty to kill dangerous sharks, but I just can't.”
“The wind is away from the coast, and I can't sail.”
“So? I lose my yacht and you die from exposure or drown or maybe you get rescued but at least I don't have to kill you. Sorry to say this, but the reality is you've lived the last year or more like a moabitess, Ludmilla. That's to say maybe quarter of a step up from a prostitute, with a lot of shark thrown in. A known moabitess trying to tempt a Christian to break his oath to God? Don't you know our laws?”
“An oath must be kept.”
“That's the first one, yes. For an oathbreaker is shark or sharkfood.”
“Then there's something about not all sharks needing to be killed.”
“Only the dangerous ones. Law three: what is hunted is not possessed, what is caught is owned, what escapes is free. Law four: the destruction of an innocent is a greater wrong than breaking an oath. Law five: Only a dangerous shark would knowingly entice another to break an oath. You have knowingly enticed me to break my oath, Ludmilla. Are you really suicidal?”
“The Tsarina informed me I could continue with my behaviour and lose my rank or keep my rank and change.”
“I have just told you I'm bending the law by not killing you.”
“Except you won't because of how you feel.”
“If you tempt me further I'll swim away, and you'll be dead to me.”
“Don't do that please. I don't want to drive you away. I don't want to ruin your life. Nor your relationship with God. Not really.”
“But you don't want to listen to me talking about God, either do you?”
“I've sat through so many meetings, so many sermons. I just turn off, and think of other things.”
“Like debasing both of us,” he said.
“Sex is a pleasurable activity,” she said, fluttering her eyelids again.
“So I've heard. More precisely, sex is a pleasurable activity that welds two human beings into a spiritual union, the state of being one flesh. That weld is recognised by and is only appropriately made within the oath-framework of marriage, otherwise it is defilement, which is why law seven: the rapist condemns himself. The spiritual union is broken only by death or unfaithfulness. To treat sex as some kind of more enjoyable alternative to playing tiddly-winks is to mistreat a precious gift of God. If someone went to a museum and spray painted over all the works of art then you'd call them a stinking rotten vandal, and that's the image that comes to mind when I call you, my friend, a moabitess: a stinking, rotten ruiner of her own live and others', covered in the moral equivalent of dog-muck, that is to say sin. I am part of the body of Christ. Is the holy body of Christ to be united to the stinking flesh of a dog-muck-covered moabitess?”
Ludmilla curled herself into a foetal ball, “You hate me.”
“I don't hate you, Ludmilla. I'm trying to help you understand what you're suggesting from where I am when I'm sane. I'm trying to stay sane. It wouldn't be sane to want sex with someone covered in dog muck, would it? It would be disgusting. My human nature says it doesn't see the dog muck, just a very appealing woman who I shouldn't be hurting by telling you the way things are, but I'm a Christian. I'm trying to put to death my human nature and live for Christ, to live according to my spiritual nature. And having sex with you outside marriage would be worse than smearing myself in dog muck, spiritually speaking.”
“You don't hate me but I disgust you,” Ludmilla said in a hollow voice.
“I weep at the thought that what the papers say about you is right. I pray they're wrong. Wouldn't you react like that if you saw someone you cared for playing in a sewer? I want to drag you out and get you washed off. But I'm not going to join you for fun and games in the sewer to get you out.”
“Sorry. I thought... I thought I was offering you something you wanted, and that I'd be happy to give, not earning your disgust,” Ludmilla said. Tulag's utterly reliable friendship had been the last refuge of her self esteem, she'd come out here to entrap him, yes, but to convince him to promise himself to support her, to be her rock. She'd thought she'd been so close to achieving that when he'd admitted he loved her. Now she realised how wrong she'd been, and despair filled her mind. “I just wanted to be precious to you. But I'm a dangerous shark, a useless, stinking whore, and shouldn't be defiling your beautiful boat. I understand now. You don't need to push me overboard.” In a quick motion, she sat on the edge of the boat and rolled off, into the water. She didn't try to swim, simply breathed out, intent on self-destruction. Tulag dropped the sail, dropped the sea-anchor overboard, and dove in after her. His scale was in the boat, but he didn't take the time to pull it on. No matter what she named herself, she'd convinced him she wasn't a dangerous shark, just a broken human. A broken human looking for reassurance in all the wrong places, through all the wrong ways, but a broken human in need of rescue. He prayed that he might rescue her physically and God might rescue her spiritually.
She fought him off initially, rejecting rescue. But he'd caught unwilling fish plenty of times, and her muscles were weaker than his under any circumstances, let alone when she was in water not that far above freezing. It didn't take long before they broke water, her with her arms held behind her back. She coughed and spluttered, berating him for not letting her drown, for torturing her more, and then noticed there was a shadow above the water.
“That was overly-dramatic, countess,” the Tsar said, from the doorway of the peace-submarine. “Not to mention meaning you entirely missed the
stunning effect of my graceful descent. How's the water?”
“Cold, Imperial Majesty, but perfectly bearable.” Tulag replied, “At least for me.” With one hand he held the edge of the boat, and with the other he helped Ludmilla up. It was good sailing weather, which is to say, not the warmest. She was shivering.
“Hmm. And does your little sailing boat have such conveniences as blankets and dry clothes?”
“Not really, Imperial Majesty,” Tulag replied.
“I was just going to deliver a couple of Bibles and a picnic hamper, but that's not much good if you then freeze to death. So, countess, I'm going to give you another choice to go with the one my beloved wife gave you yesterday. Will you stay in the boat with your rescuer, and borrow an Imperial blanket or two, or will you ask your rescuer to let me pilot his yacht back to harbour while he takes you somewhere suitable for further dry conversations in this venerable vehicle? I recommend something like the countess's own domain as somewhere without mountains she might be tempted to dramatically hurl herself off, which is also warm and dry. And I presume you have more decent attire there, countess, as befits one of your station?”
“I do, Imperial Majesty,” Ludmilla said through chattering teeth. “But.. I would not like to expose Tulag to public censure for entering the home of a moabitess alone.”
“A former moabitess, I hope,” the Tsar said.
“I guess I do too, Imperial Majesty. I can't seem to persuade him to be sensible and let me drown myself, as befits a moabitess and dangerous shark. So I don't know what else I can do except try to not be one.”
“Imperial Majesty, I don't think Ludmilla is a dangerous shark. She's a broken human who's looked in all the wrong places for reassurance that she's valuable, but I don't think she really wants to be more dangerous to my relationship with God than she is just by existing. But I think it would be more dangerous if I needed to hug her to get her warm.”
“No, we can't have that, can we? Wait a moment, and I'll let this Guillemot get it's feet wet.”
“He wasn't serious, was he?” Ludmilla asked.
“What about? Me taking you to your home? I've flown a Guillemot before.”
“Why?” she demanded, through chattering teeth, as the space-submarine settled itself into the water. “Why should the his Imperial Majesty the Tsar of all Russia and Taiwan put himself out for me?”
“Why should the Lord Jesus Christ, creator and sustainer of the universe, allow himself to be tortured to death on a cross for you, Ludmilla?” the Tsar asked. “Sorry, I couldn't help overhearing. Guillemots don't have very sound-proof walls. I don't mind sailing one bit, though I'd prefer to have my wife along with me. Now, young countess, climb aboard. Please guide her Tulag, we don't want her getting any ideas about more swims, do we? Now, Ludmilla, I know you've heard about grace, and I know you've heard about repentance. There's a shower in there, with a hairdryer thing which doubles as a clothes dryer. Put your clothes on that while you wash the sea off you and warm up.”
“And while you're getting warm and clean, think about the idea of getting clean in God's eyes too,” Tulag said from outside. “Imperial Majesty, I'd be happy to sail back without Ludmilla.”
“But..” Ludmilla protested, then hung her head in shame.
“Would you also be happy to take her to her official home, and make use of the picnic my wife prepared for you?”
“I would, Imperial Majesty.”
“Then that is what you'll do. But perhaps, if I could leave you on the yacht while I fetch Tsarina Valentina?”
“Certainly, Imperial Majesty.”
“And Tulag, even if our every hope comes true about where your conversation goes, I very strongly recommend you have a long discussion with your parents before you make any decisions or promises.”
“I understand, and I obey, Imperial Majesty,” Tulag said.
----------------------------------------
THE PALACE, ST PETERSBURG
“I'm a bit confused about your message, husband,” the Tsarina greeted him.
“Ludmilla decided to try to drown herself, and you know what the water's like this time of year. I've suggested that Tulag and Ludmilla have their picnic and finish their conversation somewhere where she can't do anything else dramatic and suicidal, and where it's warmer, say her official residence. Which leaves us with a little sailing to do.”
“And who chaperones Tulag and Ludmilla?”
“I was thinking Tulag had coped well enough with her so far. But OK, yes it's not very wise, is it?”
“Not very, no.”
“She's warming up under the shower, feel free to make some suggestions.”
“OK. And then Tulag flies everyone back at the end of the day?”
“I presume so.”
“Countess Ludmilla? It's Valentina. Would I be correct in presuming that you're going to find it a lot easier not to get distracted by what's under Tulag's clothes if you were at least partially looking after a four year old?”
“A four year old?”
“Olga and Vladimir need some time to talk, you need some time to talk, and a chaperone wouldn't come amiss, either. And Rudolph needs some time outside burning off some energy.”
“I'd be... honoured, Imperial Tsarina.”
“Really?”
“Tulag explained my spiritual state, majesty, in words that got through. I... I've just been thinking I sank to where I was because I felt excluded and rejected. But I jumped overboard because I realised I was contaminating Tulag just being near him. I don't understand why he rescued me, why you're being kind to me. Why would you let me near prince Rudolph? I don't deserve such honour, such trust. I don't understand. But I won't reject it.”