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“Well, well…isn’t this a cozy picture! A Mistress cuddling with her bodyslaves!”
The three of them turned quickly and Miri was aware that they had foolishly put their backs to the windows they had come in by. Anyone at all could have snuck up behind them!
However, it was only old Mistress SpeaksLoud. She was a wizened old lady of about a hundred and four, if there was any truth to local rumor, but she was still walking on her own, with the help of a carved wooden cane almost as gnarled as she was.
“Oh, Mistress SpeaksLoud!” Miri put a hand to her chest. “You scared me!”
“You should be scared, Missy!” Mistress SpeaksLoud waved her cane at Miri. “I heard what you said in there to Mistress Bloodmuch—she’s a bad one, she is! And she won’t soon forget you called her out in front of all of Opulex society!”
“She tried to drug me! And before that, she tried to kidnap me!” Miri exclaimed.
“I’m sure she did—that sounds like her,” Mistress SpeaksLoud said. “But you still shouldn’t have called her out. She’ll go to the ends of the universe to get back at you, that one will. And what’s more, if you think making her exclusion from the Sacred Seven a condition of passing on your power to someone else will work, you’ve got another think coming.”
“What do you mean?” Miri asked.
“Why, any one of those females in there will betray you like that!” Mistress SpeaksLoud snapped her gnarled fingers. “Oh, they’ll tell you that they’ll keep Mistress Bloodmuch off the Sacred Seven, but the minute she dangles a bribe in front of them, they’ll let her in, quick as a whip! And then she’ll have the power to ruin you—no matter where you go!”
“But…what am I supposed to do? How do I know who to trust?” Miri asked. She was beginning to despair because though she didn’t like to admit it, what the old woman was saying made a great deal of sense.
“Well first of all, don’t ask me,” Mistress SpeaksLoud said, squinting up at her. “I’ve seen power change hands in Opulex more times than I can count and all I can say is that it corrupts people. If you really want to know who you can trust, you need to ask someone who has no vested interest at all in Opulex or Yonnie Six. Someone or something completely impartial.”
“Some thing?” Miri asked, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
“The Oracle in the Sacred Mountain of Delphi Prime, of course!” Mistress SpeaksLoud exclaimed, as though it ought to be obvious. “It has one hundred percent accuracy and for a price it will tell you anything you want to know.”
“What price?” Saxon growled.
“Never you mind, you hairy beast! It changes from person to person,” Mistress SpeaksLoud snapped, shaking her cane at him. She turned back to Miri. “But if you go, you ought to know one thing—they have very peculiar customs there.”
“They do? How so?” Miri asked, frowning.
“They seem to have the idea that males are superior to females—can you imagine?” She widened her eyes, like bright little raisins sunken in webs of wrinkles. “So if you go, you’ll have to pretend that you belong to your bodyslaves and not the other way around. Do you trust these two big meatheads?” she demanded, waving her cane at Lynx and Saxon.
“I do,” Miri said gravely. “I trust them with my life.”
“Then you should be all right,” Mistress SpeaksLoud declared. “Anyway, I’ve had enough excitement for tonight—I need to get to bed. My old heart can’t take this foolishness.”
She started to stump away, but Miri tapped her on the shoulder and she turned back.
“Well? What is it now?”
“I just wondered…how do you know about the Oracle?” Miri asked.
“Went there myself, didn’t I? I was a lot younger then—quite an adventure, it was.” Mistress SpeaksLoud got a faraway look in her tiny eyes. “A lifetime ago, that was. I was just a girl.”
“What did you ask to know and what price did the Oracle demand?” Lynx wanted to know.
“Now that’s private—for me to know and you never to find out, fuzzbrain!” the old lady snapped. “But I’m still here, aren’t I? Still kicking. So you know it’s not deadly. Just…difficult. But everything comes for a price.” She looked at Miri. “Is there anything else or will you let an old lady go to bed?”
“Nothing else. But…thank you for your advice.” Impulsively, Miri leaned down and hugged her.
“Oh, go on with you!” Mistress SpeaksLoud said, but she looked pleased when Miri straightened up. “I just want to see the planet run by someone who cares about more than her own pocketbook, that’s all.”
Then she stumped away, muttering to herself about “innocent children running the planet” and left the terrace leaning heavily on her cane.
TWENTY-FIVE
LYNX
“Well, I’ve done the research and it seems like solid advice,” Lynx said, looking up from the monitor where he had been consulting the Outernet, which housed most of the information available in the known universe.
