Before so much as approaching the pseudo-salad, she summoned her sniffer ferret, Audric, to ensure it was safe. The little animal steered inside her suit, climbed out through the collar, and hopped on the table. He quickly sniffed the food, nodded his little head, picked a single meaty leaf as commission for his trouble, and sat on the table, quickly nibbling on the odd plant. The Princess tried to pour herself some wine as well, but a tiny paw shot out and scratched her hand in an attempt to knock the glass to the table. The Princess set down the wine glass and resigned herself to a dry dinner. Done with his morsel, the ferret flashed across her arm and disappeared within her armor to cradle against her stomach.

“All this time you had a ferret down your pants. Who could have imagined?” Calzoni laughed and walked toward the Princess.

“How clever … I’d challenge you to a battle of wits, but it’s impolite to attack an unarmed man,” the Princess replied, wondering what sort of silverware she should choose to battle with her dinner.

“I like a woman with a mouth on her. However, I wonder if there is anything else inside this suit I should be aware of …” Calzoni asked, looming over the Princess like a greasy bull over a gazelle. If men of ill repute undressed women with their eyes, then this man could perform a full vivisection. Despite being fully, even overly, dressed, the Princess felt the need to cover herself when speaking with the obese Italian.

However, Calzoni was right about one thing—she did have a mouth on her. Most people do, for that matter. She returned his gaze shamelessly and said, “Certainly.”

“Certainly what?” Calzoni asked.

“Certainly, you should wonder …” she said and walked away, no more intimidated by his physical presence than she would have been by a cow. She walked back to a far corner of the room and observed the guests bickering with civil leers and backhanded compliments and damning with faint praise. There was a window nearby, offering another gorgeous view of the planetoid and a drop that seemed perfectly palatable, assuming this was an actual window and not a super-high-definition wall screen.

Von Schmidt discreetly left the haggling and joined the Princess, armed with a smoking cigar and a snifter with cognac so dark it almost appeared black. “I do hope you will not embarrass yourself by calling for help or doing anything that will cause you to sweat like a horse.”

“Please, Von Schmidt, do you take me for an empty-headed marquisa raised on melodramatic French romances? I recognized the pattern across the walls and ceiling as a jamming grid as soon as I walked into the hall. Why, it would take a blind buffoon to mistake these doors for actual doors or these windows for actual windows. I daresay even an actual horse wouldn’t be so foolhardy.”

“Very good! I am, once again, impressed, my dear lady. May I offer anything to make your stay more enjoyable? You seem rather glum.” Von Schmidt tried to place his hand on the Princess’s shoulder again, but this time she stepped away quite pointedly, brushing his hand away with demonstrative disgust.

“Making me the witness to a mass murder followed by a suicide would be most enjoyable and is sure to alleviate my ennui, but I imagine it would be too much to ask,” she said while heaping colorful fungi onto her plate.

Von Schmidt’s smile became wide, exposing teeth that were too white and too perfect for a man his age. “Nothing is too much to ask, my dear lady.”

The Princess sighed. “Would you like to finish my wine for me? I’d hate to see Saturn’s finest go to waste, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to agree with me tonight.”

Von Schmidt examined her with what seemed like fatherly approval. “You are most kind to take such mind of my investments, but I have acquired this fine Terran wine for your benefit alone. Judging by your gracious offer, I assume you’re already aware it is drugged?”

“Of course,” the Princess replied. “You were foolish to imagine a woman of my station would travel without a sniffer.”

“We can but try …” Von Schmidt lamented gently. “And now, if you will forgive me, I have to return to my guests before they murder each other, or else form some unsavory alliance against my person. Do enjoy the other dishes, they are quite free of poison, I assure you, though I cannot guarantee their caloric values match your careful diet.”

Von Schmidt bowed and left to rejoin the increasingly loud throng of bandits. The Princess shrugged and nonchalantly spilled the contents of her glass into a decanter filled with a different type of wine that possessed a similar smell and color. Her odds of success were slim, but they would be even slimmer if she didn’t try any weapon in her arsenal.

The Princess sat broodingly in her corner and observed the buffet, which had already taken considerable casualties from the relentless assaults of the ravenous Calzoni and the Russian boy. It was unclear how the latter was able to consume such heroic quantities of food and wine as he was as slender as the Princess and only several centimeters taller.

The Princess noted that the Japanese envoy, Tanaka, seemed to be engaged primarily in observation, just like she was, his expression a perfect balance of contempt and indignation. If rumors were to be believed, despite their numerous losses on the solar front, the Zaibatsu of the Rising Sun deemed all other civilizations as the missing link between the ape and something best left unspecified in polite company.

Even though kidnapping princesses was a staple of classic literature and current politics, the Princess wondered what each guest intended to do with her. Failing to escape, she hoped to at least sway the auction towards the best of the bad options she was presented with. The Russian obviously sought some political advantage, or access to her family’s superior technology. His masters had been playing this game with her family, with varying degrees of failure, for the past three hundred years. His victory would likely cause minor harm to her people but would in all likelihood leave her intact. The man himself certainly seemed harmless enough. The French wanted to earn money without having to work for it, the highest achievement for a French aristocrat of le nouveau régime, though the perverse manner of the siblings alarmed her. Madam Chang probably wanted the same, only with a Chinese accent, although with her lot, being sold as a trophy to adorn the den of an obese criminal was always a possibility. The Japanese … what did he want? His stoic manner and efficient brutality spoke of a field samurai from one of the great zaibatsu, probably Mitsubishi or Sumitomo, but his percent indicated a high office, great wealth, and prestige. He could be fishing for a political advantage, or he could have something far more sinister in mind. After all, his people were prone to excessive mysticism and often acted irrationally on that account. She imagined the Swiss banker wanted even more trading privileges. As long as anything existed that they didn’t own, men of his sort were always hungry, which is probably why they were so fat. She could not even begin to imagine what Professor York wanted with her. What does any Englishman want? No one knows. Calzoni offered by far the worst fate any woman could imagine, making even death preferable to becoming his property.

Audric was spread on her lap, fishing for a pet by catching distracted fingers with his paws and pulling them towards his furry forehead. Idly playing with the ferret, the Princess felt like stabbing someone with a fork, jumping through the fake window, or engaging in some other manner of unladylike behavior in the hopes of making a dashing bid for freedom. However, these were no more than childish dreams.

First, a man such as Von Schmidt would have prepared for any such banal eventuality with carefully placed anti-kinetic field generators and hidden electric coils. Secondly, as her royal father often repeated, a true lady of the court must observe decorum under all circumstances, a comment that at the time was not well received as it was made during her maternal grandmother’s death throes at the age of 119. “Whether you’re facing a firing squad or a Russian Patriarchy trade delegation, always wear a veneer of respectably,” he said matter-of-factly as the old queen expired. “Indeed, a person of good breeding would be less embarrassed to be seen repeatedly stabbing a rival with a pen than being flatulent in public. Present circumstances excused,” the King concluded, fanning the air with the palm of his hand.

No, if the Princess was to free herself from this predicament, she would have to do it in style. Fortunately, murder was something that never went out of style.