“But the tigers come at night

With their voices soft as thunder

As they tear your hope apart

As they turn your dream to shame!”

—Les Misérables, “I Dreamed A Dream”

“I don’t understand. If tiger come, I shoot it.”

—Count Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov,

during theater performance

“Shh!”

—Random member of the audience, last words

The grave procession passed through the devastated hall and turned left, with Ivanov and Von Schmidt in the front and Tanaka in the rear. The next room, a kitchen, was in a somewhat less lamentable condition, being marred only by some black stripes along the walls and furniture. This gave the impression of an abstract painting done in broad, violent brush strokes; an artistic statement that would have been likely endorsed by Von Schmidt, had it not interfered with the efficiency of food preparation in his palace.

In the center of the room was a large metallic puddle that shone with a slowly diminishing red light, likely the remains of a combat drone. A young man with meek and pleasant features, either one of the men she had seen in the banquet hall, or someone very similar, rose from behind a fallen cooling unit and shouted, “Don’t shoot!”

“Why, my dear boy, even if we wanted to, we don’t have anything to shoot you with!” Von Schmidt protested indignantly. “In fact, I take offense at the implication that any of my esteemed guests would be so feebleminded as to confuse a well-bred German with a chornoi alien. Where is the rest of the kitchen staff, Herr Martin?”

Another Martin, the Princess thought. Identical names for identical servants. Why, they must all be clones, she deduced. Custom-made servants for a gentleman of style who wouldn’t accept any of the universe’s imperfections.

“I don’t know where they are, sir,” the man admitted, rising to his feet. “I don’t suppose you have seen them on your way …”

“I am afraid not. However, unless they were slacking in the living quarters, they should be in no danger. If they were in the living quarters, they should be more concerned about me than our alien guests. Now, my dear boy, pick up the most destructive cooking utensil you can think of and join our little adventure.”

The young man nodded and picked up a torch that looked somewhat too high-powered to be used in the preparation of crème brûlée, unless perhaps it was military grade crème brûlée.

“I started like zis, mein freund.”

Martin jumped a foot into the air. No one else showed even the slightest sign of perturbation, only mild exasperation.

“Ah, von Ludendorf, how good of you to rejoin our company! We missed your delightful presence most keenly!” Von Schmidt told the apparition. Just like the floor plans, the image was out of focus and constantly blinked in and out of reality.

“Yes …” the Princess mumbled. “I only wish we could miss it some more.”

Von Ludendorf gave everyone present a steep bow. “My scanners show a significant increase in zee amount of life forms in zee palace. Do ve have zee pleasure of competing against new auctioneers?”

“Oh, yes. Their bid is extraordinarily aggressive, but somewhat constant … Not unlike your usual business packet. Now, if you will forgive us, we are in somewhat of a hurry since we stand to lose more than our signal connection if we overstay.”

“I would be delighted to assist you in dealing wis zee ozer auctioneers,” Von Ludendorf answered and hovered above the group.

“How on earth did this revolting blob return?” Jean asked Ivanov.

“I think device planted by Princess was destroyed in attack. Will improvise new one later,” Ivanov said.

The group made a few further turns through rooms and corridors in various states of disrepair and occasionally decorated with bold red strokes. One impressive corridor, a hall in everything but function, had a five-meter-long section of the wall replaced with blue silicon. The floor was covered with black ribbons and broken drones.

“Observe how a modern structure is like a living organism,” Von Schmidt said matter-of-factly to the hurrying party. “The corridors are akin to veins, the facilities serve as organs, the drones as phagocytes. The chornoi, unfortunately, take the role of germs.”

Von Schmidt made a sweeping motion with his right hand. He repeated the same motion four times, each time with an increasing degree of annoyance. By the fifth time, a portion of the floor groaned to reveal a staircase leading down.

“And what aspect of human anatomy would our generous host reflect?” Jean asked.

“None,” Von Schmidt said, without turning his head. “God is great, but he is no Von Schmidt.”

“Monsieur! You should have been born French!” the other Jean said appreciatively.

The French are as proud as the Germans should be, the Princess remembered her father saying. Oddly enough, this statement was not meant to deride either party. Among the Second Aristocracy, arrogance—that is, the ability to project an air of supreme confidence and superiority with absolutely nothing to back it up—was almost hard currency. This is why the bourgeois, who clung to the belief that only currency was currency, would never rise to the status of true elite. They were hopelessly limited by facts.

The party started walking down a narrow staircase. The long passage was illuminated by eerie green lights created by glow sticks located along the walls.

Moving from thoughts of social mobility to thoughts of physical mobility, the Princess considered shoving someone down the stairs. As far as sudden betrayals went, this one was a time-honored method associated with the wealthy and powerful. Not because the poor were more moral, but simply because they rarely had staircases inside their homes. However, despite the practical and romantic appeal, she decided against this course of action, mostly because she was by far the smallest member of the group, and the memory of Von Schmidt’s barbaric attack on her royal person and her absolute inability to defend herself from brute force still hung heavy in her mind.

Eventually, the party stopped in front of a large gate framed by one long arc of blue light. Von Schmidt made a series of complex motions, which he repeated five times, the last of which was preceded by kicking the door and shouting, “Du gehst mir auf den sack! Sturer Bock!” The gate slid upward with a metallic shudder to reveal a domed room decorated with dim paintings of famous historical battles. The pictures were enclosed by glowing frames, the only source of light in the room. The shade and motion of the lights were matched with the historical circumstances of the scenes they were illuminating, causing the ancient oil paintings to appear vivid and dynamic despite the lack of animation.

A table for twelve diners stood in the center of room. It was covered by a dark-red tablecloth and vases with white stargazer lilies and red carnations. The cutlery and plates were suitably black with white cross pattée curved into the handles. Six bottles of wine labeled “les sang des martyrs” stood on the table.

“Honored guests, please take a seat. This is my war room, although it’s the first time it’s been used to discuss an ongoing conflict. Dinner will be prepared shortly by our brave Martin and the faceless, but no less appreciated, lower kitchen staff. Meanwhile, I would like to temporarily postpone the auction and consider our shared predicament.”

Martin hastily poured wine for the assembled guests before discreetly fading into the darkness. The Princess picked up a glass from across the table, consulted her ferret regarding the vintage, and tasted the wine. It was so tawny that it appeared almost black and had a slight metallic aftertaste. For a moment, the Princess considered the thought that the wine’s label wasn’t merely a macabre jape, but a pertinent description of its contents. She dismissed the thought as paranoia born from exhaustion. This century had no martyrs, only victims bestowed with posthumous praise, usually by those who’d victimized them. And blood? Well, blood was far too cheap to make it to the table of anyone with even the remotest claims of style.

Von Schmidt lowered his goblet and went on, “Occasionally, it is beneficial to look at the xenology and prehistory of a conflict before forming an opinion based on news snippets and after-dinner conversation with morons adorned with undeserved titles. The chornoi were discovered by the great Russian cosmonaut Count Kir Strugatsky, one of the first Terrestrial explorers to brave the uncharted wilds of the Oort cloud. Upon first contact, the count failed to identify the chornoi as living organisms, taking them instead for an unusual terrain type; an understandable, but unforgivable mistake. As is presently well known, the average chornoi is a flat, star-shaped photosynthetic fungus about three meters in diameter. The fact that creatures that survive exclusively by devouring sunlight live on the farthest possible point from the sun is indeed a fascinating remark on the general cruelty and unfairness of the universe, and the main cause of the widespread atheism among the chornoi, but is irrelevant to the present discourse, which is concerned less with matters of philosophy and more with matters of survival.”

“The crowd has certainly thinned since lunch,” Jean observed. “This dinner, it is akin to the finals following the elimination games.”

“Elimination does seem like an apt term,” Von Schmidt said, swirling the remaining wine in his goblet. “You might be interested to know that I also invited the Grande Lorenzo di Orlando to the auction, but he couldn’t come on account of being indicted of unnatural conduct and having to defend his name before a jury of his peers.”

Jean nodded appreciatively. “Then the poor man must be doomed. ‘Unnatural conduct’ is the code word for displeasing the Grand Duke of Rome. It is common knowledge that everyone at Marconi’s court can be called unnatural, given the flexibility of this law.”

“When it comes to these unseemly affairs,” the Princess said, “I must concede that the Jeans appear to be a major authority.”

“Very true. Very true.” Von Schmidt paused to take another sip of wine. “His true crime was stealing from the bourgeois. But no, I have misspoken again. Everyone steals from the bourgeois. The Grande’s true crime was not sufficiently sharing his fortune with those more fortunate.”

“A good thief must have talent for charity. This first law of business in Russian Empire,” Ivanov said as he refilled his goblet for the third time.

“Charity!” Von Schmidt laughed sardonically. “The true role of corporate nobility on Terra is to protect the productive minority from the majority of ill-fed parasites. The nobility is, of course, the minority of well-fed parasites. Democracy and religion are two diseases that the second aristocracy had cured humanity of. However, the bourgeois keep trying to restore the former while the lower classes yearn for the latter. Two shortcomings, my good friends, I assure you my home is absolutely free of.”

“This talk of distant politics, and in such an hour of great crisis, it is not good for the digestive process,” Jean complained. “I understand we are now safe from those ghastly black sheets, and the auction appears to have been postponed, perhaps we should focus on more palatable affairs?”

“We”—the Princess said the word in a tone that made it clear she referred to herself alone—“do not discuss politics, we are politics. It would be delusional to think otherwise. Why, this dinner is already an act of policy. It may lead to an interstellar war, a xenocide in the Kuiper Belt, a commando strike at the heart of Terra, or a profitable trade agreement on Neptune that would benefit the lives of millions across the system.”

She took a deep breath and went on. “We do not have the privilege to stoop to daily banalities or minor details of business transactions. Let the bourgeois prattle about insignificant and inconsequential affairs. We are the spearhead of humanity, every word we say, every tiny gesture we make is magnified a millionfold among the proletariat … even when the eyes of the press are not upon us.”

The reactions she received ranged from condescending amusement to undisguised annoyance. Of course, it did not surprise her. One does not win friends by speaking the truth, because the truth is always that your friends are sheep in need of a shepherd. Looking at that gathering, however, the Princess felt that a butcher would be more in order.