Kinsmen 01 - Silver Shark

my eighteen-year-old perspective."
    "So her breasts were a large factor in your calculations?"
    "Yes. Sex with a beautiful girl on regular basis, I wasn't going to pass that up." Ven shook his head with self-mocking expression.
    She laughed.
    Ven refilled their glasses.
    "What happened?" Claire asked.
    "It turns out that I knew about the negotiations, but nobody bothered to tell Castilla. She was sixteen at the time and she was a kinsmen princess: expensive clothes, pricy jewelry, endless parties... Anything daddy's money could buy, she bought. She set the scene. She had a crowd of flunkies following her around, egging her on." Ven stirred the coals with a metal poker and set a few more skewers over the fire. "Somehow the rumors of the possible engagement leaked and one of the tabloids cornered her. She was at a party at the time, surrounded by her hangers-on. They asked her what she thought about the engagement."
    He fell silent.
    "What did she say?"
    "She said, 'Well, of course every beggar boy wants to marry a princess, but princesses don't dream of marrying into panhandler families.'"
    Even with her minimal knowledge of Rada, Claire knew the insult to the Escana family was monumental.
    "The tabloid had her on vid, and they ran with it. Her father tried to quash it, but it was too late. The engagement was impossible after that. Castilla's parents were furious with her."
    "Because of the insult to you?"
    "That, but mostly because her conduct was vulgar. It made her seem stupid and spoiled and it was unbecoming of her family name. Kinsmen mothers would play the vid for their children as a demonstration of how not to behave in public. De Solis had been above reproach and now they were deeply shamed. Her father told her, 'You think you're a princess? Let's see how you will do without my money.' Everything stopped, all her parties, all her shopping sprees, all of it went away. Her crowd dumped her. She worked for the family company and was given just enough money to live on. To this day her spending is tightly controlled. She hates me. You saw her today, she was practically frothing at the mouth."
    "You hate her, too."
    Venturo stirred the coals again, the light of the fire playing on his face. "It took me eight years to scrape together enough funds to start Guardian. I took every job I could find. I remember two months after Guardian opened, a contract fell through. We couldn't pay the power bill. We got one terminal working, because we had to log in and patrol for our monthly maintenance. We had it running off the aerial's generator. I'd drained it dead. When I think where I could've been if we had married... She set me back about fifteen years."
    Fourteen years ago the Intelligence soldiers had led her away from her mother's apartment.
    "Do you regret it?" Claire asked.
    "No. If I went down that road, I wouldn't be the person I'm today. I'm not indebted to anyone. I own my business, I own this building, many people feed their families because I provide them with jobs. I got there on my own. Nobody tells me what to do."
    "Except Lienne."
    Ven grinned. "Except her. She never lets me forget that I have family obligations. The other day she actually sent a pulse through the building looking for me. It's a kind of psycher wake-up call."
    Yes, I know, it gave me a headache. Claire bit her tongue.
    "Besides, I'd have to be married to Castilla." He grimaced.
    Claire sipped her wine, feeling the pleasant heat slide down her throat. "Why aren't you married, Ven?"
    He shrugged. "I work. A lot. Psychers aren't exactly a common kinsman variant and dating non-psychers is difficult." His face slid into a suave expression. "Hello there," he said in a smooth bedroom voice. "My name is Venturo Escana. I can read your mind!"
    Claire laughed.
    "I can tell when you're lying and I can discover all your secrets. I'll know when you fake it in bed, I'll know when you cheat, I'll know when you spend too much. I'll know what you really think about me. Don't you want to marry me?"
    She finished off her glass and squinted at him from above the rim. "Would you read your wife's mind? You don't read our minds at work."
    "Probably not," he said. "But there is always the possibility that I could and that's enough. Your turn to tell me about yourself."
    "It's not that interesting," she said.
    "I'm interested. I'm dying to know how you ended up on that planet."
    She sighed. "Very well. Melko and Brodwyn are actually large mining conglomerates. Both of