“You don’t look very special,” Jessica said, looking disappointed through the thick glass of her spacing helmet. “You look just like any other girl with hair and breasts and feet and all that sort of thing.”

Martina found this comment rather puzzling since if she hadn’t possessed all these attributes, she would not have been a girl. However, she offered her best explanation for this shortcoming on her part. “I regret failing to provide an appearance satisfactory to my lady’s expectations. However, I’d like to point out, if I may, that I was sent by my master on account of possessing the necessary set of skills to address her ladyship’s domestic needs until such time as the Agency sent a maid more suitable for her idiosyncratic requirements.” Martina could also add that despite her mundane appearance, she possessed a perfect immune system, significantly more effective musculature, extreme radiation and temperature resistance, and so forth. However, on the eve of her departure, Von Schmidt informed her that sharing her biological specifications with outsiders was likely to result in her capture and vivisection. Martina was not quite sure if this was a warning or a threat.

“No matter, no matter,” Jessica said. “It’s just that, well, listening to Carter yammer on and on about your master and his extraordinary tastes, I came to expect someone more, well, exotic-looking. I mean, you look perfectly fine, very presentable and all that sort of thing, but you’re not a talking dinosaur or a four-handed snake with the head of a person or something of the sort, do you know what I mean?”

Martina raised a single eyebrow. “My master has dinosaurs, some of which are uncannily intelligent, and is indeed in correspondence with a four-handed gentlemen of the serpentine persuasion on Neptune. If my lady desires, I can request him to arrange a meeting for her benefit.” Martina hoped her contempt for the silly woman was not translated into a sarcastic tone. Lady Jessica was the first person outside of Von Schmidt and her fellow servants she’d ever had a conversation with. So far, the loud aristocrat was not leaving much by way of a positive impression.

Piloting an odd-looking spacecraft that resembled a giant bubble with a great deal of unnecessary gears and cogs, Jessica picked Martina from the Western garden several hours ago and had only just now found time to address the maid, having spent several hours browsing through pictures of herself on her flexipad, a simple task made challenging by a massive armored spacesuit obviously not tailored for the woman. Martina would have suggested her assistance in removing the clunky gear but speaking without being spoken to testified to lack of manners and volunteering for hard labor testified to lack of reason.

“Perhaps later,” Jessica said, waving away Martina’s offer to meet dinosaurs and snake people. “Right now, we have a more urgent matter to address, or rather undress.” Jessica chuckled at her own pun before attempting to affect a somber expression. “Ever since poor Mary was scattered all across the scattered disk, poor thing, I’ve been stuck in this darn spacesuit like it was some sort of a medieval chastity belt! Not that removing it would do me much good in removing the metaphorical chastity belt imposed on me by that bloated ass Bernard, damn his lardy behind.”

Martina typed in the password to her trans-Neptunian fashion kit and stepped back as the massive container opened with a satisfying mechanical hiss. “Perhaps if my lady would care to elaborate upon the situation she’s alluded to”—Martina spoke over her shoulder as she picked the right tools for the task—“I’d be able to render some assistance in this field as well.”

“I doubt it, but—are you married by any chance?”

“I am, my lady.” Martina kneeled before Lady Jessica, a flexipad with a chart of the spacesuit in one hand and a buzzing drill in the other.

“Got any children?” Jessica asked, trying to get a glimpse of Martina’s drillwork, a task made formidable by the limited field of vision offered by her bulky spacesuit.

“One child, adopted,” Martina said, carefully placing the drill in her toolbox and drawing out an electric screw, some moisturizing cream, and a miniature radiation detector. One can never be too careful in the horror vacui as it was impossible to say what undiscovered substances or alien life forms could have snuck into the crevasses of a spacesuit with the intention of relieving the careless servant of her molecular integrity.

“Are you happy with this arrangement?” Jessica asked, trying to follow the maid as she rapidly removed part after part with practiced hands.

“I lack the frame of reference to provide a meaningful reply to this enquiry,” Martina said, working through the complex links and locks that made the spacesuit’s internal system. It was unlikely that any were trapped with poison needles or nanoexplosives, but one can never be too careful when the junior aristocracy is involved.

“What the devil does that mean?” Jessica asked, nearly kneeing the maid in the face with a sudden jerk of an emancipated leg.

Martina deftly dodged the attack, bearing Jessica no grudge, and proceeded with her work. “I have never experienced any living conditions save matrimony, nor have I ever interacted with unmarried women or even with women married to men who were in any way different from my man. To reiterate in layman’s terms, I have no ground for comparison.”

“Right, well. You’re interacting with one right now. You see, Sir Howard Carter and I are very much in love and would like to marry as soon as possible. My family has nearly given up on me doing my part to maintain the old gene pool, so they’re quite excited with the prospect. However, Howard’s guardian, his uncle Sir Bernard, the eighth Duke of something or other, absolutely objects to the union and threatens to cut off Howard’s allowance if he marries against the old fathead’s edict.”

“Most unfortunate,” Martina concurred, carefully applying a laser beam to open a lock that was deformed by blunt impact. “May I enquire as to why his grace objects to the union?”

“Nothing graceful about this obese ape. In any case, the reason for his objection is right in front of your eyes.” Jessica pointed at a large golden lion emblem pinned to her chest.

“His grace objects to your reception of the highest medal for civic valor in the British Empire?” Martina asked, failing to hide her surprise. “One would expect a gentleman from an ancient line with notable martial tradition to be rather excited about the prospect of adding such a prestigious decoration to his gallery.”

“Yes, darn the senile ass! He thinks it’s unwomanly!” Jessica bellowed and attempted to punch the nearest object, which happened to be the top of Martina’s head.

Twisting her entire body to avoid the ham-sized metal fist, Martina casually wondered if the cause of her predecessor’s demise was Lady Jessica’s explosive temper and not some mysterious cosmic phenomenon.

“Is his grace aware of the circumstances in which you have received the medal?” Martina asked. It was possible, though highly unlikely, that the conditions under which the medal was bestowed were somehow scandalous or infamous.

“Absolutely! An armed malcontent, one of those angry foreigner types, don’t you know, was holding some lord or earl or something of the sort hostage. Feeling all patriotic, I dropped a flower pot on his head from a balcony. I mean, the malcontent, not the lord or whatever, though I could jolly well have done the latter, for all old Bernie cares. He feels that a proper woman should have retreated to safety and not stayed to perform heroics, as he put it.”

“Perhaps if his grace is shown the value of heroic action by the uninitiated, he’d have a change of heart and no longer object to the union?” Martina suggested, examining with content the carefully disassembled spacesuit neatly ordered on the floor. She’d have to spend many hours, possibly even days, to restore the suit to full functionality.

“And how do you propose to do that?” Jessica asked, breaking the maid’s concentration. Under the armor, she wore plain trousers and a blouse; hardly suitable attire for a lady of her class and pedigree. Martina made a mental note to research if any asteroid or planetoid on their way had stores where suitable clothes could be acquired. Jessica’s appearance reflected on Martina’s proficiency, which in turn reflected on Von Schmidt’s magnanimity. Failing to dress her lady in a presentable manner would therefore be paramount to betrayal of her entire estate.

“A well-articulated argument could be efficient in affecting a change in his grace’s perspective,” Martina suggested.

Jessica snorted. “Huh! Howard spoke himself sore and the old toad didn’t budge an inch. I don’t think he’d listen to a German clone from a nameless planet owned by an infamous scoundrel. No offense intended.”

“I was thinking of a demonstration of a more practical nature,” Martina proceeded, ignoring the unwarranted slight to her master, her planet, her ethnicity, and herself.

“How do you mean? Drop a flower pot on his head perhaps? Yes, that would be most satisfying …”

“That would not be advisable. However, perhaps it would be fruitful to acquire the services of some inept assassins and then save his grace at the nick of time by dispatching them with a hidden weapon. I have a rather impressive assortment of such items with me. Some were designed by trans-Neptunian firms and are unfamiliar to Terran security engineers.”

“Blimey! You’re talking about murdering people to get married,” Jessica said, her faraway dreamy stare replaced with genuine anger. “We’re talking about love here, not war.”

“I’m told the two are very much the same,” Martina said.

“Nonsense! I might be a tad rough around the edges as uncle Henrico likes to put it, but I’m not a cold-blooded killer and my dear Howie certainly isn’t. He’s the very embodiment of amity. Why, he goes pale at the very prospect of crushing a fly!”

“I understand,” Martina said, realizing the deep difference of philosophy that stood like an abyss between this loud but timid woman, and Martina’s quiet, but ruthless master. She’d never seen Von Schmidt crush a fly, but she had seen him crush tens of thousands with a word, a gesture, or a carefully placed yawn.

“In this case,” the maid went on, “there is another plan that comes to mind. It’s more challenging to execute in a satisfying manner, but incurs no loss of life, only the destruction of property and perhaps a mild bruise to his grace’s ducal ego.”

“Now that’s more like it! Go on, dear,” Jessica said with a mischievous grin as she poured herself some juice and took a seat by a plain glass table.

“His Grace is a celebrated veteran of the Old Brigade, which means he must own a space marine suit of armor as memorabilia from his service. I could activate the suit in a manner that will seemingly place his life at risk, at which point you could deactivate it and save his life.”

“It’s no good, dear, he loves his power armor more than he loves any member of his blighted family. If I put so much as a scratch on it, he’s liable to jettison both of us and never give it a second thought.”

“Very true, my lady. It is for this reason that you’d use electromagnetic radiation that will disable the suit without causing it any damage. I believe his grace will find this solution most impressive and will warm up to the notion of his nephew marrying a woman capable of such resourcefulness as one that is beneficial both to himself and to his family.”

“Why, dear, this is an excellent idea! I can just imagine the scare it will give the old bastard! How soon do you think we could start working on this plan?”

“As soon as we’ve docked into his mansion yacht. The old models are notoriously simple to modify wirelessly. In fact, I had extensive practice in that particular field in the service of my master, himself a veteran of the Old Brigade.”

“Well, let’s not waste any time then. Double the acceleration and prepare an aromatic bath.”

“Very good, my lady,” Martina said.

* * *

“How was your trip?” Von Schmidt asked the maid, not lifting his eyes from a spiral book printed in animated ink that slid across the page and occasionally stood up to form complex three-dimensional shapes. His pet table elephant raised its cigar-sized trunk in salute. Martina always found the little beast almost impossibly amusing, but it would not be proper to tickle the little beast in her master’s presence.

“Most beneficial,” Martina said in an excited but measured tone. “However, there were some small unforeseen developments I’d like to report. While I had managed to affect a state of amok in the obsolete battle suit without considerable hindrance, the lady Jessica, despite putting up commendable resistance, had failed to neutralize the device, which then proceeded to cause considerable damage to the Duke’s property and some aggravation to his household. Certain members of his family became rather panicked as rumors regarding imminent explosive decompression spread across the Duke’s mansion. It bears noting that the mansion in question is a spacecraft capable of atmospheric entry and rapid reformation to a stately house in the fashion presently favored by retired English aristocrats.

“At this point, I activated an EMP pulse of superior Jovian design which had the desired effect of decommissioning the Duke’s suit of armor. Seeing his nephew’s fiancée in a state of both vulnerability and brave defiance softened the Duke’s heart and he agreed to the engagement that very night. He also asked to deliver his absolute gratitude to Von Schmidt for sending such capable help without which, doubtlessly, himself and his entire household would have been lost.”

Martina took a deep breath. “In conclusion, your plan worked perfectly.”

Von Schmidt put down his book and looked at the maid with an expression of mild reproach. “Of course it did. How else could it work?”