Judged by Viola Grace

Chapter One
     
     
    Alice Pinkerton fidgeted in her client’s office. Her elaborate gown rustled as she moved.
    “Have a seat, Alice. You are distracting me.”
    Ambassador Horilian gave her a look that told her he was not going to ask again. His normally affable features were in stern lines.
    Alice sat near the window and watched the evacuation as it ground to a conclusion. The ambassador had hired a Companion to keep him company during the final days of his time on Geewing. He had known all along that they would be the last two people on the planet and had wanted to make sure he had a Companion of his choosing.
    “The ships are just about gone, Alice. We will be able to leave shortly.”
    “Yes, Ambassador.” She toyed with the edge of her beaded bodice. The ambassador insisted that she always dress formally while she was with him.
    He completed whatever he was working on and sent the coded information to the imperium archives. “There. We can go now. The final scans are done and the planet of Geewing is closed. It can renovate itself the moment we leave.”
    Alice came around the table and helped him up without him asking.
    The ambassador accepted her help silently, and they left the soundless city with slow, measured steps.
    “I have extended your contract, Alice. You are coming home with me so that I can enjoy my last days.”
    She smiled, “I am sure that you have many days to come.”
    “I am guessing around thirty or less. I want to go home, relax and pass away on my own world. You are taking me home to die, pet.”
    His smile was familiar, but he looked tired.
    “I know you are quite old, but why are you so convinced that you are going to die?”
    “I can feel it, pet. Four hundred years is plenty, and I have an extensive family and many memories that I want you to record in the next few weeks.”
    “Is that why you extended my contract, so I could be a secretary?”
    “No, I want you with me during my last days. It is on file. You have been the best Companion I have had in the last fifty years. These last six months have been a light moment in my life, and I want to go out with that light around me.”
    Alice sighed. “I am honoured. Come along. Let’s get you into the shuttle and then to Dyango.”
    “You are a blessing, Alice. A better pilot I could never have wished for.”
    She snorted. “You picked me very carefully and don’t think I am not grateful. The other offer for me was…distasteful.”
    “So you have said. I am glad that it was a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
    She walked him to the ambassadorial shuttle and slipped inside to check the systems while he sealed the door behind him.
    Ambassador Horilian was moving around in the back.
    Alice ran the system checks and filed her flight plan with the orbital satellites. When the gel bed flicked into blue mode, she knew that Horilian had settled his brittle bones into his safe cocoon.
    She opened the interior coms. “We are leaving. Buckle up.”
    “I don’t have buckles in here, Alice. Take us home.”
    Alice grinned and geared up the shuttle, gaining speed and lifting off with the lightest touch. It was her skill with flight that first got the ambassador’s attention. He had needed a private pilot. When her body had met his general species specifications, it was her skills and her interest in sociology and anthropology that cinched her contract. Being at his side would benefit her beyond the financial and that is what he had wished for her.
    Dyango was a small distance away and an amalgamation of settled colonies. The ambassador had been elected by the colonies to represent them off world, and Geewing was his post until it closed.
    The sensors in the surface showed that the planet was beginning its transformation. Geewing was shifting poles and creating more green spaces. It wanted to be home to people that thrived, not just a trading hub. Geewing, via a gathering of telepaths who could take the weight of its mind, communicated