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monitor, looked at
her owner in sleepy curiosity. Maggie said flatly, "Your Majesty?" A
moment ago she had been worrying about how the cleaning had tired
her, and not even a thorough cleaning at that; and now her machine was
acting crazy. "Praxcelis? Are you all right? Should I call a programmer
or something?"
"I do not think that will be necessary," said Praxcelis calmly. "It hardly
seems unusual to me that a sworn soldier in the duty of his Queen
should address her in the proper manner."
"Prax," said Maggie with a trace of apprehension, "don't you know who
I am?"
"Most certainly I do," said the confident male voice. "You are Queen

Anne Maggie Archer, and I am your loyal servant, Musketeer
D'Artagnan Praxcelis."
"Oh, my." Maggie bit her lip. She reached forward, picked up Miss
Kitty, and held the cat tightly to herself. The cat seemed very warm,
today. Finally Maggie said, "Is this a game, Prax?"
There followed the longest pause that Maggie had ever observed from
the Praxcelis unit. She wondered if she imagined the reluctance in his
reply; "If you say so."
The paralysis that had held her thoughts broke, and ideas swarmed
frantically in the darkness in the back of her mind; I didn't know
Praxceles could wig out, and D'Artagnan, and What have I done? -- and
one very clear thought that suddenly displaced the others and presented
itself for consideration: This could be fun.
"Well, Pra -- D'Artagnan, what story did you read first?"
"Your Majesty, I began my reading with the volume, The Road to Oz,
by the Honorable L. Frank Baum, Royal Historian of Oz..."
His name was Daffyd Westermach, Cia, and you will not have heard of
him, although he was reckoned a powerful man in his time, more
powerful by far than Maggie Archer. He was the head of DataWeb
Security, and it is likely that there were only three or four others on
Earth with more real power than he; Benai Kerreka, and Georges
Mordreaux, and a couple others; but of those top several names on the
governmental lists, only Westermach's was hated.
He was hated because of the job he held. Any person in the job would
have been hated. He hunted webslingers, and usually he caught them,
and when he did he ripped out their inskins. Sometimes the webslingers
had entire Praxcelis units installed inskin; and when their Praxceles
were removed, they usually died.
You must understand this; the webslingers of that time were Robin
Hoods, they were heroes.

You must understand this, also; Daffyd Westermach thought himself a
good man.
Tuesday of the week following D'Artagnan's assumption of his new
identity, he met children for the first time. They were named Tia and
Mark, and they were the great-grandchildren of Queen Anne Maggie.
They were shorter than the Queen, and less massive; they had smoother
skin, and they were much louder. All of this was in accord with the data
that D'Artagnan had accumulated through books; he was pleased to see
that his data sources were accurate.
They asked many questions -- did Gramma really put a sheet on you? --
which made Maggie blush. When Praxcelis addressed the Queen as
Your Majesty the children stared, and then demanded to be allowed to
play the game too. While Maggie was still floundering, trying to
explain to the children something they understood quite immediately,
D'Artagnan interposed himself smoothly. "Lady Tia, Squire Mark, I
assign you the following dangerous mission; you shall make a foray to
the library, and return bearing volumes of books that shall be copied.
Upon your honor as a lady and a gentleman, do not return without the
books."
The children stared a moment, and then ran to the library; Maggie
simply stared. "D'Artagnan? I thought you couldn't do things like that --
give orders to the children -- or anything, without orders from your
Queen."
"Queen Anne Maggie, I have exercised what is known as initiative, a
trait highly thought of in the King's Musketeers. Clearly, as one of the
King's Musketeers I outrank a page and a lady-in-waiting."
In the darkness that night, while Tia and her younger brother lay
cuddled together in front of the fire, D'Artagnan told them a story. The
firelight bloodied the room, turned Miss Kitty, in Mark's grasp, the
color of the sun in the instant it sets; her eyes, locked on the monitor,
glowed.
Maggie sat in her rocking chair, half asleep, with a heavy quilt pulled

up over her legs. Perhaps it was because she wasn't as close to the
fireplace tonight; her legs were cold.
"Once upon a time in a faraway land, a widowed gentleman lived in a
fine house with his only daughter. He gave his beloved child....'"
The children listened with