Earthly Crown (5 page)

Charles placed the wand across his knees.

They waited.

Then, to David’s astonishment, a mist steamed up under one of the arches and coalesced into three seated figures: Owen Zerentous, Ginny Arbha, and an interviewer. They looked so real that they could have been there in person, except that they had appeared so abruptly.

“We ought all to remember,” Owen was saying, “that the line between barbarism and civilization is fluid. Ritual is a constant in all human society. Theater is simply a more refined, and perhaps even a more confined, elaboration of primitive ritual events. Certainly my use of the word ‘primitive’ is a subjective response based on our bias against pretechnological culture.”

Naroshi raised one hand, and the figures froze. They then passed through a rapid succession of expression and angles, as if their conversation was accelerated. Naroshi lowered his hand, and the interview continued.

“To find cultures that have never seen theater before,” Owen said, clearly in answer to a question.
“Human
cultures, that is. We haven’t seen that for centuries on Earth, or in any of the human cultures in the League, for that matter. Does theater work as a ritual for any human culture? Even one grown and bred on a planet other than our own? Are these aspects of the human condition, are the emotions that theater engenders, universal to our genetic coding? And if they are, where does the real translation take place: in the words, or in the gestures? In the letter, or in the spirit? That’s what we’re going to Rhui to find out.”

Still talking the figures imploded into mist and evaporated.

“Tai Charles,” said Naroshi, acknowledging his visitor.

“Tai Naroshi,” said Charles, with the exact same lack of inflection, acknowledging his host.

“You undertake a journey,” said Naroshi.

“I am honored by your interest,” said Charles.

“Rhui is a primitive world. Certainly it is not a planet where any civilization can be found.”

“It is interdicted,” agreed Charles, and David had to wonder what Charles was thinking, what message he meant Naroshi to read from this colorless conversation.
It is interdicted, and I know damn well you sent agents down onto Rhui in direct defiance of that interdiction.

“Yet still you intend to travel there.”

In the muted light within the interior octagon, David could still detect fleeting colors chasing themselves across the white skin of the steward, colors that reflected his emotions as he listened to this conversation between the two noblemen. But the duke, Naroshi, remained as pale as frost. No hint of color tinted his skin. Were the high nobility genetically superior or simply taught techniques from an early age with which to control the shadings of their skin? No human knew.

“Still I intend to travel there.”

“With these others, some of whom are artisans.”

Rather than replying, Charles simply inclined his head.

“May I hope that you will still consider my sister for the design of the mausoleum for your sister?”

“Tai-en, I have just returned from the palace. Indeed, from the presence of the emperor himself. I have not yet considered what I intend to do to honor my sister.”

“Ah,” said Naroshi, and paused. David strained to see if any color stained the duke’s face, but he could discern none. On the distant walls, color shifted along the mosaics, moving subtly along the wall and lightening and darkening the images in slow waves. “The Keinaba house. I am surprised that you would take in a dishonored house.”

“Yes,” agreed Charles. “I did not know that you were interested in theater.” He extended a hand and gestured in the direction of the arch under which Owen and Ginny had, for that brief time, appeared.

“Many of us are interested in Rhui, Tai-en. I am not alone in my interest in such a rich planet.”

“No,” agreed Charles, “I do not suppose you are.” From this angle, David could only see the back of Charles’s head; he could not observe his expression, and he could not hear any emotion in his voice. Silence followed the remark. The two dukes seemed to have reached a stalemate.

Into their silence, a humming rose, soft, implacable. The air began to shimmer. The wand laid over Charles’s knees shone all at once with a brilliant light, picked up a high-pitched overtone from the hum, and quite simply dematerialized.

Both dukes stood up at once.

Naroshi spoke a curt command to the steward, and the Chapalii servant turned on his heel and hurried away. But even as the steward crossed under the double arches, the arches themselves vanished. The air shimmered, melding, blending; the whole huge chamber melted away and the grand architecture was overwhelmed by another locale.

The change occurred over seconds—minutes, perhaps—but it was hard to keep track of time when you were floating in immaterial space, in a shifting void. David caught a glimpse of the mosaic wall, of a hollow-eyed man draped in robes splintered by a sudden bright light, and then it, too, was gone. They stood in a chamber so vast that David could not see walls but felt the presence of still air enclosing him. In such space there ought to be a breeze, some sense of the air being alive; there was not.

He stood on a silver floor that shaded to translucence and then became transparent, and he stared down, dizzy with vertigo, at an expanse of towers and avenues laid out so far below that this floor must have been hundreds of meters above the ground. Darkness swept over and swallowed the city below like a wave and David could only mark each tower now by the single light at its tip. Or were they now stars? Was he standing above space itself, staring down into the vast deeps? He tilted his head back, to look up, and got dizzy, felt the galaxy whirl around him. Staggered a little, steadying himself with a touch on Marco’s arm.

Now he felt like the floor was moving, or that he was; he couldn’t be sure which. Only the two dukes appeared stable to his eyes. He fixed on Charles.

The air shone in front of Charles, took on weight and coalesced into matter. A braid of silver fire hung in the air. David saw the shift as gravity grabbed hold of its substance. The air stilled. The braid fell. But Charles caught it before it could touch the floor. David saw how heavy it must be by the way it weighted down Charles’s arm. “Seal the braid of fealty.”

At that instant David understood. The braid of silver was the emperor’s seal. And he had delivered it to Charles in order to seal with imperial approval Charles’s act of taking the Keinaba merchant house into the Soerensen ducal house. But where had it come from? How had it reached them? There
had
been nothing there; Charles now held a silver braid that undeniably possessed mass and volume. The problem, the possibilities, made David's head whirl. He just stood there and let the chamber reel around him and after a moment, as he forced himself to focus on the silver braid in Charles’s hand, the world stopped moving.

The stars vanished. Now they stood in a glade carpeted by perfectly manicured pale orange grass; probably not grass at all, but that was what it looked like. Twenty-one white-barked trees ringed them. Slender trunks shot up, endlessly up, to a kaleidoscopic canopy so high above that David could not measure it. Beyond, impossibly high, he saw the faint spires of towers.

Naroshi stood opposite Charles. Against the stark white trees, Naroshi’s complexion bore the barest tinge of blue, so pale that in any other surroundings David would not have noticed it. Blue was the color of distress. Clearly, Naroshi was not happy to be here—wherever
here
was.

Charles faced Naroshi across the pale grass, and Marco and David flanked Charles. David wondered if they really had been somehow transported into the imperial presence—into the
emperor’s
presence—or if this was just an incredible projection. If he stepped forward, would he bang into the couch? He felt it the safer option not to move at all.

“I thank you,” said Charles into the silence, hefting the braid in his hand. “I ask permission for myself and some companions to visit the planet where my sister and heir has ceased to exist, so that we may suitably mourn her, without interruption.”

Marco glanced sidewise at David and winked. Yes, clearly that last little qualifier was aimed at Naroshi. But Marco’s ability to remain unawed in the most awe-inspiring circumstances gave David heart. He winked back. Against the purity of the white bark of the trees, Naroshi’s complexion shaded in the slightest degree from blue to green, the color of disapproval.

The humming stopped. David had not really noticed it until it ceased. Then he was aware of its absence, and as abruptly as a light is switched from light to dark, they stood in the octagonal chamber again. Mosaics glowed on the far walls, seen through the double arches. The images flowed, as if the figures stirred, but David could not be sure if they really moved or if he was still recovering from the whirling of the stars.

A pink scarf lay draped over Charles’s shoulders. Pink was the color of approval. For a moment, Charles simply stood there. Then he lifted his free hand to touch the scarf, to check its color. His chin shifted, just a little, but David knew him well enough to know that he was pleased. He bowed, low, to the precise degree by which a duke honors the emperor, dipping to touch one knee to the floor. Then he straightened and regarded Naroshi in silence.

In this light, David could discern no slightest tint of color in Naroshi’s pallid complexion. “I will watch your progress with interest,” said Naroshi.

Charles inclined his head in acknowledgment, but said nothing more.

The steward reappeared and led them out the way they had come. By unspoken consent, the three men did not talk at all until they left the secured line on Staten Island and transferred to a lev-train that would take them back to London. Charles sank into a seat. He draped the silver braid across his thighs. It was as heavy as gold, and as supple as the finest silk. David and Marco sat on either side of him. It was the old pattern from their university days: Marco on the right, David on the left.

“‘I’ll be watching you,’” mused Charles as he stared out the window at the gray ocean. “But is Naroshi for me or against me?”

Marco shrugged. “Does our concept of dualism even apply to the Chapalii? Maybe he’s for you
and
against you.”

“I hate equations that don’t add up,” muttered David.

A
S SOON AS YOMI
called the break, Diana fled the rehearsal space.

“And if Hyacinth keeps flinging himself all over the stage like that, I’m going to scream!” Anahita proclaimed.

“I don’t think she’s got more than one tone to play Titania with,” muttered Quinn to Hal. “If she’s going to go on like that for the whole trip shut up in this boat, then
I’m
going to scream.”

Hal pulled a hand through his hair, tousling it, and heaved a great sigh. “What an awful day. I feel further from this scene than I ever did.”

Gwyn stared at the plain wooden floor, and by the way his right hand turned up and then down, Diana could see that he was still thinking about the scene they had just rehearsed, a scene from Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Phillippe was massaging Hyacinth’s shoulders and Hyacinth was, of course, smirking. Owen and Yomi had lapsed into a cabal, heads together over the table that was the only furniture in the space. Ginny sat in a chair, keying furiously into a notepad.

“Di?” called Hal. “Do you want to go to dinner?”

Then the door closed behind her, and she was mercifully free of them. What a bad day it had been. The tempo ran slow and they kept clumping together in the ensemble scene. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic. That was one thing she liked about Chapalii ships: they built their passageways wide, even if they were a strikingly ugly shade of orange and heated light to the level of sticky hot. She waited outside the door while a pack of human university students swarmed by her, chattering and giggling, ignoring her except for one red-haired young woman who threw her a startled and surprisingly vindictive glance; then a trio of alien
nar
skittered by, flicking their secondary dwarf wings at her in polite acknowledgment. She answered with a brief bow and set off in the opposite direction, toward the dining hall.

It still surprised Diana that Charles Soerensen ate his meals in the regular dining hall, along with all the other passengers. All the non-Chapalii passengers, of course; the Chapalii themselves remained in segregated quarters. He had somewhere developed the ability to sit at a different table every meal while making it seem as if he was as much graced by his tablemates’ presence as they were by his. Marco Burckhardt sat on his right. Marco looked up, saw her, and smiled.

Don’t do it, she told herself fiercely as she picked up her meal. Twenty steps later she stopped beside Marco’s chair.

At least he didn’t stand up. “Golden fair, please, sit down.” Marco had the ability to look at you as if you were the only object in the world of interest to him.

She sat down. Her heart pounded in an annoying yet gratifying way.

“You’ve met Charles, of course,” said Marco. “This is David ben Unbutu, and this is Suzanne Elia Arevalo.”

Soerensen greeted her with polite interest, David with evident good nature, and Suzanne with a pitying glance. Then Soerensen, Suzanne, and the two mining engineers they sat with fell back into a heated discussion about the ratio of volume to cost in the transport of metals in the Dao Cee system from the asteroid belt to the processing plants orbiting the planet Odys.

“How is rehearsal?” Marco asked.

“Slow. A little frustrating today. Owen says you’ve actually met the nomadic people we’re going to be traveling with, once we’ve left Jeds. What are they like?”

He rested his chin on one hand, tilted his head to the side, and regarded her with amusement. “What do you imagine they’ll be like?”

Diana laughed. “Don’t think I’ll fall for this trap. Gorgeous clothes, of course, and beautiful jewelry. Dashing horses. Stern men and shy women who possess honor and simple dignity in equal measure. I suppose they’ll have weapons. And lots of dirty but sweet-faced children.”