Hidden Empire (11 page)
Cesca said, “That is because we both provide vital services—you with your green priests, and us with our ekti.”
Reynald raised a finger. “But still, the trap is always there. Now, I’m not advocating any drastic change, because if we were
to rouse the ire of the Hansa, there’s no telling what desperate actions they might take. However, we could arrange a few
minor alliances between our peoples, reciprocal concessions to strengthen our respective foundations.”
Cesca looked at Jhy Okiah, but the old woman maintained her focus on Reynald. “I would not argue against having more security
from the whims of Earth. You’ve obviously thought about this a great deal, young man.”
“As heir to the throne, I’ve had years to think about what I might do. Now I’m exploring some of my ideas.”
“And what are they?” Cesca asked.
Reynald frankly addressed their several joint concerns. “Let me start from your perspective. Roamer skymines produce most
of the ekti used in the Spiral Arm. Cargo escorts deliver ekti from skymines to transport stations, where it is distributed
solely by the Terran Hanseatic League. Theroc and other human settlements have no other place to purchase ekti because of
the Hansa’s ‘benevolent monopoly.’ Why should they have such a stranglehold on ekti distribution?”
“Are you suggesting the Hansa is engaging in unfair trade practices?”
Reynald took a sip of his spicy tea. “It is no secret that they recently imposed severe tariff increases and changed their
policies, which was detrimental to Roamer business. Isn’t that why Rand Sorengaard began preying on Hansa merchant ships?”
Cesca frowned. “He is an internal problem among the Roamers. We have many clans and many strong-willed people. Occasionally,
some of our people become… unruly. Unfortunately, even the Speaker can’t keep control of them all.”
“And how would you change these trade practices, young man?” Jhy Okiah said, returning the conversation to the business at
hand.
“Well, Theroc does not have a large space fleet. Most of us prefer to remain in the worldforest without ever venturing elsewhere
in the Spiral Arm. However, like every civilized world, we do engage in interstellar travel, and our green priests take treelings
to other planets to spread the forest as widely as possible. Therefore we require ekti. At present, we are beholden to the
Hansa for this vital resource.” He smiled again. “I would like to explore the possibility that Roamers and Therons could arrange
for a more direct supply agreement.”
Cesca gave a wicked grin. “Oh, the Goose wouldn’t like that at all.”
“Not at all.” Jhy Okiah looked at her student and nodded. “But I don’t believe any legal restrictions prevent it.”
Reynald’s suggestion surprised Cesca, since few outsiders took the Roamers seriously, seeing them as ragtag groups that happened
to provide a useful product. The Hansa had never bothered to keep track of how many skymines the Roamers operated or what
gas planets they harvested. The Spiral Arm had so many uninhabited systems, so many gas giants, who could possibly monitor
them all? How could a Hansa spy ship spot even a huge floating factory against the backdrop of a planet larger than Jupiter?
With apparent innocence, Reynald asked probing questions about Roamer bases and facilities, but Jhy Okiah skillfully dodged
them all, giving the young man no useful information. “I must discuss this with the other clans, Reynald. However, I welcome
the opening of relations between Therons and Roamers. What is it you are offering for your own part?”
Reynald could not stop grinning. “Perhaps the Therons could provide the services of a few green priests? With all of your
far-flung clans, I’m sure the Roamers could make use of instantaneous communication.”
“True, we are a widely dispersed people, and news travels slowly,” the old woman said, “but we have learned to live with our
own methods. We follow the Guiding Star.”
“Still, sometimes you may wish to learn of significant events more quickly.” Reynald’s eyes were bright. He leaned across
the small table in the yacht’s galley, ready to tell a secret. “For instance, our green priests have just passed along a report
from General Lanyan—that Rand Sorengaard was recently apprehended and executed near Yreka. The EDF set up an ambush for him
and captured all of his crew. They were all sent out the airlock.”
Cesca and Jhy Okiah met each other’s gaze. Cesca swallowed hard. “Damned Eddies. That’s bad news indeed.”
Reynald seemed surprised. “Did you actually support Sorengaard’s activities? He seemed more of a revolutionary than a pirate—”
“We understand his motivations, young man, for Roamers have been unfairly treated by the Hansa. Violence, however, only brings
about further violence, rather than any acceptable resolution. As spokesperson for the Roamers, I can never condone his methods.”
The old Speaker turned back to business. “Nevertheless, Prince Reynald, we must respectfully decline your most generous offer.”
Cesca regarded the brawny, handsome young man. “I have to agree. Allowing green priests to live among the Roamers is simply
impossible.” The idea of having a stranger view their most carefully hidden installations sent a chill down her spine. While
the telink process provided instant communication, such information became available to all green priests, everywhere. The
Roamers would never open themselves that much.
Reynald took the rejection with good grace and a wry smile. “Basil Wenceslas would fall all over himself to have more priests,
but we have turned him down. Your reaction is quite different from my experience with the Terran Hanseatic League.”
“Roamer society is very different from that of other humans.”
Reynald slid a glance over at the beautiful Cesca, obviously flirting. “We might consider a different sort of alliance then,
a marriage perhaps—”
But Cesca raised her hand, looking first at her delicate fingers and then meeting his eyes. “Such a joining would indeed be
a valuable political alliance. But I must inform you that I am already betrothed to the chief of a large and profitable skymine.”
And I am in love with his brother
.
Reynald looked away with an embarrassed expression that made him seem much younger. “Then he is a very lucky man.”
Cesca felt sorry for him, even mildly attracted to him, but her impending marriage with Ross Tamblyn was unbreakable, despite
her secret feelings for Jess. Adding Reynald to the equation would make the already complicated situation intolerable.
Still, though nothing had been resolved, Reynald seemed generally happy with the discussions. He bowed again. “Before I return
to Theroc after this long peregrination, allow me to extend a most heartfelt invitation to you, or any other Roamer you choose
as your representative, to visit our spectacular worldforest. Sooner or later, you must get tired of empty space.”
“Space is never empty, if you know what you are looking for.” Cesca clasped his hand warmly. “Still, I look forward to seeing
it someday.”
P
erched at the top of the world, Nira Khali curled her toes around the frond and stood balanced, without a care and unafraid,
even so high up in the sky. She had not yet taken the green, had not felt the worldtree song pulsing through her blood or
seen the green tinge darken in her skin. Nevertheless, she trusted the worldforest with all her soul.
Her skin was dusky brown, but soon she would bear the photosynthetic pigmentation that would show everyone that she had been
accepted by the magnificent trees. An acolyte for most of her young life, she understood the way of the forest, communed with
the enigmatic interconnected mind even though the trees couldn’t hear her directly. Not yet.
For her day’s assignment, Nira read aloud in a rich, dramatic voice, engrossed in the stories from ancient literature that
the
Caillié
colonists had brought with them. She sensed that the trees liked these stories of King Arthur and his knights of the Round
Table. She had read several different versions of
Le Morte d’Arthur
by Sir Thomas Malory, as well as myriad retellings by Howard Pyle, John Steinbeck, and a succession of others. There were
many inconsistencies among the legends, but Nira didn’t think the trees were confused. The forest mind actually enjoyed contradictions
and discrepancies, and occupied a portion of its slow semiwaking consciousness pondering the implications.
Nira served the worldforest by reading to the trees, but she also delighted in the opportunity to learn for herself. From
childhood, she had spent years keeping records of where missionary green priests were distributed around the Spiral Arm, bearing
treelings, spreading the forest.
Young acolytes were taught to tend the forest. They nurtured the smallest potted treelings prepared for transportation off-world;
they cared for the largest ancient sentinels, plucking off old fronds and picking bark clean of parasites. Nira preferred
reading aloud, and she thought the trees enjoyed it as well. When she talked to the trees, even while she was doing menial
tasks, Nira always kept her mind open and her ears cocked, listening for an answer. One day, when she was a green priest,
she would hear the voice.
Barefoot and bare-chested, acolytes wore only loincloths, exposing as much skin as possible to the trees. Human skin was a
sensitive receptor, an interface with the worldtrees. Whenever Nira climbed to the canopy for her daily work, she stroked
the fronds, pressed her chest against the trunk. She had shorn her dark hair close to the scalp, as most acolytes did, leaving
only a fuzz on the crown of her head. All her hair would fall out as soon as she took the green.
Since childhood, she had recognized her destiny to become part of the ecological web of the worldforest, which grew year after
year. Before the
Caillié
had been brought here long ago, the worldforest had been only an isolated group of semiintelligent trees on a single planet.
There, because it had no way to grow intellectually, or experience new things, the worldforest had languished in isolation
for thousands of years.
However, when the settlers came, a girl named Thara Wen had learned to commune with the forest, and she taught other sensitive
individuals. These early “priests” had discovered how to tap into the ponderous memory that was capable of storing and recalling
vast amounts of information. The worldtrees were a living database, hampered only by a lack of experiences and outside knowledge.
Thara Wen and her followers had taken care of that problem.
As the worldforest began to learn from its human companions, the relationship blossomed into a beneficial symbiosis. Green
priests explained mathematics and science, history and folklore. Once its appetite was whetted, the worldforest wanted to
absorb all human knowledge, from the dullest facts to the most sweeping legends. The arboreal computer could assimilate and
assess a thousand tangential pieces of information and make brilliant and accurate projections, almost like prophecies from
a benevolent earth spirit.
Around her, other acolytes read dull-sounding data, reciting records of weather patterns on planets she’d never even heard
of; Nira was quite happy to be ensconced in the boughs with Malory’s epic chronicle. Priests played musical instruments or
activated recordings of symphonies created by human composers; to the worldforest, music was as much a language as words.
Alone under the sky, Nira read for hours, not even shifting her position, completely focused on the story and on the listening
trees. The trees could receive information in other ways, through direct telepathic link with functional green priests, but
Nira did not have that option. Besides, she preferred to read aloud—it was the way stories were meant to be told, and the
worldforest seemed to grasp that. Somehow, even without the symbiosis established, these magnificent plants understood that
Nira would become part of their overall network soon. Very soon, she hoped.
As the afternoon waned toward twilight, Nira’s voice grew scratchy and she realized that she hadn’t taken a drink from her
water flask in hours. She looked up to see older priests descending from their platforms, finished with the day’s activities.
She gulped from her flask, swallowing the stimulating clee—pure water mixed with ground seeds from the worldtrees. She felt
awake, eager to read another hundred pages, but it was time to attend to her other duties.
As she climbed down to the juncture of the largest fronds, she met a tall middle-aged priest named Yarrod, the younger brother
of Mother Alexa. The many tattoos on his green face bore witness to the different subjects he had studied and abilities he
had acquired in the name of the worldforest. Though the green priests had a very loose and generous hierarchy, Yarrod was
one of the senior members, though his position had little to do with his relation to the leader. “Nira Khali, I have come
to escort you. Our council has met, and the trees have approved.”
“Approved?” Nira’s heart leaped. “Approved of what?” Possibilities ran through her mind, and she couldn’t decide which she
hoped for most.
