Hidden Empire (6 page)
Estarra’s parents had never gone to the Ildirans’ fabulous capital city of Mijistra under the Seven Suns, though their daughter
Sarein—four years younger than Reynald—had spent several years being schooled on Earth and forging alliances with the Hansa.
Estarra’s brother Beneto had always been destined to “take the green” and become a priest of the worldforest. She looked forward
to his return from Oncier, where he had watched the creation of the new sun.
Father Idriss and Mother Alexa had indulged her, perhaps too much, letting her find her own interests and get into all kinds
of trouble. Her little sister Celli, the baby of the family, preferred to spend time with her incessantly chattering friends.
Estarra was much more independent.
She ducked beneath sweet-smelling ferns and felt the tingle of wild perfume against her bronze skin. Estarra’s hair was bunched
in a chaos of braids and twists. She preferred this unfashionable style because it left few loose strands to catch on branches
and twigs.
She trotted along, memorizing the way back home to the towering fungus-reef city where she lived. Estarra stood under the
skyscraper-tall worldtrees, scaly-barked plants that throbbed with energy, stretching toward the sky as if planted in some
giant’s garden. Through cracks of the overlapping bark armor, treeling sprouts protruded like loose hairs.
The worldtree roots, trunks, and rudimentary
mind
were all connected. The feathery fronds reached hundreds of feet high, drooping to form an umbrellalike awning, each tree
touching the next, to make the sky a tapestry of foliage. The fronds waved like eyelashes stroking each other. In addition
to the humming insect sounds and calls of wild animals, a constant blanket of white noise settled over the forest, a rustling
sound as soothing as a lullaby.
Worldtrees had spread across all the Theron land masses, and now ambitious green priests carried treelings to other planets
so that the interlinked forest sentience could grow and learn. They prayed to it, a throbbing “earth spirit” in a literal
sense, and helped the forest sentience grow stronger.
Long ago—183 years—an Ildiran Solar Navy patrol had encountered Earth’s first slow-moving generation ship, the
Caillié
, and brought it to this untouched planet. All eleven of the old generation ships had been named for famous explorers. The
Caillié
had taken its designation from René Caillié, a French explorer of darkest Africa, who had disguised himself as a native in
order to enter the mysterious continent. He had become the first white man to look upon the fabled city of Timbuktu.
Burton, Peary, Marco Polo, Balboa, Kanaka
… those generation-ship names had an exotic resonance for Estarra, but even tales of Earth’s uncivilized days could not match
the wonders the widespread colonists had found as they settled other worlds across the Spiral Arm.
Clark, Vichy, Amundsen, Abel-Wexler, Stroganov
. All of them had found homes with the help of the Ildirans, except for the
Burton
, which remained lost among the stars.
The inhabitants of the rescued
Caillié
had rejoiced upon seeing Theroc’s verdant landscape, the sheer potential of this untamed world. This new home was more welcoming
than any they had imagined during their generations of blind flight in search of any habitable star system. They had lived
for centuries confined aboard a large, sterile starship, and during all that aimless time the colonists and their descendants
had little to do but look at images of forests and mountains. And Theroc was everything they had prayed for. The colonists
had immediately suspected something unusual about these trees.
The
Caillié
had carried everything necessary to settle even the most hostile world, but Theroc proved to be fully cooperative. After
the Ildirans deposited them here, the colonists set up prefabricated structures as an immediate and temporary settlement while
biologists, botanists, chemists, and mineral engineers set out to assess what this remarkable world had to offer.
Luckily, the biochemistry of the Theron ecosystem was mostly compatible with human genetics, and the settlers were able to
eat a great variety of native food. They were not required to engage in massive labors of clearing and fertilizing land. The
Caillié
settlers found ways to work with the forest, discovering natural homes rather than erecting metal and polymer structures.
Decades later, by the time the Ildirans had established diplomatic relations with Earth, the Theron settlers had developed
their own culture and established a firm foothold. Although Hansa representatives finally came to reunite them with the greater
network of humanity, the Therons were perfectly happy to remain unaligned. When their ancestors had set out on the generation
ship, they had never expected to go back, never dreamed of restored contact with Earth. They were a seed cast on the wind,
hoping to take root somewhere. They did not intend to be uprooted…
As she paused in her explorations, Estarra ate messy handfuls of splurtberries and wiped the juice from her mouth and hands.
Exuberant, she looked up at the nearest worldtree, where she saw handholds and markings of frequent ascents by acolyte reading
teams. The bark offered enough bumpy handand footholds that Estarra could scale it like a ladder, providing she didn’t look
down or think too hard about what she was doing. Up there, the green priests walked their highways across the resilient treetops
and interlinked branches.
Estarra wore few clothes, for the forest was warm; her feet were callused enough that she needed no shoes. She ascended one
handhold at a time, moving upward, always upward. Exhausted but exhilarated, she finally broke through the brushing worldtree
leaves. Estarra stared out, blinking into the unobscured sunlight, blue sky, and the endless treescape.
Even from up here, she could not tell where one individual tree ended and another began. Around her, she heard voices and
songs, groaning chants and hesitant reading voices, a mixture of high-pitched and deep tones.
Balanced against the fronds, Estarra looked out at the gathered priests, tanned and healthy acolytes who had not yet taken
the green, older emerald-skinned priests who had already formed a symbiosis with the worldforest. The acolytes sat on platforms
or balanced on branches, reading aloud from scrolls or electronic plaques. Some played music. Others simply rattled off tedious
streams of data, reciting meaningless numbers from tables. It was a dizzying hubbub of activity, with the priests entirely
focused on increasing the knowledge and data held within the worldforest—a way to show reverence for and help their vibrant
verdant spirit at the same time. Hundreds of separate voices spoke to the interconnected forest, and the worldtrees listened
and learned.
So much to see and experience, and the green priests did it all by staying here, drawing blessings from the mind of the worldforest.
Estarra wished she could comprehend everything the forest knew. The priests sang out poems or read stories, even discussed
philosophical topics, delivering information in all forms. The worldtrees absorbed every scrap of data, and still the living
network hungered for more.
A
t the fringe of the sparkling Horizon Cluster, Ildira basked under the varying light of seven suns. The Empire’s home planet
circled a warm orange K1 star that was situated near a close binary pair—the Qronha system—composed of a red giant and a smaller
yellow companion. More distant, but still dazzling in the Ildiran sky, hung the amazing trinary of Durris, a closely tied
white star and yellow star with a red dwarf orbiting the common center of mass. Finally, also distant, the blue-supergiant
Daym shone like an intense diamond.
Night never fell on Ildira.
Mijistra, capital city and jewel of the ancient empire, glittered under brassy skies. Its spires and domes were made of crystal
and colored glass, freeform architecture fashioned out of ultrastrong transparent polymers.
Prime Designate Jora’h, eldest son and heir to the Mage-Imperator, drew a deep breath of air perfumed with mists from the
upward-tumbling waterfalls that climbed to the Prism Palace.
As was his duty, the Prime Designate waited to meet the human representative from Theroc. The young man, Reynald, was Jora’h’s
ostensible counterpart, but in a much-diminished capacity. The human prince would become the ruling Father of a single wilderness
planet, whereas the Prime Designate would eventually control the vast Ildiran Empire.
Jora’h raised both hands to greet the smiling man. “Prince Reynald, I bid you heartfelt welcome to Mijistra.”
The broad-shouldered prince climbed the wide steps toward the receiving platform, flanked by burly members of the Ildiran
soldier kith. A minimal escort of humans accompanied Reynald, including one of his personal green priests.
The Theron man had black hair, divided into braids that were gathered at the back of his neck. He left his well-muscled arms
bare under a padded tunic made from an interesting pearly fabric that glistened in the light of multiple suns. He had a squarish
face, flat cheeks beneath wide-set dark eyes. He wore a set of filter lenses to block Ildira’s excess sunlight; the receiving
committee had also given the visitors creams and screening lotions.
“Prime Designate, I’ve been looking forward to seeing Ildira for many years.” Reynald boldly reached out to clasp Jora’h’s
hand, as if they were equals. He had a warm and open manner about him, an attitude that melted the icy walls of formal ceremony.
Jora’h broke into a smile. He liked this young man almost instantly. “Both of our cultures have much to learn from each other.”
Reynald looked at the shimmering curtains of water that leaped from the foamy pools at the canal edges and climbed invisible
suspensor ladders into the domes and connected tubes. He laughed with childish delight. “You have already impressed me, Prime
Designate—though I could find a few impressive jungle oddities on Theroc, if you ever visited us.”
The Prism Palace stood atop an ellipsoidal hill that raised the Mage-Imperator’s residence above the shining parapets, museum
domes, and greenhouses of Mijistra. Seven rivers—long ago tamed by Ildiran engineers—flowed in perfectly straight lines toward
the nexus of the Empire. Magnetic levitation fields and gravity-assist platforms nudged the current along, lifting the sparkling
water uphill against gravity.
Reynald followed Jora’h into the entry gallery where blazers augmented the sunlight to banish every possible shadow.
“This is one of the last stops on my peregrination. I decided that I must understand other cultures and worlds in order to
serve my people. Much like Tsar Peter the Great, one of our ancient leaders from a large country known as Russia. Peter traveled
and learned from other cultures and took the best parts back home with him. I intend to do the same.”
The human’s exuberance was infectious. “An admirable goal, Reynald. Perhaps I should leave Mijistra more often myself.” It
wasn’t necessary for a Prime Designate to see other parts of the Ildiran Empire—but it might actually be fascinating. His
own son and heir, Thor’h, had spent years fostered on the comfortable Ildiran pleasure world of Hyrillka.
“I have already been to Earth, where I met with Old King Frederick,” Reynald continued with an abashed smile, “though he didn’t
quite know what to do with me. I also met with Chairman Wenceslas, who was very polite—mainly because he wants me to give
him more green priests when I become Father of Theroc.”
“And now you have come here,” Jora’h said, gesturing forward. “We will fill your eyes to bursting!” Laughing, he led Reynald
and his entourage toward the nearest shimmering wing of the Prism Palace.
As the Prime Designate, Jora’h was endowed with a charisma and animal magnetism that made him extremely attractive. His lean
face radiated charm. His eyes were smoky topaz, gleaming with starry highlights and reflections. Long hair, a sign of male
virility among Ildirans, wreathed his head in a mane made up of thousands of thin golden cornrows, braids like delicate chains
that were alive and faintly mobile. They writhed with an unusual energy.
Human merchants, visiting dignitaries, scholars, even well-to-do tourists came to visit the fabled seven suns of Ildira. Since
the Ildiran Empire had provided the Hansa with a fast stardrive, many humans revered them as benevolent patrons, paternal
figures. While accepting the human race as part of the galactic story told in the
Saga of Seven Suns
, many Ildirans had trouble understanding human impulsiveness and drive.
But Jora’h found this one quite likable. He and Reynald walked shoulder-to-shoulder into the promenade hall of arched ceilings
and stained-glass mosaics. Rich colors vibrated around them, intense light shining through the primary filters of the stained-glass
windows.
Reynald even spotted a single black Klikiss robot moving down a corridor on flexible legs, looking like a hulking mechanical
beetle—the first one he had ever seen. None of the Ildirans paid it much attention.
