IronStar (14 page)

Kirrah visualized it drifting, cold
and inert, by now fled far beyond the frontiers of this solar system. Then
shivering briefly as its tiny fusion bottle came on-line, feeding power to the
miniature Higgs generator in its nose. Virtual mass would begin to build around
its bow, pseudo-gravity tugging the little messenger around
this
axis,
lining up
those
three stars, heading just exactly
that
way. Then
the power would torrent in earnest, piling gigaton on top of megaton of virtual
mass, until space began to sag and fold into the shape of a Transit Tube.

The little missile would begin
falling down this carefully shaped Tubefield gradient, faster and faster as the
virtual mass built around and ahead of it. When the outer gravity gradient of
the Tubewall reached the ferocity of a black hole, the entire device plus a
volume of space around it would detach from the Siderial universe as though it
had dropped over an event horizon, which it effectively would have done. A
reverse fold generated inside the outer one would direct stray atoms, photons
or the occasional dust speck in its path, safely around the tiny vessel. After
a run of about seventy-five days, it would dial back its Tubefield and rejoin
normal space. Sensors would examine its new location, compare it with the
navigation specs, then call for likely a single stage course correction. After
a few more minutes or hours in Tubespace it would pop back down, safely within
the Trailway sensor net, and begin transmitting its deeply encrypted data log
to the Naval Intelligence listening station.
Then
things would start to
happen.

Not that they’re not happening now,
she thought, gripping her mind back around her current language lesson:
the Talamae culture’s odd concept of ‘power’. They had no single word for
‘power’, she had learned, but a whole set of overlapping idiomatic concepts
that required careful attention. There was
kaena’hachk
, literally
‘power-of-darkness’, which could mean ‘righteous rage’, or ‘a wise fear in the
face of risk’, but with none of the fearsome associations her culture had
around
darkness
. It could also be used with the nuance of ‘inner source
of creative energy’, and, if one were not careful with the context, it could
have the salacious suggestion of ‘having passionate sex in the dark’. It could
also
mean ‘the back (or shadow) of my heart’, or ‘balance to my flame’.

Slaetra was a little baffled by her
difficulty with the whole concept, as though it was simply the norm for people
in this culture to have embraced and merged with their innermost terrors.
And
they seem like such nice people,
Kirrah thought.
They are,
she
realized; she had never met a more decent, civil group of people than the staff
and students of this school. Talam’s citizens, even their military, seemed
unfailingly courteous, without diverting one iota from their duties. And no one,
ever, had set off the contact alarm that her unoccupied suit would sound if it
were touched.
They must be damned curious about that suit, and the beamer in
its holster
, Kirrah mused,
but they seem too …respectful, to demand an
inspection, or to attempt one covertly.

Then there was the term
kaetha’sha
– literally ‘power-with’. This could mean simply ‘synergy’, the power of
coinciding goals, but it had other shades. It was used to describe a parent’s
authority over a child; the King’s authority over the people - the
Talamae
;
and a husband’s authority over his wife. Just when she thought she had the
concept, it then turned out to
also
mean, the people’s authority over
the King(!), and the wife’s authority over her husband! To illustrate the
concept, Slaetra had compared it to a couple creating a child - they were
expressing their
kaetha’sha
; also to a farmer growing a crop, but
including the idea of the
crop
growing
the
farmer
… which,
if you thought about it, was literally true.

Slaetra had shown Kirrah a stunningly
detailed, beautiful wood carving of a fearsome bird of prey; not a
snath
,
a scavenger, but a ‘life-hunter’. The bird was called a
kae’rruckh
(which
explained those sharp skyward glances from people, when her very
similar-sounding name was first introduced). The artist had selected a piece of
driftwood (at least the smooth surface looked sun-bleached and wind-polished),
and had woven the bird’s grace and beauty into the very grain and knots and
branches of the wood.

“See,” Slaetra had said, pointing
to where the bird’s head was turned slightly, so that a particular knot
happened to be placed just right to form the pupil for one fierce eye. “The
artist teaches the wood, and the wood teaches the artist:
Kaetha’sha!
”

And speaking of ‘authority’, here
their language revealed another cultural difference, which Kirrah was ready to
concede to the Talamae, hands down. They had no word for ‘authority’, meaning,
‘to be in charge of’, by itself. They also had no word for ‘responsibility’,
meaning, ‘to be accountable for’, by
itself.
Instead, they had the
single word,
shee’thomm,
meaning, ‘having authority-over
and
accountability-for’, in one single, indivisible concept.

A good word to introduce to certain
Fleet officers in the context of their delegation skills, Kirrah reflected, to
say nothing of a great many areas of the civil service and government. Slaetra
had been incredulous at first, when Kirrah had tried to explain her insight,
that a sane person would ever try to
divide
such a fundamental concept
as
shee’thomm
into two parts, and then assign or accept one without the
other. Speaking of government, she thought, jolting out of her woolgathering,
it would be good to get this right, I’m seeing them tomorrow.

The next day dawned gray and
cooler, and a light drizzle had started by the time their breakfast was done.
Irshe had joined them for the morning meal, to Akaray’s obvious delight. They
were the guests of honor (or possibly targets), at two state functions. No, one
state
function – a hearing to determine Akaray’s status, and the second,
a
private
audience with the King. With
Lord Tsano
, Kirrah
reminded herself vigorously. Let’s not add a gratuitous name-flubbing to the
already thick minefield of language and cultural assumptions. Kirrah mentally
parsed his formal name, using the conventions she had drilled on:

Tsano shu’Teescha sho’Talam
shai’Talamae
:

Tsano, son of Teescha (father);
then ‘
sho’Talam
’, not meaning ‘from
Talam
’ but ‘son of
Talam
(mother)’, that is, claiming as mother,
Talam
the countryside, the
territory; and finally
shai’Talamae
, royally bound in
shee’thomm
relationship with the entire
Talamae
, meaning ‘the people’, but
including their culture and traditions.

Whew, these people pack a lot in a
name
. Kirrah had not felt this stuffed with barely-held facts
since her Academy finals. At the sound of horses’ hooves announcing the arrival
of their transportation, she checked that her survival suit was clean and in
good order (and smelling much better now thank you, Tash’ta), and that Akaray’s
brand new outfit was properly arrayed, and then turned towards the entryway
with the boy and Irshe. To her mild surprise and secret relief, Slaetra fell in
with them as though there had never been any question of her not joining them.
Also to her surprise, one of the other professors, the thin balding man with a
narrow chin and a rather pedantic manner, Brai’klao shu’Naei, joined them as
well.

Two of the horses, it turned out,
were pulling a cart, similar to those she’d seen on the road a few days ago but
more finely made, with two facing bench seats and, thankfully, a fabric cover
to keep off the light but by now steady rain. With the five of them plus the
driver aboard, and four more of the mounted orange-and-blue trimmed soldiers as
escort, they set out. Kirrah by now recognized the orange and blue as the
colors of the palace guard, and the double blue hanging ribbons designating a
sergeant. And yes,
ro’tachk
, literally ‘group-leader’, did mean
‘sergeant’. Irshe’s orange and green indicated ‘border patrol’, and the orange
and white she had noticed earlier were ‘city patrol’, with responsibility for
security of the city walls as well as municipal peacekeeping.
Shee’thomm
,
she reminded herself. Responsibility
and
authority.

They left using the same street
they had come in, backtracking through the open gate in the inner wall, going
south two blocks to Slow Water Road, the main east-west thoroughfare. There
they turned west, and after three more blocks came to another gate, set in the
base of one of the ubiquitous stone towers. Kirrah realized that a single
breach in the city’s outer wall would not give an attacker access to the entire
city but only a portion. This gate was the one defending the taller white
buildings she had seen on entering the city three days earlier.

The gate was manned by
palace-liveried guards, and opened onto a triangular courtyard enclosed by
walls running northwest and southwest back from the gate. The west wall of this
courtyard was the near side of another of those square city-block-sized buildings,
oriented north-south, two stories high and made of some lighter-appearing stone
than the city’s walls. Their carriage crossed the stone slab pavement of the
courtyard, making a loud echoing rattle of iron wheel rims and the clop of shod
hooves. At its far corners the courtyard was connected by narrow laneways to
matching triangular courtyards on the north and south sides of the main
building, and at these narrow points, towers rose from the outer walls into the
gray morning drizzle. In the center of the wall facing them was the opening of
another wide entryway similar to the school’s, within which they stopped and
stepped from the carriage. The inner courtyard was square, somewhat larger than
the school’s, and at its center was a more ornate edifice approximately sixty
meters square, set at forty-five degrees to the courtyard walls. Two of their
escort, now dismounted, led their party to a door in the southeast wall of the
inner building and down a short paneled corridor, and rattled the latch on a door
on the right side of that corridor. A young servitor wearing dark blue leggings
and vest admitted them immediately.

The ten-by-fourteen meter room
within at first reminded Kirrah of a larger version of her own apartment at the
school. High ceilings, stuccoed walls, some brightly-colored wall hangings
depicting scenes of forest and plains animals both familiar and strange, a few
tasteful bits of sculpture, some couches and chairs, all contributed to a
feeling of lived-in comfort. High windows let in the gray morning light. Three
more of the palace guards stood along each side wall, all swordsmen. Most of
the length of the far end wall was covered with floor to ceiling shelves
bearing semi-neat ranks of rolled-up papers, boxes, and a number of what looked
like crudely-bound books. Two desks were placed near the far wall, one clean,
the other cluttered with paper, ink, brushes and a number of other foreign
implements.

Between the desks stood a handful
of men and women wearing light blue robes of a similar cut to Slaetra’s and
Brai’klao’s yellow. Behind the cluttered desk sat another man in the dark blue
…servants’(?) garb, this with lighter blue trim. He was quite large for a
servant, in fact Kirrah was sure those broad shoulders and massive arms were
not the result of pushing paper. At the other, clean desk sat a smaller,
learned-looking man, also wearing dark blue, just now looking up from the
single sheet of parchment allowed on the desk’s otherwise immaculate wooden
surface.
Later
, she thought as the group of precisely robed individuals
standing before her turned towards her small party,
let’s get introductions
done right
. Kirrah glanced uncertainly from one to another of the
light-blue robed figures, trying to guess which was Lord Tsano.

The large man stood and walked
around the disorderly desk towards her. Kirrah realized that his seated
position had caused her to seriously underestimate his size. This man was
huge
,
over two meters tall, half as broad, a good hundred twenty-five kilos, and
muscled like an oak tree. A
big
oak tree. His face was pleasant enough
if you discounted the several thin scars and occasional white welts. The palest
green eyes Kirrah had ever seen looked out from under bushy chestnut eyebrows
and a shock of curly dark brown hair. His voice, lighter than one would expect
from such a large chest, said:

“The Talamae greet this woman,
whose name is the cry of the plains raptor. Welcome,
Kirrah
, on behalf
of our city and my people.” He used for the word ‘my’ the possessive pronoun ‘
nawu’
,
indicating association, rather than ‘
navu’
meaning ownership, thus
saying that he and the people belonged together, not that the people belonged
to him. His massive right hand swung up in the fist-to-throat gesture she had
seen Irshe use, and then extended, palm facing left, forearm angled upward in
the Talamae equivalent of an offered handshake. Confused whether this giant was
the King or a servant introducing the King, Kirrah glanced at Slaetra standing
just to her left, who returned an Arched Eyebrow (Single), and a Get-On-With-It
nod, Level Two.
Oh… ok.