Palace (23 page)

Mustn’t let a good human trait fall by the wayside.’

‘Oh, I dunno. I can think of a few traits we’d all be better off without. Eh?’

Wilso started to answer, then stopped, his mouth half-open.

‘Better go on in,’ Hi said. ‘Can’t keep the First Citizen waiting. He likes his tea stirred to the left.’

Wilso glared at him, then scurried into the office without another word.

* * *

‘You did well,’ Samante remarked. ‘His Eminence was impressed.’

‘Thank you,’ Vida said. ‘I’m glad you think so.’

‘I’m glad we’ve got this time to get away, though. We need to practise what you’re going to say to the gridjockeys. I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I’ve got some notes. You’ve got to get the official story down so well that you believe it.’

Vida tried to smile and failed. They were sitting in her guest suite, three large rooms that seemed even larger thanks to their expanses of sleek white walls. Round the ceiling ran a dark blue and silver moulding; on the floor lay dark blue and green striped carpets. The furniture - a pair of chairs, a sofa, a scatter of small tables out here in the gather - was stark white and chrome. The only decoration on the walls were a pair of vidscreens, each a good six feet square. One showed only pale grey static; the other ran constantly changing tower graphs in lurid colours, tallying votes or opinions on this issue or that. Vida lay back in her armchair and stared out the bank of windows at a view of green gardens under a grey sky.

‘Is that a holo?’

‘No, it’s real.’

‘That’s nice. I’m glad something is round here.’

‘Well, um. This must be hard on you.’

Vida stared at her for a long moment. Hard on me? She wanted to laugh or maybe even scream at the understatement. She lifted a hand to brush her hair back from her face and found it shaking.

‘Vida, Vida, do try to control yourself Samante’s voice sounded vague and indifferent. ‘Yes, Wan acted like a piece of swamp filth. Do you think that’s the worst insult you’ll have to face around here? Think of what you’re gaining in life.’

‘Oh come on.’ Vida tried to speak quiedy, but tears were running down her face. She dropped her face into her hands and sobbed.

‘Se Vida,’ Samante murmured. ‘Please.’

‘Shut up!’

‘I will not shut up. You’re in Centre now, and people here are going to judge you, seeing how strong or how weak you are. If they think you’re weak, they’ll take advantage of you. Now do come on and stop that noise.’

Vida raised her head and glared through tears. ‘You weren’t the one Vanna was looking at that way. I thought she was going to walk over and slap me or something.’

‘Well, that’s true. The Second Citizen was not at her best today.’

‘Not at her best!’ Vida wiped her face on her sleeve. ‘I wish I could go home. I want to so bad.’

She looked up to find Samante staring at her in something like stunned disbelief.

‘Oh, I know what all you snotty suck-ups think of us, but Pleasure was my home, and people were good to me there. At least we’re honest, aren’t we? Maybe we’re culls, but we know what we’re selling, and we don’t pretend to be giving it away for free.’ Vida paused for effect. ‘Can you say the same?’

‘Just what do you mean by that?’ Samante turned bright red.

‘I saw how the Peronida treated you. Like a pet dog. And you had to take it and fawn on him for more.’

Samante got up and stalked across the room to stare out of the window.

‘Se Vida.’ Samante had pressed her voice as calm as a dead flower. ‘We need to get ready for the public reception.’

‘Do we? I’m glad you’re going to change that dress. It’s bOring.’

‘It’s suitable for someone in my position.’ Samante spun round and glared at her. ‘It’s part of an interpreter’s job, being invisible.’

Vida hesitated. She could think of a thousand insults that would make Samante drop her carefully gathered calm - but why was she even thinking this way? She needed Samante, who was after all only looking after her as a favour to the cardinal. She took a deep breath.

‘I’m sorry, Samante. I’m just all to pieces. Everything’s happened too fast.’

‘Yes, yes, I suppose that’s very true.’ Samante cocked her head to one side and considered her for a long moment. ‘And I’m the only person you can take it out on.’

Vida felt herself blushing.

‘Look,’ Samante said. ‘I’m sorry, too. When His Eminence told me about you, I really didn’t know what to expect. May I be blunt, Vida?’

‘Sure. Why not?’

‘Well, I’ve never been to Pleasure Sect. For all I knew you were going to be some coarse little thing with a mouth like a sewer.’ Vida laughed.

‘There are lots of girls like that, but not in Madam Aleen’s houses.’

‘So I see. I’ve heard of Aleen Raal, oddly enough. A lot of information seems to change hands in her ... um ... establishment.’

‘Yeah, probably so. All the best people come to The Close.’

‘I was afraid - well, it doesn’t matter.’

‘You were afraid you’d have to tell me not to grab my food with my fingers?’

‘Something like that.’ Samante allowed herself a brief smile. ‘I hope you like the clothing I bought you. Madam Raal transmitted your size data to a very nice shop.’

‘It’s all fine, yeah. What kind of thing did you bring for the reception? Let me guess.’ Vida grinned at her. ‘Something black with a real high neckline and it’s baggy.’

Samante grimaced in wordless acknowledgement.

Vida got up from her chair and rubbed her face with both hands. Although she felt that she would weep for hours, if she should let herself start again, she knew that Samante was right, that she’d have to keep a Garang’s watch over her feelings from now on. Aleen would say the same thing, she told herself, and with the telling she saw a truth. Aleen raised me for this, didn’t she? She knew it would happen, sooner or later.

‘What’s wrong?’ Samante said. ‘You look so strange.’

‘Nothing. Just thinking about something.’ Vida took a deep breath.
Don’t fail me, Vida.
‘Just remembering something my guardian said to me, once.’

Samante was waiting, puzzled. Vida arranged her best bright smile.

‘You’re right. We’d better get changed for the reception. Look, why don’t I help you pick out a really sharp dress? There’s lots. Something short on me will be evening length on you.’

‘Well, I-’

‘Oh come on, Samante! And we can get your hair out of that mousy braid, too. I know lots of ways to fix someone’s hair for them. It’ll be fun.’

The interpreter hesitated, glancing away. Vida followed her glance and found her looking at the vidscreen, where a tower graph was building up in blue and magenta as the public gave its opinion about appropriating more money for Karlo’s Fleet. It was going to be a close call, apparently, with nearly as many cons as pros.

‘Well, all right,’ Samante said at last. ‘I imagine you would know a lot about being stylish.’

‘Oh yeah. I’ve been trained.’

Samante laughed, a dry little sound but sincere enough.

‘So have I, Se Vida. So have I, just for something very different. Now. What colour dress do you think I should wear?’

‘That red one, of course. It’ll look beautiful with your black hair. I can’t wear red.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t either. That’s much too bright.’

‘No, it’s not. You’ll see once you try it on. I’m going to try that white satin one. Do we have to hurry? When is the reception?’

‘Soon, but we’ll wait here until Brother Dav sends us a commcall.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘The cardinal’s factor. He’s orchestrating your entrance. We don’t dare arrive on time.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re the one who’s being presented. There’s no use in presenting you to a half-empty room, and all the best people will only be late, anyway, so they don’t look too eager.’

Sure enough, by the time that Brother Dav summoned them, the reception hall teemed with hundreds of people. Vida and Samante stood in a secret room behind and halfway above the hall and looked out through a security window while the stout and red-faced Dav, a comm unit clipped to his Lifegivers’ cowl, talked urgently with his security people down on the main floor. Vida had never seen a room so large or one so shiny, either. Everywhere she looked, she saw shattered light, reflecting and glaring off surfaces or jewels. Burnished silverwood, set here and there with gold lighting fixtures, panelled the walls of the enormous oval hall, except for the eastern end of the oval, where ten floor to ceiling windows gave out onto a view of Palace’s shrouded sky, a darker silver now, dappled with gold and pink from the lights of the vast city below. Despite the crowds of guests, a welter of bright colours in guild robes and gowns, Vida could see enough of the floor to realize that it glistened with jadium, pale green, dark green, and rose, inlaid in a pattern of concentric rings. Along the outermost ring stood oases of dark green and onyx furniture, formfit chairs and little tables, each oasis enclosed by a gold isolation torus of pure energy. Although a sapient could walk through the force-fields, they would stop sound waves or transmit beams.

‘Look at all the saccules,’ Vida said. ‘I’ve never seen so many servants, and they’re all dressed up, too. I guess the guests brought their own, huh?’

‘Oh no,’ Samante said. ‘They all belong to Government House.’

Out in the centre of the hall stood a huge three-step dais made of some strangely nacreous substance - whether it was metal or some sort of artificial material, Vida couldn’t say. Among chairs and floral arrangements the Peronidas and the cardinal waited for her there, as far as she could see from her height. She could certainly pick out a small crowd of people in the white and pale blue dress uniforms of the Military Guild, which these days meant the Kephalon Fleet more than the traditional land and sea militia of Palace itself. Halfway up the steps on each side stood pairs of Garang guards, uniformed in white.

‘Now remember,’ Samante whispered. ‘The whole point of this is the testing. The public has to see your genotype confirmed, or they’ll never believe the truth. So do your best to act natural for the grids, all right? There’s going to be a lot of them.’

Vida’s mouth went suddenly dry. She turned from the window to look at Samante.

‘I’ll do my best,’ Vida said.

‘Good. That’s all anyone can - oh, look at that!’

Vida swirled round and followed her point. On the back wall of the security booth hung the usual pair of vidscreens. On one of them glowed a holo of a young woman with russet-red hair tumbling down past her shoulders. She’s pretty, Vida thought - oh my God, that’s me! All round her holo the screen windowed into display units - blocks of text, other holos, Vanna, the cardinal, Karlo, people she didn’t know - the last L’Var? girl found in pleasure sect! end of long search? cyberguild head admits elation over discovery!

‘Good,’ Samante said. ‘I wonder how long it’ll take to tabulate the first poll? The initial reaction won’t mean much if it’s bad, though, so don’t worry. Once we get you a newsgrid presence, people will stop caring about ancient history.’

Vida barely heard her. On the vidscreen her own holo was beginning to morph. As she watched, her hair shrank and shortened, her jaw turned strong, her shoulders broadened, the clothes in the picture changed from her old green slither to a military uniform. A man’s face looked out at her, but the eyes were hers, the set of the ear, the cropped off russet-red hair, Orin L’Var - traitor’s

last legacy?

‘That’s my father,’ Vida whispered.

‘Oh yes,’ Samante said. ‘And no-one will ever doubt it, seeing that morph.’

Vida stared at the screen as the holo began to change back, softening, narrowing, turning into her own face again, will public accept last of the cybersorcerers?

‘Good question,’ Samante said. ‘But there’s no use in worrying about your ratings yet. Brother Dav?’

Wiping sweat from his face, the burly monk turned from his control panel.

‘Yes, it’s time you two went down. Nikolaides is on his way up to fetch his lawsister.’

‘Who?’ Vida said.

‘Pero,’ Samante put in. ‘On Kephalon, children took their mother’s family’s name. Pero Nikolaides, Karlo’s son, was the Kephalon idea of a full formal name.’

Vida nodded, still watching the vidscreen. The holo of her face was fading now to a dark grey featureless head, turning slowly in a pale blue void, girl’s mother still unknown - court records sealed. Sealed records or not, the newsgrid intakes would be chasing her down, Vida knew. If they succeeded, would she get to meet her? Would she want to meet her? Up in one of the corner windows Orin L’Var’s holo reappeared. My father, Vida thought. But a traitor. At the door, a knock; Pero strode in without waiting for an answer. He bowed to Vida, then glanced at Samante and grinned with a lazy flick of his wide mouth.

‘A lovely dress, Interpreter Dinisa,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Captain Nikolaides.’ Samante sounded cool, distant. ‘The uniform becomes you as well.’

‘Nothing becomes me, Interpreter.’ Pero turned to Vida. ‘Sister, you look lovely tonight. White, hum? Well, you’re about to contract into the Military Guild, all right. May I have the honour?’

Vida was glad to have his arm to lean upon, just as she was glad to have Samante there, walking right behind. From the security booth a lift brought them down to the main floor, where Brother Dav’s people, dressed in Lifegiver black, were waiting to clear them a straight path to the dais. As the guests realized who was entering the hall, a ripple of silence spread. Vida was remembering every posture lesson Tia and Aleen had ever given her - walk tall, walk gracefully, walk as if you wore a thousand-credit dress like this every day of your life. On either side the open path, behind the casually placed security guards, stood guildmasters, aristocrats, high-ranked officers, and priests, and they were all watching her silently, coldly, with nothing on their faces but hard assessment.

Vida concentrated On looking straight ahead, but there, waiting for her on the dais, stood Vanna, glaring at her with eyes of ice, shuddering abruptly, twitching an arm, bobbing her head, but always steadying herself to glare once more. She wore a sheer smartgown of pale blue that set off the royal blue of the tattoos scrawled around her muscular arms, face, and neck. Vida could see the shadows of even more tattoos under the gown on every curve of breast or hip, each one a mark binding her to the Interstellar Guild and one of its grades. Behind her stood the Peronida men, all of them wearing the same uniform as Pero, even Damo, knee-length smocks of shimmering silver and blue over high white boots. Karlo and Wan each wore the headband forbidden to Pero, though, engraved with the Peronida glyph - a sine curve of grey bisected by a blue bar to show that their genotype had yet to be registered. At the sight of her Karlo smiled with a nod her way, but Wan stood impassive, his eyes focused on the wall far behind her. Off to one side she saw the cardinal, wearing the full regalia of an officer of the church, including the gold gloves of a Witness and a black mesh veil that fell to the middle of his chest. His crimson robes, embroidered with stars of every spectral type, pooled around his feet like a bowl of magma.