Rhythm of the Imperium (20 page)

Laine looked resigned. “It won’t be the first time I’ve had to replace everything.”

“Is Proton all right?” I asked.

Laine listened for a moment. “Yes. It’s fine.”

“What are they upset about?” Lieutenant Plet asked.

“Who knows?” Gruen said. “That’s not my job. I’m stuck between two bad choices. The captain wants them thrown off the ship before they take it over, and the special envoy says that’ll ruin any chances of making peace with the Kail motherworlds. So, I disabled the lifts so they can’t go anywhere, and I called Ambassador Melarides. She’s on her way down.”

Another magnificent bang shook the level.

“Have they attempted to corrupt any of the ship’s systems?” Plet asked.

“Except for reversing our control of the lifts, not a touch. They’re acting like they never heard of technology. They’re kicking and smashing things and carrying on like big stone babies.” He kept his eyes fixed pointedly upon me.

“I promise you, it’s nothing to do with me,” I said. “I’ve been minding my own business for the last several hours.”

“What do they want?” Anstruther asked, her golden eyes huge as something heavy slammed into an inner wall behind her.

“They just keep saying over and over again that they want it to talk to them. I don’t know what we can do about that, except maybe pipe a fake voice over the PA and pretend it’s coming from the Zang.”

I chuckled. “I’d be happy to provide the voice.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Lieutenant Plet said, dismissively. “Can
you
talk to them, Dr. Derrida?”

Laine shrugged her shoulders. The enveloping gown lifted and dropped, belling out at the hem with displaced air.

“I’ll just say the same thing as I did before. They can talk to it all they want. I can’t promise that it will listen.”

“Will you offer again, ma’am?” Chief Xi asked. “We’ll do our best to protect you.”

“I suppose so, but I can’t tell them anything that I haven’t said. The Zang is not going to reply directly to them. I offered to translate its impressions if I got any. Even if I did, it might not address their request.”

I cleared my throat, and was rewarded with everyone’s attention. “By this time in my studies, I might claim to be a growing expert in the field of translating nuance,” I said. “Can’t you … reinterpret what they’re hearing from the Zang?”

Laine wrinkled her nose. “In what way?”

I did my best to evoke inclusion, gathering all the beings present to me with enveloping arms.

“Try not to make them feel as if they are being ignored by the Zang. Give them reassurance that it is listening.”

She shook her head.

“But it isn’t! They
are
being ignored. We’re all ephemerals, temporary beings, maybe worthy of a glance or two. I’m always surprised when they let me know that a spectacle is coming so I can alert the population in the vicinity to come and watch. Otherwise, everything’s on
their
time scale.”

“Tell them what you do sense from it,” I suggested. “No one likes to feel unimportant. Perhaps if you reframe its attention to the universe in a way that includes them? Could you do that?”

Laine looked uncomfortable. She raised her warm brown eyes to mine in appeal. “I suppose so. I’m not used to being untruthful.”

“No? Don’t you write grant proposals?” I asked.

“All the time,” Laine said, the helpless expression giving way to confusion. “Well, I used to. But what’s that got to do with it?”

“From what I understand from my friends in academics, those are tissues of lies and fabrications from the merest suggestion of fact.” I held up a thumb and forefinger, the pads of which were a meager distance from one another. “Weren’t yours just the tiniest bit exaggerating what you had already found against what you hoped to find? All these poor creatures want is a moment of the Zang’s attention. Give them an essay that stresses what they may hope for.”

A slow smile spread the rosebud mouth into a broad grin. Endearing dimples indented her cheeks. I fell in love all over again. Her eyes warmed with affection.

“When you put it like that, I suppose it falls into the range of academic accuracy.” She turned to Xi. “All right, chief. Take me to them.”

“Marvelous!” I said, tucking her hand into the crook of my elbow. “I’m looking forward to this. I hope to gather enough material for another dance from the interplay.” At my side, Madame Deirdre nodded vigorous agreement.

“No!” Lieutenant Plet exclaimed. She stepped between us and took Laine’s hand away from me. I felt immediately bereft. “Please, Lord Thomas, this is dangerous. We prefer not to have to involve Dr. Derrida, but we have no choice. I don’t want to risk you.
You
have no purpose here. Go abovedecks. Now. Both of you.”

“But it was my idea!” I protested. I thrust out my lower lip. “I only want to help her.”

Xi lowered his heavy brow and frowned.

“Lieutenant, sir, my lord, will you get out of here? The only way you can help is not to be one of my problems. It’ll be tough enough to guard her from those stone-fisted morons! I don’t want to have to report to your mother you got a chair thrown at you on
my watch
.”

“Oh, come now, chief, my mother assumes I will get chairs thrown at me, on your watch or anyone else’s!”

“Come along, Lord Thomas. We are in the way,” Madame Deirdre said in a brisk manner, taking my arm with an iron grip. She had very strong fingers. “Chief, so sorry to be a bother.”

“Not at all, ma’am.” Chief Xi looked relieved.

As she pulled me away, I began to protest that I wanted to watch, but both good sense and the no-nonsense look on the face of my teacher told me to vacate the premises and not to argue.

“I will be in the common room if you need me,” I called to Laine over my shoulder.

“Sorry about the quisto-whatevers,” she said, with a rueful smile.

“Not at all,” I assured her. I did my best to cover my disappointment.

CHAPTER 20

Deirdre hauled me steadily toward the lift doors, which opened upon our approach, and herded me inside.

“Let’s go back and have the rest of our dinner,” she said, as the mechanism hummed to life. “Your friends can fill us in when they come back.”

“If they come back,” I said glumly, watching the indicator number rise. “I think tonight’s party is over.” I reached for the controls. She swatted my hand.

“You must not dwell on this, Lord Thomas!” she said. “There are times when you must let others take a task out of your sight!”

I grinned, a trifle sheepishly.

“I prefer to be in the midst of the action,” I said.

She waved away my impatience. “I know. But to become an interpreter, one must observe, then take the experience away with one, to a place where there is space for private thought and reflection.” She peered up at me. “I know your moods. You won’t be able to settle. Let us forgo the rest of the feast. Instead, let’s make use of this boundless energy that is making you twitch.” She spoke into the control panel of the lift. “Housekeeping, please?”

Instead of the friendly, casual voice of the elevator’s LAI system, the reply was in the precise tones of the managing intelligence that maintained the living quarters and everything on the ship that was not involved with operations, security or defense.

“Yes, Madame Deirdre, this is AB-64l. How may I help?”

“Abigail, will you set up the barre and mirror in the nobles’ common room, please? Towels, high-impact floor pads. And take away the food. We’ll need only water, herbal tea, and high-protein snacks.”

“Yes, Madame Deirdre,” Abigail said.

“Apologize to Marcel for us. Perhaps we can revisit his delectable offerings tomorrow, when things have settled down a bit.”

“I will do so. Changeover taking place now. Completion in twenty minutes.”

“Thank you so much,” Deirdre said. She stepped back and shot me a look of triumph.

“You take charge in the way that my maternal unit does,” I complained.

“Now that,” Madame Deirdre said, stepping out of the lift ahead of me, “I consider that to be an enormous compliment.”

We entered the day room. LAIs and other mechanicals zipped busily around us, undoing all the careful preparations I had made for my little dinner party. In no time at all, the feast hall had been transformed into a dance studio. With my cousins still on the planet’s surface, there was no one present to object. Rugs were rolled up, mats were spread out. An enormous mirror, appearing in the room as if by magic, slid out from behind a raised wall panel and was walked into place by thumb-sized rollerbots. I watched for a while, but my mind kept drifting downward into the lower levels of the ship.

I had every faith that Dr. Derrida was equal to the task of placating the stone monsters. But what was it they craved so mightily that they wanted to spend every waking moment persuading the Zang to give it to them? We knew so little about what the Zang were capable of achieving. Laine had given me an insight into their curiosity about lower life forms, including humankind. One could see that the less cultured beings might see them as deities, instead of seeing them as fellow inhabitants of a diverse galaxy. So far, no experts whom I had read or listened to knew whether the Kail believed in higher powers, therefore it suggested they were interested in practical assistance. What did the Kail need so desperately it made them commandeer a space liner? How could we help them get what they craved?

A hand-clap brought me out of my reverie.

“You’re far away, Lord Thomas,” Madame Deirdre said, pointing at the floor beside the mirror. “Come over here.” I obeyed, and put my hand upon the barre that had been erected along the mirror. “First position, please. Arms up! Second position. Let’s begin with some plies. Now,
one
two three.
One
two three.”

My dress trousers were not tremendously amenable to dance exercises, but I managed. Madame Deirdre grasped the barre next to me and led me through flexibility exercises. The wispy folds of her dress swirled around her like fairies around a storybook princess. I, as a rather clumsier prince, did my best to keep up. Though I was probably less than half her age, she could have gone on four times as long as I.

When I was quite winded, she released the barre and turned to face me.

“Come, now, we’re going to try an exercise in interpretation. I want you to describe your childhood to me.”

“
All
of it?” I asked, appalled at the scope of her request.

She pursed her mouth, but her eyes wore an amused twinkle.

“Very well, then,” she said, settling down cross-legged on the blue mat, “let us explore just one moment in your upbringing. Show me a significant moment that means a lot to you.”

“My life is full of significant moments,” I said. It was no more than the truth. A noble of the Imperium house and a Kinago was born to experience eventful days.

“I have no doubt of that,” she said. “What is the first one that comes into your mind? No, nothing that is going on right now! You have no way of knowing how significant anything that happens today will be.”

I did a couple of deep plies while I thought about her suggestion. What one moment could I point out as being particularly important? Was it the first time that I noticed the difference between my father and the parents of my cousins? Was it when I first told a joke to someone and was rewarded with a laugh? Would I describe one of my first enthusiasms?

No, wait!

Almost of its own volition, my left arm rose behind me in a graceful arc, and the fingers of my right hand curled around a sword hilt that it had not held for decades. I sprang away from the wall and advanced upon an invisible opponent.

The
Imperium Jaunter
disappeared from around me. Instead, I was back in the gardens behind my parents’ villa within the Imperium compound. I was seven or eight years of age. It was my first lesson in how to use a sword. I was too small to fight with any of the historical weapons in our arsenal or hanging from the walls of our suites in the Imperium compound. In point of fact, I was even too small for proper lessons, but Lieutenant Parsons, a dashing officer who was a friend of my parents and an avuncular presence among the younger generation of nobles, cut a pair of sticks from a thinning topiary and pressed them into service as swords. I cannot recall clearly how the subject had come up, only the moment in which I first attempted to set upon him, charging toward him with my makeshift blade flailing, and been beaten back. Never to be deterred by failure, I tried again and again. In the kindest and most patient manner, he explained to me what I was doing wrong. Parsons guided me to correct my movements, one after another, molding me into proper form.

As I described this in movement to Madame Deirdre, I felt myself smiling. That had been a wonderful day. It had meant a lot to me that this very competent officer whom I had believed to be aloof and uninterested in children had spent so much time with me, helping me to get my lunges and parries right. I described how long it had taken me to learn the beat-thrust. I repeated the motions again and again until they possessed their own rhythm. I was not accustomed to failure, even at that young age. I took my ignorance as a challenge. When at last I managed to pass Parsons’s formidable defense and touch him in quarte, I was as thrilled as if I had been named Emperor myself. I suspected then, as I did in reproducing the moment, that he had dropped his guard to allow me one touch as a reward for my unending effort.

I stopped and lifted my blade to my lips in salute to my worthy opponent. The boy I had been then was winded and sweat-stained. I realized that the man I was now felt a warm glow in my muscles, but that had been the day that set me on the path I had followed.

“That was fairly representational,” Madame said critically, from her place on the soft blue carpet, where she sat, cupping her chin with one hand. I eyed her with dismay. “But it was heartfelt.”

“I suppose I was too caught up in my memory to describe it symbolically,” I said.

“Oh, it was marvelous,” Deirdre said, rising as gracefully as a swan and coming to take both my hands in hers. “I was impressed by the passion and the depth of your recollection.”

“I will never forget that day,” I said.

She smiled up at me. “I have quite a new respect for Commander Parsons. He’s such a dry stick I had never thought of him before as being so generous.”

I blinked. “How could you tell that it was he I was battling?”

“You still have the same expression when you look at him, my dear,” she said, patting me on the hand. “Respect. Well, you’ve exorcised your frustrations! Do you think you can relax, now?”

I leaned down and kissed the tiny woman on the cheek.

“Yes. Thank you.”