Rhythm of the Imperium (40 page)

A snarl made me spin on my heel, seeking its source.

“What was that?”

“A tiger,” my uncle called, from the bench where he was sitting in the shadow of the white temple. He pointed. Lying at the top of a nearby staircase was a magnificent orange, black and white striped cat, switching its tail up and down. I stared. I had only ever seen one in my life, and that on a remote world far from the core of the Imperium. “Don’t worry about them. They’re too well fed. There are wild goats and monkeys everywhere about.”

Not only were there buff-colored simians walking up and back on the walls and screaming at us from the trees, but great gray elephants wandering the empty streets of the city, rubbing their backs against pillars and trees.

“Nell would be so jealous,” I breathed, as one massive specimen flapped its ears at us.

“A shame she will never get to see it, I’m afraid,” Uncle Laurence said.

“But, why not?” I asked.

He sighed, his handsome face taking on a thoughtful, almost tragic aspect.

“Over the eons, we have considered allowing others to visit. When I first arrived, I argued that scholars should be allowed back here to study our past, but once it became known where Earth was, the floodgates could not be kept closed after that. Can you imagine your cousins, or mine, being permitted to run rampant over this landscape, let alone the thronging tourist mobs? How long would what we had preserved remain intact? Merchants would clamor for a place everywhere there was something of interest to see. They would be followed by the crowds, followed by legislation that would protect the people at the expense of the site. Then there would be those who would demand to return to their ancestral homelands, undoing all the good we have done by combining all populations into one. No, better that Earth remains a myth to most. Occasionally, we allow vids and books of these places to be ‘found’ for the historians to marvel over, but never allow its source to be known. One day one of these animals will rise up and take its place as master of this planet, as if we had never existed, and they will wonder at the relics we left behind. In the meanwhile, it is a resource and a symbol of how we began.”

I wanted to argue, but his logic was unassailable. Either all, or none. Either it was a secret, or it was not. I did my best to gather impressions and memorize what I had seen, even if no one else was ever to be permitted to share those impressions with me.

We flew for a while longer, then spent the night in a marvelous, white-turreted castle on a mountain that towered over massive, dark green forests. The stone halls were echoingly empty. My needs were met by nearly invisible servitors: the micronbots conveying in a fire-brigade-style row food, drink, bedding and firewood for the enamel and gold-leafed hearth in my grand bedchamber. On the beautifully carved and painted dressing table, a hairbrush and a hand mirror lay seemingly where they had been set down by the last occupant of the room, who had departed, perhaps just for a moment. I fell asleep on the dark green brocaded bed, under a canopy of the same priceless fabric, listening to strange night birds calling in the distance.

For the next few days, I received a survey tour of the finest that Earth had ever produced. Uncle Laurence was proud to show off a square full of red buildings, all with fantastically-shaped onion-topped towers. A beautiful city that lay along a wide, curving river gleamed with white churches and palaces, interspersed with odd glass towers. A massive white enclosure sitting all by itself in a broad, hot landscape occupied only by prides of lions, running birds taller than I was, and snub-horned rhinoceroses aroused my curiosity. In the middle of a green plain on a northern temperate island, a circle of white standing stones awaited the arrival of … whom? Not far away from this curiosity, Uncle Laurence led me into a low-ceilinged cave. On its walls were daubed handprints in red ochre and tiny, primitive figures depicting the hunt of one of the enormous cattle that currently wandered the land aboveground unmolested.

We also visited natural marvels. One huge, blunt red mountain, grand and eloquent in its isolation on the circumflex island continent, proved to be a single boulder thrust up from the heart of the planet. To its east, across the broad blue ocean, we skimmed over a wild river nearly overgrown by towering trees and impenetrable tropical greenery. Perspiration poured down my face and body in the oppressive humidity, but that only added to the exotic nature of our journey. We threw the remains of our picnic lunch into the water. Fierce little fish with pugnacious expressions and terrifying rows of teeth leaped up and snapped the bones out of the air. Spotted and black jaguars rested on tree branches, almost invisible to my eye until Uncle Laurence pointed them out. Huge birds with magnificent wingspans twice my height plied the air, wheeling and sailing free. Monkeys, lemurs, apes and other anthropoid relations chittered or hooted at us all around the world, but homo sapiens was represented only in the skimmer car in which I rode.

With an air of casual insouciance, which could only mean that he was very excited about our next stop, Uncle Laurence aimed us across the narrower of the two great oceans. Along the eastern edge of the south lobe of the massive continent, one long river left a strip of green in a desert landscape. Oddly regular peaks became visible in the distance. As we came closer, I realized that they were pyramids. Three sat in a close row, overlooking a complex of smaller structures, but others were visible in a line to the south. Each of the largest trio was gleaming white with a triangular stone of gold at its peak. They were set into the midst of a temple complex bristling with statues of half-human, half-animal.

At the smallest of these, Uncle Laurence coaxed me into making my very uncomfortable way through a space so narrow that it felt as if the whole massive structure was going to come down on me. We emerged into a series of chambers carved and painted with tiny figures and pictographs, the meaning of which I could not have guessed. The paintings were brilliant in color as though the artist had just finished them. In the last chamber, the grandest of them all, a heavy carved stone coffin lay.

“Is there a body inside?” I asked.

“A mummy,” Laurence said. “Yes, in some. We haven’t been able to locate enough of them to fill all the tombs that have been uncovered. Records show that countless of them were destroyed for one reason or another. It’s a shame, but it’s our history. At least we have some of them. These ancient kings, too, are your ancestors.”

We emerged into the blinding sunlight. I was glad to climb back into the skimmer and lower the polarized canopy.

“One could spend a lifetime exploring any of these sites,” I said, grateful for the cooling system that kicked on.

“That is my intention,” my uncle said, with a proprietary grin.

“What’s your pet project?” I asked. When he hesitated, I held up an admonitory finger. “Ah-ah-ah, don’t try to tell me you haven’t got one! You’re a Kinago. You can’t help yourself tinkering any more than I or my father can.”

He smiled. “How Rodrigo would love it here. But he needs more care than he can get in this isolation. He needs to be near your mother, and she’s the beating heart of the navy.”

Out and over the broad desert landscape and across the ocean again to the ribbon continent we flew. On the screentank, Uncle Laurence showed me images from the interior of buildings, both before and after restoration. I was astonished and humbled by the imagination of my predecessors. He pointed out details that he had helped with, having pored over ancient books and fugitive electronic images for the way they had appeared so long ago.

The console sounded a ping, bringing our attention back from the past. We both looked up. Laurence nodded.

“Here we are,” he said.

The landscape had changed gradually from low foothills to the broadest of green river valleys thundering with the hooves of millions of bison, up into high desert and mountain peaks inhabited by eagles and gray-furred wolves. Within those peaks a busy, white-capped river had its origins. We followed it downstream into a massive river gorge.

I was amused to observe that it had been carved in much the same way as the Whispering Ravines, but this one was so much larger, and so much more beautiful than Counterweight’s glory by which I had been so impressed at the time. I realized that I had responded to echoes of Earth, as though I had a gene-memory of this planet. Uncle Laurence and I sat silently side by side, as we zipped through the canyon. The roar of the river below us was like a dragon claiming its territory against us poor mortals.

“This area had been robbed of its water by numerous population centers to the south and west,” he said. “Without humankind’s demand, there was no need to divert it any longer. I removed countless cities that encroached upon its beauty, leaving only a few of early humankind’s villages in place.”

The gold and peach sandstone reminded me so much of Taino.

“It’s a marvel and a wonder,” I said. “It makes me feel a little homesick. For Keinolt.”

He smiled. “I understand.” He steered the skimmer away from the river and up toward the northwest. “And that is as good an excuse to stop. It is all the time I can allot for this visit. I must take you back now.”

I rode in silence, the memories of the past few days overwhelming my senses. We arrived in the redwood forest during a glorious sunset, which seemed a fitting conclusion to an astonishing sojourn. Uncle Laurence landed his skimmer under a pair of low-light globes in the forest beside the small house. It descended into its underground stall, and we walked back toward
Gaia
’s hangar.

Along the way, Elena and her raccoon family joined us and romped alongside. I regarded them fondly, though I had known them only a few days. I petted as many as I could reach for farewell, but when we boarded
Gaia
, the furry female waddled along and joined us, along with two of her children. We eyed one another as she crossed the threshold.

“Should I shoo them out?” I asked. Uncle Laurence waved a hand.

“Oh, no, sometimes I take them with me. They’re good travelers. Make yourself comfortable.”

I climbed into the chair and waited for the footrests to rise under my soles. When I had achieved a comfortable recline, Elena curled up in my lap, well accustomed to the crash couches. The little ones played on the wall underneath the metal table, squeaking as they chased one another up and down.

“We’re going a different way,” Uncle Laurence said, showing me the coordinates in the screentank. “Allowing for a little drift from where the platform was situated when we left it, and angling so we do not approach from the same quadrant. Let them guess from which of the wind’s twelve quarters we have come.”

“I see,” I said. The farewells from Uncle Laurence’s fellow guardians echoing in my ears, I settled back for the ride. After exiting Sol’s system,
Gaia
sped toward the jump point. We watched a few of my uncle’s collection of movies as the micronbots served us meals and groomed the raccoons. We passed through the jump point with ease and kept racing through the starry night.

“Another film?” Uncle Laurence asked, gesturing up toward his storage compartment with a glass of some very good red wine. I shook my head. My mind was spinning with all that I had seen.

“This is too big a secret for me to keep,” I blurted out. He smiled.

“It isn’t. I know you. You have kept many confidences in the past. This is just another one.”

“But, why me?” I demanded. “Why now?”

He shrugged and swirled the wine in his glass. “Well,
why now
is because you were close by. We only had to pass one jump point to get here. The system is in what is held to be Zang space within the greater Imperium. It’s well-protected by their reputation alone.
Why you
is because you’re my favorite nephew. You have character, my lad, integrity, determination and devotion. Of all your generation, you’re the only one who stepped forward when asked, and have volunteered your energy for the greater good of the Imperium, again and again and again. For that alone, you deserve credit. And, of all my nieces, nephews and young cousins,” he poked a finger toward my chest, “you’re the only one I would consider as my potential successor.”

A thrill filled my entire chest. I was vibrating so hard it was impossible to move.

“I could come back here?” I breathed. “To stay?”

“Hmm. One day. If you haven’t found gallivanting about the galaxy to be too exciting to forego. My own travels have been greatly curtailed by my responsibility to this single system, to this one world, yet it is more important than anything else I have ever done. I can say with certainty that it has been worth it. Not easy. This would be the target of targets for our enemies, if they only knew it existed.”

I had to sit back for a moment. The micronbots wisely took my wineglass out of my nerveless fingers. One of the baby raccoons climbed into my lap and began to undo the fastening of my tunic.

“You have to double-knot everything around him,” my uncle said, with a grin. He leaned over and picked up the furry animal under its arms. “He’s one of the smartest and the most stubborn. They’re as obstinate as humans about doing what they want. It’s like having a million children who never really grow up.”

“Is that why you never had a family?” I asked.

“Who said I don’t have a family?” he retorted.

I blinked. “You do?”

He didn’t answer.

“We are entering the system, Lord Laurence,”
Gaia
said.

“One more movie, then,” he said, cheerfully, signing to the micronbots. This one was in shades of blue-gray and white, though the images were clearer than many of the color vids he had played before. I only half-watched. These recordings were mere shadows of what we had left behind. I was a mere shadow. Only Earth was real. How could I keep that secret? The scopes showed waves of electromagnetic force passing through us.

As we entered the heliopause of the system,
Gaia
bucked mightily. The motion died to a shudder as her stabilizers kicked in.