The Fifth Civilization: A Novel (18 page)

Roan was going to comment that the Prince’s English was
quite good.

“Now! Captain Streb. Where do you have the prisoner?”

Kel again pointed above her to the crate suspended by the
forklift. Duvurn craned his neck and jolted as if he had a sudden burst of
inspiration. “Ah, I see! You have him caged as if he were a wild
depson!
Ha! Well, we have a container
ship in the hangar. Bring him out and we will deal with him there. Come,
come.”
 
He motioned to the door and
began walking out of it. Kel gave a thumbs-up to the forklift operator and the
vehicle started toward a ramp that had been placed next to the ship.

“Perhaps this Kotaran can shed some light on this planet of
phosphate you have discovered!” Duvurn said, surveying the transport of the
crate. Roan was half-listening, but did a double take on this. It sounded as
though the good Prince didn’t know their real reason for coming out here. He
cast glances at Kel, who was walking out to the hangar, and David, who had
sensed his confusion.

“Mr. Roan,” whispered the Nyden, “This is why you were told
not to come down. Prince Duvurn does not know the true nature of my trip.”

Roan frowned. “David, what the hell is going on here?”

“Captain Streb and I decided it might be best to only tell the
Prince the partial truth—that the Kotarans want what we want on this
distant planet—because we don’t know how many leaks there are in his
entourage.”

“Don’t you trust the guy?”

David’s face contorted every so subtlety. “We have known
each other for some time. When I was doing research for Aaron on Bauxa, Prince
Duvurn was my patron. He allowed me access to many areas sacred to Bauxa’s
religions, as well as documents that no outsider had ever seen. I don’t know
how he managed to do this, but I assumed he held a lot of power. Needless to
say, he may not surround himself with the most savory of characters.”

Roan looked among the crowd of Bauxen toadies, some sporting
what looked like assault rifles, milling around the hangar pad. It was a motley
bunch, and probably not a few of them were on the take of other princes. Roan had
no counter to David’s claim, so he just shook his head.

“This is going to come back to bite us in the ass, David.”

“I know what that expression means. Maybe you are
right.”
 
The two joined the others
on the other side of the ramp, the Prince laughing again at some joke that
tapped his funny bone.

“It’s the city of dreams,” Duvurn said, gesturing out the
window of the private hoverbus. The multilayered sections of the Port of Siy,
with its soaring glass towers toward the center, glittered in the twilight.
Duvurn was reciting in detail to the
Colobus
crew the population of the city, and some of its more recent political woes, as
if none of these were things they could look up in a datapedia or read in
English-translated news accounts.

“You see, my ancestor Pia Bount was one of the designers of
the Port of Siy. Can you believe they seized his fortune when he fell out of
political favor? Allegedly, he was screwing one of the mayor’s wives. Ha! She
was a slut.”
 
He hobbled on his cane
to a window on the opposite side of the bus, gesturing with his stubby fingers
to a grimy industrial area that lay on the Port’s outskirts. “Just be glad I
don’t have to take you through that section of the city…though if we had the
windows open you could smell the refuse piles from here.”

“Yes, a good thing,” Kel said, barely glancing at the
window. She sat across from Roan, who gazed at her with great interest. Kel
seemed less interested in Duvurn or Roan and more focused on her crew. The
Colobus
’ compliment was spread out on
the lounge chairs of the stately hoverbus, tagging along for the ride toward the
Prince’s palace. A good number had elected to stay with Kel, David, and Roan as
they sought to make history: Masao, Jasper, Sundar Kher, and Joseph. Six humans
and a Nyden: not a terrible number. The remaining humans wanted no part in the
expedition, saying they wanted to return to Earth and the Company as soon as
possible. Moira hadn’t decided yet and in any case stayed with the freighter to
inventory her medical equipment.

Meanwhile, the
Colobus
had been placed in the supposedly-capable hands of the Prince’s private
mechanics, who were going to be scrubbing it down and repairing it as best they
could. Roan wasn’t sure how much confidence he had in Bauxen mechanics, but if
Duvurn was a man of wealth he probably employed the best of the planet. The
sooner they got the ship working, the better.

The Kotaran prisoner was last seen being loaded in his crate
on board a Bauxen craft personally chartered by Duvurn. It was assured that he
would be transferred to the Bauxen Planetary Police and kept in holding until
it was decided what to do with him. Duvurn told the crew he could probably pull
some strings and have him tried on Bauxa for “crimes against guests of the planet.”
 
It was fully expected that the Kotaran
embassy would issue a stern complaint.

Roan twiddled his thumbs. He watched Duvurn’s webbed feet as
the man paced around the bus, blathering all the time.

Duvurn made Roan uneasy, as men with lots of wealth often did.
Where he came from they did not follow the laws of mere mortals. The man who
ran Roan’s Euro refugee camp, for example, saw no problem with doling out
beatings to solve simple property disputes. And Roan suspected some Company
executives had ordered rivals eliminated. On Bauxa it was much the same way,
only the cutthroat culture permeated the entire elite class. The word of a deal
was not law. Depending on who was willing to offer the most money, allegiances
could change on a whim.

“Excuse me, Prince Dedro,” said Masao, forgetting all the
protocols associated with titles and royalty and such, “Not to be unkind or
anything, but Bauxen food doesn’t really agree with me. I mean, I tried those
binjishins of yours once, and I became a near-permanent resident of my
lavatory. What I guess I’m asking, uh, Mr. Duvurn, is…do you have any Earth
food?”

Once again the Prince laughed. Everything set this guy off.

“Of course. I’ve been expecting your arrival for a few days,
so of course I’ve prepared a, ah,
bountiful
feast for you, if that’s the right word. Just tell my cooks when we arrive and
we’ll work it out.”

“Thanks.”
 
Masao
seemed pleased with himself. Roan looked over at Kel, sitting across from him,
and saw that she was now staring at him. That didn’t last long. Duvurn had
moved away to the front of the bus and announced his house was approaching, but
Roan didn’t listen and instead picked himself up and sat down beside Kel.

“You didn’t want to tell the good Prince over here about the
lost world we’ve found?” Roan asked quietly, knowing that Bauxens couldn’t hear
very well but not taking any chances.

“I didn’t think David needed to tell him,” Kel whispered.
“Frankly, I don’t know what this guy’s like. Or who’s on his payroll.”

“You should’ve told me. No need to be so cloak and dagger.
Don’t you think I can keep a secret?”

“Oh? I expected you to be drunk half the goddamn time.”

“Why worry? You locked up the liquor.”

She stared Roan straight in the eyes. “I locked that up from
you because I didn’t know if your mind had been sucked down a black hole or
not.”

“And here we are!”
 
Duvurn shouted, smiling and opening his froggy arms in a celebratory
gesture. Out the window, the cityscape was replaced by columns of trees, trees
as wide as the Redwoods of the Old World. These trees lined the road that led
into the mouth of a hangar, where the hoverbus came to a complete stop.
Duvurn’s men quickly stood at attention, slinging their rifles over their
shoulders. One turned a latch and the doors opened with a hiss. As he piled out
along with the rest of the crew, Roan thought there was something unsettling
about all of the guns and security. They signified several possibilities:
Duvurn had power over a local militia, Duvurn was a marked man, or Duvurn was a
criminal. Likely all three.

“And this is just the hangar!” Duvurn said. The Prince and
his entourage headed toward a door at the other end of the hangar and the
humans clumped like tourists behind them. They marveled at the craft on display,
primed and ready to fly: sports shuttles from Earth, each with a gleaming new
paint job; Bauxen hovercraft for both land and sea; a few wheeled vehicles; and
finally, a luxury space yacht, sleek and angular in spotless chrome. A few of
the crew craned their necks to look at replicas of birds hanging from the
ceiling. Their wingspans were enough to envelop the hoverbus.

“Look, David,” Roan said, pointing to the avians on display.
“Prince Duvurn has models of your ancestors.”

David didn’t even glance up. “Those aren’t models. They’re
bird carcasses.”
 
David continued
walking, and Roan tried to get another look at the birds but was ushered along
by the crowd behind him.

Through the oval doors, the
Colobus
crew gained entrance to the grand chamber of Duvurn’s
palace. There were gasps all around. An instrumental march played to provide a
soundtrack to the whole scene, coming from hidden recording devices and no
doubt timed by Duvurn to impress his guests as soon as they entered. In the
middle of the rotunda were four support columns, one of which appeared to be
marble and the others of different shapes and colors. Sea creatures, definitely
Bauxen by their hammerhead shape, swam in two of the pillars, mixed with algae
and other bits of debris. Roan had seen an aquarium once, but this put that
sorry collection of fish to shame.

A staircase wound its way up the rotunda and spiraled to the
very the top of the palace. It glittered from what looked to be solid platinum.
About a hundred meters up was a circular window built into the high ceiling,
the golden glow of twilight streaming through it. The light danced through the
water of the aquatic pillars, and cast wild shadows from the plants lining the
staircase balconies.

“Now that you have seen the city,” Duvurn said, “See my
home! You will all be guests here, at least for the night. Enjoy the amenities
and go where you like, but be sure to tell one of my men where you are headed
first. You might get lost! I’m sure you’ve been aware of my bodyguards’
presence, but don’t let their guns scare you. They are there for your
protection as well as my own. I
am
royalty, you know. That kind of status does not make your life easy, let me
tell you!”
 
Roan expected a laugh,
but Duvurn’s eyes narrowed. He looked almost stern.

He pointed to two crimson doors with a woodcut of a
landscape on them, standing opposite the crowd at the other end of the rotunda.
“There will be food beyond those doors in an hour…that is, sixty of your
minutes. Come find this cook here and tell him what you’d like. He speaks
English!” He pointed to a Bauxen wearing pink. “In the meanwhile, feel free to
explore or rest. I know you’ve been in space for a month and need to get used
to solid ground. Just remember not to climb the stairs if your legs haven’t
healed!”

Duvurn bowed, and retreated with his bodyguards through the
kitchen door. It clicked behind them. The
Colobus
crew turned to each other and murmured, trying to sort out the conundrum of
this prince.

“Nice fellow,” Masao said to Roan. “If a little strange.”

“You’re one to know.”

Kel peered in a pillar at the fish. David stood near her and
stared awestruck at the glass ceiling. Roan wondered whether he should talk to
her, but figured it was best he stay away. So he and Masao hedged their bets
with the staircase, which as Duvurn had predicted, was tough to climb on their
space legs. Roan’s knees wobbled and every step was like trying to balance on
jelly. He leaned against the railing for support and raised his eyebrow at an
oil painting hung on the wall, which seemed only to depict geometric shapes.

“The man has taste,” Roan said to Masao, who was working his
way up the steps.

“If you can call it that.” Masao wasn’t smiling, though. His
eyes were narrowed, worried. “You still coming with us, Masao?”

Masao stroked his stubble, pondering the question. “You
know, about that…I’ve been thinking…”

“Thinking! You’ve had a month to think about it. I thought
you wanted in on a little bit of history, too.”

Crewman Joseph jaunted up the steps between them, obviously
doing much better with his space legs. He made it to the landing at the top and
whistled at a sculpture of a buxom Bauxen, possibly a female.

“The truth is, Roan, that I can’t just pack up and go on
little expeditions like this. I have a very cushy job at the Company. A
copilot’s nothing to smirk at. I might even make captain someday, as long as
they forgive this whole episode with the
Colobus
.
People spend their whole careers hoping they can captain a vessel. They don’t
just pick
anyone
to captain a ship.”

“They picked me.”

But Masao didn’t seem in any good humor. He obviously was
feeling the pull of gravity now that he was walking on an actual planet. Most
people lose weight in space, but he seemed to gain it, his frame perpetually
stooped forward. Though the man was about as old as Roan, he appeared to have aged
a decade.

“I’m not one for adventure, Nick. Those days are in the
past. Just look at me.”
 
He pinched
his gut. “This is not a body they show in adventure holofilms. And you know
what? I’m comfortable with it. I am content to live out my life without being
chased by Kotarans and death.”

“Why did you even come along with us?”

“I had no choice, did I? I needed to help out a friend.”
 
Not a
colleague
, Roan noticed.

“You’re practically a fugitive on Earth.”

“If the Company doesn’t take me back, I could do OK on
Bauxa. I’m sure they have some law of asylum.”

Roan glanced at his copilot’s body. “You’d fit right in
here.”

Masao got off the railing and walked up the staircase, evidently
saying to hell with whatever his legs thought in protest. After giving the
triangles and rhombi in the oil painting a thorough study, Roan followed him up
the steps. The second level was decorated with sculptures of Bauxens with
vastly different shapes and sizes. Probably the skinny ones had lived years
before the current girth became fashionable. So many names and histories of
Bauxen figures that Roan would never know, or comprehend—one set of
histories on Earth was enough.

Roan was so busy studying the sculptures that he didn’t
notice his copilot’s outstretched hand. Masao had to practically shove it in
his chest.

“Masao! Come on. You’ll enjoy this trip, trust me. You’ll be
famous.”

“Not my cup of tea.”

“At least stay for dinner. I thought you were starving.”

“I’ll take my chances in finding something in the Earth
quarter.”

Realizing he had no choice, Roan shook the man’s hand. It
was firm, almost crushing.

“I believe in what you’re doing, Nick. I really do. I meant
everything I said to you in the laundry room. But I would tell you not to stay
in the company of this prince for too much longer. Leave tonight, in fact.”

Roan looked down in the rotunda. A few Bauxens stood guard
at the front door, rifles at the ready.

“It’s all the guns, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It gives me the creeps. For some reason I don’t feel
safe. Duvurn has a lot of protection, and that means he’s a marked man. Someone
wants all this stuff he’s got here. Maybe he has connections, but so do his
enemies, and I’ll bet the Kotarans are seeking them out.”

Roan noticed Kel and David conversing in the rotunda. They’d
definitely become fast friends recently.

“Kel and David trust him.”

“Then I hope they’re right to. For your sake.” Masao took
one last look around the balcony and then put his hands in his pockets. “I want
to read about you someday,” he continued. “A famous explorer. From
schmuck-san
to historic figure, all in a
few months. It’ll be something. ”