The View from the Imperium (10 page)

“No doubt,” Parsons intoned, steering me leftwards toward the door of my cabin. That large object removed itself meekly into the wall to its right, and I passed inside. I kicked off my shining new boots and flung myself on the bed. With my hands behind my head, I contemplated the ceiling.

“I shall make a difference here on the
Wedjet,
Parsons,” I said, feeling a trifle smug. “It seems clear that no one has ever mined the depths of delight in the common consciousness for the common good. I shall. I know just the kinds of search parameters that ought to be applied to that amassed knowledge.”

“Bearing in mind that you are not to retain any information or benefit in any way from the information observed during your task?” Parsons asked.

I sat up, my reverie brought to a crashing end. He was right. I felt my heart sink again, the second time in the space of half an hour, but this time from disappointment. Wotun’s instructions had been crystal clear. I was not to make use of the bounty I had perused. “You do have a way of casting a veil of magnetic dust over one’s viewport, man,” I protested. “It’s only a regulation, after all. I’ll figure out a way around that.”

“Indeed,” Parsons said, projecting more doubt into those two syllables than they had a right to contain. I ignored them. Something greater was uppermost in my mind.

“Punishment in the Navy’s not nearly as bad as I feared it would be. In the meanwhile, I feel as though my esophagus has been amputated. I hardly ate lunch, and two shifts have passed since I last ate anything substantial. Nourishment has taken the spot at the forefront of my mind.”

“In that, sir, it would be my pleasure to assist you in obtaining what you require,” Parsons said. “If you will remain here?”

I rubbed my mental hands together in anticipation. I had not had a chance to sample the cuisine in the officer’s mess, but the enticing aromas offered promises of a superior culinary experience.

He departed.

In rather shorter order than I thought possible, considering the distance and time that might be required for the task, he returned with a covered silver dish on his outstretched hand. I sat down at my desk. He placed it down before me and whisked away the cover.

I stared and blinked.

“Is this a joke?” I asked, with pain in my voice.

“Not at all, sir,” he said, his face as bland as if he was telling me the temperature. “Admiral’s orders. Until he considers that you have come to a state of penitence and obedience required to understand your actions in light of his authority.”

I lifted and let fall the single survival bar that had occupied the plate. It was gray with a faint touch of tan mixed in, coarse in texture, with rough edges suggesting it had been cut by a bandsaw. It looked like a rectangular chip of wall insulation, but not nearly as appetizing. It smelled—I lifted it to my nose to confirm—it smelled of nothing at all. Nothing. The comparative chip of wall insulation had more of a native aroma.

“I take it back, Parsons,” I said sadly. “At least fifty percent of me is penitent, above and beyond the admiral’s requirement.”

“Then you have only fifty percent more to attain, sir,” Parsons said, gliding smoothly toward the door as if on magnetic slides, leaving me to my lonely repast.

Chapter 4

“It entirely breaks protocol for a delegation to arrive in a non-Cluster ship!” said Councillor Fourteen, slamming the connection with a slap of her hand on the obsidian table. The pewter curls of her hair seemed more tightly wound than usual. “I move we do not seat the representatives from Yolk in punishment. They can go off-world—or even out-system!—and return in the right kind of vessel.”

“Are you insane?” Five asked. “This isn’t a party-game penalty.”

“No, it’s more serious! A violation of Cluster law! I say they should begin again!”

“That would not be appropriate or practical,” DeKarn said, quelling them both as she might have separated two of her grandchildren. She clutched her elbows inside the voluminous sleeves of her light blue robe, the very thing those sleeves were best for. The others did not need to see how nervous she was. “It would waste time and effort, and we have more pressing concerns. That TU ship did not notify us by beacon or direct message that it was coming. I am far more troubled that it just appeared among us like a fungus sprouting.”

“A damned big fungus!” Marden said.

“Wouldn’t the screens have shown a ship that big coming into orbit around Boske?” Zembke demanded.

“The screens would, but what if the operators are in league with the TU?” worried Seventeen, lowering his thick eyebrows. The Cocomons buzzed with concern, the patterns on their faces seeming to move like clouds.

“What would the Trade Union have to offer our liberated artificial-intelligence operatives that we do not ourselves?” Tross demanded.

“They are more in touch with cutting-edge technology than we are,” Five said, with a toss of his coiffed head. “We’re damned far out of the center of things. They might have programs or components that the LAIs find useful.”

“You suggest that our own employees are capable of treason?”

“No, self-interest,” Five said, with a sly smile. “It’s worth exploring.”

“Curse all self-aware mechanicals!” Seventeen snarled. His thick eyebrows drew down. “Why we let them exist is beyond me.”

“You can’t stop them,” Twenty said, meekly. “They have a right to exist.”

“Not if they interfere with
our
lives!” DeKarn sighed. He was a born pessimist. There was no arguing with him.

“The ship!” Zembke reminded them, causing a blare of color to erupt behind him. “Why is it here?”

A voice answered them from the door of the chamber. “Why? As a gesture of friendship, of course!”

DeKarn drew herself up to her full height and surrounded herself with a nimbus of white light. “Who dares speak in council who is not a member of this body?”

“Why, I do.” A silhouette outlined by the stark light of the corridor grew larger and larger as it approached the council. Once underneath the spotlights of the chamber, the figure’s head of silvering black hair drew glints. The male human to whom it belonged was strongly built and well-proportioned—almost ideally so, DeKarn thought, with approval, though she objected to his easy assumption of welcome. She was not familiar with the uniform. The shipsuit was a dull purple, with boots, cuffs, collar and shoulder flashings of an autumn gold. The combination of colors should have looked clownish, but was instead almost regal. His face was clear of all markings, tattoos or clan insignia. He reached DeKarn’s seat and made a deep bow, sketching an arc in the air with his right hand. “Emile Sgarthad, Captain of the Trade Union ship,
Marketmaker
. I offer respect to the council.”

“What are you doing here?” Zembke asked.

“And by whom am I being addressed?” the man asked, rising and presenting a bland countenance to the fulminating councillor. His eyes were blue with a tiny hint of green, and the brows above them straight, as was the nose that jutted at a sharp perpendicular downward from their line. He was as handsome in face as he was in form and bearing. DeKarn felt her cheeks grow warm under her tattoos. He reminded her of a lover she had had when she was young. It was not the same man, of course, but he had the same insouciance.

“This council speaks as one voice,” intoned Zembke dangerously, and a trifle prematurely. “You dare not question our authority.”

The big man cocked one knee and stood at his ease. “I only ask so I might give you all your right names,” he said. “It was a friendly question.”

His nerve was as bare as his face. DeKarn admired it alongside her impatience at his interruption of their meeting.”

“Then let me ask a friendly question,” DeKarn said. The man regarded her with a pleasant expression. “What
are
you doing here?”

Sgarthad turned to beckon toward the doorway. Almost timidly, four humans and a Wichu, all in bright yellow council robes, filed in: the missing councillors from Yolk. DeKarn’s heart leaped with relief. “Just seeing my new friends safely to their destination. I found them in distress and went to their rescue.”

DeKarn could have sworn that she saw the Wichu blink in a puzzled fashion, but all five of the newcomers nodded their heads.

“Our ship fell under attack in the heliopause,” said the first man, round-bellied with dark skin and elaborate dark-green and yellow tattoos. DeKarn knew him as Ruh Pinckney. “The trade ship carrying us fell into trouble among the asteroid belt. The
Marketmaker
was close by and was able to take us on board. We are grateful to Captain Sgarthad, and ask you receive him as a friend.”

“Trouble?” asked Tross, his brows rising. “What has become of Captain Iltekinov?”

“He is recovering in my sick bay,” Sgarthad said, gravely. “He and his crew were taken ill. I hope they will be around and about soon.”

“Have you brought disease among us?” asked Twelve sternly.

“Not at all,” Sgarthad said, turning his charming smile upon her. “My chief medical officer said it was undoubtedly something in the crew rations—they would not have served it to their guests, of course.”

“No,” Pinckney insisted. “We’re all well. We wish to take our places. We have been monitoring your negotiations, and wish to register our disapproval.”

“On what point?” demanded Fourteen, the skin tightening over her sharp cheekbones.

“Several.” Pinckney drew a glittering memory crystal out of his sleeve and looked around for a port in which to shove it.

“You are not seated yet,” Zembke reminded them. “All points will be taken in order as has always been done. You must be recognized first.”

“Very well,” said the middle-aged woman with bleached-white hair at his side, Tam Quelph. She shot a quick smile around the room. She beckoned to her delegation. They all offered a bow to Sgarthad and made for the empty seats at the narrow end of the table. Immediately, the screens behind them lit up with images of the Yolk system, their system flag, and an image of their planetary administrator, an able and admirable man but so ugly that DeKarn’s eyes automatically turned back to Sgarthad as an antidote. He smiled broadly at her. She looked away hastily. The Yolk system anthem played. Automatically, she clapped a hand on the table to turn down the volume.

The rest of the councillors returned to their seats. DeKarn activated the Boske symbols in the screens around her colleagues, as did her fellows of the other systems. They were at last complete in number.

“As a member of the host delegation, I welcome the representatives from Yolk,” she said formally, nodding to them. “Eleven, will you read into the record the minutes of the meeting of the last full council of three years ago?”

“Yes, First Councillor,” Eleven said. Dob Rengin was a slim, quick-moving man with a long, bony face and bright blue eyes. His white and red tattoos looked as haphazard if he had put them on himself in hasty strokes and crossbars. He stretched both hands over the tabletop.

“Just a moment,” quavered the Twenty-Third Councillor, raising a shaking hand toward Sgarthad. “Why is he still here?”

“Yes,” Zembke said, narrowing an eye at the visitor. “This meeting is closed to anyone not of the council.”

“Do you speak for the entire group?” Sgarthad asked him.

“Yes, he does,” DeKarn said, cutting off the others before they could protest one way or another, “provisionally, pending discussion. Our discourse is not for your ears or any other outsider.”

“But we want him to stay,” Pinckney said urgently. “He is a valued friend.”

“Thirty-Sixth Councillor, it is against the rules,” DeKarn said. The entire Yolkovian contingent looked distressed. Their gratitude was understandable, but reluctance to have him out of their sight was puzzling. They had had a trying experience making their way to the council. DeKarn hated to add to their misery. “Very well, let us put the question to a vote.”

“I protest!” shouted Fourteen, pointing a nic-tube at Sgarthad. “This is a disruption of protocol! There are thousands of questions on the agenda before ‘whether an outsider should sit in the closed session?’ ”

“Do you wish him to sit here and listen while we debate those matters of precedence?” DeKarn asked.

“And no one has yet asked me to sit down,” Sgarthad added plaintively.

DeKarn ignored him. “All those in favor of allowing Captain Sgarthad to remain in this meeting, raise your hands.” As she expected, the lights above the heads of the Yolkovians went on immediately. To her surprise, however, so did those of Twenty, Thirteen and Twenty-Seven. “Those opposed?” Those eight lights went out, and the remaining thirty-two went on, including her own. She turned to Sgarthad and was met by that commanding, sea-blue stare. It was hard to get the words out, but she forced them. “I am sorry, Captain. Please leave the room.”

“I will wait in the antechamber,” he said, not seeming at all put out. “Thank you, my friends! I shall see you soon.”

The eyes of the Yolk contingent tracked him until the door sliding down separated him from their view. DeKarn found their behavior curious and unsettling.

“With your permission, may I enter the minutes now?” asked Rengin.

“Go ahead!” Zembke snapped. His gaze had also tracked the visitor, and his expression said he resented it.

Rengin spread out his hands. Small images that each depicted a subject on the previous schedule appeared hovering over the wide black table and fed themselves into an open folder. The folder immediately multiplied itself fortyfold. The copies flew to every councillor and sank into the receiver eye in front of each. DeKarn flipped a hand to bring up the table of contents and briefly perused it. She did not tap any of the files; to activate one was to listen to all of the carping and detail-splitting that had accompanied it. She preferred to think of the results that had come from those negotiations, a much more pleasant consideration. Once in a while they got something done. Sometimes it was even a worthwhile accomplishment.

“Any objections to the minutes as they have been entered?” she asked, scanning the group. “No? Any old business?” Twenty-Three’s top light went on briefly. Everyone turned to glare at him. DeKarn cringed. Was he going to protest translation of those minutes into the Cocomon language
again?
He glared back, but the light went out. “Very well. Let us move on to the items on the agenda. Many of them have already been discussed as to their merits and tentatively settled . . .”