The View from the Imperium (17 page)

“Please take us out, Helm,” I instructed.

* * *

I was accustomed by then to the vast emptiness of space. The Imperium occupied thousands of stars of the Milk Galaxy, an ancient spiral with many smaller sub-spirals that had given humanity and our fellow species birth. The home planet of humanity, Earth, had been outgrown millennia ago, and its exact location lost in the annals of history as we fled outward, scarcely looking back over our shoulder. The astronomy press published vidlets and articles from time to time claiming that they had found the true Earth, but I, like most of my generation, took these claims with an ocean’s worth of salt. At first, when we discovered the first non-humanoid race, the location of our home planet was kept secret as a security measure.

Then, over time, it got lost in the shuffle. I know it sounds ridiculous to think an entire system could be mislaid like an earring, but when one considers the enormous quantity of type-E systems with a combination of rocky and gaseous planets circling a dwarf yellow star, it would take some impressive proof to combat the cynicism. Adding to the confusion, not a few hoax planets had been dummied up to look like Earth, with imported native animals and multilayered ruined buildings. A couple of them had been so impressively realistic that they had spawned Return to Earth cults.

But I digress.

Space only looked empty. Matter existed everywhere, even if in microscopic quantities, and energy, including black holes, took up more of the map than humankind had ever thought before it ventured out among the stars. Those flaming balls of gas were mere pinpoints when one left atmosphere. Some twinkled, the result of planets or other solids passing between them and the viewer, but most simply shone their cool, muted light. The rest was darkness. Quite a lot less of matter was shiny or luminescent than humans were accustomed to. It was not necessary to see out of modern spacecraft, and the sensors didn’t require light to navigate or avoid obstacles. Still, we beings with eyes like to look out of the window, so the viewers were set to collect and enhance what visible images there were. The computer navigator did most of the boring work. We went down the Sullenburger Preflight Safety Protocol, checking it against the internal alarm screen. All green. Ensign Oskelev skimmed the craft neatly out of the bay and into the enveloping darkness.

Lt. Plet nodded to me from the communications console. “Log recording began as of departure.
Wedjet
wishes us a good journey. Updates to be posted to the mothership every hour.”

“Thank you, XO,” I said. I promised myself I would have nothing untoward to report. My mission would be as clean and uncomplicated as Podesta expected it to be.

“I reviewed the alerts circulating about sighting of enemy craft in the area, potential star-spots, ion storms and dust clouds. Ion storm will be one and one half light years off our route but moving towards us. It may be an issue upon our return to the
Wedjet
. A cruiser stolen from Vijay Nine is believed to be a prank by university students on midyear break. It was reported outbound toward galactic north twenty-four days ago. As it is an armed vessel, the navy would like any sightings reported immediately. Suspected pirate craft with configurations matching these that I am loading to your personal device have been spotted in our destination area. Thirty Trade Union vessels or other suspect ships have been noted in the sector. All TU vessels have registered legal flight plans, and none are scheduled to be near us.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Plet. Well done.” I opened the file she sent me and made note of the ships being sought. I chuckled to myself over the cruiser. It was a joke worthy of me and my cousins in our school days. I wish we’d dared be as bold as to make off with a Navy ship. It would have been a great tale to tell the great-grandchildren one day. In fact, since Vijay was one of the core worlds, the pranksters might be some of my distant relatives. They would get off with a heavy fine and a scolding, so as not to embarrass the Emperor by throwing his cousins in prison. The second ship gave me pause. Pirates rarely traveled alone, preferring to overpower a victim by sheer force of numbers when it came out of ultra-drive at the edge of a system, but the occasional rogue vessel did operate from time to time. The report indicated that this was the only craft of the putative fleet that had been identified. No more had been seen. I put both indicators onto my alert file at the top of my mission chart, immediately under my primary orders. “By the way, I observe from your file that you are a shadow-handball player. Care to have a game once we’re on our way? I do realize that you outrank me militarily and invitations should technically come from you to me, but I am being bold.”

Plet took a sidelong glance at Parsons, which irritated me slightly, since I was the CO on this vessel, but I made a note to myself that his naval rank was higher than any of ours. We were an odd mix of ranks—I occupied a middle rung of the ladder—and I meant to ask Parsons why these particular officers had been assigned to me when we had a private moment later on.

“Why, thank you, Ensign-Captain Kinago,” Plet said, gravely. “I’d enjoy it.”

My happiness threatened to fountain upward, but I kept the joy within. Remaining captainlike, I turned to the rest of my crew. “The challenge is extended to the rest of you as well,” I said. “We have two days until we reach our destination. It’ll be more fun than standard PE. And I will trounce you all thoroughly.”

“You’re on!” Bailly said cheerfully. I spun to face his station, which stood almost exactly behind mine.

“I, too!” exclaimed Rous. “Such a challenge will be most enjoyable.” Oskelev only smiled and shook her head. I had known she didn’t play shadow-handball, but there would be time for board games later, amusements that I did know she enjoyed.

Taking my ease with my hands behind my head, I grinned up at Parsons, who had taken a couch adjacent to my chief engineer. I planned to enjoy every moment of my assignment. It was going to be a good time.

Chapter 9

Councillor DeKarn sat in the reception room of the Imperium ambassador’s suite in the south wing of the governor’s mansion with her hands folded in her lap, exhausted. With some difficulty they had managed to herd the Trade Union party off the statue and into the north wing of the mansion. The visitor had been overwhelmingly polite and full of regrets.

“I can’t help it if people want to speak with me,” Sgarthad had said, bowing over DeKarn’s hand and smiling at her. That face. That astonishingly appealing face. She liked him in spite of his audacity—or perhaps because of it. His eyes spoke to her. They said,
You and I are beings of the world. How we could enjoy one another’s company if only we were alone!
She doubted that he meant anything of the sort. It was the effect of whatever method he had used to seduce the entire Yolk council and not a few of the other members. However, she was not going to allow anyone to derail the authority of the Castaway Cluster. Though she had few of the other councillors behind her, she forced Governor Yuchiko to take Sgarthad into custody. They followed to ensure that he would be comfortable but no longer in the public eye, until the council had figured out what it wanted to do. Once that had been accomplished, it would know how to treat both the Trade Union and the Imperium.

His people, thankfully, did not seem to cast that same spell over the crowd. Once he was out of sight, though the stern-faced staff that had surrounded him on his impromptu platform was still outside, smiles disappeared from the faces of the citizens of Pthohannix, and they dispersed without any further prompting. So if he was carrying a device or a chemical compound that caused the crowd to fall in love with him, it was specific to him. That meant they only had to keep
him
away from the public.

However, he was gone, but not forgotten. Not three minutes elapsed between the time Sgarthad was escorted into the luxurious quarters and the first message from the first “fan group” erupted on her personal communicator and those of her fellow councillors. She soon had to turn off the quiet pinging that indicated messages arriving because they continued on and on. Her last glimpse at the small screen showed that over fourteen thousand notes were awaiting her attention. Typically, they were not deeply thoughtful missives. The message line on the fifth one read, “Free the handsome guy!” When she had a moment, DeKarn needed to choose a macro from the hundred thousand available in her communication pad to go through her mail and weed out the knee-jerk letters from those who only enlisted in a grassroots campaign for any cause that seemed to be against basic liberties. Closing her Grid address to incoming mail was out of the question as an administrator, not to mention against the law.

The device vibrated against her hip as she rose to offer a hand to the woman who approached her. Ambassador Hiranna Ben was short of stature, plumpish, and silver-haired. For the third time that day DeKarn had to cope with the small shock of seeing a face devoid of any decoration, save for a touch of color definition at eyes and lips.

“Thank you for seeing me, Ambassador,” DeKarn said.

“Councillor, it is my pleasure,” Ben replied, taking her hand warmly in both of her small palms. She patted it. “Now, my mission here is no secret. I will not ask you and your colleagues to rush, not when it took me such a long time to travel here, but if you have an inkling as to the timeline we are looking at before I may have an answer I can take back to his majesty, it would take a good deal of suspense out of my wait.”

So nicely put, DeKarn thought, with regret. “Ambassador, I regret to say that this body has never reached a trivial conclusion in a short time. Important ones stretch out into spans of time that try the patience of even the greatest pragmatist. I wish that I could be more optimistic, but due to circumstances we could not foresee—”

“Yes, I saw him. Quite a dish. He could almost be a digitavid star, couldn’t he? He reminds me a little of one of my ex-lovers, though they were never so good-looking.”

DeKarn laughed ruefully. “That is almost exactly what I thought when I saw him! He is only one of the obstacles. One of our contingents arrived late, escorted by Captain Sgarthad, as it happens, as their vessel was damaged in transit from their system to this. Portent’s Star is the closest of the eight Castaways to the black hole, and anomalies are not uncommon. But I will be unusually frank: this discussion has gone on since . . .” her voice trailed off, as she tried to think of a courteous way to say
since the Imperium abandoned us,
but Hiranna Ben just nodded sweetly.

“I know. Take your time. If deliberations go on past my expected life span, I will send for a replacement. His Majesty is patient, as you have been. It is most gracious of you to consider his offer at all in light of the Imperium’s . . . long silence. But this is an outward-reaching monarch. He seeks to bring concerns long neglected to the fore. You would like him. He is rare even among those who have ascended the throne.”

“You are most kind,” DeKarn said.

“Will you visit me once in a while to tell me . . . what you are permitted to tell me of your discussions?” Ben asked.

“I would be happy to.”

“And if you have nothing to tell me, I would love to have you visit, so I can learn more about your culture. Some differences are immediately evident, and intriguing.”

DeKarn smiled and rose. “That would be my pleasure. I apologize that you will be so isolated.”

“I am used to long periods of solitude,” Ben said, placidly. “I travel alone very well, as you see. There are a pair of AIs on my ship that I must communicate with to let them know of the delay, but you can monitor that transmission.”

DeKarn was embarrassed. “I am sure that you can send that message.”

Ben showed her the console on the ornate, spindly legged table under the window. “Ah, no, as you see.”

The message window, which ought to have been light green for voice and visuals, was a dark fuchsia, indicating that the function was locked. Ben stood with her back pointedly to the console while DeKarn entered her council code. The screen turned green. Ben spoke a brief message, and received a reply instantly of fweeps, bongs and static. The screen turned pink again at once.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now, don’t let me keep you. It was good of you to visit.”

“You are too kind,” DeKarn said. “I will see you again soon.”

But it was weeks before they met again.

* * *

“Ah, there you are, First Councillor!” Ruh Pinckney exclaimed as DeKarn entered the long hall leading to the council chamber. “We did not have a chance to offer proper greetings to you when we arrived yesterday.” He beckoned Urrmenoc, the Wichu, forward. Her arms were full of packages. “We bear gifts to our siblings of Portent’s Star. I believe you wear a seven shoe?”

“You are much too kind,” DeKarn said, struggling to hold the boxes as they were thrust at her. “It is far more than my colleagues and I deserve.”

“Oh, these are all for you,” Pinckney said, beaming. “The rest of the councillors have already been given their tokens.”

DeKarn turned to find a place to put the boxes, and found a many-shelved mechanical waiting with claw-hands outthrust to accept them. It arranged all the parcels according to size along with dozens of other brightly wrapped packages, then glided discreetly away toward a niche in the wall too low for humans or Cocomons to walk through comfortably. “Thank you, all of you, siblings of Yolk. I see that it is the appointed hour. Shall we begin today’s session?”

“Yes, indeed,” Pinckney said. He offered her an arm. “It would be my honor to escort you.”

Vasily Marden was on his feet almost before the image of the floating gavel crashed down upon the table with a satisfying though prerecorded
bang!

“Point of order, First Councillor,” he said. “I move that since circumstances have forced our hand, that we keep both the envoy from the Trade Union and the Imperium’s ambassador in full media isolation until this body has decided the question of loyalty.”

“I must protest!” exclaimed Tam Quelph, rising indignantly. “As I and my colleagues protest the inhospitable behavior we displayed toward our rescuer yesterday! How dare you sweep him into a
cell
before the very eyes of the entire Cluster?”