The View from the Imperium (40 page)

I left him with his wife and family, playing house.

Not playing, I corrected myself, as I cut through alleyways and commercial yards on a wide diagonal, laying a false trail away from the little neighborhood. He meant what he was doing much more than I did with anything in my life.

I returned home feeling unaccustomedly sober. Marriage between a noble and a commoner was not only frowned upon, it was illegal. I could fall into trouble by merely knowing about it and not reporting it. But I had made a promise, and there were worse things I had prevaricated about in the past. My conscience was clear that I was not condoning treason, theft or corruption of the young. Scot seemed so happy it almost—almost made me reconsider my heretofore absolute refusal to get married; I had told him so. He looked
happy
. I could not and would not interfere with that.

When I reached home at last, I locked the doors of my suite and checked the room for listening or hearing devices, using another illicit device that my cousins and I had made frequent use of in our ill-spent youths. It was not uncommon for compound security to run an occasional examination of family residences within its walls. We had come to accept, even condone them as a measure to preserve the safety of the Emperor, and, by extension, ourselves. If we ourselves bent the rules, we didn’t see it as piercing that secure wall; we would never do anything to put the Emperor in danger. I knew I would sooner die myself—painlessly, if possible—to prevent that.

My rooms, in the second-oldest part of the family compound, had belonged in turn to a famous general, a diplomat, two scientists, a beloved sage, and my uncle Laurence. I had sitting rooms, reception rooms, a dressing room, a water room that contained bath, shower and spa pool, a library
-cum-
music room, and my bedroom, to which I retreated when I wanted privacy. (When Uncle Laurence came to stay, so infrequent as to make each visit remarkable, the servants set up a bed in the blue sitting room for his use.) The suite was luxurious by any comparison, but overpowered Scot’s tiny love cottage like a man standing beside an ant. A part of me wanted to sneer, but I put that down to envy.
For shame,
I chided myself.

Securing the bedroom door against all interruptions, I threw myself into my favorite armchair and launched the Optique into the air. It began to play the pictures upon my small antique reading table, the red-stained fruitwood lending a honey glow to the images. Thomasina-Tina, lithe and fairylike, exuded grace even when playing tag. I didn’t read that into her movements, even though she was my namesake and the daughter of my oldest and best friend. Of course not. Enrik, stocky like his father, but freckled like his mother, was still in the lurching stage of toddlerhood. Scot and Jerna, hand in hand in their tiny castle, still seeing miracles in one another’s eyes.

I looked at the pictures over and over. An idyllic life. An impossible dream. A secret, I realized, that I must keep at all costs.

I captured my hovering camera and entered the code that erased all the images, not keeping even one. I went to bed feeling strangely conflicted. My long-held worldview had undergone another change—more than one. Perhaps I was growing up.

I hated to think so, but there it was.

Chapter 24

The next sunrise arrived with me as a full and alert witness. Usually I saw dawn from the other side, having been awake all night in the company of like-minded individuals enjoying the best things in life. That night my only companion was a sense of discontentment and unfamiliar isolation. Through the window at the foot of my bed I saw the sky change through a series of rich colors, from star-spangled black, ink, purple, indigo, blue and that sudden flash of green that as a child I thought was a myth, before the pale sapphire of day became predominant and I lost interest. The canyon that housed the Imperium compound and the oldest sections of Taino faced north, so the sun itself did not become visible over its sheer walls until long after the day began.

I had come up with no fulfilling occupation to take the place of the naval service that had been taken away from me. I had nothing to do and nowhere to go but the frivolous pursuits that I had enjoyed all of my life, never guessing that they might be all I would do. The navy had given me a taste of another life, one of purpose.

I had heard the complaint over and over again that we of the Imperial House lacked purpose, but I had never understood why that made the common folk so angry. Could it be that they were sorry for us, that we did not understand what they knew?

I was still left without an occupation. I put Scot’s commitment to his young and illicit family down partly to wanting to matter somehow. He had solved the problem in his way. I must solve my own.

I made up my mind to go to my mother and see if there was any way I could get assigned to another ship. There were four other fleets. I just couldn’t go on being a useless and charming ornament. I’d had a taste of service, and against all my training and heritage, I liked it. I had never felt so alive, not even running the rim at the controls of a wild racing skimmer, as I had leading a ragtag troop on an ad hoc mission. I had had a purpose, even if I had given it to myself, to capture a crew of hijackers and thieves.

I dressed with uncommon care, choosing as my mother had the other day, a costume that echoed the official uniform of the Imperium Navy, deep blue tunic over pale trousers, and a black demi-boot polished to a diamond shine. I was entitled to wear a flashing that indicated the medal I had earned, but decided to forgo it. I admired myself in the mirror.
Perfect,
I thought.

The Optique hovered to life as I tucked my pocket secretary into its accustomed pouch on my sleeve. I beckoned to the camera. It bobbled alongside, an encouraging companion that I am certain agreed I was entitled to a second chance.

I had the argument all fixed in my head. “Mother, it’s your Navy,” I would say. “I offer my deepest apologies for any misperceptions on either my part or that of Admiral Podesta as to my place within it. I am sure that you can find a way to put me back into it. I will do my best to fit in—in my own way, naturally—but I feel a need to serve. No, I am not joking. Give me another chance, and you will not regret it. Even Admiral Podesta will someday come to regret having dismissed me out of hand.”

The last I doubted would ever come true, but it sounded so noble that I hardly could leave it out of my speech. I repeated phrases to myself in varying degrees of passion, from low-pitched in a face grave with concern, to wildly dramatic, complete with appropriate hand gestures and pacing. I caught a glimpse of myself in mirrors I passed and in the miniature screen in the side of the Optique, which paced me a meter or so away. I thought that if Mother did agree, I wanted that moment recorded for history, so I could replay it as a triumph from time to time.

Mother’s office in the Admiralty lay opposite Army Headquarters at the foot of the bluff on which the Imperium compound stood. I accepted a ride from a cargo transport that had just delivered supplies to the Kinago family kitchens. I would have walked, but I wanted my footgear to retain its shine. I considered the clear sky an omen.

“Good morning, Lord Thomas!” chirruped the officer on duty at the reception desk in the huge, yellow marble hall. I smiled at her.

“Good morning, Lieutenant . . . Wasson,” I said, sending the Optique close enough that it could read the name plate on her desk. My smile was sincere, even if my memory was enhanced by technology. “You are looking especially well today.”

“Thank you, your lordship,” she said, with a shy smile. She looked like a model, without sufficient IQ to answer the complex communications system before her, but I knew the vetting that went into the choice of every employee in the building. She was trained in several martial arts, as well as being expert in operating the defense system that was concealed all the enormous room. She was the first line of defense in this nerve center that defended the entire Imperium in space. I assumed a friendly grin and made myself look as harmless as possible. “The First Space Lord has meetings today, sir.”

“My mother is not expecting me, but I will just slip in and wait until she has time to see me.”

“Very well, sir,” Lt. Wasson said. “I will send a message to Admiral Draco, to be delivered when she has a break.” She waved me into the gunmetal blue security booth. Lights ran down on every side of me, making certain I was carrying no banned substances into the building.

As a familiar face, I was similarly waved on by all the levels of security approaching my mother’s office suite—after I passed through scans and checkpoints, of course. Both LAI and biological clerks worked in the Admiralty, all ranks up to and including admirals who had retired from or were on leave from active duty in the five fleets that served the Imperium. All the way there, I rehearsed my argument. Mother mustn’t say no.

The door of the suite opened to admit me after a brief body scan. In the anteroom, its walls covered with brilliantly rendered scenes from space battles the Imperium had fought over the last few millennia and portraits of the ships and captains whohad won them, her private secretary, Admiral Leven Draco, hunched over a console. He was a superb officer who had served Mother as aide-de-camp, commander to her captain, captain to her admiral, and accepted a promotion to admiral on his retirement from active duty only if it meant he would not be separated from my mother’s service. He was a stout man with huge, wiry graying eyebrows, a tuft of hair in the middle of a bald head that was surrounded by a tonsure of wiry iron-gray hair. His jowly face, pouched eyes and authoritative beak of a nose often caused him to be mistaken, by those who did not know the dainty woman at his side at official events, as the First Space Lord. He smiled at me. I considered him an unrelated relative.

“Uncle Lev,” I said, shaking hands with him. The rest of his many assistants looked up from their stations to offer me grins and nods. They were almost all high-ranking naval officers retired from active duty. This was a plum assignment, considered well worth fighting for. Draco hand-picked his staff for trustworthiness and competence. They were the best of the best. I could never qualify as one of my own mother’s office staff. “May I see the First Space Lord? I’ll wait.”

The jowls lifted and creased in a pleased smile. “How are you, my boy? I heard you were back. Your mother’s in one last meeting, then you may go in. There are refreshments in the anteroom.”

“Shall I bring you anything?” I asked.

“No need,” he said, lifting his customary oversized coffee cup. The others shook their heads. “Go on.”

I settled myself in the anteroom. It was meant to look intimate and comfortable, but its enormous size, proportionate to the other grand chambers in the Admiralty, made me feel as if I was a very small boy in his father’s study. The walls were paneled in priceless tropical wood, and decorated with historically important banners and ensigns under sheets of crystal. My mother’s portrait, as the current holder of the office, hung over a crystal case full of memorabilia from her career, models of the ships she had commanded, medals, holos from her ship’s logs, and so on. The leatherlike furniture, huge and overstuffed, wore an air of timeless importance that had cowed many a young officer. I sank into a chair with huge, rolled sides that could not be called arms, as they were level with my head, and I am a tall man. I could not see out of it, but it had excellent acoustics, as I had discovered as a small child. If I closed my eyes and concentrated, sometimes I could hear what was going on in Mother’s office. The door was ajar a finger’s breadth. She was speaking with a man, very likely human, by the resonance and baritone pitch.

I realized with a start that I knew that voice very well indeed. Her visitor was
Parsons
. I had the most awful feeling that he had come to report upon my deployment aboard the
Wedjet
. I was a little put out, having come to regard him as my personal aide. I knew it had been a temporary measure, though why he needed to oversee my naval service I did not know. Sadly, I knew that he would not spare my feelings when he declaimed the rolls of my sins. I wondered what particular item on the list had Mother’s attention. I did not want him to scuttle my hoped-for second chance. I had to know what he was saying, so I could counter his arguments when my turn came to speak. Though I knew my effort would be futile; Parsons was as clearheaded as they came and as incorruptible as honor itself. Mother would always be wise to take his assessment of a situation over mine. I would be reduced to pleading. Not that I was unused to abasing myself to apologize to some figure of authority, but I had never felt the stakes to be so high. My future was in the balance. I wriggled out of the enveloping chair and crept, spine bent and on silent foot, toward the door.

A slight creak from the office sent me haring back to the seat. If Parsons was departing from my mother’s company, the last image I wanted to provide them was of me kneeling with my ear pressed to the door. But I had to hear their exchange. Abandoning all scruples, I disabled the Optique’s exterior lights and sent the little sphere to hover in the crack at the top of the door.

Through its link with my pocket secretary, I watched it scan the room and focus upon the two figures in the center. My mother, in full uniform, looking trim and majestic, was seated behind her desk. Parsons, spine straight as truth, stood beside her. They were both looking at a three-dimensional image that played upon the desk top. I could not discern the image, save that it appeared to be a spacescape. At least I was not the immediate subject of conversation. I felt deep relief.

“. . . remarkable clarity of the images leaves no doubt as to identity and trajectory, and confirms the information on the crystal,” Parsons was saying, as the Optique’s sensitive microphone filtered it back to me. I winced at the fractionally time-delayed echo, as I could also hear the voices myself. I put a finger in my ear and listened closely to the speaker. “There is no reason for those ships to have been in that place at that time. No flight plan was filed, no distress calls noted from that area. It is definitely an intrusion.”