Princess of the Empire (JNC Edition)

by Hiroyuki Morioka

  Sach were not Abh. They were followers of the Star Forces, its low-ranked officers, and largely picked up from various terrestrial worlds.

  The two NCCs standing guard saluted. “Apprentice, in accordance with regulation, allow us to inspect your compuwatch.” Lafier proferred her right arm, on which the compuwatch rested. The retainer placed an oblong device on the compuwatch and read what it displayed.

  “You’re clear, Apprentice. Now then, if you would give us your compuwatch as well, Honorable Lonh.”

  “Ah, right.” Jinto gave them his left arm.

  While performing the identity check, the retainer took a glance at Jinto’s face. He regarded him with suspicion, as though asking himself why somebody of his own race was a noble.

  “You’re clear, Lonh. Please, you may proceed,” said the retainer, granting permission.

  “Your work is appreciated,” said Lafier, somewhat rotely. She urged Jinto forward.

  When they set foot onto the hallway, it started to move forward. It wasn’t a very long distance to traverse.

  Jinto saw the words “Baulébh Rüé-Laburér” (BOHLEV ROOEHLAHBOOREHR, Administrative Zone of the Imperial Star Forces) written on the wall, and shuddered. He’d come here from a world where the concept of “the military” was found solely within the pages of history books and dictionaries. It was very late to be getting nervous about it now, but he couldn’t shake the sensation that the time had finally arrived: he was officially involving himself with that great unknown, that veritable relic from the past.

  There was a door at the end of the automatic path; it opened smoothly at their approach. A spaceship lay hunkered just beyond. Its painted black hull enveloped Jinto’s field of vision.

  “This is the patrol ship Goslauth?” asked Jinto earnestly.

  “Tell me you’re not seriously asking that.” Lafier’s eyes turned severe.

  “Please remember, Lafier — I’m ignorant,” said Jinto, flustered.

  “There are limits to how ignorant one can be.”

  “Now that I recall, I think the cargo passenger ship I was on seven years ago was a bit bigger.”

  “I don’t know what class that ship was, but it can’t have been ‘a bit bigger.’ This is the Goslauth’s loading caricec (KAREEK, small docking ship), one large enough to carry around 50 people. It’s used to carry soldiers when a ship can’t dock at a port directly, or to ferry them between ships. Though today, you’ll be its only passenger.”

  “I’m honored.” But then, a pang of worry. Wait, then who’ll be flying the thing? Is it Lafier!?

  He’d been harboring a firm preconception regarding saidiac (SEDEEA, steerers), and it definitely didn’t include girls his age. But he also had a feeling, bordering on a conviction, that testing that notion might end up delivering a fatal blow not only to the relationship that had thankfully started off on the right foot, but also to Jinto’s bodily form.

  “So, which will you take?” she asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘which’? I only see the one ship...”

  “The assistant steerer’s seat is open. Will you be taking that seat, or would you rather stay in the accommodation compartment in the back?”

  “Is there a lovely lady stewardess back there?” Jinto quipped.

  “There’s no lovely stewardess,” replied Lafier with dead seriousness, “but if it’s a most beauteous steerer you want, you won’t be disappointed. So what will it be?” The “most beauteous steerer,” it would seem, was referring to herself.

  I’m glad I didn’t ask if anybody else could steer, Jinto mused. She would have definitely taken it as an insult.

  “I’ll take the assistant’s seat, obviously,” said Jinto, thereby resigning himself to leaving his life in her hands.

  Chapter 3: The Frymec Négr (FRYOOM NEG, Daughter of Love)

  “So, what’s frocragh (FROHKRAHZH, spatiosensory perception) feel like?” Jinto asked Lafier, sitting beside her in the assistant steerer’s chair.

  “That’s difficult to explain.” Lafier had just extended her circlet’s access-cable and plugged it into her seat’s backrest.

  “Is it true you know about everything around the spaceship using that?”

  “Yes. Like this, I can sense what the ship senses.” Her eyes took on a questioning sheen. “Is frocragh that rare?”

  “It’s rare all right,” Jinto replied with a shrug. “This is the first time I’ve ever met someone with it.”

  Frocragh was a sense unique to the Abh. Abhs each bore a froch (FROHSH, spatiosensory organ) on their foreheads. These froch were typically obscured by their circlets, and so Landers rarely got a chance to see them even in videos, let alone in real life. And Jinto was no exception.

  The part of the circlet that touched the froch spatiosensory organ contained approximately 100 million flickering light-emitters that picked up information from the ship’s own suite of sensors and beamed it to the area of the frontal lobe pertaining to navigation, or the rilbidoc (REELBEEDOH). That area of the brain was also unique to the Abh.

  When connected to a ship, the circlet became a personal radar, continuously probing the space around the user. To the Abh, the circlets weren’t just indicators of family pedigree, but indispensable tools throughout their entire lives.

  Jinto realized he’d misconstrued something. When they’d first come face to face, he’d thought that she’s tried to stomp off by herself without confirming beforehand whether he’d actually follow her. But Lafier had, in fact, been able to sense him behind her through her froch.

  “I see...” Yet Lafier was still nonplussed as to how to answer his question. “But there’s just no way I can explain what it’s like. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live without any sense of frocragh.”

  “No, that makes sense. So, are you doing orbital calculations?”

  “Orbital calculations?” Lafier looked at him blankly. “No, I’m not.”

  “Then you must just be receiving raw numbers, huh.” He was slightly disappointed; he’d overestimated this “rilbidoc” area of the Abh brain.

  “I’m not receiving any numbers, either.”

  “But then, how are you determining the ship’s trajectory?”

  “I just am. Think of it as intuition.”

  “Intuition? As in, your gut!?”

  “Right,” she replied, nodding matter-of-factly. “When you throw something, you aim using your intuition, don’t you? It’s like that. I determine the optimal trajectory and duration of propulsion instinctively, calculating all of it unconsciously. Is there something strange about that?”

  “I find it positively uncanny. I mean, there have gotta be times when your aim’s off the mark.”

  “Children may miss, on occasion. Be at ease.”

  “I see...” But that didn’t give him much peace of mind.

  Jinto scanned the chicrh saidér (SHEERR SEDEHR, steering room). I was expecting the steering room of a spaceship to be more over-the-top. The steering room was spherical in shape. Only the floor was flat. With just a screen in front of each of the two adjustable seats, the room lacked the steering apparatuses and meters and instruments he’d imagined. It was just a smooth, opal-colored wall.

  Behind the seats hung the grac monger (GRAH MOHNGAR, the ship’s banner), of the patrol ship Goslauth. Its design featured a lauth (LOHTH, winged dragon). The upper left arm of Lafier’s military uniform also featured the same symbol.

  The steering apparatus was attached to the seat. The adjustable seat had an armrest on its right side, upon which lay a number of poch (POHSH, controls). Naturally, those controls couldn’t be enough to carry out the complex operations necessary to pilot a spaceship. That must be the guhaicec (GOOHEK), thought Jinto.

  Jinto fixed his eyes on the guhaicec, the gauntlet-looking device hanging on the left of the adjustable chair. It looked long enough to cover the arm up the elbow, with an opening for the compuwatch’s display and controls. It was made of black synthetic leather, but it sported man
y metal parts as well. The fingers, especially, were completely covered in metal.

  It was said that Abhs guided their spaceships through the use of these control gloves, as well as through voice command. The buttons on the armrest were strictly for auxiliary, backup purposes. Jinto had learned of the control glove at the Abh Linguistic and Cultural Institute on Delktu, but he still couldn’t believe a spaceship could be maneuvered through the simple movement of the pilot’s fingers.

  “Hey.” Jinto had a question for Lafier, who had equipped the control glove. “Do you ever accidentally pick something up in your left hand while wearing that glove?”

  “I forget all about my left hand while flying the ship,” she said.

  “But I can’t help thinking moving your fingers is a silly way to pilot.”

  “Why?” Lafier cocked her head in puzzlement. “Is there a better way?”

  “I think so. When Landers pilot intrasystem spaceships, it’s more... well...” He was about to say, “more self-respecting,” but he stopped mid-sentence. Best choose his words carefully. “It’s just, I heard those ships come attached with maneuvering gear laid out according to different ideas.”

  “That may be, but this method is superior.” The apprentice starpilot pointed to her left arm.

  “But...” Jinto persisted. “It must be hard to remember how you’re supposed to be moving your fingers. Do you not forget from time to time?”

  “Do you spend time thinking about the movements of your muscles when you walk?”

  “No.”

  “You aren’t normally consciously aware of how you’re walking.”

  “No, can’t say I am.”

  “Indeed not. And likewise for me when I fly a ship. I need only think of what I wish the ship to do.

  Then my fingers move automatically. Thinking about it would only lead to hesitation as to how to move them. It would be counter-productive.”

  “I see. It’s the fruit of your training.” Jinto was impressed.

  “I’ve been doing this since I was a child. It goes beyond mere training.”

  “That so?” Jinto was wracked by an inferiority complex, but at the same time, he was overjoyed at how correct he’d been not to ask her if there were any other steerers aboard.

  “Shall we depart?” asked Lafier.

  “Ah, yeah, of course. Whenever you’re ready.”

  The screens shined bright, and the curvy glyphs of Baronh, called “Ath” (AHTH), started flowing from bottom to top.

  “Can you read that? It’s shooting so fast.” Jinto was peering at his own display monitor. The green glyphs were dashing across the screen at such absurd speeds he could only make out a mass of flickering. He couldn’t read any of it at all. He couldn’t necessarily say it was because he just wasn’t accustomed to it.

  “I can’t read it.” Lafier took her eyes off the screen, quick to acknowledge that fact.

  “All right then,” said Jinto, pointing to the screen, “what’s this for?”

  “Computing crystals are checking over the ship. If there’s anything wrong, it’ll stay on screen as red text.”

  “Then there’s no reason for all that other info to run across the screen, surely.”

  “Some people agree with you,” Lafier acknowledged. “I don’t think it’s particularly bothersome either way. And I like the ‘vibe’ it gives.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” At last, the little green glyphs cleared off the screen, to be replaced by a big flashing “gosno” (“nothing abnormal detected”).

  “There you go, it’s run its course.”

  “Seems simple enough.”

  “Yes. It’s thanks to the crystals doing our work for us.”

  “There must be times the machines get things wrong.”

  “But humans make mistakes, too,” Lafier said to reassure him.

  “Well, that makes me feel relieved.”

  “You are quite the worrier, aren’t you? Our destination is right there. Do you think we could stand to rely on machines that break that easily?”

  “Well, when you put it that way,” he said prudently. “But how far is it from here to there?”

  “A meaningless question. Our destination is also in motion. In terms of altitude difference, we’re about 5 sedagh (SEDAHZH) apart.”

  The Abh inherited Earth’s CGS system of units, with its centimeters, grams and seconds, though it seemed they’d felt a great need to turn the words into their own native vocabulary. 5 sedagh were exactly equivalent to 5,000 kilometers.

  From here to there — from the spaceport to the patrol ship — stretched at least 5,000 kilometers of empty space.

  To the Kin of the Stars, that distance wouldn’t even be a stroll’s worth, thought Jinto. It wouldn’t kill them to be a little more humble with regard to the universe.

  With a flex of her left hand’s fingers, the apprentice bade the “gosno” on screen disappear. Now the screen displayed the bust of a spaceport crew member.

  “Belyséc (BELYOOSEH, Flight Control),” hailed Lafier.

  “Delktu 1st Planetary Spaceship Flight Control Center,” the controller replied.

  “This is the patrol ship Goslauth’s docking vessel. Our Paunoüass (POHNOWAHSS, Ship Command) ftalia bausnall (FTAHLEEA BOHSNAHL, soldier number-code) is 01-00-0937684. Please depressurize Military Beth (pier) 2.”

  “Roger that, Goslauth docking vessel. I’ll depressurize right away.” Depressurized though it may be, it was impossible to tell what it was like outside from within the steering room.

  “Wait, do you not know what it’s like outside?” asked Jinto. He wanted to have her pull up video of the outside on the screen. It was his second-ever time on a small ship, but he didn’t really remember his first time, so it might as well have been his first time. He felt a little anxious, but he was also brimming with curiosity.

  “You want to see?”

  “Yeah. I don’t have frocragh.”

  “I see.” A shadow of sympathy flashed over Lafier’s face. “All right.”

  Apart from the screens and the ship’s banner, the surrounding wall grew transparent. Of course, it hadn’t actually started letting light through. It was processing the footage of the outside and providing stereoscopic imagery.

  This “depressurization” proved a massive disappointment. The whole compartment must have been thoroughly clean; no motes of dust hovered in the air. He understood that the air was getting thinner on an intellectual level, but nothing he was seeing lent that appearance.

  After about a minute, Flight Control apprised them that depressurization was complete.

  “Please unlock Military Beth 2’s sohyuth (SO’HYOOTH, lock gate),” Lafier requested.

  “Roger that, Goslauth docking vessel.”

  Now this was a sight to see. The right and left sides of the wall before them opened up. What lay beyond was a sea of stars.

  “Total aperture confirmed. Requesting permission to leave port.”

  “Permission granted, Goslauth docking vessel. Do you want an electromagnetic push?”

  “No need. I’ll exit through cold propulsion,” she said. “You’d probably hide your eyes during an EM push,” she teased Jinto.

  Yeah, I probably would, thought Jinto.

  “Roger, Goslauth docking vessel. We hope you return to your warship safely. Delktu 1st Planetary Spaceship Flight Control Center, over and out.”

  “You have my thanks. Goslauth docking vessel, over and out.” When the belységac (BELYOOSEGA, Flight Control officer) disappeared from the screen, Lafier’s left hand took to dancing once again. The vessel shuddered, and then rose up.

  Jinto was on tenterhooks, fearing a collision with the ceiling. Lafier concentrated on her frocragh spatial awareness, going as far as closing her eyes, which was more than enough to get Jinto trembling.

  Needless to say, his fears were groundless. With exquisite equilibrium, the vessel soared both up and forward, and a mere instant before it would have hit the ceiling, cro
ssed over into the starry fathoms. It felt as though his body was floating up along with it.

  They’d broken free of the sphere of üameloth (WAHMLOHTH, gravitational control) exerted by the orbital tower. Thanks to his apymh (AHPYOOF, seatbelt), he didn’t actually start levitating.

  The steerer’s seat rotated 90 degrees. He could see the orbital tower jutting perpendicular to his feet, and Delktu’s surface sprawled ahead of him.

  “You’re incredible.” Jinto’s praises were heartfelt.

  “What do you mean?”

  “As in, you’re an amazingly practiced hand at this.”

  “Don’t mock me,” Lafier huffed. “Among the Abh, even children can fly a ship like this.”

  “Sure, right, I mean, yeah, of course.” His inferiority complex bubbled back to the fore. “But you’re really young, though. Sorry, I know it’s rude to ask a girl her age...”

  “You’re trying to tell me I’m childish, aren’t you?” If looks could kill...

  “Don’t be crazy.” Is there anything in all of space that’s easier than raising her hackles? thought Jinto. “I’m trying to say that, like, it’s hard to tell how old you people are, so I just wanted to confirm my hunch...”

  “I see.” The girl apprentice’s mood had swung right back around. “You inferred correctly. I just turned 16 this year. I am really young.” Which makes her a year younger than me.

  “But what would be rude about asking?” said Lafier.

  “Huh?”

  “You said that asking a girl her age would be rude. But why would that be the case?”

  Jinto batted his eyes. Now that she mentioned it... why was it rude? “It’s probably because ladies want to be seen as young. At least, the ladies of Delktu and Martinh do.”

  “Intriguing. Why is that?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. I’m no expert on female psychology, so try asking a Lander girl.” He saw Lafier wasn’t exactly satisfied by this response, so he attempted to change the subject. “Are apprentice starpilots all as young as you are?”

  “No,” Lafier answered pridefully. That made her come across as all the younger. “The exam for the military academy isn’t that difficult. It’s so easy that if you don’t pass it at 18, you ought to give up on functioning in respectable society. However, there are few who win admittance at age 13. Of this I can be a little proud, don’t you agree?”