Rhythm of the Imperium

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “It would be my honor, sir.”

  “This is great, sir,” Nesbitt said. The big man’s voice was thick with gravy. I noticed that his plate was already empty. The serverbots were ahead of my signal, though. They moved in to help him to a second portion of everything. My other tablemates ate at a more leisured pace, the better to enjoy the delicacies I had had laid out for them.

  “Try the wine, sir,” Marcel’s server said, moving to his side with the carafe. He beamed at him and held out his glass.

  “Great stuff, sir,” he said, holding the goblet up to me in a toast. “Thanks for inviting us!”

  “Everything is lovely, Lord Thomas,” Madame Deirdre said, carving another tiny nibble. “I think my other friends here will agree that this is the finest food on any ship I have ever traveled. Certainly better than what I’ve had to force down my throat on traveling theatrical ships. Although actors and dancers can eat anything, proprietors and producers often think that means we should.”

  The others laughed.

  “Where is Parsons?” I enquired of the group as a whole. “I invited him, but he never responded to my note.”

  Did Plet hesitate a moment before she answered?

  “I can’t say, sir,” she said, lifting guileless blue eyes to my questioning gaze. “When I saw him last, he was in the engineering department. One of the technicians was making something for him. He implied that his … project might take some time.”

  “Ah, well,” I said, ruefully, slicing myself a morsel of my meal. “He has been known to savor this dish. I did tell him I was serving it. Perhaps he will appear before dessert.”

  I was pleased to see that all of my guests seemed to enjoy the rare treat. The fleshy texture of the succulent added a luxurious bite to the silky sauce. I admired Marcel’s hand with spices. I further detected the sweetness of cardamom on top of a piquant citrus note. All of these were firmly anchored in a rich stock flavored with roasted garlic and almost a sub-molecular spark of bird’s-eye chili.

  “Genius,” I said, savoring the taste. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Delicious,” Redius agreed, smacking his lips. Anstruther, shy thing that she was, nodded without looking up from her plate.

  A high-pitched peep sounded from Plet’s end of the table. She glanced down at her viewpad and stood up.

  “Anstruther, with me,” she said. The dark-haired girl rose, setting her napkin on the table.

  “Do you want the rest of us, lieutenant?” Nesbitt asked, glancing at his wine glass with rueful eyes.

  “Not at this time, but stay near your viewpads,” Plet said. “The rest of the security detail is already present.”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  A tiny wrinkle of concern had etched itself between her straight blonde brows. On anyone else, the expression would have manifested as a gloomy frown.

  “The Kail are kicking up a fuss over something. Security has ordered all crew on duty to the Zang’s quarters.”

  Laine put down her fork and pushed back her chair with a rueful grimace. “I’d better come with you.”

  “I will come, too,” I said, bravely abandoning the half-eaten quistaminato on my plate. “If I can be of any help.”

  With a signal to Marcel to put all the food and wine safely aside, I followed my dinner party out to the lift shaft.

  “What is he doing here?”

  As we exited the lift shaft into the cargo-bay level, I recognized the voice as belonging to Master Chief O’ohma Charles Xi. The noncommissioned officer who oversaw security on the Jaunter was a long and faithful servant of the Imperium. His brown, oblong, solid face always reminded me of a large potato, but I didn’t hold it against him. Through the clear visor of a riot helmet, Chief Xi glared at me. He and most of the security contingent of the Jaunter were massed in the corridor, each of them carrying a riot shield and one of those brightly-colored weapons I had seen Redius and Nesbitt carrying after they conveyed the Kail to the Jaunter. I heard banging and shrieking, but it wasn’t coming from the Zang’s quarters. Instead, the deafening din issued from an open loading bay farther down. Torn sections of hull plate lay twisted and and mangled on the floor. Pipes in the wall were still leaking sewage and water. The smell was nauseous. Two security officers lay prone on the floor, being ministered to by a doctorbot and a female medic from the infirmary.

  “He accompanied Dr. Derrida,” Lieutenant Plet said, in an apologetic tone I found inexcusable.

  “I am a serving member of the Imperium Navy,” I pointed out, loading my voice with all the asperity I could.

  “Well, lieutenant,” Chief Xi said, the word larded with equally inappropriate sarcasm, “I’d appreciate it if you and this lady would take yourself back to your quarters. It’s bad enough I have to deal with those things in there.” He aimed a thumb over his shoulder.

  “Have they tried to assault the Zang?” Plet asked, keeping her face carefully immobile, as befit an assiduous student of the Parsons School for Inscrutability.

  “No, not according to Petty Officer Gruen,” Xi said. He indicated one of the helmeted guards, whose armor looked as though he had been tumbled in an industrial clothes dryer with ten tons of rocks.

  “No, ma’am, just us,” Gruen said.

  “They can’t touch it anyhow,” Laine said. “It’s insubstantial unless it wants to be solid. Besides, my impression from the Kail was of total respect for the Zang.”

  “Well, something’s stirred them up. They’re taking out their frustrations on the rest of the ship. They were in a pet even before we tried to herd them back to their quarters.”

  “Why?”

  “I haven’t got a clue. This one won’t talk.” Xi aimed the thumb at a derelict-looking LAI. I realized that the sorry structure before us was NR-111, the translator assigned to the Kail. Her housing was battered and dented, and the stalk supporting her lenses had been crushed as if in a vise.

  From an open hangar door about thirty meters from us, a loud crash answered him. I thought that I heard a thousand pieces of glass shatter. Chief Xi didn’t even flinch.

  “They’re marauding all over this level, breaking anything that they can lay their big cement mitts on.”

  “Couldn’t you stop them?” Plet asked.

  “With what? They’re the size of tanks. Two of my guards are in the infirmary, one with a fractured skull.”

  “Have adapted weapons,” Redius said, indicating the guards’ colorful rifles. “No use?”

  The chief’s big face turned dark with suffused blood. “That’s what set them off.”

  “What do they shoot?” I asked.

  “Gelatin,” Plet said. “The Kail dislike coming into contact with any kind of biological substance. They were meant to be the device of last resort only.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I know,” Xi said. His eyes were hooded as he glanced toward Gruen. “I’ll be talking to my people later, once we get those monsters calmed down. Any suggestions?”

  For answer, Plet turned to NR-111. “You have had more contact than anyone else. Do you have a recommendation?”

  “I don’t know what to suggest,” the translator said, sounding almost frantic. “They are very angry, almost desperate.”

  “About what?”

  “They … I don’t believe it is breaking protocol to say they were speaking with the Kail on the other ship, lieutenant,” NR-111 said, in a tentative manner. “He showed them … some images that upset them greatly.”

  “Can you give us any more detail than that?”

  “I am afraid not.” The translator lowered her damaged stalk almost down to her dented housing. “Those communications are privileged. All I can say is that afterwards, they wanted to communicate urgently with the Zang.”

  “And did they?”

  “Oh, yes! But it doesn’t seem to have calmed them down. I think it made them more angry. Especially Phutes, their leader. He has a very bad temper.”

  “They made a disaster out of the cabin t
hat the Zang is in,” Gruen said. “We chased them out of there. I hope you didn’t leave anything valuable in there, ma’am. It’s probably not in good shape right now.”

  Laine looked resigned. “It won’t be the first time I’ve had to replace everything.”

  “Is Proton all right?” I asked.

  Laine listened for a moment. “Yes. It’s fine.”

  “What are they upset about?” Lieutenant Plet asked.

  “Who knows?” Gruen said. “That’s not my job. I’m stuck between two bad choices. The captain wants them thrown off the ship before they take it over, and the special envoy says that’ll ruin any chances of making peace with the Kail motherworlds. So, I disabled the lifts so they can’t go anywhere, and I called Ambassador Melarides. She’s on her way down.”

  Another magnificent bang shook the level.

  “Have they attempted to corrupt any of the ship’s systems?” Plet asked.

  “Except for reversing our control of the lifts, not a touch. They’re acting like they never heard of technology. They’re kicking and smashing things and carrying on like big stone babies.” He kept his eyes fixed pointedly upon me.

  “I promise you, it’s nothing to do with me,” I said. “I’ve been minding my own business for the last several hours.”

  “What do they want?” Anstruther asked, her golden eyes huge as something heavy slammed into an inner wall behind her.

  “They just keep saying over and over again that they want it to talk to them. I don’t know what we can do about that, except maybe pipe a fake voice over the PA and pretend it’s coming from the Zang.”

  I chuckled. “I’d be happy to provide the voice.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Lieutenant Plet said, dismissively. “Can you talk to them, Dr. Derrida?”

  Laine shrugged her shoulders. The enveloping gown lifted and dropped, belling out at the hem with displaced air.

  “I’ll just say the same thing as I did before. They can talk to it all they want. I can’t promise that it will listen.”

  “Will you offer again, ma’am?” Chief Xi asked. “We’ll do our best to protect you.”

  “I suppose so, but I can’t tell them anything that I haven’t said. The Zang is not going to reply directly to them. I offered to translate its impressions if I got any. Even if I did, it might not address their request.”

  I cleared my throat, and was rewarded with everyone’s attention. “By this time in my studies, I might claim to be a growing expert in the field of translating nuance,” I said. “Can’t you … reinterpret what they’re hearing from the Zang?”

  Laine wrinkled her nose. “In what way?”

  I did my best to evoke inclusion, gathering all the beings present to me with enveloping arms.

  “Try not to make them feel as if they are being ignored by the Zang. Give them reassurance that it is listening.”

  She shook her head.

  “But it isn’t! They are being ignored. We’re all ephemerals, temporary beings, maybe worthy of a glance or two. I’m always surprised when they let me know that a spectacle is coming so I can alert the population in the vicinity to come and watch. Otherwise, everything’s on their time scale.”

  “Tell them what you do sense from it,” I suggested. “No one likes to feel unimportant. Perhaps if you reframe its attention to the universe in a way that includes them? Could you do that?”

  Laine looked uncomfortable. She raised her warm brown eyes to mine in appeal. “I suppose so. I’m not used to being untruthful.”

  “No? Don’t you write grant proposals?” I asked.

  “All the time,” Laine said, the helpless expression giving way to confusion. “Well, I used to. But what’s that got to do with it?”

  “From what I understand from my friends in academics, those are tissues of lies and fabrications from the merest suggestion of fact.” I held up a thumb and forefinger, the pads of which were a meager distance from one another. “Weren’t yours just the tiniest bit exaggerating what you had already found against what you hoped to find? All these poor creatures want is a moment of the Zang’s attention. Give them an essay that stresses what they may hope for.”

  A slow smile spread the rosebud mouth into a broad grin. Endearing dimples indented her cheeks. I fell in love all over again. Her eyes warmed with affection.

  “When you put it like that, I suppose it falls into the range of academic accuracy.” She turned to Xi. “All right, chief. Take me to them.”

  “Marvelous!” I said, tucking her hand into the crook of my elbow. “I’m looking forward to this. I hope to gather enough material for another dance from the interplay.” At my side, Madame Deirdre nodded vigorous agreement.

  “No!” Lieutenant Plet exclaimed. She stepped between us and took Laine’s hand away from me. I felt immediately bereft. “Please, Lord Thomas, this is dangerous. We prefer not to have to involve Dr. Derrida, but we have no choice. I don’t want to risk you. You have no purpose here. Go abovedecks. Now. Both of you.”

  “But it was my idea!” I protested. I thrust out my lower lip. “I only want to help her.”

  Xi lowered his heavy brow and frowned.

  “Lieutenant, sir, my lord, will you get out of here? The only way you can help is not to be one of my problems. It’ll be tough enough to guard her from those stone-fisted morons! I don’t want to have to report to your mother you got a chair thrown at you on my watch.”

  “Oh, come now, chief, my mother assumes I will get chairs thrown at me, on your watch or anyone else’s!”

  “Come along, Lord Thomas. We are in the way,” Madame Deirdre said in a brisk manner, taking my arm with an iron grip. She had very strong fingers. “Chief, so sorry to be a bother.”

  “Not at all, ma’am.” Chief Xi looked relieved.

  As she pulled me away, I began to protest that I wanted to watch, but both good sense and the no-nonsense look on the face of my teacher told me to vacate the premises and not to argue.

  “I will be in the common room if you need me,” I called to Laine over my shoulder.

  “Sorry about the quisto-whatevers,” she said, with a rueful smile.

  “Not at all,” I assured her. I did my best to cover my disappointment.

  CHAPTER 20

  Deirdre hauled me steadily toward the lift doors, which opened upon our approach, and herded me inside.

  “Let’s go back and have the rest of our dinner,” she said, as the mechanism hummed to life. “Your friends can fill us in when they come back.”

  “If they come back,” I said glumly, watching the indicator number rise. “I think tonight’s party is over.” I reached for the controls. She swatted my hand.

  “You must not dwell on this, Lord Thomas!” she said. “There are times when you must let others take a task out of your sight!”

  I grinned, a trifle sheepishly.

  “I prefer to be in the midst of the action,” I said.

  She waved away my impatience. “I know. But to become an interpreter, one must observe, then take the experience away with one, to a place where there is space for private thought and reflection.” She peered up at me. “I know your moods. You won’t be able to settle. Let us forgo the rest of the feast. Instead, let’s make use of this boundless energy that is making you twitch.” She spoke into the control panel of the lift. “Housekeeping, please?”

  Instead of the friendly, casual voice of the elevator’s LAI system, the reply was in the precise tones of the managing intelligence that maintained the living quarters and everything on the ship that was not involved with operations, security or defense.

  “Yes, Madame Deirdre, this is AB-64l. How may I help?”

  “Abigail, will you set up the barre and mirror in the nobles’ common room, please? Towels, high-impact floor pads. And take away the food. We’ll need only water, herbal tea, and high-protein snacks.”

  “Yes, Madame Deirdre,” Abigail said.

  “Apologize to Marcel for us. Perhaps we can revis
it his delectable offerings tomorrow, when things have settled down a bit.”

  “I will do so. Changeover taking place now. Completion in twenty minutes.”

  “Thank you so much,” Deirdre said. She stepped back and shot me a look of triumph.

  “You take charge in the way that my maternal unit does,” I complained.

  “Now that,” Madame Deirdre said, stepping out of the lift ahead of me, “I consider that to be an enormous compliment.”

  We entered the day room. LAIs and other mechanicals zipped busily around us, undoing all the careful preparations I had made for my little dinner party. In no time at all, the feast hall had been transformed into a dance studio. With my cousins still on the planet’s surface, there was no one present to object. Rugs were rolled up, mats were spread out. An enormous mirror, appearing in the room as if by magic, slid out from behind a raised wall panel and was walked into place by thumb-sized rollerbots. I watched for a while, but my mind kept drifting downward into the lower levels of the ship.

  I had every faith that Dr. Derrida was equal to the task of placating the stone monsters. But what was it they craved so mightily that they wanted to spend every waking moment persuading the Zang to give it to them? We knew so little about what the Zang were capable of achieving. Laine had given me an insight into their curiosity about lower life forms, including humankind. One could see that the less cultured beings might see them as deities, instead of seeing them as fellow inhabitants of a diverse galaxy. So far, no experts whom I had read or listened to knew whether the Kail believed in higher powers, therefore it suggested they were interested in practical assistance. What did the Kail need so desperately it made them commandeer a space liner? How could we help them get what they craved?

  A hand-clap brought me out of my reverie.

  “You’re far away, Lord Thomas,” Madame Deirdre said, pointing at the floor beside the mirror. “Come over here.” I obeyed, and put my hand upon the barre that had been erected along the mirror. “First position, please. Arms up! Second position. Let’s begin with some plies. Now, one two three. One two three.”