Empery

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  The star dome was deserted except for the two shadowy figures near its center. One lay full-length on one of the recliners, his attention focused upward on the tiny nodes of light that seemed to lie just beyond the seamless synglas. The other sat upright on the edge of a nearby chair, his attention focused on the first. Starlight alone betrayed the troubled expressions both men wore.

  “She said she doubted they existed,” Wells said. “I could hardly believe I’d heard it. I feel them there, Teo. It’s as though there were a chill in that part of the sky.”

  Farlad’s gaze flicked upward briefly and found the familiar outline of Ursa Major. “It’s irresponsible of her, of course. But only two firm yes votes—that isn’t much cause for optimism.”

  “I prefer to focus on the fact that there was only one firm no vote.”

  “What I meant is that the Chancellor isn’t likely to change her mind if that’s the most support you can muster. We can continue funding the research from other accounts. It’s just not time to build yet.”

  “That’s not acceptable.”

  “She sits for renewal in less than two years,” Farlad reminded. “She may step aside then. Or we may be able to. lay the groundwork for replacing her.”

  “Two more years wasted—two more years vulnerable—”

  “It will take a dozen years or more to build Triad once we have the go-ahead, longer than that to deploy the groups to advance bases. Against that—”

  “Against that two years is still two years more in which the Mizari could act and we couldn’t. I’m disturbed enough about the window of vulnerability forced on us by the system’s lead time. I won’t tolerate opening it still wider for no good purpose.”

  “I understand that, sir. I just don’t see that we have anything to say about it just now.”

  To that Wells had no immediate reply. He lay perfectly still on the recliner, folded hands resting on his taut stomach, gazing out at the stars of the Great Bear. Then, in one smooth motion, he swung his legs over the side of the recliner and came to his feet.

  “Thank you, Teo. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow,” he said briskly, and started off toward the exit, his long strides carrying him quickly across the floor.

  “Where are you going?” Farlad called after, jumping up.

  “To see that Comité Sujata is prepared to render a vote the next time,” Wells called back. “It was negligent of me not to see to it sooner.”

  “What point is there to that? The Chancellor can set aside a four-to-one vote as easily as a three-to-one.”

  Wells paused and looked back. “Why, you said it yourself, she knows our support has some softness. Perhaps she’ll see things differently when she feels more alone.”

  Farlad glanced at the faintly glowing face of his watch.“It’s late. Sujata will be in her suite by now, surely.”

  Wells waved a hand in the air. “Just as well. Sometimes the surroundings in which something is said affects how it is heard.”

  Whenever Janell was away, Wyrena rattled around the apartment aimlessly. There were no rituals or rhythms to the household, no well-defined place for her yet. With a touch of the anxiety that came with custom violated or ignored, she felt a need to be needed, to be useful. But beyond some trivial straightening and putting-away, there was nothing for her to do.

  Moreover, Wyrena felt unnaturally alone. Janell’s way of living was machine-dependent and streamlined to a degree that Wyrena, raised in the highly social complexity of a Ba’ar family enclave, could not have previously imagined. The formalized interplay in which she was so skillful, the carefully delineated roles in which she was so comfortable, had been left on Ba’ar Tell. She had failed to realize how much she would miss them.

  Now there was only Janell. I cannot lose her, was the fearful refrain of her thoughts. If I lose her, all time will be like these empty hours. From lovers’ games Wyrena vowed to build them a comfortable web of ritual. From her lover’s cues she would carve out a complementary selfhood, making each necessary to the other, making each complete through the other.

  Janell’s concession earlier that day to share what had troubled her was a beginning. The rules and dynamics of the Committee were fascinating, not unlike an undisciplined Ba’ar enclave. It was the aspect of Janell’s life for which Wyrena had felt the greatest immediate affinity, in which she could most readily foresee being useful.

  Yet even in this most important task Wyrena had already made errors. She had been clinging, possessive, wanting instead of giving. Janell had said as much when she went off to discharge her responsibilities to words and numbers and machines, though the work center of the apartment surely contained everything she would need.

  “Must you leave? Can’t you work here?” Wyrena had pleaded.

  “I can—but with you here I won’t,” was the answer. There was no question where it placed the fault for this particular separation.

  Janell had showed her how to use the net and fill a wall with light and images, but nothing in her experience had trained her to fill time with passive watching. Her solitude weighed on her, the more so because she did not know how long it would last.

  By the time the door page sounded, Wyrena was dozing in the chair where she had settled to await Janell’s return. She was momentarily taken aback by the unfamiliar noise, then followed it with tentative steps to the entryway. The tiny display by the door controls was black, but a yellow light above it was flashing. Her hand went out, and the page fell silent as the door slid open.

  “Janell?” Wyrena said hopefully.

  Instead of Janell, a strange man stood there with arms crossed over his chest, almost filling the doorway with his frame. For several long seconds, while she stood frozen by uncertainty, he raked her with piercing, deep-set eyes.

  Then his arms fell to his sides and the rigidness left his pose. “Greetings of the evening,” he said pleasantly, bowing from the neck. “I ask harmony on your house and family, and the blessings of the endless river on your lands.”

  Her heart leapt at the familiar phrasing. “At our door is the end of your road, and at our table the end of your hunger,“Wyrena said reflexively, stepping back from the doorway.“Are you from the Tell?” she added hopefully.

  “I’m afraid not,” the stranger said as he stepped past her.“But my position has allowed me to learn some of its customs.” Reading the lack of recognition in her eyes, he said,“I’m Harmack Wells.”

  So this is Wells! she thought admiringly. Just as Janell led me to believe, one who lives with confidence and walks with strength. Bowing, she said, “Comité Sujata has spoken of you.”

  “I’d like to talk to her, if she’s not in bed.”

  Either Wells had not learned as much as he claimed or he had abandoned it in favor of the looser local mores, for the question fit badly with Wyrena’s rules of propriety for visitors. “No,” she said finally, struggling past her slack-jawed indecision.

  “Ah,” Wells said, eyeing her nightdress and rumpled hair.“I apologize for disturbing you. I trust you’ll tell her that I was here?”

  Belatedly Wyrena realized her inarticulate answer had misled him. “I meant to say she’s not here,” she said hastily.“Janell went to her office. You can find her there.”

  “I see. Thank you.” He took a step toward the door, then turned and looked back at her. “My manners fail me at times. Let me welcome you to Unity and Earth. I understand you’ve only recently arrived?”

  “Five days ago.”

  Wells nodded. “You’ll forgive my curiosity, but I find myself wondering what kind of Ba’ar woman comes here alone.”

  “I am not alone,” she said defensively.“Forgive my error. When you greeted me, you seemed hungry for the familiar. Here and on Unity there are many men from Ba’ar Tell, equally hungry. I thought perhaps to make your presence known to them.”

  “That is not necessary,” Wyrena said, looking away.

  “I would be happy—”

  “I told you,
I’m not alone!” Wyrena could feel him watching her, could sense the probing gaze and the mind behind it.“Te da’arit?” he said softly. The question was impertinent but phrased in the male obligatory. She had to answer. “Yes. I love her.”

  “Do you practice the Canon?”

  “Of course.”

  “And what of Comité Sujata? Has she learned the Canon too? Does she understand the woman’s true role, the beauty of silent compromise, the imperative of accommodation?”

  “I try to teach her, as I can—by word and example.”

  “Is she a good student?”

  When she did not answer, Wells moved closer, until she could almost feel his warm breath on her face. “You said that she had spoken of me. Has she spoken of the work she does, the problems we face?”

  Wyrena turned her back to Wells—an insult which, regrettably, he probably would fail to take the meaning of—and said nothing.

  “Listen, little ka’ila’in,” Wells said softly, his lips but a hand’s breadth from her ear. “There are things you should know. Your Janell has important decisions to make in the days ahead. She has risen to a position of great honor, a position whose responsibilities she takes to heart. But persons of conscience are sometimes paralyzed by decisions of consequence. If she should share her struggle with you, I would like to know that you will counsel her in accord with the Canon. I would like to think that you will help her steer a course of compromise.”

  Surprised by Wells’s words, Wyrena turned to face him. “I would do that for her anyway, to bring her peace.”

  “Of course,” Wells said, holding her gaze almost hypnotically. “But you need to understand that there’s more at stake than her peace. If the wrong decisions are made, or no decision at all, the consequences won’t stop at the border of this little world you share with her. Do you understand?”

  Wyrena searched his words for a threat, yet found only a warning. Nevertheless, she felt the threat all the same. “Yes, I understand.”

  “And you’ll remember, when the time comes?”

  “I will.”

  “Then it won’t be necessary to tell Janell that I was here,“Wells said, bowing. “Good night, Wyrena Ten Ga’ar.”

  It was not until after he had gone that she realized she had never told him her name. There is the threat, she thought. It is in the things he knows without being told. It is in his eyes, which look at me as if they see my essence. He is not Ba’ar, but he knows us. Knows me. Oh, Janell—come home soon and make me forget his eyes.

  Felithe Berberon glanced back and forth between Wells and Erickson and sighed. Enough hostile energy was flowing back and forth across Erickson’s meeting lounge to make him loath to step between them. For this I gave up talking to children? he thought mockingly.

  The “invitation” from Wells had come late, only that morning. When it reached him, Berberon was already in his single-seat courier, being whisked through Unity’s maze of travel tubes to a meeting with a group of Council Scholars—Terran youths being honored for their academic achievements with a week of ceremony at Capital, the island seat of the World Council, and a three-day trip to Unity, the orbiting seat of the Service.

  In truth Berberon had been half wishing for a reprieve from that yearly responsibility. He had no quarrel with recognizing talent, as far as that went. But in recent years the program had become little more than a recruiting exercise, run by the Nines for their own benefit but paid for with Coullars. Worse, the planners seemed to think that the Scholars’ greatest need in life was to meet with as much of the orbital officialdom as possible.

  They bring these kids up here, he had been thinking, most of them for the first time, ostensibly the brightest and best of their generation, and proceed to herd them from one activity to another as if they didn’t trust them to plan as much as a minute’s free time. The kids’d appreciate it a lot more if we’d let them loose at the transship terminal with a couple hundred Coullars and what amounts to a three-day liberty.

  Then the message had come, popping up on the courier’s com like an unwanted houseguest. “Felithe—I am going to see the Chancellor at ten to see if we can’t find some common ground on Triad. Teo suggested, and I concur, that it might be well if you were to go along. Perhaps you can play the peacemaker.”

  Hearing it the first time, Berberon had groaned audibly. He had much to lose by going, more to lose by not going. Without much enthusiasm he redirected his courier toward the shuttle terminal and arranged for the Terran Unitor to stand in for him with the Scholars. He did not think that there was much chance he could play peacemaker. More likely referee. Or if things get particularly bloody, witness.

  Erickson had received them civilly, if not cordially. That atmosphere lasted exactly as long as it took for them to reach the privacy of the lounge and close the door behind them. “Felithe, I suppose I’m not surprised to see you here, though I am disappointed,” Erickson said as she settled in a chair. “Comité, I presume this has something to do with Triad. I would have thought enough was said on that subject yesterday.”

  Wells remained standing. “I want to see if we can’t establish a time frame for bringing in Triad that would satisfy your objections.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Erickson said stiffly.

  “Please, Blythe,” Berberon had said, spreading his hands wide. “Let’s not start from unnecessarily rigid positions. Your rejection of the proposal yesterday was conditional, not final. In that light—”

  “I’m very much sorry if I led anyone to think that,” she said. “I should have been more explicit.“Berberon had made one further foredoomed effort to smooth the waters. “Reasonable people can always find room for compromise. Isn’t it said that government is the art of compromise—”

  But Erickson cut him off again. “I should not have to remind you that the Service is not a government. I have no intention of compromising. I will not allow Triad to be built.”

  “Would you rather the Mizari overwhelmed us?” Wells asked harshly.

  “No—but I don’t think that’s the choice.”

  It had gone downhill from there. Berberon had rarely seen Wells so passionate; he had never seen Erickson so resolute. Predictably neither made any headway with the other.

  “The whole point of Triad is to make the prospect of war so terrifying that they can’t conceive of starting one,” Wells was saying. “We don’t have to fight a war. We just have to make sure they know we’re ready to fight one.”

  Erickson answered first with a scornful look. “We’re too ready, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t you know the history of that idea and where it almost led us? Why don’t you come to the Committee with a proposal to build an ambassador ship?Why not build a Pride of Man?’

  “Because the only way to negotiate with them is from a position of strength.”

  “I would have thought that the logic of mutual survival would overcome such thinking.”

  “We have no reason to believe they’re interested in mutual survival. We have very good reason to believe just the opposite.”

  Erickson waved a hand at him in dismissal. “We’re not even in communication with them. We don’t know why they did what they did. We don’t know if the conditions that prompted them to do it are still in place.”

  “So should we forgive and forget until they come after us again?”

  “What alternative are you offering? Your talk of deterrence sounds like a childish need to frighten those who frighten you. What if fear is foreign to their nature?”

  “Every sentient understands death and what it means.”

  “So what’s your intent once Triad is built—to make Contact for the sole purpose of threatening them?”

  “Reestablishment of an interface between the Mizari and ourselves is inevitable.”

  “I like that—‘reestablishing an interface.’ It sounds so perfectly benign. What you mean is, we’ll prod them with a stick until they wake up and then beat them senseless.”


  Patiently Wells shifted to another tack. “Chancellor, please understand that I recognize valid reasons for believing the Mizari either don’t exist or are no longer a threat. This is a subject on which reasonable minds may disagree. But when you don’t know which course is right, you have to look at the price of being wrong. If you’re wrong, it could cost us everything. If I’m wrong, all it costs us is a little time.”

  “Do you really think that this is doing nothing more to us than that?” she demanded. “That gearing up for total war amounts to nothing more than putting railguns on cargo packets?”

  Erickson’s words came with a rush, passion breaking through frost. “You already have the greatest share of our internal appropriations. In just forty years Defense has grown larger than any other branch and threatens to become larger than all the others combined. We now extract Planetary Service Assessments from everyone who can pay them—what are they but a war tax? The billions of Coullars you’ve pumped into the Sentinel and Defender programs have stoked the economies of the industrial worlds to the point that we’ve begun to affect planetary politics. Isn’t that right, Felithe?What do the Observers care if you cry wolf, as long as you whisper profit in the same breath?”

  Berberon shrugged. “There is no shame in having a selfish interest so long as you also have a more noble one.”

  Erickson came up out of her seat and threw her hands high in the air in frustration. “And which interest accounts for the messages I’ve received since yesterday from the Journan Elector and the Maranit High Mistress? Which one accounts for Felithe’s presence here?”

  “Chancellor,” Wells said gently, “I quarrel with none of your observations. These are facts that anyone can see. But they’ll all be instantly irrelevant if the Mizari attack while we’re still powerless to retaliate.”

  Erickson settled back into her chair, propping her chin on one fist as she avoided looking at either visitor. “Are we so sure of ourselves that we would never strike at them first?”

  “The sole purpose of Triad is to protect the human community,” Berberon said.

  Erickson turned on Wells. “And if you learned that you could attack them with impunity and destroy them before they could respond, you wouldn’t persuade yourself that you were only protecting us and go ahead and give the order?”