“You do not seem to understand.” Pyotr leaned toward the lens as if imploring his counterpart to listen carefully. “I am the supreme leader of this system. We are an isolated people. My subjects, to include most of my highest ranked liegemen, do not believe in alien life. Your interference in our planetary system is tantamount to an ecological and likely economic attack. Imagine introducing a foreign toxin into a fragile environment. That is what you’re doing here. You will cause chaos! And that chaos will cost lives.”
Again the video sped up until the alien face became animated. The green being mimicked his Shorvexan counterpart by leaning forward, though Symeon quickly realized he hadn’t leaned so much as extended his impossibly long neck until his face filled the view. “We are the Bith. We don’t do politics.”
The image went dark.
Symeon stared around at the beauty of Yaya Island as if for the first time. He felt like a man who has been away to a foreign land for so long he no longer remembers his people, his customs, his own family. By dint of will alone, he got his feet moving toward the castle, though he walked slowly as if in a dream.
Aliens.
For a millennium, the people of Phoenix had wondered if they were alone in the universe. History told them only two sentient races existed: the Shorvex, who had been forced to flee their ancestral world due to some long forgotten cataclysm, and the Luxing, a primitive race native to Phoenix yet lacking any sort of intelligence before their masters arrived. Seeking companions to help them survive their new home, the Shorvex had generously enlightened the Luxing through genetic manipulation and the application of society, which the bestial Luxing had lacked before the Great Arrival.
But now the Bith had arrived.
The builders.
Yes, hadn’t the emperor mentioned superstructures? And the alien, Balis ‘nTek, had spoken of a gate. What sort of gate did one build in space? Symeon, having spent his life studying to become a seneschal, had never much considered the stars. The Shorvex put great stock in plumbing the system’s inner planets, but since his duties hadn’t yet included space travel, he had never given it much thought. Space was a thing like a sea, a desert, a high mountain—just one more environment his masters would eventually conquer. But what Symeon did know was finance.
Gates take you places. Aliens use gates.
If these Bith were interested in building a gate inside the Phoenix system, that meant someone wanted to use it, and unless the aliens functioned far differently than the Shorvex, that meant money. Why build a thing unless you can profit from it? If there were profits to be made by traveling to new star systems, that meant other aliens, maybe even other alien species besides these Bith creatures, would soon be traversing this future gate in search of riches.
The emperor was right. If Symeon, a lowly Luxing, could make such a connection, how much more so the common Shorvex of the system, or the royal Shorvex even? Certainly, the appearance of the Bith would raise questions amongst the people, but the idea of other aliens, perhaps thousands of them—perhaps armadas of them—rushing into the Phoenix system would send their civilization into turmoil.
The people must know. They deserve the truth.
The thought blossomed in Symeon’s mind unbidden. He shook his head bitterly. “No! The opposite. This news must be kept hidden as long as possible.”
Why did his brain so often do that? Give him the exact opposite thought of what he knew to be good and right and proper?
Given time, perhaps the government could form a solution to the Bith problem, but if the news got out now, it could be devastating. Who else knew about this outside the emperor and his immediate staff? Kavya, of course, and whoever had delivered the information to her. Already that was too many people for Symeon’s taste. He could do nothing about Saddle Horn Enterprises . If they chose to divulge the recording, so be it. But what were Princess Kavya’s plans for the news? Would she release it? From what he could tell, she hadn’t done that with her father’s planned coup. Perhaps, if he was lucky, Symeon could convince her to likewise withhold this news. Unfortunately, that would mean divulging his access to her private data storage, but he would accept that loss if it meant protecting the system from imploding in fear and anarchy.
Symeon turned his gaze to the castle. It stood almost a kilometer from his current spot. With renewed strength borne of fear, he started to run.
* * *
Castle Vysylka’s outer bailey stood empty by the time Symeon reached it. The gardeners must have finished their work and gone to clean their equipment. He pushed in through the servant’s entrance and was braced by the scent of fried meat, bread, and honey, all of which he ignored in his haste to reach the princess’ living space on the third floor.
It crossed his mind that he was in a state—sweaty, windblown, smelling of the sea and his own ripe aroma. He yearned to grab a quick shower before presenting himself to his mistress but quickly put that idea out of his mind. Every second he wasted gave her a chance to reveal the Bith.
He reached her floor out of breath and took a moment to compose himself, bent over, hands on his knees at the top of the stairs. Kavya had no guards to speak of, but she usually kept two servants outside the double doors to her apartments to screen guests. Curiously, no one stood there today.
Heart still pounding, but with his breath under control, Symeon knocked on the outer door and stepped back for fear of offending whoever answered with his smell. Several seconds passed before the doors finally slid apart to reveal Czarina’s beautiful face.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You heard out on the beach? I guess you got a personal notice. Come in and watch the reactions in the news. The whole system’s going insane.”
“Insane over what?” Symeon asked though he felt he knew the answer.
“The aliens, dummy. Come in, you’re making me miss it.” Czarina took him by both hands and, despite their unequal sizes, dragged him bodily into Kavya’s drawing room.
Everyone was there, from the lowliest cook girl to Vlademar the butler who oversaw all aspects of the castle’s day-to-day running. Every living person on Yaya Island stood transfixed, watching Kavya’s larger than life holo tank. An image of Balis ‘nTek floated before them like some green satellite bereft of its primary.
“This is on the nets? It’s public?” Symeon asked, desperate for Czarina to say otherwise.
“It just broke. Someone pushed it to like a million daemon-gates at once. People are saying the government’s been trying to shut it down, but too many users are already reposting it. I think it’s real.”
Symeon watched the screen in horror. He wanted to plop on the floor and cradle his head in his hands, but withstood the temptation for fear of setting a bad example.
Princess Kavya, dressed in everyday slacks and a frilly blouse cocked a silver eyebrow at Symeon and wrinkled her nose. “Couldn’t hit the showers for your excitement, Seneschal?”
Symeon’s embarrassment momentarily swallowed both his fear and shock. He bowed before his princess. “Forgive me.”
“You’re forgiven. Now quiet; we’re watching the empire change before our eyes.”
The hologram played out as it had on Symeon’s micro-comm except for the added expressions of awe from the gathered Luxing.
“They look so different from us, don’t they?” asked one of the gardeners during the silent sections of the playback. “Whoever heard of green skin?”
“They’re not from here.” Czarina chided. “Why should they look like us at all?”
“Well, the Shorvex aren’t from here, and we all look pretty much same.” The gardener turned quickly to Kavya. “Meaning no offense, Princess.”
“You haven’t offended me, Gavoy.” Kavya held up a hand, twisting it back and forth. “You’re right. We all have five fingers, five toes, ears and eyes in the same spots, hair and internal organs. It’s quite a coincidence when you think about it.”
“Yes, ma’am. It is that!”
Symeon eyed the
princess. Something about her expression made him think her words held a double meaning, though he couldn’t fathom what.
No unrelated species were ever so alike.
Something inside Symeon’s mind clicked. This sort of thing happened to him every so often—he experienced it many times in school when studying a particularly complex topic. It was as if a portion of his thoughts, usually silent, that understood a subject well, had coaxed his waking consciousness to comprehend a meaning all at once. One moment, he sat in utter darkness, the next he knew a topic as if born to it.
In form, the Shorvex looked the same as the Luxing. As Kavya had pointed out, they shared a near identical morphology. While Luxing skin came in a variety of shades from near umber to light yellow, and even an almost pink in some rare cases, the Shorvex appeared silver to silver-blue. Kavya’s skin exhibited the rare bluish tint so coveted amongst their kind, though like most of her people of that hue, silver predominated. While the Shorvex on average stood taller than most Luxing, the two species—
Same species.
—shared bipedal locomotion, opposable thumbs, forward bending knees, and backward bending elbows. They ate the same food, breathed the same air, and valued the same sorts of societal desires—familial bonds, social status, providing for future generations. It was almost as if they were the same—the same…
The same everything.
“Is something the matter, Seneschal?” Princess Kavya tilted her head at Symeon, her silver-white brows lifted.
“I’m sorry, Princess?”
Kavya glanced at the other servants who remained transfixed by the holo tank. She lowered her voice. “You’re staring at me.”
“My apologies. I’m afraid I was lost in thought.”
Which thoughts?
“You look as if there’s something on your mind.”
Symeon almost laughed, but managed to stifle it, knowing the sound would come out manic. He rubbed a hand across his face. “Yes, Princess. I’ve something on my mind. Might we speak in private?”
Czarina, who had until now appeared mesmerized by the video, turned her gaze on Symeon and the princess. She looked as though she might say something sharp, but thought better of it in mixed company. She started to rise.
Kavya waved her handmaid off with a gesture and stood smoothly from her spot on one of the couches. “Very well.” She led him to a side door that opened onto her private office and leaned against the desk inside, watching him curiously as he shut the door behind them.
“I know about your hidden accounts, Princess,” Symeon said without preamble. He saw no reason to stall.
She reared back, shaking her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have no hidden accounts, not that I know all that much about my house finances. My seneschals have always handled that sort of thing for me. You know that.”
“With utmost respect, you and I both know that is a lie.” He leaned forward ever so slightly. “Tessa-yaya24.”
Symeon expected Kavya to bluster and act innocent, perhaps even accuse him of overstepping himself. She did neither. A slow smile crept across her full lips. “You found my data stash?”
“I did.”
“You know my father’s plans.”
Symeon nodded, his heart racing in his chest.
She folded her arms. “So where does that leave us, my dear Seneschal?”
“At a crossroads, Princess. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, I do.” Kavya placed her hands on the desk. “Let’s hope it’s one we can navigate together.”
* * * * *
Chapter 8
“Castle,” Kavya said, “inform Czarina I’m not to be disturbed. Have her send the servants back to their duties once everyone has seen the video.”
“Understood, Princess,” said Castle Vysylka’s computerized assistant in a smooth male voice.
“And, while you’re at it, shut off all recording devices in this office at once. If I need you, I’ll call on my slate.”
“Very good, ma’am.”
“There now,” Kavya said a bit too brightly. “You may attempt whatever blackmail you’re planning in absolute privacy.”
“Princess, I have no intention—” Symeon began.
Kavya flicked a dismissive hand at him before rounding her desk to flop into an oversized leather chair. “Save it. I’ve been through this gauntlet five times already. You think you’re the first of my seneschals to wave my father’s treason under my nose?”
Symeon gave himself a mental kick. Was he so arrogant he thought none of his predecessors had managed to unravel Kavya’s labyrinthine financial puzzle? No wonder she had dismissed so many of them.
“I’ll admit, five days is a record. You’ve a sharp mind, Symeon. I had hoped for a little more time, not that it much matters now. The entire empire is quaking under the news of the Bith and this gate they’re building.”
“You released the video.”
Kavya nodded.
Symeon, his legs gone numb, sank into one of the guest chairs in front of the princess’ desk. He stared at his hands, tracing the creases there for want of following the thoughts racing through his mind. Not that distracting himself did any good. The thoughts wouldn’t be ignored.
“You want the empire destroyed?” His voice came out in a near whisper.
“What?” Kavya looked shocked, her eyes wide. “How do you figure that?”
“You released video evidence of an alien race. The common people will go insane at this news. Our only hope is that the emperor and his advisors will find ways to calm them.”
Kavya appeared genuinely perplexed. “Why do you think hearing about aliens will drive people mad? Yes, things will change, but I don’t see how this news will cause a panic.”
She could be right. Hard to say.
No. She was wrong. Completely wrong. The Shorvex had never faced an existential crisis of this magnitude, let alone the Luxing. Before today, both species had known their place in the universe. Now those places lay in question.
“Princess, we don’t know what will come through this gate the Bith are constructing. What if there are hordes of warships waiting to come here and strip the Phoenix system of every resource?”
“How does keeping the gate secret change any of that?” Kavya countered, leaning back in her chair.
“It doesn’t; I know that. But wouldn’t it have been better to ease our people into learning about the danger rather than foist it on them all in one go? Better to let the emperor and the grand dukes decide how best to release this news.”
Anger flashed across Kavya’s exquisite face, there and gone in the barest of an instant. At length, her brows drew down and she sucked in a deep breath. “No, Symeon. It wouldn’t have been better. My father has been planning his coup against House Mastronov for years. He is on the cusp of launching the first stage. If I’m going to stop him, I must do it now.”
Symeon stared at his princess in utter shock, his thoughts converging like beams of light in his head. “You did this to stop the coup?”
“Emperor Pyotr will have no choice but to call his banners now. The people will demand it for fear of an alien threat. That means a culmination of the commonwealth fleet.”
“Wherein the grand dukes submit their forces to imperial command,” Symeon breathed.
“Exactly!” Kavya snapped her fingers. “The forces my father planned to throw against the emperor will soon be under the command of Pyotr’s admirals.”
Somewhat logical, but complicated.
“I don’t understand.” Symeon sat forward though he refrained from placing his arms on the princess’ desk. He was already speaking far too casually in her presence, no sense losing all propriety. “You had evidence of the coup months ago. Why not take it before the High Divor, or perhaps the emperor himself? Why all this gerrymandering?”
Kavya’s look of puzzlement, an expression Symeon was quickly learning to recognize, returned. She stared at him in silence for so long
he grew uncomfortable, squirming like a little boy caught lying.
“Because I love him,” she said after a minute.
For the second time during this meeting, Symeon gave himself a mental kick for his stupidity. No wonder Grand Duke Alexei hadn’t destroyed Kavya’s evidence against him. He had no idea she had it, because she had never confronted him with it, nor taken it to a government authority. She had instead sought for a way to thwart him without causing him harm.
As if reading his mind, or more likely his expression, Kavya said, “I couldn’t very well go to him and say, ‘Pretty please, don’t overthrow the emperor, Papa.’ He wouldn’t have listened, and he likely would have locked me up somewhere far more confining than a tropical island until the whole bloody business was done.”
“I think I understand,” Symeon said. He couldn’t imagine turning his own father over to the authorities, not even for treason.
Her father has trapped her in a steel web, poor woman.
Kavya stared at Symeon, her head tilted to one side. “You’re not going to blackmail me. I can see it in your eyes.”
For the first time in what felt like years, Symeon felt his lips turn up at the corners. “I had a thought a moment ago: what if my father planned a coup against the empire? Would I have the stomach to oust him?”
“You find the question humorous?”
“I find the image hilarious. My father’s a Luxing slave—a farmer with stained teeth from too many years chewing tobacco and the biggest heart of any man I’ve ever known. I see him standing on the bridge of a destroyer and ordering his fleet to reverse course and head back to the farm for home cooked meals all around.”
Kavya smiled, though the expression appeared tentative. She reminded Symeon of a fragile bird stepping out on a branch in preparation to take flight.
Not fragile this one!
Salvage Mind (Salvage Race Book 1) Page 6
