Dushau tdt-1

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  “I wouldn’t until you all were ready to work.”

  “Then we must thank you even more.” He made an old-style courtly bow with an easy grace the modern imitators couldn’t mimic. “We’re indebted. However, our Emperor has commanded our presence, and we will obey.”

  The creature squirming in her arms, the very solemn Dushau before her, the onlookers ignored behind her, the decadence of the raw fire beside her, all combined to transport Krinata into the past and render her speechless.

  Jindigar paused, as if waiting for some ritual reply, and when it didn’t come, he said with difficulty, “May I ask a different service?”

  He sounded like an actor in an authentic historical. “Jindigar, I don’t know how to don imperial courtliness. I’m a programming ecologist, not a member of the court.”

  “I see,” he said thoughtfully. The faint thrumming of imperial music came to them, and Jindigar tilted his head to listen. “We don’t have much time. I suspect, if Rantan is really serious about this game, he’ll be offended if we appear in hospital garb.” He turned, went to the rack of clothing against the wall, and fingered the material. “Authentic, too. Hideously uncomfortable. But I suppose we must dress.” He took down one of the garments, raking it with his eyes. “Somebody researched us—or raided a museum!”

  He went toward Kamminth and the others, holding out the crisp gold and white robes. In an archaically flavored Dushauni dialect which she could follow only because of her intensive study of the modern language, he said, “I hope you remember your manners. We’ve got to play this out.”

  The four of them had relaxed now, too, Jindigar’s sense of reality having seeped through their nerves. Kamminth took the robes, examined them, and agreed. The others went to the rack and selected their own garments. Jindigar took a pure yellow surplice over a white undertunic edged with black fringe. They all stripped and dressed without even fumbling at the awkward fastenings. The fine indigo nap covered every bit of them, giving them an oddly dressed look even without clothing. She hardly noticed their lack of mammary glands or external genitalia; general size and shape distinguished male from female. It was their familiarity with the antique dress mode that fascinated Krinata.

  She watched spellbound as Jindigar wound a long gold sash around his head to make a turban, and got it right the first time, without a mirror. Looking at him, Krinata identified the costume: Dushaun’s first rank sept, and a highly born member of it, too. Three hundred years ago, she’d hardly have been allowed to speak to him. Kamminth likewise claimed aristocratic lineage, but the other three men were undistinguished.

  Without a trace of self-consciousness in his outlandish costume, Jindigar came toward her and rendered an elaborate bow, uttering a formal salutation to Zavarrone.

  She shrank away in raw embarrassment. “This is silly!”

  His manner changed abruptly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disconcert you. Apparently, we must learn a new culture.”

  “It’s just me,” she said, suppressing a need to squirm. ‘This is all such a waste of time.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “But I must ask a favor, or a boon, depending on the dialect you prefer.” The music had ceased. Rantan was on his throne giving a speech.

  She laughed and tried to perform the obeisance she’d spent hours in a Court Manners Class trying to perfect, but stumbled into him, off balance. “You see? I can’t do it!”

  “Would you be willing to try? In public?”

  “What?”

  “Krinata, we’re not sure Kamminth can hold us together out there. Stand with us before the Emperor. If I revert to Receptor and can’t speak, or if something happens to Fedeewarn, make excuses for us. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “But I…” she began to protest. Then, seeing his genuine need graven on his napped face, and his absolute determination to go through with this, she said, “If you don’t mind the risk that I’ll blurt out something stupid, or trip on my own feet– sure.”

  The midnight eyes searched hers. “We’ll risk it.”

  He turned to Kamminth, and she formed them into a marching square with herself at the center, Jindigar at the rear left corner, moving them into position before the carved whitewood doors of the audience chamber. Jindigar drew Krinata to his side. “If you will hold my position here, I will take the Outreach position.”

  Just like that, she stood in the Receptor’s Office, as if she were Dushau. Before she could object, Jindigar advanced to center front. The position behind him, just in front of Kamminth, was vacant—their Inreach, Fedeewarn, unconscious in the infirmary.

  Jindigar had once moved in these circles. Surely he knew she had no business marching in an Oliat formation. No human did. He doesn’t mean anything by it. If s just protocol. Something inside her squirmed at this real life replay of one of her favorite fantasies—her Oliat returning to the Allegiancy in triumph. She told herself, Act your age! and straightened up.

  The whitewood doors opened majestically. In the bright rectangle stood eight Honor Guards, of eight bipedal species, carrying Dushaun gold-and-white banners bearing the Oliat device, crossed wands balanced on the tip of an arrow at the point where they intersected.

  The Lehiroh who seemed to be their leader saw her red and black, frowned in offense, and asked Jindigar, “What is the Zavarrone doing among you? It is not permitted to…”

  Jindigar interrupted. “She’s not of us, but is essential to our well-being.”

  The escort glanced over his shoulder, then hissed, “Let her meet you at your seats, not march in the formation!”

  She was about to step out of place when Jindigar grabbed a floor-length white cloak from the rack. It had a fully enveloping hood. He whisked it about her shoulders, flipping the hood up. Then he returned to his place. “The Oliat is an integrated team, serving the Emperor. We will not be separated, nor will we keep The August Personage waiting.”

  As one, the Dushau started forward. Krinata, out of step from the first, did her best to keep from tripping on the long Dushau cloak. A part of her wished she could relax and soak up every bit of this, to enrich future dreams. But she felt ridiculous, conspicuous, and wholly out of place. Her Ceremonial instructor had once told her, Believe what you’re doing is significant, and it will be. As they inserted their formation among the eight Honor Guards, she tried to believe she was a Receptor of this proud Oliat, worthy of this Imperial Honor.

  They emerged into the bright afternoon sunlight, diffused by the force-field dome overhead, and were inspected by the massed thousands of the Court. They slow-marched across the chamber, turned in the wide center aisle, made obeisance, and advanced toward the throne, all to the beat of the Dushaun anthem—slow, infinitely patient, fraught with eternity. Indigo music.

  She’d never been this close to the throne before. The solid gold throne carved with the insignias of all the Allegiancy species filled her view. Beside it, only slightly less spectacular, was the Imperial Consort’s throne, vacant now since Rantan, as a Lehiroh, didn’t marry. To either side, other functionaries were seated or posted in ostentatious splendor.

  Rantan Lord Zinzik himself was a short, middle-aged but trim Lehiroh, dressed in the imperial green, loaded down with badges and honors. For an instant, his careless cruelty to the Oliat was wiped away by the upwelling magic of the vision before her: Emperor of the Allied Species. Rantan, whatever he might be personally, had become the living symbol of the Empire and all that was good in their lives. She saw him as one fighting bravely and imaginatively for their survival. Tears

  came to her eyes as she marched amid the ghosts of her famous ancestors and all they’d sacrificed for the Allegiancy’s peace and prosperity.

  She blinked away the sudden tears. When the Oliat came to the foot of the stairs, she surprised herself with the smoothness of her deep obeisance, for the first time expressing, in the movement of her body, the emotions she felt for the Allegiancy Empire, the first galactic civilization granting full ri
ghts to all species. She treasured the Allegiancy and served it with all her heart.

  The Oliat held the kneeling posture while Jindigar rose and answered the Emperor’s formal inquiries. Then, at Zinzik’s bidding, they all rose and were escorted to chairs set on a lower dais, the banners planted in holders all about them. It was the routine she had seen at dozens of these ceremonies, yet when Jindigar sat beside her, he whispered, without turning his head, “Does Rantan follow all the old protocol exactly?”

  “He’s fanatic about it,” she answered, also facing front and trying to speak without moving her lips.

  “Then something is dreadfully wrong.” He folded his arms about a bulge in his lap. His surplice stirred and a furry head poked out mewling. He petted the piol as if everyone carried an animal when being presented to the Emperor. But his eyes roved the audience, measuring. “Where is the Dushaun delegation?”

  She found their usual place, high on a side balcony, and saw empty seats. “Rantan’s going to be furious. I hope he doesn’t blame you that they didn’t come.”

  “They’d be here if summoned. And did you notice the odd stirring among the Lehiroh and the Holot we passed?”

  “No, but then I’m not Oliat.”

  “We’re not either. We’re shimmering on the brink of Dissolution. Krinata, it could be our perception is entirely warped, but we feel unwelcome, distrusted. Only by some. Others seem unaware. But the Emperor holds us in disfavor.”

  He knew that from exchanging a few formal phrases? ~1 didn’t see anything like that. Relax, it’ll be all right.”

  The same Honor Guard now escorted a Cassrian into the Audience from the opposite side. She wore only enough clothing to carry the badges and orders she’d earned. Her dark exoskeleton was painted in gilt swirls meaningful to Cassrians, and her wasp waist was adorned with jeweled ropes.

  After being presented to the Emperor, she was seated on a higher step of the dais than the Oliat. After that, a Holot and a Lehiroh woman were presented. Then two Binwons were rolled in, their water-environment tanks taking up the position just below the Dushau. They stank, but Krinata refrained from remarking on it.

  Then the Honors presentations began. The Oliat was called first. As they stood to be escorted before the throne, Jindigar said, “I told you something was very wrong. If he knows what he’s doing, he’s insulting Dushaun by this.”

  In protocol, the orders of things sometimes mattered more than the thing. “I doubt if many people will notice,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t have.” This is all so new to everyone, Rantan’s just made some subtle mistake, that’s all. Imagine what it’s like to be Emperor and publicly embarrass yourself!

  “We do hope there’s nothing to notice,” muttered Jindigar.

  With a little shock, she noted how he slipped between the personal and the Oliat-combined pronoun, betraying just how much distress the Oliat was in.

  Then– escort placed them on the level just below the throne, a wide step barely big enough for them, and again Jindigar stood while they knelt. She peeked up between the folds of her hood and caught Zinzik’s shocked recognition of her non-Dushauni face. But he was too caught up in his own dedication to ceremony to make any outward sign.

  He recited the standard Planet Discovery Citation, and then presented Jindigar with six jewel-encrusted leptolizers with second rank clearance that accessed almost unlimited credit at any terminal, opened almost any door, and gave priority over eighty percent of the citizens of the Allegiancy. Jindigar made a gracious speech of acceptance and then distributed the leptolizers, keeping Fedeewarn’s.

  Zinzik, meanwhile, had noticed the piol snuffling out of the neck of Jindigar’s surplice, but his only comment was the slight widening of one eye. As the ceremony finished, the amplifiers were turned off and Zinzik said to Jindigar, “We expect you in Our private chambers immediately after We dismiss these proceedings.”

  Jindigar bowed. “Excellency, one of us is gravely ill.”

  “We claim a small amount of your time. But the Oliat only, not the human.”

  Jindigar bowed lower still, then rose tall to look Zinzik directly in the eye as he said, “The mercy of the Allegiancy Emperor has been renowned throughout the centuries. He would not deprive the crippled of their crutch, the sick of their medicine, the fearful of their security. The Zavaronne…”

  Zinzik interrupted, his manner suddenly modern. “Nicely maneuvered, Prince Jindigar. History warned me of you. Very well, you will all present yourselves in my private chambers immediately upon leaving here.”

  Prince? Krinata examined the symbols on Jindigar’s robe again. She’d never been very good at heraldry. But if Jindigar was a prince, then no wonder he’d claimed Zinzik was deliberately insulting his people. But why would the Emperor do that?

  TWO

  Conspiracy

  Rantan’s private office was hardly less opulent than the audience chamber, though much smaller. The center of the room was a deeply upholstered pit in the center of which was a holostage activated by the imperial leptolizer, a wand as long as Krinata’s arm and sparkling with rare jewels.

  The ceiling was paneled with high-relief carvings from dozens of worlds depicting the last Imperial Progress across the Allegiancy worlds.

  The carpet had been woven to reflect the panels from above. The walls were colored mirrors arranged to focus light on the images. Dominating all were the imperial green laced with the Lehiroh violet and yellow. Krinata did not understand the rules of succession that rotated the throne among species, but she knew that Rantan’s successor had to be human, though not a Zavaronne.

  The Emperor reclined before his holostage, drinking from a tall cut-ruby glass and watching the audience chamber empty into the public corridors of the palace. Rantan had the good manners to address only Jindigar. “We’re delighted you could join Us for this private chat,” he said. He waved to a live servant standing to one side and said, “Do please come down and make yourself comfortable.”

  They descended the padded stairs, and while Jindigar drew Krinata to sit near the Emperor’s right, the other Dushau gathered in a knot on the opposite side of the holostage from Zinzik. The servant promptly offered them drinks, though from ordinary crystal glasses. Krinata was dry-mouthed, but when Jindigar and the others refused, so did she, to Zinzik’s displeasure.

  “Then We’ll make this mercifully brief. Your memory is more accurate than any Histrecording. We must know details of your years with Raichmat’s Oliat.”

  There was not a trace of tension in Jindigar, yet Krinata sensed by his very relaxation that he understood at last the threat he’d sensed during the Audience. Yet his voice was deep, calm, as he answered, “I was in Raichmat four hundred thirty-two years, Excellency.”

  “We’re aware of how long Raichmat’s Oliat existed, and how influential it was on the early expansion of the Allegiancy … as if Raichmat knew where to find compatible civilizations willing to join us.”

  “After an Interregnum of over seven hundred years during which the planets of the old Corporate League had been isolated from galactic trade, one couldn’t expect to find the same cultures dominating familiar planets. But Raichmat specialized in exploration, and visited worlds not on any Dushau records. We found over a hundred unoccupied worlds which we opened to Allegiancy colonization.”

  “We do not dispute this,” Zinzik answered, swishing the liquid in his glass. The jewels on his fingers flashed in the changing light from the hologlobe. “The service the Dushau have rendered the Allegiancy is overwhelming. Never has the gratitude of the Throne been withheld. But as We realize what it means for a living memory to span more than three galactic civilizations, the more We comprehend how vital Dushau loyalty is to the Throne.”

  Absently, Jindigar soothed the piol which was thrusting its head up under his chin and mewling. “I know you’re hungry. In a little while.”

  The Emperor set his glass aside and rose to stand between Jindigar and the hologlobe. “Prince Jindigar, d
o you breach etiquette to offer insult to the Throne?”

  Jindigar looked down at the wriggling animal, then back up at the Emperor. “Certainly not,” he replied without rising. He extracted the piol and set it atop his turban where it curled comfortably within the ring of twisted material and snuffled itself to sleep. “We are Oliat. We found this piol cub wandering loose in the Groundside Station. Nobody seemed to realize it was orphaned and starving. I’ve fed it and reassured it, and its bright youth has helped us during this dire time of Dissolution. Surely the legendary compassion of the Throne extends to creatures orphaned within the precincts of the Capitol.”

  “You presume to instruct Us in Imperial protocol?”

  Krinata had never realized this near legendary figure was so insecure in his new position. It explained a lot.

  “By no means,” Jindigar denied calmly. He rose, the piol balanced like the crown the Emperor no longer wore above his formal robes. Krinata rose with him. Fully erect, he was much taller than the Lehiroh. He added, with an odd, measured inflection. “Obviously, the traditions of Crown and Throne are familiar to their rightful heir.”

  Not sure what to make of that, the Emperor circled his hologlobe, one hand on its insubstantial surface. He pivoted and fixed Jindigar with a frown. “Your loyalty shall be evident in the thoroughness with which you prepare a complete, detailed, written report of all of your four hundred thirty-two years in Raichmat. You will not slight Kamminth’s final debriefing for this, but you’ll not leave Onerir until you’ve completed this task for Us.”

  “Excellency,” objected Jindigar, “I am Oliat, not Historian. What you ask…”

  “We have spoken.”

  It was dismissal, but Jindigar remained staring at the Emperor as if expecting an unreasonable order to be amended. One thing Emperors never did was amend orders. Jindigar spoke into the tense silence. “Fedeewarn is Historian-trained, and was with Raichmat from Tempering until I became Outreach. Surely…” He broke off, his eyes sweeping toward where the rest of his Oliat gathered. He froze, mouth open, eyes wide, breath suspended.