Master of Formalities

by Scott Meyer

  Shimlish said, “I know, Father.” She didn’t roll her eyes, but it was implied in her tone. She and her parents were in the room she’d been assigned. It was as opulently appointed as every other room in the palace, but larger than most. The idea was that Shimlish would need the space and the use of several servants to prepare for the ceremony, but her adaptive armor did not take long to program, so instead the room was a simply an extra fancy place for her parents to harangue her.

  “That boy’s a bad influence,” Lord Hahn said, making eye contact with Lady Hahn as he passed. She was sitting perfectly straight with her hands in her lap, as if trying to minimize her actual physical contact with the priceless antique chaise on which she was forced to sit.

  “All we did was talk,” Shimlish said.

  “And eat,” Lord Hahn said. “And laugh!” Lord Hahn pointed at Shimlish and said, “Your instructions were simple.” He continued pointing as the chair paced.

  Lord Hahn paused, then glanced in the corner of the room, where the chair operator was standing with his hands on the controls and a large device over his ears, making it impossible for him to overhear their conversation. Though he was not allowed to listen to the private conversations of the members of House Hahn, he was still expected to anticipate and execute Lord Hahn’s wishes. Lord Hahn felt that emphatically pointing at his daughter was a clear signal that he wished to stop pacing and approach her. Unfortunately, the chair operator’s attention had lapsed, and the chair continued to pace. Lord Hahn waved his arms at the chair operator, which failed to attract the man’s attention. Finally, Lord Hahn opened the small red door marked Emergency on one of the arm rests and pulled out a small device, which he threw at the chair operator’s head.

  The object made an audible thunk when it hit. The operator yelped and cringed, composed himself, took one look at the expression on Lord Hahn’s face, and yelped and cringed again.

  The chair came to an immediate halt.

  Lord Hahn bared his teeth at the chair operator, then looked back to his daughter, pointed at her again, and said, “Your instructions were simple,” then glanced at the chair operator. The chair approached Shimlish until it loomed over her menacingly.

  Lord Hahn continued. “You were to either ignore and belittle the boy, or seduce and emotionally cripple him. You were not, under any circumstances, to befriend him.”

  “You never told me that last part,” Shimlish said.

  “It was implied,” Lord Hahn yelled. “It’s always implied! Have you completely forgotten the values we raised you with?”

  “Father, I . . . ”

  “Silence!” Lord Hahn interrupted. “Do not speak! Do not talk back to me now, and do not talk to that Jakabitus boy at all. He’s a bad influence, and you are not to speak to him ever again. Is that clear?”

  “Is the wedding off?” Shimlish asked.

  “What a stupid question. Of course the wedding’s not off. I still mean to usurp House Jakabitus, and you’re still the tool I will use, so no, the wedding is not off. You are going to marry Rayzo Jakabitus. You’re just not allowed to talk to him.”

  “How am I supposed to be his wife if I can’t talk to him?”

  “It’s called the silent treatment. Your mother can tell you all about it, but you’ll have to wait until I leave the room. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  Lady Hahn pursed her lips and looked away.

  68.

  While dinner the night before had featured Hahn cuisine, the wedding itself was being held in the Jakabitus ancestral palace on Apios. The Formalities allowed Lady Jakabitus to choose between Apiosan and Hahn marriage customs. In the interest of being thorough, she had requested a briefing on the traditional Hahn ceremony, which she found fascinating.

  Since the Terran Exodus, human cultures, belief systems, and customs had, of course, diverged. Many noted that when mankind went to the stars and found no aliens there, they set about making themselves as alien as possible. Marriage customs were no exception.

  A wedding is usually one of the most positive, life-affirming rituals a culture has to offer. The Hahn, on the other hand, had systematically drained it of all spiritual and philosophical context. On the Hahn Home World, a wedding ceremony was treated solely as a legal arrangement. Responsibilities were explained, delineated, and legally conferred through the reading and signing of several lengthy contracts. The bride and groom were expected to invite, personally welcome, and provide food for virtually every friend and relative they had, and all of those people were expected to attend the wedding and watch as the contracts were explained and signed, standing each time a passage was initialed, kneeling each time it was signed and dated.

  Lady Jakabitus opted for an Apiosan ceremony, which had its roots in ancient Terran traditions.

  The Grand Gallery was lavishly decorated for the event. The main addition to the décor was an intricately woven netting of live ivy vines, which hung from the pillars around the periphery at a height of forty feet, giving seated guests the impression of being outdoors under the canopy of a forest while still allowing them to see well enough to remember that they were, in fact, in the Old Palace’s atrium.

  Hundreds of seats were arranged in two equal groups on either side of the gallery, facing an altar that had been erected in front of the wall of windows and its view of the seemingly endless sea.

  The guests were already seated. The incredibly select group of people who were deemed important enough to merit witnessing the wedding in person were also intelligent enough to know how lucky they were, and responsible enough to be on time.

  At the appointed hour, the palace orchestra began playing the processional march. At that precise moment, many miles away at the far end of the city, the procession began.

  Koa city still kept one broad avenue that split the city and led directly to the palace, an anachronistic holdover from the days of ground transportation. It had been maintained specifically for occasions just like this. Today it was lined on both sides with throngs of citizens, all jockeying for a view of the historic ceremony in which the son of their beloved leader would marry the daughter of their hated enemy.

  The first vehicle in the procession carried Lord and Lady Jakabitus, to signify to the people of Apios that their planet was of paramount importance.

  Their antique coach had carried the planet’s rulers to and from various weddings, coronations, and funerals for centuries. Any Apiosan who had studied history had seen countless images of this very coach, going all the way back to the days when it still rolled on wheels. In person, its gold surface blazed in the sunlight, burning itself into the memories and the retinas of the spectators. Lord and Lady Jakabitus waved, and tried their hardest to look pleased.

  The second vehicle carried Lord and Lady Hahn, to signify to the people of the Hahn Home World that their planet was of paramount importance, as the Jakabituses had clearly been sent in first to test for snipers.

  The Hahn coach had been fabricated especially for the event, according to Lord Hahn’s specifications. It was a featureless cube of unpainted armor plating with no visible windows or doors. It was a craft carefully designed to deprive spectators of a view, and assassins of a shot. The only indication that Lord and Lady Hahn were inside was the stenciled lettering listing their names on each panel of the cube, like a warning label.

  Next were two identical open-air coaches gliding side by side, to signify that the occupants were of equal importance. In one sat Rayzo, smiling and waving, resplendent in his most formal uniform. In the other sat Shimlish, unmoving, her adaptive armor set to a gleaming white. Her silver-blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders below her bridal helmet. Her lips and chin were visible, but her eyes were obscured, as her helmet’s blast shield was partially lowered.

  The procession slowly made its way up the boulevard, past the citizens, and through the palace gates. The guests inside all turned around uncomforta
bly in their seats to watch through the open doors of the palace as Lord and Lady Jakabitus stepped out of their coach which, now empty, lifted straight up and out of sight. The Jakabituses took their seats at the front of the audience, to one side of the dais. Hennik was already present, wearing the white formal ensemble he’d attempted to use as a stealth suit. He considered this break from the Jakabitus family to be an act of defiance, as was the fact that he’d only taken his seat in the first row after the utilitics had carried him into the Grand Gallery without any cooperation.

  The Hahn’s armored cube silently drifted up to the door, then dropped to the ground with a resounding thud. The side of the cube facing the door slid up, and Lord Hahn’s chair operator, followed by Lord and Lady Hahn, exited the craft. They moved up the aisle and headed to the opposite side of the dais from Lord and Lady Jakabitus, where an empty seat and room for Lord Hahn’s chair awaited them. As they entered the palace, the cube closed again and remained motionless. For a long time nothing happened, then Rayzo came into view, walking around the Hahn armored cube from one direction while Shimlish walked in from the opposite direction. The two met in the middle and entered the palace together as the music swelled to a crescendo.

  All eyes were on the couple, neither of whom was looking at the other as they walked down the aisle.

  Fourteen Masters of Formalities were gathered at the back of the room. Many of the guests had brought their own, and form dictated that they all be on hand in case they were needed. They stood in a ruler-straight line, black suited and poker-faced. Migg stood at one end of the line, next to Phee, who surreptitiously checked her papers one last time. As Phee put her papers away, Migg said, “I’m sorry you’re unhappy, Phee, but I’m delighted by what’s making you that way.”

  In the centuries since the Terran Exodus, religion, like every other aspect of human society, had splintered and evolved. There were few planets where all of the inhabitants agreed on one faith, and there were no two planets that couldn’t find some bone of contention about which to disagree, argue, and in all too many cases, go to war. As a result, proper form dictated that all interplanetary state weddings be strictly secular affairs, officiated by the highest-ranking non-religious official available.

  In this case that official’s title was, ironically, Minister of Health.

  On Apios, Minister of Health was the very highest position to which a non-Jakabitus could rise, as the official in this position was charged with maximizing the health of the planet’s inhabitants, a charter so vague that the Health Ministry had annexed almost every part of the government over the years.

  The Minister of Health was a wizened old man named Seibert Adler. He had won his position with his gentle, benevolent manner, and he’d kept it for fifteen years by mercilessly crushing anyone who got in his way . . . or anywhere near him.

  Shimlish and Rayzo reached the altar. Minister Adler recited the full formal greeting, ending by welcoming the bride and groom and all of their parents, using their full names and titles. He then welcomed the honored guests, but showed restraint by only welcoming the first two rows’ worth by name. The rest, he assured the global audience, would retroactively be welcomed in writing.

  The greetings out of the way, he gave an extended speech about the nature of love, which was as stirring as it was irrelevant to the matter at hand, which everyone knew was essentially a business transaction.

  Finally, nearly two hours after the official beginning of the ceremony, Minister Adler began the actual wedding.

  “We are gathered here today to join two young people in the unbreakable bonds of eternal, irrevocable wedlock.”

  He could have worded that a bit better, Rayzo thought.

  “On my right,” Adler continued, “I have Master Rayzo Jakabitus, of House Jakabitus, the beloved son of our leader Lady Joanadie Jakabitus and her husband Lord Frederain Jakabitus.” Adler motioned toward Lord and Lady Jakabitus, who were sitting beside the dais on Rayzo’s side, looking deeply conflicted, though one of those conflicting emotions was definitely pride.

  Adler said, “On my left, we have Miss Shimlish Hahn, of House Hahn, the beloved daughter of the leader of the Hahn Home World Lord Kamar Hahn and his lovely wife Lady Inmu Hahn.” Adler gestured toward Lord and Lady Hahn, who were sitting to the left of the dais, Lady Hahn scowling as she felt the fabric of her chair’s covering to judge its quality. Lord Hahn was reading his papers. He glanced up upon hearing his name, waved dismissively, and went back to his reading.

  Minister Adler cleared his throat. “If there is anyone who has a reason for why these two people should not be married, let them speak now.”

  Wollard cleared his throat and said, “Pardon me.”

  Every head in the Grand Gallery swiveled violently. Shimlish turned hers so fast that it knocked her helmet and blast shield out of alignment with her face.

  Wollard was standing, unperturbed, in the middle of the aisle. He was impeccably dressed in his formal blacks and looked utterly relaxed. Most would have assumed he’d simply strolled in, if he had not been accompanied by a heavily armored stealth combat automaton, painted in jet-black livery with subtle stripes that suggested a Master of Formalities collar and cuffs. It hovered behind Wollard, its brake thrusters still glowing bright red, its pincers extended from having just gently placed Wollard where he stood.

  Wollard took no notice as the automaton reversed its thrusters and silently streaked out of the palace, deftly threading through the entrance doors and the twin glowing holes it had melted through the front and rear walls of Lord Hahn’s armored cube on the way in.

  “I regret,” Wollard said, “that I must, under the auspices of my position as a representative of the Arbiters and in the interest of promoting proper form, object to this union on the grounds that it was conceived and executed due solely to unprecedented interference on the part of an Arbitration official. In cases such as this, proper form dictates that I consult with the highest-ranking actively involved Master of Formalities.”

  All eyes turned to the herd of black-clad Masters of Formalities. They seemed uncharacteristically shocked, except for Migg and Phee, who looked ashen and delighted, respectively.

  The Masters of Formalities quickly looked at each other, muttered a bit, then one of them, having been hastily determined to be the senior, said, “We recognize your request, and ask that we be given time to determine whom among us is directly involved, and whom among them is the senior official.”

  “A reasonable request,” Wollard said, “But unnecessary in this case. The Arbiters have already determined that the involved parties, aside from myself, are Kallump, Master of Formalities to Lord Hahn; Migg, Master of Formalities to Lady Jakabitus; and Phee, her protégée. Of those three, Migg is by far the senior official, as she served for many years as Lord Hahn’s Master of Formalities before infiltrating House Jakabitus.”

  The wedding party and the gathered guests all expressed shock and confusion—shock at the revelation, confusion as to how such a thing was possible, and whether it, in fact, meant anything.

  Migg, Phee, and Kallump met Wollard in the middle of the aisle.

  Wollard said, “I move we dispense with the full formal greeting.”

  Migg said, “Agreed.”

  “Migg,” Wollard said in a flat, professional monotone, “the Arbiters accuse you of acting in poor form; specifically, of manipulating the heads of two great houses in an unethical and unprecedented manner to achieve your own ends. Be advised that you have the right to a public recitation of the evidence against you.”

  “I waive said right,” Migg said.

  “Let it be noted that I, Wollard, the Arbiters’ representative in this matter, understand and agree with your decision to waive your right. If you check your papers, Migg, you will find official written notice that you have been removed from your position as Master of Formalities for House Jakabitus and summoned to t
he Central Authority, where you will face scrutiny. This notice has also been forwarded to Lady Jakabitus, and to your former protégée, Phee.”

  Phee, her nose buried in her papers, said, “Yes, I have it right here.”

  Migg muttered, “Thank you, Phee. Well done.”

  “Yes, Phee,” Wollard agreed. “Well done.”

  Lady Jakabitus said, “Whenever it’s convenient, will someone please tell me what has just happened?” Her tone made it clear that it was convenient right now.

  Wollard bowed to Lady Jakabitus, then looked expectantly at Phee and said, “My protégée will be happy to fill you in.”

  “Milady,” Phee said. “Migg has been accused of impropriety. She has been removed from her position, and according to the official notice, replaced by Wollard.”

  “And what does that mean for the wedding?” Lady Jakabitus asked.

  “The Arbiters have found evidence that the wedding was conceived in a manner not in keeping with the Formalities,” Phee said, “and as such, to continue with it under the circumstances would be poor form.”

  “So the wedding is off?” Lady Jakabitus asked.

  “Wait one minute,” Lord Hahn shouted. “The Arbiters can’t tell me what to do! I say the wedding is still on, and if it isn’t, then the war is.”

  Wollard and Migg both glanced at Kallump, who looked panic-stricken. Wollard and Migg rolled their eyes, and Wollard spoke.

  “If I may, Lord Hahn, you are correct that your actions are yours alone to decide. Ours is only to offer advice, and to warn of the possible consequences of your choices. In this case, you may proceed with the wedding, but following through on an arrangement made under questionable circumstances would reflect most negatively on both House Jakabitus and House Hahn, possibly resulting in both of your home planets losing recognition as civilized worlds.”

  “Then war it is,” Lord Hahn said.