First Salik War 2: The V'Dan

by Jean Johnson

  “You seek to correct me?” Hana’ka asked, lifting a blond brow. Unlike her son, none of her burgundy jungen stripes, small and more frequent than his, crossed her eyes. None came farther onto her cheeks than their edges, in fact.

  “I seek to save you from making costly diplomatic mistakes out of ignorance. My people have a saying, Eternity,” Jackie said. “There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance can be cured through education and enlightenment.”

  Her eyes narrowed. The Empress lifted her chin slightly. “You said earlier that to continue to . . . insult . . . your people would be an act of great stupidity.”

  “In light of your apparent prophecies proclaiming you will need our help, yes,” Jackie agreed. “Insulting someone over and over makes it that much less likely they will want to assist you in any way. My oaths as a member of the Terran government require that I offer assistance to your government to ensure our interactions are mutually beneficial. But I cannot behave properly for your people. Neither am I a rug to be walked upon by everyone in the room. If they or you insist on continuing to treat us in ways that we find insulting, after we have informed you that they are insulting to us, then that would be an act of stupidity, not an act of ignorance.

  “Mature people cease performing the actions or speaking the words that insult another person, once informed of the transgression. Only the young think they can get away with such things indefinitely even after they’ve been enlightened. Neither of us are that young, Empress,” she finished dryly.

  Hana’ka lifted a brow, her own voice just as dry. “You think you are as old as I am?”

  “I am told that V’Dan and Terran years are very close to each other in length, to within less than a single day. The age of adulthood in Terran society is eighteen. I have been told that the age of legal adulthood in V’Dan is, coincidentally, also eighteen. For your people, this means the age at which they have most likely passed through the jungen fever, plus have acquired a sufficient level of education to function as an independent adult. My people don’t have the virus, but we also expect our youth to be educated and behave with maturity and responsibility by the time they turn eighteen.

  “I am thirty-six, Empress Hana’ka, which means I am twice that age.” She could feel her headache from the fever coming back, and hoped the conversation would end soon. Or rather, the hammering home that she was not a juvenile and would not stay quiet at being insulted like that again. “I may not be sixty-two, like you, but I have not been treated like a child in a very long time. Just like you.

  “I have served for five years in our military, with the responsibility—the burden—of fending off a technologically vastly superior foe with just the power of my holy gifts. I have served for years as a government translator, with the weight of ensuring that no mistranslations lead to costly misunderstandings among literally hundreds of different cultures. I have served as a Councilor, responsible for the safety and well-being of millions of people. I am now responsible for the safety and well-being of billions of people. Every single member of this ambassadorial delegation, staff and guard alike, has also long since been proved to be a responsible, mature adult. Just. Like. You.

  “Now, do you have an actual problem, Empress? One which only I or your son can handle? Because I am sore, tired, feverish, I have a headache building, and I need to rest. As a consequence of our inadvertent holy bond, your son is also sore, tired, feverish, and in need of rest.”

  “Then you will break that bond. I will not have my son—”

  “—Your ignorance is showing again, Empress,” Jackie interrupted, rolling her eyes in a silent plea to her ancestors for patience. “The only way to break this bond is death. Long-term separation brings deep depression, anxiety, and a decline in health that leads to each partner’s dying. Slaying one of us will cause the murder of the other as well. There is nothing that all of Terran science has been able to uncover that can stop this process. Your V’Dan mysticism is even less useful, given its sheer ignorance of psychic abilities. We can barely slow down the progression of this bond as it stands. I agree that it is inconvenient, but it is also not an obstacle.”

  “I believe that this bond is an advantage, Empress, not a disadvantage,” Li’eth stated, asserting his own political opinion. “The Ambassador and I are being forced by it to see past shallow differences of skin color and cultural expectations. We are forced to find compromises that benefit us both. We are forced to respect each other as individuals as well as representatives of each other’s culture.”

  “I do not recall appointing you as such,” Hana’ka told her son.

  “That is irrelevant, Empress. I am a representative of our people because of this bond,” he told her.

  “You seem confident that they understand holy pairings. Are you so certain they understand such things far better than we do?” she asked.

  “I have zero doubt, Empress,” he confirmed. “The Terrans are vastly superior to the V’Dan, the Solaricans, and even the Tlassian priest caste in their understanding of all such holy abilities, whether it is speaking mind-to-mind, seeing emotional auras, even to how to train the summoning of holy fire to appear at will, my Empress. I have absolute confidence in their understanding of holy pairings because they have spent generations of time in scientifically studying their holy pairs.

  “I have spoken with many different holy ones. I have been given instruction by a professional trainer. It was just a few weeks’ worth of training, but already I have so much more control over my abilities that I feel like the holiest of priests is a stumbling child by comparison, now that I can safely walk through the universe without feeling like I might accidentally set someone on fire . . . and I myself am still a stumbling child in turn, compared to the mental acrobatics and athleticism of someone like the Grand High Ambassador, who underwent years of formal training in her youth and who has been using her abilities consistently for decades.”

  “There is no shame in admitting to a point of ignorance,” Jackie stated. That refocused Hana’ka’s attention on her. “Doing so simply says, ‘I know I do not know this subject, and I am ready to be enlightened on it.’ There is, in fact, great honor in being willing to learn. I state freely that I am ignorant about artificial gravity. My people acknowledge our ignorance openly and agree that we have much to learn about it. If you want to know about artificial gravity, you go to someone who understands it. You find an expert in gravitics, you ask questions, and you listen to what they have to say. This is no different.

  “Read the report we prepared,” she repeated. Tired now, she let her eyelids drift shut as she spoke. “As His Highness has said, it is backed by decades of solid, observed-and-tested data, if not centuries. He has personally overseen its translation, and specifically its correlation to similar incidents reported in your Book of Saints on holy gifts and holy pairings. If you have more questions after having read it, you may come to me, or to any of our four holy-gifted translators. Particularly Heracles Panaklion, who is a certified instructor of such things.” Struggling to get her eyes open again, Jackie eyed the woman on the commscreen. “Now, is there anything else you need to discuss at this time?”

  “If my son’s health is being affected by yours . . . how are you doing?” the Empress asked her.

  Her inquiry sounded sincere. Jackie rubbed at the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Exhausted. Tired of feeling ill. Tired of aching all over. And I have no experience in managing biokinetics—what you call holy healing—and neither does your son, so neither of us knows how to speed this up. Nor do we know if it’s safe to do so deliberately since I am having my genetic code rewritten in every cell of my body. And what I want right now, more than most anything else, is to just put my head on his shoulder and sleep, because touching each other alleviates some of the pains and the aches. But I am prohibited from doing so because of all this cultural crap.”

  “Crap?” Hana’ka rep
eated, uncertain of the Terranglo word.

  “Shakk,” Li’eth translated.

  His mother colored a little but diplomatically ignored the blunt, inelegant word. “If it will alleviate your suffering . . .”

  Jackie seized on that hesitant statement. “Thank you.” Rolling off her elbow, she dropped her face against Li’eth’s tunic-covered shoulder, tucked her arm around his waist, and closed her eyes with a heavy sigh. “Feel free to have a conversation. I’m going to rest, now.”

  Li’eth prodded her mentally into shifting just enough that he could unbury his arm from how she draped over his side. Tucking his biceps under her head, he stretched it out, then curled his arm back in. Fingers cupping her hair, he cradled her head on his shoulder and met his mother’s stare. “This is the most physically intimate we have been, Empress. No matter what she may look like to ignorant eyes, neither of us are juveniles, to be ruled by unthinking hormones.”

  (You tell her,) Jackie agreed, snuggling into the warmth and faint musk of his chest. (You tell ’er . . . we’re not stupid kids . . .)

  (You’re putting me to sleep, with your sleepiness,) he warned her.

  (Too bad. Comf’t’ble.)

  “I am feeling tired as well, Mother . . . Perhaps it would be better to discuss this later, after you’ve read their report?” she heard him add pointedly. “That way, neither of us wastes your time in reviewing redundant information.”

  The Empress said something, but it was all nonsense now to Jackie’s fever-tired mind.

  CHAPTER 7

  MAY 14, 2287 C.E.

  JANVA 8, 9508 V.D.S.

  Jackie eyed the three-lobed, reddish, pear-like fruit in her hand. Their combined food-and-medical crisis had started with one of these, and now she had the privilege of finally being able to taste one. Just as she brought it up to her lips, Dr. Kuna’mi came over with a tray of her own food—the kitchen was finally producing full meals for nearly everyone—and projected a thought her way.

  (Careful,) the odd, markless woman stated, smiling at Jackie. (That might taste good.)

  Jackie hesitated only a moment before biting into the rind, which was supposed to be edible. That, and a source of histamines. It was tangy, sweet, and slightly bitter, with a perfume reminiscent of mint and pears and a hint of lemon, but mostly pears. (The V’Dan name for this translates as “red pear,” doesn’t it?)

  Shrugging subtly, To-mi picked up her umma, poking the local-style spork into her casserole dish. (So I didn’t have that much of an imagination. Its full original name was ka-rousho’p’ari, which means three-lobed-red-skinned-pear. Calling it a roush-p’ari just took out two syllables.)

  The two ate in silence a few minutes until Jackie set down the uneaten core. The seedpods were long, triangular things, almost shaped like canoes, and she had been warned in her language transfer not to eat them. In the V’Dan language, they were called v’pou-da shova, or the seeds of explosive expelling. Not in the sense of inducing vomiting, but rather, it involved the opposite end of things. By comparison, Terran pear seeds were downright harmless.

  Her mind wasn’t fully on the inedible portion of the fruit, however. It was on a random thought. (Why seven days?)

  (Clarify?) To-mi sent back.

  (I know why on Earth; the Moon’s quarters can be broken up into approximately seven-day spans. I know the innermost moon here has a roughly one-month cycle, but . . .)

  (The moons are only a small portion of the reason why. It’s because of the Pleiades. They’re often called the Seven Sisters, or Seven Puppies, or Seven Little Boys . . . lots of myths, but not really for that reason, either. The disaster happened when the Pleiades were high in the sky. Everyone on Earth remembered it as a Day of the Dead, the Day of the Flood, the Day We Were Saved from Our Doom . . . and the V’Dan remember it as the Day of the D’aspra, the Day of Salvation, the Day of New Life.

  (Except the V’Dan don’t have the same viewpoint of the actual Pleiades star cluster here that we had back home, nor do they have any knowledge of the “modern” legends from the last five millennia on Earth,) To-mi added. She nibbled on a piece of herbed bread slathered in V’Dan butter, made from cattle that had evolved on V’Dan after having been treated with a bovine-friendly version of the jungen virus so that they, too, could feast on the local plant life without problems. (There are legends of the Seven Saints, however, overseers for the various sections involved in the d’aspra.)

  (Well, we are coming up on a V’Dan weekend equivalent. In two more days, we finish packing up and head down to the embassy and suites reserved for us; in three, we settle in . . . and on day four, the equivalent of a Tuesday, we get presented to the Empress.)

  (I heard from my colleague, who lurked outside your infirmary room, that you gave Her Eternity a bit of a shocking setback, talking to her like a peer.)

  Jackie looked over at the blue-eyed woman with features that were more Asian than Caucasian. She wasn’t about to back down from what she saw as the truth. ( . . . And?)

  To-mi smiled at that. Her face radiated warmth, approval, and a hint of mischief that might not have been amiss on one of the kupua, the heroic tricksters of Hawai’ian legends. (I’m not shocked. I do understand the Terran mind-set these days. I am wondering how she took it, however.)

  (I think she’s getting used to it. We had a polite conversation on how to handle the physical-proximity needs between His Highness, who will be quartered as usual in the Imperial Palace, and I, since I will be quartered with the other Terrans in the Diplomatic Palace.)

  . . . . And?) To-mi prompted when Jackie said no more, her tone lighter than Jackie’s had been.

  (And it’s still undecided. She wants to control all such meetings to be physically decorous. I don’t think she gets why that isn’t going to last,) Jackie stated.

  (Well, he is a delicious-looking fellow,) To-mi allowed. That earned her a hard stare from the Ambassador. She shrugged again. (What? I’m only over fourteen thousand years old. That is not the same thing as being dead. He is both handsome and a good man, and I am pansexual enough to appreciate both qualities whenever they are found together, which means I find you appealing as well—but I am also polite enough not to poach, so you may relax.)

  “Grand High Ambassador,” someone called over the galley hall’s intercom. “Please come to the matrix room. You have a comm call from Imperial First Lord Ksa’an.”

  Sighing, she stood and started gathering the rubbish from her meal. “I’ll be glad when we can set up our own communications system in the embassy zone and use our own commlinks. I don’t blame the V’Dan for being cautious about foreign communications systems on a military station, but at least on the planet, we can set up our own network.”

  The jungen specialist held out her hand, palm toward herself. “You go and answer your call. I’ll take care of your luncheon things when I take care of mine.”

  “Thank you. That’s very kind of you,” Jackie told her.

  To-mi smiled wryly. “I’m just glad you can eat V’Dan food, now. Safely, that is.”

  “I’ll be even more glad when we can send home shiploads of the modified virus and start curing all those allergies,” Jackie stated, using the Terranglo word since there was no equivalent in V’Dan. Histamines, yes. Antihistamines, yes. But not allergies or allergic reaction, or any variant thereof. “Too many people have suffered and even died over something your people haven’t known for nearly ten thousand years.”

  “You’ll have some people wanting the marking version,” To-mi warned her. “Those who will want to admire and emulate the V’Dan. But I think you are doing the right thing, requesting and requiring a nonmarking version—and not just because I’m getting my full due respect among you markless Terrans.”

  (Understood,) Jackie returned silently. Out loud, she merely said, “We like who we are, these days. Some days more than others . . . but still, we
like who we are. Thank you for taking care of my tray, Doctor.”

  “My pleasure, Ambassador.”

  —

  “And at that point, I swap outfits and introduce the military contingent as the local military commander-in-chief,” Jackie confirmed. “The introduction includes the performance of a haka, at the, ah, rather enthusiastic request of the soldiers. Out of ninety-four of us, eighty-seven voted for it, and the rest abstained—my performance at a hometown festival was broadcast on a lot of news bands in our version of the matrix. A couple of the troops and I demonstrated a sample of it to Admiral Superior Jes-na Tal’en-qua just this morning, and she thinks it will be appropriate for the Imperial Court.”

  “That is good to know, but there is something in that which I do not understand,” Ksa’an stated from his side of the monitor screen. “You’re going to be there the entire time. How will you be changing clothes from your civilian garments as the Grand High Ambassador to the uniform of your role as the commander of your military contingent?”

  “Holokinesis. I . . . one moment, meioa,” Jackie said, breaking off their discussion when she realized one of the soldiers in question had entered the room and stopped next to her. She switched languages to Terranglo, facing the dark-skinned woman. “Yes, Corporal?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the corporal stated politely, if somberly. Sir was considered these days to be the correct term for a superior commissioned officer, regardless of gender. “I was instructed by Commander Graves to contact you immediately and give you this.”

  She held out a datapad. Frowning, Jackie accepted it and flicked the button to turn it on. On the pad desktop, a large icon had been left prominently in the center. Tapping it, she watched it unfold into a recorded comm message. It was her brother-in-law, Maleko Bennington. He looked haggard, his hair a mess, clad in rumpled, dirty clothes.