by Kate Elliott
“Excuse me,” she said, and heard the betraying quaver in her voice. “I was looking for Sonia.”
His gaze had the cutting edge of a knife. Tess tensed, knowing for that instant that he was about to say something so vicious that it could never be forgiven. Sonia moved, stepping toward Tess as if she meant to shield her.
Bakhtiian caught his breath and whirled and strode away into the darkness.
Distant voices rose to accompany some melody. Tess put her hands to her face. Against her cold palms, her cheeks felt flushed and hot. Sonia came over to her and grasped her wrists. A moment later, they were laughing and crying all at once.
“Gods,” said Sonia at last, letting go of Tess. “It’s no wonder that there are men out riding just to kill him.”
Tess brushed a wisp of grass from her lips. It was true enough what Bakhtiian had said, that she was lying. But how much could she tell them? How much would be right? How much would be fair? How much could they even believe? She did not know. “Poor Yuri,” she said, to say something. “It’s just as well I’m going, Sonia. He needs someone to protect him.”
“That’s right.” Sonia leaned forward and kissed Tess on the cheek. “But Tess, however hard it may be, try not to lose your temper with Ilya. It’s easy enough to do, but gods, it makes you say the most awful things.”
“It is true, Sonia? What you said about his family?”
“I don’t know. Other people warned him that there had been threats, but he never would listen. But I shouldn’t have said it to him. Harsh words won’t bring them back.” The high, brisk sound of claps underlaid by muffled stamping reached them, sharp in the clear air, followed by cheers, encouragement to some solo dancer. “Listen to us! This is supposed to be a celebration. We’ll wash our faces and run back. The men are showing off. We don’t want to miss that.” She grabbed Tess’s hand, and they went together.
In the morning, Yuri waylaid her as soon as she woke. He looked anxious.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We have to choose you a horse. I think the little bay. You’ll need a saber, a knife…Did I say clothing? A blanket!” He broke off when Tess laughed at his expression. “I would never have believed that Bakhtiian would agree to take you, but you weren’t afraid, and so you got what you were reaching for. We call that korokh, one who reaches for the wind. They are few and always brave. The gods favor them.”
“I’ll need it.” And she wondered, suddenly, finally, what she had gotten herself into.
“There’s Sonia. She’ll help us.”
By judicious application to various members of their family, Sonia and Yuri acquired all the articles that they thought Tess would need on the journey. It did not come to much, since it all had to be carried, but to Tess it seemed like riches: a saber, a knife, an extra set of clothing down to gloves and belt, a thick blanket and light sleeping mat, a bone comb carved in arborescent detail, a lump of soap, and beaded leather strips to braid in her hair as it grew out. Stassia gave her two bracelets, and her youngest son, barely five, insisted that she take his stamped leather flask. After all this, Sonia led her aside to where her mother sat weaving.
“You will be the only woman,” said Mother Orzhekov. Her strong hands did not falter, feeding out thread, pulling the shuttle across. “You must have your own tent. Sonia, you know the one. And her mirror. No woman ought to be without a mirror.” She dismissed them before Tess could thank her.
“You must thank her,” said Sonia as they left, “by behaving in a manner that will make her proud. Words are only words, after all. It is easy enough for me to call you sister, but by the gift of this tent and the mirror, she has made you her daughter in truth.”
“She has honored me.” Tess wiped a tear from one cheek. The tent and hand mirror she received had belonged to Anna, the sister who had died in childbirth. The tent was beautifully woven, the pattern of stripes, gold, orange, and green as befitted a young woman. On the tent flap a spiral of interlocking, thin-limbed beasts curled infinitely around themselves, and this same spiral of beasts was carved into the wooden handle and back of the mirror. “My parents died when I was ten years old. My brother is the only family I have left.”
“Now you have us as well,” said Sonia.
They walked on for a time in silence, companionable, going nowhere. Tess stroked her mirror where it now hung from her belt, the grooved handle and the embossed leather case with its cloisonne clasps that protected the mirror’s face. Horses whinnied beyond. Wind sounded faintly in the sparse trees.
Two women and a child knelt at a long, flat loom. Stassia’s husband Pavel worked, sweating, at his forge. An ancient withered woman tenderly dabbed steaming water spiced with the sweet scent of herbs from a copper pot onto a rash of red sores that blistered a child’s back. A girl sang, pounding out meal. Two old men chattered together while they worked at embroidery. A young man sat holding a mass of wool for a girl Tess knew to be unmarried. He smiled as he looked at the ground, up at her as she spun the wool out on her spindle, and down again.
“I’ll see a whole land,” Tess said. “More than I’ve seen in my entire life.” A life spent within buildings, parks, cities—here it would be all sky, huge, unknown; dangerous, yes, but also new. “I want you to have something, Sonia, to remember me by.” She reached into her pouch and drew out the little book of essays from the University in Jeds. “It’s all I have, really. And at least you can read them.”
Sonia’s eyes widened. She reached out and touched the tiny leather volume with reverence. “A book. A real book.” Taking it, she held it to her chest. “Oh, Tess.” And then, without more thought than that, she hugged her.
“Mama! Mama!” Sonia’s little Ivan ran up to them. Sonia released Tess, tucked the book carefully into her belt, and squatted beside him. He put a crude carved figure into her hands. A horse. She smiled, cheeks dimpling, her eyes mirroring his innocent joy, his spontaneous, unreserved expression of love. She looked up, drawing Tess down, laughing together, sharing it with her. Ivan quickly grew tired of their praise and ran away to show his father.
“Wasn’t it awful?” said Sonia as they rose. “But so wonderful.”
Tess put a hand to one eye and found tears. “I’m sorry to be leaving you, Sonia.”
Sonia took both Tess’s hands in hers. “You’ll come back to us.”
Tess smiled. “Can you see the future?”
“No,” said Sonia, “but I can see something else, and that will bring you back.”
Chapter Six
“It is better to deliberate before action than to repent afterwards.”
—DEMOCRITUS OF ABDERA
THEY STARTED AUSPICIOUSLY ENOUGH. Tess readied her pack the night before. Indeed, sleep eluded her until the stars had wheeled halfway around the Wagon’s Axle, late, late into the night. But in the morning, Sonia brought her yoghurt and bread and Yuri saddled her horse as well as his own, so she made her good-byes without much trepidation and followed close behind Yuri as the jahar, escorting the Chapalii, rode out of camp. Women waved, wiping away tears. A pack of children raced after them, clustering on the top of a rise from which they watched as their fathers and brothers and uncles and cousins disappeared onto the vast emptiness of the plains.
At first Tess concentrated simply on riding, on staying on the bay mare and finding some accommodation with this animal. She knew that it ought to be possible to ride as one with the horse, who was amiable enough though strong, but she lacked some trick or understanding of the art. After a time, the duration of which she could not guess, she risked looking beyond her hands and Yuri’s back at the group around her. The jahar rode in a V-formation, like birds flocking, with the remounts and pack ponies herded in a clump at the broad base of the V. Besides Yuri and Cha Ishii, Tess recognized Niko Sibirin and a few of the younger men: Sonia’s husband Mikhal, Konstans, father of the new baby, and Kirill. Kirill was watching her. For an instant their eyes met. His head tilted to one side, his lips parting
, and he smiled at her. Tess looked away. Yuri muttered a word under his breath that Tess did not know.
“Yurinya.” Bakhtiian rode smoothly past Tess, so at one with his mount that they seemed almost one creature. “You will ride scout with Fedya.”
Yuri flushed at his cousin’s curt tone of voice, but he nodded his head obediently. “But Ilya, who will Tess ride with?”
Something smug in Bakhtiian’s expression made Tess instantly suspicious. “She will ride with me.”
“But you always ride rear scout. Tess can’t keep up with—” Yuri faltered, blushed from his chin to the tips of his ears, and with a despairing glance at Tess, reined his horse abruptly away from them and rode off. Bakhtiian watched him depart without any expression at all.
Tess drew in a deep breath. Can’t keep up with you, he had been about to say. Suddenly she knew what Bakhtiian was about.
“We are not so far from camp yet,” said Bakhtiian, “that I cannot have one of my riders escort you back to the tribe, if you wish.”
Tess met his gaze squarely and had the satisfaction of seeing him look away. “You won’t be rid of me so easily,” she replied. Her mare took a rough patch of ground, hard, and Tess clutched at the high front of the saddle to keep her seat.
Bakhtiian did not exactly smile, but he looked satisfied. “Follow me.” He reined his horse toward the back of the group. Tess followed awkwardly, and she felt rather than saw that many in the group watched her go, though whether with sympathy or malice she could not be sure. Cha Ishii’s white face flashed past, and she had the momentary pleasure of seeing that the Chapalii’s seat was no steadier than her own. Then, as they separated from the last wings of the V, she had no luxury for any thought but staying on her horse.
Bakhtiian did not wait for her. The entire day blurred before her as she tried to catch up with him. He always rode just ahead, changing direction and speed capriciously, stopping abruptly to stare at the ground or at the horizon, but always, before she reached him, riding on.
By the time they reunited with the main group at dusk, she hurt everywhere. Everywhere, intensely, and her inner thighs and knees felt rubbed raw. She was too exhausted to dismount, so she simply remained slumped in the saddle. She wanted nothing more than to cry, but she was damned if she would.
Bakhtiian had already dismounted. He paused beside her as he led his horse toward the others. “She needs to be unsaddled and brushed down.” Then he was gone.
Beyond, in the inconstant glare of the fire, she saw the four conical tents of the Chapalii, already set up, but no other tents. Dark figures stood in clusters around the fire, warming themselves. She sat alone beyond its warmth. At least the mare was content to stand for now.
“Tess.” Out of the darkness Yuri appeared. “Here is food. Something to drink.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said, and was surprised to hear how dry and cracked her voice sounded.
“No, Tess. You must eat. I’ll take care of your horse.” He set down his bundle and reached up to pull her off. She could not resist him, but God, it hurt to move. He gave her a hunk of flat bread and a pouch of yoghurt, and she drank from her own waterskin. He led the mare away.
Tess collapsed. She almost cried out as her muscles cramped agonizingly. In the distance, angry words were exchanged, but they faded away. After a time Yuri returned with her bedroll and half carried her out where she could have some privacy, and left her. She rolled up in her blanket and slept.
Very few people knew it, but Charles Soerensen spent most of his time in the spartan office that looked out over the mud flats of Odys Massif. To the right, concealed behind the flat-screen wall that projected two-dees on its surface or holos out into the room, lay a small bedroom and washroom, equally spartan. In the central tower of the great palace lay the official ducal state suite: sleeping chamber, efficiency, sitting room, receiving room, and the border room whose high, rib-vaulted aisles gave onto the arcade that led to the female tower, untenanted and unused. If a visitor of sufficient importance came to Odys, Charles used the state suite. Otherwise, he lived in his office.
Marco found Charles sitting at his desk. Its lights were up, projecting first flat text, then numbers, then graphs, then virtual representations in three dimensions over the smooth surface of the desk. Charles sat straight in his chair. Now and then he keyed in commands on his keypad. Now and then he spoke a word or two and the holo changed or dissipated to flat text and numbers again.
Marco stood by the door and watched. It was the same program. It was always the same program.
The fledgling League, composed of the planets colonized by the human populations of Earth and their human cousins of Ophiuchi-Sei-ah-nai, explores slowly outward and meets the alien Chapalii. The benign but powerful Chapalii gift this young race with many technological presents: increased youth and vigor to the full span of 120 human years; their own, impossible brand of interstellar spaceflight; other trivial or incredible miracles. But soon enough, Chapalii gifts turn to outright co-option, and the Chapaliian Empire absorbs the entire League into its massive bureaucracy. What choice does the League have but to accept absorption and the rule of the emperor? The Empire outweighs them in size (vastly), in technological expertise (vastly), and in sheer, inhuman patience and attention to detail.
Their grip is soft. But it chafes. A young man named Charles Soerensen, only child of a lab technician and a teacher, studies revolution. He puts a revolt together, slowly, secretly, and when the time is right, humanity rises up to cast off the yoke of the oppressor.
The rebellion fails. Very few humans are punished: only those who broke Chapalii laws and taboos already in place. The Chapalii do not seem overly concerned; they seem more paternalistic, as if at an adolescent’s wild behavior before she grows older and returns to the fold. For the ringleader: well, Earth mourns, Ophiuchi-Sei-ah-nai mourns, the colonized worlds mourn, expecting his execution.
But the Chapalii do not think as humans think. They are alien, and because their form is humanlike, though their skin changes color, it is easy to forget that. They ennoble Charles Soerensen. They raise him to their highest noble class, short of their princes and emperor. They make him Tai-en, a duke, and grant him a fief: two systems, the one known to humans as Tau Ceti, which has long since been colonized and is a rich source of mineral wealth, and Delta Pavonis, only recently “discovered,” mapped, and marked by the League’s Exploratory Survey. Dao Cee, the Chapalii call this fief, for Chapalii reasons, inexplicable to humans.
Marco walked farther into the room. He had the skill of entering and exiting silently, a skill honed in travels on the surface of Rhui, visiting queendoms and kingdoms and other more primitive lands where a false step meant death in a barbaric and doubtlessly excruciatingly painful manner. On Odys, where he knew quite well where he stood, he was bored and restless.
“What did I do wrong?” Charles asked the air, not of Marco so much as of the demon that drove him. “What weakness didn’t we exploit? The entire rebellion was planned, timed, and executed perfectly. What have they hidden from us?”
“Everything?” Marco sat on one corner of the desk, one booted leg dangling down, one braced on the floor, as he studied the graph floating in the air at his eye level. “We don’t even know how long this empire of theirs has been around. Five hundred years? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? Nothing in their language reveals it, or at least, nothing in their language that I can comprehend. We haven’t any access to their histories, if they even write histories.”
“Is an empire capable of being stable for so long?”
Marco laughed. “A human empire? I don’t think so. But after forty years under their rule, I’d believe anything about them. They value stability and order over everything else. That’s my observation, for what it’s worth. You did well against them.”
“Not well enough.” Soerensen tapped another command into the keypad, and the graph twisted and melted and reformed as a miniature star chart. Blue pinpricks of
light marked the systems known by the League to be colonized, exploited, or ruled by the Chapalii Empire. It was a considerable expanse, enhanced by the newly won human systems. One light blinked red, out past Sirius, a system mapped and marked by the League Exploratory Survey but not yet reported to the Chapalii. A little victory, worth not more than the knowledge that for a short time humanity could conceal information from its masters.
“We need more knowledge. Once Tess is done with her thesis, I’ll send her to Chapal. They’ll have to let her go there. Only the emperor could forbid it. With her linguistic skills, she should be able to gain solid data that we haven’t had access to before.”
“But she’s female.”
“She’s my heir. Legitimized by the emperor. He probably thought it was an amusingly eccentric quirk in his token human duke. So they can’t sequester her.”
“Charles.” Marco hesitated. Not because he was afraid of Soerensen’s power, of his temper, of losing his friendship by speaking his mind, but because he knew how useless it was to attempt to steer Charles in any direction but the one he had already decided to go.
“Charles. The few times I’ve spoken with her, I didn’t get the impression Tess wanted to use her language skills in such a way. I’m not sure she’s ready to be involved in building the next—” But here, by unspoken consent, he halted.
The star chart vanished, and the stars outside bathed the bleak mud flats in their pale light. The bright tails of flitterbugs wove aimless patterns among the tules.
“It doesn’t matter what Tess wants.” Charles said it matter-of-factly, without rancor, without exasperation, in that same level voice he always used, quiet and commanding. “Through no fault of her own, she was conceived because my parents wanted a child who was theirs alone. Except, of course, they no longer could have a child who was anything but my sibling.”
