“Still,” Ferbin said bitterly, “even if I were alone in knowing what happened, I know it still.”
Choubris scratched behind one ear. “If the whole world thinks differently, sir, is that even wise?”
Ferbin looked at his servant with an unsettling straightness. “And you’d have me do what, Choubris?”
“Eh? Why — well — sir, come back with me to the palace, and be the King!”
“And not be shot as an imposter?”
“An imposter, sir?”
“Enlighten me; what is my status according to this established version of how things are?”
“Well, yes, you’re correct in that you have been ascribed dead, but — surely — on sight of your good self…”
“I’d not be killed on the instant of being seen?”
“Why killed at all?”
“Because I don’t know the all of who is and who is not part of this treachery! Those I saw at the death, yes; guilty beyond guilt. The others? Chasque? Werreber? Did they know? Did they just claim to be present at this fictitious, easy death, to help support whatever circumstance they were presented with by those who’d wrought the crime? Do they suspect nothing? Something? All? Were they part of it from the beginning, every one? Tyl Loesp is culprit, and no one was closer to my father. Who else might not be guilty? Tell me: have you not heard warnings against spies, snipers, saboteurs and guerrillas?”
“Some, sir.”
“Were there any orders of particular strictness you heard of regarding those who suddenly appeared, within the greater battlefield, resembling authority?”
“Well, just latterly, yes, sir, but—”
“Which means that I’ll be held, then shot. In the back, I don’t doubt, so they can say I was trying to escape. Or d’you think such things never happen, in army or militia?”
“They—”
“And if I did get as far as the palace, the same applies. How long might I survive? Long enough to tell the truth in front of a quorate sufficient to carry the day? I think not. Long enough to challenge tyl Loesp, or confront the wretch? Beyond doubt? Beyond the grave, I’d say.” He shook his head. “No, I have thought long about this over the last day, and can see quite clearly the merits of the contending courses, but also I know my instincts, and they have proved unfailingly trustworthy in the past.” This was true; Ferbin’s instincts had always told him to flee trouble or potential conflict — rowdies, creditors, angry fathers of shamed daughters — and, whether escaping to the shelter of an obscure bawdy house, a congenially distant hunting lodge or indeed the palace itself, this intuition had invariably proved itself sound.
“Either way, sir, you can’t hide here for ever.”
“I know that. And I am besides not the one to enter into any such contention with the tyl Loesps of this world. I know they have the guile on me, and the easy turn to brute.”
“Well, God knows, I’m not such a one either, sir.”
“I must escape, Choubris.”
“Escape, sir?”
“Oh, indeed; escape. Escape far, far away, and seek sanctuary with or find a champion in one of two people I never imagined I’d have to trouble for so demeaning a favour. I suppose I ought to be thankful I have any sort of choice, or just two chances.”
“And they would be, sir?”
“First we must get ourselves to a Tower fitted out for travel — I have an idea for obtaining the necessary documents,” Ferbin said, almost as though talking to himself. “Then we shall have ourselves transported to the Surface and take ship away across the stars, to Xide Hyrlis, who generals for the Nariscene now and who may take up our cause for the love of my dead father, and if he is unable to do so, then at least he might signpost the route… To Djan,” Ferbin told Holse with what sounded like sudden weariness. “Anaplia’s daughter. Who was raised to be fit to marry a prince and then found herself dowried to the mongrel alien empire that calls itself the Culture.”
4. In Transit
Utaltifuhl, the Grand Zamerin of Sursamen-Nariscene, in charge of all Nariscene interests on the planet and its accompanying solar system and therefore — by the terms of the mandate the Nariscene held under the auspices of the Galactic General Council — as close as one might get to overall ruler of both, was just beginning the long journey to the 3044th Great Spawning of the Everlasting Queen on the far-distant home planet of his kind when he met the director general of the Morthanveld Strategic Mission to the Tertiary Hulian Spine — paying a courtesy call to the modest but of course influential Morthanveld embassy on Sursamen — in the Third Equatorial Transit Facility high above Sursamen’s dark, green-blue pocked Surface.
The Nariscene were insectile; the Zamerin was six-limbed and keratin-covered. His dark, quintuply segmented body, a little under a metre and a half long (excluding stalks, mandibles retracted), was studded with implanted jewels, inlaid veins of precious metals, additional sensory apparatus, numerous tiny holo-projectors displaying the many medals, honours, distinctions and decorations that had come his way over the years and a smattering of light weaponry, mostly ceremonial.
The Grand Zamerin was accompanied by a bevy of his kind, all rather less impressively dressed and slightly smaller than he. They were, additionally, if that was the right word, neuters. They tended to move through the cavernous, web-filled spaces of the transit facility in an arrowhead formation, with the Grand Zamerin forming its tip.
The Morthanveld were spiniform waterworlders. The director general was a milky-looking sphere a metre or so in diameter surrounded by hundreds of spiny protrusions of varying thicknesses and in a broad spectrum of pastel colours. Her spines were mostly either curled up or gathered back at the moment, giving her a compact, streamlined appearance. She carried her environment around with her in a glistening wrap of silvery blue, membranes and fields containing her own little sample of oceanic fluids. She wore a few small spine torques, bracelets and rings. She was accompanied by a trio of more stoutly built assistants toting so much equipment they looked armoured.
The transit facility was a micro-gravity environment and lightly pressured with a gently warmed gaseous nitrogen-oxygen mix; the web of life-support strands that infested it were coded by colour, scent, texture and various other markers to make them obvious to those who might need to use them. One identified the right strand in the web and hooked into it to receive that which one needed to survive; oxygen, chlorine, salty water or whatever. The system couldn’t accommodate every known life form without requiring them to protect themselves in a suit or mask, but it represented the best compromise its Nariscene builders had been prepared to come up with.
“DG Shoum! My good friend! I am glad it was possible for our paths to cross!” The Grand Zamerin’s language consisted of mandible clicks and, occasionally, directed pheromones; the director general understood Nariscene reasonably well without artificial aids, but still relied on a neurologically hard-wired translator ring to be sure of what was being said. The Grand Zamerin, on the other hand, like most Nariscene, eschewed alien languages as a matter of both principle and convenience, and so would depend entirely on his own translation units to understand the director general’s reply.
“Grand Zamerin, always a pleasure.”
Formal squirts of scent and packeted water molecules were exchanged; members of their respective entourages carefully gathered the greeting messages, as much out of politeness as for archival purposes. “Utli,” Director General Shoum said, reverting to the familiar and floating up to the Nariscene. She extended a maniple spine.
The Grand Zamerin clicked his mandibles in delight and took the offered limb in his foreleg. He twisted his head and told his assistants, “Amuse yourselves, children.” He sprayed a little cloud of his scent towards them, mixed to indicate reassurance and affection. A flush of colour across Shoum’s spines gave a similar instruction to her escorts. She set her communications torque to privacy, though with a medium-level interrupt.
The two officials floated slowly
away through the web of environmental support strands, heading for a massive circular window which looked out to the planet’s Surface.
“I find you well?” Shoum asked.
“Extraordinarily!” the Grand Zamerin replied. “We are filled with delight to be called to attend the Great Spawning of our dear Everlasting Queen.”
“How wonderful. Do you contend for mating rights?”
“Us? Me? Contend for mating rights?” The Grand Zamerin’s mandibles clicked so fast they nearly hummed, signalling hilarity. “Gracious! No! The preferred specification…” (glitch/sorry! signalled the translator, then hurried to catch up), “the preferred genotype-spread called for by the Imperial Procreational College was far outside our bias. I don’t believe our family even submitted a tender. And anyway, on this occasion there was generous lead-time; if we had been in the running we’d have bred some braw and brawny hunk especially for our dear Queen. No, no; the honour is in the witnessing.”
“And the lucky father dies, I understand.”
“Of course! Now that is a distinction.” They were drifting closer to a great porthole on the underside of the facility, showing Sursamen in all its dark glory. The Grand Zamerin bristled his antennae as though lost in wonder at the view, which he wasn’t. “We had such prominence once,” he said, and the translator, if not Shoum’s own processes, picked up a note of sadness in amongst the pride. Utli waved at one of his little holo-baubles. “This, you see? Indicates that our family contributed a species-Father sometime in the last thirty-six birth-generations. However, that was thirty-six birth-generations ago and, sadly, short of a miracle, I shall lose this decoration in less than a standard year from now, when the next generation is hatched.”
“You might still hope.”
“Hope is all. The tenor of the times drifts from my family’s mode of being. We are downwinded. Other scents outsmell ours.” The translator signalled an imperfect image.
“And you are compelled to attend?”
Utli’s head made a shrugging gesture. “Technically. We fail to accept the invitation on pain of death, but that is for form’s sake, really.” He paused. “Not that it is never carried out; it is. But on such occasions it is generally used as an excuse. Court politics; quite hideous.” The Grand Zamerin laughed.
“You will be gone long?” Shoum asked as they arrived at the great window. They were still politely holding limbs.
“Standard year or so. Better hang around the court for a while, lest they forget who we are. Let the family scent sink in, you know? Also, taking some consecutive leave to visit the old family warrens. Some boundaries needing redrawn; maybe an upstart toiler or two to fight and eat.”
“It sounds eventful.”
“Horribly boring! Only the Spawning thing dragging us back.”
“I suppose it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“End-of-a-lifetime experience for the father! Ha ha!”
“Well, you will be missed, I’m sure.”
“So am I. Some dully competent relations of mine will be in charge during our absence; the clan Girgetioni. I say dully competent; that may flatter them. My family has always been firmly of the opinion that if it is absolutely necessary to take leave of one’s responsibilities for a while, always be sure to leave surrogates in charge who will ensure your welcome on return will be both genuine and enthusiastic. Ha ha.” Utli’s eye stalks waggled as though in a strong wind, indicating humour. “But this is to jest. The Girgetioni clan are a credit to the Nariscene species. I have personally placed my least incompetent nephew in the position of acting Zamerin. I have the highest possible confidence in him and them.”
“And how are things?” Shoum asked. “Within Sursamen, I mean.”
“Quiet.”
“Just ‘quiet’?” Shoum asked, amused.
“Generally. Not a peep, not a molecule from the God-beast in the basement, for centuries.”
“Always reassuring.”
“Always reassuring,” Utli agreed. “Oh, the awful saga of the Third Level, Future Use Committee proceedings rumbles on like cosmic background, though at least that might be swept away in some future cataclysm or Big Concluding Event, whereas said committee might plausibly go on far, far beyond that and redefine the meaning of the term In Perpetuity for any entities having the ghastly misfortune still to be around at the time.” The Grand Zamerin’s body shape and scents signalled exasperation. “The Baskers still wish it to be theirs, the Cumuloforms still claim it as already long promised to them. Each side has come heartily to despise the other, though not, we’d life-stake, a sixth as much as we have come to despise both of them.
“The L12 Swimmers, perhaps inspired by the japes the Cumuloforms and Baskers are having with their dispute, have waved a scent-trace to the wide winds regarding the vague possibility of one day, perhaps, if we wouldn’t mind, if nobody else would object, taking over Fourteen.
“The Vesiculars of…” Utli paused as he checked elsewhere, “Eleven announced some time ago that they wished to migrate, en masse, to Jiluence, which is somewhere in the Kuertile Pinch and, they allege, an ancestral homeworld of theirs. That was some gross of days ago, though, and we’ve heard nothing since. A passing fancy, probably. Or art. They confuse such terms. They confuse us, too. It may be deliberate. Possibly too long an association with the Oct, who are most adept at lateral thinking but seemingly incapable of anything but lateral expression, too; were there a prize for least-translatable galactic species, the Oct would win every cycle, though of course their acceptance speeches would be pure gibberish. What else?” Utli’s demeanour indicated resignation and amusement, then went back to exasperation again, mixed with annoyance.
“Oh yes, talking of the Oct, who call themselves the Inheritors; they have managed to antagonise the Aultridia — of ill repute, et cetera — through some inebriate machination or other. We listened to their petitions before leaving, but it all sounds lamentably trivial. Tribal wars amongst the natives of some cuspid wastelevels. The Oct may well have been interfering; it has been my curse to command the one world where the local Oct seem unable to leave well, ill or indeed indifferent alone. However, as they don’t appear actually to have transferred any technology to the protégé barbarians concerned, we are without immediate excuse to step in. Ineffably tiresome. They — meaning the Oct and the ghastly squirmiforms — wouldn’t listen to our initial attempts to mediate and frankly we were too taken up with our leaving preparations to have the patience to persist. Storm in an egg sac. If you’d like to take a sniff at the problem, do feel free. They might listen to you. Emphasis ‘might’, though. Be prepared fully to deploy your masochistic tendencies.”
The director general allowed a flush of amusement to spread across her body. “So, then; you will miss Sursamen?”
“Like a lost limb,” the Grand Zamerin agreed. He pointed his eye stalks at the porthole. They both looked down at the planet for some moments, then he said, “And you? You and your family, group, whatever — are they well?”
“All well.”
“And are you staying long here?”
“As long as I can without unduly upsetting our embassy here,” the director general replied. “I keep telling them I just enjoy visiting Sursamen but I believe they think I have an ulterior motive, and their preferred candidate is a determination on my part to find something wrong in their conduct.” She indicated amusement, then formality. “This is a courtesy call, no more, Utli. However, I shall certainly seek whatever excuses I can to stay longer than the polite minimum, simply to enjoy being in this wonderful place.”
“It has its own sort of blotchy, deeply buried beauty, we might be persuaded to concede,” Utli said grudgingly, with a small cloud of scent that indicated guarded affection.
Director General Morthanveld Shoum, free-child of Meast, nest of Zuevelous, domain of T’leish, of Gavantille Prime, Pliyr, looked out over the mighty, mostly dark, still slightly mysterious world filling the view beneath the transit facilit
y.
Sursamen was a Shellworld.
Shellworld. It was a name that even now brought a thrill to the very core of her being.
“Sursamen — an Arithmetic Shellworld orbiting the star Meseriphine in the Tertiary Hulian Spine.” She could still see the glyphs rippling across the surface of her school teaching mat.
She had worked hard to be here, dedicated her life — through study, application, diligence and no small amount of applied psychology — to one day making Sursamen an important part of her existence. In a sense, any Shellworld would have done, but this was the place that had initiated her enchantment, and so for her it had a significance beyond itself. Ironically, the very force of that drive somehow to make herself part of Sursamen’s fate had caused her to overshoot her mark; her ambition had carried her too far, so that now she had oversight of Morthanveld interests within the whole long river-system of stars called the Tertiary Hulian Spine, rather than just the Meseriphine system containing the enigmatic wonder that was Sursamen, with the result that she spent less time here than she would have considered ideal.
The dim green glow of the Gazan-g’ya Crater lit up her body and that of the Grand Zamerin, the gentle light slowly increasing as Sursamen turned and presented more of the vast pockmark of the crater to the rays of the star Meseriphine.
Sursamen collected adjectives the way ordinary planets collected moons. It was Arithmetic, it was Mottled, it was Disputed, it was Multiply Inhabited, it was Multi-million-year Safe, and it was Godded.
Shellworlds themselves had accreted alternative names over the aeons: Shield Worlds, Hollow Worlds, Machine Worlds, Veil Worlds. Slaughter Worlds.
The Shellworlds had been built by a species called the Involucra, or Veil, the best part of a billion years earlier. All were in orbits around stable main-series suns, at varying distances from their star according to the disposition of the system’s naturally formed planets, though usually lying between two and five hundred million kilometres out. Long disused and fallen into disrepair, they had, with their stars, drifted out of their long-ago allotted positions. There had been about four thousand Shellworlds originally; 4096 was the commonly assumed exact number as it was a power of two and therefore — by general though not universal assent — as round a figure as figures ever got. No one really knew for sure, though. You couldn’t ask the builders, the Involucra, as they had disappeared less than a million years after they’d completed the last of the Shellworlds.
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