The Queen of Sidonia

by Richard Fox

  Volenz, a petite woman with jet-black skin and a thin sheen of curly blonde hair, met him in the doorway.

  “Sir? You need me?” she asked.

  Stolzoff motioned to the exit with a nod of his head. They left the building and emerged into a sea of police cars and flashing light racks.

  “Something’s off,” he said. “Hedelson might as well have had a bow wrapped around his neck for us. It’s too easy.”

  “But it fits. Guy obsessed with the royals, means and opportunity to commit the crime,” Volenz said.

  “Perfect excuse to give to the media and calm everyone down,” he said. He jammed his hands into his pockets as the wheels in his head kept turning. “Here’s what we’ll do; we put out to the public that the case is closed. Privately, quietly, we keep digging.”

  A small crowd had formed across the street and behind the barricades the police were putting up. The kebab place was still open, the cooks in their greasy aprons rubbernecking on the sidewalk with the rest of the neighborhood.

  “We let the public think we’re back to business as usual. Hey,” he said to Volenz, “you hungry?”

  CHAPTER 4

  Cosima sat in the backseat of a ground car, her fingers writhing against each other in her lap.

  Lana reached over and put a hand over hers. “Mustn’t worry anymore, dear. The man who tried to hurt you is off the streets.”

  Cosima pulled her hands away and kept staring out the car windows. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Remi?” Lana asked the Guardsman in the front seat.

  “The case is closed, my lady. We wouldn’t have you out and about otherwise,” Remi said, not taking his eyes off the road ahead of them.

  At first glance, their car was typical of the city’s self-driving fleet. The dark brown sedan with tinted windows could have transported any of the city’s well-to-do, though most of the city utilized the subway and bus lines to travel to and from work. Beneath the surface, the car was armored against small-arms fire and had emergency override controls for Remi if the robot driver was hacked or incapable of responding to a threat.

  “Where is the museum? I’ve always wanted to see the probe that discovered Sidonia,” Cosima said.

  “That’s in Northwest Ring 2, we’re going to East 3,” Remi said.

  “I have no idea what you just said,” Cosima replied.

  “Forgive me. There’s a circular wall around the city. Within the city are five highways running in greater circles, numbered starting with the innermost. Then eight highways running from the palace to the walls, corresponding with cardinal directions and their halfway marks. The direction and the highway ring closer to the palace in Sidonia City is how we mark boroughs.”

  “What about the city outside the walls?” Cosima asked.

  “Then we just use an address,” Remi said with a shrug. He raised his arm and glanced at his gauntlet. “Two minutes away.”

  Cosima leaned forward and saw the Orozco Art Exhibition Center, a ten-story edifice with marble gargoyles and carved pillars.

  “It looks so…garish,” she said.

  “Wait until you get inside,” Lana said.

  Their car turned into a covered garage around the back of the center and stopped next to a wall of frosted glass. A panel slid open and a tall man in a camel-colored suit stepped into the garage.

  Remi left the car and slammed the door behind him. He stood in front of Cosima’s door for several seconds, his muffled conversation with the only other person in the garage lost to Cosima and Lana.

  Remi opened Cosima’s door. She left the car, her eyes darting from side to side.

  “We have guards surrounding the garage, and the center is empty of visitors today, my lady,” Remi said.

  “No corner cut for your glorious visit!” came from the other side of the car.

  Cosima turned around and looked at the speaker. The man wore a black-tailed suit with subtle pinstripes, a coffee-colored vest, and a red rose in the breast pocket. A starched white collar stood tall around his neck. The man’s hair was gray with a few defiant strands of black, and his goatee tapered to a fine point beneath his chin.

  “My lady, meet Reginald Blake, curator of this fine establishment,” Lana said.

  Cosima held out her hand, and Blake brushed his lips against it.

  “‘Curator’ implies I have some sense of control. I am merely a conductor, providing guidance to the symphony of artists that toil within these walls,” Blake said, his words tinged with a highborn Spanish accent.

  “Inside. Now,” Remi said.

  “Yes, yes. Can’t have you out here, not after that dreadful event.” Blake waved his hand at the glass wall, and a doorway slid open. “After you,” he said to Cosima.

  Remi moved ahead of them all and entered first.

  “Or him,” Blake said. “Have you ever been here before, my lady?”

  Cosima rolled her eyes at Blake as they entered the building proper and came into a large room full of statues equally spaced apart from each other in orderly rows.

  “House Zollern doesn’t bother with art; we are miners and spacers,” she said. She stopped in front of a pink marble statue of a female figure holding a vase into the air, blue veins running through the stone. The woman’s dress was rough, almost as if it was chiseled in haste. Details came into focus higher on the statue, but the face and hair were too nebulous to ever identify the model, if there was one. Cosima glanced down at the commission contract and huffed in disgust.

  “A hundred and fifty thousand marks for a statue that isn’t even finished? That’s more than five times what our miners make in a year,” she said.

  “My lady, this work is indeed finished and awaiting delivery,” Blake said. He reached up and gestured to the statue’s hands. “If you look closely at the hands, you’ll see some exquisite detail to them, so perfect you’d swear they were laser cut by a machine and based off a real woman’s. But the artist carved this from Roman Sylvia marble with a hammer and chisel. And the hands, my dear, are always the hardest part.”

  “If the sculptor was so good, why didn’t he finish the rest?” Cosima asked.

  “The buyer wanted a glimpse of beauty; this is what the artist delivered,” Blake said with a shrug. “Please, shall we continue? Everyone is so excited for your visit.” He led her toward a hallway lined with paintings on the other end of the display room.

  “Are they? Isn’t this where the artisan revolt started a few years ago?” she asked. Cosima stopped to look at a painting of Styria Station, individual stars and the diffuse glow of the Milky Way shining with an internal light.

  “Fools, self-important fools, every last one of them,” Blake said. “I almost had to beat them about the head and shoulders with naked economics before they saw reason. At least their ignorant notions were squashed before they could spread to the noble Houses and the indentured artists there.”

  Cosima continued on, averting her eyes from a painting of nude women lounging around a fountain.

  “My father almost sent our house guard to storm this place when they tried to break into the Stahlium vaults,” she said.

  “The miscreants would have had their hands broken if they’d laid a finger on the Stahlium—the sanctity and security of the Stahlium supply is critical to our entire economy.”

  “Which I find ridiculous. We are the only planet in human space that exports art,” Cosima said. She scrunched her face at the price tag of a painting, a white canvas covered in multicolored paint dribbles. “Art that some five-year-old could do.” She shook her head at the impressionist piece. “Art anyone could copy perfectly.”

  “There,” Blake said, “I must disagree with you in the most polite terms you can imagine, my lady. No one can copy Sidonian art, and that is why it is so valuable. Let me show you.”

  At the end of the hallway, the center opened into a long display room. Benches ran its length, parallel to open work cubes, large rooms without a wall on one face so those on the benches could watch th
e artists working within each.

  Blake stopped at the first cube. A coal-fueled kiln roared within, and a shirtless blacksmith in a black-stained apron pounded on a metal ingot against an anvil. The heat and noise Cosima anticipated from the smith were absent, as if she was watching him work on a gigantic HD screen with the volume muted, not in person.

  “We have force screens to keep each work area private,” Blake said. “Keeps the artists from killing each other. This is Yoritomo Kunagi, greatest blade smith in human space. The shogun of Ryukyu commissioned him to forge a katana, one that would have no equal on their world. He’s worked on it for almost a year now.”

  Cosima watched as the smith hammered against the red-hot metal, folding the steel against itself.

  “They don’t have maker factories on Ryukyu? Why doesn’t the shogun just choose a design for what he wants and have it 3-D printed, like every other human being in civilized space?” she asked

  “Because then it would be like any other blade from any other maker factory in civilized space,” Blake said. “Watch closely.”

  The smith held his hammer in an open box. A red laser beam ran over the head of the hammer, and the smith returned to his work.

  “He embeds Stahlium into the blade. It is inert and won’t spoil whatever piece of art it’s embedded into. Sidonia is the only known source of Stahlium, and this is what makes our art so valuable. Once the piece is finished, the Stahlium will be sealed, set, and recorded. The unique signature of the Stahlium will correspond to our registry, and anyone with a scanner can verify the authenticity of the blade. There will be only one such katana in all the universe, and for that assurance people are willing to pay a very, very high price.”

  Cosima gave Blake a sidelong glance.

  “I don’t see why that’s so valuable. We use only maker parts on the station; we can’t leave anything critical to human error,” she said.

  “Scarcity is the source of all value, my lady. Consider…a pair of shoes from a maker machine. What does that cost?”

  “Almost nothing,” Cosima said with a shrug.

  “Because the maker needed some raw material and a little bit of energy to produce it. With wage-free robots to gather materials and free energy from the giant solar furnace in the sky, those shoes cost almost nothing. Anyone with access to a maker and that design of shoes could have it for the same cost, almost nothing. So those shoes are worth almost nothing.

  “Kunagi-san will create a one-of-a-kind blade, and the Stahlium will ensure it can’t be copied. The shogun will have a priceless katana—not that he won’t pay for it.” Blake nodded to a data slate next to the work cube.

  Cosima read the quoted price and touched her fingers to her lips.

  “The shogun will pay…fifteen heavy construction droids and a dozen space fighters? That’s…why isn’t the price in marks? Or standard credits?” she asked.

  “Sidonia doesn’t trade in standard credits or any system’s currency. We only trade goods for goods, never goods for capital. It can take years for a commission to reach Sidonia from the far edge of inhabited space, years more for the work to be completed and delivered. Let’s say Earth agrees to a price of a thousand standard credits for a piece, but what if the Aquitaine Interstellar bank—which controls the standard credit supply—devalues the currency before the piece is delivered? The artist will have a thousand deflated standard credits, and the buyer will have a piece of art that will sell for many times that amount on the current market.

  “I don’t think I should be one to teach you trade, my lady. But remember this: assets are the only material things of value. Bills in your pocketbook, bitcoins in your accounts, and promissory notes from a bank or government are all worthless until they’re traded for assets.”

  Blake smoothed out his jacket and lowered his head slightly.

  “And what is Kunagi-san to do with a dozen space fighters?” Cosima asked.

  “Artists don’t set up their commissions. The king and the noble Houses do that through their trade missions. The military will buy the fighters from him, and the construction droids will be auctioned off, with the cost of transporting the goods and his work studio deducted from the net proceeds. Kunagi-san will be a very rich man once the transaction is final. Let’s hope the emperor over on Edo gets a little jealous and wants a blade for himself.”

  Blake looked over his shoulders, then leaned toward Cosima.

  “In fact,” he said in a loud whisper, “our trade delegation on Edo will make sure the emperor hears about the Ryukyu shogun’s new acquisition.”

  “That doesn’t seem entirely honest,” she said.

  “My lady, if there’s one thing about rich people that I adore, it’s that they love to make sure everyone knows just how rich they are. Now, if you would be so kind as to attest to Kunagi-san’s work.” Blake tapped on the slate, and a handprint appeared on the screen. “Your endorsement is greatly appreciated.”

  Cosima sighed and put her palm against the slate. A bell chimed as her genetic markers were recorded.

  Kunagi laid down his tongs and hammer and came to the edge of his studio cube. A portal in the screen opened to allow him, and a wave of heat and the smell of embers, to exit. Kunagi wiped soot from his face. He was well past middle age, gray-black hair plastered against his head with sweat. Sidonia was home to a varied population, but Kunagi was the first Japanese man she’d ever met.

  Kunagi brought his hands to his sides and bowed, his head almost level with his waist.

  Cosima returned the bow with one not as deep.

  Kunagi stood up and spoke to Blake in a gruff language Cosima didn’t understand, then returned to his studio.

  “What was that about?” she asked.

  “It’s just a little bit too hot for him in there. I told him his furnace might have something to do with that. Artists, all a bunch of insecure whiners. ‘It’s too hot. This isn’t the shade of teal that I ordered. What do you mean the health inspector won’t let me use my own bodily fluids for this painting?’ It never ends with them. Shall we continue?”

  The next studio housed a pair of women sewing together a black and white gown. They passed their needles through a Stahlium field periodically as they worked. Cosima recorded her presence and moved on to the next, where an ancient black man whittled wood into masks.

  “Mr. Blake, there’s no commissioned price for him,” Cosima said, reading from the slate.

  “Nobuto isn’t taking commissions anymore. His work will be auctioned off on Bern or the gate junction on Sirius. If you attest to his work, it will likely go for a higher price,” Blake said.

  “And you’ll receive a bigger cut?” she asked with a cruel smile.

  “No, my lady, all material and facilities are provided at cost to the artists by the king. I manage the facility for a small salary and a bit of Stahlium for my business,” Blake said.

  “And what business is that?”

  “You don’t recognize me? I must fire my marketing team,” Blake said incredulously.

  “Lady Zollern is a bit young for tequila,” Lana said.

  “I am the face and CEO of Don Russell tequila, the finest agave liquor in the settled worlds. I was going to save this for later, but…” Blake reached into his jacket and pulled a glass bottle the size of his palm from a pocket. Specks of light twinkled among the small bubbles of the imperfectly blown glass. He handed it to Cosima with a flourish. She held the bottle of pale green liquid up to her face and squinted at what looked like a bit of twine at the base.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “That’s the gusano, the worm,” Blake said.

  Cosima yelped and dropped the bottle, backpedaling from Blake.

  The bottle fell through the air and landed in Remi’s hand, an inch from the ground.

  “I’ll need to inspect this,” Remi said.

  “You think I’m going to drink something with a worm in it?” Cosima demanded.

  “And only the finest worm a
t that, my lady,” Blake said. “Genetically engineered to add a slight kick to one’s evening. I don’t recommend it on an empty stomach.”

  “You sell worms to people? To drink?” Cosima asked.

  “If you want to be a purist, it’s mescal,” Blake said. “I tried selling it without the worm, but mis-informed customers kept demanding it. Can’t go against market forces, bad for business.”

  Cosima shuddered and continued on, pressing her palm against slates as she went, giving a cursory glance at each artist toiling within. Blake dogged her steps, offering tidbits about the artist and commissioned piece as she passed by.

  She sauntered past a double-wide cube, swiping her thumb against a reader as she went, but the commission slate on the side didn’t read her touch. She stopped and spun around. The slate read “Special Project – House Zollern”.

  She walked to the middle of the work space and put her hands on her hips. A canvas fifty feet across and thirty feet high was turned away from her. She could see the feet of the artist within from beneath the canvas. There was no Stahlium infuser anywhere in the studio.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she asked Blake.

  “Ah, I thought we’d see this one last. Wilson is working on something for the king,” Blake said.

  “My House is paying for this, and I don’t even get to see it? Ridiculous.” She rapped against the field with her knuckles.

  “My lady, please don’t tap on the glass. The artists don’t like it,” Blake said.

  Cosima slapped her palm against the field, harder and harder with each blow.

  The field dissipated and the tapestry wavered as fresh air wafted into the studio.

  “This had better be good, Blake,” a rough voice said from behind the tapestry.

  Cosima marched toward the edge of the artwork. “You had better have a damn good explanation of why you’re hiding—oh.” She stuttered to a stop when she saw what was around the other side.

  A battle unfolded across the tapestry. Soldiers in tan armor charged toward a white adobe fortress on a blasted desert world. Laser beams and pulser bolts shimmered against the canvas as it undulated in the breeze.