by Vernor Vinge
Kolja began typing the message on the intraship printer. Theoretically, a Citizen could talk directly to the Lord Chamberlain, since that officer was a bridge of sorts between the Imperial Court and its servants. In fact, however, the protocol for speaking with any member of the aristocracy was so complex that it was safest to deal with such men in writing. And occasionally, the written record could be used to cover your behind later on—if the nobleman you dealt with was in a rational mood. Biladze carefully read the message as it appeared on the readout above the printer, then signaled Kolja to send it. The word ACKNOWLEDGED flashed on the screen. Now the message was stored in the Chamberlain’s commbox on the main deck. When its priority number came up, the message would appear on the screen there, and if the Lord Chamberlain were not too busy supervising the entertainment, there might be a reply.
Vanja Biladze tried to relax. Even without Boblanson’s harangue he would have given an arm and a leg to close with the object. But he was far too experienced, far too cautious, to let such feelings show. Biladze had spent three decades in the Navy—whole years at a time in deep space so far from Earth-Luna and the pervasive influence of the Safety Committee that the home world might as well not have existed. Then the Emperor began his crackdown on the Navy, drawing them back into near-Earth space, subjecting them to the scrutiny accorded his other Citizens and outlawing what research they had been able to get away with before. And with the new space drive, no point in the solar system was more than hours from Earth, so such close supervision was practical. For many officers, the change had been a fatal one. They had grown up in space, away from the Empire, and they had forgotten—or else never learned—how to mask their feelings and behave with appropriate humility. But Biladze remembered well. He had been born at Suhumi in Gruzija, a favorite resort of the nobility. For all the perfection of Suhumi’s blindingly white beaches and palm-dotted parks, death had been waiting every moment for the disrespectful Citizen. And when he had moved east to Tiflis, to the technical schools, life was no less precarious. For in Tiflis there were occasional cases of systematically disloyal thoughts, thoughts which upset the Safety Committee far more than accidental disrespect.
If that had been the sum of his experience on Earth, Biladze, like his comrades, might have forgotten how to live with the Safety Committee. But in Tiflis, in the spring of his last year at the Hydromechanical Institute, he met Klaša. Brilliant, beautiful Klaša. She was majoring in heroic architecture, one of the few engineering research fields the Emperors had ever tolerated on Earth. (After all, statues like the one astride Gibraltar would have been impossible without the techniques discovered by Klaša’s predecessors.) So while his fellow officers managed to stay in space for whole decades at a time, Vanja Biladze had returned to Tiflis, to Klaša, again and again.
And he never forgot how to survive within the Imperial system.
Abruptly, Biladze’s attention returned to the white-walled control room. Boblanson was eyeing him with a calculating stare, as if making some careful judgment. For a long moment, Biladze returned the gaze. He had seen only four or five non-Citizens in the flesh, though he had been piloting the Imperial yacht for more than a year. The creatures were always stunted, most often mindless—simple freaks kept for the amusement of noblemen with access to the vast Amerikan Preserves. This Boblanson was the only clever one Biladze had ever seen. Still, he found it hard to believe that the frail man’s ancestors had been the Great Enemy, had struggled with the Republic for control of Earth. Very little was known about those times, and Biladze had never been encouraged to study the era, but he did know that the Enemy had been intelligent and resourceful, that it had never been totally defeated until it finally launched a sneak attack upon the Republic. The enraged Republic beat back the attack, then razed the Enemy’s cities, burned its forests and left its entire continent a radioactive wasteland. Even after five centuries, the only people living in that ruin were the pitiful non-Citizens, the final victims of their own ancestors’ treachery.
And the victorious Republic had gone on to become the world Empire.
That was the story, anyway. Biladze could doubt or disbelieve parts of it, but he knew that Boblanson was the ultimate descendant of a people who had opposed the establishment of the Empire. Vanja briefly wondered what version of history had been passed down the years to Boblanson.
Still no answer on the printer readout. Apparently the Lord Chamberlain was too busy to be bothered.
He said to Boblanson, “You are from the Kalifornija Preserve?”
The other bobbed his head. “Yes, Eminence.”
“Of course I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen most of the Preserves from low orbit. Kalifornija is the most terrible wasteland of them all, isn’t it?” Biladze was breaking one of the first principles of survival within the Empire: he was displaying curiosity. That had always been his most dangerous failing, though he rationalized things by telling himself that he knew how to ask safe questions. There was nothing really secret about the non-Citizens—they were simply a small minority living in areas too desolate to be settled. The Emperor was fond of parading the poor creatures on the holo, as if to say to his Citizens: “See what becomes of my opponents.” Certainly it would do no harm to talk to this fellow, as long as he sounded appropriately impressed by the Enemy’s great defeat and yet greater treachery.
Boblanson gave another of his frenetic nods. “Yes, Eminence. I regret that some of my people’s greatest and most infamous fortresses were in the southern part of Kalifornija. It is even more to my regret that my particular tribe is descended from the subhumans who directed the attack on the Republic. Many nights around our campfires—when we could find enough wood to make a fire—the Oldest Ones would tell us the legends. I see now that they were talking of reaction-drive missiles and pumped lasers. Those are primitive weapons by the Empire’s present standards, but they were probably the best that either side possessed in those days. I can only thank your ancestors’ courage that the Republic and justice prevailed.
“But I still feel the shame, and my dress is a penance for my ancestry—it is a replica of the uniform worn by the damned creatures who inspired the Final Conflict.” He pulled fretfully at the blue material, and for the first time Biladze really noticed the other’s clothing. It wasn’t that Boblanson’s dress was inconspicuous. As a matter of fact, the blue uniform—with its twin silver bars on each shoulder—was ludicrous. In the zero gee of the control cabin, the pants were continually floating up, revealing Boblanson’s bent, thin legs. Before, Biladze had thought it was just another of the crazy costumes the Imperial family decreed for the creatures in the menagerie, but now he saw that the sadism went deeper. It must have amused the Prince greatly to take this scarecrow and dress him as one of the Enemy, then have him grovel and scuttle about. The Imperial family never forgot its opponents, no matter how far removed they were in time or space.
Then he looked back into the little man’s eyes and realized with a chill that he had seen only half the picture. No doubt the Prince had ordered Boblanson to wear the uniform, but in fact the non-Citizen was the one who was amused—if there was any room for humor behind those pale blue eyes. It was even possible, Biladze guessed, that the man had maneuvered the Prince into ordering that he be dressed in this way. So now Boblanson, descendant of the Great Enemy, wore that people’s full uniform at the Court of the Emperor. Biladze shivered within himself, and for the first time put some real credit in the myths about the Enemy’s subtlety, their ability to deceive and to betray. This man still remembered whatever had happened in those ancient times—and with greater feeling than any member of the Imperial family.
The word ACKNOWLEDGED vanished from the screen over the printer and was replaced by the Lord Chamberlain’s jowly face. The crew bowed their heads briefly, tried to appear self-composed. The Chamberlain was unusually content to communicate by printer, so apparently their message—when it finally got his attention—was of interest.
“Pi
lot Biladze, your deviation from the flight plan is excused, as is your use of the Prince’s pet.” He spoke ponderously, the wattles swaying beneath his chin. Biladze hoped that old Rostov’s implied criticism was pro forma. The Lord Chamberlain couldn’t afford to be as fickle as most nobles, but he was a hard man, willing to execute his patrons’ smallest whim. “You will send the creature Boblanson up here. You will maintain your present position relative to the unidentified object. I am keeping this circuit open so that you will respond directly to the Emperor’s wishes.” He stepped out of pickup range, ending the conversation as abruptly as if he had been talking to a computer. At least Biladze and his crew had been spared the trouble of framing a properly respectful response.
Biladze punched HATCH OPEN, and Boblanson’s keepers entered the cabin. “He’s supposed to go to the main deck,” Biladze said. Boblanson glanced briefly at the main screen, at the enigma that was still slowly turning there, then let his keepers bind him with an ornamental leg chain and take him into the hallway beyond. The hatch slid shut behind the trio, and the crew turned back to the holographic image above the printer.
The camera sending that picture hadn’t moved, but Rostov’s obese hulk was no longer blocking the view and there was a lot to see. The yacht had been given to the Prince by the Emperor on the boy’s tenth birthday. As with any Imperial gift, the thing was huge. The main deck—with its crystal ceilingwall open to all heaven—could hold nearly two thousand people. At least that many were up there now, for this party—the whole twenty-hour outing—celebrating the Prince’s eighteenth birthday.
Many of the lords and ladies wore scarlet, though some had costumes of translucent and transparent pastels. The lights on the main deck had been dimmed, and the star clouds, crowned by Earth-Luna, hung bright above the revelers—an incongruous backdrop to the festivities. That these people should be the ones to rule those worlds…
Scattered through the crowd, he caught patches of gray and brown—the uniforms of the traybearers, doing work any sensible culture would reserve to machines. The servants scuttled about, forever alert to their betters’ wishes, forever abjectly respectful. That respect must have been mainly for the benefit of Safety Committee observers, since most of the partygoers were so high on thorn-apple or even more exotic drugs that they wouldn’t have known it if someone spit in their eye. The proceedings were about three-quarters of the way to being a full-blown orgy. Biladze shrugged to himself. It was nothing new—this orgy would simply be bigger than usual.
Then the tiny figures of Boblanson and his keepers came in from the right side of the holoscreen. The two Citizens walked carefully, their shoulders down, their eyes on the floor. Boblanson seemed to carry himself much the same, but after a moment Biladze noticed that the little man shot glances out to the right and left, watching everything that went on. It was amazing. No Citizen could have gotten away with such brazen arrogance. But Boblanson was not a Citizen. He was an animal, a favored pet. You kill an animal if it displeases you, but you don’t put the same social constraints on it that you would upon a human. No doubt even the Safety Committee passed over the fellow with only the most cursory inspection.
As the figures walked off to the left, Biladze leaned to the right to follow them in the holo and saw the Emperor and his son. Paša III was seated on his mobile throne, his costume a cascade of scarlet and jewels. Paša’s face was narrow, ascetic, harsh. In another time such a man might have created an empire rather than inherited one. As it was, Paša had consolidated the autocracy, taking control of all state functions—even and especially research—and turning them to the crackpot search for reincarnators.
On only one issue could Paša be considered soft: his son was just eighteen today, yet the boy had already consumed the resources and the pleasures of a thousand adolescences. Saša X, dressed in skintight red breeches and diamond-encrusted belt, stood next to his father’s throne. The brunette leaning against him had a figure that was incredibly smooth and full, yet the Prince’s hand slid along her body as negligently as if he were stroking a baluster.
The keepers prostrated themselves before the throne and were recognized by the Emperor. Biladze bit back a curse. The damn microphone wasn’t picking up their conversation! How would he know what Paša or his son wanted if he couldn’t hear what was going on? All he was getting were music and laughter—plus a couple of indecent conversations close by the mike. This was the type of bungle that made the position of Chief Yacht Pilot a short-lived one, no matter how careful a man was.
One of his crew fiddled with the screen controls, but nothing could really be done at this end. They would see and hear only what the Lord Chamberlain was kind enough to let them see and hear. Biladze leaned toward the screen and tried to pick out from the general party noises the conversation passing between Boblanson and the Prince.
The two keepers were still prostrate at Paša’s feet. They had not been given permission to rise. Boblanson remained standing, though his posture was cringing and timid. Servants insinuated themselves through the larger crowd to distribute drinks and candies to the Imperial party.
The Emperor and his son seemed totally unaware of this bustle of cringing figures about them. It was strange to see two men set so far above the common herd. And it all brought back a very old memory. It had been the summer of his last year at Tiflis, when he had found both Klaša and the freedom of the Navy. Many times during that summer, he and Klaša had flown into the Kavkaz to spend the afternoon alone in the alpine meadows. There they could speak their own minds, however timidly, without fear of being overheard. (Or so they thought. In later years, Biladze realized how terribly mistaken they had been. It was blind luck they were not discovered.) On those secret picnics, Klaša told him things that were never intended to go beyond her classes. The architecture students were taught the old forms and the meaning of the inscriptions to be found upon them. So Klaša was one of the few people in all the Empire with any knowledge of history and archaic languages, however indirect and fragmentary. It was dangerous knowledge, yet in many ways fascinating: In the days of the Republic, Klaša asserted, the word “Emperor” had meant something like “Primary Secretary,” that is, an elected official—just as on some isolated Navy posts, the men elect a secretary to handle unit funds. It was an amazing evolution—to go from elected equal to near godling. Biladze often wondered what other meanings and truths had been twisted by time and by the kind of men he was watching on the holoscreen.
“—Father. I think it could be exactly what my creature says.” The audio came loud and abrupt as the picture turned to center on the Prince and his father. Apparently Rostov had realized his mistake. The Chamberlain had almost as much to lose as Biladze if the Emperor’s wishes were not instantly gratified.
Biladze breathed a sigh of relief as he picked up the thread of the conversation. Saša’s high-pitched voice was animated: “Didn’t I tell you this would be a worthwhile outing, Father? Here we’ve already run across something entirely new, perhaps from beyond the Solar System. It will be the greatest find in my collection. Oh, Father, we must pick it up.” His voice rose fractionally.
Paša grimaced, and said something about Saša’s “worthless hobbies.” Then he gave in—as he almost always did—to the wishes of his son. “Oh very well, pick the damned thing up. I only hope it’s half as interesting as your creature here,” he waved a gem-filthy arm at Boblanson, “says it is.”
The non-Citizen shivered within his blue uniform, and his voice became a supplicating whine. “Oh, dear Great Majesty, this trembling animal promises you with all his heart that the artifact is perfectly fit to all the greatness of your Empire.”
Even before Boblanson got the tongue-twisting promise out of his mouth, Biladze had turned from the holo and was talking to his men. “Okay. Close with the object.” As one of the crew tapped the control board, Biladze turned to Kolja and continued, “We’ll pick it up with the third-bay waldoes. Once we get it inside, I want to check the thing over
. I remember reading somewhere that the Ancients used reaction jets for attitude control and thrust—they never did catch on to inertial drive. There just might be some propellant left in the object’s tanks after all these years. I don’t want that thing blowing up in anybody’s face.”
“Right,” said Kolja, turning to his own board.
Biladze kept an ear on the talk coming from the main deck—just in case somebody up there changed his mind. But the conversation had retreated from the specifics of this discovery to a general discussion of the boy’s satellite collection. Boblanson’s blue figure was still standing before the throne, and every now and then the little man interjected something in support of Saša’s descriptions.
Vanja pushed himself off the wall to inspect the approach program his crewman had written. The yacht was equipped with the new drive and could easily attain objective accelerations of a thousand gravities. But their target was only a couple hundred kilometers away and a more delicate approach was in order: Biladze pressed the PROGRAM INITIATE, and the ship’s display showed that they were moving toward the artifact at a leisurely two gravities. It should take nearly two hundred seconds to arrive, but that was probably within Saša’s span of attention.
One hundred twenty seconds to contact. For the first time since he had called Boblanson into the control cabin ten minutes earlier, Biladze had a moment to ponder the object for himself. The cone was an artifact; it was much too regular to be anything else. Yet he doubted that it was of extraterrestrial origin, no matter what Boblanson thought. Its orbit had the same period and eccentricity as Earth’s, and right now it wasn’t much over seven million kilometers from Earth-Luna. Orbits like that just aren’t stable over long periods of time. Eventually such an object must be captured by Earth-Luna or be perturbed into an eccentric orbit. The cone couldn’t be much older than man’s exploration of space. Biladze wondered briefly how much could be learned by tracing the orbit back through some kind of dynamical analysis. Probably not much.
