The Bloodwing Voyages

by Diane Duane

  It killed the High Council, too, and some members of the Grand Council as well fell victim to T’Rehu as she purged the “corrupt” government of ch’Rihan and ch’Havran and set herself as Ruling Queen in its place, taking as her model the Ruling Queens of Kh’reitekh in northern Vulcan in the ancient days. Her accession was a gaudy affair, and well attended, though it might seem strange from our end of time that people would turn out peaceably to see the murderess of S’task take up the spear of royalty. The truth was that most of the attendees were local people, some of whom had been ordered to attend or their families would suffer, and S’task’s popularity had been quietly waning for some years, as if now that the journey was done, most people had no more need for him. Perhaps the citizenry had been looking, as the governed sometimes will, for something, anything, to replace a government that bores them. For eighteen years the Rihannsu got one that was not at all boring…and that was about all that could be said for it.

  Eighteen years is a short term in any office by Vulcan or Rihannsu reckoning. T’Rehu took the title-name Vriha, “highest,” and conducted her court in the old high-handed fashion, handing out life and death as it pleased her. She did not have time to do much harm to the Two Worlds, she was by and large too busy gratifying her own desires, mostly for bigger palaces, more luxuries for her favorites, and more money to pay her soldiers. She had the vigorous love of pleasure of a Terran Elizabeth I, without either the sense of responsibility or the high intelligence that drove that monarch. At first she made a great show of being a “just ruler,” sending help to the famine-struck south continent (and the help did no more good than that previously sent by the councils—most of the people were already dead). But eventually “her people” came to concern her only insofar as they gave her money or bowed before her.

  T’Rehu had the old council chambers razed and built new ones, bigger and grander, with a throne for her, one ostentatiously blocking the Empty Chair from view…though she did not quite dare to get rid of it or the sword. She chose new councillors, one of them from each continent, totaling twelve in all, mostly women. She made each of them responsible for their whole landmass, and if things went ill there, there was no use pleading for mercy. The floors were marble, and easily washed clean. She went through a fair number of councillors this way, and no one dared chide her for it. They might be next.

  She was not mad enough to let all her political connections lapse when she came into power. She enriched the Ship-Clans considerably, delaying for a little the beginning of their decline. In return she demanded a great deal of application of shipside technology to the problems of ch’Rihan and ch’Havran, particularly the transportation and communication problems. Naturally these were for the benefit of her throne—it being difficult to control two worlds properly without quick communication and widespread swift transportation—but accidentally these measures did the Rihannsu people some good as well. The first factories for communications hardware and small transport were set up under her aegis, and by 96 A.S. a tolerable videotelephone system was in operation, and at least one House in every five had its own flitter, or could afford one.

  But her rule could not last long, simply because it would occur to other people to do what she had done as well. The east-continent factions on ch’Havran smarted under her rule—since their continent was poor, she paid little notice to them—and they decided to do something about it. By themselves, without assistance from the fertility experts, without cloning, they doubled their continental population during T’Rehu’s reign and they quietly raised and trained their own young army in philosophies that the Spartans would have recognized instantly. Ruthless hatred of the enemy, self-sacrifice, instant obedience, and the nation above all—not the state. In this case, that was T’Rehu. They made their own arrangements with the Ship-Clans as well, for one thing their rugged hills had that T’Rehu did not know about—mines with some of the largest optical-grade rubies ever seen on any world, perfect for generating large-scale laser light.

  The easterners descended on T’Rehu in the eighteenth year of her reign, brought her (unwillingly) to battle with twice her forces’ numbers, and killed her on the plains of Aihai outside the capital city of Ra’tleihfi, which she was still completing. There was not so much rejoicing at this in the Two Worlds as confusion. The easterners might have moved into the power vacuum and set themselves up as kings, but to their credit, they did not. They wanted a return to a quieter sort of government, one in which tyranny would have difficulty going for such a long time uncorrected.

  From this victory in ch’Rihan’s first war, after some squabbling among various continents for supremacy, came the Praetorial and Senatorial structure that we know today, a resurrection of the councillories crossed with the Queen’s Twelve. Our Federation Standard terms are, of course, worn-down Latin cognates: “Praetor” for the Rihannsu Fvillha, “landmaster,” and “Senator” for deihu, “elder.” The Rihannsu functions are fairly close in some ways to the Roman ones: the Senate passing and vetoing legislation (in the Rihannsu version, one half of the Senate being assigned the business of doing nothing but veto, probably as a reaction to T’Rehu’s tyranny), the Praetorate wielding judicial and executive power for whole continents, implementing the laws passed…and sometimes getting laws passed for which they feel the need. The Senate is counted as two houses, so that all the governing bodies taken together are seiHehllirh, the “Tricameron.” Together the Three (or Two) Houses have weathered many troubles, and even the occasional Emperor or Empress…very occasional. History has shown the Rihannsu to have little trust in “single rulers.” They have long seemed to prefer them in groups, feeling perhaps that there is safety in numbers. If one gets out of hand, the others will pull him or her down. And indeed the doings of the Praetorate sometimes look, to an outsider, like nothing so much as the minute-to-minute business of a bucket of crabs—each trying to climb out on the others’ backs, the ones underneath unfailingly pulling off balance the ones climbing on them.

  It proved to be a form of government not very stable in the short term: a never-ending swirl of alliances, betrayals, whisperings, veiled allusions, matters of honor shadowy and open, machinations, string-pulling, and arguments forever. Yet despite this, the Rihannsu governmental system proved perfect for the people they were in the process of becoming, and stable in the long run, for people wanted no more T’Rehus. The Tricameron survived through the loss of the ships and the loss of spaceflight technology, through the rediscovery of the sciences and the flowering of the Rihannsu arts, through several more wars and several surprisingly long periods of peace, through the first Rihannsu contact with an alien species and the intertwining of the Two Worlds’ affairs, willy-nilly, with those of the Klingons and the Federation. It survives yet, the crabs climbing up and pulling down as of old. And if the Rihannsu have their way, it will go on for as long as their worlds have people on them. “Certain it is and sure,” says the song, “love burns, ale burns, fire burns, politics burns. But cold were life without them.”

  Chapter Nine

  There were fewer people in i’Ramnau than at the same time last week. Fewer people, and poorer produce. Arrhae was grateful for the one, but annoyed about the other. And wary all the time. Nobody looked unfriendly; but then, that was the problem. Any of the other shoppers who passed her by could be—and probably were—intelligence operatives watching the person responsible for their latest and most important catch.

  There was no way in which she could forget about McCoy, not with the translator device belted around her waist that bumped her hipbone most uncomfortably every time she moved. H’daen had presented it to her only yesterday, with some ceremony and an interminable list of do’s and don’ts. Be careful with it, it’s expensive Fleet property; don’t lose it; don’t play with the control settings; and above all, keep it out of McCoy’s hands. H’daen was simply passing on instructions that he didn’t understand, and that one most of all. Arrhae ir-Mnaeha wouldn’t have understood it either—bu
t Lieutenant Commander Haleakala-LoBrutto did. Unless Romulan translators were vastly different from the Federation hand-trans units that she was used to, the internal duotronic translator circuitry could be converted, with a lot of knowledge and a little work, into a small, crude, but very nasty form of primitive blaster.

  Terise thought about that, and about what would become of her otherself if anything of the sort should happen, and strapped it on at once. It hadn’t been farther than an arm’s length away ever since.

  McCoy was the principal reason for her being here anyway. After the translator had arrived, and she had been able to talk to him for the “first time”—without a lengthy explanation of her sudden linguistic ability—she had tried to find out what an unenhanced Terran metabolism could, and more important, couldn’t digest. Not only was it important for his jailer to keep her prisoner well and healthy, but more personal reasons could see that the man had enough trouble already without a dose of llhrei’sian. “The Titanian two-step,” McCoy had called it, and at the old, old Starfleet slang Arrhae/Terise had laughed out loud for the first time since he came into the house.

  Most of the goods for the house were being delivered, and that left only McCoy’s own provisions to be bought and carried about the town. Shopping for what were largely unusual items, Arrhae managed to forget her troubles, at least for a while. Most especially when she was bargaining stallholders up from their excessively honorable—and excessively low—first prices toward something that the honor and status of House Khellian required her to pay. It amused her that a people who had attained warpflight and who had learned how to cloak something the size of a battlecruiser still couldn’t buy meat and vegetables without haggling like the feudal societies she had studied in college.

  And then she saw him again.

  It was the fourth time now that he had been standing off to one side, watching her. A small man, darkly good-looking—and not really paying attention to the goods he was about to buy. Arrhae was unaccustomed to being looked at by young men on Earth, but here—well, Lhaesl tr’Khev, bless him, had been far from subtle in his compliments, and though she had never dared admit it, even to herself, the small, sharp, high-boned features that hadn’t drawn a second glance at home went beyond pretty into what Romulans regarded as classic beauty. Except that this man didn’t have the speculative, appraising, or just plain appreciative expression that she was used to. Instead, he was looking at her with the intensity of someone trying to remember a name or where they had last seen a face. On an arrest-sheet, perhaps…

  Arrhae felt her mouth become dry and metallic-tasting. She turned away quickly, as if not looking at the man could banish him to some distant place, and began to scoop parceled hlai-filets from the countertop. At least this meat was the final item on her list of purchases; everything else—another quick glance sideways confirmed that her shadow was still where she had last seen him—was going to wait until another day, and she was ready, willing, and able to face down anybody, including H’daen himself, in defense of her decision. Or Chief Cook tr’Aimne, who for a blessing wasn’t with her today even though—or perhaps because—H’daen, pleased that she had brought the Varrhan flitter back undamaged, had given her the use of it again. At least there was a quick way out of the city and back home. Bidding the meat-vendor a fair day in a voice that trembled only very slightly, she made off with as much haste as dignity and a full load of groceries permitted, leaving the man holding uncollected change from five full chains of cash and wondering what had happened to so suddenly increase House Khellian’s opinion of its own honor.

  Two armored constables sauntered past her, local men, exchanging cheerful comments with shoppers and salespeople alike, and Arrhae wondered if she dared…. A swift look behind gave her the answer to that, because her pursuer was no longer in sight and without him what could she say? Nothing, she thought savagely, and hurried past them in the general direction of the flitpark.

  She didn’t go straight there, but followed a twisty, convoluted course through the greater and lesser streets of i’Ramnau, with much doubling back and breathless pausing in doorways. No sign…. Even the park was almost deserted, flitters in less than a quarter of its bays on a day when it was usually filled to capacity, and she began to smile at her own fears. Lhaesl tr’Khev wasn’t the only young man who needed a lesson in manners when it came to the admiring of ladies. Dropping her packs beside the Varrhan, she leaned one hand on its warm hull and reached out with the other to pop its cargo-bay—then jumped backward and almost screamed aloud when a hand came from the vehicle’s interior and grabbed her firmly by the wrist.

  “Hru’hfe s’Khellian?”

  Arrhae tugged once, uselessly. “Ie,” she said in a defeated voice.

  “Good.”

  The young man who had followed her—probably from her first arrival in the flitpark if she but knew the whole of it—eased himself out of the prime-chair and straightened up with a little sigh of relief. “Hot in there without the ’cyclers running,” he said. “Then your name would be Arrhae ir-Mnaeha?” He still hadn’t let go of her arm.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” And this time he let her go.

  Arrhae rubbed at her wrist more for something to do than because it pained her; the man hadn’t been brutal, just most decisive. She glanced around the park for a potential rescuer if one should become necessary, and then back at him. “Why good?” she said, while inside her otherself Terise speculated on how she could take him out with a minimum of noise and disturbance. “Why were you following me?”

  “Mnhei’sahe,” he said quietly.

  Arrhae shivered at the word, and Terise went far, far away into her subconscious. Mnhei’sahe was controlled more by circumstances than by definition. It could mean lifelong friendship or unremitting hatred, but the friendship did not always mean long life or the hatred sudden death. The word was as slippery as a nei’rrh, and often as deadly, and the Rihanha that was Arrhae wondered what its meaning might be this time. She tried to remember who she might have offended in the past; who might have decided that this was a good time to take revenge for real or imagined slights. She looked nervously at the young man and wondered if, concealed somewhere, he carried the edged steel that was considered appropriate for honorable murder.

  As far as she could see, he was unarmed; and he was smiling. It was one of the weakest smiles that she had seen in her life, a poor somber apology of a thing, but at least the grimness was turned inward rather than directed at her.

  “Nveid tr’AAnikh,” he said with a little bow of introduction. The name meant nothing to Arrhae, and it seemed likely that her expression told Nveid as much. He looked around, then gestured at the flitter. “Could we get inside please, and drive?”

  “Where?” Arrhae said coldly. She had recovered from her fright, and anger was starting to replace it, because if this was an arrest, it was the strangest she had ever heard of; and such a recovery was inevitable anyway, she was getting so much practice at being scared and hiding the fact from various people. Either that or just give up and take refuge in madness.

  “Wherever you like. I’m afraid they might have had me watched.”

  “Who?” Another irritable monosyllable from Arrhae, who once again was smelling the unpleasant aroma of intrigue and wanted nothing more to do with it.

  “My family,” he said. “They don’t approve of my attitude.”

  Arrhae managed a very good hollow laugh. This man was neither her master nor anyone of such importance as Commander t’Radaik. For the first time in long enough, she was confronted by someone whose requests she could refuse. “Because you accost other people’s servants about their lawful business? Are you surprised, tr’AAnikh?”

  “It isn’t that. It’s because of my brother.”

  She brushed past him and dropped her parcels into the Varrhan’s cargo-space, then made to get inside. His arm was braced across the doorway, and Arrhae looked at it with disapproval while Terise Haleakala-LoBrutto
gazed calmly through the same eyes and noted wrong-way striking angles directed against the locked elbow joint. “Are you fond of using that arm, Nveid tr’AAnikh,” she said gently.

  He looked right back at her, paler now than he had been, and said, “McCoy.”

  Arrhae took a single step backward, her facial muscles already frozen and expressionless. “Get in,” she snapped. “You know how, invited or not.”

  Nveid scrambled inside with the quick, economical movements of someone who had spent time in the cramped confines of a Fleet warbird. “You should lock the doors,” he said, smiling.

  “Why bother? Without the drive codes you wouldn’t have gone anywhere.” She slid into the prime-seat, strapped herself in, and punched in the activator program, noticing absently as she fed in a manual override to her logged routeplans that he was right, it was hot without the ’cyclers running. They cut in even as she thought about them, as the flitter’s systems came to life and she lifted it clear of the parkbay in a smooth, tight 3-G arc that squashed tr’AAnikh back into the padded seat.

  “You drive like Nniol used to,” he said when he had the breath to do it.

  Arrhae glanced at him, confirmed that the overrides were up and running, and took the flitter out toward open country at a speed just below city-traffic limits. “What about McCoy?” she said, not interested in who or how she drove like. “And what does mnhei’sahe have to do with all this?”

  “Return to auto,” said Nveid.

  Arrhae laughed scornfully. “Can’t take the thought of a woman at the controls, eh?”

  “I’ve seen how you react to a shock, and I don’t intend to die because of it.”