The View from the Imperium

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “Fantastic,” I said, a trifle ruefully. “I wish I had been there. They sent me pictures and videos. They’re so wild I can’t really put any of them on my Infogrid file, but I have a link. Would you like to see them?”

  “Perhaps later. In the meanwhile, I do take it to heart that you have a party to attend, also thrown in your honor. Your cousins missed you.”

  “And I them. Mother, why . . . ?”

  “Why what, my dragonlet?” she asked.

  As with Parsons, I had the uncomfortable sensation that she was reading my mind. I wanted to know why I’d been assigned to the Wedjet and not the Tirisiani, but I saw a warning light in those eyes and stopped.

  “Nothing.”

  She smiled. “I’m very happy you did well, and that you made friends.”

  “I did,” I said. “Not as many as I would have hoped. Some people I just could not rub the right way no matter how many strokes I put into it, but I believe I have some firm friends with whom I will be proud to serve in the future. I look forward to completing my enlistment with the Wedjet,” I added. “I have many good friends whom I have come to like and trust. With one exception,” I added, thinking of Specialist Bek. His betrayal still stung.

  “Ah. That.” Mother came over and put a delicate hand on my shoulder. I looked up into her eyes, which were filled with sympathy. “I have some bad news for you, my dragonlet,” she said. “Podesta doesn’t want you back. He included in his message to me an impassioned plea, calling upon our ancient friendship and any other favors I might ever conceivably have owed him, not to return you to his command.”

  My ego was dashed to the floor, where it shattered into pieces. “What? But we were getting on so well. What about my idea for a new database? It will save millions of pentabytes of memory on the ship’s processors! I thought he would appreciate that!”

  “Yes, yes,” Mother said, waving a hand. “But it is the Navy. Admiral Omar Podesta does not want you to do things your way, he wants you to do them the Navy way, by checking with him via the chain of command, beginning with the officer next above you. You didn’t even listen to Parsons, did you?”

  “Most of the time,” I protested. Shame colored my cheeks.

  “Most?”

  “Some of the time,” I finally conceded.

  Mother was adamant. “That is not the way it works, Thomas. The admiral of the Red Fleet should not have to sort out your monkey tricks. He has a corps of ships that answers to him, presenting him with more problems in one day than can be solved in a year.”

  “But why put me on that vessel if I was not to serve there? All my friends here . . .”

  “Yes, and they are waiting,” Mother interrupted me, pulling me to my feet. She polished the medal on my chest with the frill around her wrist. “We’ll talk more later. I have many appointments, and they’re all impatient for a moment of my time. Come join me for breakfast tomorrow, sweetheart. In the meantime, your father has missed you greatly. Go and say hello to him.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss me on the cheek. I returned the kiss and stood back to salute her.

  “Very pretty,” said the First Space Lord, with a wry smile. “Someday you’ll mean it.”

  * * *

  The family compound was large enough to make use of personal vehicles, travelchairs or cargobots who were glad to carry a Kinago wherever he or she would care to wend among the various buildings and complexes within its walls. I refused offers from several ancient mechanical retainers who greeted me warmly on the tree-lined streets and lanes I took from the main house in the direction of Father’s workshop. It was not that I was putting off a visit to my father; I wanted the extra minutes to arrange my thoughts. Conversations with my father were agonizing. I never knew what he would comprehend from time to time, nor what he would retain from any previous visit. Now and again he would think I was someone else, or treat me as though I was still a small boy. How his mind reconciled the lanky body I operated at this stage of my life with the undersized sprog I had once been was a matter for the scientists or the doctors. I was neither. I was only his son.

  Rodrigo Park Kinago had a handsome profile. It had been captured in portraits both in image capture and more traditional forms. Artists had been fascinated by the strong line of his jaw, the wavy, almost black hair that swept back from his noble, wide brow, the eyes of a dark sapphire blue that was envied for its purity and intensity, and strong yet gentle hands. When he concentrated on a single item, as he did now upon a lump of gray stone, turning it this way and that, it bestowed upon that item the aura of being the most interesting thing in all the Core Worlds. What could he see in such a simple, small thing? I watched him from the doorway of his workshop for a long while. I realized he had not noticed me, and probably would not.

  I cleared my throat. The small sound almost rang in the still air of the workshop. The intense blue gaze moved away from its subject, and blurred. The eyes, now agate in clarity instead of jewel-like, found my face, sought my eyes, and attempted to focus. I swallowed.

  “Father, it’s me. Thomas.”

  “Thomas?” The gaze sharpened slightly, scanned my features, and rejected them. He shook his head. “What Thomas is that?”

  The familiar anguish rose up in my throat. I loved him, but it was difficult to see him this way. “Your son, sir. I’m back.”

  “My son?” A memory dawned. He smiled and rose with alacrity from the laboratory stool, holding out his arms. “My boy! And how are you?”

  He embraced me with a strength that his wavery gaze belied, and pounded me on the back. I returned the hug. He let me go with one final powerful swipe to the scapula, and returned to his seat. “Sit down, Thomas, sit down! I was just examining an interesting specimen.” He held out the rock to me. I examined it, but could not detect anything unusual about it, but thought it best to humor him.

  “Very interesting,” I said.

  “Yes! I’m glad you can see,” Father said, giving me a swift smile. He scooped the stone from my hand and resumed his scrutiny of it with an old-fashioned quizzing glass the size of my hand. His smooth, antique, lacquered wooden worktable, while spotless, held a number of rather ordinary looking objects, like spools, balls, lumps of plastic, white ceramic cups holding colored liquids or collections of microcircuitry. “And how are you? You haven’t been around to see me lately. I listened to your messages, but you didn’t say why you were gone.”

  My messages, like all my communications, were exhaustively thorough. Either he hadn’t really listened, or he couldn’t absorb them. I was used to that.

  “I was on a naval ship, father. I have joined the service.”

  An unusually lucid light brightened his eyes. “About time. I hope they use you well.”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ve been tossed off my ship.”

  “Painful. Why?”

  “I . . .” Best to be frank. “Mother tells me I was insubordinate.”

  “Well, she would know,” Father said, serenely. He smiled. “That means you must have done something right.”

  “I helped capture pirates, Father. I got a medal. See? It’s here.” I pointed to my chest. He leaned close to peer at the small decoration.

  “Did you put them back in their box?” His eyes had gone hazy again. My heart sank.

  “I suppose in a way I did,” I replied.

  “Good, son, good.” My hopes that he would understand and rejoice with me were dashed. As usual. I could hardly be angry. He had been like this my entire life.

  He bent to rearrange the tiny tools on his workbench. They looked to be precisely spaced from one another already, but he seemed to have determined that they should be arranged in order of width rather than length. He reached for an apple-sized ball. “Did you see the puzzle I built? A real conundrum. No one will be able to solve it for centuries.”

  I examined the little sphere. A brilliant red jewel lay at the heart of a nest of round boxes of many different materials, visible through a keyhole-shaped opening. I
tried spinning them to line up the keyholes, but as I got two in line, others would spin to hide the jewel.

  Father pointed to the spinning openings as they appeared and reappeared. “You have to unlock the repulsors one at a time, in precisely the correct order, or the treasure is lost forever. Good, eh?”

  “Very . . . complicated,” I agreed.

  His brow furrowed. “Hmm. The third level is running forty milliseconds slow. Give me that, son.” He took the puzzle away from me and reached for a handful of tools. He slid the switch on one, giving rise to a loud buzzing. The spheres halted in place. Father leaned over the orb with a tool with a pair of tiny, sharp calipers on the end. He tinkered with the box, lost in his work once again.

  I rose from my stool and headed toward the door, leaving him to his work. I knew he hadn’t forgotten I was there. He just seemed far more interested in it than in me. I was used to that. His voice halted me before I reached the threshold.

  “Did you see your Uncle Laurence? He was just here.”

  I spun. Uncle Laurence was home? “No, Father, I didn’t. I’d love to see him.”

  Father raised his brilliant eyes from his puzzle. “Sorry, my boy. I’m afraid he’s gone, now. Back to Earth. Hmm.” He dropped his gaze once more.

  I smiled. A fantasy my father and his brother shared was about Earth. They confided in me when I was only six that they knew the location of our mother world, and had sworn me to secrecy. Enchanted to be in on such a secret, I had believed them for five years, until my first astronomy professor informed me that no one was certain of Earth’s location or had been for over seven hundred years. I had been crestfallen, but over time I came to understand my paternal unit and his sibling had a dry sense of humor.

  Uncle Laurence was a bit of a hermit. He had served with distinction in the same years as Father, but afterwards did not return to the Core Worlds to enjoy himself as did the rest of their peers. He either purchased a large estate or took on a sinecure—family details were a little sketchy—on a largely arboreal planet in a remote district off the usual trade routes, far from borders with the Trade Union, the Autocracy or any of the Imperium’s neighbors, which he occupied alone, without wife, children or friends. He wrote poetry, which he sent to favored relatives. I treasured his rather flowery images, as I did his infrequent visits home. Images of his forest fastness reminded me of fairy-tale castles, furnished with old-fashioned furniture and precious antique books. In my rebellious teens, I asked him often if I could come to stay for a while, but he assured me it was too primitive a setting for one accustomed to fine living and attentive service. I could hardly believe it when he told me he had only one LAI cargobot in his employ, and no personal valets at all of any species.

  I did wonder for a moment what stimulus had made Father think he had had a conversation with his brother. I tried to put it from my mind. I had a party in my honor to enjoy. I returned to my suite to change. Still, images of him focused upon that nest of small spinning spheres troubled me deeply.

  Chapter 21

  “. . . And the pirates were taken into the loving custody of the Imperium’s own Red Fleet. I’m afraid the hoteliers are rather annoyed with me,” I said, contemplatively sipping from the delectable pale green wine in my glass. Bobbing in blood-warm water, in a fresh, new swimsuit that came from the storeroom where the management of the resort kept supplies in each size required by their members. It was all part of the rather exorbitant annual fee at the Starling Island private resort, but as the service matched the setting, none of us minded. Thoughtfully, I twirled the goblet stem between my fingers and stared up at the ornate carved, gilded and enameled ceiling. The room was lit by floating globes filled with flickering flames of gold. Priceless rare birds and animals, all well-trained so as not to cause a nuisance, roamed, swam or flew around the pool and its ten acres of environs, which had been landscaped to resemble a woodland glade. This room was only one of sixteen tableaux in the resort, and was my cousins’ and my favorite, at least this year. “I did offer to pay for damages, but Parsons stated that such a gesture on my part was not necessary. I believe they were more annoyed by that. He instructed them how to apply for reconstruction funds under the Victims’ Compensation Act, even looked up the appropriate forms from an obscure file in the Infogrid. I had no notion such a thing existed. Do you suppose that the owner of the bar on Kewick Station did that after we caused all of her commodes to seize up two years ago?”

  “With that industrial glue powder?” asked Jil Loche Nikhorunkorn, a maternal cousin of mine, with a fierce grin. Jil, who shared my age and propensity for loftiness, also shared a penchant for a good prank. Her brown eyes were shaded by epicanthic folds, which concentrated her long lashes in broad, black fans. She had a long, slender figure that was barely concealed by a tiny swimsuit of brilliant ultramarine. I noticed that she had indulged in a swirl of gems attached around her navel. I didn’t tell her the trend was passé—the damage to her skin from the gems’ removal would keep her out of the sun for a precious two weeks of the desert summer. She’d find out soon enough, then disappear for a while with a face-saving excuse, undoubtedly after the season ended. “She saw the number on my scooter and called my father. Father withdrew a good deal of money from my account. I almost couldn’t go to Tark Sands with everyone else.”

  We all agreed that would have been the real tragedy. Tark Sands was a favorite of ours, too. I recalled its ruby dunes and warm, orange sun with a good deal of pleasure. In particular, I remembered a lovely lady who worked as a climate programmer who shared my taste for pomegranate Rhapsody cocktails. With difficulty, I returned my mind to the enjoyable event at hand.

  “What are real pirates like?” demanded Scot, who had followed my narrative more closely than most of the others, who were already perusing the dinner menu or toying with the latest of gadgets or one another. He always was the best of listeners. I smiled.

  “I can’t speak to all illicit crews. These were nearly all reptilian. The captain was a very ugly Croctoid with a crooked jaw. A quantity of Uctu, three humans, more Crocs, and a Solinian. That wretched fellow bit great-grandfather Morris Ubunte Kinago’s pistol in half!”

  My audience laughed.

  “I’d heard they eat unrefined ore for breakfast,” said Jil, with a twinkle. “Nice to hear it confirmed.”

  “But imagine my surprise when the creature’s teeth did prove equal to the task,” I said. “My heart skipped at least three beats.”

  “Do you have pictures?” asked Xan. He lay sprawled with his latest young lovely companion in a hollow that was artfully made in the top of what looked like a dangerous shoal of rocks. When the waves were turned up all the way in the fountain, they crashed convincingly up the slope.

  “Some,” I said, cocking a finger to the hovering Optique to display what images Parsons had left in my storage crystal. I had no idea why he had confiscated the majority, but Parsons not moving in mysterious ways was hardly Parsons at all. The glass-smooth waterfall at the end of the fountain pool made an excellent screen. My cousins gasped as the open-jawed visage of the captain blinked into being upon its surface. I narrated the still frames and short segments of video as they appeared, to appreciative laughter and applause. I had, in fact, captured the moment when the gigantic reptile had snapped my pistol off. I let the image linger upon the wall for a moment.

  “You must have been just terrified!” Erita said, sounding as though the notion bored her inutterably.

  “Later on,” I said. “At that moment I was surprised and a trifle indignant, if you want the truth. I mean, how dare he?”

  “You look very brave,” Jil assured me. “Not scared at all.”

  “Thank you, dear,” I said.

  “But all that running, darling,” Erita said. “Wasn’t that tedious?”

  “At the time, no,” I said, lying back to choose a canapé from the tray of one of the serving arms secreted in the false rocks around the pool. The tray ran a sensor over my wrist and, know
ing my tastes, shifted so that a different piece was just within reach of my fingers. The chunk of steak inside the round, pale pink mushroom ball was just slightly underdone and the spicing was divine. I sighed happily. I had missed the finer elements of food while in space. The hors d’oeuvre was gone in two bites, but it dispelled all thoughts of survival rations. “I call it just amazing how many thoughts that the mind can cram in when under pressure. I had charts of the restaurant’s floor plan and the general layout of the level of the colony, the rules and tricks of swordplay, giving orders and listening to the soldiers, annoyance at Lieutenant Plet’s disapproval, awareness of the savory scent of the food in the restaurant as well as its slipperiness under my feet, concern for the patrons, and a faint worry about Parsons all going at the same time—and those are only the items that I can think of at the moment. I told the maternal unit all about it, and she informs me that it is a common phenomenon. Minds run more efficiently and swiftly on adrenaline. An old-fashioned piece of wisdom, but true nevertheless.”

  “What did Aunt Tariana say about the rest of your stint?” Scot asked. “I got the impression from some of your messages on Infogrid that the captain of your ship didn’t appreciate all the help you gave him.”

  “That is putting it mildly,” I said. dryly. “Mother did say that the admiral, while an excellent leader and able administrator, has no sense of humor. I stand as witness to insist that that is true, beyond a reasonable specter of doubt, not that I think specters are reasonable. Alas, I feel she did not entirely take my side of the argument.” I allowed a poignant and wistful expression to crease my brow.

  “Are you all right?” asked Nalney Ven Kinago, a second cousin, two years older, and a close friend from infancy. His face was the same heroic square as my father’s, but his eyes were a muddy hazel. He sent the wine tray bobbing toward me over the surface of the fountain in which we lounged. He’d had a few run-ins with Mother, one in particular over the matter of the unwitting loan of a standing wardrobe that was a family heirloom. When recovered at the bottom of a ski slope, it was in dire condition, a state that Mother had passed along to him as the guilty party. I am happy to say I had not been involved in that incident.