“Does Nell know you’re here?”
“No one does,” Laurence said, with a grin. He grasped my hand and shook it. I returned the clasp with pleasure. “Not yet. With the possible exception of Parsons. He knows everything. Always did, may he live forever.”
“Naturally,” I said, willing to give credit where a healthy balance already existed. “I would assume nothing less. What are you doing here?”
“Why, I hoped to visit with you,” Laurence replied, slapping me on the back. “I was in the neck of the woods, to employ the cant term, so I dropped by.”
“Come and see Nell!” I invited, extending my hand. “She’d be thrilled. You are her favorite uncle.”
“Not yet,” he said, with a conspiratorial air. “I have a matter to bring up with you.”
I opened my clothes closet and began to collect my belongings. My valetbot rolled out a small holdall and opened it on the table for me. I piled colored dance shoes in the bottom, then hauled costumes one after another for Anna to fold. I might as well bring over a few of my other favorites, too.
“Well, Nell is on the viewing platform. I am heading over very shortly. You can talk with me on the way. We have been staying there while the preparations are going on. I presume you’ve already seen the Zang phenomenon.” I emitted a rueful sigh. “You and Father had many experiences in your youth that I will probably never be able to emulate. But this will be one experience that we can share. We can talk on the way in relative privacy, LAIs excepted, of course.”
He laughed again. The warm baritone brought back happy memories of my childhood. One never knew when to expect Uncle Laurence, but his visits were always filled with delightful surprises.
“I did see the Zang bonsai a system, yes—oh, thirty years ago, now? Your father and I were boys then. It was awe-inspiring, astonishing, unique, and with a healthy dollop of ‘children, do not try this at home’ laced into it. With any luck, I’ll get you back here in time to view it.”
I blinked, feeling as though I had missed a long section of conversation in the blink of an eye.
“Get back? I’m not leaving, uncle. We don’t know when the Zang will begin. It could be months, but it might be moments. As you say, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, or twice if one is most fortunate. I have a performance planned. I’ve been waiting to do it for weeks now.” I glanced down at my viewpad. “And Parsons will be wondering where I am. He has me on the lookout for . . .” I hesitated. I knew that Uncle Laurence was in the know about most things, but I wasn’t sure how much that which had been imparted to me in confidence I could reveal. “I have a great deal of respect for Parsons, of course. He has been . . . of great assistance to me.”
Laurence’s deep blue eyes glowed, taking on the sparkle of their namesake gemstone.
“Wouldn’t you like, just once, to steal a march on the old fellow? To do something that he has never done?”
My entire mental processes underwent an information overload.
“Is there anything that he hasn’t done?” I asked, in a rhetorical manner, for such a thing would never, could never, occur to me.
“Perhaps just this one thing,” Laurence said. The corner of his mouth turned up in a tiny smile. “You shall have that experience, but only if you come with me now.”
He never used that urgent tone of voice without reason. Without hesitation, I abandoned my suitcase. Without knowing where I was going, but trusting him as I did with my life, I pulled the thin, insulated coat I had had made for cold weather on the planets we were to visit, though I had not needed it once. I made to step into my custom gravity boots, but Laurence forestalled me with a wave.
“You won’t need those, my lad. Just a pair of good walking shoes will do.” He plucked the viewpad out of my belt pouch. “And leave this here. You won’t need it, either. Besides, it’s not allowed. Too much spyware. Mr. Frank would be horrified at the potential for breaches.” I hesitated. He gestured toward the lockbox set into the wall of my cabin. “Go on. Lock it up.”
More and more intrigued with every moment, I obeyed his order. Anna brought me a pair of dark brown, flat-heeled leather boots with tall shafts and seized my right leg with one of her valeting claws. I fell back into the nearest chair and allowed her to minister as my shoe fairy.
“You know about Mr. Frank?” I asked, seizing upon the first thing that floated to the surface in the whirlwind of my thoughts.
“Know him?” Uncle Laurence said, with a laugh. “Of course I do. So do you.”
That revelation hit me like an oncoming wall.
“No, I don’t,” I protested. “He has been shrouded in mystery. All I know is a name. I suspect a location. I believe that he operates, if not lives, in Taino.” Anna released my right leg and reached for the left. I lifted it within easy grasping range. She divested me of the other soft-soled patent leather slipper and clapped my foot into the second cylinder, which gave forth with an echoing boom. “How do I know him? By what other name has he been called?”
Laurence looked surprised. “Well, if he hasn’t told you himself, I can’t expose his secrets to you, Thomas. I’m sorry. It’s a bit too soon. I apologize. Once we have been colleagues longer, I won’t need to tell you. You’ll slap yourself on the forehead for not having figured it out yourself.”
We were colleagues? That was almost as boggling a concept as the notion that there was an experience that Parsons had not had.
“Give me a hint,” I begged. “A morsel of data! I’ll puzzle out the enigma, but I haven’t enough clues to go upon.”
Laurence shook his head. “Sorry, Thomas. My lips are sealed.”
“You don’t know,” I said, feeling as though my lip wanted to jut out in a quite understandable pout. “You heard the name somewhere, perhaps, and you decided to torment me with it to take my mind off this one-of-a-kind experience ahead.”
He laughed, his warm baritone chuckle filling the room. “I spoke out of school, Thomas. Give in. You know you can’t tease it out of me. You’ll find out soon enough. Come along, now, and stop acting like Erita. It’s irritating enough when she does it. It’s unspeakable coming from you.”
The pout definitely attempted to assert itself as I followed him through the now-empty corridors of the Imperium Jaunter. A few LAIs passed us.
“Good afternoon, Lord Thomas, Lord Laurence.”
Normally, I greeted them as the good creatures they were, but I was overcome by a mix of puzzlement, wonder, curiosity and, yes, frustration. It so often seemed that everyone in my coterie was party to secrets that not only did they know and I didn’t, but were unwilling or unable to reveal them to me . . . yet. Still, I forced myself out of my snit enough to smile and nod. They didn’t seem to mind the cursory nature of my hails. Perhaps they were also privy to Uncle Laurence’s hoard of information. Biological beings tended largely to speak in front of those of the electronic persuasion as though they weren’t there or were not capable of comprehending that which was said. Naturally, the opposite was true. They were fully developed personalities, nearly always with far greater intelligence than most humans, at least, could ever aspire to.
Still, it wasn’t like me to maintain a sour disposition for any discernible interval. By the time we reached the shuttle bay, I was hopping with enthusiasm. My favorite uncle had come to visit me! We were setting out on a trip that Parsons had never taken. I couldn’t wait to see my aide-de-camp’s face when I returned and . . . . And my hand touched the empty holster on my hip. Whatever it was, I would have no proof but my word. Yet, I thought, my mood brightening further, that had always been good enough in the past.
The Jaunter, for all its great size, could be run efficiently by computer. At the moment, it was emptied to the bulkheads of humanity, Uctunity, and all other sentient species except for those LAIs who did not want to go to the platform and an unlucky soul or two from the crew who had been placed in the brig or the infirmary. Uncle Laurence and I clumped through the echoing bay toward a distant cor
ner. We passed my ship. It was under the auspice of the LAI on board, Angie, or NG-903, to give her her official designation. As I passed, the exterior lights went on in sequence, just to show she was paying attention to our passage. Every artificial intelligence for a parsec around already knew my viewpad was back in my cabin, so no one could speak to me bar directly.
Uncle Laurence looked up and drew a finger over the name embossed upon the prow as he passed it.
“An honor for your father,” he said, with a smile.
“I’m honored to be his son,” I replied. I meant every syllable. Laurence nodded.
“So you know? His history during the war?”
“Some of it,” I said. I fancied that no matter how many stories I heard from survivors that I would never know the full accounting of Rodrigo Park Kinago’s heroics. My mother never spoke of them to any of the three of us, and my father probably could not recall them, except on a very good day.
“Well, you’re following in his footsteps, far more than that lazy brother of yours,” Laurence said, wrinkling his nose. “I had hopes for him, but he’s happy being the titular governor of a most placid system. His staff does all the work, you know. He’s as smart as any Kinago, but so unmotivated!”
I shrugged. “Most of our cousins are unmotivated except by our whims, though those can be powerful impetuses.”
“Indeed,” Laurence said, with a grin. “Whims are what took me on my travels, but duty is what kept me there. You’ve gone into harness a bit young, but you can kick over the traces for a few years. Mr. Frank won’t mind, I promise you that.”
“I’m enjoying myself a good deal now,” I pointed out. “How many of my cousins can say that they’ve had a parade organized in their honor? One that they did not have arranged for themselves? Who has won the intersystem Grand Prix not once, but twice? Without the aid of an LAI pilot?”
“You, and you again!” My uncle laughed. “Come along, and you can add another entry to your scrapbook, albeit a private one.”
I glanced toward the sole remaining shuttle, the green pinpoint lights chasing around its entry hatch.
“We could watch the spectacle, then go,” I said, hopefully.
“At the rate the Zang move, we could age a year,” Laurence said, with a dismissive wave. “I really cannot afford to have any living being observe me long enough to discern my flight path. You will understand why shortly. Come on! That’s my ship. Come meet Gaia.”
Even such a well-defended vessel as the Jaunter had its own security drones and single-being fighters. Clusters of these small craft were spaced here and there on hexagonal, black and silver pads in the massive chamber so no individual strike from an invader could destroy all of them at once. The pads of two of the twelve squads were empty, out on regular patrol.
Behind the huddle that made up the currently dormant Squad Three, a needle of gleaming silver protruded upward. It had not been there before. Curious, I scrambled to round the official ships until I was before the newcomer, and had a good gawk.
Gaia was a slightly oblate sphere about half the size of the Rodrigo. The engines were arrayed on a thick ring about its midsection, making for superior maneuverability. The needle was a sensor array with repulsors and weapon apertures all along its length. The ship’s surface had been anodized in a warm bronze tone. Curiously, I saw no designations of any kind, not even a tail identification number. I peered at the vessel, trying to place the make and model.
“I thought I knew all the types of ships that cruise the starways,” I said, “but I’ve never seen one like that.”
“A beauty, isn’t she?” my uncle said, puffing up his chest with pride. “I designed it myself. I’ve had it nearly two decades. A custom job, from out of the Trade Union.”
“Really?” I asked, feeling my right eyebrow lift toward my hairline. “I thought the Imperium didn’t do official business with the Trade Union.”
The cluster of federated star systems ran along the second-most heavily populated section of the Imperium’s border after the Uctu Autocracy. Their guiding principle was “Profit Above All!” Not a stirring rallying cry, you might think, but its denizens were as devoted to their government and ways of life as we were, though they had many more internecine wars.
“Who said it was official?” Laurence asked, innocence beaming from his deep blue eyes. “I had money and a design and time to wait for the right deal to come along. When I opened the job to tender, I had 416 bidders. The winning engineers were ninetieth-generation shipbuilders. Come on board.”
An entry platform descended at the sound of his voice. I followed him inside.
As soon as I mounted the ramp, I felt the pull of the artificial gravity generator. The ramp led along the interior of the bulkhead. Because the ship wasn’t very large, the “floor” was markedly curved, and the core was always over my head.
“All systems operate from controllers in Gaia’s heart,” Laurence said, pointing ‘up.’ “The control room is about a fourth of the ship. I do pretty much everything in here: eat, listen to music and watch digitavids, repair modules, practice a hobby or two. There are two cabins, all with the finest of modern conveniences, and the remaining half is cargo space. I don’t travel much, but when I do, I like to have the best things around me.”
I surveyed the bridge. The stainless-steel-topped worktable that arced along one side of the bulkhead protruded far enough that one could walk up to it and not end up underneath it because of the gravity. All the viewers and screentanks were fixed above it. The dark-blue upholstered pilot’s seat stood on three-meter pylon facing them. The rest of the vast walls had cushions, bookcases, small tables and stools and other comforts sticking out at odd angles as if they were defying gravity, when they were doing anything but. An old-fashioned book with a solid, beige linen cover lay face down on the wall at approximately my eye level. I peered to see what he was reading. The title was clearly printed, but in a language I did not know.
Uncle Laurence tapped a control on the pylon. The pilot’s chair lowered itself to knee level. He sat down and strapped himself into the harness.
“Second seat, please, Gaia,” he said. “My nephew will be traveling with us today.”
“Of course,” a pleasant female voice replied, seeming to come from everywhere at once. “Welcome, Lord Thomas.”
“Thank you, er, Gaia,” I said. “I am very pleased to be here.”
Red laser lights flashed out of the bulkheads and ran up and down my body, then turned off just as suddenly. I jumped back as panels in the floor at my feet rearranged themselves. Five of them flipped over to reveal more dark blue padding. They moved together, then inverted to create a squared nest. It rose, shifting further, until the contraption that stopped at my knee level was a chair that would fit my long frame precisely. I sat down in it to confirm, and slapped the arm rests with gleeful palms.
“Excellent,” I pronounced. Straps lanced out from the side pads and wrapped themselves around my chest and over my lap. A pair of foot rests scooped up underneath my soles. Both seats rose on their individual standards and clicked into place. “But why do they have to be elevated?”
“It’s the gravity generators,” Laurence explained. “Otherwise you feel as if you’re looking down at the floor. By the time you get to your destination, one’s eyeballs are almost hanging out of one’s face.”
I laughed. I felt as though we were off on one of the expeditions on which he had often taken me and my siblings in our childhood.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He smiled and gave me a playful wink.
“I’m taking you home.”
CHAPTER 36
The platform, a vast, circular floor roofed with a force field, was sparsely populated despite the uniqueness of the approaching event. Parsons, stationed at a point where he could observe the influx from the lift cars as well as a broad arc of the carbon-friendly side of the dome, mused to himself that most beings would be content to observe the comin
g spectacle in retrospect, via high-quality digitavid or on amateur recordings shared in Infogrid files. The latter would be well represented: nearly all of the nobles present had their pocket secretaries, viewpads, or hovering camera eyes prepared for the moment. They were somewhat premature in their preparations, as the event was some hours or days yet to come. From studies that Parsons had made of previous spectacles, the energy level had not risen to the tipping point at which the planet above them would explode.
Lively instrumental music played an undertone to the excited roar of conversation from the spectators. The majority of those present were blissfully unaware that an event of importance had already taken place in the surrounding space. The Whiskerchin was at last liberated from its temporary thrall to the Kail. The Rodrigo’s company had remained on board to assist the Wichu in purging the ship’s computer network of any traces of the programs that Fovrates had installed in it and its LAI and AI staff. The LAIs, for their part, had shown embarrassment in having been involved in a mutiny. Those who had withstood the invaders, ColPUP* among them, downplayed any acclaim, stating that they had only been doing the jobs for which they had been hired. The passengers were, for the most part, serenely unaware that anything unusual had taken place during the voyage. They were eager to debark and join the now ongoing party to celebrate the upcoming celestial event.
The main players in that event were absent from the platform at the moment. The five Zang did not remain in one place on the Hraklion, nor on the vessel itself. Professor Derrida accompanied them most of the time. Parsons found her companionship with Proton Zang a curiosity and a unique opportunity that gave humans a narrow glimpse into the Elder Race. Though pressed by numerous of the spectators, she had not been able to confirm with any certainty when the event would take place.
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