Master of None

by N Lee Wood

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2004 by N. Lee Wood

  All rights reserved.

  Aspect

  Warner Books

  Time Warner Book Group

  Hachette Book Group,

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  The Aspect name and logo are registered trademarks of Warner Books.

  First eBook Edition: September 2004

  ISBN: 978-0-446-51014-1

  Book design by H. Roberts Design

  Cover design by Don Puckey/Shasti O’Leary Soudant

  Cover illustration by Dave Bowers

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  PART TWO

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Chapter XXXVI

  Chapter XXXVII

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Chapter XXXIX

  Chapter XL

  Chapter XLI

  Chapter XLII

  Chapter XLIII

  Chapter XLIV

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PERSONA NON GRATA

  “My name is Nathan Crewe. I’m a Hengeli citizen. I request to see a lawyer.”

  The corners of her lips curled up sardonically. “A lawyer?” Alarm prickled the hair on his neck. “Under the human rights directives of the Convention, I am entitled to legal counsel.”

  Vasant Subah stared at him, and rubbed her forefinger across her chin as if to stifle a laugh. “What Convention? Vanar never signed any Convention. You are subject to Vanar laws now. You’re suspected of being a saboteur or a terrorist.”

  “Terrorist!” he blurted in shock. “Don’t I even get a trial?” “You’ve already had your trial. You’ve been found guilty of illegal entry.”

  “Fine, no problem, I admit it. So deport me.”

  For some reason that made her smile even wider . . .

  ACCLAIM FOR

  MASTER of NONE

  “Combining the gender mind-bending of Ursula K. Le Guin, the exoticism of Robert E. Howard, and a feel for aliens reminiscent of C.J. Cherryh, MASTER OF NONE offers the reader both food for thought and dessert for delectation. I recommend it to all fans of plenary world-building and absorbing sf adventure.”

  —James Morrow, author of Only Begotten Daughter and Towing Jehovah

  “Of all the great books I have read on the politics, nature, and meaning of gender, this is one of the very best.”

  —Michael Moorcock, author of the Elric Saga

  This one’s for Jon.

  Prologue

  NATHAN FOLLOWED THE SAHAKHARAE FROM THE MEN’S GATE INTO THE wide portico surrounding the star-shaped courtyard. Blue shadows cut the sunlight into brilliant shafts through a lace of stone, hurting his eyes. In the center of the garden, water cascaded over layers of rough, black rock into a pool. Koi flashed under the ripples, tiny shivers of striated jewels, ruby, pearl, and gold.

  Two young men reclined on the grass, half hidden by the tall heads of flower blossoms nodding in the heat. Obviously infatuated with one another, their hands slipped inside undone clothing to expose smooth brown skin gleaming with sweat. They broke off their embrace and stared in silence as the sahakharae ushered Nathan along the path across the cloisterlike garden.

  A dozen or so men occupied the interior courtyard. In the cool arcades around the garden edge, old men lounged against stone pillars in the shade, conversing in quiet voices. All but one were wrapped in milky blue sati to protect them from the sun, the gauzy edges of cloth pulled over heads to shade their wrinkled faces. Fans of colored paper warded off insects. The loner wore nothing at all, stretched naked on the lip of stone, his body sun baked to mahogany, his own sati folded neatly for use as a pillow.

  As the old men caught sight of Nathan, they hushed, watching him in silence. He tried to keep his attention politely focused on the intricate braid swinging between the sahakharae’s shoulders, but couldn’t help glancing around the courtyard.

  A group of boys sat on the fountain edge, the youngest no older than ten, a thick tumble of black hair screening his face. They laughed as they splashed each other with water, flicking wet fingers and dodging the drops. Alerted by the change in sound, they glanced around, smiles vanishing as they watched with wide, inquisitive eyes.

  Nathan found it hard not to stare back. The naked man sat up, one hand shading his eyes as he squinted in the sunlight. The courtyard was so silent Nathan could hear the faint melody of birds overhead. He was acutely aware of his shabby appearance, the ragged edge of his linen sati, his own short braid and dusty bare feet.

  The sahakharae extended one hand mutely to direct him to a passage leading into the dark interior. As Nathan passed the old men, he held his hands together in greeting, bowing his head in respect. The old men did not respond, but the naked man nodded a fraction in response. The youngest child by the fountain suddenly giggled, his high laugh cut short as his companions shushed him.

  Nathan stumbled after the sahakharae up the curved stairway, his eyes not yet adjusted to the gloom. From outside, the Nga’esha House dominated the hill like a huge fortress, a city in miniature. The interior seemed even larger, a rambling web of arches and corridors connecting numerous wings. The sahakharae halted at a carved doorway of the main wing, pulling one side open and indicating to Nathan to go in with a graceful motion of his hand and a small bow.

  Nathan stood alone as the door closed behind him. A thrill of panic shot through his gut before a door opposite opened to admit him. The woman regarding him was young, dark hair pulled back severely from around a narrow, heart-shaped face, brown eyes hard but, he hoped, not hostile. She wore loose saekah trousers, the bloodred sheer fabric gathered in cuffs at her ankles, the pleats of her watery blue tunic brushing just below her knees. Dozens of heavy gold bracelets stacked both arms, extending from wrist almost to elbow.

  With the palms of his hands together, he pressed his crossed thumbs hard against his sternum, fingertips nearly touching his chin, exactly as he’d been taught. Keeping his spine straight, he let his head fall forward on his neck, eyes down, and stood rigidly in this awkward position.

  He heard a faint staccato of breath, and realized she had laughed. When he looked up, she was smiling, her eyes crinkled in amusement. He knew he’d done something incorrect, but not what. To his relief, it didn’t seem to matter much as she nodded politely toward him, signaling an invitation to enter.

  Inside, she gestured toward a small fountain flowing from the wall, the pipe designed to shape the continual stream o
f water into a coiling arc splashing into the wide shallow basin. He had learned enough to understand by now what was expected, stepping into the basin to hold his hands under the running water, scrub briefly at his face, and wash the unclean dust of the outside from his feet.

  Once ritually cleansed to her satisfaction, he followed her down the hall, her sandals and his wet bare footsteps noiseless against the thick carpet. She led him through a wide stone entry into a huge, sunny room, sunlight pouring in from double rows of arched windows supported by deceptively frail columns. Brilliant white plastered walls reflected prismed rainbows from cut glass. The smell of hot earth and honeysuckle drifting through open windows mixed with the scent of burnt incense. Long streamers of silk hung from the ceiling arched high overhead, rippling in the slight breeze, tiny brass bells sewn to weight their ends. Dark and light grains of wood wove an intricate maze on the inlaid floor, spiraling toward the center of the spacious room, the burnished wood reflecting the raised platform like an island on the surface of a still lake.

  Half a dozen other women were scattered around the edges of the room, on low settees or large floor cushions, some dressed in the traditional close-fitting silk mati underneath lengths of shimmering blue silk elaborately folded and wrapped around slender bodies. Gold jewelry sparkled on dark skin, long black hair laced with pearls and gems. The rest wore bright saekah trousers and kirtiya cinched at the waist with ornate belts. One of them idly fingered a carved staff lying beside her, eying him distrustfully.

  An old woman reclined on the dais, dressed only in a loose tasmai, her frail body half buried in pillows. One arm stretched over an edge, the tip of a water pipe dangling from her fingers. She blew a stream of smoke from her thin lips, watching him with heavy-lidded reptilian eyes, the sclera as yellowed as her teeth. She reminded him of a hawk: contemptuous, powerful, the hint of steel hidden under velvet feathers.

  The younger woman bowed loosely toward her, and seated herself with two other women at a discreet distance. He stood uncertainly, listening to the faint laughter of boys in the garden outside as she nodded. “Be welcome, Nathan Crewe,” she said in his native language, her husky voice gentle. The sound carried clearly across the vast room. “A pleasure to see you again.”

  He had had to petition at the Nga’esha gates for several weeks before he was granted another audience, this time following the correct and complex formalities. Making a spectacle of himself a second time would not be tolerated. Despite her apparent congeniality, he knew his intrusion into the agenda of the Nga’esha pratha h’máy had better be of interest to her, rather than merely vital to him. He inhaled a deep breath, more for courage, and strode toward her, stopping exactly three steps away from the dais. Methodically, he swept the edge of his white sati to one side and knelt, knees together, buttocks resting on his heels, right foot crossed against the flat of the left. He put his palms against his thighs, fingers together, and inclined his torso in a slight bow, paying scrupulous attention to the details.

  “I pray, l’amae, that I find you in good health,” he said in Vanar, carefully parroting phonetic sounds he had memorized, words he barely understood, “and wish you continued long life and good fortune.” His tongue strained against the complex diphthongs and glottal stops threatening to choke him, the endless nasalized umlauts his surly tutor had literally tried to pound into his skull.

  Suppressed laughter whispered around the room. His cheeks burned with a sudden flush. “I said that wrong, didn’t I?” he asked the older woman, switching to his native Hengeli.

  The old woman squinted in amusement as much as from the smoke curling in her eyes. “Not at all; entirely correct,” she assured him in the same language. Her lilting accent would have been sensual in a younger woman. “You are making excellent progress indeed.” He settled back on his heels, and stared at her as if for the first time. Compared to the other women in the room, her dress was somber, no jewelry but the bracelets on her forearms, the blue birdsilk tasmai robe pulled around her with the Nga’esha family emblem hand-embroidered against each shoulder. He had been allowed to see her only once after his release from custody, and her health had clearly worsened since that nearly disastrous fiasco. Her skin had paled to a sickly yellow beneath the olive complexion, thinning white hair exposing the bumps of her skull. She seemed brittlely thin, her ankles more like knots on sticks covered with bloodless parchment.

  He knew Yaenida was not simply old, but ancient, in the way only those who could afford repetitive regenerative treatments were. Yet her dark eyes were still as energetic, as shrewd and hard, as the day he had first met her.

  “Pratha Yaenida,” he said, trying to keep his pulse down, “I’m not making much real progress at all.”

  “Nonsense—”

  “Please,” he interrupted more sharply than he intended. The younger women in the corner glanced up with narrowed eyes, murmuring between themselves. “Please,” he repeated, softening his tone. “I am not. You don’t do me any favors by lying to me, Yaenida.”

  She frowned, her thin mouth marked by deep fissures in her skin. He sat very still, knowing he was taking a huge risk by speaking to her with such intimacy. Once she had found his naive familiarity with her charming. He remembered how amused she had been by his shock once he realized the depth of his ignorance. Now he had no excuses to forget exactly who and what she was. Or who and what he was now.

  Vanar was a closed world with only one major corporate interest: interstellar Worms, the lifeline linking over three hundred systems with Vanar at their core like a tiny spider in a giant web. No one owned the Worms; they were simply a mysterious artifact of space. But only Vanar Pilots were capable of flying ships in and, more importantly, out again at another part of the universe in one piece. Since the secretive Vanar Pilots were the only creatures who could guide the luxury liners and cargo freighters safely across the huge expanse of space, Vanar maintained its monopoly on not just interstellar trade but on all travel between solar systems.

  Vanar charged a moderate sum for each Worm transfer, affordable to each individual shipper, and service remained cheap and reliable. But the traffic added up to an enormous fortune for the Nine High Vanar Families who controlled the Worms.

  Hundreds of thousands of people outside Vanar were directly employed by her companies; millions more worked for companies servicing other Vanar corporations. The Nga’esha Corporation owned half the stations in the known star systems, which comprised all of the systems under Hengeli sovereignty. The politics of a hundred planets were shaped and moved by Vanar corporate interests. He could almost feel the weight of that enormous wealth around him, channeled through the High Families into the hands of the few great l’amae like the pratha h’máy Yaenida dva Darahanan ek Qarshatha Nga’esha, quite likely the most powerful being in all the inhabited systems. His chest began to ache as he realized he’d been holding his breath.

  “All right,” she conceded, breaking the tension, and waited for him to speak.

  He exhaled and tried to keep his relief off his face. “I asked to see you exactly because I am having a lot of trouble with both your language and your culture. I’m a botanist...I was a botanist,” he corrected himself. “I was never very good at xenosociology.”

  She brought the tip of the water pipe to her mouth, sucking it thoughtfully. Turning her head, she blew a thin stream of pungent smoke away from him out the side of her mouth, keeping her eyes on him. They glittered in her cavernous sockets. “I take it you are dissatisfied with your current tutor?”

  “No,” he said hastily, “absolutely not.” At their last meeting, he’d had to abjectly beg for help to get even the sullen elderly woman the Nga’esha family paid to coach him in Vanar language and protocol. He wasn’t about to jeopardize even that small benefit by criticizing his tutor to her employer. “Any fault or misunderstanding is entirely mine—”

  Yaenida chuckled. “Oh, do stop it, Nathan, and get to the point. What is it you want from me?”

 
“Be my teacher again, just for a few minutes.” He waited, and when she inclined her head, he said, “What does it mean when a woman gives a man three shafts of grain?”

  Her eyebrows raised in surprise, making her look owlish. “What kind of grain? What color?”

  “Thin yellow stalks, so high.” He measured with his hands. “Multiple heads of grain, reddish, definitely nothing native, but not in the Triticum or Oryza genera, either. Possibly a hybrid variant of some monocotyledonous grass related to the Avena family.” He saw her draw on her pipe to hide her mirth. Bubbles sputtered in the pipe through a cloud of thick liquid. The smell of the drugged smoke cloyed the back of his throat. “I think the common name is muhdgae. Dark brown color. Seed pods are already open. They’re tied together with two pieces of ribbon—one a burgundy color, the other a sort of pale purple.”

  “Ah,” she said, knowingly. “A young lady from the Changriti motherline?”

  He nodded.

  She looked out the window at the scuttling clouds. “How interesting. Is the young woman’s name Kallah, by any chance?”

  “Yes,” he said, his stomach sour.

  “Did she offer it to you personally?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you take it directly from her hands? Publicly, in front of witnesses? Female witnesses?” Yaenida was grinning.

  “Yes,” he said. He had bumped into Kallah Changriti, quite literally, when she passed him while in the company of another young Changriti woman. She had acknowledged his halting apology and bow with an arrogant nod of her head, but her shy smile completely spoiled the effect. She’d said nothing to him, but when she glanced back, he impulsively winked at her. Her eyes had widened and she’d clamped a hand over her mouth to stop the laugh, then disappeared in the crowd still clutching the arm of her companion. That one friendly gesture had been his fatal mistake. A week later, he had unwittingly accepted her strange gift—a gift that had nearly gotten him killed.

  “She just walked up to me with a couple of her friends and shoved it in my face without a word. I didn’t know what else to do, so I took it. I didn’t want to be impolite.”