by E. M. Foner
“I guess we don’t really have anybody of the emperor’s rank and power in the tunnel network species, but you might keep Jeeves next time,” Lynx suggested.
“Keep a Stryx?” The Dowager Empress cackled as she began stacking the Cryan Hah tiles back in their plain wooden case. “Stryx are pretty indestructible, if you haven’t noticed, which hardly makes them good hostage material. And even if we did catch his robotic puppet with its guard down, their minds aren’t locked into the same physical space. The Stryx went multi-dimensional long before our predecessor species came out of the forests and began damming streams.”
A number of Cayl cubs barreled into the room, batting an inky black ball back and forth between them. Every time the ball contacted a surface, it rebounded at an unexpected angle, as if it was rapidly spinning. When the ball shot past the table, Woojin made a dive for it, but it changed course midair to avoid his grasp. The Cayl cubs found this hilarious and fell on the floor alongside him, flailing their limbs in a display of mirth.
“I see males really are the same everywhere,” the Dowager Empress commented. She finished packing the Cryan Hah pieces back into their case and sighed. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten which one of you he belongs to.”
“Me,” Lynx said, getting up from the table and helping her husband off the deck.
“This morning I received a message from your Jeeves that the open house on Union Station is winding down and my Brynt will be coming home soon,” the empress said. “I’m sorry I’ve been so tied up with babysitting, it can’t have been a very nice hostage experience for you. If you don’t mind being in an airship with children, I’d like to take you on a tour of our surroundings.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Brinda said, rising from the table. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing more of your planet. But didn’t you tell the four ambassadors at the state dinner that hostage protocols prevent you from allowing us outside of the palace grounds?”
“They seemed so anxious to involve you in a fatal sight-seeing accident that I thought it wise to nip that idea in the bud,” Pava said. “The ambassadors aren’t the most original thinkers, but they are persistent, and I didn’t want to expose you to any unnecessary danger.”
“But we were told that the Cayl never lie to guests,” Lynx objected, immediately wishing she had chosen a more diplomatic way to express the thought.
“I’m sure you can see how it’s useful to us for our guests to believe that,” the Dowager Empress replied with a wink. “Now it’s time for my nap, so please make sure you have all of the cubs with you before you go out.”
The empress herded the young Cayl out of the game room before her, and then led the humans through a seemingly endless series of twisty passages to an armored door. There she turned around and faced the three, an unusually serious expression on her normally cheerful face.
“Can I trust you to keep a secret?”
“We’re professional spies,” Woojin said, placing his arm around Lynx’s shoulders. “It depends who you want the secret kept from.”
“Good answer.” Pava’s features relaxed into a bearish smile. “I’m not even sure why I asked that since I’m sure your Stryx do the same thing all the time. It’s just that I’m planning to bring you to the alien market later today, and it would be best not to mention this to any of the vendors.”
“Mum’s the word,” Woojin promised, and the two women nodded their agreement.
The empress said something their implants didn’t translate, and the door swung upwards, allowing them into a laboratory that would have looked at home in a twentieth century horror film. Oddly shaped containers of some transparent substance held brightly colored fluids that moved between vessels through looping spirals of tubing. Electrical discharges leapt between shiny metal balls in continuous arcs, and a rhythmic mechanical sound like a belt running over a flywheel provided the audio ambiance.
“Are you running an experiment?” Lynx asked the empress.
“None of this was here the last time I came, so it must be some kind of art project that the youngsters are working on. The device I wanted to show you is in the corner.”
Pava brought the humans over to a garishly painted statue of a mythical looking creature with two sets of wings. It was equipped with a single button on the top of its head, and a slot above a silver semi-hemispherical basin under the belly.
“Should I press the button?” Brinda asked, finding herself the closest to the device. The empress nodded, so the younger Hadad sister reached over and pushed the blue button with her forefinger. The wings flapped metallically a few times, there was a sound like a metal washer rolling down a long track, and then a gold coin popped out of the slot and clanged into the catch basin.
“It’s a mechanical bank,” Brinda exclaimed. “We’ve sold a few antique ones on the auction circuit. They used to be very popular with humans. This is the largest one I’ve ever seen, though come to think of it, the mechanism is usually designed to accept coins, not disgorge them.”
“Make some more,” the empress encouraged her. “Five for each of you should be plenty. A gold imperial goes a long way in the alien market.”
Brinda pressed the button four times in rapid succession, the creature flapped its metal wings steadily, and four more coins clanged out. “You guys try it,” she suggested to her companions.
As Woojin stepped forward and pressed the button, Lynx turned to the empress and asked, “Did you mean to imply that this little machine is minting these coins freshly for us?”
“It doesn’t mint them in the sense I think you mean, starting with gold bullion and shaping coins using a stamping or liquid molding process. The materializer uses a neutron collider on the upper deck to create a soup of gold atoms, after which they’re formed into coins with manipulator fields. I’d show you the materialization phase, but the gamma radiation levels require that it be heavily shielded. I’m sure you know that most of the gold in the universe comes from collisions between neutron stars, and although our Golden Goose is a pale imitation of nature, it helps me keep up with household expenses.”
“Do, uh, all the Cayl make their own gold?” Lynx asked.
“Oh, no. It’s a simple process but very energy intensive, and it would hardly be practical if the ship’s main engines hadn’t remained intact. I know the palace doesn’t make a very good impression on visitors, but there are some advantages to having access to warship-scale energy piles and equipment, not to mention the nearly unlimited closet space. Brynt frowns on my using our Golden Goose because he’d rather I sell more art forgeries, but I can hardly send the three of you out peddling my grandchildren’s pottery for pocket money.”
Lynx took her turn at making gold coins, and then the empress led them out of the room and up a different passage, away from the direction from which they’d arrived.
“I told my eldest granddaughter to gather up the cubs and meet us at the imperial yacht,” Pava said, guiding the humans through a particularly narrow point in the corridor where the bulkheads had been crushed in from both sides. “The deck can get a bit slippery up ahead because Brynt keeps putting off doing something about the leaks. I don’t often come this way.”
“I don’t get it,” Lynx muttered to her husband as the water began soaking through her socks. “They have a machine that makes gold out of, whatever, and she won’t hire somebody to repair the roof?”
“Hull,” Woojin corrected her. “Why don’t you just ask her?”
“I will,” Lynx declared, sloshing ahead. “Empress? Do you mind if I ask why you don’t just make some gold and pay somebody to repair the hull leaks?”
“The ship’s skin is a special alloy that can only be welded in a vacuum,” Pava replied. “All of our naval construction is done in orbital shipyards, of course, and nobody can justify the resources necessary to launch the palace into orbit for repairs. I think the real reason Brynt procrastinates gluing a tarp over this section of the hull is because the hounds like having a
place inside to splash around and get a drink.”
The corridor opened up into a large bay that was littered with sections of various types of vessels that were either undergoing repairs or being torn down for parts. Directly in their path was a craft that looked very much like it had been sawed in half along its length and then abandoned. A dozen heads popped up over the side and peered down at the new arrivals.
“Hurry up, Grams. The cubs are driving me crazy!” shouted a young Cayl. The humans recognized her as the granddaughter who had interrupted the state dinner to tell the empress about the cub with the stomach complaint. She was visible just long enough to deliver this message before she disappeared under a pile of playful young siblings and cousins.
“They look pretty excited about getting out,” Lynx said. “Is the yacht on the other side of that wreck?”
“Not exactly,” the empress replied, leading them to a ramp that penetrated the hull of the half-ship. “It doesn’t look like much, but I assure you it’s entirely airworthy. One of the previous emperors made it out of an old lifeboat because he wanted an atmospheric craft with a lot of power for towing, and of course, the palace is crammed with old lifeboats. He liked fresh air so he cut off half the hull, but he never got around to adding a convertible top for if it rains.”
A section of the palace hull above their heads began to retract and the yacht lifted smoothly into the air. The craft soared through the opening as soon as there was sufficient clearance, lightly scraping the side as the cubs pulled back their noses.
“Is the, uh, yacht’s captain a Cayl warrior?” Lynx asked nervously, as the vessel gained altitude and speed. A breeze was felt throughout the open boat, and the cubs and the hounds competed for space to hang their heads over the prow, smiling as the strong wind flattened their hair and cooled their tongues.
“My granddaughter, Krey, is flying,” the empress said, indicating the young Cayl near the rear of the open cockpit. The medium-size female had one paw on a joystick, but she appeared to be looking down, rather than forward. “Would you like to try? I’m sure she’d be willing to teach you.”
Over Woojin’s vociferous protest that Krey was doing just fine, Pava led the hostages to the stern. Halfway there, Lynx made the mistake of looking down and saw nothing but the ground rushing past. She grabbed her husband’s arm and choked back a scream.
“Is this section of the hull transparent, or are we held up by some sort of retention field?” Woojin asked the empress.
“It’s part of the original lifeboat hull, to allow the passengers to see out. All Cayl ships use transparent materials for sections of the hull. Oh, look at those boys trying to show off for our Krey.”
Far below them, the humans saw a pack of Cayl streaking across the fields on all fours to keep up with the imperial yacht. They seemed to collide with each other whenever the opportunity arose, leading to spectacular tumbles. At one point, as the young males approached a riverbank that looked more like a cliff, Krey took both of her hands off the joystick tiller to cover her eyes.
“If you don’t want to see them crack their skulls open, fly over the level fields until you wear them out,” the empress told her granddaughter in irritation.
The girl opened one eye and banked the air yacht sharply to starboard, without crossing the river. A couple of the young cubs hanging over the side were caught unawares, and they might have gone overboard if their guardian hounds hadn’t chomped down on the loose fur behind their necks, hauling them back. Below the half-lifeboat, a couple of the racing males failed to make the corner and skidded over the embankment for a steep drop into the river.
“Aren’t those boys risking serious injury?” Brinda asked.
“It’s part of their nature,” the empress replied. “Your Stryx tell us that our species is one of the few they’ve encountered with such an uneven distribution of males and females at birth. We start with twice as many males born as females, but by the time they reach maturity, the ratio is roughly equal. Our boys are utterly reckless.”
“But you’re supposed to be one of the most advanced biological species in the galaxy,” Lynx protested. “Can’t you fix it?”
“Supposed to be?” Pava repeated. “Don’t let my mother-in-law hear you say that. Of course we can interfere with the natural rhythms of our bodies and produce an equal number of males and females, but unless we sedated all of the males or established plural marriage, half of the females would die old maids. Our ancestors tried all three solutions, but it just made everybody unhappy, even the parents who were spared the deaths of their sons. In the end, we developed rituals to help us deal with the short, happy lives of so many of our offspring, and stopped warring with our nature.”
“So with all the science and technology you possess, one of those males showing off for your granddaughter could collide with a tree or a rock and die?”
“It happens frequently on mating runs,” the empress said. She gazed down through the transparent section of hull at the pack of males, which quickly was falling behind. “I doubt any of that lot have the stamina to catch my Krey when she’s ready for marriage. She has fast genes from both sides of the family.”
“And the parents of the boys won’t object over their marrying into the imperial family as your mother did?” Lynx asked.
“Imperial succession is strictly through the male line, so there’s no onus on marrying an imperial daughter or granddaughter,” the empress explained. “In addition to a daughter, I had three sons, two of whom survived and married. Krey is the firstborn daughter of my elder son, Bwine.”
“Ah, I think I finally have it all straight now,” Woojin said. “Bwine is the one Kiki told us she would appoint to replace Brynt if he persists with dissolving the empire.”
“What are you talking about?” the empress gasped, grabbing for a railing to hold herself steady. “Brynt has two younger brothers, Lang and Ruke. They’re both in line to succeed.”
“Tiki said she’s had enough of being Dowager Empress to last a lifetime, and that the empire obviously needs young blood. Wait. If Bwine is your son, wouldn’t that make you the next Dowager Empress?”
“Do you have the ability to contact the Stryx science ship that brought you here, or do we have to return to the palace?” the empress asked urgently. “I need to send Brynt a message.”
“Stryx Vrine said we could get through from anywhere with these,” Woojin said, offering the empress his necklace.
Pava held the empty locket in front of her mouth and spoke into the opening. “Stryx?”
“Yes, Empress,” Vrine replied. “I hope no harm has come to the hostages.”
“Nothing like that, Stryx. I need to get a message to my husband. I’m not requesting your extra-dimensional services, just that you send something through your tunnel next time it’s open.”
“What’s the message, Empress?”
“Brynt. Your mother plans to replace you with Bwine. Pava.”
Nineteen
“Something’s wrong,” Kelly asserted, looking around Mac’s Bones as if she expected to see storm clouds threatening below the atmosphere retention field. “Where’s Beowulf?”
“He ran off by himself after breakfast,” Samuel said, dancing around his mother with an invisible partner. “I wanted to go with him, but he beat me to the lift tube, and then it wouldn’t tell me where he went.”
“He must have smelled something through the ventilation system,” Joe said. “It used to happen from time to time before he was reincarnated. Usually, he’d come back and throw up all over the place, so it’s probably food-related.”
“Do you have to do that, Samuel?’ Kelly asked her son. “Isn’t practicing five days a week enough?”
“The Vergallians practice every day,” the boy told her. “They’re the best dancers.”
“A warrior should know how to dance,” the Cayl emperor said encouragingly. “Dancing helps develop good footwork for sword fighting.”
“I still feel like so
mething funny is going on, and it’s not the dog running off,” Kelly said.
Samuel grinned to himself and went on dancing. He’d noticed that his mother usually deferred to the Cayl, which was great, because the emperor almost always took the boy’s side. The two exceptions were lima beans and bedtime, both of which the emperor insisted were important for growing warriors.
“You’re always looking for problems on Saturdays,” Joe said. “It’s because you aren’t getting embassy pings every minute.”
“That’s it!” Kelly declared. “It’s too quiet. How come I’m not getting any complaints from the merchants in the Little Apple or the Shuk? Why aren’t any of the ambassadors pushing me for another emergency meeting?”
“Good morning,” a familiar young man called as he approached the patio. “Bob Steelforth, Galactic Free Press.”
“It’s the weekend, Bob,” Joe pointed out.
“I’m working,” the reporter said. “My editor sent me to get your thoughts about the Cayl police force that the Stryx hired. I’m sorry for bursting in on a Saturday morning like this.”
“What?” Kelly exclaimed. She turned to Brynt to see his reaction.
“I’m sorry for coming on a Saturday,” Bob repeated, speaking louder and slower for the old folks.
“I meant, what’s this about a Cayl police force?” Kelly said in exasperation.
“Oh. The Stryx hired a whole bunch of Cayl from somewhere. They have dogs that look just like yours, maybe a bit smaller.”
“That’s not possible,” Brynt protested. “I sent my shuttle back through the temporary tunnel.”
“Maybe some of them went freelance,” Bob said, showing off his new mastery of reporting jargon. “All I know is that the Little Apple and the Shuk deck are normal again, and when I stopped at the entertainment district on my way here, you could actually hear the music over the yelling for the first time since all those guests arrived.”
“What’s going on, Libby?” the EarthCent ambassador subvoced.
“Jeeves talked Gryph into asking a few of the second generation Stryx to divert their science ships to some of the closer Cayl holdings to hire temporary help,” Libby replied privately.
