Galactic Empires

by Neil Clarke

  Outside, languid in the vacuum of space, Albiorix stroked Sarasvati’s stony mantle with the fluid tip of a miles-long tentacle—an overture and an offering. Sarasvati recalled Albiorix of old, and his strength and boldness were more than she could have hoped for. She extended a multitude of soft arms from deep within the moonlet that served as her shelter and her home, and entwined them with his. She dwarfed him as she embraced him. Her tentacles brushed the length of his nacreous spiral shell, and in the silence dizzying patterns of light flashed across both their surfaces. The colors matched and melded, until they raced along his arms and up hers and back again. Sarasvati was receptive, and eager to welcome Albiorix after his lonely journey across the vastness. He disentangled himself and drifted down to the tip of her long axis, and they both spread their arms wide as he clasped his head to the orifice there. She released her great outer valve for him, and he gently discharged his passengers and all their cargo. Sarasvati accepted them gracefully, and in return, flooded his interior with fresh atmosphere from her reserves. Now duty and foreplay had been dispensed with, and they embraced again in earnest, spinning in the void.

  The sphincter on Sarasvati’s inner surface dilated open, and the passengers off Albiorix stepped through into Port-Town, armed and alert. The arrivals were well aware that half the inhabitants of any orbital would tear newcomers apart just to see what they carried in their packs, and they hustled down the quay in tight phalanxes that bristled with weapons. They no doubt came from richer lands—Jemmi noticed the glint of steel in the trappings of their spears and crossbows as they passed. One group brandished old-style plasma rifles, but Jemmi assumed that was a bluff; everyone knew the smart electronics hadn’t worked since the day the Cosmopolis fell. The crowds parted grudgingly around this threat, and Roycer was pushed closer to Jemmi, his gaze never leaving her face.

  The rest of the townsfolk watched the arrivals’ every move as they sought shelter in the winding streets. Those that could strike deals with families or inns to harbor them were likely to survive. This must have been an especially long voyage, Jemmi thought, or else star travel must be harder than anyone remembered. These arrivals all looked sunken-cheeked and worn down as if drained, or haunted by something they could not name.

  One last traveler stepped through into Sarasvati, alone. He was the oddest thing Jemmi had ever seen. He was tall and slightly stooped and unnaturally pale—both his skin and his sparse hair were the same shade of thin gruel—and although at a distance Jemmi assumed he was very old, as he approached Jemmi realized she could not guess his age at all. His only luggage was a canister that hung from his shoulder on a strap. He walked unarmed along the barrier and Jemmi was certain he would be snatched up, yet no one in the throng made a move towards him or particularly noted his presence. He took his time, scanning the faces and garments as if looking for something. He stopped in front of Jemmi and her boy, and smiled. His teeth were the same color as his skin, and were all broad and very large in his gums.

  “You’ll do,” he told the boy. “Shouldn’t we be getting home now?”

  Wordlessly, the boy nodded and released Jemmi’s hand. He slipped under the barrier and joined the traveler, and led him down the quay into town.

  Jemmi, stunned with amazement and impotent wrath, stood there slack-jawed until long after they left her sight.

  With the excitement over, the crowd melted away, and Jemmi saw no chances to get close to anyone else. She spent the rest of the day sidestepping traffic and looking into windows, and she was able to grab a bit more to eat in the same manner she had acquired breakfast. After dusk one or two men on the darkened streets spoke to her, but they didn’t look useful and she didn’t like what their voices implied, so after that she took to helping people ignore her. That meant she couldn’t get indoors to sleep, but luckily Sara was still too distracted with her beau to make a proper rain. Jemmi spent the night curled at the foot of a weather-beaten neighborhood shrine at the end of a narrow alley. It was certainly not what she had hoped for when she had decided to make the journey to town, but it was not too different from what she had left behind. Amongst the incense ash and candle-stubs and tentacled figurines, some housewife had left a rag doll dressed in a new set of toddler’s clothes, a supplication to Sara for an easy birth and a healthy baby. The offering of a portion of a family meal that sat alongside it had barely gone cold, but some things were sacred, and Jemmi was not tempted to take it.

  She fell asleep thinking how happy she was for old Sara, and she dreamed a wondrously clear vision of the two lovers floating clasped together with countless arms, surrounded by stars, auroras chasing along their skins. Jemmi accepted the image without question, notwithstanding she had never seen a sky before.

  She awoke when she felt that Sara was about to make dawn, and she stood in her alley to watch it. Directly overhead, the coil of viscera that stretched along Sarasvati’s axis sparked and sputtered with flashes of bioluminescence, and then kindled down its entire length. As the light phased from gold to yellow to white, Jemmi was able to pick out the fields and woods and streets of her own village hanging high above and upside down along Sarasvati’s great inner vault. It was significant to her only as a starting point; she had come to town now, and her home would be here. She set out walking again, looking for breakfast and Opportunity.

  Before she found either, she found the traveler. He was sitting on the veranda of a home in a wealthy neighborhood, drinking tea and reading. The street was busy with passers-by, but none of them seemed to take any notice of his odd looks, or his book, or the fact that he seemed to actually know how to read it. Jemmi stopped in the street in front of him and stared.

  The pale man stirred in his seat and looked up from his book. Jem-mi’s thoughts immediately shifted to other things—the kerchief on that woman walking past and how she would wear it if she had it, what plans the tradesman across the way might have for the bound lamb he carried, and wouldn’t a single gutter down the middle of the street make it easier to clean than one down each side?—as if there were a broad, gentle pressure in the center of her mind. This, the thought struck her, must be what she made the people in crowds around her feel. She held her ground and pushed back.

  The man met her gaze with a small, amused smirk. “What can I do for you, daughter?” he called down.

  The pressure in Jemmi’s mind immediately grew focused and became an urge to comply, practically dragging an answer from her. She refused, and met the force head-on. The compulsion increased, and she resisted.

  She stood there frozen by the exertion, and suddenly the frontal assault on her mind dissipated, replaced by the barest sideways push that took her completely off balance.

  “I had a boy,” she called back, and heard the anger in her voice in spite of herself. “A boy and a dry place to sleep.”

  “Indeed?” the pale man answered. “Now, what would make you think—Oh my . . . ” His little smirk wavered, and he said, mainly to himself, “Here, in this forsaken backwater? Can it be?” He considered his closed book for a moment, then put it aside and stepped to the veranda railing. “I think perhaps we should get to know each other. Won’t you come up?”

  If there was any coercion now, it was too subtle for Jemmi to feel, and she was intrigued by his bearing, and warily flattered. She joined him, and he sat her beside him like a lady of substance.

  “My name,” he said, “is Yee.”

  “Neh, that’s a funny name, isn’t it?”

  His half-smirk returned. “Possibly. It was originally much longer, and there was a string of titles that went after it at one time, but these days Yee is sufficient for my needs.” He had an old-fashioned accent that made her think of fancy dances attended by the lords of planets, and a way of speaking as if every word counted.

  “I’m Jemmi, then.”

  “Jemmi, it is an unexpected pleasure to meet you. You are what, eleven, twelve years old?” Up close, Yee’s eyes were nearly colorless, but Jemmi got the impression
that if he looked too long at something, it would start to smolder—or maybe Yee would.

  “Fourteen.”

  “Fourteen? Ah, yes, of course. Puberty would have begun. And I don’t suppose you eat particularly well. Forgive me—I’ve been a neglectful host. Would you join me in breakfast?”

  She nodded.

  “I suspected as much. Roycer!” Yee called, barely raising his voice.

  The boy from the crowd at the quay stepped out of the door as if he had been waiting beside it. He had the look of someone who had been working feverishly all night.

  “I believe our guest could do with a bit to eat,” said Yee.

  “Breakfast! Of course!” said the boy, as if it were a stroke of genius. He disappeared back into the house.

  “Tell me, Jemmi,” continued Yee. “Do you have any family?”

  She shook her head.

  “So I conjectured. They didn’t, by any chance, die under mysterious circumstances within the past few months, did they?”

  The glance she shot him was all the answer he needed.

  “I believe we have much in common, you and I . . . and I honestly can’t recall ever saying that to anyone else.”

  Roycer hurried out of the house with a tray piled with a random assortment of cold meats and vegetables and cups and loaves and cheeses. He set it down before them and stepped away. Yee made a graceful gesture with an open palm, and Jemmi tore into it.

  “Perhaps you could also prepare a bath for our guest,” Yee suggested while she ate.

  “Hot water!” the boy muttered to himself. “Cool water! And soap!” and raced back inside.

  Yee watched Jemmi bolt down the food. “You would not be reduced to this if you were on a true world,” he reflected. “A planet holds more riches than one person could ever grasp, and you would just be discovering you could take anything you desired right now. How ironic that you and I should both be trapped out in space, at the mercy of the vagaries of a forgotten fad.”

  Jemmi looked up. “What’s that, then?”

  “A fad?” said Yee. “A trend of fashion. A novelty. I’m sure you must take it for granted, but please believe me when I tell you that it is not at all an intuitive choice for a human to live in the belly of a mollusk adrift in the ether. When I commissioned the first orbitals, they were intended merely as pleasure palaces to keep my associates content and distracted. We gave the males mobility only to ensure that the species bred strong and true, not because we planned to ride them.”

  “You did? Like Sara? Like Albiorix?”

  “Yes. Your Sarasvati is one of the oldest, one of my first. Through a twist of fate, I happened to be visiting one of her sisters the day the Cosmopolis fell. There wasn’t time to return groundside before the machines stopped working of course, and not even a big ship like Albiorix is strong enough to make planetfall.

  “Without the smart machines, you and I may ride ships from one impoverished orbital to the next, while the planets are rich and savage, but utterly isolated. The resources to rebuild civilization are there, but always just beyond my reach.”

  Jemmi had no clear idea of how long ago the Cosmopolis had fallen, but if Yee had been there her original impression was correct, and he was quite old. She was still hungry, but she was smart enough to stop eating before she got sick or sleepy. She pushed the tray away from her, half its contents untouched. Yee seemed to note this with the barest hint of an approving nod. Jemmi thought back to Sara’s joy at the unexpected arrival of a suitor, and connected it to this unexpected man.

  “Neh, why did Albiorix come back to Sara?”

  “Ah, truth be told, it was not his intention at all. Albiorix prefers his route through his regular harem, and he likely planned to call on Deme-ter, and then Freya. It was time for me, however, to move rimward. It was a considerable struggle to make him accept my lead.”

  No one had ever taken such pains to answer Jemmi’s questions before. She composed another one. “Why rimward, then?”

  His smirk this time was a bit indulgent. “I have been to the galactic core, and I no longer believe I will find what I seek there. I am a man on a quest, you see.”

  The boy appeared in the doorway. “The bath is ready,” he announced to the veranda in general.

  “Roycer serves with excellent enthusiasm,” Yee confided with a lowered voice. “Do you find everyone in Sarasvati so?”

  Jemmi shrugged, nonplussed. “No one ever serves me,” she admitted.

  “Indeed? Well that must change. That must change immediately.” He stood and offered his hand. “Would you care to join us inside?”

  Roycer and Yee led her into the house, which was very old. Parts of it must have been built before the Fall, because they were made of tex-tureless materials Jemmi had no words for, while other rooms were made of wood and stone. They passed through a side parlor, where the rest of Roycer’s family lolled in chairs or sprawled across the rug. Jemmi counted two parents, a brother, and three sisters, all with sunken, husk-like faces. They were all dead. She was very surprised—her parents had looked the same way when they died.

  “A pity, I know,” said Yee, gesturing towards the corpses with an upraised chin, “but I needed to simplify the household, and the boy is strong enough for my needs for the time being.” Roycer didn’t seem to see them at all.

  Roycer’s family was so rich they had a room just for baths, at the back of the house. It was floored with rough flagstones and had a hearth for heating the water, and a high-backed earthenware tub right in the middle. Jemmi thought it was very odd to take a bath in someone else’s house in the middle of the day, and momentarily froze with the apprehension that she was being entrapped, but Yee dismissed it with a shake of his head.

  “If you want to pass as townsfolk,” he told her, “you really shouldn’t be noticeably filthier than they are. Besides, I am too old to take advantage of you, and I promise Roycer will be a perfect gentleman. He will scrub your back if you like.”

  Yee graciously turned to face the wall, and on her other side, Roy-cer did the same. Perhaps this was what the high-born did during morning visits. Jemmi let her ragged tunic and leggings fall to the floor, and stepped in. The water was hotter than any water she had ever touched, but she was committed, so she gasped and puffed and slid herself down the side of the tub in tender increments. Her knees immediately disappeared behind swirls of brown. It was scalding, but she discovered that if she kept her legs pressed together and moved only when absolutely necessary, it was nearly relaxing. When she was settled, Yee sat himself on a stool in a corner, looking for all the world like a pale long-legged spider. Roycer remained where he was.

  Jemmi picked up a cloth and swiped experimentally at dark patches on her skin. Yee suggested she try the soap, and she had more luck that way. Underneath, she was rather fair, and turning pink in the hot water.

  “Neh, Yee,” she said, comparing a pink-scrubbed arm to a besmudged one. “Where are you from?”

  “Ah,” he said. “I was born in the chief city of the greatest dominion the world had ever known.”

  “The Cosmopolis Core?”

  He shook his head. “Long before that. This was so long ago that it was little more than a legend to the builders of the Cosmopolis. In those days our god walked apart from us as a formless creature of faith and awe, quite unlike the beings who have given us their bodies to be our homes and our worlds in this age. He failed us in the end, I suppose, because that empire fell. It was not the first empire to fall, and it certainly was not the last, but it fell badly when it went. And I was a young boy, trapped on a narrow and crowded island of towers when the chaos descended.”

  Jemmi was silent. Anyone raised among the half-buried reminders of the abrupt and terrible failure of the Cosmopolis had a visceral understanding of that type of chaos.

  “This was all so far back that I can recall only the memories of recalling it centuries later. But I know the instrument of our downfall was a plague, that our enemies brought among us
. Death tore through us so quickly that we who considered ourselves the capital of the world and the heart of its hope were no longer a city, but brutal pockets of marauders running through a steel-and-glass wasteland. I was thirteen then, and the sickness seized me suddenly. It was clear that I would die, but I did not. When I fought to live, I was somehow able to reach out and find strength in the people closest to me. When I recovered, I found they had wasted away in proportion to the vigor I gained. My parents and siblings were dead and empty around me, and I was utterly alone.

  “Then the savages who had been our neighbors found our home and ransacked it. I cowered and sought to make myself invisible to their eyes, and they walked past me without seeing me, though I could have put out a hand and touched them. At that point I realized I was now something different, but there was no one to explain it to me.”

  Jemmi knew exactly what he meant.

  “Many dark years followed, but I survived, and my people worked diligently to rebuild something of their society, and I always amassed the best of everything. Gradually I realized this industriousness was my own doing—I could not force a man to do a thing he did not wish to do, but I could place an idea in that man’s head and give him the drive to realize it at any cost. The same way, I believe, that you are now learning to do, Jemmi. I felt your mind as you stood out on the street. A power has begun to emerge in you, though you do not know how to use it. This is a rare and precious gift. In all the history of the world, it may be only we two who have had it. And you are the first I have ever told.

  “While the rest of our planet squabbled in the dust, my people strove in lockstep and regained their learning and power. They had been close to the secret of star travel when I was a child, though this knowledge was lost for generations during the dark ages. Eventually, though, I saw that mankind’s future lay in its ability to spread across worlds, and I gave them the urge to create that technology. When they finally left to cross space in the first great wormhole-drive craft, I went with them, always as a counselor, never as a ruler. That is the proper role for you and me.” Jemmi nodded, wide-eyed.