Tales of the Continuing Time and Other Stories

by Moran, Daniel Keys

  “It’s a pleasure to wear black again. It’s been out of style at Court since the Minimalists lost the Fashion War.”

  Marcus looked at her. “Is that a joke?”

  “The Director prefers in general a lighter, indeed more colorful look than has been traditional among night faces. The Minimalists, led by Shiva Curiachen the Younger, attempted to depose her. They failed and since then it is rare that a visitor at Court braves the Director’s displeasure with even dull browns or blues, to say nothing of true blacks.”

  Marcus could think of nothing to say.

  Ola said, “You don’t like this restaurant. Why did you choose it?”

  It was Magarin’s, the restaurant where Marcus had proposed to his wife – though that had been out on the public floor. This room was where Jay Jackles had frequently taken dinner, back when he was the Executive and Marcus his Chief of Security. Marcus imagined he could feel the electromagnetic radiation swarming over them, from all the monitoring devices – he said, “It’s a good restaurant,” and could not quite keep the sourness out of his voice.

  “I suspect it was not your choice.”

  “No. It was – picked for us.”

  “On Friday,” said Ola, “Able Yereshri and Able Lankre are scheduled to arrive on Benardine.” Marcus stared at her again – Yereshri and Lankre were among the top Atangan opposition leaders; Marcus had never expected to see either of them in the flesh, certainly not on Benardine. “Friday evening, they and you and I are scheduled to meet with Executive Wilson and ex-Executive Jackles. There I intend that Benardine and Atango representatives discuss the terms for a cease-fire, and then for a lasting peace.”

  Marcus found his voice. “Discuss? Or have dictated to them?”

  “What a boring question, Marcus. You’ve been doing better until now.” He opened his mouth to respond and she gestured to the human waiter, who had since seating them been standing motionless five paces from the table. “Let’s order.”

  SHE ORDERED RATOOLISH, a sauteed vegetable dish of slissi origin; most of the vegetables were imported from Atango. The smell reminded Marcus of a firefight he’d survived, in a market-place on Atango that had smelled of spicy ratoolish, on his thirty-third birthday. With the ratoolish she ordered a glass of Edlans Riesling; she drank half the wine but after smelling it did not touch the food.

  Later he said, “You shouldn’t have invited Jay Jackles to your meeting Friday.”

  “Why not?”

  “He has no standing. You should negotiate with Executive Wilson’s administration – that’s the proper channel.”

  “You imply that I should respect the processes of your democracy. Why would I?”

  “Because it’s the correct way to do things,” Marcus said patiently. “I don’t like Wilson, but he was elected with due –”

  Looking back, years later, he thought it might have been the only time she interrupted him during her stay on Benardine. “You are proud of your system of government. You consider it superior to other systems, even those you do not understand, even those that you do not know you do not know. Your system is the correct system” – a bare hint of emphasis – “because in it, power is derived from the people with their consent.”

  Marcus met her gaze. “Yes. That’s exactly correct. I’ve read about your world.”

  That very faint movement of the lips again. “Benardine’s data on Earth is five decades out of date.”

  “The Face of Night still governs Earth.”

  “It never did and does not now.”

  “People on Earth are free?”

  “Anglic is an imprecise language, Marcus; you may wish to learn Simple Tierra. However, in Anglic: people on Earth are free to come, to go, to breed, to clone, to live, to die, to alter themselves, to improve themselves, to think and plan and share their thoughts and plans. They can criticize the Face Of Night, or the Regent, or the Source; or advocate violence against them. They are free even to attempt violence against the Powers – or each other.”

  “What happens to those who do?”

  “Attempting violence against the Powers is self-correcting – though the Source is more difficult to harm than any human, and gentler with those who attempt violence against it. Attempted violence against other sentients is rare. It results in death or wipe or Exodus, depending upon the wishes of the accused and the judgment of the night face.”

  “Are you a night face?”

  “I am.”

  Marcus nodded. “I haven’t been to Earth. Forgive me if I’m skeptical about how free the average human on Earth feels, who is not a part of your three Powers, not protected by them – I’m willing to believe that you consider yourself free, being yourself a part of that structure.”

  She actually smiled then – the strength of her vast, cool amusement struck Marcus like a blow. “Marcus, I am the property of Shelomin Serendip, the Director of United Earth Intelligence. She destroyed half the armies of Eastersea to acquire me and she owns me as you own your shoes.”

  LATER THAT NIGHT, after decontamination, after debriefing, after being sent home, and finally after Jhana drifted off to sleep, Marcus went into his office. He sat with the lights off and asked his Consultant how long it would take him to learn to speak Simple Tierra. With Direct Learning via Tap, it responded, two quarters – some hundred and eighty days.

  The answer stunned him. With Direct Learning you could become a doctor in a hundred and eighty days. “And how long for Tierra proper?”

  The Consultant said, “Ser, you will never learn to speak Tierra except via Tap. The range of sounds required extends well beyond your vocal and auditory ranges.” The Consultant had been programmed to be courteous to its charges; it knew but did not add that Marcus thought far too slowly to handle the compression algorithms built into the language.

  Marcus sat back in his chair, staring blankly into the distance. After a while he became aware that Jhana was standing in the darkness, in the doorway to his office. “Hi.”

  “Hello, beautiful man.” She paused. “I’ve had my birth control turned off. I’m fertile. Come to bed.”

  ON WEDNESDAY AND Thursday, Spring 53 and 54, Ola Blue shopped, and Marcus did not see her. Nor did anyone else of note; Ola Blue ignored dozens of invitations from members of New Colton’s various elites – the government, the wealthy, the media. By Friday morning the media had worked both itself, and the population at large, into such a state of hysteria that when just before noon the announcement was made that the Atangan delegation was in orbit above Benardine, the traffic overload crashed the entire North City bitnet. Not a packet moved across the public network for most of that day, while Ables Yereshri and Lankre shuttled to the ground, along with an entourage of almost two hundred troops, and took up residence at the Imperial Hotel, less than a kilometer south of the Executive Mansion.

  THE EXECUTIVE MANSION was built in 2261, in what came to be called the North City of New Colton, in a day when New Colton had a population of some 200,000, and the planet a population of fewer than one hundred million. Humans had settled Benardine less than a hundred years previously – the first humans who came to stay did so in 2165.

  The Convocation of Elders in 2254 had provided the planet with both its Operating Principles and its first globally recognized government; almost six years later the Eclectic, Eredite, and Conservative parties had hammered out a Constitution acceptable to all of them. The first Executive to take the oath of office in the Executive Mansion was Vincente Marchiabrand, in 2262; Marchiabrand, an Eclectic, was assassinated in 2263.

  By 2485, the Eredites and Conservatives had ceased to exist as recognizable political parties. The Eclectics still existed, though they had been out of power for all but ten of the last fifty years – the ten years during which Jay Jackles had attempted to wind down the war on Atango.

  Lendyll Wilson, who had driven Jackles from office in a bit
terly contested election in the Winter of 2481, was a Clafist, named for Janwill Clafist, the woman who first committed Benardine troops to Atango.

  Wars do not occur in a vacuum. History and the hatreds of those who believe that history matters surround and inform them.

  On Friday, Spring 55, 2485, 320 years of Benardine history ceased to matter.

  FROM OVER 200 million kilometers away, the Archangel fired upon Benardine. It fired “bullets” toward its selected targets – to approximate the word employed by the humans and other systems aboard the Archangel; though the bullets were mildly intelligent, capable of mid-course corrections, and of accelerating and decelerating.

  With the volley away, the Archangel took up position in orbit over Atango, to await the appointed moment.

  IN EARLY EVENING, as the sky above deepened to black, Ola Blue arrived at the Executive Mansion in a single limousine surrounded on all four sides, and in the air above her, by Benardine Ground Force troops.

  When Ola exited her limousine, hundreds of media spybots shot into the sky, some of them as much as four kilometers distant from the Executive Mansion, and strained to focus their optics upon her in the brief seconds given them before the Navy shot them down. Not one of the spybots managed to deliver an image of its target; each spybot failed upon launch – hurtling up into the sky, cresting, and falling back like stones to the planet beneath them.

  They would have been disappointed had they acquired an image. A blurry, shining white shape exited the limousine, made her way up the 112 steps leading to the entryway of the Executive Mansion with the Ground Force honor guard behind her, and vanished inside.

  “WHAT IN THE world are you wearing?”

  “Shiebra mant,” said Ola Blue: “A shadow cloak.”

  It hurt Marcus’s eyes to look at it. A hood covered her head and her robes brushed the ground; her feet as she walked appeared to be wrapped in material of the same make as the robes. Loose sleeves fell past her wrists, and upon her hands she wore shimmering white gloves.

  The worst of it was her face, or the lack of it. It was not dark inside the hood, exactly, but looking into it made Marcus feel as though he was staring into infinity. His eyes watered and he had to look away.

  The only thing not blurry about her was the insignia upon her chest: nine circles enclosing a starburst. Touching the third circle out from the starburst were a pair of small, solidly colored spheres, one blue and one white. High upon her left shoulder were the words:

  “You’re supposed to be able to walk on the surface of a star wearing one of those, right?”

  When Ola drew back the hood, for an instant Marcus had the impression her skull was being assembled a layer at a time in front of him. He blinked and it was just a young woman, smiling, attractive, wearing odd clothing. “Of course, Marcus. Wearing a shadow cloak you could walk upon the surface of a star, if stars had surfaces, and if you didn’t mind being crushed by the acceleration associated with the star’s natural processes, or by the local shape of space. It is true that the heat would not bother you.” She glanced around at the outer lobby. Her honor guard had come to a stop five paces behind her. High on the walls around them were portraits of each of the thirty-one men and women who had become Executives of the Republic of Benardine.

  He led her down the main hallway, toward the oval Chamber of Conciliation where their meeting would take place. “I hope no one takes the way you’re dressed as an insult. Security within the Executive Mansion is extraordinary.”

  Ola Blue said gently, “It is the formal dress of a night face. I would be insulting your rulers if I did not wear it. You are ignorant, Marcus, but the Consultants advising your military will be less so, and they will not take offense.”

  “Not trained as a diplomat, were you? I hope you’re planning on using language less blunt than this during the meeting.”

  “The ability to learn is unusual among your people: the ability to unlearn, rarer yet. Have I flattered you, Colonel?”

  “… I don’t know what you’re talking about, so perhaps you have.”

  Ola nodded. “I will use language less blunt during our meeting.”

  THE TABLE IN the Chamber of Conciliation was capable of seating some forty people. It was generally diamond-shaped, though flattened enough at the corners that one person could sit at the north and south points, and two at the east and west.

  Marcus and Ola sat together at the middle of the long table, at the eastern corner. Jay Jackles, the former Executive, was the first of the invited parties to arrive; he came alone and after being introduced to Ola by Marcus, seated himself at the south end of the table. Just seeing the man cheered Marcus up unreasonably. Jackles had his failings, as Marcus well knew, including more charisma than was really useful, but he was also a man whom people would follow, and in Marcus’s experience good things happened when Jackles was involved.

  Executive Wilson appeared some minutes after Jackles, half a dozen staff behind him, and introduced himself to Ola rather stiffly, without giving Marcus a chance to speak. Wilson seated himself at the Executive’s traditional spot at the north end of the table, so that his Badge of Office hung on the wall behind him. His immediate staff seated themselves around him – the Secretaries of War and Defense, and his Secretary of Trade, all along the east wing; the Ambassador to Atango, who had never been formally recognized by the Atangans, seated to his right.

  A few minutes later Marcus listened to the audio feed from his phone and leaned over to Ola. “They’re arriving now.”

  What she said then surprised him. “Your wife is not present at the Executive Mansion today?”

  “No, she has no cause to be.”

  “Call her.” Ola glanced at him. “Call her now and be certain.”

  Call Jhana, Marcus thought to his phone. A second later an image of his wife was projected onto his retina; she appeared to be standing in the middle of the conference table. He could see the interior of their house in the background.

  How’s it going? she asked.

  Hasn’t started yet. Just checking in. Hanging up. Marcus looked at Ola’s profile for a moment before he spoke. “She’s at home.” Call Cooridan, he thought to his phone.

  THE BULLETS FELL from orbit.

  ABLE YERESHRI WAS a K’Ailla, a member of the last surviving tribe of the Domé. The K’Aillae had fought the sleem empire, and then fled from it into Hiding, six thousand years before humanity had discovered the tachyon drive. Only in the last few centuries had they begun settling other worlds.

  Yereshri’s fur was silver and blue and her eyes were blue and like all K’ailla eyes, ridiculously human; and she was extraordinarily tall for a K’Ailla, nearly a meter and a half. Her counterpart, Able Lankre, was slissi, thin and scaled and rather shorter than usual for one of her race, not quite two meters.

  They presented much less of a contrast than Marcus had subconsciously been expecting.

  Their entourage was over half human, with the rest being K’Aillae and slissi. Marcus, watching them, thought they looked not merely wary, but afraid.

  Yasmeen Cooridan was inside the command and control center at the Black Cube. She and over a hundred intelligence officers and nearly as many Consultants were working electronic security, in addition to the overwhelming Ground Force detail inside the Mansion. The Atangans are unarmed, Marcus. Deep radar does work on them.

  Why did she ask about my wife? She’s expecting something.

  The Atangans seated themselves slowly. As Marcus had expected, Yereshri and Lankre were seated directly across from him and Ola Blue; the other thirty members of their entourage took positions at the table, or in the chairs set up behind them.

  Keep an eye out, said Cooridan. We will on our end.

  “Well, you all know why you’re here,” said Ex
ecutive Wilson, with what struck Marcus as a surprising lack of grace. “Because this young lady promised to bomb us all into oblivion if we didn’t negotiate an end to the war between us.” He gestured toward Ola. “Ables Lankre and Yereshri, I just met this young lady for the first time a few minutes before you came in. Vata Blue, I’ve been told to address you as that –”

  As he was speaking, Ola said softly to Marcus, “Stay in your seat.” She stood slowly.

  “– and I’ll call you anything that pleases you, madam, but I am unhappy at being here under these circumstances.”

  Neither of the Atangan leaders had looked at Wilson as he spoke. They stared at Ola Blue.

  “We are born broken,” said Ola Blue, “and live by mending.”

  A wave of shock ran through the Atangans behind Lankre and Yereshri. After a moment Able Lankre said, in a voice harsh and terrible, “I see that I am broken.”

  “We live by grace unknown to us. Will you dedicate your life in the service of that grace?”

  It was odd, watching it. Hopelessness descended upon the Atangans so visibly that Marcus could see it even in the nonhumans. Their heads and shoulders bowed; even the slissi seemed to shrink in upon themselves. Almost all the Atangans answered Ola Blue:

  “We will.”

  “Will you kill if you must?”

  “We will.”

  “Will you die if needed? Will you live when you no longer wish to, if the service is required of you?”

  In a ragged chorus, the Atangans answered, “We will.”

  Able Yereshri came to her feet. “Servant of the Nameless One, be merciful to our people.”

  “As I can,” said Ola Blue, “I will.” She reached up, and brought the hood of her shadow cloak forward, to cover her face – in a beat her features darkened, then ceased to exist. She brought her hands together before her, palm against palm, and her voice rang out: “Rho! Etra shivat elor ko’obay k’shia, vata elor –”

  Marcus never heard the rest. He was already on his feet, diving toward Executive Wilson. One of Wilson’s bodyguards managed to shoot him twice before Marcus slammed into Wilson and together with him went crashing backward into the Badge of Office behind the Exec’s chair. Then the building exploded around them, the ceiling fell down upon them and the lights went out and the screaming started.