Guardian of Empire

by Kylie Chan

  ‘That was worth the wait to see,’ Merry said.

  ‘Let’s go inside; the rocking stars make me seasick,’ I said.

  ‘As my friend wishes.’ Blake guided us across the platform to the Imperial elevator car, and the door opened.

  ‘You have your own elevator car?’ Merry said with wonder.

  ‘This is the royal car,’ the Admiral said. ‘In case the Empress needs to board her ship in a hurry without risking a fold so close to the planet.’ He guided us into the car, designed like a small apartment. The living room was ten metres across with observation windows on the sides and a couple of round portals in the bottom. The airlock doors closed behind us.

  The car was comfortably furnished with sofas and a large, soft carpet for dragonkind to recline on. A hallway led to the bedrooms and a bathroom. A viewscreen showed a feed of the celebrations in the square, and Blake guided us to sit on the sofas.

  ‘The Silver Lotus is at the folding nexus, but I’m staying here overnight and going up in the morning with Princess Masako and Ambassador Haruka,’ he said. ‘You ladies are welcome to stay the night here and ride up to the flagship in the morning.’

  Merry smiled at me. ‘Thank you, I’d love to. Jian?’

  Blake and Merry both looked at me, waiting for my decision. I studied the gorgeous woman standing next to my dear friend and there wasn’t much decision to make. ‘I’ve already handed over my duties, so I’d be delighted.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Blake went into the kitchenette and opened the cupboards, checking around. ‘Do you have any dietary limitations, Merry? Allergies? Restrictions? You’re all right to eat out of the water, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I can eat out of or in the water. I have no allergies that I know of. I won’t eat animal flesh. Vat flesh is fine.’

  ‘Good. Marque?’

  ‘Admiral?’

  ‘Ingredients for my spiced gellonworm recipe for three, jasmine rice, whatever leafy vegetable’s in season right now, pickled kenari, toro. Is there anything we do that they don’t have on Pacifica?’

  ‘They don’t have toro; tuna haven’t been introduced,’ Marque said.

  ‘Shocking,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ Marque said. ‘As soon as the treaty is signed and some ships are freed up, the Silver Lotus is carrying a full load of embryos to Pacifica.’

  ‘Tuna?’ Merry said. ‘I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘Ingredients are here, Admiral.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Blake removed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He opened the refrigerator to reveal the ingredients Marque had provided. ‘Give me about twenty minutes, and then you can tell us about food on your home planet. I’d love to learn some new recipes.’

  ‘In that case, move over,’ Merry said, and joined him in the kitchen. ‘Marque: moldweed, vat novafish, grungefruit and some sandberry sauce. Let me show you one of our signature dishes.’ She studied the burners. ‘I’ll have to modify it to cook it in air.’ She nodded. ‘Should be doable.’

  Blake took his ingredients to the side. ‘I’ll let you go first.’

  ‘Tell us your story while we make dinner, Jian,’ Merry said. ‘Do you mind if we record it?’

  ‘No, go ahead and record it, Marque. I was twenty-three and a corporal in the Euroterre army. It was just after the end of the war between East Asia and Western Europe, and the nation of Euroterre – New Great Britain – was only twenty-five years old.’

  ‘That was the war started by the attempted assassination of Queen Victoria III?’ Merry said, fascinated. ‘Richard Alto saved the Queen by jumping on the bomb?’

  ‘That’s the one. Queen Victoria was King Charles VII back then.’

  ‘It seems so long ago.’

  ‘It seems long ago, and at the same time only yesterday, for me. Anyway, the war had just ended, but the climate was going to hell, and in a hundred years Earth would no longer be habitable . . .’

  *

  ‘Food’s ready,’ Blake said twenty minutes later. ‘Come and eat, and tell us the rest.’

  ‘Not much more,’ I said as I found plates and cutlery for everybody. ‘The dragons negotiated for our assistance to protect the Empire against the cats in return for reproductive restraint and a halt to reproductive conquest. The Empire stayed static and stopped expanding, and the Cat Wars began.’

  ‘And they end tomorrow,’ Blake said with satisfaction. ‘For the first time in a very long time, the Empire will be at peace.’

  Merry tasted the gellonworm, and grimaced. ‘Too sweet.’

  I tried the fish with grungeweed, and choked on it. ‘Way too bitter.’

  Blake grinned and ate some toro. ‘Lucky for me, I like everything.’

  21

  ‘Wake up, little friends.’ Marque’s voice emerged from the screen at the side of the room. ‘Time to move; the royals are on their way.’

  I woke and grunted. I was sandwiched between Merry and Blake and Blake had his arm protectively over both of us. All three of us stirred.

  ‘How long do we have?’ Blake said.

  ‘Haruka and Masako will be here in forty-five minutes. I’ve laid out a new uniform for you in the bathroom, Stewart. I suggest you go first so both you and Jian look the part when the royals arrive.’

  Blake raised himself on one elbow and smiled down at us. ‘Thank you, dear ladies, for a generous time of mutual joy and pleasure.’ He took each of our hands and kissed them, then threw the covers off. ‘I’d better run.’ He sprinted to the bathroom.

  Merry pulled me closer and kissed the short hair on the back of my head. ‘I don’t want to use the formal words of appreciation with you, Jian. I feel more than that, but I must return to Pacifica, so I suppose I can only give you my heartfelt thanks and hope that we will keep in touch.’

  I turned and wrapped myself around her. ‘I feel the same way, dear Merry; my position here on the homeworld is important to me. Let’s make the most of our time together while you’re here.’

  Merry smiled sadly. ‘Come to Pacifica and visit me.’

  ‘Oh, I will, particularly after what you told me about your home.’ I raised my head. ‘Tell Admiral Blake to move his butt, Marque, I have places to be, and Ambassador Merry still needs to make herself presentable for the royals.’

  Merry sat up and pulled the surgical tape off the sides of her throat. She checked the oxygenation pump clipped to her waist. ‘That was wonderful. I am so glad I met you and Stewart.’

  ‘You didn’t need the tape after all,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes I did; a couple of times there I definitely lost control and without the tape you would have a soaked bed and an air-drowned Aquatic.’

  ‘Do you need to recharge the water in your gills? You’ve been circulating that water for a long time.’

  ‘The filtration system is adequate, but a fresh supply of the correct saline formula would be good,’ Merry said.

  ‘It’s outside,’ Marque said.

  Blake came out of the bathroom fully dressed and holding his uniform jacket. ‘Jian’s next. Marque has a gift for Merry outside the windows.’

  ‘What?’ Merry pulled herself out of bed and walked to the window, her soft blue flesh jiggling in the light of the morning sun. ‘Oh. Is that seawater?’

  I went to stand next to Merry and smiled. Marque had pulled a fifty-metre-wide sphere of seawater from the planet below and was holding it suspended two metres above the platform in front of the capsule.

  Merry took two big strides towards the door and then looked ruefully down at herself. ‘I need clothing.’

  ‘There’s a Pacifican bodysuit for you in the closet,’ Marque said. ‘Jian, you’d better move, they’ll be here soon.’

  I quickly kissed Merry, said the formal words of appreciation to Blake, and ran to the bathroom. I stopped and turned back at the door. ‘And I think your feet are fabulous, Merry, don’t feel self-conscious about them. They’re wonderful.’

  ‘Go!’ Merry said with a huge smile.
<
br />   I stepped under the cleansing shower. ‘Report, Marque. Any incidents overnight?’

  ‘Nothing worth reporting. Nobody tried to disturb them. They’ve slept well and both of them are in a good mood.’

  ‘Haruka doesn’t have a good mood.’ I stepped out of the shower and stood still while Marque air-dried me. ‘How long do I have?’

  ‘Put your uniform on; they’ll be here in ten minutes. Do you need a hand?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  I pulled my clean uniform on, ran my hands over my short-cropped hair, and nodded. Acceptable. I strode into the living room. ‘Stewart?’

  ‘I’m on the platform,’ he said through comms. ‘Wait until you see this – Marque’s a genius sometimes.’

  I went out onto the transit platform. Marque had put a polarising film on the energy dome to reduce the sun’s radiation, but had left a shaft of light on Merry’s waterball. Merry was within the sphere of water, wearing the wetsuit-like Pacifican bodysuit. She moved with the joy and grace of a sealion, and her oversized, paddle-like feet looked completely natural when she was in her element.

  I stood, breathless, watching Merry swoop and roll within the sphere. The Aquatic’s purple hair flew behind her, glittering in the sun’s rays.

  ‘Thank you, Marque,’ I breathed.

  ‘My pleasure. If you two would like to see more of each other—’

  ‘No need to set us up. One: it’s only been one night, and two: we both have extremely rewarding positions on our respective worlds.’

  ‘But you two are so good together—’

  ‘For now we’ll leave it long-distance casual.’

  ‘Did you ask Merry what she wants?’

  ‘That’s why I’m telling you.’

  A frowning emoji flashed over Marque’s surface where it hovered nearby and was quickly replaced by a transmission of Merry swimming in the sphere.

  Merry was experimenting; she went to the bottom of the sphere, swam quickly to the top, and launched herself out of the water. She breached and splashed back into the water, her face alight with joy.

  ‘Marque’s made the gravity lower,’ she said to me through comms. ‘It’s easy to leap out. It feels like flying!’

  ‘Watching you lifts my heart,’ I said.

  Merry smiled at me through the water. She swam down to the bottom of the sphere, turned, and launched herself to the top. When she reached the surface of the water she leaped out, curving through the air in the sunshine. The sight took my breath away.

  Merry splashed back into the water, but hit it awkwardly and slid down the outside of the sphere. She tried to kick out, but it only caused her to leave the sphere completely. She flew through the air, heading for a hard landing. I took two fast steps towards her, painfully aware that I wouldn’t be in time to catch her.

  Marque caught Merry in an energy field and gently lowered her onto the smooth white surface of the platform. Merry nodded, speaking to it, and laughed. She walked to me, her broad hips swaying gracefully, and smiled. ‘Misjudged it.’

  ‘Incoming,’ Blake said through comms.

  I straightened. ‘Masako and Haruka are here.’

  Merry lifted her soaked hair from where it clung to her neck and re-inserted her breathing tube. ‘Exciting! I’ll meet the Princess. Marque, can you dry me off so I don’t drip on her?’

  ‘My pleasure, Ambassador,’ Marque said, and surrounded Merry in a whirlwind of warm air. Her purple hair was a tangled mess, so Marque smoothed it for her as well. The sphere of water floated to the side of the platform, and disappeared over its edge.

  We joined Blake at the entrance to the private surface elevator. The elevator doors opened and Masako and Haruka stepped out, accompanied by Masako’s goldenscales servant, Miko. Blake and I saluted them, and Merry bowed.

  Marque had tidied the space elevator car and it was immaculate when we returned to it with Masako and Haruka. We went inside and the dragon reclined on the floor. Haruka sat on one of the couches, and Miko took Masako’s box containing hard copies of the documentation into the bedroom.

  ‘Marque tells me you’re an educator, Ambassador Merry,’ Haruka said, indicating for her to sit next to him on one of the sofas. He was wearing a deep green kimono with a dark blue obi, the colours highlighting the green in his hair.

  ‘I am, Highness,’ she said. ‘Thank you for allowing me to come along for this.’

  ‘Not my decision to make,’ he said, gesturing towards Masako. ‘She’s the boss.’

  ‘Happy to have you,’ Masako said. ‘Marque, I haven’t seen the new flagship in person yet. Can you give us a better view as we go up?’

  ‘I can’t make the walls of this pod transparent; it needs to be solid to deal with the stress of the elvator. We’ll be at the top in a couple of hours, you’ll have to wait until then.’

  ‘Can you arrange a viewing platform for the humans?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll make one, but the new ship is so big that you need to be about ten kilometres away to see all of it properly.’

  ‘How big is it compared to Shiumo’s ship?’ I said. I saw Merry’s questioning face. ‘Shiumo’s ship was the largest in the dragon fleet; she had spouses from the lost people of Nimestas that were well over two hundred metres long and they travelled with her.’

  ‘It was enormous,’ Blake said. ‘And the Silver Lotus will be twice its size.’

  ‘What, twelve kilometres long?’ I said, aghast.

  ‘Fifteen. It has modular living quarters capable of carrying more than a million human-sized citizens if required. There’s space to accommodate a thousand Sillon-sized citizens. It will contain what used to be Shiumo’s ship as a lighter in its aft hold. Once the treaty’s signed, the main role for the ship will be as a freighter. We’ll carry people through the stars on sight-seeing tours, and transport large numbers of items or people that would have been folded individually otherwise. If things don’t work out, we can use it to evacuate whole planets.’

  ‘What used to be Shiumo’s ship?’ Merry said.

  ‘Shiumo died in the cat conflict,’ I said.

  ‘Call it a war – it’s what it was,’ Blake said.

  I shrugged. ‘When I think of war I think of guns and armies, not torture and hostages.’

  ‘Conflict is conflict,’ Blake said. ‘Show us a model of the Silver Lotus, Marque.’

  A three-dimensional, metre-long projection of the silver ship appeared in the middle of the room. It was the standard bird-in-space shape but much wider than usual for a dragon ship.

  ‘That doesn’t give an accurate idea of exactly how big this ship is,’ Blake said, and his voice was full of pride.

  ‘And Marque built it in six weeks?’ Merry said.

  ‘I’m that good,’ Marque said.

  ‘Liar,’ Blake said. ‘We started construction shortly after Earth was attacked with the black holes. We never wanted a situation like that to occur again – where there was no way to evacuate a large number of people safely.’

  *

  ‘We’ll be at the nexus in ten minutes,’ Marque said a couple of hours later. ‘Would you like to view the Silver Lotus?’

  ‘How far away is it?’ Merry said.

  ‘It’s on the other side of the planet,’ Blake said. ‘Docked at a part of the nexus with lower traffic.’

  ‘If Masako folds you to co-ordinates I give her, I can put you into an energy bubble so you can see it,’ Marque said.

  Merry’s eyes widened and her breath gurgled through her gills. ‘Raw space?’

  ‘You’ve never been in raw space before?’ Blake said.

  Merry shook her head.

  ‘It’s like swimming, you’ll be fine,’ I said.

  ‘I will be if I’m with you.’

  Masako pulled herself to her feet and approached us. ‘I want to see. Put your hand on me if you’d like to come.’ She turned back to her dragonspouse. ‘Haruka?’

  He waved us a
way. ‘We should be heading to the negotiations, not sight-seeing. I’ll stay here with Miko.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Masako said, and looked around. ‘Stewart, Jian, Merry?’

  Merry nodded, still holding my arm, and we put our hands on Masako’s shoulders. She folded us to a location higher above the planet than the flagship, so the ship and the nexus had the planet as a backdrop behind them. The ship was so enormous that only its bow touched the nexus, and its stern was towards us. Marque moved us along the length of the ship and more of it came into view.

  Merry gurgled again, and put her hand over her breathing tube. Blake and I put our arms around her waist to reassure her. Marque didn’t give us gravity; we floated in a bubble of air.

  Merry released the tube and put her arms around us in return, her discomfort turning to awe.

  The ship shone in the light of the blue-white star, clearly visible next to the planet, a misty sphere below.

  ‘How far from the ship are we?’ Masako said. ‘It looks normal size to me.’

  ‘We’re ten kilometres away,’ Marque said.

  ‘Oh.’

  The ship did appear to be normal-sized. Marque shifted us, moving us over its massive bulk, and the view of the ship slowly changed to give us an idea of its true size.

  ‘Goodness it’s huge,’ Merry said.

  The folding nexus on the nose of the ship came into view. On a normal-sized ship the nexus would span the width of the ship, with a two-metre-wide entrance at the bow. The Silver Lotus had half-a-dozen nexus points on its bow, and they were so small in the distance that they were almost invisible. The light flashed over the ship as we moved across it, and grooves appeared on its surface.

  ‘Is something etched onto the hull?’ I said.

  ‘I wondered if you’d be able to see it from this distance,’ Marque said.

  ‘We definitely can’t,’ Blake said. ‘Move us closer so we can see better.’

  We zoomed towards the ship and the sun shifted behind it so that we were in shadow. It was like approaching the planet itself. We moved up along its side, the shadow moving with us, and Merry made a loud sound of astonishment when the light hit the side of the ship again. There were etchings on its silver skin; an abstract embellishment of curling organic grooves.