Taji From Beyond the Rings

by R. Cooper

  Taji wiped fruit bits from his lips. “I am supposed to make them see otherwise? Because I’m just a farmer’s son trapped in service to IPTC.”

  Trenne gave him a fleeting, warm smile. “You will not have to do anything. You will amaze them all,” he added. “They will not have any idea what to do with you, but don’t let them dishonor you.”

  As if Taji knew anything about honor—a concept that varied by culture anyway. “How about we don’t let them dishonor you? There’s a thought.”

  “Your concern is too great a gift.” Trenne nearly sighed the words.

  Taji could remember childhood trips to the market, half a day’s travel without access to a flier. In the market were other kids, running loose among the stalls of buyers and sellers and IPTC reps, rejoicing in the freedom from work and the chance to play. On good days, someone would rig up a system to run vids, and kids and adults with rare free time would sit in rows to watch vids from across the systems, always in the dark. Something about the experience had been better if the vids were watched without ambient light, with people around to gasp or laugh with him. It made the stories even more fantastic.

  Trenne was a hero from one of those stories, absurdly beautiful, brave, and determined, self-sacrificing to the point of the ridiculous, and now complete with a painful past. He should not have been real, and yet he was.

  Taji’s tone was soft. “Do they take the word for animal and use it as an insult, or did they take another word that already existed and change the meaning to animal?” Once again, silence was his answer. Once again, he ignored that. “What did the word originally mean? Do people—Shavians—know that when they say it?”

  “It means ‘we,’ or so I was told when I was young.” Trenne shook his head. “The people know nothing. They can’t even read the writing on their own monuments. Let it go, Taji.”

  “They took the hurat word for themselves and made it an insult?” Taji shut his mouth hard to keep from shouting. He took several quick breaths that were not especially calming.

  “No one will call you that, not even for associating with me.” He suspected Trenne thought this was reassuring. “They will understand that you have to. It is also possible they will not say it if they see it disturbs you.”

  Because Taji wasn’t supposed to be reacting to anything that was said. Trenne didn’t sound chiding, but Taji huffed in annoyance. “I didn’t choose this job. There were humans already living on Mirsa the ambassador could have hired.”

  “It was the ambassador’s choice to request outside help. IPTC gave us your name.” Trenne glanced to him again. “Your records spoke of education, intelligence, and field experience. Your work was difficult for us to understand, but the ambassador approved. And we had a need for someone without preexisting loyalties to anyone on this planet.”

  The ambassador had never mentioned reading Taji’s work. Taji momentarily stopped eating. “Because of what happened to the ambassador’s last assistant and your CO?”

  Trenne put one hand over Taji’s on top of the packet of starflowers. His hand was huge, his fingertips free of the swirls and loops of human fingerprints and yet faintly rough, like sandpaper. It could have been calluses, or the minute grooves in the skin of Shavian palms and on the soles of their feet that allowed them to keep their grip on nearly any surface.

  “Stay close,” he said, when Taji did not look up. “Stay close and I can protect you.”

  “You shouldn’t have to take fire for me,” Taji protested while contemplating turning his hand over to feel Trenne’s palm against his.

  “We protect you, you protect us.” Trenne’s earnest tone made Taji’s heart beat faster. Taji’s heart was out of its depth, just like the rest of him. But Trenne expected an answer, so Taji nodded.

  “I’ll do my best.” It didn’t feel like enough. His voice had a tremor.

  “If something were to happen to Ambassador Tsomyal, before there would be any replacement chosen and sent here, there would be you.” Trenne was serious. “Remember that. The nobles will be aware of this. You are the one who will report to the I.P.T.C. if the ambassador cannot. You have power. You are one of them.”

  Taji snorted despite his tension. “I’m too rude to be a diplomat. You’re going to have to be there to hold me back if that ever happens.”

  “My honor to be at your side.” The blank voice didn’t fool him. Taji glanced up in time to see the pleased angle of Trenne’s ears. Then Trenne removed his hand from Taji’s and faced forward. “But that is not my place. Now eat more and get some sleep if you can.”

  Taji rubbed the back of his hand until it was warm again. “What about you?”

  “You honor me with your concern.” Trenne was stuck in a loop—an extremely Shavian loop, obsessed with intangible concepts.

  “Yeah, yeah, I honor you by noticing you’re a living creature who needs food and rest,” Taji grumbled and defiantly picked up his data device to keep reading. “You know, your standards of ‘honored’ should be higher. I can practically see your ears twitching without even looking at you.”

  “I was not aware humans had such gifts,” Trenne replied innocently.

  Taji couldn’t hide his grin.

  It was dangerous to feel so much for someone who was never going to do anything about Taji’s infatuation with him. Even if he did, it couldn’t end well. Taji owed IPTC so much that he would be in service to them for years to come, and once that was done, there were few employers who would offer as much as the Interplanetary Trade Coalition. Trenne had probably fulfilled his initial years of service and then chosen to stay—a soldier unto death or retirement. If Trenne did ever take pity on Taji, it would be because they were both trapped on this rock with few other options. Then, eventually, if he made it through this, Taji would go back to his moon or somewhere else light years away and never encounter Trenne again. The feelings he had for Trenne were the stuff of vids and fantasies, and better off unacknowledged. Taji would simply have to watch himself around the midye.

  He dismissed the biology information and went back to his history of the emperors shortly before the fall of the empire. After a few moments, when Trenne pulled up a new game but hadn’t yet begun to play, Taji placed both bags of food on the seat between them, generously offering Trenne his food back before he finished it off. He could feel Trenne’s attention. His unspoken, “You honor me,” played havoc with Taji’s equilibrium, but Taji merely cleared his throat.

  “Layehs Emperor was murdered by his own Guards, I think,” Taji remarked in a whisper. “The reasons are unclear, but there’s no mention of what happened to the Guards after. Of course, it doesn’t say outright they murdered him, but a mysterious intruder gets into the palace, assassinates their emperor, and not one Imperial Guard is reported as injured or missing? None of them interfered? That says to me that no one objected to one less Layehs in the world. I wonder what his crime was. Ah, he was emperor during the Ti’irana Uprising. The empire lost that part of the country for the next two generations, didn’t it? Was that his fault, or considered his fault?” Taji mused without waiting for an answer. “Or was it about that? What are the acceptable reasons to kill an emperor? See? How can I rest with that question in my mind?”

  “What the shit are you talking about, Mouth?” Nadir demanded sleepily.

  Taji jerked his head up. “History!”

  “Sir, you can’t let him go on like that. I’ve got a bad feeling about this as it is.” Nadir might have been teasing, but it was hard to tell when he was looking at Trenne, not Taji.

  Trenne stiffened. He might not like Nadir admitting he was nervous. He spoke without taking his eyes off Nadir. “Taji, who was Layehs Emperor?”

  “You don’t know?” Taji frowned, then brightened. “Right. The nobles believe in a selective education at best. Well,” he paused for another starflower, then continued with it sticky and half-dissolved on his tongue. “Let’s talk about what I am calling the Failed Emperors. Maybe we can get a consensus on w
hat allows for successful treason and what doesn’t.”

  “Successful treason?” Rodian murmured, muzzy and tired.

  “Holy shit, Mouth,” Nev complained. “Distract him, sir, I beg you. He was already talking about severed feet and heads on the way over here.”

  “Layehs Emperor, the fierce?” Lin wondered as she sat up.

  “No, no. This is Shyril Layehs, succeeded by a cousin who ruled for what I think was about ten years before lusting after one of his servants so openly that he was also murdered.” Taji considered that. “I guess lusting after a servant is bad.”

  “Did he fuck the servant or not? Get to the good stuff, Mouth.” Nadir was so picky.

  Taji glanced over and accidentally met Trenne’s eye. The interest made him keep going.

  “Since the beauteous kahne in question also snared the next emperor, I would assume yes.” Taji noted the familiar word, kahne, had been used as an insult—at him, in fact. But he didn’t want to get distracted while he had an audience.

  “Killing a guy for getting laid. Cold,” Nev observed.

  Taji looked to Trenne again, already grinning, but Trenne’s expression was suddenly grim, so Taji turned away. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t even get to Rhath Emperor yet,” he went on, glad to share at least one story of an emperor that didn’t end in blood.

  TAJI STARTLED awake for the second time to find Lin occupying Trenne’s seat. She caught Taji’s DD as it slid off his lap and handed it to him. Taji’s chest was covered by a dark, IPTC-issued coat, slightly faded with use and age. It wasn’t his, and Lin was once again wearing the coat she’d loaned to Rodian.

  Taji’s temporary blanket smelled like tea, which seemed too mundane for someone like Trenne, although Taji wasn’t complaining. He was, however, sniffing the coat in front of Lin, so he slapped his cheeks to better wake up, then straightened. Everyone else had moved to the front of the flier or was somewhere out of sight. The engines had stopped.

  He shook his head to clear the fog. “We’re there?”

  “I’ve never seen anyone sleep through a landing like that,” Lin remarked. “If the Ves are right, and we all live and die many times in different bodies across the universe, then you must have lived through a war once, Ameyo. Or you need more sleep.”

  Taji waved that off. “Was the landing bad? The maps said this was in a bay.”

  “Landing a large flier here was difficult but faster than landing farther away.” Lin paused. “Although we have not been welcomed yet. I am here to make sure you are awake and ready.”

  “I am,” Taji said, with his stomach rumbling and his head aching. He stowed his DD in a pocket and got to his feet, only to nearly keel over at the lancing pain up his side.

  The pain signals were momentarily overwhelming. Taji gripped the seat in front of him and focused on his breathing. He’d fallen asleep in an odd position in a metal chair. He must have displaced his makeshift cushion, and his body, already trying to adjust around a slightly misaligned prosthetic, was protesting.

  “Do you need Nev?” Lin hovered over him. “I can get her.”

  “I’m fine.” Taji kept his eyes down because he was a bad liar. “It’ll be fine. I just have to wait.”

  “We may not have time for that.” Lin pulled the coat from beneath Taji’s hands and settled it around his shoulders. “I’ll carry your gear, if you can walk.”

  Walking did not sound pleasant, but since everyone else was already moving, he had no choice unless he wanted to be carried. That didn’t seem the ideal way to meet the emperor’s sister, or whoever the sister would send to greet them.

  Taji took another deep breath before standing on his own. Lin grabbed his bag and slung it over her shoulder. She waited for him with no sign of concern on her face. Taji was grateful for the lack of pity.

  His leg felt like static, a heavy almost numbing weight and then thousands of hot pinpricks as his artificial nerves tried to recalibrate. But he followed Lin down the middle of the flier, growing more awake by the second. Lin kept going, tossing Taji’s bag onto a pile of other gear that was floating on a pallet, ready to be offloaded.

  Taji went to the exit and promptly lost his breath at the sight of a wall of dark gray stone

  He leaned out and craned his neck to stare up. Water poured out of cracks in the rock, forming waterfalls and pools below that probably streamed out to the sea. Wisps of mist did not conceal the scale of the cliff wall in front of him, or the silvery sheen of writing that had been carved and possibly painted onto its surface, the characters illegible.

  High, high above the mysterious words of warning or welcome, was Laviias.

  The playground of the Olea, if that’s what it was, was made of imposing white walls that reflected the light of the planetary rings through the mist. Hopefully, it was also warmer up there than in the space reserved for fliers.

  Taji absently slipped his arms into the coat’s sleeves as he made his way down the ramp to the ground below. There were a few other larger fliers there and some Shavians with them, although no one approached the ambassador’s team. Taji stopped to give his shaking body a moment of rest, and tipped his head back to stare again at the home of the Olea.

  The skies were darker here, the clouds tinged violet. They were across a continent from the capital—a long way to travel to become emperors, yet the Olea had ruled for several generations now, and more than once before then.

  To one side of him was the landing space, a hum of activity. When he turned, there was ocean.

  Taji shivered at the overwhelming vastness of it. White-topped waves of purple so dark it was nearly black. In the full light of day, perhaps it wouldn’t be dark as space itself. The Sha had crossed that and landed here, or somewhere close. So the Olea had taken this for their homeland once they were across the sea.

  He’d never seen so much water in one place. He’d never been afforded the opportunity to visit any oceans on any place he’d visited. It looked cold, like space, and it made him wish, strangely, for one of the giant trees around the capital, or even one smaller pink pital, although he hadn’t grown up around anything bigger than a scrubby bush.

  He turned back to the cliff. Atop that, above the white walls, lights were circling. Fliers, he realized, for security, or of a size that could land up there and not here. Whichever it was, some were making their way down. He should go to the ambassador.

  “I could have carried you. Although you move fast for someone in pain,” Lin commented, or complained, from her position at his shoulder. Taji had no idea how long she’d been there, but she had a sealed clay cup in her hands, which she shoved at him. “Tea.”

  Taji removed the seal and inhaled the warm, spicy scent before taking a sip. The tea wouldn’t fill his stomach but he was grateful for it anyway. He had another drink while squinting up at Lin’s expression. She wasn’t quite as good at controlling them as Trenne, and she seemed somewhere between confused and annoyed.

  “What?” he prodded, trying to tease. “It wasn’t your honor to get me some tea? You didn’t have to, but thank you.”

  “My honor?” Lin echoed faintly, astonished. She muttered a word that did not come from this planet. It could have been an Inos word, but Taji didn’t know any Inos languages, merely the sound of them. “Come on.” She pulled him by his sleeve until they were closer to the flier.

  Nadir stopped staring wistfully at the water as Taji and Lin approached. He was armed, the usual weapons when the team was out in public, plus another sidearm at his hip. But his uniform looked as pressed and clean as a long trip could leave it. He pointed at Taji. “What is that? Coffee? Tea? And a coat?” Nadir raised his head to the sky. “What am I doing wrong? When do I get to be pampered?”

  “Pampered?” Taji snorted.

  “You have to take care with fragile little humans,” Lin joined in.

  “I’m really not little,” Taji protested. “It’s only around IPTC soldiers and Shavians—and certain other species—that I’m litt
le. I’m situationally little.”

  “I’m a fragile little human,” Nadir continued, ignoring Taji. “I’m pretty. I’m charming. I still didn’t get a drink.”

  “Fragile?” Markita came up behind Nadir, grinning. “I’ve seen you in a fight.”

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t get thirsty or cold.” Despite his words, Nadir was clearly loving every moment on the windswept beach-turned-transport hub. “Come on, Mouth. Share.”

  Taji locked eyes with him as he took a long drink of his tea.

  “Oh, I see how it is,” Nadir whined over Markita’s laughter.

  “So do I.” Rodian spoke from the top of the ramp. He came down slowly, the pallet behind him. He had an extra weapon as well. Taji discreetly looked at the others and saw identical gear on everyone but Lin. The others wore everyday uniforms, but clean and pressed.