Ascendant Sun: A New Novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire (18 page)

The antechamber to the banquet room had a wall of one-way glass that let Kelric and Tarquine look out at the banquet, which was already in its initial stages. The big room was too long to have the usual hexagonal shape, but it still had six walls and a vaulted ceiling. A number of hexagonal alcoves were set off from the main room, almost hidden, shadowed and full of pillows.
A puzzle occurred to Kelric: Did Aristos think differently because they lived in a universe of polygons and curves? Or maybe it was the reverse, that their penchant for such architecture reflected an innate difference in their minds. He would build Quis structures of it to study later.
The main hall glittered. A sparkling white carpet covered the floor, and white velvet cushions lay in piles everywhere. The tables were hexagonal columns that rose from the floor for about half a meter. Made from black diamond, they were large enough so each of their sides comfortably sat one diner. Aristos reclined in white loungers at the tables or among piles of the pillows.
Providers moved among them with platters of predinner morsels. The girls and youths wore nothing except G-strings made from diamonds. A girl with pale blond hair rippling down her back knelt next to an Aristo lord. Sprawled in his lounger, he watched with half-lidded eyes while she poured him a glass of wine. When she finished, he put his arm around her slender waist and pulled her into his lap. Stroking her breasts, he tugged on the ring in her nipple. Then he kissed her, his hands exploring her body. The other diners continued to converse as if nothing unusual had happened.
Kelric grimaced, wondering if the Aristos had any restraint on their behavior at all. After watching for a while, though, he realized an unspoken code existed. They fondled the providers as much as they pleased, but that was as far as it went in view of the main hall. The lord holding the girl eventually stood up and took her to one of the shadowed alcoves. As he went inside with her, several of his table companions rose and followed them. Kelric hoped she would be all right.
Even as Kelric scowled, he knew that part of his reaction came from a different source than his conservative background or an outraged sense of probity for the girl. If he were offered so many beautiful, compliant women, all unclothed, he doubted he could have kept his hands to himself either. He didn't know if he liked what that said about him, but he filed the insight as a Quis pattern.
One thing was obvious. He would be the only provider in the room wearing clothes. Granted, his were sexualized, with their snug fit and rippling gold velvet. But compared to the others, he was dressed for a snowstorm.
Tarquine stood at his side, studying the scene with the same intensity she had shown earlier when she asked him to spy on her guests. After he had watched her for a moment, she glanced at him.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I wondered why you wanted me to dress this way."
"You don't like it?"
"It's fine. I just wondered why."
As slight smile touched her lips. "Why I covered you up?"
"Yes."
She motioned at the providers softly padding around the banquet hall. "When people are used to seeing as much as they want, whenever they want, mystery becomes all the more alluring."
Kelric supposed it made sense. He still didn't like it. On Coba, in the Calanya, he had been inaccessible to everyone except his wife, his honor guard, and the few dice players he lived with. No one else was even allowed to look at him. He hadn't realized how much he had come to appreciate that privacy.
He wondered how the providers felt about their lives. Unlike him, they had no referents for comparison. Did they understand the concepts of self-determination and control over their own bodies? He created another Quis pattern, this time about the providers, and filed it with the previous one about himself and the Aristos.
Tarquine indicated a table where eight men and women sat drinking wine. "Those are delegates from Sapphire Sector. I'm interested in anything you can tell about them." She pointed out a dais at the end of the hall. It had only one table, obviously the position for honored guests. "Most of the time you will be up there with me."
Relief trickled over Kelric. The dais was set off from the other tables. His mental interaction with the Aristos depended on fields produced in his brain and theirs. With those effects dominated by Coulomb's Law, the more distance he had from them the better. The table on the dais offered a much-needed separation.
"Will being up there make it more bearable for you?" Tarquine asked.
"Yes." He didn't know else what to say. Was it kindness she showed, or simply cunning in optimizing his ability to spy for her? He thought perhaps a combination of both.
Tarquine considered the banquet again. "It is time to greet my guests." She touched the wall by the window and it shimmered. An archway appeared in the insulated wall, opening into the banquet hall.
Without insulation, the impact of the massed Aristos hit Kelric like a tidal wave. As he and Tarquine entered, heads turned. A surge of interest formed, with him and the Finance Minister at its focus. His mind jumbled its perceptions, unable to settle on an interpretation: he was
plummeting, drowning, smothering ...
Somehow he had fallen behind Tarquine. He must have stopped without realizing it. No one seemed to find it odd, though. He rejoined her, but this time he deliberately stayed back, trying to deflect some of the interest from himself to her.
The Minister stopped at various tables to greet her guests. She spoke in a quiet manner, but her entrance couldn't have been more effective if she had come with synthesizers playing and lights flashing. She had made no attempt to hide her sale; everyone in the hall knew about Kelric, a phenomenon unmatched in Trader history.
She and her guests conversed in innuendo-laden Highton, a form of speech so different from her direct manner with Kelric that it sounded like code to him. A flowery compliment conveyed hidden insults. An exchange of pleasantries provided veiled references to political matters. The act of ignoring a person could be a tacit agreement with him or her, an indication of respect, or an insult, depending on context. It amazed him that Aristos ever got anything done, given the time they spent twisting one another into knots with their words.
Observing them like this was an opportunity he doubted any other Skolian with his rank and empathic abilities had experienced. The linguistic experts among his people grappled with Highton nuances of language, struggling to learn at a distance, never able to see and hear Aristos interact in their own milieu. He was beginning to realize that in diplomatic interactions with Skolia, the Aristos weren't as condescending as they sounded. They used Highton forms of discourse. Yes, they were arrogant, manipulative, and opaque. But for all their assumptions of superiority, they were, incredibly, dealing with their Skolian counterparts as Aristos. As peers.
They used direct language only with slaves, simply stating what they wanted. He sensed that in private they were also more direct with each other, particularly with sexual partners. But that was private. In public they might indulge in foreplay with a provider, even have sex in semiprivate alcoves during a banquet, yet they would never dream of using forthright language with a peer.
The insight stunned Kelric. When Aristos dealt in a direct manner with the Skolian Assembly, they were offering a severe insult. Yet the Assembly reacted far better to forthright discussion than to the masked convolutions of Highton discourse. No wonder their peoples had such trouble interacting: they were speaking different languages even when they used the same tongue.
It astonished him that the Aristos could exist in the same room with their providers and occupy such a different universe. He felt as if he were gripping the edge of a mental wind tunnel, struggling to keep from pulled into its maw. Yet the Aristos relaxed in comfort, oblivious to the mental violence their combined presence inflicted on their providers.
It didn't take him long to realize they were all transcending at a continual low level. He didn't understand: none of them was doing anything other than caress and kiss the providers. So why were they all transcending?
His own discomfort gave the answer. Their transcendence came from the strain on the slaves serving the meal. Although none of the providers was a psion as strong as Kelric, the presence of fifty Diamonds in one place affected them all. The providers were also physically uncomfortable. Their scant thongs were made from solid gems and hurt to wear.
On a conscious level, most of the Aristos didn't notice what was happening. Surrounding themselves with providers made them feel good, so that was what they did. Only Kelric drew their actual attention, his crumbling defenses and sheer mental power pulling them like a magnet. He could barely hold his own against the current of covetous regard that dragged at his mind.
Mercifully he and Tarquine soon went to the dais, where leaders from the seven most important delegations were already seated at the table. As he moved away from the other tables, the pressure on his mind eased. On the dais, Tarquine motioned him to the place next to her lounger, where extra cushions and carpets had been piled. He sat down, cross-legged, surrounded by pillows. He also made a discovery: the mental pressure from the Aristos receded when he used Tarquine's mind as a bulwark. When he was close to her, the interactions between his neural processes and hers swamped out the other Aristos. Having filled her own mental cavity, she provided him with a defense against her peers.
After Tarquine took her seat, the main dinner began. During the meal, the Aristos parried their way through debates and discussions. Kelric listened. As aware as they were of his physical presence, they otherwise paid him little heed. He doubted they had any idea of the scrutiny he had turned on them.
He coded it all into Quis patterns.
Tarquine offered him a gold fruit. It tasted sweet and fresh. He was hungrier than he had realized. Starving, in fact.
No place had been set for him, but throughout the dinner she gave him food from platters on the table. It was an odd way to dine; he was the only provider eating with the Aristos rather than serving them. He supposed he was serving Tarquine in another way, by enhancing her prestige. The other providers deferred to him, similar to the way they treated the Aristos, with one difference: they didn't fear him.
After a while, when he had eaten his fill and drunk too much wine, he began to nod off. It seemed like more than fatigue. If he hadn't been eating the same food as Tarquine and her guests, he would have thought he'd been drugged.
He raised his head to see the Minister watching him. She spoke in a low voice, laying her hand on her thigh. "Go ahead. Put your head down."
Kelric almost refused. It was too strange, an Aristo offering him a place to sleep at the high table in the middle of a banquet. Then he thought, what the hell. If the other Aristos didn't like it, tough.
He lay down, resting his head on her thigh, his shoulders sinking into the cushions of her lounger as he closed his eyes. Her seat was on an elevated portion of the dais, so his shoulders and head were a little higher than the rest of his body, on a level with the table.
His simple gesture had a startling effect on the other diners. Their emotions surged in currents. Envy. Covetous admiration. Desire. Resentment against Tarquine, that she flouted her success. They responded with such intensity, he saw himself through their minds: a gilded provider with flowing curls, dressed in gold velvet, the only color in a room of stark black and white. He lay stretched out on his side, white velvet cushions tumbled all around him, his long legs half hidden in the piles of cushions, his collar and guards gleaming gold, his eyes closed, his head in Tarquine's lap. Even he could see the sensuality of it.
But he was past caring. He was too damn tired.
And sleep was a form of escape ...

...
the flow and flux of verbal discourse has been elevated tonight. Subtle. Sharp. I will study the recordings ...
Kelric slowly came awake, disoriented by his dream. Had he been inside Tarquine's mind? If so, he now knew she was monitoring the banquet, spying on every Aristo here. It didn't surprise him. Later she would analyze the recordings for any advantage they might provide.
He drifted in and out of sleep while the Aristos conversed. They spent a lot of time predicting what they expected to happen when Eube had a psiberweb. Avoiding words like
conquer,
they spoke instead of how they would "free" settled space from the "tyranny" of Kelric's family and bestow upon them the benevolent guidance of Eube. He had heard it all before. But now he detected a difference. Fatigue. The Radiance War had drained Eube. No one wanted another conflict. For all that they finally had victory within their sights, many of them wished the Lock had never been captured.
They also discussed platinum, a metal crucial to modern technology. The war had left Eube with a shortage. Although molecular assemblers could construct sheets of the pure metal from waste products, the process wasn't trivial for transition elements, with their high reactivity and complicated band structures. So the shortage had sent its price soaring.
They spent an hour in a verbal dance of negotiation. Sapphire Sector had the greatest stores of the metal. It came down to a simple equation: the other sectors wanted platinum at reasonable prices, and Sapphire wanted its advantage. He had a hard time following the convolutions of their speech patterns, but it sounded like they were trying to find a compromise. The process amazed him. If they had been willing to say what they wanted straight out, they could have conducted their business in about one fifth the time.
After a while he submerged into sleep again ...

... Hidden here in shadow, I can watch the entire hall. Yes, a successful night ...
Tarquine reclined in her lounger, while Kelric slept with his head in her lap. Idly stroking his hair, she studied the hall. The lights had been dimmed and most of her guests had retired to alcoves or corners for their after-dinner pleasures with the providers. It had been a productive meeting.
Platinum, Sapphire, Sphinx. Indeed.
The Platinum Sectors had begun rebuilding the mines damaged during the Radiance War. The asteroid facilities were already coming on-line. But the planetary mines contained the fabulous platinum deposits that gave those sectors their name, and they were taking longer to become operational.
Sapphire Sector had far fewer mines than Platinum, but none had suffered in the war. Tarquine suspected they had even more reserves than they claimed. They were stockpiling the metal to force up prices. Sphinx Sector had no platinum at all and had grown desperate. Although she couldn't be certain, she thought they were dealing covertly with the Allieds on the black market.
She continued her survey of the hall. A few Aristos still sat at tables, talking in quiet voices. She would analyze their behavior later. Of course, they all knew she was monitoring them. They chose their words and actions with care. Even the most guarded comments could offer advantage, though. One unraveled the discourse to find what secrets hid within its fractal nooks and crannies. True human speech, at its finest, showed repeating patterns of meaning on ever finer scales. When she unfolded a statement, she discovered its "smooth" edges were themselves convoluted with information.
She tangled her fingers in Kelric's hair, savoring its glossy texture. So different, providers. With them, fine distinctions of pleasure replaced the fine distinctions of speech. To achieve existence in its purest form, humans needed both intellectual and physical perfection. Highton discourse provided the ideal medium for intellectual elevation, and providers offered the purest form of physical elevation. Their synthesis produced a sublime state of existence. An Aristo.
In sleep, Kelric's face had relaxed, making him even more appealing, almost unbearably so. He was the pinnacle of what a provider offered an Aristo. And he was hers.
A deep regret cut through her satisfaction. She could never achieve the ultimate state. She had forfeited transcendence. Yet perhaps learning compassion took one to an even higher plane. Maybe. Maybe not. Who the hell knew? For all her regrets, her decision felt more correct as time passed.
Kelric shifted in her lap, restless with his dreams. She stroked his head until he quieted. He was an enigma. A puzzle. Was he like the rest of his family? Direct and overt, without even the pretense of discretion, they publicly flaunted their traits as providers. Beautiful. Sexual. Candid. Empathic.
Uncontrolled.
Their behavior violated all norms of morality. Yet even after only a short time with Kelric, she was convinced he never deliberately sought that lifestyle. He genuinely didn't understand the indecency of his ways. She had begun to doubt any of his kind did.
But the Skolian problem went far deeper than the improper public displays of providers. The Skolian armies forced their twisted reality on the rest of humanity. They had penetrated to the heart of Eube, violated Glory, committed unspeakable murders. Viquara, Jaibriol, Quaelen. All dead.
Did Kelric know? Where had he been these eighteen years? So far she had made no discoveries, neither from him nor from her investigations. Did he feel grief for his lost siblings? Remorse for their misdeeds? Shame at their indecency? Did a provider have the capacity for such depths of emotion? Yes, of course, providers were empaths. Even telepaths. But funneling moods or stray thoughts through their minds wasn't the same as having the depth and complexity to understand what they absorbed.
And yet ... he obviously grieved for the Majda admiral. In a limited sense, he felt deeply. Or perhaps it wasn't limited. Maybe she didn't understand how he experienced and expressed his emotions. The more time she spent with him, the more she realized how little she fathomed Skolians. She had so little interaction with them and had never watched them in their own environment.
After Eube built a psiberweb, the Aristos would extend their umbrella of protection to all the worlds and habitats in settled space. Humanity would merge into one glorious civilization guided by the Aristos, with Hightons at the helm. They would all understand one another then. They would all be of the same mind. The same thoughts. The same.
Without the web, news traveled with maddening slowness. Nearly two months had passed since the deaths of the Emperor, his mother, and her consort. Yet the tidings were only now reaching the more remote sectors of humanity's far-flung settlements. The memorials had yet to begin. It would be even longer before all humanity came together in their mourning for the inconsolable loss of Viquara, her son Jaibriol II, her consort Quaelen, and perhaps even for the Ruby Dynasty.
Kelric stirred, his eyelids twitching. Watching him, she felt a strange tightness, a blend of satisfaction, desire, and fear. The intensity of her reactions alarmed her. No provider should evoke such a vehement response. She must control herself, lest she begin to need him too much ...