Rhythm of the Imperium (19 page)

At that moment, the door slid open. Lieutenant Ormalus stood in the corridor, surrounded by 110 helmeted guards. Every one of them had the brightly colored, long-barreled weapons in their hands, pointed at the Kail.

“Enough,” the Uctu said, her coral-colored mandible quivering. The sight of wobbly matter made Phutes nauseated. “Leave now.”

Sofus’s heavy fist landed upon Phutes’s shoulder, markedly more gentle than his own blow.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ll try again with the Zang.”

Phutes relented. He ceased his pursuit of the servicebot. NR-111 rolled to the side of the room. Her lower section creaked in a tone it had not emitted before. He saw that his foot had put a large dent in the housing. He was ashamed of his outburst.

“Very well,” he said.

The human guards reversed, but kept their rifles leveled at the Kail. Phutes found their fear amusing. The black-topped human and the other Uctu had borne the same devices on the shuttle that conveyed them from the
Whiskerchin
. They weren’t much of a threat. They did not give off the supersonic whine of transuranic minerals, or smell of acid. The Kail could withstand extremes of heat and cold. Weapons that propelled small pieces of metal were more of an inconvenience than a danger. Fovrates was right about the humans underestimating them.

He strode toward the lift door half the corridor away. The knot of guards had to run to stay around him. Mrdus and Sofus stayed close behind him.

Still squeaking, NR-111 rolled to catch up with him, and moved right alongside him to the elevator.

“I give you credit for courage,” he told her. “You’re vulnerable to damage, but you still come back.”

“It is my job to serve you,” she said.

The lead guard, who had 11 colored lines on his sleeve instead of the 1 or 10 the others wore, ran to reach the lift before the Kail did. He gestured to the open door with the tip of the bright yellow gun.

“On in,” he said. NR-111 duly translated the command.

“We are going this way,” Phutes said, and stepped past him. The floor bobbed slightly under his weight.

“Welcome aboard car 100,” the lift voice said in good Kail. “Deck numbers, please?”

“We want to go to the Zang’s cabin,” Phutes said.

“Oh, no,” the 11-stripe guard said. “Deck 1100. You’re going back to your quarters.”

“No. We have business with the Zang. It cannot wait.”

“Not right now,” the guard replied, his words sounding muffled through his helmet. “The envoy told us you should get some rest. There’s some nice stone powder waiting for you there. Water, too. We hear you like water.”

“No, we want to go back to the Zang. We have to keep trying! Take us to the Zang’s deck,” Phutes told the lift.

“Deck 1100,” the guard said.

“We are the guests! We are to have unlimited access to the Zang. We want to see it now!”

“Look, buddy,” the guard said. “My orders are that you have to go back to your cabin. Don’t you like it? It’s all laid out the way Kail people live.”

“How do you know how we live?” Phutes demanded, turning to glare at the guard. “Have you been spying on us?”

“I don’t spy on anyone,” the guard said, still in a singsong tone that NR-111 did her best to reproduce in Kail. “I’m only saying what they told me. They made the place up all nice for you. Come on, buddy. Deck 1100.”

“No!” Phutes said. “You will not deter me. Take me to the Zang! No more arguments!”

“As you please, sir,” the lift said.

The floor dropped. The guard leader fought to get past him, reaching for a red-rimmed control on the panel. Phutes, still doing his best to contain all the pent-up energy from his frustration with the report Fovrates had given him, shoved him back. The other guards lowered their heads and charged at the Kail. They could not shoulder the more weighty Kail aside, but contact even with their clothing set Mrdus off into a keening wail that made the lift bounce and the lights switch on and off. Blinding blue lights bathed the chamber, sweeping up and down in a dizzying pattern.

“Security, what’s going on there?” a blaring voice asked. “I see a scuffle going on.”

“We request help in lift four!” the guard leader shouted. “Divert us to Deck 12!”

“Sending … !” the voice was cut off as Mrdus’s cries reached an almost ultrasonic frequency.

“Stop that!” the guard leader cried, both of his hands over his ears. All of the guards reeled, lowering their heads almost to their chests.

The lift suddenly lurched upward.

“We are going the wrong way,” Sofus said.

“They must not deter us from seeing the Zang,” Phutes said. He grabbed his smaller sibling and shook him. “Mrdus! Stop this nonfunctional noise! The lift is being diverted. Do what Fovrates taught you to. Tell it to take us to the Zang!”

The smallest Kail’s eyes were pits of woe, but he stopped wailing. He started to emit a sequence of tones. The lift shuddered again, and began to move downward.

“What’s he saying?” the guard leader demanded.

“I … I’m not allowed to tell you,” NR-111 said. “Please try to understand, they don’t want to hurt anyone!”

“Security, tell them to shut off the lifts! All of them! Oh, hell, never mind.”

The lift door slid aside with a cheery ping! Phutes made for the opening.

“Together, now!” the guard bellowed. They leaped forward and tackled Phutes before he could step out of the chamber. He landed on the floor. The humans fought to capture his flailing limbs. “Full security, we need you on the cargo deck, now!”

“Help me, brothers!” Phutes shouted.

He was glad to see Sofus wade toward his attackers. The big Kail picked one of the guards up by one lower limb and swung him at the others. The guard leader and his people were knocked rolling into the corridor. Phutes bent all three knees and heaved himself to his feet.

“Come along,” he said.

But the humans were not finished yet. They sprang up and leveled the bright yellow guns at them.

“Get back in there!” the guard leader bellowed. Phutes paid no attention. The Zang’s door was only 11101 paces away. “Stop, or we’ll shoot!”

Mrdus scurried to catch up with his larger siblings.

“That was terrible,” he said. “I never dreamed … aaaaaaeeee!”

His voice rose to the shrillest tone yet. Mrdus dropped on the floor, writhing in agony. His back was covered with clear slime. Phutes turned. A blast of clear liquid hit him in the face. But it was not pure, clean water—it was something viscous and slimy. The liquid seeped into his joints, coating the granules of his body. Phutes emitted a howl that made the entire corridor shake.

“How dare you pollute me like that?” he bellowed, brushing at himself desperately. “I will have the Zang destroy all of you!”

They sprayed him and Sofus again and again from the yellow guns. Phutes couldn’t bear the insult a microsecond longer. He charged at the guards, knocking one then another over. The guard captain sank to one knee and aimed a charge straight into Phutes’s face. Phutes grabbed for the nearest human and heaved him bodily at the leader. Both humans fell to the ground with a clatter. Phutes and Sofus helped Mrdus to his feet and made for the cabin.

“Security, where are you?” the leader shouted. “Secure the hatch of the Zang’s quarters. Don’t open it for anything! Top level emergency!”

Phutes reached the doorway. He clapped his fist against the door plate as he had seen the others do. A subdued ding-dong sounded on the other side of the portal, but it did not slide aside.

“Tell it to open,” he ordered Mrdus, who was still whimpering. “Pull yourself together! We will be clean soon!”

Reluctantly, Mrdus stopped making sounds of misery, and shrilled the ultrasonic cues that should have caused the door to fall under their command.

Nothing happened.

“Again!” Mrdus tried again and again to open the door.

Being thwarted of his rightful access made him so angry that Phutes pounded on the door with both fists. The door dented, but remained stubbornly shut. It was no use. The humans had prevented the computer from aiding them. He hammered at wall plates until they dented, then threw them aside. Beneath them were tubes and pipes. Phutes tore at those and tossed them aside. His hands became soiled with more effluvia. The horrible stench offended him. Humans smelled worse than Wichu! He and the others pounded on the inner wall, trying to break through.

“Let me in!”

Mrdus raised his voice to the very highest frequency imaginable. It was so shrill that it made Phutes’s head ring. At last, the door slid aside. They charged in, heading for the Zang.

As usual, Proton seemed to be in a world of dream. Phutes shouted loudly to get its attention.

“Great Zang!” he cried. “Help us! The humans have invaded Kail space. We need you! Please show us that you understand!”

Phutes waited for any sign, even the passage of energy to show that the Zang was aware of their presence.

“Why don’t you acknowledge us?” he demanded. “We need you now!”

They were hit from behind by another spray of slime. Phutes rounded in fury and charged at the humans. They dodged away from him, moving behind the furniture. Phutes picked up the table in one hand and flung it at them. Sofus smashed the desk into two pieces and swung them at the humans, knocking yet another one down. But surge after surge of the sticky goo still issued forth from the horrible guns. They must get away from the guards.

“Come with me!” he shouted to the other two.

They pushed their way into the corridor past the squad, cannoning another of them into the wall as they passed. The humans pursued them with weapons expectorating. Sofus forced one of the doors open. Phutes pushed Mrdus inside and slammed his fist on the plate. The portal slid shut.

Dripping with nauseating fluids, Phutes stood scanning the room. Numerous sealed containers were stacked high above their heads. Machines for moving those boxes huddled against one wall of the room as though they were afraid of the Kail. In the far corner, he spotted a glass-walled booth. Hanging from the ceiling were flexible metal rods. He had seen installations like that on the
Whiskerchin
. Fovrates called them “showers.”

“Over there!” he ordered the others. “We can use that to become clean.”

“There is a machine already using the room,” Mrdus said, pointing to a low vehicle in red and gold enamel.

“Tell it to move,” Sofus said.

“I can’t. It’s not intelligent.”

“Take it out!” Phutes ordered, throwing open the glass door. “One piece at a time if necessary!”

CHAPTER 19

I invited my crew and Madame Deirdre to join us for dinner in the common room. Anna had been given free rein of my stash of delicacies and put them into the hands, or claws, or processors, of the ship’s culinarybot, MC-037. I enjoined Marcel to use all the best recipes he could search along the Infogrid to make the most wonderful meal that he could. If it left me short of saffron sprouts and truffloid compounds until I returned to Keinolt, I considered the sacrifice to be worthwhile.

In this sector, only a few pinpoints of stars shone through the broad porthole, so I indulged myself in lighting the room with richly colored spotlights that picked up equally evocative hues from the priceless tapestries and throws with which I had adorned the furnishings. The table was laid with brilliant white china that had come down to me from my great-great grandmother Glennis Tamerlane Loche, on top of a vast silk paisley shawl in hues of peat brown, rouge and deep blue that evoked the highlands of our ancestral home planet. The flatware was made of pure silver with crystal tines, bowls or blades, depending on the item of cutlery. Equally rich aromas enticed the nose from the curtained serving area, where Marcel’s serverbots awaited my cue.

Of course, I had prepared a dance of welcome. As each of my guests arrived, I sashayed, pranced or glided forward, escorting each one to the circle of couches and settees where their drink of choice awaited. Redius gave me a humorous look as I performed an Uctu pavane that I had learned while on his ancestral homeworld of Memepocotel. I had set the music system to respond to nonverbal clues. Lieutenant Plet was greeted by the stirring martial refrain from an ancient march. Madame Deirdre, enveloped in swathes of shimmering dark green and blue silk that reminded me of butterfly wings, fell into my arms as I drew her forward into a sweeping waltz that surprised applause from Nesbitt and Anstruther. All of the pieces had been carefully chosen for the person involved. I rather regretted that Oskelev, the
Rodrigo
’s pilot, was still on Counterweight with my cousin Jil. I had a splendid reel that I would have danced for her. I took a chance on a plaintive threnody I had happened upon for the appearance of my guest. When Dr. Derrida first entered the room, she seemed so small and alone, nearly swallowed by a massive quilted silver and blue caftan, but I should have realized that she was equal to any situation.

“How beautiful!” she exclaimed, looking around with pleasure writ large upon her face. She beamed up at me as I drew her against me, one of her small hands on my upturned palm. We spun together gracefully. “I didn’t know it was going to be a party!”

“In your honor,” I said, escorting her to the well-lit circle one delicate step at a time. “Please, let me introduce you to everyone.”

At first, my crew was reticent with a stranger, but her effusive personality took over at once. In remarkably little time, they fell into easy conversation with her. I would have been deeply surprised if anyone could not. Laine seemed to make herself at home no matter where she was. I supposed that resulted from being plucked up and set down into so many locations over the past many years. Her adventures, which she was happy to relate at the turn of a question, had us all agog.

At Marcel’s signal that the meal was ready, we moved to the table. The conversation continued smoothly from one location to another. I made sure everyone’s glass remained full. Plet’s and Anstruther’s were filled with iced coffee, since they were nominally still on duty.

“I travel light,” Laine said, in answer to a question from Plet, who had come out of her rather rigid shell at Laine’s welcoming warmth. “I have to. Everything I own fits into my backpack. If I don’t have my hand on it when Proton is ready to leave, it gets left behind. You can’t believe the things I’ve lost over the years! My viewpad is made to do very complex analyses, and it has a really large memory bank. I can wait several months until we’re close to a node so I can transmit. If I take a specimen that I want to send back to the university, it has to be small. It might be a year or more before we end up near an outpost from which I can ship them. I’ve carried things around for
ages
.”

“What’s the weirdest thing you ever sent home?” Nesbitt asked. Since it was his off-duty shift, he joined us in a bottle of my finest Boske red wine, sent to me by a cousin who had moved to the Castaway Cluster. We had already enjoyed appetizer, soup, salad, two entrees, and a palate freshener of cardamom sorbet.

Laine smiled fondly at a memory. “A little red walking flower from a G-class world with eighty percent Keinolt gravity. It hibernated in my backpack until I could find safe transport for it. I saw in the department’s Infogrid file that it’s doing just fine. It even had three seedlings. Or pups. Or whatever. Wow, look at that! What is it?”

The serverbot flourished a large silver platter on which reposed large, thick, chocolate-brown leaves oozing with rich yellow filling, and brandished flattened serving tongs. A heavenly aroma of sweet and savory spices rose in a cloud of steam. Marcel’s matchingly unctuous voice emerged from the speaker.

“Quistaminatos,” it said. “May I serve you, madame?”

“Yes, please!” Laine said, with delight. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s a cheese-filled flowering succulent from one of the Imperium’s outpost worlds,” I explained, pleased to have surprised her with something new. “Rather difficult to grow, but long-lasting in cold storage. I find them delectable, and hope you will enjoy them, too.”

“Oh, it looks fantastic!” she said, picking up the next crystal fork. “Those tiny vegetables around it are just precious. And all of it smells wonderful!”

I cut into my own portion. Quistaminatos had the texture of mushrooms, but none of the gray heaviness. They could be served in a sweet or savory preparation, but my preference was for savory. The first bite was divine. I wondered if the second would add another to the pantheon. It did. I closed my eyes to appreciate the texture and the taste on my tongue.

“Marcel, you are a genius,” I said aloud. “Do I sense … nutmeg?”

“Only a pinch, sir. I thought it would add a mysterious air.”

“Astonishing!” I said. “You must pass the recipe back to my mother’s cook.”

“It would be my honor, sir.”

“This is great, sir,” Nesbitt said. The big man’s voice was thick with gravy. I noticed that his plate was already empty. The serverbots were ahead of my signal, though. They moved in to help him to a second portion of everything. My other tablemates ate at a more leisured pace, the better to enjoy the delicacies I had had laid out for them.

“Try the wine, sir,” Marcel’s server said, moving to his side with the carafe. He beamed at him and held out his glass.

“Great stuff, sir,” he said, holding the goblet up to me in a toast. “Thanks for inviting us!”

“Everything is
lovely
, Lord Thomas,” Madame Deirdre said, carving another tiny nibble. “I think my other friends here will agree that this is the finest food on any ship I have ever traveled. Certainly better than what I’ve had to force down my throat on traveling theatrical ships. Although actors and dancers can eat
anything
, proprietors and producers often think that means we should.”

The others laughed.

“Where is Parsons?” I enquired of the group as a whole. “I invited him, but he never responded to my note.”

Did Plet hesitate a moment before she answered?

“I can’t say, sir,” she said, lifting guileless blue eyes to my questioning gaze. “When I saw him last, he was in the engineering department. One of the technicians was making something for him. He implied that his … project might take some time.”

“Ah, well,” I said, ruefully, slicing myself a morsel of my meal. “He has been known to savor this dish. I did tell him I was serving it. Perhaps he will appear before dessert.”

I was pleased to see that all of my guests seemed to enjoy the rare treat. The fleshy texture of the succulent added a luxurious bite to the silky sauce. I admired Marcel’s hand with spices. I further detected the sweetness of cardamom on top of a piquant citrus note. All of these were firmly anchored in a rich stock flavored with roasted garlic and almost a sub-molecular spark of bird’s-eye chili.

“Genius,” I said, savoring the taste. “Don’t you agree?”

“Delicious,” Redius agreed, smacking his lips. Anstruther, shy thing that she was, nodded without looking up from her plate.

A high-pitched peep sounded from Plet’s end of the table. She glanced down at her viewpad and stood up.

“Anstruther, with me,” she said. The dark-haired girl rose, setting her napkin on the table.

“Do you want the rest of us, lieutenant?” Nesbitt asked, glancing at his wine glass with rueful eyes.

“Not at this time, but stay near your viewpads,” Plet said. “The rest of the security detail is already present.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

A tiny wrinkle of concern had etched itself between her straight blonde brows. On anyone else, the expression would have manifested as a gloomy frown.

“The Kail are kicking up a fuss over something. Security has ordered all crew on duty to the Zang’s quarters.”

Laine put down her fork and pushed back her chair with a rueful grimace. “I’d better come with you.”

“I will come, too,” I said, bravely abandoning the half-eaten quistaminato on my plate. “If I can be of any help.”

With a signal to Marcel to put all the food and wine safely aside, I followed my dinner party out to the lift shaft.

“What is
he
doing here?”

As we exited the lift shaft into the cargo-bay level, I recognized the voice as belonging to Master Chief O’ohma Charles Xi. The noncommissioned officer who oversaw security on the
Jaunter
was a long and faithful servant of the Imperium. His brown, oblong, solid face always reminded me of a large potato, but I didn’t hold it against him. Through the clear visor of a riot helmet, Chief Xi glared at me. He and most of the security contingent of the
Jaunter
were massed in the corridor, each of them carrying a riot shield and one of those brightly-colored weapons I had seen Redius and Nesbitt carrying after they conveyed the Kail to the
Jaunter
. I heard banging and shrieking, but it wasn’t coming from the Zang’s quarters. Instead, the deafening din issued from an open loading bay farther down. Torn sections of hull plate lay twisted and and mangled on the floor. Pipes in the wall were still leaking sewage and water. The smell was nauseous. Two security officers lay prone on the floor, being ministered to by a doctorbot and a female medic from the infirmary.

“He accompanied Dr. Derrida,” Lieutenant Plet said, in an apologetic tone I found inexcusable.

“I am a serving member of the Imperium Navy,” I pointed out, loading my voice with all the asperity I could.

“Well,
lieutenant
,” Chief Xi said, the word larded with equally inappropriate sarcasm, “I’d appreciate it if you and this lady would take yourself back to your quarters. It’s bad enough I have to deal with those things in there.” He aimed a thumb over his shoulder.

“Have they tried to assault the Zang?” Plet asked, keeping her face carefully immobile, as befit an assiduous student of the Parsons School for Inscrutability.

“No, not according to Petty Officer Gruen,” Xi said. He indicated one of the helmeted guards, whose armor looked as though he had been tumbled in an industrial clothes dryer with ten tons of rocks.

“No, ma’am, just us,” Gruen said.

“They can’t touch it anyhow,” Laine said. “It’s insubstantial unless it wants to be solid. Besides, my impression from the Kail was of total respect for the Zang.”

“Well, something’s stirred them up. They’re taking out their frustrations on the rest of the ship. They were in a pet even before we tried to herd them back to their quarters.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t got a clue. This one won’t talk.” Xi aimed the thumb at a derelict-looking LAI. I realized that the sorry structure before us was NR-111, the translator assigned to the Kail. Her housing was battered and dented, and the stalk supporting her lenses had been crushed as if in a vise.

From an open hangar door about thirty meters from us, a loud crash answered him. I thought that I heard a thousand pieces of glass shatter. Chief Xi didn’t even flinch.

“They’re marauding all over this level, breaking anything that they can lay their big cement mitts on.”

“Couldn’t you stop them?” Plet asked.

“With what? They’re the size of tanks. Two of my guards are in the infirmary, one with a fractured skull.”

“Have adapted weapons,” Redius said, indicating the guards’ colorful rifles. “No use?”

The chief’s big face turned dark with suffused blood. “That’s what set them off.”

“What do they shoot?” I asked.

“Gelatin,” Plet said. “The Kail dislike coming into contact with any kind of biological substance. They were meant to be the device of last resort only.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know,” Xi said. His eyes were hooded as he glanced toward Gruen. “I’ll be talking to my people later, once we get those monsters calmed down. Any suggestions?”

For answer, Plet turned to NR-111. “You have had more contact than anyone else. Do you have a recommendation?”

“I don’t know what to suggest,” the translator said, sounding almost frantic. “They are very angry, almost desperate.”

“About what?”

“They … I don’t believe it is breaking protocol to say they were speaking with the Kail on the other ship, lieutenant,” NR-111 said, in a tentative manner. “He showed them … some images that upset them greatly.”

“Can you give us any more detail than that?”

“I am afraid not.” The translator lowered her damaged stalk almost down to her dented housing. “Those communications are privileged. All I can say is that afterwards, they wanted to communicate urgently with the Zang.”

“And did they?”

“Oh, yes! But it doesn’t seem to have calmed them down. I think it made them more angry. Especially Phutes, their leader. He has a very bad temper.”

“They made a disaster out of the cabin that the Zang is in,” Gruen said. “We chased them out of there. I hope you didn’t leave anything valuable in there, ma’am. It’s probably not in good shape right now.”