Rhythm of the Imperium (27 page)

In lieu of a coherent answer, he got back a burst of static and some pixilated graphics. Nole frowned at the panel. Something had gone awry with the planetary systems, not just ground control. His viewpad had been misfiring all through his visit. Some of the locals who had taken him on tours or served him in restaurants had put it down to a burst of magnetic energy from the sun. No doubt the same burst had put the departures and arrivals of space vehicles into a delaying pattern. Still, he disliked being ignored. It wasn’t appropriate for one of his rank to have to wait without acknowledgement!

True, he could have been far less comfortable. His four-seat landau skimmer was a twin in every respect to the one that cousin Xan had purchased five months before, complete with first-class crash padding and planetary-level atmospheric controls. The outlay for a ground-to-space shuttle had put a hole into an already dwindling credit account. Who would have known that it was so expensive to commission a houseboat? Not that Nole lacked any of the wherewithal to make the remainder of the journey, of course. He’d already resolved to cut back on frivolities for a time once everyone had returned to Keinolt. One didn’t need a bespoke pair of boots for
every
single state occasion, however nice the feeling of creakingly new material around one’s feet.

What fun it had been to sneak up on old Nalney and nick his trousers! Thomas must have kept his word not to spill the secret that Nole was about. The fellow often seemed as though he didn’t have a brain in his head, but he was faithful to the last. Nole felt a moment’s envy for all the time Thomas got to spend in the presence of Commander Parsons. The fellow was like the wise old wizard of all the fairy tales. Nole could just about comprehend why Thomas and his siblings needed an extra bit of attention. Poor old Uncle Rodrigo. Nole and Nalney had been fortunate to maintain a working pair of parental units all these years.

“…
hiss … crackle … Imperium Jaunter
scheduled to dep—” A tangle of noise erupted from the audio pickup. Nole leaned forward, trying to distinguish one syllable from another in the midst of the burst. Curse it, he was going to miss his window! There was no way his ship could move faster than the entourage. If they got ahead of him, he could not make it to the platform to be there waiting when they arrived! They must not spoil his surprise.

“Ground control, I did not copy. Please repeat?”

It appeared that they were not speaking to him. Nole frowned, doing his best to make out the words.

“Delayed … two … ground shuttle … .”

Must still have been waiting for one of the runabouts to make it back to orbit, Nole mused. Good. He still stood a chance. What a delight! He was going to surprise his cousins
utterly
.

“Ground control, if everyone else is waiting for tardy passengers, any chance of liftoff?” he asked, politely, leaning close to the audio pickup. “
Spectre One
, just asking.”

“Hold, please,
Spectre One
.” Nole was surprised at the sudden clarity of the transmission.

“Very well,” he said. “Glad to hear from you.”

“Our pleasure, Lord Nole. One moment.”

Nole sat back to wait. He had secured some very fine wines from a south-facing slope on Continent Six. The case had been stowed by his two LAI servants behind him in the storage compartment, just within reach over the rear seat. He speculated as to whether there would be time to have one of them crack open a bottle and serve him a glass, or whether he should keep on the alert for an imminent departure.

Banging on his hull made him sit bolt upright. He activated the external video pickups. A couple of hulking shadows lurked near his hatch.

Nole groaned. As if the salespeople in the markets had not been aggressive enough! The port literature uploaded to his nav computer had promised there would be no ship-to-ship reps! But no, could those be cunning disguises? It wouldn’t be the first time that his cousins had dressed up as monsters to scare one another. Perhaps Thomas had bent after all and revealed his secret. Well, two could play at that game. He wouldn’t answer the door. Let them pound until their fists hurt, and he would see them at the platform! Nole settled back in his couch and laced his fingers behind his head to wait.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The endless pounding sounded as though his cousins weren’t going to take no for an answer. Well, Nole could outwait any of those fools.

Just then, the banging stopped. Nole glanced up at the screen. A port servicebot rolled up beside the hulking figures. Good, it could tell them to go away!

Instead, suddenly, Nole’s screen went fuzzy with a burst of static. Then, the lights around the airlock came to life, and the small security screen in its center started cycling through the procedure for emergency entry. They were breaking into his shuttle! How they had obtained his locking codes, he had no idea. No doubt one of them had bribed the manufacturer to give over the information. He absolutely was not innocent of that sort of subterfuge himself. He and Nalney had pulled such a jape on an elderly auntie a few years before, and been strategically punished for it. Nole’s hands flew over the controls, trying to override the override. It was no use. The servicebot had skeleton keys for a million craft models, including this one. Curse all cousins!

Enough was enough. Nole threw himself out of the command couch and went to the portal, just in time for it to lever open. He put the best face on it he could. They had gone to a lot of trouble. The joke was over.

“Hello! It looks as though you found me after all …” Nole’s voice trailed off. The figures on the short ramp were not his cousins in costumes. They were some other species entirely, with skin made entirely of gray pebbles and sand. Nole was horrified to recognize the intruders as Kail. He backed away. “Wait a moment! Who are you?”

“Fovrates said the mechanism is ready for our command,” the servicebot said. Its clipped speech was overlaid with squeals and burps. “All it requires is the control program.”

“Go,” said the larger of the two creatures, a mass with five legs and three arms, its answering howls translated by the ’bot. “Do.” The servicebot rolled past him toward the control center. They started up into his shuttle. Nole backed away, his eyes wide.

He must get help! He made for the ramp. The second, smaller and with only two arms and three legs, swung out an arm and knocked him backward.

“I am a member of the Imperium house!” Nole exclaimed. “The Emperor will be angry if you try to harm me. Dag! Meg!” He called for his pair of valetbots. They were stowed underneath the cargo area, but surely they had heard the uproar. “Help me! We’re being invaded by hostiles!”

He moved as far away from the two as he could. But apart from blocking the hatch, the Kail seemed to be paying no attention to him at all.

“I am already incorporated into the system,” the servicebot said. The Kail emitted peculiar squeaks.

Nole stormed over to the mechanical. He waved his arm majestically past the enormous Kail toward the still-open hatch.

“Get out of my ship! All of you, leave!”

The first Kail regarded him from flat, deepset eyes. “It’s our ship now.”

“No, it isn’t! I’ll call for help!” Nole made for the emergency beacon on the wall of the cockpit. “Dag! Meg! Summon assistance! We have been invaded.”

For answer, the Kail let out a high pitched whine that overwhelmed Nole’s ears. He covered them, but the shriek seemed to go on and on. He fell to his knees, unable to bear the pain. When it finally stopped, he looked around. The hatch was closed and sealed. The large Kail overspread both the command chair and the couch beside it. The narrower creature occupied a rear seat, its ridiculous array of limbs resting on his precious case of wine. The corner of the box collapsed.

“Now you’ve done it!” Nole said, feeling ire rising in his belly. “Get your big feet off that!” He rushed at it, trying to move it off the box before it shattered. The Kail howled in fury. Nole dodged as it attempted to kick him, and tripped to the floor.

“Lord Nole!” His two serverbots rolled up beside him. Nole looked up at them in annoyance.

“At last! Dag and Meg, throw these miscreants off my ship!”

“We are very sorry, sir,” MG-776h said, in a truly apologetic tone. Both he and DG-119m helped him to his feet and over to the remaining empty seat. With gentle but firm claws, they strapped him in. “They are in charge now.”

CHAPTER 27

Counterweight had been our last stop before the platform. Indeed, there would have been nowhere to visit on the rest of the way. Stars were few and far between in this sector. Xan had found a reference on a history vid that called this part of the galaxy the Empty Quarter. Small wonder, to my mind. Since the Zang had occupied it so long, they had probably destroyed stars, planets, bibs and bobs until there was almost nothing left to remove, all in the name of their brand of perfection.

During the final days of our transit, my cousins and I fell into a comfortable routine designed to keep us amused. Laine, Madame Deirdre, Nalney’s fencing instructor, Sinim’s master storyteller, Erita’s art master, and all the other experts we had paid to accompany us came into their own during this time. We were hungry for information and entertainment, although if truth be told, we would retain neither for very long.

The instructors schooled us in dance, saber fighting, the art of telling a compelling anecdote (I excelled at this, of course), cooking, handcrafts, improvisational humor, painting, sculpting, beadwork, martial arts, and a host of other interests, going onto the next entertainment just before the previous one palled. When Laine was available, she told us stories of her life traveling with the Zang. Jil and I kept up on our favorite tri-dee program,
Ya!
, an imported costume drama from the Uctu Autocracy that had been running for hundreds of years. The others watched over our shoulders with varying degrees of interest. Madame Deirdre and I kept in shape by presenting daily performances based upon a subject or a story proposed by my cousins and sister. Erita argued with everyone in turn, allowing those not strictly involved a rousing spectator sport. I was forced to admit how short our collective attention spans were. It was a wonder that we had not yet driven the crew insane.

Every evening after a sumptuous, multi-course dinner, we settled in the day room and watched one of Erita’s digitavids of previous known works of the Zang. Each of us had claimed a favorite. Mine was of a particularly misshapen planetoid orbiting a quadruple red star cluster that split into four pieces before being vaporized. On the other hand, Nell clamored for the most recent recording, taken in a system of many rocky worlds and a couple of colorful gas giants.

On one fortune-starred evening, I sat with Laine curled up against me on the plum velvet-covered couch, our fingers entwined intimately. She had been set free of her job as Kail-interpreter by virtue of the fact that Ambassador Melarides had talked Phutes and his siblings into an evening reception. I shuddered to imagine what offense the Kail would take at polite queries that wouldn’t even make a human raise her eyebrows. For our part, we had consumed an excellent supper, accompanied by wines that Xan had discovered on Taruandula, and had settled down with those retainers who had not managed to beg off. Laine’s small, slippered feet were curled upon the cushion beside me, and she nestled against me like a kitten. I reveled in the closeness, enjoying the feel of her skin, the scent of her hair, the gentle curves pressed against my side. Together, we watched the recording of the spectacle. I had seen it numerous times, but she had not. As it unfolded, she let out occasional squeals of delight that pleased my heart even as they shocked my ears. My cousins, gracefully, pretended not to hear.

Nell’s digitavid had been enlarged so the walls of the large room disappeared in the inky blackness of space. We sat in the center of an arena that had been recorded by over a thousand camera drones set in every angle of the solar system that the Zang had targeted.

“Targeted is a really unfair term,” Laine argued, as the cameras focused on the sphere in question, a dwarf planet with an irregular orbit that brought it perilously close to the inner, rocky worlds, two of which had the bright blue aura of habitable planets. “They are artists of the greatest and most extreme caliber.”

“Really,” Xan commented. He had chosen to lie on the rug directly underneath the doomed planetoid. It was possibly the only angle from which he had not watched this particular recording. “Of all the things that an elder race is potentially capable of, I would never have picked the term ‘artistic’ out of a list of potential adjectives.”

“I promise you, that’s what it is,” Laine said. “Theirs is an art form no other species has ever practiced, although the old practice of bonsai comes the closest, but it’s not identical.

“Of my ancient human ancestors on long-lost Earth, some who lived on a small archipelago in the north ocean had been the creators of that delicate rendering. The Zang are so much older than humankind that I can only imagine that the ancient Terrans must have intuited it from them. This is far different, because while the little tree only becomes more beautiful in and of itself, the system that the Zang change becomes more beautiful
and
more functional.”

Her words definitely changed the way that I watched the recording. Though the actual event had unfolded over the course of nearly two weeks, the vid had been speeded up so that it lasted little more than an hour from its trembling onset to the explosive conclusion. I tried to determine why the Zang had chosen this solar array, and how they came to understand or believe that this “tree” was to their inscrutable minds less than ideal. It looked very ordinary to me. If not for the Zang’s attention, it would have escaped my attention even if I had lived as long as they did.

The space around each of the planets was almost supernally clear. Over time, the Zang must have trimmed away extraneous asteroid belts, even removing entire planets, until the sun and its remaining satellites formed a breathtakingly beautiful gem in space. The only flaw that remained was this sad little rock.

How they did it, neither I nor any of the experts whose texts and digitavids I perused could say. They had only empirical evidence, the experience itself, without explanation. As far as anyone could tell, the Zang brought the force of their will upon a heavenly body. It became surrounded with and suffused by a brilliant light too hot to look upon, then it was gone. Onlookers had stated, in scientific journals and “being-on-the-spot” interviews, that they had been subject to waves of force billowing outward from the place where the removed body had been, but none knew absolutely where it had gone. Speculation was rife that the planetoids were thrust from our universe into a nearby one, but no living creature except perhaps the Zang themselves could shed further light upon that truth, and they did not speak directly to anyone but one another.

As in this event, the cameras occasionally turned from the spectacle itself to the perpetrators. Although they permitted other species to observe them performing this astonishing feat, the Zang often passed by their visitors, seeming almost unaware of their presence. A crowd of humans wearing Trade Union tunics clustered around the shining pillars, gasping in astonishment at the marvel before them.

“My uncle Laurence had said he had once witnessed the disappearance of a gas giant and its ten attendant moons,” I told Laine. “He said he stood in the midst of the cluster of Zang. The onlookers said it had to have been a fake.”

“I was there,” Laine said, with a grin. “How could it be faked? Witnesses flew ships through the space where the gas giant had been. So, where would the planets have gone? How could they possibly be concealed?”

“That’s what I thought,” I said. I had no doubt that Uncle Laurence told me the truth. I believed nearly everything he told me, except that when he said that he had visited Old Earth. No one knew precisely where our ancient homeworld lay. Careless of humanity to mislay it, but there it was. How often had I walked out of a door on a space station or on a strange planet and been unable to divine, upon turning around, where I had come from? I supposed that humankind had done exactly the same thing upon leaving that branch of Mutter’s Spiral. We simply did not leave enough benchmarks behind us, so much in a hurry were we to issue forth among the stars. There was no pressing need to return; after all, we had found Earth-class planets in sufficiency to settle and prosper, leaving behind many of the problems that we had created on our homeworld.

“I heard that story from Uncle Laurence, too,” Nell said. “But it must have happened thirty years ago.”

Laine smiled. “It might have been. I lose track of time.”

I opened my mouth to ask her age, but was distracted by Xan.

“Wait for it,” he said, drawing our attention back to the digitavid with an excitedly pointing finger. The doomed sphere’s tremble had become an earthquake. “Five minutes to destruction!”

“Oh, Xan,” Erita said, with a bored wave. “We’ve seen it a million times.”

“Not like this,” I said. “Not when we are mere light years from seeing it for ourselves.”

A brilliant glow suffused the room, overwhelming the tri-dee projector. Automatically, the mechanism strengthened its multiple beams, to compensate. Into the midst of this, the Zang floated, majestically, almost dreamily, a pillar of moonlight in the darkness of space. We all sat up straight.

Xan jumped up out of its way, putting his head through the image of the doomed planetoid. He stared, wide-eyed, at the newcomer. We all rose to our feet. The recording stopped in mid-tremble.

“What’s it doing here?” Rillion asked, agape.

“Just taking a look around,” Laine said, with a wave. She stopped for a moment as though listening. I held still, waiting for the touch of its energy. “Proton is curious about everything humans do. It wants to see what you do.”

“Welcome, elder being,” Xan said, sweeping it a majestic bow. “I am Lord Xanson Kinago, of the Imperium house.”

It glowed at him. Instead of the massive sweep of energy, it emitted a sensation that made me think of feeling an eddy in a pool.

“Goodness!” Nalney said, agog. “Did it just say ‘hello’?”

“It’s curious about you all,” Laine repeated. “Just go on as if it wasn’t here.”

“Well, I
suppose
we could,” Nell said, although she sounded uncertain. “Would it … like some refreshments? I feel bad eating and drinking in front of guests.”

“No, thanks,” Laine said, on its behalf. “It doesn’t eat our kind of food.”

The lift chimed, indicating that a car had arrived from another level. I turned to see just as the door opened. To my surprise and not a little annoyance, the trio of Kail piled out of it. The contrast between the majesty and grace of the Zang and the clumsy fury of the silicon-based aliens could not have been more extreme. They seemed so awkward in present company that I felt sorry for them. I wanted to try and make them feel at home. Reaching for my viewpad, I prepared to turn on the latest piece of music to which I had choreographed a dance, then realized the Zang was present. Disappointed, I let my hand drop.

“Should we … withdraw?” Xan asked, watching them warily. Though we had had to dodge them frequently on other levels, including on the crew’s cabin deck, this was the first time they had come to our room. They had spent most of their time marauding between their own allotted cabins and the Zang’s echoing chamber. They had not penetrated as far as our quarters before this moment.

“They don’t move as swiftly as we do,” I said, eyeing them as well. “Steady, then. We may have to play them in a game of hide-and-seek.”

The way my cousins perked up reassured me that they had made note of the cosy fastnesses that I had carefully led them to over the course of the last few weeks. I felt confident that if we had to outrun the Kail now, we would be able to conceal ourselves where they could never find us. We all sat, poised, ready to flee at the least suggestion of hostility. They were not armed, but they were far stronger than we were.

Luckily, this was not the beginning of an onslaught.

“Good evening, my ladies and lords!” Special Envoy Melarides moved out from behind Phutes, whose stony bulk had entirely concealed her from our view. We relaxed, Nalney with an audible sigh. “I was speaking to the Kail in the cargo level, when the Zang moved away. Security informed me that this was where it had come, so the Kail followed it here. I trust that you don’t mind our intrusion?”

“Not at all,” Xan said, lifting his chin. “A pleasure to see you, ambassador.”

“Thank you, Lord Xanson,” Melarides said.

The Kail grunted out a few noises, which were translated for him by NR-111. I fancied that I recognized yet a fourth housing that the poor translator had been forced into because of the abuse by the Kail.

“We came because the Zang is here.”

Behind them, the entire consular staff crowded into the room. They looked even more uncomfortable than the miserable Kail. Though they had been schooled to behave with aplomb in nearly any circumstances, following one set of visitors who clearly did not want anything to do with them into the presence of another visitor with whom they
did
want to interact, all the while interrupting the evening’s entertainment of a large group of the noble house, tried the diplomats sorely. I felt deep sympathy for them, as did my cousins and sister. Behind them was a coterie of guards, with full armor and helmets as well as gelatin guns and other, more fearsome-looking armaments.

“Well, this is quite a party!” I said.

I started forward, but Nell was fleeter of foot. She reached the visitors two paces ahead of me. Careful not to touch the newcomers, she beckoned them into the starlit circle.

“Welcome,” she said, with a bright smile. “Please come in. We were just watching a digitavid of the Zang’s works of art. Perhaps you would like to join us?”

Phutes growled at her, but NR-111 translated it in a friendlier vein.

“If the Zang wishes to participate, we will stay.”

“That is very good of you,” I said. I looked to the Zang to see if it was pleased or displeased by their insistence. It merely hummed. “May I offer you some refreshments?”

“No! We do not eat your slime comestibles.”

As I was accustomed to the Kail’s uncouth ways, I did not take offense. The same could not be said for my relatives, but they suppressed their feelings in favor of the greater good of the Imperium. Her restraint did not stop Erita from emitting one telling sniff.