The Bright Black Sea (117 page)

I wondered how Min was taking all this. I could see
concern on Vynnia's face, but Min's was impassive.

'Right,' Vinden concluded, and knelt down, opened the
pod and touched the controls to turn off the stasis field, bringing
Captain DarQue back to life. Within seconds DarQue drew a deep
breath and blinked his eyes open. He stared into space for a few
seconds, no doubt wondering what had happened, and looked around.
His eyes widened as he saw Vinden kneeling beside his box.

'Prince Imvoy!' he whispered in his language,
translated by my com link.

'Captain DarQue, my dear comrade. I have returned to
stay and conquer,' replied Vinden.

DarQue sat up, his green feathered mane floating
about him, and looked slowly around, taking us all in, until he saw
Min, who was dressed, as usual in her blacks and whites, looking
trim, dashing, and vaguely dangerous. His gaze stopped. He stared
at Min for a long moment, before he realized what he was doing and
hastily turned back to Vinden. 'Empress Onala?'

Vinden sadly shook his head. 'Onala is dead. Killed
by our enemies with her consort.'

DarQue closed his eyes and muttered some incarnation
under his breath that the com link didn't catch. Then, looking to
Vinden he said, 'Then all is lost.'

'No my friend. Not at all. Though dear Onala is dead.
She lived many rounds of rounds and she had a daughter, now the
rightful Empress. She has come to reclaim the Cloud Throne,'
replied Vinden, lifting his arm to indicate Min. 'My niece, the
Empress Ocila.'

DarQue's eyes darted to Min and he rose like a shot.
'Empress,' he said bowing low to Min.

She considered him for a moment before stepping
forward and offering her hand. 'My name is Tallith Ocila Min. My
uncle has told me of your loyalty, your devotion to my mother and
your many brave deeds. I want to thank you for your service in our
cause. I am here to restore the rightful line of succession to the
Cloud Throne,' she said, clearly, in the Cimmadarian language.
Understanding it is easy with a com link, speaking it, even with a
com link translation, takes an effort. Clearly Min was intent on
making a good first impression.

'I am your servant,' he said not meeting her eye nor
daring to take her hand.

'Your hand, DarQue,' she said. 'I am not my mother. I
shall do things my own way. Once I sit on the Cloud Throne I may
act as a proper Empress, but until I shall behave as I always have.
And I won't stand for court ceremony in our endeavor.'

DarQue eyed her hand and gingerly took it – such
familiarity was out of the ordinary, judging from the information
the com link provided. Nevertheless, Min held it tight. 'I've grown
up outside the great shell with different customs. I've been out in
the worlds and on my own for many rounds of rounds. I've sailed the
black seas and earned my way as a ship's captain, trader and owner.
I am not fragile. And I have so very much to learn if I am to be
Cimmadar's Empress one day.'

DarQue glanced up, met her dark eyes for a long
moment and said, 'You are the Empress, Tallith Ocila Min. There is
no doubt of that.'

Another conquest, but , was she blushing a
little?

'Empress or not, I am in command. And you are my
second in command, Admiral DarQue,' she said. I suppressed a grin.
Promoting DarQue and cutting Prince Imvoy Vinden out of the chain
of command right at the beginning was, well, an interesting
maneuver. Impulsive or calculated? 'Prince Imvoy is my grand visor,
Vynnia enCarn is my chief of staff, Tenry Roynay my executive
officer and Wil Litang will captain our space ship, the
Rift
Raven
. They are my trusted advisors, as you shall be,' she
said, indicating us in turn.

She released his hand and he shook ours in turn.

Impulsive or calculated, I was quite sure it was done
without consulting Uncle Hawk, for he looked far, far from happy.
Clearly Min was determined to take charge right at the onset –
which was all to the good – and by establishing the chain of
command now, at the very start, it ended any further
discussion.

'Now Admiral, Uncle Hawk has built two of the finest,
most powerful ships that have ever sailed the Pela and I know he's
eager to show you your flag ship, the
Indomitable
. Shall we
go out and inspect it? After that, we can see to reviving your
crews and reawakening our cause.'

Tenry and I exchanged a look and a quick grin. It did
seem like we'd just witnessed a coup of sorts, and Vinden's scowl
when he saw us grinning, only confirmed it.

02

I'm afraid this account gets rather fragmentary going
forward since time is a very flexible concept in the Pela. There's
no concept of a day since there is no night. The sun's never seen,
but never sets, and even on the large worlds that rotate, the
diffuse nature of the light means that it only gets dimmer, not
dark. As a consequence, most of the inhabitants of the Pela order
their lives around a set of traditional activities, which varies
from tribe to tribe, society to society, and organization to
organization. One completed set of activities is called a round,
which might be thought of as a day, though the duration of a round
depends entirely on circumstances which might vary widely from one
round to the next. The actual duration never matters, only the
pattern mattered. And, I gather, in the smaller tribes, this round
is based on individuals, so that it could vary in relation to
everyone else's round in a random fashion. In larger organizations,
however, rounds tended to be fairly synchronized.

Officially, the Cimmadar Empire keeps time for
records, taxes, and employment, but I gather most of its citizens
pay little attention to it, save for official duties. The Empress's
Navy, for example, keeps watches just as we do, but without the
pretense of day and night. It was simply an endless round of
routine activities. One sleep watch to the next is considered a
round and is divided into specific watches devoted to certain
duties. In the navy, these activities do have a set duration, since
the crews are active around the round in shifts, but only the
officer in charge pays attention to the duration. The crews simply
move from one activity to the next when ordered – and the
activities usually follow a set order so it's little different than
the un-timed round of life they'd grown up in.

Time aboard a spaceship is just as abstract, given
that every planet's days vary in duration. We keep Calissant time
on the
Starry Shore
, even though we've not retuned to
Calissant for years. In any event, we fell effortlessly into Pela's
timeless pattern, especially since we were left to operate pretty
much on our own.

This freedom of action is the second reason my
narrative gets rather vague. We – Vynnia and Tenry, my crew and
Vinden's crew, were considered the personal staff of the Empress
and Prince Imvoy, and not subject to naval routine or orders at
present, so we operated independently and without much direction
from our nominal superiors. Neither Min nor Vinden took an active
hand in directing our activities – they, along with Tenry and
Vynnia, DarQue and his staff, were too wrapped up in planning the
operation to pay much attention to us – and DarQue did not presume
to do more than suggest where we might help, leaving the actual
arrangements to us. Essentially, we worked as volunteers, unloading
the cargo, outfitting the various ships with the weapons and
supplies, and instructing the Cimmadarians in the use of the new
technology Vinden had introduced in his version of the Pela
warships. We all worked until we tired of it, ate when we were
hungry, slept when we were sleepy, and lounged about until we got
bored. The ship's cycle of watches went unminded. And the work got
done.

And finally there is a personal dimension to this
timelessness. In my mind, when I left the
Starry Shore
, I'd
left my profession and the ship, my home for a quarter of a
century, so I was now at loose ends. I told Molaye to consider
herself acting captain, pending final confirmation by Min. I took
my appointment as captain of the
Rift Raven
as coming into
effect once it officially joined the Cimmadarian navy, so I left
Molaye to run things aboard her, enjoying a sweet and sour sense of
being at loose ends for the first time in three decades.

And perhaps there was a lingering halo of my brief
affair with Min as well. Though objectively it was two years ago,
subjectively it was only a matter of weeks since I'd felt free
enough to make love to her against the no. 4 hold bulkhead. That
type of freedom doesn't fade all that fast. Other than that quick
look when we'd been awakened, she'd never acknowledged our intimacy
in words, actions, or even looks, and I'd followed suit. And yet,
I'd a sense of, well, privilege, a sense that for the first time
since my youth, I was not only free of responsibilities, but free
to do as I pleased, and to do what I pleased without guilt.

Taken together, all of these factors contributed to a
timeless, idyllic air about my first un-numbered rounds in the
Archipelago of the Tenth Star. All told, I believe it took over a
month, ship time, to offload all of our entire cargo to Redoubt
island. The crew, at any rate, was in no hurry to return to the
blackness of space, and Molaye didn't drive them. Hard.

So with these explanations out of the way, I'll set
out the events in their rough order with only vague estimates of
the duration between them. Not that it matters.

03

After giving Admiral DarQue a tour of his new
flagship we began the work of awakening the Loyalists. DarQue
organized them and set them to work putting the base into working
order – setting up the commissary, airing the mess rooms and bunk
rooms and scrubbing the neglect of years from the base, boats and
ships and getting them into bright, working order. Lookouts were
posted in overgrown watch stations to keep an eye for dragons, and
other dangers. Work parties were organized to cut away enough vines
at the cavern entrance to allow the Invincible to enter the harbor.
The two rocket-gun emplacements buried in the vines that guard the
entrance were cleared and manned. The sentry snake guarding the
walkway was, however, left undisturbed.

After getting the base in some sort of order, the
Raven
was cleared of her cargo. The larger ships in the
harbor were warped out of the grotto and tied up alongside the
island to allow the
Indomitable
and the boxes containing its
supplies to be warped in. As soon as we had cleared the
Raven
, anchoring the boxes outside the cavern to save time,
I sent Molaye and her small crew back to the ship to collect the
next load. Glen Colin sailed with them as guide and Pela expert,
even though we'd left that string of laser radio buoys to mark the
way. Vinden was not about to take the chance they'd somehow get
lost on the way back in.

'Give everyone a chance to visit the Pela. No one
should miss experiencing it, especially since we've come so far to
find it. I think you can keep a minimum harbor aboard the ship,' I
said to Molaye, adding, 'Though I suppose I should leave those
decisions up to you now,. And be sure to bring Botts in on this
next trip.'

'Botts?'

'Aye. It's a shipmate too, and I'm sure it'll find
this all very interesting.'

She gave me a look, but said, 'Right.'

'Good sailing, Captain,' I said taking her hand.

'I'm not captain yet.'

'Acting Captain. Same thing. See you in ten days.
Don't push it.'

'You'll see me again when you see me. I've already
lost track of days.'

'Aye. Now off with you.'

Later – I was standing on the last container,
overseeing the rigging of lines connected to the web of pulleys and
steering cables we had constructed to haul the
Indomitable
and its supplies into the grotto base, when Min walked out of the
cavern and waving to me, jumped aboard the box. I'd only caught
glimpses of her these last (unnumbered) rounds – ever since we
awoke DarQue, in fact.

'I'm tired of talk and planning,' she said as she
walked over to stand beside me, covertly watched by all her loyal
sailors as they worked. 'I need some sunlight and fresh air for a
change.'

'Welcome onboard. Where are your keepers?' I asked.
She was never out and about without Uncle Hawk and Admiral DarQue
and a gaggle of staff in tow.

'Sleeping, as I should be,' she answered, with a
grin. 'They want me to act like the Empress, the Almighty Ruler of
the Cimmadar Empire. I'm not sure that's really what's called for
here, amongst the last of my mother's loyal followers, but until I
get a feel for how things work here, I've gone along with it.'

'Until now.'

'Until now. Time to start getting a feel for things
on my own.'

'Probably a good idea. And oh, I haven't had the
opportunity to thank you for appointing me captain of the
Rift
Raven
. Thanks,' I said. 'I do very appreciate it. I know you
have your misgivings about me.'

'The logical choice,' she replied watching the
sailors heaving on the cables that were slowly beginning to move
the box into position to enter the cavern's entrance. I absently
watched the proceedings – they were now old hands at this, so it
wasn't as if I had to do anything anymore, but appear to be in
charge.

'I assumed the appointment takes effect when the
Raven
becomes part of your navy, not immediately.'

'Would it make any difference?' she asked with a
sidelong glance.

'It might've,' I replied with my own sidelong
glance.

'I doubt it. But , you won't be my problem for much
longer. I'm handing you off to Admiral DarQue. He can deal with
you.'

'Oh, I'm sure he can,' I replied. 'A very capable
and, I might add, a dashing looking fellow as well. I'm sure you're
wise to put yourself in his confident hands.'