The Law of Becoming: 4 (The Novels of the Jaran) (25 page)

“That would be interesting. I was thinking of the Chapalii Emperor’s imperial palace.”

“But—how could we—I thought—wouldn’t that be impossible?”

“Probably. Just wishful thinking. I don’t have access to Duke Naroshi’s sister anyway, because I’m male.”

“I’m female,” said Ilyana brightly.

There was a short silence. M. Unbutu blew all his breath out between his lips and pulled a hand back through his mane of dreadlocks. The hand came to rest on the back of his neck, playing with four thin beaded braids. “Yes, you are,” he said finally. “No doubting that.” Ilyana felt like she’d missed something. “But I’d be happy to help you with your survey, if that’s allowed in your tutorial.”

“Certainly it’s allowed! You’re allowed to use a mentor! Are
you
an architect?” Ilyana began bouncing from one foot to the other, realized she was doing it, and stopped, fixing her feet to the ground. Her teachers approved of her ability to focus and explore, but she had never before met an adult who really truly was fascinated by architecture the way she was.

“I’m an engineer, but I have a special interest in architectural and historical engineering. A bit of a hobby. But I’ll have to talk to your parents first.”

“They won’t care.” Her mother thought her interest in buildings to be slightly obscene, and her father treated it with the same approbative disinterest with which he treated all her activities. “Are you going to stay with us the whole time?”

“I don’t know about
that
, but I’d like to find out as much as I can about architectural and engineering techniques and traditions in Chapalii culture. That’s why I’m coming along. It’s a great opportunity. We don’t truly know
anything
about the Chapalii except what they’ve given us permission to know. No human has ever been invited
into
a Chapalii nobleman’s palace and private city before. Never been farther than certain restricted areas of port authorities.”

Suddenly it didn’t seem
quite
so bad to be leaving London behind. The communique-implant on Ilyana’s right ear rang, and she heard Yomi’s calm voice calling them to board.

“Remember,” Yomi intoned, sounding bored as she said it, “this is a Chapalii passenger liner, and if I find out that any of you haven’t scrolled through the protocols for shipboard, I’ll personally vent you out an air lock myself.”

“I’d better go, Ilyana.”

She flushed. “Everyone calls me ‘Yana.’ My father doesn’t like—well, anyway, they just do.”

“Oh,” said M. Unbutu in an odd tone. “All right, Yana. We’ll set up a meeting once I’ve spoken with your father and mother. We could do a regular tutorial if you’d like.”

“I would!”

He left. Ilyana reluctantly returned to her mother, who was frantically searching for Valentin. Half the company had already filed into the port tube by the time Ilyana tracked him down.

He had shinnied past the rope barrier at the bubble that looked out onto space, and he lay on the transparent curved surface, braced on his palms and knees, staring out.

“Valentin!” Ilyana whispered, afraid someone would find him here. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

He mumbled something inaudible. She finally squeezed past the barrier and eased out onto the curved bubble, careful of her footing, to grab him by the back of the shirt and tug. Out here on the surface of the bubble, the stars swam in depthless night and the transfer station itself ran like a blot of darkness against the backdrop, covering stars and half of the brilliant globe of Earth. Dizziness made her sway. She yanked Valentin back and gulped down nausea, and they ran up against the barrier. It stung where the forcefield touched her bare arms and made her scalp prickle through the veil of her hair. Then they were through and out into the concourse. Valentin walked dazedly along beside her, saying nothing. She had no problem getting him in line. By the gate entrance, David ben Unbutu greeted a surprising new arrival: Margaret O’Neill.

“Mags!” He was laughing again. “You’re up early, and late as usual. Congratulations on arriving before departure.”

“It’s too damned early in the day to be taking ship,” she growled. “How can you be so bloody cheerful?”

“Oh, to be seventeen again. I’ve lost my heart.”

“You’re making perfect sense. Here I thought it was me. Where is Yomi?”

They walked out of earshot. Nipper arrived, breathless. “Oh, thank goodness, Yana, you found your brother. We’d better go. The cabin arrangements are already made.”

Ilyana let go of Valentin and allowed Nipper to herd him forward. She trailed behind. Everyone was on board, except for Yomi, who ticked off the roster with the touch of a finger as each individual crossed into the port tube, the last stragglers, and Anatoly Sakhalin. Like a good soldier, he was bringing up the rear. He caught her gaze on him, smiled at her, and then looked away quickly. Ilyana ducked her head to hide her blush and hurried after Valentin.

They stopped beside Yomi. The stage manager glanced up and tapped a finger three times on the slate. “You’re clear.”

Nipper went on ahead. Ilyana winced as the khaja woman almost stepped on the threshold, the inch-high seal-ring that circled the port tube entrance. But her heel passed over it without touching it, and she walked away down the tube. An alien scent wafted out from the tube, like the current of a freshwater river mingling with the saltwater sea. Ilyana took in a deep breath. It was different, weird, but not unpleasant. Coming out of his stupor, Valentin grabbed her hand, and together they passed over the threshold and entered the domain of the Chapalii.

T
ESS ARRIVED AT ARINA
Veselov’s tent out of breath and anxious. Irena Orzhekov stopped her. “You can’t go in.”

Tess’s stomach twisted into a knot of fear, “I don’t hear the drums. Did she already have the baby?”

Irena turned the comment away with a flick of her wrist. “She has fallen into the gods’ sleep. The child has not yet come. Varia Telyegin says she has bled too much, and she no longer has the strength to push the child out.”

“She can’t die!” Irena put an arm around her, comforting her. Tess wept onto her shoulder. She heard voices from inside the tent, but they were indistinct, smothered by the felt walls between them. “What about the baby?” she asked finally. “If only Cara were here! Wait. Let me speak with Varia. Perhaps…” If she could record Varia’s account of the labor, then perhaps she could transmit it to Cara via console hidden in the library and receive in turn at least some advice, whether they might save Arina and the unborn child. “Perhaps I could find some answers in one of the texts in the library.”

“Juli Danov and Niko Sibirin are also attending,” said Irena.

“Ah, Niko, then. He can give me a detailed account.”

Quickly enough, by sending a Veselov girl into the tent, Niko was brought forth. He looked tired, and when Tess set off at once toward the library, she had to stop and wait for him. He smiled wryly at her and took her arm to support himself. His halting pace depressed Tess even further.

Finally, blinking on her implant and locking off the visual, she asked him to describe the labor. As he spoke, she recorded, asking a clarifying question now and again. Niko’s mind suffered from no infirmities; his account was comprehensive. Because he walked so slowly, they were only to the edge of the plaza when he finished.

“I’ll run ahead and search out some texts,” Tess said, impatient to be off. “If you can—”

“I can manage.” Under other circumstances, he would have looked amused. Now he simply let go of her. She blinked the implant off and ran.

At the library she took the steps two at a time and cut around to the outside entrance built specially for the ke, the Chapalii exile who now lived permanently in Sarai. There were several ways to override the privacy lock that kept these rooms off limits to everyone but the ke, Tess, and the rare visitor from Earth. Tess spoke her name out loud and heard an audible click, the override signal.

As she tugged the door open, a wave of warm air spilled out from the corridor and anteroom. She had to stop for a second inside the door to adjust. The corridor was about twelve strides long, whitewashed, paved with brick. At opposite corners of the corridor wall a design grew out, engulfing the blank white of the walls with bright colors, odd shapes, and interesting textures. It had manifested soon after the ke had arrived here and now it expanded according to some unknown principle. Tess could not tell whether the ke was in the process of creating it or whether it was an organic construct that blossomed at an excruciatingly slow pace. It smelled different here, too, as if through an unseen portal the Empire touched these lands that were nominally free of it.

Tess caught her breath and advanced to the anteroom. The ke waited for her there. The ke wore gloves and long robes. Here in the private suite the ke had thrown back the hood and face-covering to reveal the slate-gray epidermis and lank tail of hair. The ke was by now so familiar to Tess that she could not help but wonder if she would find the white-skinned Chapalii males strange-looking, although in her other life they were the only ones she had ever seen.

“Assistance is necessary,” said Tess at once in the form of Chapalii that the ke termed “the deeper tongue.”

“What is necessary?” responded the ke, perhaps rhetorically.

Tess shifted restlessly. To her surprise and annoyance, she was finding the idiom that the ke was teaching her particularly difficult to learn. “
Anna Veselov
, a female unnamed also fertile, suffers with a difficult—” She struggled to find the right word. The closest match she could find was: “—flowering.
Niko Sibirin
, a male unnamed also learned in the art of healing, comes to consult the texts which teach of this.”

The ke made no movement with head or shoulders to show agreement or negation but only said, with no inflection, “The texts will be laid out on the scribe’s table as necessary.”

“Yes.”

The ke lifted the hood to cover its hair and masked its alien face with a veil. Once, Tess had expected all Chapalii to show her deference, because she was a Duke’s sister and heir. The ke, with no further words or gestures, simply left.

Although this was ostensibly the ke’s suite, built so that the ke could isolate herself according to the precepts Tess put forward for the Chapalii religion, one of the rooms was set aside for Tess’s use. As soon as the ke had gone out through the interior door that led into a side room of the central library, Tess went to this chamber, a starkly furnished room with a single spot of color: a plush couch upholstered in a gorgeous red and gold fabric patterned with affronted birds wreathed by vines. Woven in Habakar, the cloth had been a gift to Tess from Mitya’s wife, Princess Melatina.

“I want a call through to Cara Hierakis in Jeds,” Tess said aloud as soon she shut the door.

“What level?” the console responded in its alto voice.

“Urgent. I’m uploading a file.”

The implant was embedded in the hinge of her jaw. An interface melded with the exterior of the bone, accessible through a permeable membrane grown through the skin. Tess triggered the implant, pressed a node from the console against her skin, and loaded Niko’s description into the console. Moments later, Cara’s head and shoulders appeared above the console. Tess could see through her to the wall beyond.

“I’m in luck,” breathed Tess. “I was hoping you would be in the lab.”

Cara did not look up at her. She was reading the transferred account on a screen which sat out of Tess’s sight. After a bit, she shook her head, and her gaze, lifting, was painfully compassionate. “If I was there,” she said, and closed her lips on the thought. “But I’m not. How in hell did she get pregnant?”

“I suppose the usual way! What can you do?”

“I can’t do anything, except to advise you to find the commentary by Sister Matthia of Maros Cloister and the treatise on the womb attributed to Shakir al’Quriq. They’re both obstetrics texts and one of them discusses a primitive version of a cesarean section. I gave you copies myself for your library. There’s nothing else I can tell you. I spent many evenings discussing midwifery with Varia Telyegin and Juli Danov, and I think they taught me more than I taught them. Except for technological intervention, there frankly isn’t anything I can do that they won’t already have thought of. You know how sorry I am to hear this.”

“I’ll go. Niko is in the library already.”

“Let me know—”

“Yes. And off.” Cara vanished, her black hair and white blouse replaced by the ivory surface of the console desk. Tess took in a shuddering breath and hurried out of the room.

Even with these side trips, she arrived at the inclined table where the ke had propped up four leatherbound volumes of varying sizes before Niko did. Tess hurried outside and found him contemplating the steps. She gave him her arm, and together they climbed to the top. Inside, she found him a stool. He sank onto it gratefully and without preamble pulled the commentary by Sister Matthia toward himself and opened it reverentially. He read slowly, negotiating a crabbed script, and his lips moved as he read although no sound emerged. Tess shifted from one foot to the other.

After a bit, he glanced up at her. “Go on. You’ll be happier waiting impatiently there. Send one of the children to help me back when I’m done, or better yet, Svetlana. It will do her good to learn some of these things.”

Torn, Tess hesitated, then went. The ke hovered in the background, robed and veiled so that no part of her skin was visible. What did the ke think of these human visitors and of her strange and sometimes trivial duties as librarian? Tess did not know. She took the steps three at a time, leaping down, and broke into a loping run when she reached the plaza. Her mind skipped to Niko’s request to have Svetlana Tagansky attend him. Aleksi’s wife was almost as old as Tess; she was a practical, competent woman with a growing reputation as a good attendant at births. Tess rubbed at a pain in her side. What if Niko knew perfectly well that he was not going to live all that much longer? What if he saw every birth now, especially the difficult ones, the unusual ones, as a means to pass on the vital knowledge to the younger healer who would take his place?