The View from the Imperium (19 page)

I halted before a slim woman with dark, curly hair and liquid, caramel-brown eyes. “Hamadi? Quite an achievement to take top honors in your correspondence school degree, on top of your job and family. Half my peers didn’t manage an ordinary degree, even when they showed up to class. And not one late paper, in spite of the time delay in transmission. Well done! Will you be moving back toward the Imperium Core Worlds to practice?”

“No, sir,” the slim woman said, her cheeks flushing maroon with pleasure. “I want to practice law before the industrial tribunal here.”

“Well done, well done,” I said, swaggering down the file.

“Ahem,” came the inevitable voice of enforced humility. Parsons, after the fashion of Caesar’s chariot slaves, reminding me that I was mortal. I slowed my step and tried to regain the sense that I was not there for my own aggrandizement, but for the sake of the Imperium in general and Admiral Podesta in particular. Still, I felt high as a communications satellite. My peers at home would be doing nothing like this. Poor creatures! They would have to be resigned to their tours of duty in luxurious conditions among the same people that they always saw, amid sights that had to be growing intolerably familiar as the months passed. I, understandably, felt smug, but I kept it to myself.

With a touch of imposed humility, I continued along my review. “Hek-et-rahm, is it?”

“Yes, sir!” exclaimed a beefy Wichu with a foreshortened nose and taupe fur.

I wrinkled my brow. “Of the grocery store chain Hek-et-rahms? Sixty-two systems and growing, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” The Wichu looked as pleased as his fellows had that I knew something about him. The pupils of his large eyes spread to fill more of the purple iris. “I source minerals for the corporation, sir.”

“That’s good business, soldier,” I acknowledged. Funny how often the reception of imparting knowledge depended on context. If I’d spouted off all these facts about one of my peer group, I’d be accused of oneupsmanship. Here, I was seen as taking an interest. I liked this situation rather better.

I sensed that as I progressed, the volunteer soldiers were listening closely to what I said. I caught cheeky grins on the faces and heard whispers behind my back. My internal ridicule alarm sounded. I thought they disapproved, but by the pass along the second row, I realized they were listening with pleasure and speculating on whether I would make a mistake.
Well, I will show you how they do things on the Imperium home world,
I thought, rising to the challenge in the name of all the Kinagos and Loches.

“Torkadir,” I said, smiling into the bearded face. The man was tall, thirty-ish, and had a long nose and a carnation pink complexion.

“No, sir,” he snapped out, his eyes staring into space.

“How’s your bowling average holding up? I should think it was difficult to maintain a good throw in low gravity.”

“I don’t bowl, sir.”

“You don’t?” I cudgeled my memory, but even under torture it insisted that bowling had been front and center on this fellow’s profile. “Of course you do. You’re captain of the top league here.”

“No, sir, and it’s not Torkadir. It’s Premulo.”

A roar of laughter erupted from the group. Another bearded man three down the file whom I had not yet inspected leaned forward and wiggled his fingers at me. “I’m Torkadir, sir.”

I looked from one to the other. They were absolutely identical, down to the little curl of hair at the termination of each beard. “Has . . . er, has one of you had genetic reassignment, if you don’t mind my asking?”

That brought on another company-wide fit of the giggles.

“No, sir,” Premulo said. “We’re clones. Neither of our parents could have children of their own. Who’d have thought that we’d both end up mining for a living, but you know what they say about nature and nurture. I grew a beard, see, as soon’s I heard that the Navy was sending an envoy. Thought we’d have a little fun.”

“Well, you have gotten me,” I said. I made a note to sort through the pictures my camera was taking to remove those unbecoming frames showing me panicking before I put them into my Infogrid file for my friends’ delectation. I had been had, fair and square. I
knew
I should have cracked their files with my security code! Genetic information of that sort would have been noted in the need-to-know section. I glanced up at Parsons, who was as expressionless as usual. At least I could count upon him not to ridicule me. “Caught straight in a black hole’s event horizon.”

Captain Chan reached out and slapped me on the back. “It’s okay, sir. No one else can tell them apart, anyhow.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “It’s my first inspection.”

“Well, you’re doing a fine job. Never been so thoroughly reviewed before.”

Chastened, I finished my assignment. Now that I was part of the joke, the soldiers grinned with me as I brought out my little bits of information and encouragement for each. When I complimented the last one, Chee Rubin-Sign, on having produced a cooking video that was on the top five hundred list of media sales, Chan raised a hand.

“Let’s give a hand to the ensign-captain! Three cheers!”

“Kinago! Kinago! Kinago!” roared from fifty throats. I felt my own tighten with gratitude. The soldiers of the Smithereen militia stood tall and proud. How good it was to hear my name acclaimed like that! I hauled my own spine into full upright and locked position and turned to my host.

“Thank you,” I said, surprised to hear my voice go husky. “It has been a pleasure. Thank you for your service to the Imperium, the Emperor and to Admiral Podesta.” I started to turn toward the lowered ramp of my ship.

“Uh, won’t you stay and have a meal with us, sir?” Chan asked. I could tell the invitation was a customary question, offered to their very occasional visiting dignitaries. I could also tell the invitations were never accepted, as I, too, had to refuse. I heaved a sigh. At least I had spread a little happiness here on Smithereen.

I gazed into Chan’s hopeful face, which fell before I opened my mouth. She had heard it before, and could undoubtedly have recited my regrets or a version thereof along with me. Still, I had to voice them.

“I am terribly sorry, Captain, but my orders were only to inspect and review. I wish that . . .”

“Of course, the Ensign-Captain Lord Thomas Kinago and his crew will join you for a repast,” Parsons interrupted me. “It would be his pleasure.”

“It would?” I asked. Then my wits reassembled themselves. “Indeed, it would! On behalf of Admiral Podesta and the Imperium, it would be a privilege. My crew and I look forward to getting to know you all over a morsel and a small libation.”

This was not at all what the Smithereenians were expecting. Delight dawned upon them with all the lightening gradations of color of the real thing. They started to break ranks, when the captain blew a whistle.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Chan demanded of her troops. She assumed parade ground rest with her hands behind her back and stared at me. The others swiftly followed suit. I gawked at them.

“Dismiss them, sir,” Parsons whispered in my ear.

“Oh! Of course, what a fool I am. Dismiss!” I announced.

Chapter 11

The scene erupted into motion as though an avalanche had been released from freeze-frame. The soldiers surrounded me, pounding me on the back and shaking my hand. Those with the throats to do it burst into happy ululations, and others chanted football cheers. Chan swooped into the middle of the mob, grabbed me by one arm and Parsons by the other, and hauled us in the direction of a small gray door opposite the large, blocky, yellow hangar doors.

“This way, guys—I mean, officers. We’ll get a drink while the cooks get something whipped up. We’re so used to every inspector saying no that you caught us a little off guard. But we’re glad about it! Really. Your visit’s gonna go down in history, Ensign-Captain, my lord.”

I allowed myself to be dragged toward beverages. My tongue felt like frayed carpet, and my wits, having had to hold together, were feeling the strain. Twin clones Torkadir and Premulo started waving their friends to crowd closely about me. They seized my legs and hoisted me aloft. Parsons and the rest of my crew were subjected to the same treatment. With the gravity on Smithereen considerably lower than Core Worlds standard, my hosts found it no trouble at all to carry another human being along at normal walking speed. It would make working with the heavy tools they employed much easier, though it put their bones in danger of breakage over time. Still, I enjoyed it as a novelty.

“Whee!” shouted Rous, waving to the crowd. His eyes rolled around in all directions, taking in the parade.

“Not your usual form of locomotion, is it?” I asked Parsons as we were borne toward the door. “Good thing the ceiling is high!”

“One must allow them their exuberance, sir,” Parsons said. He rested upon his friendly native bearers as a king might being carried by his subjects toward a throne. “They do seem to be pleased.”

“Overwhelming joy” was the term I would have applied to the mood. Word spread even before we reached the bar. Miners and support staff in worn shipsuits, overalls or jeans filled the large square corridor around us. Some of them waved bottles, others extended cameras. Flashes went off in staccato bursts until my eyes were dazzled.

I felt rather than saw myself being lowered to the floor. When my vision cleared, I discovered that I was in a bar. A thrill went up my spine. It was a workingbeing’s bar. My fellow nobles and I sometimes sauntered into one when our speed ships were being repaired, or when we felt like living on the dangerous edge by sneaking out of the Imperial Compound, away from the shops that closed to all other customers while we were there and the restaurants who brought in exotic ingredients to tempt the most capricious trend-seekers. The locals, I must admit, hated having us among them in their humble taverns. Comparisons were odious, but we threw money and cutting remarks around with abandon, confident in our eventual safety, since all of us carried emergency transponders that corresponded immediately with the Imperial Guard. Anyone who trifled with a scion of the Imperial House no matter how far removed from the throne was subject to fines or prison. That immunity made us giddy. Some nobles liked to push to see how close they could come to beginning an altercation before being asked politely, even if that politeness came with a firmly bitten tongue, to leave the premises. It was the first time I had ever been invited into a miner’s tavern on purpose. I reveled in the sensation. This would be another grand tale to tell my fellows when I had the chance to input it. Everything was so delightfully seedy. I absorbed the reality of it all.

The militia piled their weapons noisily at the door and spread out to favorite niches throughout the dimly lit room. As many of them as could manage it elbowed their way up to the bar with me and their captain, grinning at me in anticipation. I wondered, of what?

“What’ll you have?” Chan asked, smacking a muscular fist on the scarred bar top. It was made of real wood, probably hundreds of years old—no doubt considered a treasure out here light years away from any planetary forest.

“Whatever you’re drinking,” I said, recklessly. Chan grinned at me. I noticed then that she was missing her upper left canine. I whispered to my camera to get a left profile of her. She noticed the small globe hovering near her and took an offhand swat at it. She narrowed her eyes at me. With a sheepish smile, I ordered it to withdraw.

“You’re just a kid,” she said, not in a menacing way, but more as a mother would admonish her son. “But around here, you ask for permission if you want to record somebody. I let it pass while we were on parade, but now we’re private, and you ask.”

“Of course, Captain,” I said. “I deeply apologize.”

“S’okay, kid,” she said, giving me a wide armed slap on the shoulder. “I like you. Here’s your drink.”

Two beakers, rough-hewn out of pitted stone, slid our way from the practiced hand of the bartender, an enormous man who was not only missing a front tooth, but half his nose. He had a star tattoo covering each cheek. I know I was staring. Tattoos were forbidden among the nobility, though I knew more than one of my cousins had paid a sneaky visit to parlors on the side of town where the working class lived. I had heard rumors that stars, butterflies, roses and skulls had been imprinted in hidden places easily discovered only during a thorough physical examination. Not that I hadn’t seen tattooed humans here and there, and plenty of them on the entertainment videos, but none so close as this. The bartender noticed my scrutiny and leered at me.

“This is Doc Fedder,” Chan said. “Best damned neurosurgeon ever.”

“A real doctor?” I asked. It was then I realized that the bar, while appearing purposely seedy, was cleaner than my quarters on the ship. “But, why come out here to . . . ?” slipped out. The words “the middle of nowhere” managed to stay behind on my tongue. To reward it, I lifted the beaker to my lips. Steam poured off the surface of the beverage. I was concerned that it might be something caustic, but I was fairly certain the vapor was only volatile esters to enhance the drinking experience. The other miners watched me closely. I inhaled a lungful of lavender and asphalt with my sip of liquor. The beverage was hotter than coffee, and tasted like industrial floor cleaner. Thanks to long practice in less congenial surroundings, I gagged, but did not spew. A few of my onlookers seemed disappointed, and a couple held out palms to their companions. Credit counters were slapped into them. My next gulp sent another gout of fire down my gullet. When I recovered from the draught, I addressed my host. “Why not practice such a specialty in the Core Worlds, instead of on the extreme end of the Imperium?”

Doc cleared his throat. “Malpractice insurance,” he said. “Just not worth it. Here I can patch people up who are grateful I went to medical school. I still see some of my old patients virtually. They don’t want to give me up.”

A blinding flash interrupted us. My eyes flew upward toward the source. I realized that the ceiling of the bar was transparent. We were underneath a ship that had fired engines and was preparing to take off.