The View from the Imperium (8 page)

“Surely we shouldn’t change this close to an Imperial visit,” Five agreed, tapping the breast of his pale blue robe.

“Augh!” cried Six, running his hands through his hair. “How does a committee accomplish anything? Throw in every interruption in the universe, and then dither until moot!”

“No!” Zembke stood up with his hands flat on the wide stone desk. Patriotic music flowed up around him out of speakers concealed in his seat, and a star map superimposed itself on the screens all around the room. DeKarn knew he’d waited for this moment for years, and had prepared his background material accordingly. She was in favor of granting him the leadership, though she knew Zembke was less popular than she. She would have proposed it herself long ago, but both the council as a whole and Zembke himself would have found it suspicious, as they did anything that smacked of unified government. Still, he was strong and of firm opinions. Even if the others disagreed with him, having to justify their opinions to him would make debate more productive.

Under normal circumstances, the council would not vote for a leader, but they were being pressed to it by the arrival of the envoy. This was a chance that could not be missed. DeKarn craved unity, and the strength of purpose that went with it. She sat straight, her eyes upon Zembke, encouraging him to go on.

He did, arms spread wide. “Why should we continue with the system that the Imperium left us? Boske was
their
choice for our spokesplanet. I propose that we of Carstairs speak for the rest of the Cluster. Our star is closest to the center. That makes it the prime location to use as a meeting point for all our peoples.” On the screen immediately over his head Carstairs stood out like a glowing orange beacon, and spokes sprang from the star toward the fainter images of the other seven. DeKarn almost applauded. “We will show them that we do not cling to their preferences. Choose a new center!” He flung his arms out as if to embrace the whole council.

“Geography!” Ten exclaimed, rising and fixing a fierce eye on Zembke, who matched her glare for glare. She crushed a half-empty nic tube on the table. The pale gas seeped out of it like an escaping soul. “You denounce it, then you try to make use of it? Come on, we all know that DeKarn is the best negotiator. She hasn’t got your bombast, but maybe her low blood pressure will keep us from getting wiped out by ship-mounted lasers!”

“Yes, DeKarn is a good speaker,” the tattooed woman put in, nervously.

“Thank you, Ten,” the First Councillor acknowledged. “But passion and authority are important, too. We must show a face to the Imperium that proves we have taken matters into our own hands.”

“If we can,” Vasily Marden said, skeptically.

“And that is what we are doing right now,” DeKarn said. Strike, as the old adage held it, while the iron was hot. She could send the poison chalice across the table to the man who
wanted
to drink from it. “Councillor Zembke has made some good points. I feel that strong leadership, one voice speaking for all of us, would be the best for the Cluster. We have been fragmented for too long. So much time has passed while we debate the correct structure, nomenclature, even the colors of a Cluster flag. It was all very well while we dealt largely with our own interests. Now that attention has been turned to us from the outside, it behooves us to define how we are seen, rather than let those who behold us make that definition. We should unite behind one strong figure, democratically chosen.”

“Well,
you
are very good,” said Five. DeKarn smiled at him.

“You are a member of my own party,” she said. “I hardly feel that you are a disinterested speaker.”

“Not at all,” Five demurred. “I have always admired you. I feel you would be an excellent leader. It is a shame that we must move uncomfortably swiftly, but this is, as you suggest, a crisis.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” DeKarn begged him. She was seeing Zembke’s opportunity slip away.
Speak up!
she thought at him. Instead, he glared at her. He believed she was trying to steal the leadership for herself. “Zembke has qualities that we would be wise to use.”

“I think DeKarn’s the best of all of us. Don’t you agree?” Twenty twittered, tugging at her neighbor’s wide sleeve.

Zembke felt rage swelling in him. No one would meet his eyes. They were all babbling. His carefully designed moment of triumph, ruined! “Silence! Listen to me!”

No one listened. They were all talking. “Carry on . . . wonder what the envoy will say? . . . Be nice to hear from the old worlds after all this . . . new fashions!
 
. . . Change is so fast . . . What do you think they’re wearing? . . . Do we really need to decide on a leader? Can’t we
all
talk to the envoy?”

“Silence!” Zembke bellowed.

“Council!” DeKarn pounded her gavel. “Now, this is all very flattering, but it gets us no farther forward. All of you sit down. Now. This is a serious matter. I don’t want it to descend into trivia.” She turned a warning eye on Zembke. “Councillor Twenty-Nine. Make your case.”

Zembke looked at the others. Most of the group seemed cowed by his outburst, but the others looked bored. A few were genuinely upset, including Marden, whom he had counted on as an ally. This couldn’t be happening. He had resources. He had supporters. But he had lost the room. He took a deep breath.

“I apologize to the Council,” Zembke said hoarsely, sketching a small bow. He flicked a hand over a control. The star map behind him vanished, to be replaced by a pastoral scene. The others knew how rare such an unspoiled sight was on the Carstairs homeworld, which had been given largely over its history to mining and the smelting of minerals. Carstairsians were proud of surviving terrible conditions. He was making an open concession to peace. “I am only interested in our continued well-being. My view, as all of you know, is that would best be served in our continuing independence. I will not press for my point of view. But we do need a leader. One, and only one of us needs to speak for all to the Imperium. It would be an honor to serve in that capacity.”

“I don’t think so,” chittered Sago, rising to his delicate hind feet. “You boom too much. Councillor DeKarn, what about you?”

DeKarn cleared her throat. “I don’t believe that I . . .”

“Why not?” asked Ten.

“No!” Thirteen burst out.

The insectoid peered at the old man. “Why not? Twenty-Nine makes a good point. We should have a single speaker. She is well-spoken. Zembke is very loud, and loud does not necessarily carry a point.”

“I might agree with you, hive-brother,” Thirteen said, his wintry face creasing into a smile. “But we cannot nominate or choose Councillor DeKarn for another reason.”

“What?”

“We are not yet the full council.” Marden waved a wrinkled hand toward the five empty seats at the end of the black table. “Until the contingent from Yolk gets here, we are all flapping our gums or, in your case, mandibles for no reason. Nothing can be done.”

The Cocomon tilted his head. “Ahhhh. I see. That is true.”

Zembke flopped back in his chair with a deep sigh. “Marden is right, dammit.”

“Language!” DeKarn rapped out. “But he is right.” She was disappointed. The leadership was still in her lap.

She pulled up a chart showing the space lanes that surrounded the Boske system and frowned at it worriedly. Among all the colored lights flitting through the darkness, there should have been a blip on it that indicated the ship carrying the missing envoys. A system search showed nothing with the diplomatic indicator.

“Where
is
the party from Yolk?”

At that moment, the building’s foundations began to shake beneath their feet.

Chapter 3

“. . . And this is your console,” Lieutenant Michele Wotun concluded. She waved me toward a gray keyboard and scope in the darkest corner of the dimly lit chamber. Lt. Wotun was a husky, dark-skinned woman of middle years, with silver tinting her close-cropped curly hair. The rest of the room was gray, too: gray walls, gray chairs, gray dividers, gray backgrounds on every screen. Her voice had deep, musical overtones that I allowed to distract myself from the dire woe of my situation. I was glad to have something to do at last. When the Admiral had sent me to her station, he did not specify that she was on duty there as yet. I spent a miserable hour standing at attention staring at the wall in the corridor outside. Movement was a relief. “Any questions?”

“How long will I be assigned down here?” I asked, hoping the desperation I felt did not come across in my voice. “Not that I shirk my responsibility, Lieutenant!”

“Yes,” Wotun chuckled richly. “I’m sure you won’t from now on. I saw you come into the dining room an hour ago. Ten minutes late! You were lucky the old man didn’t lock you up. Probably letting you slide because you’re the new boy on the ship. Sometimes he lets newbies have a gimme, but it won’t happen again, I promise. You’ll be assigned to me until the admiral believes that his lesson has taken firm hold on you.”

“Believe me,” I said meekly, “it has taken. I won’t be late again. Or,” I added, with a tender mental probe at the bruises on my dignity from the very thorough dressing-down, “any of the other points to which he drew my attention.”

“He doesn’t believe in deathbed conversions, and neither do I,” Wotun crisped out. “I’ve explained your duties. Now, do them.”

“Aye-aye, ma’am,” I said. I saluted, then waited until she turned away to see to one of the other thirty stations in the low-ceilinged chamber before lowering my arm.

I felt eyes upon me. I turned my head and caught the young female lieutenant nearest me glancing my way. She had that rare, porcelain-white skin that combined with her deep, midnight blue hair absolutely invited appreciation. I winked at her. Her eyes widened, then hastily returned to her screen, and she began to type furiously on her keyboard.

The charm offensive was failing on all fronts, I thought disconsolately, then turned to my own station. A touch on the screen brought up my identification slate, with eight dashes below my serial number.

“This is a master-key console keyboard,” Wotun had explained. “Through it you have access to all long-term storage of personal messages in the ship’s databases.” I felt very powerful, knowing that only eight characters stood between me and the secrets of every man, woman and alien on board the vessel. On the other hand—“Your job is to go through the stored messages, beginning with the oldest, review them, and judge whether they ought to continue being stored on the server, i.e., personal messages, trivia, media entertainment; or if they contain any improper information. The first you erase, if it is over ten days since it was received. We need the memory. The second you report to me. I’ve given you the parameters for what constitutes improper. Follow them to the letter. You don’t talk about what you see, and you don’t copy anything for your personal use later. Your job is to review, delete and report. Before you sit down, you check your ship-comp and any other personal data devices at the door. Got that?”

I had “got” it. Nothing to it, really. How hard could it be? While I deplored snooping through everyone’s mail, feeling that privacy in one’s correspondence was one of the few privileges remaining to servicebeings on board a naval vessel, but I understood at that moment I had been wrong. Every facet of a being’s life in service was subject to scrutiny. Not too hard to understand, really, when you thought about it. Electronic communication was so simple: if a spy had managed to place him or herself on board, not a mechanical bot or a computer program, vital secrets could be shipped out to the spy’s masters long before anyone would detect such a transmission. Lt. Wotun had also informed me that communications from passing ships were occasionally picked up and stored, even if they had not been transmitted to anyone on board. Stray emissions from our servers could also be read by those ships, if the security programs glitched or were breached in any way.

Well, if there were any leaks, I would find them. Call me Thomas Kinago, Forensic Plumber!

I disposed of my personal electronics, including my precious cameras and my pocket personal appointment reminder or viewpad, as we in the Navy called it, in the thumbprint-coded safes near the entrance to the Communications Center and advanced upon my station with vigor. Sliding into my seat, I queued up the messages in order of age, and plunged into my first perusal.

To say that what she had assigned me to do sounded tedious was to suggest that space was wide and deep. Communications had its utility, certainly, not only the vital business of sending and receiving of information from HQ and other ships, including the transmission of personal messages, sources of entertainment, research, warning, translation, and a host of other functions that fell under its auspices, but I was certain that none of these functions really required my personal attention. True, I added to the quantity of messages transmitted every day throughout the Imperium, but didn’t we all? The law required that each of us maintain an Infogrid file, and add to it as personal circumstances changed. The Infogrid facilitated communication among us. And communicate we did, in prodigious quantity, sending notes, observations, jokes, comments and uplifting anecdotes. It seemed my shipmates put in their fair share of bulk to the files. I started reading them more closely.

Six hours later, I could barely function under the onerous restrictions that Lieutenant Wotun had placed upon me. My head spun with the endless messages and files that I had read. My fellow crewmembers had stored so many life-threateningly funny anecdotes, stories, quizzes and puzzles that I was itching to scrawl some of the punch lines on my cuff with my own blood, if need be, against the desperate hope that I could recall the body of the jokes from those references later. One howler, that involved Geckos and the words “fire extinguisher,” was my outright favorite. It was a wonder no one had called for a medic. I’d had a terrible time suppressing my laughs and grunts of merriment, so as not to attract attention from my supervisor or fellow toilers in the fields of data. I could stand it no longer; I reached around for a stylus. My groping fingers encountered only empty desktop. I moaned.