An earthly crown

CHAPTER TWO

Under the circumstances, any human might have forgiven Charles Soerensen for taking a private aircar rather than using public lanes like everyone else. Any human except Charles himself. On Earth, in human space-what had once been human space-Charles never took advantage of the privileges granted him by his rank as a duke in the Chapalii Empire, as the only human elevated above subject status in the convoluted hierarchy by which the alien Chapalii governed the races and stellar systems they had absorbed into their empire. They never used the word conquered.

"Chattel," said David ben Unbutu to Marco Burckhardt. They took up stations on either side of Charles on the levitated train that in three hours would take them across the Atlantic Ocean from Portsmouth to North America. David braced himself for the shift as the train jolted forward. Marco, of course, seemed not to notice the transition at all. Charles was sitting down, crystal message wand laid across his knees, still talking with the prime minister of the Eurasian states. She was headed to Quito Spaceport in South America, and Charles had taken the opportunity to ask her to travel with him for part of the journey.

"Who's chattel?" Marco asked. "Shall we sit down?"

"I'm too nervous to sit," said David, although he was not surprised when Marco sat anyway, across from Charles. Four benches ran the length of the car, arranged in two pairs facing in toward each other, split by a central aisle. David stood where the inner bench gapped to allow access to the aisle. Charles and the prime minister sat with their backs to the windows, windows which, on this side of the car, showed programming, not ocean.

"Look." Marco pointed to one of the flat screens.

"There's that interview with Owen Zerentous again." He took on an affected accent. " 'Ginny and I have been interested for some time in theater as the universal medium, in theater's use of ritual and ceremony as a way to access the common essence of humanity.' You know, I think Zerentous believes what he's talking about."

"Maybe he's even right. But you've never been interested in theater, Marco. Or at least, only in the ornamentation thereof."

Marco grinned. "A man can't help looking, especially at women who are as pretty as Diana Brooke-Holt. What did you mean by chattel?''

David glanced at the Chapalii steward standing four seats down from him, on the other side of Charles. Of course, a steward would not sit-could not-in the presence of nobility. All along the car passengers sat at their ease, watching the screens, reading from flat screens, dozing, knitting; an adolescent drew a light sculpture in the air with a pen, erased it with an exasperated wave of a hand, and began again. Human passengers. They had noted Charles's presence. How could they fail to? They all knew who he was; they all recognized him. Many had acknowledged him, with a terse word, with a nod, to which he had replied in like measure. Now they left him his privacy, except for one very young child who wandered over and sat in a seat two down from the prime minister, small chin cupped in small hands, watching their intent conversation with a concerned expression.

"I don't know what I meant," said David, "except that sometimes I think we're just chattel to them-to the Chapalii."

"I don't think they think in such economic terms. I think their hierarchy is more like a caste system than a class system, but how do we know if human theory explains it, anyway? Why are you nervous?"

David sat down. The bench shifted beneath him, molding itself to his contours. "Why should Duke Naroshi send Charles a summons wand? What authority does Naroshi have to summon Charles? He doesn't outrank him."

"As far as we know he doesn't. Maybe the length of time you've been duke matters, in which case Naroshi would outrank Charles. But Naroshi is in fealty to the princely house which has nominal control of human space. Of Earth."

"That's true. And it was Naroshi's agent who was on Rhui, with Tess."

"David."

David looked around, suddenly sure that everyone was looking at him, but, of course, no one was. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "But wouldn't that imply that Naroshi is seeking some kind of information with which to discredit Charles? Especially now that Charles has pulled off a rather major coup within the Chapalii political scene, by taking over the Keinaba merchant house?"

"Not yet finalized, I might add."

"Not yet? Lady's Tits, Marco, Charles spent long enough at the Imperial palace. Almost two standard years, he spent there. I thought it was finalized, all legal, with the emperor's approval."

"The emperor approved it, but he didn't-oh, what is that phrase? Tess translated it so neatly. 'Seal the braid of fealty.' "

David sighed and sagged back against the seat. "It's all too convoluted for me. I'm just an engineer." Marco chuckled. They had known each other for so long now, he and Marco and Charles, that they spoke as much with what they didn't say as with what they did. David levered out an armrest, tilted his head back, and shut his eyes. The conversation between Charles and the prime minister continued across from him like a murmuring counterpoint. They were talking about Rhui.

The whole thing was far too convoluted for David's taste. He liked something he could get his hands on, something concrete, malleable, something that had answers that were correct based on fixed laws. Not something that was mutable. David hated politics. He'd never liked history much, either. That's why he had gone into classical engineering-the design and construction of three-dimensional, utilitarian structures like buildings and bridges and transport facilities.

Everything he knew about the Chapalii made him anxious. They didn't follow the rules. Humanity had discovered spaceflight and then discovered cousin humans on neighboring worlds. Earth and their cousin humans on Ophiuchi-Sei-ah-nai had formed the League, a kind of parliament of space-faring humanity. Then, human exploration ships had run into Chapalii protocol agents, representatives of the Chapalii Empire; soon after, the emperor had simply co-opted League space as part of his dominion. But their rule was benign; some people even called it enlightened, and certainly the Chapalii did not begrudge sharing some-if not all-of their technological expertise with their subject races.

But were humans ever content with being ruled? Not really. Charles Soerensen led a rebellion against the Empire that failed. But instead of arresting him and executing him, the Chapalii ennobled him. They made him a duke. The emperor granted him two stellar systems as his fief, one of them the newly-discovered system Delta Pavonis-discovered, that is, to possess two habitable worlds. The planet Odys was ravaged by Chapalii modernization; Rhui was interdicted by Charles's order, an order that the emperor agreed to despite the fact that the interdiction closed off access to Rhui's abundant natural resources. Just as it closed off access to Rhui's native population.

And that was the other thing that bothered David. That's what Tess Soerensen had found out; she had discovered ancient Chapalii buildings on Rhui. The half-mythical Chapalii duke, the Tai-en Mushai, had built a palace on Rhui. He had seeded the planet with humans from Earth. It must all have happened long, long ago, millennia ago in the human span of years, or so Charles and his experts guessed, though they knew nothing for certain. Even so, how could the Chapalii have lost track of these buildings? How could they have lost track of an entire planet?

David did not like equations that didn't add up.

And now Charles was going with a small party to Rhui, to find Tess and to investigate these ancient remnants of a Chapalii presence on Rhui. David supposed he was looking forward to going to visit an interdicted world where the living conditions would be, at best, primitive. At any rate, he'd be happy to see Tess again.

The prime minister left them at Staten Island, and they transferred to a secured line in to Manhattan, which had been razed and rebuilt by the Chapalii and was now a private Chapalii enclave, barred to most humans.

David had once gone to an exhibit detailing the history of Manhattan. Certainly the Chapalii era Manhattan was by far the most impressive and beautiful architecturally, seen from across the river: a mass of monuments and parks, pierced at the center by a single tower of adamantine grace and astonishing height.

At the ducal palace of the Tai-en Naroshi Toraokii, they disembarked from the secured line into an atrium domed with tangled vines about thirty meters over their heads. Animals shrieked and called in the greenery, but they only caught glimpses of birds and long-limbed creatures rustling through the leaves. Water sheeted down in a semicircle all along the far wall; indeed, the misting waterfall was the far wall of the atrium. Charles headed out across the floor, which was a tangle of ponds, streams, parquetry decks, and marble stepping stones carved into the shape of Chapalii glyphs. Avocets and herons dotted the shorelines. A grebe swam past and dove, vanishing from their sight in one instant and popping up seconds later a meter ahead.

David saw no passage through the huge curtain of water, but Charles walked steadily toward it, picking his way along the labyrinthine paths until the three men and the Chapalii steward came to the wall of water. Charles lifted the crystal wand. The waterfall parted.

David gaped. It simply parted, by no agency he could see. Water still rained down over their heads, but an invisible barrier forced it to either side, allowing them access to whatever lay within. Charles led the way. The steward followed him, and David went next, letting Marco take the rearguard.

What lay within proved to be a hall as vast as a cathedral. Their footsteps echoed as they crossed the hall's expanse to a far door. They passed through the door into a garden lined with columns and thence into a marble-fronted basilica that transmuted, surprisingly, into an octagon, a two-storied building with a mosaic floor and somberly glowing mosaic walls portraying austere, gaunt figures. Within the greater octagon, almost floating inside it, stood an interior octagon of double arches. Within the central octagon two couches sat on the mosaic floor.

On one couch, a figure reclined. It sat up, seeing their party. Charles marched them under one of the arches-banded with three colors of stone-and sat himself down on the couch opposite their host. David and Marco placed themselves behind him. The steward crossed to stand beside Tai Naroshi.

The two dukes regarded each other in silence. Tai Naroshi looked like all other Chapalii: pale as ice with a wisp of yellow hair; tall, thin, humanlike in his symmetry, but not human at all. He wore a robe of palest orange that seemed to drape itself artistically around his form, according to his movements, by some unrelated gravitational field.

Charles placed the wand across his knees.

They waited.

Then, to David's astonishment, a mist steamed up under one of the arches and coalesced into three seated figures: Owen Zerentous, Ginny Arbha, and an interviewer. They looked so real that they could have been there in person, except that they had appeared so abruptly.

"We ought all to remember," Owen was saying, "that the line between barbarism and civilization is fluid. Ritual is a constant in all human society. Theater is simply a more refined, and perhaps even a more confined, elaboration of primitive ritual events. Certainly my use of the word 'primitive' is a subjective response based on our bias against pretechnological culture."

Naroshi raised one hand, and the figures froze. They then passed through a rapid succession of expression and angles, as if their conversation was accelerated. Naroshi lowered his hand, and the interview continued.

"To find cultures that have never seen theater before," Owen said, clearly in answer to a question. "Human cultures, that is. We haven't seen that for centuries on Earth, or in any of the human cultures in the League, for that matter. Does theater work as a ritual for any human culture? Even one grown and bred on a planet other than our own? Are these aspects of the human condition, are the emotions that theater engenders, universal to our genetic coding? And if they are, where does the real translation take place: in the words, or in the gestures? In the letter, or in the spirit? That's what we're going to Rhui to find out."

Still talking the figures imploded into mist and evaporated.

"Tai Charles," said Naroshi, acknowledging his visitor.

"Tai Naroshi," said Charles, with the exact same lack of inflection, acknowledging his host.

"You undertake a journey," said Naroshi.

"I am honored by your interest," said Charles.

"Rhui is a primitive world. Certainly it is not a planet where any civilization can be found."

"It is interdicted," agreed Charles, and David had to wonder what Charles was thinking, what message he meant Naroshi to read from this colorless conversation. It is interdicted, and I know damn well you sent agents down onto Rhui in direct defiance of that interdiction.

"Yet still you intend to travel there."

In the muted light within the interior octagon, David could still detect fleeting colors chasing themselves across the white skin of the steward, colors that reflected his emotions as he listened to this conversation between the two noblemen. But the duke, Naroshi, remained as pale as frost. No hint of color tinted his skin. Were the high nobility genetically superior or simply taught techniques from an early age with which to control the shadings of their skin? No human knew.

"Still I intend to travel there."

"With these others, some of whom are artisans."

Rather than replying, Charles simply inclined his head.

' 'May I hope that you will still consider my sister for the design of the mausoleum for your sister?"

"Tai-en, I have just returned from the palace. Indeed, from the presence of the emperor himself. I have not yet considered what I intend to do to honor my sister."

"Ah," said Naroshi, and paused. David strained to see if any color stained the duke's face, but he could discern none. On the distant walls, color shifted along the mosaics, moving subtly along the wall and lightening and darkening the images in slow waves. "The Keinaba house. I am surprised that you would take in a dishonored house.''

"Yes," agreed Charles. "I did not know that you were interested in theater.'' He extended a hand and gestured in the direction of the arch under which Owen and Ginny had, for that brief time, appeared.

"Many of us are interested in Rhui, Tai-en. I am not alone in my interest in such a rich planet."

"No," agreed Charles, "I do not suppose you are." From this angle, David could only see the back of Charles's head; he could not observe his expression, and he could not hear any emotion in his voice. Silence followed the remark. The two dukes seemed to have reached a stalemate.

Into their silence, a humming rose, soft, implacable. The air began to shimmer. The wand laid over Charles's knees shone all at once with a brilliant light, picked up a high-pitched overtone from the hum, and quite simply dematerialized.

Both dukes stood up at once.

Naroshi spoke a curt command to the steward, and the Chapalii servant turned on his heel and hurried away. But even as the steward crossed under the double arches, the arches themselves vanished. The air shimmered, melding, blending; the whole huge chamber melted away and the grand architecture was overwhelmed by another locale.

The change occurred over seconds-minutes, perhaps-but it was hard to keep track of time when you were floating in immaterial space, in a shifting void. David caught a glimpse of the mosaic wall, of a hollow-eyed man draped in robes splintered by a sudden bright light, and then it, too, was gone. They stood in a chamber so vast that David could not see walls but felt the presence of still air enclosing him. In such space there ought to be a breeze, some sense of the air being alive; there was not.

He stood on a silver floor that shaded to translucence and then became transparent, and he stared down, dizzy with vertigo, at an expanse of towers and avenues laid out so far below that this floor must have been hundreds of meters above the ground. Darkness swept over and swallowed the city below like a wave and David could only mark each tower now by the single light at its tip. Or were they now stars? Was he standing above space itself, staring down into the vast deeps? He tilted his head back, to look up, and got dizzy, felt the galaxy whirl around him. Staggered a little, steadying himself with a touch on Marco's arm.

Now he felt like the floor was moving, or that he was; he couldn't be sure which. Only the two dukes appeared stable to his eyes. He fixed on Charles.

The air shone in front of Charles, took on weight and coalesced into matter. A braid of silver fire hung in the air. David saw the shift as gravity grabbed hold of its substance. The air stilled. The braid fell. But Charles caught it before it could touch the floor. David saw how heavy it must be by the way it weighted down Charles's arm. "Seal the braid of fealty."

At that instant David understood. The braid of silver was the emperor's seal. And he had delivered it to Charles in order to seal with imperial approval Charles's act of taking the Keinaba merchant house into the Soerensen ducal house. But where had it come from? How had it reached them? There had been nothing there; Charles now held a silver braid that undeniably possessed mass and volume. The problem, the possibilities, made David's head whirl. He just stood there and let the chamber reel around him and after a moment, as he forced himself to focus on the silver braid in Charles's hand, the world stopped moving.

The stars vanished. Now they stood in a glade carpeted by perfectly manicured pale orange grass; probably not grass at all, but that was what it looked like. Twenty-one white-barked trees ringed them. Slender trunks shot up, endlessly up, to a kaleidoscopic canopy so high above that David could not measure it. Beyond, impossibly high, he saw the faint spires of towers.

Naroshi stood opposite Charles. Against the stark white trees, Naroshi's complexion bore the barest tinge of blue, so pale that in any other surroundings David would not have noticed it. Blue was the color of distress. Clearly, Naroshi was not happy to be here-wherever here was.

Charles faced Naroshi across the pale grass, and Marco and David flanked Charles. David wondered if they really had been somehow transported into the imperial presence-into the emperor's presence-or if this was just an incredible projection. If he stepped forward, would he bang into the couch? He felt it the safer option not to move at all.

"I thank you," said Charles into the silence, hefting the braid in his hand. "I ask permission for myself and some companions to visit the planet where my sister and heir has ceased to exist, so that we may suitably mourn her, without interruption."

Marco glanced sidewise at David and winked. Yes, clearly that last little qualifier was aimed at Naroshi. But Marco's ability to remain unwed in the most awe-inspiring circumstances gave David heart. He winked back. Against the purity of the white bark of the trees, Naroshi's complexion shaded in the slightest degree from blue to green, the color of disapproval.

The humming stopped. David had not really noticed it until it ceased. Then he was aware of its absence, and as abruptly as a light is switched from light to dark, they stood in the octagonal chamber again. Mosaics glowed on the far walls, seen through the double arches. The images flowed, as if the figures stirred, but David could not be sure if they really moved or if he was still recovering from the whirling of the stars.

A pink scarf lay draped over Charles's shoulders. Pink was the color of approval. For a moment, Charles simply stood there. Then he lifted his free hand to touch the scarf, to check its color. His chin shifted, just a little, but David knew him well enough to know that he was pleased. He bowed, low, to the precise degree by which a duke honors the emperor, dipping to touch one knee to the floor. Then he straightened and regarded Naroshi in silence.

In this light, David could discern no slightest tint of color in Naroshi's pallid complexion. "I will watch your progress with interest," said Naroshi.

Charles inclined his head in acknowledgment, but said nothing more.

The steward reappeared and led them out the way they had come. By unspoken consent, the three men did not talk at all until they left the secured line on Staten Island and transferred to a lev-train that would take them back to London. Charles sank into a seat. He draped the silver braid across his thighs. It was as heavy as gold, and as supple as the finest silk. David and Marco sat on either side of him. It was the old pattern from their university days: Marco on the right, David on the left.

" 'I'll be watching you,' " mused Charles as he stared out the window at the gray ocean. "But is Naroshi for me or against me?''

Marco shrugged. "Does our concept of dualism even apply to the Chapalii? Maybe he's for you and against you."

"I hate equations that don't add up," muttered David.