The Summer Queen

KHAREMOUGH: Pernatte Estate

Gundhalinu stood in the drape-lined alcove of the guest room, dwarfed by the expanse of the windows, which were half again his own height; enjoying the momentary solitude and peace, the momentary lack of motion. It struck him that lately he always seemed to find himself looking out of windows. He wondered just what it was he was looking for.

He told himself it was only the view: The view from the Pernatte manor house was certainly one worth looking at. He watched the setting sun inscribe a trail of molten light on the distant surface of the sea, as if in invitation. … He thought suddenly of Fire Lake.

He forced the image from his mind. He was done with Fire Lake. World’s End was becoming only an unpleasant memory, for him, for the people of Number Four His act of desperation when he had flung the stardrive vaccine into the Lake had actually done what he had prayed it would do: It had started a chain reaction that was gradually bringing the Lake under control, and with it the nightmare phenomena of World’s End. The Hegemony would have sufficient stardrive plasma to keep it in hyperlight technology from now until eternity, if they used it wisely … in spite of Reede Kullervo, and the Brotherhood.

The knowledge of that success had helped him recover from the psychological blow of what Kullervo had done, and been … from his anger at his own blindness in ever trusting a stranger, not recognizing that Reede Kullervo was an emotionally unstable killer—and, as he had discovered later, a member of the Brotherhood. Kullervo had not only succeeded in getting a breeding sample of the plasma for the Brotherhood, but the actual, functioning stardrive unit as well.

But even though Kullervo had betrayed him, the Brotherhood had not kept the Golden Mean and the other true representatives of Survey from controlling the major supply of stardrive plasma … and they had not killed the only man who really understood everything that Kullervo had done as well as Kullervo himself did.

Gundhalinu had wondered ever since that day why Kullervo had not killed him … almost as often as he had wondered whether he would ever have found the answer to controlling the plasma without Kullervo’s help. At least in time he had been able to acknowledge that it had been the brilliance of Kullervo’s mind that had blinded him to what Kullervo really was. Kullervo’s genius had made it impossible to see beyond their potential for actually achieving the goal they both wanted so much, for their separate reasons … see beyond the opportunity to watch that genius at work, to work with it, to share in that pure, exalted state of conscious discovery and creation. And in the end, in spite of Kullervo’s treachery—because of it, really—he was more of a public hero now than he had been before.

The irony was not lost on him, any more than the mystery of why Kullervo had let him survive, with all he knew. He had all the data that his contacts in Survey had been able to give him about Kullervo’s origins—and they did not add up to a logical sum. Kullervo was the man known as the Smith to the inner circles of Survey. Beyond those circles he was only a paranoid rumor, a dark legend in Police halls—fittingly, since he had probably the most brilliant mind since the legendary Vanamoinen. They call me the new Vanamoinen, he had said once himself. But according to the available data, he had virtually no formal education. He had begun as a low-order Brotherhood member, and was wanted by the authorities on Samathe for murdering his own father. Supposedly his raw genius was so great that he had risen through Brotherhood circles to a position of key importance, even though he was barely beyond his teens. Gundhalinu didn’t believe it. Elements were missing from the equation; had to be. He had sent out more queries, hoping that somewhere he would ask someone the right questions, and be given the answers he needed.

Kullervo had disappeared from Number Four without a trace, although the Four government had been alerted and searching for him. The official account claimed that Kullervo had been killed by the treacherous phenomena of World’s End. But the same private sources that had told him—too late—of Kullervo’s real associations, had informed him that Kullervo’s ship had disappeared from orbit at virtually the same time that he and Kullervo had had their final confrontation. He could only believe that Kullervo’s wild genius had found a way out of the trap, a way to force the stardrive to make that infinitesimal blip out into orbit. And that meant the Brotherhood certainly had possession of the stardrive plasma, and a drive unit they could duplicate, as well. He knew that with Reede Kullervo overseeing their program, that would take them no time at all.

Which meant that from the moment BZ Gundhalinu returned to Kharemough, bringing his own specimen of the stardrive plasma with him, he was a prisoner to duty once again. He had been back in Kharemough space for nearly a year, but this was the first time he had actually set foot on his homeworld.

All the meaningful industrial activity that Kharemough carried on was done in its cislunar space, or on the surface of its two moons. He could already see spectral colors painting the Kharemough night, as the sky began to darken. When he was a child, he had thought the colors were beautiful. But as soon as he was old enough to grasp the concept, he had been informed that they were caused by industrial pollutants. It was the price Kharemough paid for its supremacy in the Hegemony, he had been told, as if that were a sacrifice to take pride in. But it had ruined the beauty of the sky for him. He was never able to see its colors the same way again. That had been the first step, he supposed, on his journey to disillusionment.

But still, it felt good, so much better than he could ever have imagined, to be back on the world where he had been born … welcomed back into the smaller but equally familiar world of the social class he had been born into. After his disgrace and his suicide attempt on Tiamat, he had thought he would never see this world again, let alone feel welcome in it. But here he was, the Honorable Commander Gundhalmu-eshkrad-ken, Technician of the Second Rank, Hero of the Hegemony, and so on and so on and so on.

All that he had learned, about himself and his place in the universe, during his time away from Kharemough had made him doubt that he would ever want to be a part of Technician society again—of its hypocrisy, its rigidity, its prejudices and injustices. And yet, when he stood in this room, breathing in its rich odor of history, letting the exquisite harmonies of an artsong by Lantheile infuse his senses with the same restrained passion that the artist himself must have felt, as he touched the complex filaments of a saridie …

Gundhalinu touched a curtain, let his callused hand slide down along the silken sensuality of cloth which was at once as cool as water and as soft as the skin of a child. He sighed, and looked at his hands. He had never had a callus, in all his years on Kharemough. Stiff muscles and work-hardened hands were for the lower classes, for Nontechs and Unclassifieds, not for the Technician elite, who used their superior minds to guide the Hegemony into an ever more brilliant future. He wondered what would happen now that the real future had caught up with Kharemough the way it had already caught up with him. He suspected that Kharemough’s sociopolitical balance, and the Hegemony’s, were as fragile as his own emotional balance had been before he encountered the stardrive plasma.

His work with the plasma and the drive unit itself had given him a clue to how very little Kharemough actually knew about real technology, as the Old Empire had Practiced it. They prided themselves on their technological superiority, but in fact they were priding themselves on living in the past, within a system that had grown too comfortable, too closed, too smug. The plans for countless innovations still existed in the sibyl databanks, but without the stardrive as a catalyst, no one seemed to have seen any point in pursuing them, because the system worked well enough, and the people in power came to believe they had the best of all worlds possible, given their limited access to the stars. “Come the Millennium” they would say—meaning “come the stardrive.” Well, it had come, and the gods only knew what the changes would mean, to everyone involved. The Old Empire had made the Hegemony look like what it actually was—a petty feudal trade network. But the Old Empire had had its own problems; and those problems had proved fatal….

The uncertainty of the future he saw had made him long to be in places like this room, with its sense of permanence and tradition and perfect peace. This room touched his memory, and fulfilled a need in him, in ways he had not experienced in nearly half his lifetime.

But since his return he had spent every single moment of his time up in space, involving himself in every aspect of the new stardrive technology that he had been able to insinuate his presence into—and the leverage his new prestige and his Survey contacts gave him was profound.

Because his Survey-guided sibyl Transfer had informed the leaders on Kharemough about his discovery, they had begun the work of planning and constructing ships that could utilize the new technology, as well as ways of converting the thousands of existing ships to the new drives, before he even arrived. And they had begun work too on the kinds of advanced weaponry that they had formulated plans for, but found small use for, when their only realistic means of control over the other worlds of the Hegemony was economic.

As a result, when he returned home he had been both relieved and disturbed to discover that the new drive units and the fleet already under construction were riddled with errors in design and function. He had seen an actual stardrive unit, had worked with the plasma, and knew things no one on Kharemough could have known. But with their access to the sibyl net, the engineers and researchers should have had flawless design data available to them. The sibyl machinery had shown signs of deterioration over time—hardly surprising, in such an ancient system—but he had been stunned to find error after error in the data he had been shown by the research teams.

The possibility of a major breakdown in the informational system upon which the entire Hegemony depended was almost entirely off his scale of disaster. He had seen the looks in the eyes of the people around him as they discussed the possibility, and told himself fiercely that the sibyl net, at least, was not his responsibility. He was here to build starships, and errors in data were things that could be corrected. The potential problems with the sibyl net only meant that they must make progress with all possible speed, in case a system-wide failure actually was coming. And in trying to bring home that point to the researchers and engineers, he slowly came to realize how the problems with sibyl-net data had become a source of excuses for inefficiency, bureaucratic mishandling, and a lack of rigor.

He had come home to this, hardly expecting to find such problems among his own people. The truth had struck him with the impact of a stasis field. But his hard-earned new perspective had let him look at the technocracy’s way of doing things with an outsider’s eye, and a stasis field was as good an analogy as any to what was wrong.

He admitted to himself alone the mixed emotions that knowledge had created in him: disillusionment and regret, when he thought of his people, his world’s heritage, his own pride … frustration, and relief, when he thought of Moon Dawntreader and Tiamat. Every year of delay that kept the Hegemony away from Tiamat gave her more time to do the work she was destined to do. Sometimes he had to fight down dis own urge to delay the process he had begun; half believing that that was the way ne could best serve the symbol they both wore.

But then he would force himself to remember her face—remember her ghost reaching out to him at Fire Lake, hazed in blue. A memory of the future, a promise of a moment they both had yet to live… the words I need you. And the realization that every day he was growing older, and she was… that nearly nine years had passed for him since they had parted, and sixteen for her, on Tiamat. He could not believe that it had been so long; the years seemed somehow to have dissolved, like the snows of Tiamat melting in the spring. He had not seen her face in all that time, except on a specter. He had spoken to her only twice, and only in Transfer; the first time half-mad with Fire Lake’s delirium, the second using Hahn as a medium simply to let her know that he had survived. Sometimes he wondered whether he was deluding himself, clinging to a dream of a love that had no right to exist, that had never existed in the first place. And yet his memories of his time with her—that extraordinary space outside of time, when he had been more alive, more real, than at any moment in his life before or since—were still as vivid as his face in the mirror: his face, which every year showed him new lines at the corners of his eyes that had not been there nine years ago….

And then frustration would drive out longing, goad him to more endless hours of work, of supervision and argument and adjustment. He worked now not only with the top researchers in the habitats, but with the practical engineers and construction hands out in the shipyards. He had come to see that he had as much in common with them now as he did with his own class, and often better rapport. Earning their trust and loyalty had doubled the measurable results his polite suggestions and solicitous modifications of data had won him among the Technicians who oversaw their work.

But his casual fraternizing with the lower classes had caused friction and unease in some quarters, particularly political ones. He was all too aware that he could not afford to offend his peers, particularly considering his clouded background, which was never entirely forgotten even if it was politely unmentionable among the highboms who held the power on Kharemough. He wanted to get back to Tiamat as soon as possible—because that was when the elite wanted to get there, to get at the water of life again. And he not only wanted to get there first, he wanted to get there controlling enough political power of his own to have some effect on what they would try to do to that world, to its people … to its Queen. Enough power to help her stop the exploitation. Because if he couldn’t, then he would have worked all his life only to betray her…

He turned away from the windows, from the dim points of the stars beginning to prick through the light veils on the darkening sky. He would not see Tiamat’s twin suns among them even if he tried—they were too enormously distant, at the other end of one of the random spacetime wormholes that joined the Black Gates. The Hegemony was in a sense an empire of time more than space—of worlds that could oe reached within a reasonable journey-time, due to the Gates, but which had no meaningful relationship to one another in physical space. But all that was about to change, too.

And he had better change his clothes, he thought wearily, before the party beyond this room’s flawless silverwood double doors became a memory, and BZ Gundhalinu, the guest of honor, missed it entirely. He was here to mend offenses, to charm and disarm, ingratiate and manipulate to the best of his ability—and thanks to his years of bureaucratic gymnastics on Four, his ability was now considerable. He knew the social codes, he knew what would flatter whom; and now that the new starships were making more satisfactory progress, his political progress would be measured only by his ability to stomach rich food and his own hypocrisy. This was the first of a number of intimate and large gatherings here on the planet—where most of the wealthy elite still kept homes—as well as up in the orbiting habitats. ‘He was using both his network of old family ties, most of whom were now almost painfully eager to renew his acquaintance, and his network of new Survey contacts to set them up. This was only the beginning….

Which was probably why he found it so hard to overcome his own inertia and move, to cross the room toward the private bath where a solicitous house system had left him a fresh uniform encrusted with all the appropriate honors, insignia, medals, orders, ranks and degrees, including his family crest, which he had not seen since he left home. Technically speaking, he had no right to wear it tonight, since he was not the eldest sibling of his generation. But the most rigid Technicians—the ones he most needed to make a good impression on—put breeding above everything, and this would at least remind them that his lineage was above reproach.

If it was a long time since he had seen that crest, it was equally long since he had been waited on by servants, electronic or otherwise, and Pernatte’s estate had one of the most sophisticated household systems he had had the pleasure of experiencing. Even so, after all this time offending for himself, it made him uncomfortable, at first; but he reminded himself that this was, after all, only a series of servomechs, sophisticated programming. The highest and lowest classes on Kharemough were not even permitted to speak to one another without a formal interpreter; the highborns got around the servant problem by building their own. These were not his fellow human beings treating him as if he were a god—or staring with any interest whatsoever at his bloodshot eyes and unsightly stubble of beard, at the state of his disheveled hair and rumpled worker’s coveralls.

He unsealed his coveralls with one hand, scratching his side, wrinkling his nose. He began to move more eagerly toward the bath that was waiting for him in the next room, which he knew would be exactly the temperature and consistency he wanted. The scent of steaming herbs would clear out his head, the massage jets would know just where and how to touch his aching-muscled, travel-weary body to leave him relaxed and energized….

Across the room, the silverwood doors opened suddenly, briefly, letting in a rush of bright noise.

Gundhalinu turned, startled. Someone had closed the doors again, with unseemly haste. And he was no longer alone. The intruder was standing across the room, staring back at him. The glowspot pasted to the palm of her uplifted hand abruptly illuminated the space that had grown almost dark around him without his really noticing it—illuminated the face of the stranger who now shared it with him.

“Oh—” She stared back at him, a momentary reaction of startled dismay fading as she took in the details of his appearance. Her gaze was level and almost painfully open, but there was no recognition in it. He did not know who she was, either. Her features were more striking than classical, but he saw strength and humor there, and intelligence, and unexpected beauty. He broke the gaze of her golden-brown eyes, vvhich seemed to find him so transparent; took in the headdress of pearls that framed her face in luminous strands shifting gently with her motion. She wore a long gown of night-black velvet, its high neckline a collar of pearls, the pearls flowing into the blackness like stars expanding though space until they were lost in night.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” she said, with such calm conviction that for a moment he found himself wondering if it was true.

“Why not?” he asked, disconcerted and amused. He was glad that she had not caught him handling the very expensive and very old piece of sculpture he had been admiring earlier; she would have had him feeling like a thief.

“Because I’m not, either.” She smiled suddenly, her eyes shining with conspiratorial excitement. “I need a place to be unobtrusive, until enough guests arrive so that I can lose myself among them. You won’t give me away, will you—?” It almost wasn’t a question; as if she had made some judgment about him on sight.

“Should I?” he asked, uncertainly. He bent his head, inviting her with the gesture to explain.

“I’m quite harmless,” she answered, her smile filling with gentle irony. “Truly. I’m only here because I wanted so badly to meet the famous hero Commander Gundhalinu.”

Gundhalinu stopped the sudden laugh of disbelief that almost got away from him, keeping his expression neutral. If she was playing a game, it wasn’t with him; he was sure that she did not recognize him. “Well,” he said, mildly, almost surprised at himself, “you’ll have some time to kill until then. Would you like a drink?” He gestured at the clean-lined cabinet beside him; he had been informed that it contained a fully stocked bar.

“Will you join me?” Her smile made him smile with a sense of shared truancy. He nodded. “Something innocuous please,” she said. “My senses are quite overstimulated as it is.”

Gundhalinu touched the spot on the seemingly solid surface of the tabletop that had been indicated to him earlier. The smooth grain of the wood vanished under his touch as the bar obediently listed its contents for his consideration. “Do you prefer to drink, inhale, or absorb?” The Pernattes had an impressive assortment of mind-altering substances available, all of them perfectly legal.

“To drink, I think.” There was laughter in her voice as she crossed the room toward him. “The act is not too active that way, and not too passive.”

“Good point.” He glanced up at her. “They have the water of life—?”

He saw her face register the same play of emotions that had filled his mind: Not the real thing… but even the imitation was rare enough. “Oh, yes,” she murmured. “Yes.”

He spoke an order, looking at her where she stood leaning casually against the cabinet beside him. She smelled of something exotic and heady; he realized that he probably stank of sweat. But she smiled that strangely appealing smile at him, meeting his gaze with unnerving directness. He glanced down, lifting his hand to meet her proffered one in a polite greeting. “How do you do?”

She touched his palm almost playfully with her own glowlit hand. Light and shadows danced as the glowspot flickered. But as he would have let his hand drop she took it in both of hers, keeping it there as she turned it over; illuminating it, running her fingers unselfconsciously across his palm, like a blind woman trying to see. The touch against the sensitive skin made him shiver. “You have calluses. Hands were made to do things. I like real hands.” She turned his hand over, studying its shape, the length and form of his fingers. “You have beautiful hands.”

He took his hand from hers as the drinks appeared, surprised and slightly embarrassed, relieved to have an excuse to free himself. He offered her a goblet grown of synthetic sapphire, with the heavy silver liquid lying restlessly in its convolutions. She took it as he lifted his own in acknowledgment.

“To adventures,” she said, with a sudden, glinting grin. The light in her palm shone through the goblet in her hand, illuminating it like some uncanny magic.

“No,” he said softly, and shook his head. “Adventures are only tragedies that didn’t happen.”

She glanced down, considering. “Then to life—” she said, looking at him again.

He nodded. “To life.” He sipped the silver liquid they called the water of life, feeling it fill his head with the bittersweet taste of memories. The last time he had drunk it he had been hardly more than a boy, still living in his father’s house, on the ancestral estates. … He remembered his home, the beauty and peace of the land, his father’s voice. He took another sip, and remembered the future—remembering Tiamat, the source of the genuine water of life, and suddenly, vividly, Moon, her face as pale as the endless fields of snow, her body warm with life against his own. … He took another sip, and forced his mind back into the present, forced his eyes to register the astonished pleasure on the face of the elegant stranger standing beside him now.

She sighed. “Oh, this is well-named.”

He smiled, and nodded again. They shared a space of silence, savoring the guilty pleasure of each other’s company. At last, moved by his own curiosity, he asked, “You truly weren’t invited to this party?” He could see nothing about her that would make her an unwelcome guest. He thought, rather surprised at himself, that if anyone consulted him right now, he would put her high on the list of people he would like to share the evening with. He blinked, forcing his eyes away from her face.

“No.” She lifted her head, the pearls whispering against her neck. “I was specifically excluded.”

He opened his mouth, about to ask the obvious question, when there was a knock at the silverwood doors. She turned, startled, her face betraying barely controlled panic.

Gundhalinu gestured her to silence, urging her aside as he moved toward the doors.

The doors swung inward before he could even reach them. He stopped, blinking, caught like a moth in the flood of light and noise. He stole a quick, cautioning glance at the dark angle behind the left-hand door, which now concealed the uninvited guest from view. She had closed her hand, stopping the light from the glowspot.

“Excuse me, sir—” The new intruder wore the formal clothing of a party guest, but Gundhalinu recognized the discreetly disguised communicator worn by house security personnel. She shifted slightly, trying to see past him into the dim-lit corners of the room.

“What is it?” he asked, his awkward discomfort sounding to his own ears like impatience.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,” she said, “but I had a message that an unauthorized visitor had come into this room.”

“Not while I’ve been here,” he said, amazed at how easily the lie came out. “I’ve been trying to catch a few minutes of rest—” He nodded at the darkened space behind him in explanation.

“No one at all has been here?” She gave him the kind of look that he had once given to suspected conspirators.

“Someone did stop in for a moment to ask whether I needed anything.” He shrugged, all too casually. “Perhaps that was what it was.”

She nodded, looking relieved. “And do you need anything, sir—?”

“Only to be allowed to clean myself up and change in peace,” he said.

“Of course, sir.” She nodded again, chastened. “I’ll see that you aren’t disturbed.” She backed out of his presence, closing the doors after her.

Gundhalinu sighed, feeling giddy, as the woman in black stepped out of the shadows and opened her palm, releasing light into the space around them again.

“Thank you.” She smiled, bowing her head in gratitude, pearls whispering against her neck.

Gundhalinu opened his mouth to call on the room lights; hesitated, suddenly realizing that he preferred the shadows, the subtle mystery of this shared conspiracy. “Tell me,” he said, “what made you so certain that you could trust me?” He had thought for a moment that she had seen his sibyl trefoil; but it was inside his clothes, and he doubted that she could see the tattoo on his throat in this dim light.

“You have clear, deep eyes,” she said softly. “When you looked at me, I saw that you have an old soul.”

He almost laughed, taking it for fatuous nonsense, until he heard what she was really saying—paying a tribute to the ancestors he had been taught in youth to venerate, and emulate. He had never heard it put that way before. Instead of laughing, he smiled.

“And so I sensed that you would be an honorable man.”

It struck him as ironic that she considered it honorable to help a total stranger crash an exclusive party. He said, “I’ve never done this kind of thing before.” And yet he had, he suddenly realized. On Tiamat. But this time the results of his impulsiveness would hardly change the course of a world. Or even his life.

She bent her head, pearls whispering. “Then tell me why you trusted me.”

“I don’t think I can.” He glanced away, suddenly reluctant even to try putting it into words.

“Perhaps because you sensed that what I wished to do was, in truth, honorable.”

“Perhaps,” he murmured, looking back at her. “You know, you needn’t be here under false pretenses. I can speak to someone….” No one had consulted him about the guest list—assuming, he supposed, that he had more important things on hs mind, which was true.

But she hesitated. “You’re Technician, aren’t you?”

He nodded, thinking that she seemed surprised. But then, he hardly looked the part, the way he was dressed. Perhaps she had taken him for some hired worker.

“Do you know Commander Gundhalinu personally?”

“Yes,” he said, not sure why he didn’t simply tell her the truth. But then, he was, not quite sure of anything just now, except that he was enjoying this game far too much. “Since childhood.”

“Then, no thank you. It wouldn’t be fair to compromise you with such an old friend.”

“It will hardly—” He broke off, as he remembered what she had been saying when they were interrupted. “Did you tell me that you were specifically excluded from attending this party?”

“Yes,” she said, less certainly than she had said anything since they met; as if she were regretting the confession now. She glanced away. “At his own order, 1 expect.”

“Really?” Gundhalinu said incredulously. “Does he know you, then?”

“No.” She looked back at him and there was sudden anger in her eyes. “He does not. Nor does he wish to, obviously.”

Gundhalinu blinked, wondering what odd quirk of social scandal he was inadvertently taking the blame for. He thought of his brothers, wondered suddenly whether she had had some unpleasant dealing with them. It would be like them to blame him for it. “Well …” he said selfconsciously, “he’s been away, you know, for some years. He’s changed a great deal… .”He smiled earnestly. “He used to be an insufferable little snot, I have to admit, but he’s become almost human, actually. If there’s been some misunderstanding, he’ll want to put it right. What was the problem—?”

She shook her head; the fall of pearls rustled with her refusal. She looked away from him again. “It’s nothing that should concern you … and I don’t want to talk about it. Besides, I don’t want that to be what you remember me by.” She smiled. a little sadly this time.

He sighed, and nodded in resignation. “Then, if you’ll excuse me, I have to change my clothes or they’ll be evicting me instead.” He gestured ruefully at his filthy coveralls, and toward the lighted doorway of the suite’s bath and dressing rooms. “Stay as long as you like, until you feel comfortable about joining the party.”

“Thank you.” Her smile widened. She put out her hand suddenly, as he began to turn away. “Who are you—?”

He shook his head. “No names. That would spoil it. The next time you see me, ask me again.”

Her mouth opened, and closed. Her smile turned ironic as she acknowledged his request, realizing that he had bested her at her own game.

He went on into the next room, carrying the half-empty goblet of liquor with him, not letting himself glance back. He locked the door behind him. He bathed and changed into his formal clothing, completing his transformation into a shining shadow of himself. He finished the water of life in the sapphire goblet slowlv. savoring it, fortifying himself for the ordeal to come. And then he left the suite hv a different door, without looking in to see whether his mystery guest was still waiting.

He stepped out into the bright splendor of the Pemattes manor house, entering a slutting sea of bodies; colors swirled like oil on water, music and the sound of voices filled his senses. He stopped moving as the door closed behind him, trying to remain unobserved for long enough to orient himself, waiting for the surge of adrenaline he needed to face the crowd. He had never been naturally outgoing, and he realized by now that he never would be, no matter how many parties he attended, or how many speeches he made. Entering a crowded room would always be like walking head on into a closed door.

“Commander!”

He looked up as NR Vhanu, his chief aide, materialized out of the crowd beside him. “Vhanu,” he said, smiling in relief as he returned a salute. Vhanu had been his liaison while this affair was being planned, and, he trusted, knew everything about it that he did not.

“There you are, sir—” Vhanu brightened, and a certain amount of relief showed on his own face. “I was beginning to wonder if you were all right.”

Gundhahnu glanced at him, mildly annoyed, but could detect only eagerness and concern in the younger man’s expression. “Worry about me when I seem to be enjoying one of these affairs too much,” he said.

Vhanu looked at him, his incomprehension barely concealed. “But sir, I thought you wanted this party. The honor that is being paid to your family tonight— deservedly, of course … that is, this is probably the social and political event of the decade. I’ve never seen such a gathering anywhere but at a visit by the Assembly… . Have you met with the Assembly, sir?”

“Yes, I have,” Gundhalinu said, and didn’t say anything more. He had met with the Assembly, while he was serving on Tiamat. And they had all but spat in his face, calling him coward, failed suicide. Just as anyone in this room would have done, had they been there. He had believed, in that terrible moment, that his life was over. And yet here he was, a Hero of the Hegemony. If any of these people knew of his former disgrace, he doubted they would ever have the nerve to refer to it now. … He took a deep breath, as he realized that his chest ached.

He looked back at Vhanu, who was gazing out across the crowd again, probably tallying famous faces, with a look that was at once complacent, slightly dazzled, and completely unselfaware. … It reminded Gundhalinu of himself, ten years ago. Like himself, Vhanu had as honorable a family history as anyone in the room—he was the younger brother of JM Vhanu, an old school friend who was now a respected researcher at the Rislanne. And like himself, Vhanu had chosen a career in the Hegemonic Police—a common profession for a younger son forced out into the world by the rigid Kharemoughi inheritance laws, which gave family title and any wealth to the eldest child.

He had encountered Vhanu on his return—remembering him (although he had not admitted it) only as a small, shrill, rather obnoxious presence on the perimeter of numerous earnest discussions about datamodeling, conduit physics, and the Meaning of Life. But the Vhanu he had found on his return was a responsible career officer, already a Captain, capable, likable,’and politically aware, if somewhat conservative and status-conscious. But then, Gundhalinu had discovered to his regret that most Kharemoughis of his social rank now struck him as conservative and status conscious At least, with everything else, he had gained the perspective to realize that rt was he who had changed, and not his world. He had first met Vhanu in the relatively egalitarian setting of a Survey Meeting Hall, and they had hit it off. He had needed assistants he could rely on, and Vhanu had quickly made himself indispensable.

“Sir, there are the Pernattes. Let me introduce you to them first.”

He nodded, and let himself be guided with faultless grace through the murmuring curiosity of the crowd, on into the next room.

This room was even larger than the last, with the same severe, almost monolithic grace. The walls were of unadorned gnarlstone, polished to a glassy sheen. Gnarlstone was another legacy of the Old Empire; they had found its strange, fractal-patterned strata all over the planet. Gnarlstone was dead smartmatter sediment, lithified by the volcanic heat of its own catacylsmic failure. The most prized varieties contained lacy deposits of calcium, from human remains. The burl-like complexity of the matrix reminded him of the beach at Fire Lake. He looked away from it.

“Sir—” Vhanu touched his arm, catching his attention.

He turned, and saw the Pernattes progressing toward him, saw guests stepping aside discreetly to let them pass. He recognized them both easily: AT Pernatte had been prominent in Kharemoughi politics for as long as he could remember; he had seen the man’s long, slightly morose face on the threedy, and occasionally at parties before he had left Kharemough—though only from a distance. Pernatte had aged imperceptibly in the sixteen realtime years that Gundhalinu had been away from Kharemough—just as Pernatte had seemed never to age at all before, or his wife either. Their marriage had combined two of the wealthiest and most influential Technician lineages on the planet.

Gundhalinu had dealt more directly with Pernatte’s wife, though not in the flesh—CMP Jarsakh held the controlling interest in the shipyards which were endeavoring to build the new faster-than-light fleet. She was looking back at him now, showing the recognition her husband lacked. It was widely, if privately, held that she was the mind behind the ever-growing success of their already vast mutual holdings, that she put into Pernatte’s mouth the words that he spoke before the Council. Having dealt with her himself, Gundhalinu could see where there might be truth in it. His experience with his own brothers had made him painfully aware that being the firstborn child of a Technician family did not necessarily confer intelligence along with inheritance; but he would not make the mistake of underestimating either of the Pernattes.

He gathered himself to make the expected bow as the couple stopped before him and Vhanu began to formally present them. Vhanu was a relative of the Jarsakhs, not close, but not too distant to use the familiar form of address or to speak with them easily and comfortably.

Gundhalinu caught himself just in time, as the Pernattes bowed first to him, extending him the greater honor. He returned the bow, and touched each proffered palm.

“A great honor, Gundhalinueshkrad,” Pernatte murmured.

“The honor is mine, Pernattesadhu,” Gundhalinu answered, more sincerely than he had said anything in public in a long time. He was secretly pleased that of all the assorted titles he now bore, Pernatte had chosen the one which marked him as a scientist. He sometimes found himself groping among the complexities of honorary titles in Sandhi for the correct forms of address for his peers, after having spoken nothing but foreign languages for so long; just as he had almost forgotten the use of the personal thou, after so long among strangers. But then, he had not used thou with anyone since he had returned, either. Most of his old school friends were scattered among the stars; the few he might hope to see tonight he probably would not even recognize.

“You look splendid in your rightful uniform, Commander,” Jarsakh said, looking him up and down, her eyes assessing his assortment of honors, medals, and crests with an almost predatory interest. “It’s much more gratifying to see you in the flesh. …” She raised her eyebrows, and smiled.

“Thank you, Jarsakh-bhai.” He nodded in selfconscious acknowledgment, keeping a straight face and using her family name, as he had become accustomed to doing when he dealt with her as an industrialist. It was an unexpected side effect of his position that when he wore his full military uniform and honors—or sometimes just spoke his name—women he had never met or who had barely acknowledged his existence suddenly began undressing him with their eyes. He found it more embarrassing than flattering. “It’s an honor and a relief to hold a conversation in such magnificent surroundings.”

The Pernattes exchanged a look of mutual satisfaction that might even have been fond. They both wore the uniforms that were their right and duty as the heads of two important lineages; but no expense had been spared on subtlety of design, use of color and embellishment, to transform the spare lines of a robe and slacks into something unique and beautiful.

Gundhalinu found his own eyes glancing from one youthful, perfect face and fit, flawlessly dressed body to the other in helpless fascination as he went on making small talk. He deftly answered the kinds of questions about his career and discoveries that everyone seemed to ask, feeling vaguely surprised that even the Pernattes would ask the same things.

While he was growing up his family had been well-off financially, the bearers of a family line whose ancestry was unimpeachable and whose contributions to technological progress stretched back through Kharemough’s history for countless generations. But the Pernattes were rich; so rich that they had been able to afford the water of life. Their bodies wore the unmistakable proof of it as unselfconsciously as they wore their clothes—Pernatte was at least as old as Gundhalinu’s father, who had married late and been an old man when Gundhalinu was born; but he looked scarcely older than Gundhalinu himself. Pernatte’s wife looked younger; her skin, a glowing mahogany color dusted with pale freckles, was almost completely unlined.

“…and my wife says that you are progressing very well with the new technology,” Pernatte said.

“Yes.” Gundhalinu glanced at Jarsakh; she smiled a professional smile at him this time, meaningless and full of steel. They had collided often enough over his impatience with errors and delays in production. “There have been some setbacks in getting our new equipment up to specs, but there is no question that we will have our feet, and the base for equipping all the Hegemony’s ships with stardrive units within the decade.”

“The sooner the better, eh?” Pernatte said. “We must maintain our rightful place as leaders of the Hegemony—and we will, thanks to all you’ve done. As well as establishing permanent ties with our ‘lost colony,’ Tiamat. We’re not getting any younger, you know.” He laughed, with the casual thoughtlessness of someone who assumed the listener would both get and sympathize with his jest.

“You served on Tiamat in the Hegemonic Police, didn’t you?” Jarsakh asked.

Gundhalinu nodded, with a meaningless smile of his own. “Until the final departure.”

“That must have been a sight. Did you see the sacrifice of the Snow Queen?”

“No.” He glanced down. “I was in the hospital with an illness, at the time.”

“Dreadful, backward place—you’re lucky you didn’t die.” She shook her head. “That would have been a terrible tragedy for all of us.”

Gundhalinu made no comment.

“Young Vhanu here tells me you’ve expressed an interest in entering politics, once the starship technology is fully established,” Pernatte said.

“Yes, in fact I have been considering that.” Gundhalinu glanced at Vhanu, letting his pleasant surprise show, and Vhanu smiled, looking down. “My family has never been active in politics, however. I’m afraid I have a lot of process to learn. …”

Pematte’s smile widened, as Gundhalinu had been hoping it would. “It would give me great pleasure to serve as your mentor. As you know, I have more than passing knowledge of the occupation.”

Thank you, gods! Gundhalinu bowed once more, to hide the unseemly rush of elation rising inside him. “I would be most grateful, Pernattesadhu.”

“Then you must allow CMP and myself to guide you to some of our more influential acquaintances tonight. It would be a shame to waste such an occasion on gossip and hero worship. Have you given thought to what sort of service you would be interested in? Something in the world government, perhaps, or the Hegemonic Coordinating Council. Even an Assembly seat would not be out of the question for a man of your reputation and family, if there was an opening… .”He touched Gundhalinu’s arm, guiding him with the motion.

Gundhalinu gave a faintly incredulous laugh and shook his head. “My aspirations are more down to earth. Actually I had thought of something in the judicial branch or the foreign service … in fact, perhaps the Chief Justiceship of Tiamat, when it’s reopened to contact.”

Jarsakh’s luminously calculating eyes widened with a surprise that looked genuine. “Father of all my grandfathers! You actually want to return to that backward, unfortunate world? But you said you almost died there—”

He remembered saying nothing of the kind, although actually it was true enough. “Perhaps that’s why I want to go back, bhai. … To oversee its development into a modern society, one which can be a full, contributing partner in the Hegemony, seems to me to be a worthy career, and one that ought to take a lifetime—” He smiled carefully, not sure himself what the words meant.

“Modernize those barbarians?” Pernatte shook his head. “A selfless goal, but I daresay it’s a hopeless task, trying to uplift a people who practice cannibalism—”

“Human sacrifice, best beloved,” Jarsakh interrupted gently, “not cannibalism.”

“Whatever,” he murmured, annoyed. “Better simply to find more permanent ways to control them, I should think. After all, the damn world is all but uninhabitable anyway, by anything but savages. All they have that’s worth the trade is the water of life.”

“But of course that’s worth the ransom of worlds,” Jarsakh said dryly.

Gundhalinu bit his tongue. Vhanu was still at his side, gazing at the Pernattes as if he were hearing the voices of his ancestors—which he was, in a way, Gundhalinu supposed. “All the more reason to have someone in charge who can monitor the safety of the supply,” he said, choosing his words with the painstaking care of someone picking up shards of glass. To see the path of Light clearly, they said on Four, you must walk in the shadows. “I’m very interested in undertaking a thorough study of the water of life. I have a theory that it may function by the same technoviral mechanism as the stardrive plasma. And now that we are learning how to deal with that—”

“You mean you might find a way to reproduce it?” Jarsakh said, meeting his gaze almost hungrily. “An unlimited supply—?”

He glanced down. “That would be my hope… . It’s certainly within the realm of possibility.” He had no idea whether it was possible or not. But if it would save Tiamat, he would try … he would lie, he would—

“Forgive me—” a voice interrupted, in a tone that was deferential but not to be denied. “I couldn’t help overhearing your discussion of Tiamat, Commander Gundhalinu.”

Gundhalinu turned, found himself looking down into the face of a frail-looking old man in a sedate ceremonial uniform. “KR Aspundh,” the man said, offering his hand.

Gundhalinu met Aspundh’s dry palm briefly with his own; felt a shock of recognition that was almost subliminal. He had known the Aspundhs slightly, years ago—he would not have recognized KR without an introduction, after so long. But there was something else: an odd bright bit of random memory, in which a native girl named Moon told a Kharemoughi Police inspector named Gundhalinu tales of her visit to his homeworld, “…and we visited KR Aspundh, and we drank lith, and ate sugared fruits…” The vision almost kept him from noticing the brief, hidden fingersign that told him suddenly why Aspundh had had the temerity to interrupt this conversation. Aspundh was Survey. Gundhalinu’s eyes registered the sibyl trefoil the other man wore, the only visible symbol of status besides an unobtrusive family crest. “Yes,” Gundhalinu answered. “I served there for several years.”

“He wants to go back there, if you can imagine, KR,” Jarsakh said, apparently not offended by the interruption. KR Aspundh was a first-generation Technician; his lineage was irrevocably Nontech … but his father had been posthumously raised up, due to the creative innovations in long-distance EM sensing apparatus that had come out of his independent work with production methods. He had not gotten the credit he had deserved in his lifetime, but his children had benefited from it.

KR Aspundh was respected by Techs of old lineage because of the sibyl sign he wore, but also because it had been their decision that he was deserving of respect—unlike nouveau riche upstarts who bought their way into respectability by purchasing the estates and ancestors of deserving highborns who had fallen on hard times. KR Aspundh, as far as Gundhalinu knew, was a staunch supporter of the status quo that had put him where he was. And yet, his interest in Tiamat could hardly be casual curiosity… . “Have you ever known anyone who would willingly give up Kharemough for a lifetime on Tiamat—?” Jarsakh asked, bemused.

“Only one person,” Aspundh said mildly, glancing at Gundhalinu. “And that was years ago.”

“And did she?” Gundhalinu asked, trapped again inside a moment of double vision.

Aspundh looked back at him in sudden surprise. His gaze turned measuring, and his face became expressionless. “I believe she did. But then, she was not, of course, a Kharemoughi.” He smiled slightly. “I have never been to Tiamat myself, but I’ve felt a fascination with the place ever since, wondering what could have obsessed her so about it.”

“It does get under your skin, somehow,” Gundhalinu said, feeling a faint smile turn up the corners of his own mouth. “I had always wanted to see the place, when I was young.”

“Where are you staying while you are planetside, Commander? At your family estates?”

“He’s staying with us,” Pernatte said. “Right, BZ? I may call you BZ—?”

“Please.” Gundhalinu nodded and his smile widened, barely covering his surprise. He wondered whether Vhanu had forgotten to tell him about his accommodations, or whether he had merely forgotten that he had heard about them. He glanced at Vhanu, whose own expression looked slightly disoriented.

“Call me AT, then,” Pernatte said, and his wife echoed him, “CMP—” When the Pernattes took an interest in someone’s life, their interest was, it seemed, peremptory. He took a deep breath, remembering that it was not BZ Gundhalinu, a complete stranger with a past they would find reprehensible and future plans they would consider treasonable, whom they were taking into their lives like an orphaned child; it was a construct, an image, a Hero of the Hegemony—a glittering, fame-encrusted shell, bright enough to blind even them. Ride it, just ride it.

“…is not so far away, then,” Aspundh was saying. “I realize your schedule must be extremely tight, Gundhalinu-ken,” using the title that marked him as a sibyl, “but perhaps you might find space in it for a quiet meal at my home? I would very much like to talk more with you about our mutual interest.”

“Thank you, Aspundh-ken.” Gundhalinu nodded, reading what lay in the older man’s eyes. “I would enjoy that.” He glanced at Vhanu. “Make rearrangements, will you, Vhanu?” He smiled apologetically. There seemed to be no natural breathing spaces in his life at all, anymore.

Vhanu nodded, looking both surprised and resigned. “Yes, Commander.”

“I’ll make arrangements with your aide.” Aspundh bowed graciously, as if he sensed the growing restlessness of his hosts. “I know everyone here is eager to make your acquaintance.”

Gundhalinu damped his curiosity and let himself be led on through the crowd, from one introduction to another, gradually progressing from one room to another. He realized with a kind of surprise that he was actually beginning to enjoy himself; because for once the people he was being forced to meet were his own people— people who spoke his language, not simply figuratively but literally—who looked like him, acted like him, responded predictably to his jokes and stories. More than predictably—enthusiastically. Old and new acquaintances, the best and brightest of the people he had admired for a lifetime, were all around him now, proclaiming their admiration for him. And after all, it was not as if he had done nothing to deserve it; he had. He could let himself acknowledge that now, let himself begin to believe that he truly had expunged his dishonor in his people’s eyes.

Vhanu rejoined them after a time, relieving Gundhalinu of having to remember the names and credentials that went with every face he saw, and making him remember again his odd brief encounter with KR Aspundh. He checked his calendar unobtrusively and found the requested dinner date there. He ate another pastry, listening to the silent reminder in his brain that said nothing was what it seemed.

But the cool, fluid strains of music moved with him like a sense of ease from room to room. The music was always changing, because there was a different group of musicians, with different instruments, in each new hall—and yet it was always the music he remembered from his youth, the classical refrains with their hidden mathematical secrets of structure and counterpoint that he had studied in school. Music was a form of mathematics made tangible, and so it was everywhere in the world of the Technician class, reminding them always, gracefully, of their place. The food and drinks circulating through the crowd were a movable feast, all his favorite delicacies of boyhood, beautifully prepared, exquisite to look at, tasting even better to his heightened senses than he remembered.

The Pernatte manor house had been decorated with the same relentless sophistication as the Pernattes themselves, furnished in what he assumed was the most modern fashion, since he did not see any furniture that seemed to be in a style he remembered. There were vast islands of low modular couches in intense but subtle combinations of colors, and flat, slab-like tables that probably contained hidden functions he couldn’t imagine. The polished stone walls were empty of any decoration unless it appeared to be functional; the works of art scattered on stone pedestals among the bright settee islands were all historical—archaeological treasures, remnants of the Old Empire’s glory. The effect in the vast space of the rooms was striking but austere, almost monolithic, even when the space was cluttered with bodies, as it was now. From time to time he became aware that his eyes were searching for the mystery woman, but he did not see her. He hoped that he would find her before the evening was through, enjoying the prospect of the encounter with guilty pleasure.

“Ah—” Jarsakh said, beside him, as a gleaming servo murmured a few inaudible words in her ear. “I believe our entertainment for the evening is about to begin. We’ve reserved the best viewing spot for you. I hope you enjoy art.” She took his arm.

“Very much,” he said. “And frankly I haven’t had much of an opportunity to view it, in recent years.”

“You’ll have an opportunity to do more than that, tonight. You’ll have a chance to interact with it—”

He smiled, intrigued, as she led him outside through the sighing breath of a door onto a patio open to the sky.

“BZ—!”

His smile faded abruptly. He turned, peering across the shifting dance of the crowd. He almost swore, remembered himself in time, swallowing the bitter words like vomit. “Excuse me, CMP,” he said to Jarsakh, and left her side. “Vhanu,” he murmured, keeping his voice down with an effort. “What are they doing here?”

“Who, Commander?” Vhanu tried to follow his gaze.

“My brothers.” Gundhalinu felt every muscle in his body tense as if he were about to be attacked, as he watched his brothers make their way inevitably toward him.

Vhanu registered his answer, looked back at him uncomprehendingly. “Your family, sir? Didn’t you want them here?”

“No,” he said gently, “I did not want them here. I do not want them here. They—” They tried to murder me. “We do not get along.”

“I’m sorry, Commander.” Vhanu shook his head, his expression caught between embarrassment and curiosity. “But they are your only close relatives, I believe—? Your eldest brother is the Gundhalinu head-of-family. We could hardly have excluded them, if you wanted this occasion to be—”

Gundhalinu waved him silent as Jarsakh rejoined them, with her husband at her side. “Is everything all right, BZ?”

“Yes, fine,” he answered, a little too abruptly.

“BZ—” His oldest brother, HK, reached him first. HK had regained all the considerable weight World’s End had stripped off of him. He wore the proper family uniform; it was loosely tailored and carefully draped to make the least of his soft, fleshy body. “Gods, it’s like a miracle—to have thee back home, and the family reunited. I can’t tell thee how proud it makes me feel to share tonight with thee—” He went on babbling inanities as he pressed Gundhalinu’s automatically raised palm—held up as much in a warding gesture as in greeting—with too much force. Gundhalinu watched his brother’s glance touch his wrist, checking surreptitiously for the scars that had once been there, the brand of his dishonor. But the scars were gone—along with any illusions he had had about the relative worthiness of his brothers’ lives, and his own.

SB, their middle brother, drew up behind HK like a shadow, regarding Gundhalinu with a measured silence that was the antithesis of his brother’s diarrhea of well-wishes.

“SB …” Gundhalinu said, with a curt nod, not even offering his hand this time.

“How are thou, little brother?” SB murmured, his voice toneless, his eyes alive with envy.

“Fully recovered, thank you,” Gundhalinu said, meeting the bitterly cold stare with his own. The mark his brothers’ treachery had left on him, after he had brought them alive out of World’s End, had been far more difficult to erase than the damage he had done to himself.

“So I see,” SB murmured. “How nice for thee. Wearing the family crest tonight, are thou? That’s a little premature.”

Gundhalinu turned away from the insinuation, from SB’s eyes, as HK’s obsequious chatter finally, mercifully ceased. “It’s good … to be back,” he said, struggling with even those empty words; not having become a skillful enough liar yet to attempt something more personal. He made perfunctory introductions between his brothers and the Pernattes, because not to do so would not only have been socially awkward, but inexplicable. The Pernattes were already looking uncomfortable; Vhanu looked as if he were watching for hidden weapons.

“And is this the first time you’ve seen each other since you left Kharemough—?” Jarsakh asked, in mild astonishment. “Haven’t you even paid a visit to your family shrine, to venerate your ancestors?”

He looked down. “I am afraid I have been remiss, CMP,” he said quietly. “I haven’t even been planetside before today, since my return. The urgency of our concerns upstairs claimed every moment from me until now. It has been … a profound oversight, as you so rightly observe.” Realizing as he said it how shamefully true it was—realizing the painful, overwhelming array of reasons why he had not even let the possibility of a visit enter his mind until now. Not the least of them was the fact that his brothers controlled the family estates, where the remains of all their ancestors, including the father who had died during his absence, lay. “I shall rectify it as soon as humanly possible.” He bent his head in acknowledgment.

“CMP—” Pernatte chided.

Gundhalinu raised his head again; saw her smile with something which for once looked like rue, or honest sympathy. “Please,” she said, “let me apologize, not you. It was not my place to criticize you, when your unselfish service to our people has all but robbed you of a life.”

“Come on, BZ, the entertainment’s going to start without us if we don’t pay a mind to it,” Pernatte said, “and by my sainted ancestors, we paid enough for it that I don’t want to miss a minute. Bring your brothers. I’m sure you must have a lot of catching up to do.”

Gundhalinu nodded, helpless to do otherwise; knowing without looking behind him that his brothers would not leave him alone. He was guided to his reserved spot among the guests who were standing patiently, or perched on an astonishing assortment of cushioned antique leaning-posts arranged over the wide expanse of patterned stone.

In their midst was an open space, on which sat an unremarkable chest that appeared to have been hand-fashioned. Overhead the pollution aurora was a symphony of color rippling across the perfectly clear autumn sky. He thought fleetingly of other skies—a sky hung with colored lights, in the something-like-a dream of his initiation into the inner reality of Survey; the emberglow of a Tiamatan sky. The air was crisp and pleasant, the anticipation around him was almost tangible, and the scent of night-blooming aphesium filled his head with pungent nostalgia.

The nostalgia pushed unpleasantly into realtime as his brothers settled onto the ornate bench beside him. A servo deferentially offered him a finely filigreed headset —a work of art in itself, he thought—along with brief droning instructions for its use.

“The artist is a biochemical sculptor—perhaps the most highly acclaimed one in her field,” Jarsakh said, as if she had also prepared a lecture. “Her works are interactive, rather than preprogrammed, which accounts for her remarkable popularity, I’m told. She calls them mood pieces; supposedly they mirror the emotions of the user so that they are always appropriate to the occasion, and satisfying to experience.”

“It must be extraordinarily difficult to create the kind of programming something like that would require,” Gundhalinu said.

“Yes, I’m told that it is. The sculptor has several degrees in the advanced sciences, even though she is merely an artist,” Jarsakh said. “We support the arts whenever we can; I have always believed that one cannot be well-rounded without an interest in the nontechnical areas… but we try to support only artists who show a particularly strong design sense, or an imaginative use of technology.”

“You seem to have a taste for antiquities, as well,” Gundhalinu remarked, remembering the art he had seen displayed inside.

“Well, yes, traditional static art is of interest mostly for its sense of historical perspective, don’t you think?” Jarsakh shrugged. He wondered suddenly whether she had ever taken more than a superficial look at anything in the house. Any sense of real history in this place had been buried long ago.

“Is the artist who designed tonight’s work here? What’s her name—?” He wondered whether it was anyone he had heard of before he left. He saw Vhanu murmur something to Pernatte, behind her.

“She wasn’t able to attend,” Pernatte said, interrupting and ending the conversation all at once, in a way that left Gundhalinu wondering.

“Her name is Netanyahr,” SB said suddenly, sourly. “I recognize her work. She’s the one we lost the estates to, until thou took them back, BZ. No wonder they don’t want her here in person.”

Gundhalinu turned where he sat, feeling anger and humiliation burn his face like a slap.

“SB,” HK muttered, “hush up, will thou? He’ll never—”

SB snorted, shrugging HK’s warning hand off his shoulder. “Why should I? If they had the bad taste to hire her to display a work here, why shouldn’t 1 have the bad taste to mention it? We’re all friends here—” He met Gundhalinu’s withering stare with a look of empty mockery. “True, little brother?”

“If you will excuse us, BZ—” Pernatte said, visibly chagrined. “We must join CMP’s honorable relatives over there for a time, or they will be unforgivably insulted. And I’m sure you have much to talk about with your brothers. … But when everyone is settled, please, be the first to use the headset, and begin the entertainment for us.”

Gundhalinu looked down at the circlet of filigreed silver in his hands, feeling his brothers’ eyes on him. “Delighted. Thank you so much,” he murmured, with an inane smile. He watched the Pernattes move away through the gathering crowd, discreetly taking Vhanu with them; saw Pernatte say something to his wife and gesture at the waiting piece of art. He wondered how in the name of a thousand ancestors they had come to choose the work of someone so intimately associated with the humiliation of his own family name. He was sure it had not been intentional. But if they hadn’t known of his family troubles before, they certainly knew now. If SB had only kept his goddamned mouth shut—

“How long are thou going to be down here, BZ?” HK ventured, beside him.

“No longer than I have to be,” Gundhalinu snapped, not looking at them, struck by the irony that the only people he was required to address with the personal thou were the ones he felt least close to.

“Thou are welcome at the estates,” HK went on, with awkward insufferabihty. “That is, if thou want to visit father’s ashes, and make an offering. Thou are even welcome to stay, if—”

“I have a place to stay.” He forced the words out, still looking away, amazed at the blackness inside him, the welling up of bitterness and bad feeling that came with the rush of memories he had tried to suppress. Their rigid, tradition-bound father had tried, before his death, to get him to displace his brothers in the line of inheritance. But the youth he had been then had been unable to violate tradition so profoundly, when his own father had lacked the will to do it. … And so his brothers had ruined the family’s fortunes, just as his father had feared—weak, self-indulgent HK led willingly into disaster by SB, who should have made a life for himself decades ago, if he had had any shred of self-respect or character.

And after they were done ruining their heritage they had come to Number Four, where he was stationed, to deliver the final blow to his crumbling facade of control—to tell him how they had lost the estates, sold the family name to some social climber with money for honor. Until then, he had been able to go on functioning, as long as he kept his own dishonor hermetically sealed; believing that his family was unstained by his humiliation as long as he stayed away from Kharemough. But his brothers had destroyed that last hope, and had come to Four to tell him that they intended to buy back the estates by striking it rich in World’s End. He had warned them off, warned them about making what the Fours called the Big Mistake … watched them go anyway. And then when they did not return, he had gone after them; not because he cared about them, but only because there was nothing he cared about anymore, not even his own life.

He had found them … and the stardrive. World’s End had changed his life forever. But it had changed his brothers, too. He had brought them alive out of that soul-eating hell … and then they had ambushed him and stolen the stardrive plasma he had brought out with them, leaving him for dead in a back alley of the Company town.

But he had not died. He had lived, to see them arrested, see that the plasma was delivered into the rightful hands of the Hegemony, and not held for ransom. And then he had used the sudden influence that his “selfless patriotism” had thrust upon him, to reclaim his family’s estates and name.

He had sent his brothers home under a kind of glorified house arrest, with enough money doled out to them by a trust fund—and enough threats of retribution—to keep them comfortably under control. Because blood was still thicker than water. He had told himself the stress of their ordeal in World’s End had made them turn on him; that even though he had never gotten along with them, they weren’t murderers, only fools—and someone had to oversee the estates… .

But now he was back on Kharemough, and the very sight of them was enough to paint everything within his vision black.

“BZ—?” HK said again, and Gundhalinu realized that his brother had gone on speaking, even though he had stopped listening. “Why did thou refuse to let us do it?”

“What?” he said, frowning. The crowd around them seemed settled now; an expectant silence was falling. He realized they were waiting for him to begin the entertainment. He looked at the headset, like a silver crown, clutched between his clenched fists. He forced his hands to loosen, afraid of crushing it.

“The opportunity we had to invest in lightspeed shipfitting? Now that you’ve— now that thou have returned, and the new fleet is almost ready … well, there’s no going back is there? It’s a sure investment. Since thou’re on such good terms with Jarsakh-bhai, thou could still put in a word, couldn’t thou?”

“No,” he said, cutting off the flow of HK’s speech. “Thou get more than a sufficient stipend to cover thy needs. I told thee, if thou ever tried to profit off the stardrive again, in any way at all, I’d have thee up on charges. I meant it. And I’m here, now.”

“Yes, but, BZ, I’m head-of-family—”

SB caught HK’s arm, jerked it, silencing him again. “Drop it,” he said, speaking to HK but looking at BZ. “He’s not interested. He thinks he’s some kind of god. We’ll do it our own way.”

BZ frowned. “If thou cause me any embarrassment, thou will be stripped of all rank and rights. Push me further and there will be charges of attempted murder. Just remember that.” He looked away, and settled the headset carefully onto his head. SB sniggered as if he were crowning himself. Gundhalinu swore under his breath, pressing the contact points until he felt the tingling sensation of on-line seep in through his ears. Whatever was in the box would respond to his emotions, translated into some sort of electronic stimuli, he had been told. Then gods help it, he thought. He shut his eyes, concentrating.

Red-gold incandescence exploded into the air, to the gasps and startled cries of the waiting crowd. Wave upon wave of it spilled out of the box and fountained into the sky like erupting magma, congealed as it struck the stones, thickening, darkening, struggling like vague semi-human forms wrestling to the death, filling their collective vision with fire and blood, Fire Lake—

BZ slammed the controls down on his emotions, astounded and appalled; was relieved to hear a chorus of sighs and a patter of applause from the unsuspecting watchers. He pulled himself together, watching the colors fade and soften as the violence of the exploding material died back into a sinuous outpouring that made him think of fog, smoke, water falling into that molten sea, rising up again in clouds, filled with rainbows, filled with ghosts….

He concentrated now on the artsong he could hear still being played somewhere inside, its graceful, poignant measures and counterpoints like a dance between would-be lovers, stepping forward, moving back, filled with hesitancy and yearning. … He saw the music and his vision of it suddenly begin to appear, in front of him, not quite real, not quite imaginary, like the ghosts he had seen in Sanctuary, like the face he saw in dreams, her face, hazed in blue….

She was there, forming out of the not-quite-matter, not-quite-fog, always reforming and melting away at the same time, her hand held out to him, as he remembered her, as he had wanted to believe she was, waiting for him… .

He rose from his seat, lifting his own hand, oblivious to his brothers’ stares or the murmurs of the crowd as he stepped forward into the vision, to gently mime the touch of his hand on hers, feeling the cold, faint tangibility of the mist from which she took her form as he began to lead her with his thoughts, and with his heart, through the precisely patterned motions of the dance that matched the music. And she smiled and met his gaze, with her eyes the color of mist and moss agate, filled with yearning like his own, and her long, pale hair tendriling about her like fog….

They danced until the music began to fade away; he bowed to her with its final strains, letting her fade back into the mist, into formless swirls of color like a rainbow, like the ribbons of light in the night sky overhead. He turned back to his seat, through a stars warm of applause, already reaching up to lift the crown from his head and pass it on….

He stopped dead, staring, as his eyes cleared of one vision and he saw, standing before him like another, the mystery woman he had given sanctuary to this evening.

She stood before him, shimmering in pearls and black velvet, staring back at him with equal astonishment—and an upraised pitcher, in raids wing through an arc, its contents aimed straight at him.

He flung up his arm in a defense gesture—saw her expression already changing from disbelief and recognition to horrified dismay: Her arms jerked as she tried, too late, to stop the motion. He lowered his guard just in time to watch the contents of the pitcher spewed squarely onto his brothers’ heads. HK bellowed in surprise and SB fell off the end of the bench. Whatever had been in the pitcher was all over them now, and looked like liquefied garbage. Smelled like it, as the odor hit him.

The space around him was absolutely silent then, for an endless moment, except for the gasping and cursing of his brothers, and his own sudden, wildly heartfelt laughter.

The aghast crowd of partiers sat gaping a moment longer. And then household security appeared, human and otherwise, surrounding the woman in black where she stood motionless and unresisting, staring back at him with a look that he suddenly understood perfectly. His laughter fell away, and he opened his mouth.

“BZ, ye gods, are thou all right—” Pematte was beside him, putting an arm around him; not even looking toward his brothers. Vhanu was at his other side, frantically asking him something he ignored, as Pematte gestured at the waiting security staff, “Take her away, for gods’ sakes! Have her arrested!”

“Wait!” Gundhalinu put up his hand, stopping them in midmotion as they began to lay hands on the woman. “Let her go,” he said, walking toward her, and the armed guards, with a calm authority he didn’t quite feel. They looked past him at Pernatte, who must have given them a signal, and then backed off. “There’s been a misunderstanding here. It was … just a part of the art experience. No harm.”

He held up the silver circlet of the headset in both his hands, and as he reached her he set it on her head. “This belongs to you.” Not even making it a question. He took her hand and she followed him like a sleepwalker out into the open center of the patio where the box lay, the creative medium tendriling faintly, aimlessly, or whispering like ashes beneath their feet. He turned back to the crowd, glancing at his brothers just long enough to catch SB’s murderous glare as the security guards helped them up and away, through a ripple of disgusted faces.

“Sadhanu, bhai,” he said, raising his voice to catch the watchers’ attention. “This is the artist who is responsible for tonight’s entertainment. Please show her your appreciation.” There was more applause, some of it uncertain, some of it punctuated by small noises of approval. “Through an oversight, she was not invited to attend this evening’s affair.” He turned back to her, saw that the expression on her face was utterly lost. “If you will allow me to rectify the matter right now—” He looked back at Pernatte, saw the flash of awkward alarm in Vhanu’s gaze as he said, “I would be most grateful to have you welcome this woman as my honored guest.”

“Of course,” Pernatte murmured, staring at him and at the woman, clearly remembering what had been said about their relationship. Pematte’s expression “iuggested that he thought someone had had too much to drink, but he wasn’t sure ho. “Delighted. And sorry about the misunderstanding.” He looked at the woman again. “I suppose we shall just have to toss that bit of business off to artistic temperament, eh? We all make mistakes, eh—but please, my dear, be more circumspect in the future about how you express your…” He grimaced, attempting a smile.

“Of course, sathra.” She bowed to him, with a grace any Technician would have envied, her flawless mask of composure securely back in place, and the perfect image of a chastened smile on her lips. She looked up again, and took the headset carefully from her head, offering it to Pernatte. “It would give me unforgettable pleasure if you would take the next turn, sathra.” He accepted the headset, somewhat mollified by her show of manners, and eager to get the party flowing again. He put it on. She looked at Gundhalinu, and raised her eyebrows.

He nodded and touched her elbow, asking her wordlessly to follow him.

“Sir—?” Vhanu said, his own face uncertain, his body twitching with conflicting signals.

“It’s all right, Vhanu. I’ll call you when I need you.” He led her through the edge of the crowd, which had begun to ooh and ahh again as their host tried his hand at guiding her creation. She did not look back, and he suspected she did not really want to see it. He wondered what she had thought of his own performance. Not much, probably.

He led her along the neatly trimmed hedges of the maze that protected the Pernatte family shrine, until they reached a cushioned waiting-seat of the sort that were always located in spots like this, lying in the half illumination of the mansion’s windows. They sat down and looked at each other. Sweet a capella voices singing a song whose words he could not make out drifted across the lawn, filling the empty silence that neither of them seemed able to break.

At last she said, “You told me I could ask your name when we met again. But I guess that really isn’t necessary.”

“I guess not.” He looked at his hands. “But at least I can ask yours. Netanyahr, I believe my brother said—?” He looked up again. “They said that you owned our estates?”

“Pandhara Hethea Netanyahr,” she said, and met his uncertainly upraised hand. “Although for a brief, beautiful time I was PHN Gundhalinu.” She met his gaze, unflinching, and he saw the embers of anger in her eyes, saw too the pain and humiliation that had driven her to the act of absurdist revenge she had committed tonight.

He felt the painful heat of his own chagrin; remembered his humiliation at his own loss, how it had made him willing to do anything to get back what was his by right. “Now I know why you thought I’d personally forbidden you to come tonight. But I hadn’t. I had no idea—” But someone must have had, and it made him feel peculiar to have taken the blame for it.

“I know.” She nodded. “If I hadn’t met you earlier tonight, the way I did, I don’t know if I would believe you. But …”

“I don’t even know how someone had the temerity to ask you to provide entertainment for tonight … although the quality of your work is spectacular,” he added hastily. “I don’t mean to—”

“Thank you,” she said, and actually smiled. “What you chose to do with it was quite wonderful. I actually forgot myself, watching you dance with that beautiful vision.…”

“Really?” He smiled, hesitated. “I… have become a believer that certain meetings aren’t by coincidence, Netanyahrkadda. Perhaps this is one of those.” He glanced down. “At least it gives me a chance to apologize to you. You see, when I heard that my brothers had lost the family name, I—my own life … was not going well. To hear that … It seemed … it seemed as though my lifeline had snapped.” His hands made fists in the shadows. “I was desperate to get my birthright back. And when the—opportunity came, I took it. I never even thought about the person at the other end, whose new life I was disrupting.” He looked up at her again, with an effort. Except to imagine some crude profiteer with money for honor. Her expression said that it was exactly the attitude she would have expected of an arrogant, classist Technician. “If that’s what you think of us all,” he murmured, “then why did you want so badly to be one of us?”

The pearls whispered as she looked away. “It’s not ‘becoming one of you’ that I desire, Gundhalinusathra. You are all just as human as the rest of us, and if you ever had to face that, you might even realize it.” She looked back at him, as if she were expecting him to object; looked surprised, looked away again. “It’s … it’s the sense of tradition, the achievements of the families. I … you will think it presumptuous, but in school I studied the Dark Ages, and I dreamed of what it would have been like to have been alive then, helping to bring a return to the light. Sometimes I even imagined that I had been a part of it, in some former incarnation; I felt it that strongly. And it was your own family’s history that I became obsessed with—your ancestors’ intelligence and courage, their refusal to compromise their humanity in the face of persecution and terror. When I heard that the Gundhalinu name was actually for sale—”

His own surprise fell away; he grimaced, involuntarily.

“I’m sorry …” she murmured. “I know now how very painful it must have been for you. I only meant to pay you the honor your achievements, and your true kindness toward me, deserve.”

“Perhaps we have both been guilty of the same oversight. Netanyahrkadda,” he said softly.

She nodded. “Yes, Gundhalinusathra.”

“Then let me do what I can to set things straight. There are always other names and estates available, if you know where to ask.”

“No,” she said, almost sharply. Her hands knotted in her lap.

“Why not?”

“In order to take your estates away from me again, when they were legally mine, the litigators you hired filed a proscription. I am ineligible for the rank of Technician forever.”

“What were the grounds?” he asked, in disbelief.

“Genetic insufficiency.”

“But that’s absurd—” He broke off. Genetic insufficiency meant that someone was a certified mental defective. “You have several high technical degrees, and demonstrable creativity—” And humor and beauty and social grace— He stopped himself before he said that.

“But still I couldn’t earn my way into your estimable class, sathra, with all that. 1 had to buy my way in. Do you really find it so absurd that I could be judged defective—?”

He looked away.

“The heritage that I truly wanted to be mine was yours, Commander—for the sense of continuity it would have given me, for myself and for my children, into the future… . But the honor of the Gundhalinus lies in deserving hands, and there is no other Technician lineage that meant as much to me. So perhaps I am content, after all.” She shrugged, glancing away.

He thought of his brothers, and said nothing. He listened to the voices begin a new song, and the sudden flurry of appreciative noise from the patio crowd. “So you would have done this in part for your own family … for your children? How many do you have?”

“None, yet. But I shall.”

“You’re married, then—”

“No. Do you consider that one must follow the other?” He looked back at her. “Many people don’t, of course,” he said.

She stared at him, as if she were trying to decide whether he was being sarcastic, or possibly about to make a pass at her. “And what about you?”

“Married to my work, I’m afraid.” He thought suddenly of Reede Kullervo, walking beside him through a park on Number Four. Married to your work—? Kullervo had asked him.

“And so am I.” She smiled, still looking at him that way. “But not monogamously…”

“Netanyahrkadda,” he murmured, “would you ever consider—”

“Yes—?”

“Consider… consider showing us what you can do with your own creation, here tonight?” he finished, gesturing toward the patio as an excuse to look away; feeling like a man who had almost stepped into quicksand.

Her face became expressionless. Her own hands, held tightly in her lap, twitched. “If you would like me to, Gundhalinusathra.”

“I would like it very much,” he said weakly. He felt oddly giddy, as though he had drunk too much, which he had not.

She led the way this time, back to the partiers, and took the headset as it passed by, putting it on without hesitation. What she did then with the sensuous luminous cloud of matter from the carven box made him exceedingly glad that he had been a coward two minutes before.

And far later that night, when the party had ended and he lay alone in his bed, he was painfully sorry. He spent what was left of the night wide awake in the unfamiliar room. Only after dawn did he manage to sleep. He woke in the late morning to a spot of wetness on his nightshirt, and knew that it had not been the old dream, the usual dream, that had haunted his sleep this time….

He reminded himself that today he would see KR Aspundh; that in a few hours more they would talk together about Tiamat. He needed suddenly, desperately, to talk to someone about Tiamat.