The Summer Queen

TIAMAT: Starship Ilmarinen, Planetary Orbit

“Commander Gundhalinu—”

“Captam.” Gundhalinu returned the half-surpnsed salutes of CA Tabaranne, the Ilmarinen’s captain, and the handful of officers standing with him on the starship’s bridge. They went on staring at him as he crossed the control room, his own eyes riveted on the viewscreens and displays. “Tiamat—” he whispered, more to himself than to the others listening.

“Yes, sir,” Tabaranne said, coming up beside him. He eyed the displays with justifiable pride, and what Gundhalinu suspected was palpable relief. “There it is. Congratulations, Commander.”

Gundhalinu smiled fleetingly, as the brilliant blue orb of a water world filled his vision. “Thank you,” he murmured, a prayer of gratitude to unseen gods, carried inside a polite acknowledgment. Remembering himself, where he was and how he had come to be here, he looked back at Tabaranne and raised his hand. “Congratulations to you, too, Captain. To everyone aboard.”

Tabaranne’s smile widened, as he met Gundhalinu’s palm with his own. He glanced away at the view of Tiamat. “Unbelievable,” he said softly. He looked back again. “How are you holding up, Commander?”

Gundhalinu shrugged. “Tolerable. Still a few aches, and nauseated.” Tabaranne nodded, with an expression that suggested he knew exactly how Gundhalinu felt. His own face was haggard enough, Gundhalinu noted. The distance to Tiamat had been so great that it had taken six hyperspace jumps, with real-space stopovers in between, to get them here. The stopovers had not been due to any limitations of the stardrive, or even of the Ilmarinen itself, which had been built as precisely to the Old Empire’s specifications as was now humanly possible. The ship had borne the stresses of hyperlight transit with virtually no problems. The problems and limitations lay in the human bodies of its passengers and crew.

The transit time of a jump in hyperspace was not instantaneous, and their first brief experimental jumps in the Ilmarinen and its sister ship the Vanamoinen had demonstrated that the effects on a human body and mind of time spent Between were profoundly unpleasant. There were limitations on how long a human being could tolerate hyperspace transit without severe physical or mental problems. Further Transfer queries had shown him that the Old Empire had used serial jumps to cover long distance safely; he had managed with his research staff to work out programming for the stardrive unit that would let them automatically make stopovers in deep space, giving them the necessary recovery time.

The actual transit they spent drugged into oblivion—even the crew, who had no function anyway, during that interdimensional leap of faith, when everything was beyond human control. Still, when they recovered from the drugs, their bodies relived vividly, in pain and sickness, what their minds remembered only dimly, m haunted, half-formed dreams. They sat in uncharted space for long enough to recover to the point where they could face another span of transit, and then jumped into the unknown again, never completely sure that they would ever reach their destination.

“This trip has been a lesson in humility for a number of people, I’m afraid,” Gundhalinu said wryly. “And I doubt anyone will thank me for that.” He glanced toward the doorway he had come through; no one else had followed him up here yet. He had pushed himself, he knew, wanting to be the first, trying to shake off the drugs’ effects quickly, helped by the adrenaline of his need to know, to see this sight… wanting, needing to see it without the interference of a dozen observers at his back.

Tabaranne grinned. “If that view doesn’t make them forget their troubles, then they should have stayed home. That’s the trouble with these bureaucrats—they travel across half the galaxy, but they want it to be painless, and they want it to be just like what they left behind when they get there. What’s the point of that? We’ve accomplished something no one in the Hegemony has ever done before … and there’s not a body in this ship’s crew that wouldn’t have gone through twice the hell to be here when it happened. That’s why we’re here—not lying in a bunk with a hangover. That’s something those civilians will never understand.”

Gundhalinu smiled at the truth in it, at the implicit compliment of being included in Tabaranne’s inner circle. He had not known Tabaranne well before this singular journey, but he had been impressed by the other man’s courage and dedication in heading the test voyages of the new ships. Tabaranne was a career Navy man, a seasoned enforcer in an arm of the Hegemonic Forces that Gundhalinu had never had much contact with before. Gundhalinu had come to like and respect him, and most of his hand-picked crew—almost reluctantly. Tabaranne was a hard-line militarist, and Gundhalinu knew that someday they might find themselves on opposite sides of an impassable ideological barrier.

But for now he felt more at ease with Tabaranne’s sense of purpose, his sense of wonder about this mission, than with the endless complaints and overwrought physical symptoms of his own staff. He wondered fleetingly if he would have been as unpleasant to be around as the rest of them if he had not had World’s End to compare this to. He liked to think not.

“We’ll have to look into some kind of stasis field suspension for future journeys, like they use on the coinships….” He felt a part of his mind slide into a now-habitual problem-solving mode. He realized that the Old Empire must have had some better solution, wondering why it had not been given to them in Transfer, along with the basic specs of ship design. There had been nothing at all about easing the passage for the human beings who were the sole reason for the ships’ existence. He was suddenly certain that it was one more example of the sibyl net’s disturbing deterioration.

“Would you like to take a look at the big picture, Commander?” Tabaranne gestured toward the viewscreen.

“Very much.” Gundhalinu nodded, pushing the unpleasant train of thought to the back of his mind, glad that it was no longer his concern.

Tabaranne ordered the navigation displays to expand focus. Tiamat’s disc shrank and spun away on the screens before them: Gundhalinu watched as the double diamond of the Twins, Tiamat’s binary sun system, gradually filled his vision until he viewed them close-up for the first time. They were a mismatched pair, one tiny and actinic-blue, the other vast and bleary-red, mated by a yoke of incandescent eases—the outer atmosphere of the red giant, siphoned off by the insidious gravitational drag of the tiny blue dwarf.

Gundhalinu stared at the spectacle of the double suns, marveling, both at the sight and at the power of the ship’s Old Empire-design navigational sensors. He watched as the image changed again. This time the binary Twins fell away, and the ship’s far-seeing eye turned toward two points of light even farther away. He watched them come, reeled in by an invisible magic thread; watched the simulation whirl past the blinding, tormented face of the yellow sun the Tiamatans called the Summer Star, whose appearance in their daytime sky marked the Change from Winter’s reign to Summer’s.

The Summer Star was held captive, like the Twins themselves, by the thing that was swelling across the screen now: the Black Gate, the revolving black hole at the heart of this stellar cluster, which for a millennium had given the Hegemony its only access to Tiamat.

Utter blackness became the focal point on the screen, limned by a flaming halo of energy as countless particles of matter were sucked down into the insatiable maw of the black hole’s gravity well. He felt a prickle of terror, gazing at it, even knowing that he was actually far away, safely out of reach; that this monstrous whirlpool in the sky was only a data simulation. He thought of the times he had calmly and acceptingly let a coinship carry him into that maelstrom, always confident that he would emerge from the other end of the wormhole through space unscathed. He had taken that leap of faith far more casually than he had taken this one. But then, no one had ever shown him this sight before…. Ignorance is bliss. He remembered passing through the Black Gate one last time, leaving behind an impossible love; believing that it was forever, and believing that there would never be a way for him to change his mind … or to change anything else. He shook his head, and sighed.

The image of the Gate began to shimmer, transforming back into an image of Tiamat as suddenly as if his own thoughts had willed it. The world was larger now, its details clearer. The assistant navigator said, “Locking into stable orbit now, Captain.”

Tabaranne murmured acknowledgment, turning with Gundhalinu as half a dozen more people entered the bridge.

Gundhalinu kept his face expressionless as he observed the various states of distress of Vhanu and the other ambulatory representatives of the provisional Hegemonic government. He watched their faces change, saw the same play of wonder and relief that he knew had filled his own, as they took in the reality of Tiamat on the displays before them. It had already been announced through the levels of the ship that the Ilmarinen had reached its destination. That was why they were straggling up here now like the walking dead. But the difference between hearing it over an intercom, and actually witnessing it with one’s own eyes was unimaginable.

He let them congratulate him, a part of him savoring their praise, unable to resist the admiration of a people whose respect was not easily won, and somehow meant so much to him even now…. But always there was a part of him that kept its distance, a still, small voice reminding him that in his heart he was no longer completely one of them.

He had tried to use his influence to surround himself with people he thought he could trust, who were at least flexible enough to bend his way when he tried to set policy, to listen when he tried to explain that there was a larger picture to consider… who understood the real parameters of the Great Game, whether they were Survey or not.

But every favor had a price; every faction had its influence and its own agenda. In trying to negotiate who would be on his staff, he had been forced into compromise after compromise, until he felt like a highborn bridegroom trying to decide who would attend his wedding. He thought suddenly, with poignant regret, of Pandhara— how she had insisted on an automatic notary marriage, scandal or no scandal, as soon as he had given her the first hint of what they would face if they so much as announced their intentions publicly. But he had had no choice, in this matter. … He looked around him, seeing Vhanu, who was his new Commander of Police, the only one on his staff whom he knew well enough to trust completely; and HM Borskad, a Survey colleague, but one who believed more strongly than he liked in a Kharemoughi-centered vision of order. Behind Borskad was YA Tilhonne, a grandnephew of Pernatte’s, of unproven competence and loyalties; and beside him stood VX Sandrine, a Foreign Service career man who had spent time on a number of worlds but did not seem to have learned much from any of them. They had in common right now only their various expressions of awe and discomfort.

Another small clutch of officials entered the bridge, as he watched. Still more remained below, recovering from their ordeal. They had all made this journey willingly, but he could only begin to guess their individual motives for it. If a quarter of them had the vision and flexibility he had hoped for, he would be lucky.

Women were a distinct minority among them. Equality depended less on sex than on social standing for Kharemoughis, who valued brain over brawn, unlike most of the cultures of the Eight Worlds. But he had forgotten, until he returned to Kharemough—if he had even realized it before—how the Foreign Service seemed to attract the most rigid and inflexible of his own people. He had wanted a higher representation of women, because Tiamat was more egalitarian and more matriarchal than any world he had ever been on; understanding and cooperation would be more likely on both sides if his own representatives were equally divided between the sexes. But because of the biases and restrictions built into the Foreign Service, there had been few women even qualified for the positions he had needed to fill.

The Ilmarinen carried not only the staff of the new provisional government, but also a squadron of Police, the backbone of the new government—virtually all of them Kharemoughis as well, most of them Nontech, all volunteers. They were all Kharemoughi because it was both convenient and efficient; but it also meant another link in Kharemough’s chain of control. It meant that he would understand the mentality of the police working for him better than he had understood the largely Newhavenese force he had served with on Tiamat before. Whether they would understand the people of Tiamat any better than the Newhavenese had was the question he could not answer. He had had them working with cultural indoctrination tapes, learning the language with enhancers, even before they boarded the ships. But he remembered how much good that had done him, in his smug, self-satisfied youth….

He realized, with a pang of irony, that he had finished the last of his gracious, automatic responses to the congratulations of the new arrivals. Their comments had barely even registered in his mind. He looked out at Tiamat, watched the planet’s cloud-whorled arc of blue move slowly from day into night. He looked away, shaking off the vision, refusing to read any symbolism into it.

“This time tomorrow, Gundhalinusadhu,” Sandrine said, beside him, “all this will be ours.”

Gundhalinu looked at him, and said nothing.

“Excuse me, Commander,” Tabaranne said, coming back to his side. “I thought you would want to know that we’ve completed one orbit of Tiamat. We’re about to begin positioning the high defense weaponry.”

Gundhalinu turned back to the image of the world on the screens before them, unable for a moment to make a response. “Thank you, Captain.”

Tabaranne moved away to his station, and input a brief, irrevocable series of codes into the waiting systems. Gundhalinu tried to concern himself with the conversations and speculations going on around him for the time it took to make another complete orbit of Tiamat; knowing that at preset intervals they were dropping the components of an orbital weapons system into place—weapons that could be turned on potential invaders, illegal entries … or any rebellious activity occurring on the planet’s surface.

“We have verification, Captain,” one of the crew reported. “Systems are completely deployed, and coming on-line.” Images of the new defenses came and went in the corners of the display; he watched them spread arrays of microwave lasers and plasma weapons.

“Good,” Tabaranne said. He looked back at Gundhalinu and the silently attentive audience behind him. “Tiamat is secure, sadhanu. You can sleep easily in your new beds tonight.” A murmur of appreciation filled the space around him. “I’m bringing the starport on-line … now.” The view behind Tabaranne changed as the ship’s remote sensors brought the surface of Tiamat spiraling up suddenly, disconcertingly, toward their eyes. “We’re passing over Carbuncle right now.” And Carbuncle appeared, pushing the image of Tiamat aside, like a split-screen hallucination. It was barely more than an outline of lights against the burning sky on Tiamat’s nightside… but still it looked the way he remembered it, an immense shellform, like some incongruous jetsam cast up on the shore of Tiamat’s omnipresent sea. “Send the signal to activate.”

Gundhalinu watched, searching the inland darkness for a sign of the starport that lay in hibernation there, its systems dreaming of peace for another eighty-odd years. While he watched, new lights blossomed suddenly against the darkness: The starport answered, rudely awakened but responding to their commands. “Will the natives know we’re coming?” someone said behind him. The spot of brightness grew as if he were watching a signal fire, a beacon lit to mark their landing place, the location-point of their new home … announcing their arrival to the city of Carbuncle, from which it was very visible.

“They will now,” he murmured. Although it would hardly be a surprise, at least to their Queen. He wondered fleetingly what Moon had told her people—if she had told them anything, warned them, prepared them. Not, he supposed, that it would matter much one way or the other, in the end….

More displays began to appear, overlapping the image with readouts and simulations.

“Starport systems are intact, Commander,” Tabaranne reported. “The landing grids are powering up according to schedule. We can begin sending down shuttles after another pass.” Unlike the coin-disc ships of the old technology, which were individually small and made the transit to Tiamat in groups, the Ilmarlnen was too massive, and its hull too fragile, for a planetary landing. It would remain in orbit until their arrival was secured, and then begin its return trip to Kharemough, to come back again with the first group of civilians, who would begin the process of turning Carbuncle once again into an interstellar port of call.

“Do you still want to make the trip down using the traditional hologramic displays, Commander?” Tabaranne asked him.

Gundhalinu nodded, staring at the images of Tiamat on the screen. Remembering how he had stood with Moon Dawntreader in the hills above the city, watching as the Prime Minister and the Assembly made their descent from the starry heavens like gods, in a flaming cascade of hologramic imagery. Their magic fires had told him that he had returned from the wilderness to civilization in time for the Final Departure; that he had not come too late, that he was really free to leave Tiamat and never come back … the thing he had believed he wanted more than life itself, until it was too late to change his mind.

The hologramic show had been a hollow display, as empty of real magic as the Hegemonic Assembly had been empty of real power. But he had been blind to that subtle irony, as awe and wonder transformed the face of the beloved stranger beside him; as Moon Dawntreader watched them fall like stars. All he had seen was their promise—of freedom, of safety, of a return to the life he’d believed he had lost forever. A life he had regained, by a miracle, because of her.

If she was watching—and he was certain she would be, now—she would see that same display, and perhaps remember that night, and all it had meant to them both…. “Yes,” he said at last, remembering to give an answer. “Yes, I want the full display. There won’t ever be another night like this one.”

Moon Dawntreader stood alone in her study at the peak of the city, sleepless now since word had reached her that the starport had come back to life. She stared out at its brilliant beacon astonishing the night, unable to look away; knowing that it was only a matter of time until she looked both the future and the past in the face….

She turned away at last as her husband entered the room behind her. It had been a long time since he—or anyone else—had sought her out here. This had always been her private space, separate from the meeting rooms and audience halls down below. She had never made it forbidden ground, as Arienrhod had, but as the years passed she had found herself alone here more and more, inviolate, isolated; not even certain why, but only certain that she had no one else to blame for it.

She met Sparks’s gaze, feeling relief fill her as he broke her silence the smile that began to fill her face fade as she saw the look on his own face.

“Are you still awake?” he murmured, asking the obvious, as if he suddenly didn’t know what to say to her.

“I couldn’t sleep.” She answered with the obvious, because there was nothing else that she could bring herself to say.

He hesitated for a moment, before he crossed the stretch of time-worn rug that had once been as white as new-fallen snow, to stand beside her and look out at the starport glowing like a buried sun half a kilometer inland. He did not put his arms around her, or even touch her. She suddenly wished that he would; but she did not ask him to. “So they’ve really come,” he said.

She nodded, folding her arms around herself, clutching her elbows tightly because she wanted to tremble, feeling something break loose and spin away inside her, leaving her sick with nameless fear. Oh, Lady, she murmured silently, a plea but not a prayer.

“And he’s come with them,” Sparks said.

“I suppose so,” she whispered, helplessly noncommittal. “What does he want?” Sparks asked, still softly. He turned to face her, to face the unspoken truths within the truth they knew. She was surprised that this had not happened before, even while she knew why it had not.

“I told you,” she said numbly. “He feels responsible for the return of the Hegemony. He wants to help us.”

“And what else does he want?” Sparks’s eyes darkened. She felt him pushing her, felt the pain inside the pressure; knew that it was hurting him as much as it was hurting her.

“He’s become a sibyl,” she said, hoping that after all this time he would understand what that meant, about a willingness to put the needs of others before oneself. But she saw his mouth tighten, and realized that after all this time it still meant only one thing, to him: She had become a sibyl, when he could not. She had chosen it over his love. And now even this stranger, who had once tried to take her from him, had become a sibyl too. “He’s become a sibyl,” she went on, hopelessly, insistently. “That means he understands now that … there are things which are more important than … individual feelings.”

“More important than his loyalty to his own kind?” Sparks asked bluntly, asking her for the truth; asking her—

“Yes,” she said, meeting his eyes.

He looked away from her, ojt at the glowing, waiting starport. “There’s one more question I have to ask you—” He kept his eyes averted; she watched his profile, seeing his throat work as he tried, and tried again, to speak it. He looked back at her, his eyes as green as emeralds, shining, too full, and the question went unasked.

She reached out to him; put her arms around him, holding on, pressing her face against his shoulder as she felt his arms go around her almost reluctantly. And his unspoken question went unanswered, as they stood locked in an embrace; holding each other like lovers at a crossroad, unable to speak a farewell.

At last she turned slowly inside the circle of his arms, to look out again at the night. She lifted her hand suddenly, pointing. “Look.”

Sparks followed her gaze; seeing what she saw, and knowing as well as she did what it meant. Stars were falling out of the sky … hologramic stars, their perfectly controlled trajectories crossing and recrossing, to form one stunning congruence and then another as they fell to earth. She had seen this sight only once before, and that time she had had no idea what they were, what they stood for, what they meant to her world. Then, it had been the sign that the offworlders’ days on Tiamat were numbered. Now they were a sign that its future days here would be numberless, unending. And what of her own future—? She clung to her husband’s arms; a woman caught in an invisible storm, afraid of being swept away.