Although Arran had not been told what the Ceo required of him (perhaps because she did not know, herself) it was clear that he would be expected to go somewhere and do something. Consequently, he and Phoebus were furiously busy at the moment, as they would be until they departed Hanover, with ship outfitting and recruiting. The most difficult part of any voyage was to find a suitable and willing crew. In his absence, his womenfolk were expected to receive calls, extend a welcoming hand to old friends, perhaps even to make new ones. Before Bretta quite realized what was happening, she was making the acquaintance of individuals who, before this day, had been Islay family legends.
“Believe me, I am utterly enchanted to meet you at long last, my dear Robretta,” her mother’s distinguished-looking uncle, Sedgeley Daimler-Wilkinson, informed her, bowing deeply over her hand and kissing it. Bretta managed not to blush. Perhaps there was something, after all, to be said for Hanoverian fashion. His gallant gesture would not have been the same had she been wearing her suede vest and cutoffs. And if Great-uncle Sedgeley noticed the thrustible her mother had insisted that she wear, he gave no indication of it.
Bretta wondered if her mother had felt awkward, making her uncle welcome in what was, at least technically, his own home. Presently, they occupied one of the Daimler-Wilkinson residence’s many plushly furnished parlors or drawing rooms, there awaiting a late luncheon. From her lifelong study of history and countless family stories, Bretta understood that it was Sedgeley who had once borne the unenviable burden of informing a ruling Ceo of his utter defeat at the hands of a mere boy—her own father, Henry Martyn. If so, the old devil wore it well, for he appeared much younger than she had expected. Or perhaps there was something truthful, after all, to these stories about the Immortal School.
At the same time, she found herself thoroughly enchanted—or at least well entertained—by Sedgeley’s companion, the wry and darkly handsome Frantisek Demondion-Echeverria. Seizing her hand in both of his and kissing it in a manner that differed greatly, somehow, from that of her uncle (and this time she had blushed, right down to her navel), the former Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Jendyne Empery-Cirot had introduced himself as “merely an adept” of that same mysterious organization to which Sedgeley admitted he belonged.
Both had apologized for being out of fashion in their attire. Their dark velvet three-piece suits and many-ruffled blouses were quite as impractical as her own dress, but they were better, she thought, than the fake Deep-raider clothing she had earlier seen being worn upon the street below her bedroom window.
There were others at these initial gatherings, as well. Her father’s own daughter, she found herself wondering how many among these illustrious figures were actually traitors who opposed whatever her father and Lia intended doing. How many, even those in high positions of great trust, were working in secret, perhaps on behalf of the Oplyte slavers themselves, whoever they turned out to be?
“And this good fellow, my dear,” her great-uncle Sedgeley informed her as Demondion-Echeverria looked on, “is our mutual friend and fellow Initiate, Brother Leo. Brother Leo does not speak, having undertaken a solemn vow of silence, but you will soon discover that, at need, he can be most articulate, nonetheless.”
Bretta noted that her mother wore a most peculiar expression. She lent special scrutiny to the man standing before her, a great hulking animal of a creature with dark curly hair, massive beard, and brilliantly azure eyes that may have been inspired or insane. Sedgeley was correct about him. Somehow he managed, without a word, to be as charming—and as sinister—as the former ambassador.
Suddenly, she realized who the man was—none other than Lia’s father, the former Ceo Leupould IX, himself—and when he observed that dawning realization light her face, he responded with a dazzling smile and a sweeping bow that let his hair brush the carpet, no small feat for a man of his great size.
“I believe”—Demondion-Echeverria suddenly gave her a look of hunger that chilled her to the core—“that Leo would tell you that he, too, is charmed, Mistress Islay.”
Whatever Bretta might have offered the man by way of a reply was lost in an uproar that began at the door to the drawing room and swept into the middle of the parlor before anybody realized what was happening. A slender figure wearing a deeply hooded cloak stood among them suddenly, followed awkwardly by poor old Brougham, who was long accustomed to preceding and announcing all guests.
The figure brushed its hood back, breathless, and radiant with exertion. “My dears, I simply couldn’t wait to see you! I’m so glad you’re here, at last! Where in the Ceo’s name are Arran and the indomitable Phoebus? Pray forgive me for inviting myself, but I trust I haven’t arrived too late for lunch!”
Belatedly, Brougham announced, “Lia Wheeler, Ceo of the Monopolity of Hanover!”
CHAPTER XIX:
AN ALMOST MOTHERLY INTEREST
GURUHHHHHHH!
Unfortunately for the Ceo, her dramatic entrance was spoiled by a long, rolling peal of thunder that shook the house and rattled every window. The quantity of dust sifting down upon the gathering from the ceiling and fixtures overhead would have greatly distressed Brougham, had he been present to see it.
Wherever he had gone at the moment, he was certain to be frantic. Here, there was considerable expostulation and shrieking. When Bretta discovered that she was contributing to it, she stopped. A landscape hologram hanging upon a wall crashed to the floor. The former ambassador, believing they were under attack of some variety, broke a vase diving beneath the end table it had been sitting upon.
“By the Ceo’s beard,” exclaimed a conspicuously beardless Ceo, grinning at Demondion-Echeverria’s posterior. “That must be a steam launch! Sedgeley, pray tell me that this pretentious pile of bricks does boast of a landing stage!”
“Indeed it does, Madame, albeit long unused.” Sedgeley had leapt to his feet, exhilarated where his friend was terrified. “We should be in a poor fix did it not!” With his stick he prodded that part of Demondion-Echeverria’s anatomy which Lia had been regarding. “Do get up, Frantisek, you embarrass yourself!”
His dignity unruffled, the fellow brushed at his unfashionable clothing as he arose and adjusted his masque. “I pray your kind indulgence, dear ladies, and Brother Leo. Sedgeley, my valued old comrade, you would not be quite so alacritous to criticize, had you been brought up, as are we all in the Jendyne Empery-Cirot, an involuntary subscriber to the Coup-of-the-Month-Club. Madame Ceo, did I overhear you speculate that a steam launch has alighted upon the roof?”
Before they had become entirely aware of a noisy clumping from the hall, the double doors of the parlor swung wide to admit a variety of sapient forms. “Indeed, it has done!” roared a voice familiar to some within, as a cheerful, ruddy-faced Phoebus Krumm followed Arran into the gathering’s midst. Both were attired as common starsailors and reeked of a hard day’s labor and of the harsh solvents used to clean and repair the wire mesh of which starships were constructed.
Brougham entered immediately behind them. Bretta believed that for the first time, she was seeing the old alien servitor put off his guard, either by her father’s precipitate landing upon the roof, or his and Phoebus’s equally impetuous entrance. Perhaps it was merely the way that they smelled. Bretta realized suddenly that she longed, more than anything, to smell that same way, herself.
Oddly, Lia seemed surprised, and perhaps even a trifle displeased, to see them. In a flash, the girl consummated a pair of inferences that would have made her father proud of her: first, that the Ceo Lia had come here in order to persuade her or her mother of something in his absence; second, that he had a watch set, here at the Daimler-Wilkinson establishment or at the palace—considering their timing, the latter seemed likelier—to warn him of such an occurrence.
“Compared to the more conventional lubberlift,” Phoebus added, “it has great speed and other features to recommend it, although the process tends to consume rather a deal of energy—do I understand that we’
re just in time for luncheon?”
“. . . and for that reason,” Lia informed the gathering, once they had all finished their midday meal and come back to the parlor, “by my direct command as Ceo, and under the aegis of the Monopolity of Hanover, Captain Islay, along with a select few companions will embark at his earliest convenience upon a voyage I have every personal hope and expectation will alter the course of history.”
Bretta understood that her “Aunt Lia”—which was to say, her late uncle Robret’s unwed wife—was presently exhibiting one of the attributes of true leadership. Whatever seat she chose—in this case a green velveteen settee—immediately assumed the properties of a throne. Having, with all of her customary dispatch, recovered whatever aplomb she had momentarily lost upon Arran’s unexpected arrival, she was now employing what Bretta understood to be her “official” voice. The girl wondered how her father would take the words “direct command,” since he had refused to be considered a Monopolitan subject. This must be another gambit in the game of sovereignty they played. She did gather, correctly, that “under the aegis of” meant Lia would be paying for the expedition.
Arran opened his mouth, more than likely to protest his former tutor’s provocative choice of words, but found himself interrupted by Demondion-Echeverria.
“I beg your pardon abjectly, Madame Ceo.” The former Jendyne ambassador glared daggers at a man who, fifteen years before, had been his own antagonist as much as he had been Sedgeley’s, and had unknowingly altered his own personal circumstances even more severely. “But I must ask, are you entirely satisfied you have chosen the most qualified individual to lead this historic voyage of yours?”
Arran shook his head.
Phoebus laughed.
Bretta was scandalized and had difficulty suppressing a derisive snort at this overdressed dandifop her great-uncle unwisely called friend. Who was the most qualified individual, if not the celebrated Henry Martyn, who, to recover a family legacy vilely expropriated from him as a boy, had managed to humiliate the two greatest imperia-conglomerate in the Known Universe, all but single-handedly?
At present, Lia was conveying essentially the same opinion to Demondion-Echeverria, and, naturally, rather the greater portion of what she might have told the man went unsaid. As an example, what would he have made of the fact that she maintained an almost motherly interest in the well-being of the last (albeit vigorous and expanding) branch of the family Islay? The amazing truth was that it remained a matter of considerable legal and academic dispute whether or not she herself was a member of that family. As she had observed herself upon occasion, it all hinged upon whether she was a widow or an old maid.
Over the fifteen years since her interrupted wedding, Lia had never laid claim to any right as the younger Robret Islay’s widowed bride. Nonetheless—to whatever extent an all-powerful ruler can ever be seen as anything but that—Arran and Loreanna had always done their best to treat her as a part of their family. The Islay children had always bestowed upon their adopted aunt their colored drawings, clay and papier-mâché sculptures, and other unidentifiable accretions of yarn and plaster. And to give her proper credit, Lia had set aside an entire hall within her great residence as a museum for such objects.
In any event, Lia greatly appreciated the loving concern they had always shown her, and she appreciated it especially well because they had shown it before she came to be appointed Ceo of the Monopolity of Hanover. At the same time, she relished the trifling games of power she played with Arran. And yet Lia was unusual in that the loneliness and isolation of power did not trouble her.
What she did mind, more and more every day, was never knowing upon whom she could rely to tell her the truth. Being a scholar of history, she was not unaware that in this she was echoing her father and every other conscientious ruler of humanity’s past. But even this daily occupational irritation could be ameliorated to a certain degree: all she had to do was activate the autothilles of Arran and Loreanna’s half dozen children, which stood upon her desk.
As she had been with Sedgeley—only far more so in Arran’s case—she was eager to give him every opportunity to redeem himself, not in terms of any transgressions of which the man may have been culpable against the Monopolity; having been at the receiving end of their tender mercies herself, she believed that Sedgeley and her father had needed taking down, and that Arran had been the perfect individual to do it. No, it was in his own eyes—and those of no others—that his redemption must be accomplished. It was unnecessary where his loving wife and adoring eldest daughter were concerned, and much the same was true, for that matter, of the woman who may or may not have been his sister-in-law.
For the past decade and a half, Arran’s life might have been described as satisfying and productive. Many another individual might well have envied the young, accomplished Drector-Hereditary of Skye. And yet it was quite obvious to anyone who loved him that the man suffered a continuous, debilitating case of self-condemnation. Each and every day he had to discover, all over again, a way to live with what seemed to him the moral certainty that, in cold blood, he had “murdered” four hundred innocent Jendyne naval cadets. It was undeniable that Arran had killed many times that number in his struggle against his enemies. Yet this instance, and this instance alone, seemed to trouble his warrior’s conscience.
The tragic incident had occurred as an unintended consequence of Arran’s overall strategy during a final clash with the Monopolity and its allies. He had press-ganged the not-altogether-unwilling cadets into service aboard the eerie sailless fighting ships of the nacyl, his own alien supporters. (For their odd shape, these otherwise advanced and civilized creatures were known throughout the Monopolity by the considerably less-flattering appellation, “flatsies.”) Unfortunately, the cadets had all died a horrible death soon after the historic battle they had helped him win, appearing to have succumbed to certain lethal energic emanations somehow associated with the odd alien vessels.
No one involved, neither alien nor human, could have predicted such a horror. Yet in the darkest moments of his moral torment, it had never helped Arran to understand that nobody else blamed him for what had happened, not even the cadets themselves, speaking from what they knew were their deathbeds. He was long accustomed to relying, in times of the direst need, upon his own judgment and upon nobody else’s. In this instance, he simply calculated that everybody else was wrong about his guilt—if for no other reason than that they loved him and wished him well—and that he was right, and therefore guilty.
For fifteen years, with only the most minimal of interruptions at its onset, the Ceo Lia had made a high priority of maintaining an intimate and frequent correspondence with Loreanna. In all that decade and a half, Arran’s loyal, loving wife had never betrayed her husband’s confidence. Still, Lia was an astute woman, more than capable of observing and drawing her own conclusions. Making the fullest use possible of her own intelligence background and the resources of an entire empire, she had learned that it was this tragedy that prevented Arran from permitting himself to be the hero he richly deserved to be.
And what was even worse, from being the hero his children needed him to be.
But what she said now to Demondion-Echeverria was merely this: “Are not his feats still held by everyone, in every quarter, as evidence of an inherent strategic and tactical genius? Have I not personally known him for many years to be an exemplar of integrity and reliability? And are these points not good and sufficient reason in and of themselves, my dear Ambassador, to select him to lead this preliminary reconnaissance against the repulsive purveyors of the Oplyte Trade? Pray do not bother answering, sir, for that decision, I remind you, is ultimately mine in any case, and my questions are purely rhetorical in character: one of the few privileges of power in which I occasionally indulge myself.”
Sedgeley’s visage began to lose the look of apprehension it had assumed, as Demondion-Echeverria stifled a reflexive snort of his own. Bretta noticed that her father kept his
eyes upon the carpet, some grim ratiocination pulling the corners of his mouth practically down to his chin. So there it was again, that seldom-seen but undeniable reaction of shame, at any reference to his heroism.
“Which is the reason,” Lia added, “that, anticipating his arrival here, I took certain steps to aid him. Foremost was to assure that, in addition to his family, whom he insists upon taking with him (although they would be most welcome to remain with me, did they but prefer it), Captain Islay has worthy traveling companions for the journey I purpose. For example (and I trust that in this, my choice has been correct) I summoned Henry Martyn’s trusted right hand, the famous and formidable Phoebus Krumm, who, in this particular and perilous undertaking, should prove himself even more indispensable than usual.”
The man managed to blush and stammer, “Me very own pleasure, t’be sure, Ma’am.”
“And I assure you sir, that the pleasure is entirely mine.” She turned to the rest of them. “I have never before met this not-so-gentle giant, but I have often viewed material concerning him in the mass media, smitten as they seem to be in recent years with ‘brigandial histories.’ For the most part, I have relied upon what my friend Loreanna has had to tell me about him in her letters.”
“Which have not gone far enough in his praise,” her friend Loreanna volunteered.
“Captain Krumm is known throughout the imperia-conglomerate—and his reputation is more than justified, according to what Loreanna tells me of her husband’s opinion—for his starship-handling abilities. When Captain Islay first encountered him, he commanded a gundeck’s mighty projectibles to sure and deadly effect. What is more, he is so large of frame, and muscular, that he wields a pair of outsized thrustibles originally constructed for issue to Oplytes!”
Coordinated Arm 02: Bretta Martyn Page 18