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her own, but possessing promising intellect) she had sought and won employment as a tutor among the capital's wealthiest, most influential families, whose money and power failed to prevent them shuddering at its mention. Even more responsible positions had exposed her to progressively more disturbing rumors regarding the crippled Shandeen. And, in the end, he had proven himself every bit the black and terrible presence of which her friends and employers had warned her.
Of course, Alysabeth had to be considered, as well— "Alysabeth Morven Islay" as she now styled herself. Lia's acquaintance with the Black Usurper's daughter was more recent. In Lia's view, Alysabeth had, with both hands, cast away everything which Lia herself had ever hoped for, and, with it, any right to bear so honorable a surname. Moreover, since, through her father's treachery, it had become attainted, why should she wish to? Without understanding Alysabeth in the slightest, without knowing the particulars of her life, Lia knew her, nonetheless. She represented everything that disgusted and terrified Lia in a human being.
Thus the unbearable guilt she felt for never having warned her kind employer, good friend, and father-in-law-to-be concerning his best friend, the man who had become, in what she had always privately thought a bizarre twist of events, his father-in-law. Never mind that it had not been her place to do so, even after she had become engaged to Robret's^5. Never mind that, without doubting her sincerity, he would have dismissed it all as idle capital-world gossip. Lia felt she should have found a way. And if she had everything would now be so different.
Who was that dark-eyed girl? What kind of name was Fionaleigh?
"Who do you suppose that young woman was?" Morven leaned back in his wheeled chair and spun the thille he had just pulled from the reader upon the polished surface of the desk before him. As a matter of course he had ordered a copy made before allowing the message to be passed along, but this was the first opportunity he had found to view it.
Standing with one hand upon her father's shoulder, Alysa-
beth shook her head. "Another sweaty, heavy-uddered peasant cow, who will doubtless sport a moustache and hips a measure wide before she sees thirty. It was the same with his father. These elevated colonial brutes do love their proUy cunts, even given a chance at something a cut or twenty better."
"Like pursues like," the Black Usurper chuckled. "Blood calls to blood. I wonder whether Mistress Lia will see what we saw, as it were, between the code-bars, and how she will react. Her usefulness could well depend upon how she feels about that girl-lieutenant of young Robret's."
Alysabeth's lips hardened into the implacable line which, without surgical attention, would spoil her looks long before Fionaleigh Savage was touched by time. "Mistress Lia Woodgate will make herself useful regardless of how she feels!" The words formed an unbroken hiss.
"I believe you mean that." Morven looked up at his daughter with the closest he would ever approach to a father's affectionate approval. Well conditioned to obedience, she was subservient to him in every way. Out of his presence and upon her own, he could rely upon her to exercise the precise mixture of ruthlessness and discretion in his behalf which he would. He was proud of Alysabeth, as proud as he was of anything he had ever built.
He touched the desk edge in a certain spot. A cube of the wood it was made of rose from the surface. Reaching to swing one side open, he revealed a space within which held a peculiar object. Removing it, he let the cube lower itself back into place. "However, my dear, this is the reason I wished to see you this morning. It arrived upon a carrack, Desert Owl, now orbiting Skye, in a small fibrous crate of alien construction bearing my name. Security has examined it. The master of the carrack could only tell me it was given him by a courier, human—with strict instruction that it be hand-delivered— when he was trading in the Massad Ayoob. Do you know where that is?"
Alysabeth frowned. "A long way away, Father, and a wild place. A neutral system, as I recall, between the Monopolity and the Empery-Cirot, near the outer borders of both imperia-conglomerate. A haven for picaroons and Deep-pillagers at the edge of the unexplored."
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Morven was proud of his daughter's education, as well as her ruthlessness and discretion. "As you say. The captain claimed he had, by the narrowest of margins, avoided being taken in that quarter by a star-rover of whom we hear with distressing and increasing frequency, upon his passage to Skye. Henry Martyn. Was a Henry Martyn not among the casualties here, the first day?"
Alysabeth nodded. "An old servant who ran the estate. Both the Skyan census and our intelligence reports are full of Henry Martyns, Harry Martyns, Hank Martyns, with a sprinkling of Henrietta Martyns, as well. I believe you had a technical subject by the same calling the last month we were upon Hanover. A peasant's name, among the most common in the Monopolity.**
"So it is. In any event, my dear, the Massad Ayoob is most successful at playing one imperium-conglomerate against another. It is tolerated in its outlaw existence because it remains a rehable source of useful information and unheard-of artifacts such as this."
They both looked at the object in question, sitting upon the otherwise uncluttered surface of the desk which had once belonged to Robret Islay. An unprepossessing transparent cylinder eighteen siemmes in length, seven in diameter, it lay upon its side upon an integral rectangular foot. Each end, for a couple of siemmes, was metal, of reduced diameter, as if the object were a jar with screw-caps upon both ends. A heavy wire bail paralleled its length, originating at the caps. Despite its transparency, it was impossible to see through it, since it appeared to be filled with a fluorescent amber gas, pulsing and glowing. Short-lived sparks filled it with effervescence.
**Of obvious alien manufacture," Morven remarked, **a rather primitive culture, I would surmise, since this is supposed to be its equivalent of a datathille. In short, we have a letter from a secret admirer, my dear. One is instructed to place a hand upon the bail, and, if desired, another upon whomever one wishes to share the message with. Shall we see what it says?" Uncertain, Alysabeth nevertheless nodded. Taking his daughter's hand, Morven reached out and lay his other, palm-down, upon the heavy wire handle.
"Aaaaaaa!" A palpable heat blasted them. Light hammered their bodies like hurricane-bome hailstones. Noise threatened to tear their being into tatters. Unable to let go of the device, Morven felt himself convulse in agony. His daughter could not let go of his hand. All round them, the dim, cool, paneled study seemed to vanish, replaced in a blinding flash with a dazzling, alien spectacle which filled their helpless minds to overflowing.
"Customary acknowledgement of mutual existence and psychological visibility." It was like being transported into the searing depths of a Hell too bright for eyes to look upon, too hot for bodies to withstand. Only by comparison less excruciating to behold against the overwhelming brilliance of the background was the being communicating with them, a man-sized, multi-armed, soft-bodied mollusc fashioned of fire. The ambient noise was that of the inside of a waterfall, amplified a millionfold, yet the creature's voice stood above it all, each syllable a peal of thunder.
"/ am a pseudoresponsive communicale, possessing artificial intelligence within limits capable of answering any question you may wish to ask, once my essential message has been transmitted. My outer envelope is necessitated by extremities existing between your natural environment and that within which I was enthilled. Without it, I would not survive exposure to your surroundings long enough to fulfill my function, nor would you survive exposure to me.
"Your inevitable questions will be: what personage is responsible for my enthillement; what is the nature of the place you experience with me now; why does my enthilleur seek communication? He is Zerushaa, authorized Thinker-Questioner to the Ordinators of the nation-state Aahnaash, of the Rii— as such might be rendered in terms meaningful to you — a sapience as yet unknown to your species. It is the voice-analog and physical aspect ojTZerushaa you now experience. Thinker-Questioner Ze
rushaa Aas caused me to be enthilled in what would appear to you the central region of a medium-yellow sun, not unlike the primary of the stellar complex you inhabit. My first purpose is to convey knowledge of the existence of the Rii. My second is to propose a transaction of potential mutual benefit.
"It is essential that you understand how the concept of your
environment — the frozen surface of a gobbet forever circling beyond reasonable light and warmth — is as forbidding to my enthilleur as that of the Rii springing into existence, evolving to self-awareness, and creating a culture within the heart of a star must be to you. Ritual formula of request: permit me to convey how forbidding. Until recent history, the Rii were cognizant of three phases in which matter manifests itself— plasma, gas, and liquid — the lattermost of which was contemplated only by Thinker-Questioners authorized in scientific speculation. That a fourth phase might exist was not suspected, but something they learned — to their astonishment — when, by accident, they established contact with beings like yourself during a series of experiments.
"Among those values gained from this contact was a heretofore unsuspected fact of the existence of environments — other suns — suitable for settlement and exploitation by the Rii, of structures analogous to the nation-state o/Aahnaash, and of concepts among beings like yourself analogous to trade. Following consideration, it was agreed among the Ordinators to pursue this possibility, that the appropriate structure to interact with toward this end was the imperium-conglomerate known as the Monopolity of Hanover, that the optimal being to approach was an Ordinator-analog known as Black Usurper Tarbert Morven, Second ofShandish, Drector-Administrative to Ceo Leupould IX, Drector-Interventionary and -Protempore ofSkye. . .
"What the Rii desire is transport and title to an unlimited number of stellar habitats within the Monopolity and any territory falling within its influence. Riian occupation will in no manner alter the function these stars perform for beings of your kind. In return, the Rii offer Black Usurper Tarbert Morven technical means of reducing every sapient being within the Monopolity to a state of absolute, unquestioning obedience to his will."
Chapter XXVI: A Token of Promise
Morven broke contact with the alien "communicale" in a burst of effort which hurled him, and his chair, against the paneled wall.
For an unmeasured time he sat, ears ringing, chest heaving, clothing soaked with acrid perspiration stimulated by an intolerable heat he had imagined suffering. Having experienced, however briefly, existence—he could not think of it as "life"—within the seething heart of a sun, this quiet study about him now seemed swathed in arctic silence, thick as a blanket of midwinter snow. He found the sensation agreeable and it was a long while before he attempted more than sitting with his dazzle-blinded eyes shut, soaking in the stillness, letting white-hot memories of the Riian radiate, as it seemed to him, out of his complaining tissues.
He took a final deep breath and opened his eyes. A timepiece built into his signet ring informed him six hours had passed. In a manner of speaking, he found himself alone. Alysabeth lay in the tumble of her skirts upon the floor beside the desk, insensible—"relaxed" was far too sentient a word —her face blanched, her eyes open, blank-white, the pupik rolled back into the sockets. She trembled, emitting an occasional whimper. A thin line of saliva trailed from one comer of her mouth across her pulsing throat. Her breathing was shallow. At some point over the last six hours, judging from the stain spreading through the fabric of her gown, she had wet herself. To his dismay and consternation, Morven discovered the same of himself, as well.
He had never been tolerant of frailty in others, yet in this moment, he came closer than he ever had—or ever would— to sympathetic understanding for another being. It was not a sensation he found comfortable. As with the terrifying afterimages of the world of Zerushaa of Aahnaash, he pressed
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it away from himself as soon as he found strength. Nonetheless, for these betrayals of weakness he could neither blame his daughter nor himself. He was astonished to have been left living, and would not have been surprised if she remained in this shattered idiot state the rest of her life. He wondered— and was grateful—that he did not present the same humiliating spectacle.
In due course, Alysabeth shut her eyes. Her trembling ceased. As he watched, her natural color returned. The rise and fall of her breasts became even and vigorous. She seemed to drop, where she lay, into a normal, restful sleep which her father—demonstrating the fleeting remnants of an uncharacteristic kindness—refrained from disturbing.
Keeping his respiration deep and deliberate, Morven examined the Rimn communicale with circumspection appropriate to a poisonous reptile. It sat upon the polished surface of the desk as if nothing untoward had transpired. He doubted whether suflftcient incentive existed to induce him to touch it again in his lifetime. He felt fortunate that it would not be necessary.
Before the message had played to conclusion, the authorized Thinker-Questioner to the Ordinators of the nation-state Aahnaash —rather the machine or program (Morven was uncertain which) speaking for Zerushaa —had added detail to its proposition, outlined specific procedures. It appeared (he discovered that he could not abandon a reflexive caution in this matter) that nothing they desired of him was beyond the bounds of accomplishment for an individual of his influence and resources. He wanted—needed—what they had to offer him in exchange for what amounted to his services. Skye was becoming an embarrassment to his wider ambitions offplanet. Furthermore, the creatures had somehow anticipated everything he had ever dreamed—even in his wildest flights of megalomaniacal fancy—of possessing or achieving.
A noise interrupted his thoughts. Beside him, Alysabeth moaned and began to stir. Turning in his chair—how delighted he had been at the first sign of this renewed capacity, a token of his returning physical powers—Morven reached down to his daughter, smoothed her hair, and, when she was ready, assisted her to her feet. It constituted, he thought
with satisfaction, a peculiar turnabout in the normal course of their relationship. She found a chair beside the desk and sat, not speaking, not even looking about, lost in the daze which he himself had been such a long time coming out of. At last, she spoke her first words. "I ... I do not trust those monsters, Father!"
Morven raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"I find..." She hesitated. "I am at a loss to explain, Father. For some reason I do not understand, I find them vile and ... loathsome." Again, she halted. Morven remained silent as she composed her thoughts. "Please, Father, you must listen! Promise me you will not undertake a bargain with these entities! Whatever we gain from them over the short term, in my heart, I believe they will destroy us in the end!"
Astonished, he shook his head. It was the first he could recall her attempting to move him to do, or refrain from doing, anything. She had beheld—and accomplished—far worse in her short, eventful life, yet she was, at a visceral level beyond reach of conscious alteration, disgusted by the Rii, as he became convinced after further discussion, experimental upon his part, emotional upon hers. It was a case of prejudice at first sight, analogous, although of greater magnitude, to interspecific culture-shock, not uncommon in a galaxy populated by thousands of sapient species. He himself experienced no such trepidation. Whatever else he may have been, the Black Usurper never suffered the pangs of bigotry. Since earliest childhood, it had been his way to assess everyone upon a basis of strict equality, in cold, pragmatic terms of the potential benefit they brought to his ambitions. He had never looked for such an affliction to befall Alysabeth, upon whose keen, and, in the main, self-interested judgment he relied. She would be a poor advisor in this affair, as she would doubtless prove in a related undertaking which, in the unceasing nether recesses of his mind, he presently contemplated.
Morven sighed. "Go tidy yourself up, my dear. You are a sight"
Her eyes glazed a moment under the onslaught of conditioning to which she had been subjected since infan
cy, a vocal stimulus which compelled obedience.
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"Yes, Father." She arose, steady upon her feet—a degree of bodily certainty being a benefit of working someone else's will—and started for the door to the outer office.
"No," Morven commanded. Halfway to the door, Alysabeth stopped as if she had run into an invisible wall. "Do not bother going all the way up to your suite, my dear," her father told her.
He was accustomed, from a certain measure of prudence, to employ command-cues with a sparing economy. They were, in fact, no longer necessary. The girl had been imbued not only with compliance, but with as wholehearted an enthusiasm to see her father's least desires (or his greatest, for that matter) translated into accomplished fact, as if they were her own. Which, by now, of course, was what they had become. She turned—calmly herself once again, fears and prejudices washed away, at least for the time being, by her father's indomitable will—and raised a single inquiring eyebrow, a genetically transmitted knack they shared.
"Use the small facility behind that panel," Morven continued, "for we have an urgent need of haste. I shall ring for staff to fetch you a fresh dress. Meantime, it will please your father greatly if you make of yourself the irresistibly attractive creature you always are." Alysabeth dimpled and curtsied. He was relieved at the transformation he had wrought in her. "When you have done, and I am making my own use of the facilities, I want you to find Donol, personally, and bring him here to me. And that servant, what was her name, the tutor, Lia Woodgate?"
Order being restored to the persons of Morven and Alysabeth, tea was laid by a house-servant, although none among the four present had touched it as yet, upon a small, wheeled table beside the desk. All was as it should be within the paneled walls of the study which had once belonged to Robret Islay.
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