Spherical Harmonic

by Catherine Asaro

  He rubbed his palms up and down my arms. “I don’t see how my presence will help.”

  I put my hands on his upper arms and he slid his behind my back. “Your brother Vyrl is a hero. And you’re the firstborn son, the head of the family now. If you appear, entreating the Allieds to release your grieving mother, whose husband died in Allied custody, how can the Allieds refuse? They’ll look like monsters.”

  A gleam came into his eyes. “It would make it that much harder, politically, for them to shoot down any racer we send in to Earth.”

  “That’s right. And good gods, you’re on a ship called HavyrVs Valor. We would be crazy not to take advantage of that.”

  His grin flashed wickedly. “You have to appear in the broadcast with me.”

  “Me?” I tried to step back, but he kept his hands around my back, holding me in place. “I hate broadcasts.”

  “Ah, but Dehya, just look at yourself.” He cupped his hand under my chin. “Can you imagine it? On their broadcasts, the Allieds describe Skolia as a massive, truculent, imperialistic empire. Our leaders are blood-thirsty dictators. And then who appears as our leader? You, the Imperial Waif. Lady Vulnerability. You look about as bellicose as a holomovie ingénue.”

  I crossed my arms and glowered at him. “I am not a waif.”

  He gave me an innocent look. “We could call you massive, truculent, and blood-thirsty.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Maybe not.”

  A virtual comm appeared on my wrist and beeped. I touched it “Yes?”

  Ragnar’s voice crackled. “Shall we return to the Tactics Room?”

  “Very well.” I glanced at Eldrin. “I will see you soon.” Softly I added, “In person.”

  The mischief glinted in his gaze again. “Try not to depose anyone else before then.”

  “Deal.”

  But I couldn’t laugh at the joke. Eldrin didn’t yet see the full ramifications of what I had done. I thought of Barcala Tîkal, the First Councilor of the Assembly. Former First Councilor. He and I had known each other for decades. I had supported his bid to head the Assembly ten years ago. But I would soon have to face him as the leader of the faction that deposed him.

  I dreaded what we would have to do then.

  ISC recorded the broadcast in the observation bay on Havyrl’s Valor. Eldrin and I stood together at the rail above the bay while media globes whirred above us, recording the scene from every possible angle. The public relations office on the cruiser would decide what footage to use.

  In his speech, Eldrin made a heartfelt appeal for the release of his mother and family. The PR people had him wear his native Lyshriol clothes: blue trousers that clung to his muscled legs, darker knee boots with silver buckles, and a white shirt with long, belled sleeves and a high collar. He hardly looked the way the Allieds described him in their counter-propaganda, as a militant agitator who had seduced the Imperialate’s tyrannical Ruby Pharaoh to satisfy his unbridled ambition.

  His shirt had beautiful embroidered designs. In the “news” that accompanied the speech, the reporter implied Eldrin’s mother had stitched them. In truth, Roca knew zero about embroidery. Her expertise was politics, which was why she had become the Foreign Affairs Assembly Councilor, a position she won by election, not heredity. But the broadcast portrayed her as a rural woman hand-making shirts for her beloved sons. Of course the holocast showed images of her. She made great press, with her gold skin, huge eyes, and angel’s face. She had the body of a holomovie goddess and a sensual appeal mixed with innocence. She wore her gold hair piled high on her head, woven with exquisite pearls. Never mind that rustic farmer’s wives didn’t wear pearls, exquisite or otherwise.

  So here was Eldrin, urging the Allieds to let his bereaved mother return to her grieving children and people. The media ran it after a dramatic piece on Lyshriol that showed Allied soldiers hauling big-eyed Lyshrioli children back to their villages. Even knowing the broadcast was choreographed for effect, I still found myself affected by it.

  They called Eldrin the King of Skyfall. No such title actually existed. Eldrin had inherited his father’s position as Dalvador Bard, but that didn’t make him king of anything, let alone an entire planet. The Dalvador Bard served as historian for the province of Dalvador. He recorded the lives of his people in ballads. Although the Bard also had some governing duties, he didn’t lead the province. But our PR people thought the King of Skyfall had “rockets,” whatever that meant, so my husband became King Eldrin.

  They fussed over my clothes too. They wanted me to wear heels, so I didn’t look short next to Eldrin. I didn’t care, but PR did, so finally I offered to don some black shoes with my black jumpsuit. This went over like compressed neutron matter. The fashion-ware systems analyst, whatever that title meant, didn’t think it would project the right image for me to appear in a black catsuit with stiletto heels. I didn’t know where she came up with cats, but I told her to do whatever she thought best. Eldrin got a gleam in his eyes when the computer imaged me in the cat outfit, so I decided to keep that one for a private showing.

  The outfit they came up with was beyond reason. A long white dress? I never wore such clothes. They tangled around your legs and made you trip. Jumpsuits were more practical. But the fashion-ware person said I should wear the dress, so I wore it. I had to admit, it draped gracefully. It also fit snugly around my torso, giving me a “classic silhouette,” whatever that meant. The analyst put a gold chain around my neck. Then she added a gold cord around my hips like the belts worn in images they had dug up of medieval clothes on Earth, with the tasseled ends of the belt hanging down the woman’s front and the cord forming a V in front of her pelvis. It made me look curvier. The whole business was absurd. I came from a long line of ancient warrior queens, fierce and violent, who had led great armies into battle, owned their men, and towered over everyone. All right, so I didn’t tower. But this dress was too much.

  After I put on the white heels they gave me, which the dress hid, the PR fiends put me next to Eldrin in his King-of-Skyfall clothes. When it came time for me to speak, I conveniently “forgot” the speech the PR team had written. I just spoke the truth, in my own words: I didn’t want war, I wanted to live in harmony with Earth and the rest of humanity. I wanted to reunite my family and begin the talks that would give all our peoples a new era of peace.

  It was a dream I had always cherished, even fearing it was an unreal bubble of hope too high to reach, too fragile to hold.

  29

  Lightning and Sun

  The Allieds said no.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised, given how they had steadfastly evaded our inquiries, requests, and veiled demands that they return Roca and the others. But I had still hoped. Even on Earth, the outcry grew in volume, fueled by the broadcast Eldrin and I had made, and those from Lyshriol. Over the next few days, as express messenger ships ferried the news, it reached otter star systems and the Allieds came under an increasing barrage of censure for their perceived intransigence.

  Finally I gave the go ahead for Jinn Opsister to send a racer to Earth. By then we had a substantial portion of our fleet in orbit around Earth, accompanied by an escort of Earth’s ships. We constantly reiterated to them how we didn’t want trouble, and they constantly reiterated their agreement, but we all knew everyone was in full combat readiness.

  We decided to send the racer in a fuel bottle made nom containment fields and rotate it back into normal space in the atmosphere. It could be a suicide mission, given how little we knew about how the fields for such a large bottle would behave near a planet Yet when we asked for volunteers, hundreds offered Jinn Opsister put together a crack team: two Jagernauts, including herself; an army major with experience in on-planet operations; a special operations expert from the Fleet; and five Advance Services Corps commandos.

  I also went, in telepresence.

  The techs strapped, plugged, and fastened me into the Triad Chair. Both Ragnar and Chad watched. None of us had forgot
ten what happened last time. I didn’t have to stay in as long this time, and I only had to maintain a link with one ship, but I knew the siren call of freedom would come. I would never be free of its lure.

  This time when I submerged into Kyle space, it had form. The silver mist still swirled, but it had thinned, part of it having condensed into a silver mesh. So far it supported only a few nodes. I wove another strand and threaded it into the racer, which waited in its docking bay.

  Lightning attend, I thought.

  ATTENDING, the racer answered.

  Communications between Lightning and Roca’s Pride whispered in the background of my mind. The racer prepared to launch—and we were off! I lost contact with most of its systems when it rotated into the fuel bottle, but I still had the psiberspace link.

  Jinn, How are you all in there? I asked.

  Everything looks good, she answered.

  The racer shot toward Earth, hidden in a space where charges took on both real and imaginary parts. What that meant this close to a planet, we weren’t sure. I thought it unlikely the racer could go through solid matter even when it was only partially real. Imaginary numbers behaved like waves, which meant the ship might interact like a wave with an object in real space. When ships stored antimatter in fuel bottles, the bottles always experienced a loss of fuel, as interference effects caused the antiparticles to annihilate particles. Energy produced by the annihilations went into Haver-Klein space, so it didn’t endanger people. But when we rotated the fuel out of the bottle, we had less than when we put it in. The effects increased in an atmosphere. Of course, a ship wasn’t antimatter, with the proper shielding, it could travel in an atmosphere. We should be all right as long as we didn’t try to go through anything solid. But I still worried.

  Secondary Opsister, I asked. What is the status of your ship?

  Staaaaablllllle. Her words rippled like liquid

  I sent out tendrils of thought, forming extra links to Lightning. Opsister, you’re wavering.

  Caaaaannnn’t staaaabaaaliiiize. Her words phased in and out of my mind.

  I added a filter to compensate for the effect, so I could understand her words better. Secondary, what do you see?

  Some odd effects here, she answered. The ship is rippling.

  I didn’t like it. If you come out now, you have almost no chance of reaching the surface undetected. The Allieds might shoot you down. If you stay in the bottle, your ship will lose coherence. You may not be able to come out.

  Jinn’s answer was indecipherable, even with my filters. It gave me an impression, though: disintegration.

  Opsister, rotate back into normal space! Don’t wait any longer.

  Nothing.

  Jinn, now!

  The racer rippled back into existence like liquid metal taking solid form. It was far down in the atmosphere and plunging ever closer to Earth.

  An Allied voice crackled over Jinn’s comm. “What the hell is that?”

  “Imperial racer, identify yourself!” a second voice snapped out.

  “You are violating the EuroConfed airspace,” another voice said, hard and crisp. “Send your ID codes immediately.”

  I jumped from Lightning to Roca’s Pride. The cruiser’s bridge formed around me, a swirl of colors that rapidly took on definition. Silver tinted the scene, a reminder I was actually still in Kyle space.

  “Can their satellites hit Lightning?” Chad was speaking into the comm on his command chair.

  “They could hit the racer with any of fourteen systems,” a voice said.

  I spoke. “Any of those could have fired by now.” My words also came out of Chad’s comm, on a different channel.

  Chad looked around. “Pharaoh Dyhianna? Where are you?”

  “In the Triad Chair.”

  “Are you still linked to the racer?”

  “Yes.” I switched nodes and the display changed; I was in the racer, submerged in the flux of communication between Jinn and the ship. I jumped back to the bridge on Roca’s Pride. “All its systems are green.”

  A new voice came out of Chad’s comm. “Admiral Barzun, this is Lieutenant Garr. I have General MacLane from the Allied battle cruiser Tricia Andreque on four.”

  “Got it.” Chad switched to channel four. “Barzun here.”

  MacLane’s words rumbled. “Admiral, your racer is violating our airspace.”

  Chad answered in a guarded voice. “They’re going to pick up Councilor Roca, Lady Ami, and Prince Kurjson. Their intent is peaceful.”

  “Then we will take them into custody,” MacLane said. “Pending an investigation. I must warn you, however, that if that racer makes any hostile moves, attempts to evade us, or resists an escort, it will force us into more direct action.”

  Chad remained unruffled. “Check your sensors. It has no weapons.”

  I could almost feel MacLane swear. In volunteering to take an unarmed craft, Jinn and her team had left themselves defenseless. The court of public opinion was already grinding Earth’s forces into metaphorical pieces. Although Earth might fire on the racer anyway, this would make it even harder.

  Chad switched channels. “Secondary Opsister?”

  Jinn’s voice came out of the comm. “Here, sir.”

  “Any after-effects from the bottle?”

  “One disposal unit is out. Otherwise, we’re fine.”

  “Good.” Chad spoke to the air. “Pharaoh Dyhianna?”

  “Here,” I said.

  “Do you detect any problems with the racer?”

  “Nothing it can’t handle.” Then I said, “Switching to Lightning!”

  “Good luck,” Chad said.

  My mind flowed through the racer in a current of thought, spinning around circuit loops and swirling in molecular stews. The ship was hurtling through the lower atmosphere now, toward Sweden.

  The Allieds hadn’t fired.

  Jinn sat ensconced in the pilot’s chair, the lights on her gauntlets glittering blue, green, and amber. “Prepare for landing.”

  The rest of her team settled in. I submerged in a web made by repair nanobots in the structure of the ship. Jinn’s commands flowed through my conduits. I felt the deceleration, the hull heating, and its flexing as it adjusted to optimize the racer’s speed. Jinn clenched the arm of her chair.

  Still the Allieds hadn’t fired.

  The racer shuddered as if a great hand had shaken it. But instead of fragmenting, the ship kept tearing through the atmosphere. I flexed my hull with relief as data flooded Jinn’s nodes: the shaking came from a storm that raged in the thunderclouds surrounding the ship. We hadn’t been hit.

  The racer burst through the cloud cover. Land spread below in a patchwork of emerald green forests, dense with foliage, and pristine snow that draped the forest in every direction. The scene struck me at an instinctual level. I felt a deep longing, and with it a profound sense of loss. This was no longer home; we came here as interlopers rather than siblings.

  The racer kept dropping, headed toward a rugged coastline with crashing waves and jagged spears of rock. Trees rushed toward us, a forest that appeared untouched by human hand. Jinn was holding her breath, though I didn’t think she realized it. Still no attack. I could imagine the heated debates among the Allieds now, as they decided on a course of action.

  We shot over a clearing, then skimmed more forest. We had to land soon; the racer couldn’t slow much more without going into hover mode, which would make it even more vulnerable.

  A long, open area came into view below. A road. Jinn angled so we were flying along it. Racers usually took off and landed vertically, but Jinn used this winding ribbon of asphalt as a runway, bringing us down until we were gliding over it like a hovercar. I doubted the Allieds could shoot now without endangering people in the area, not to mention destroying this spectacular countryside.

  The road arrowed into a cluster of buildings rounded with snow. Needled trees heavy with more snow crowded around gabled houses. Jinn brought the racer down without even a bu
mp, settling it in front of a large building.

  Her team disembarked with smooth efficiency. According to the ship’s computer, we were on the eastern edge of the Allied United Centre. Given the armaments ISC intelligence had listed for this AUC, not to mention everything we didn’t know about, it was a miracle we had made it down in one piece. The Allieds must have disarmed their own defense systems to allow us passage.

  As Jinn left the cockpit, I jumped into the biomech web within her body. It was normally impossible to maintain such a tenuous link over such a long distance. But the psiberweb boosted my mind, which already had a Rhon’s unusual mental reach, and my decades of experience helped me optimize the link. So I held the connection, though just barely.

  A group of people in heavy jackets and trousers were approaching us from the building. Another group had come out of the forest and was walking toward the racer. Jinn and her team waited with the ship. Most of them carried sedative air guns that could put a person to sleep, but no one had anything more threatening.

  Jinn accessed her language nodes, drawing on their libraries to augment her fluency in Earth languages. She spoke three: Spanish, English, and Mandarin Chinese. She also knew something called Pig Latin, though for the life of me I couldn’t see the point of that one. Maybe it was a code.

  A man in a heavy jacket with a fur-lined hood led the group from the house. When they reached Jinn, he spoke to her in Skolian Hag, a language designed by our linguistic experts to provide a common tongue for our many peoples. It was one of the first languages our own diplomats learned.

  “You’re on these grounds illegally.” He sounded polite but firm. “We will have to take you and the rest of your people into custody until we straighten this out.”

  “We will be happy to leave,” Jinn said. “As soon as Councilor Roca, Lady Ami, and Prince Kurjson are aboard.”

  She didn’t mention the three children; we had thought they were across the ocean in a country called America, but none of our sensors had found any trace of them. Nothing. Judging from the agitation that the Allieds tried to hide every time we mentioned the children, I suspected they couldn’t find them either. If those children had a relation to Jaibriol IE, he might have arranged for them to leave Earth before he appeared in that heart-whamming broadcast and declared himself Emperor of Eube.