Mistworld

by Nina M. Osier

  He wished he could question having his great-grandnephew present, because giving young Farren a place here when the boy had come home aboard a conqueror's starship was absolutely galling. Especially when this was the youngster's first stop after leaving the Terran Embassy—but he could hardly refuse to let Cabbie's heir address the Council. Farren had the same right to do so that Trabe's own heir, his daughter Katy, had exercised six months earlier.

  Still, this business tasted bad and smelled worse. Especially when Farren, stepping into the center of the University Library's main reading room (cleared and rearranged to host this meeting, with the University still shut down in response to yesterday's invasion scare), turned to the one librarian present and demanded: “I'll need the screen. And a downlink from the Aragon."

  “What for?” Trabe asked, since those were amenities the boy should have requested beforehand. Through him, the meeting's chair, instead of calling for them now.

  “You'll see, Uncle.” If the youngster was nervous, he didn't show it. “I didn't know about this until just a few minutes ago, and it changes everything I'd planned to say.” As the librarian (a middle-aged man who first looked toward senior chair councilor Kourdakov for approval) activated a display that replaced one of the room's walls, he added, “You've got two choices, you know. You can accept me as Admiral Benedon's liaison, or you can deal directly with her. I recommend letting me stand between."

  “You're here this morning because you're an heir of both the Romanov and Kourdakov lines. Not as the Commonwealth's representative.” Trabe glanced in his wife's direction, wondering if Cabbie liked this any better than he did. She didn't. Plainly. “Is that understood, Farren?"

  “Yes. But I still think the Council and the Commissioners should view this transmission.” The kid stood his ground. And now Trabe realized what he didn't like most of all about Johnnie Romanov's grandson (at present, anyway): the triumph shining in his brown eyes. “Is the downlink ready?” He aimed that question at the librarian.

  “Uh-huh.” The man nodded.

  The screen filled up with a tridee image. Trabe Kourdakov, who'd remained in his seat (in the front row of Councilors, facing the front row of Commissioners; with the younger man standing between), felt his wife gripping his arm from her neighboring chair. He'd been about to rise, involuntarily ... because he knew the ship that was moving through space, as simulated on that screen. The Mistworld vessels looked like nothing else that plied the spaceways, and each of them was itself unique.

  “This is the ship that left Narsai yesterday,” Farren announced, needlessly for his relatives’ purposes. But many others present hadn't memorized the different alien ships’ lines, so they no doubt found the young man's words enlightening.

  Those present didn't include the Commissioner of Medicine, Cabanne Barrett. Who, unless an emergency claimed her attention, never shirked her guild-mandated duties. Trabe frowned, as he wondered what had kept her from this meeting. And, of course, why his young kinsman wanted to show the combined groups this particular image.

  “This is what happened to it after it left.” A second ship, that Trabe did not recognize, joined the first one on screen. It fired its weapons. All of them, in a massive discharge of destructive energy.

  The Mistworld vessel simply disappeared. Huge though it was, that much power delivered in an uninterrupted burst left nothing but space dust behind.

  “It's a trick! The damn Commies faked that!” Harbie, the Commissioner of Aquaculture and co-commander of the Narsatian Militia, sprang from his seat and had to be grabbed and held back by Mara Ling.

  “I assure you that we didn't, Commissioner.” Admiral Benedon's image filled the screen now. “Councilors Kourdakov and Romanov. I apologize for this, er, shocking way of informing you of the deaths of your daughter, her husband, and others aboard that ship whom you claimed as members of your family. But I only just received the transmission myself, a few minutes ago; and it's vital that you know about it before you make any of the decisions I assume you're about to consider. Good day, and I hope you'll accept my condolences."

  * * * *

  “Good day. She gives us news like that, and then she wishes us a ‘good day'!"

  Farren winced, in spite of himself, as the bitter voice of his old uncle struck him like a lash. He had to admit that he'd have preferred doing this differently. But the Admiral and the Ambassador had both insisted, and they must know the best approach. Surely.

  About the deaths he'd just announced, he felt nothing at all on a personal level. He hoped the loss wouldn't be too hard on his grandfather, because he knew how fond Johnnie Romanov still was of Cousin Katy; but he couldn't be sorry the woman was dead. Not for a minute. Now he could move ahead with his plans, without anticipating her possible return someday. And that made everything so very much simpler.

  “I'm sorry, Uncle Trabe. Aunt Cabbie,” he said, nevertheless, because he knew that politeness demanded it. “I'd like to put off saying what I've come here to say, because I realize this is the worst possible time. But I need to confirm that Narsai—which is the same thing as saying ‘the Council'—accepts me as its liaison with the Commonwealth forces that are going to be landing later today. And I need your assurance, Council and Commissioners both, that no one's going to be stupid enough to resist."

  “What, exactly, are those forces going to do after they land? And how many will there be?” Amazingly, astoundingly, the voice that asked those questions belonged to Cabanne Romanova. The old woman who a moment earlier had held her enraged husband back from rising to confront the dreadful image on the now silent, vacant viewscreen, was on her feet. Confronting the Commonwealth's liaison, in the person of her husband's great-grandnephew, in a firm and calm voice that surely could not belong to a mother who'd just lost her only child.

  Farren drew a breath. Should he tell her that he didn't know the answers to her questions? Or simply (since he knew that admitting his ignorance would cause him to lose face with everyone else, although her opinion of him hardly mattered) that it was information he couldn't disclose? He'd just decided on the latter reply when a late arrival entered the reading room, and spared him from having to utter it.

  Two late arrivals, actually. Cabanne Barrett, Commissioner of Medicine; and a skinny girl.

  * * * *

  Maddy Fralick knew only two of the people already present. Her grandmother, and her grandfather. But she could guess, by looking at the expectantly silent faces of the assembled Council and Commissioners of Narsai, that every one of these strange adults knew who she was; and she could also guess the identity of the boy who stood between the two groups. This person who was as close to the end of his teens as she still was to the start of hers, and whose brown eyes and coppery hair matched her own (precisely), simply had to be Farren Kourdakov.

  He looked at her, and she met his gaze without flinching. She'd had no idea what she would do when Doctor Cab dragged her before this joint meeting of Council and Commissioners. She had no trouble at all making up her mind now, though, as she finally saw this cousin whom Narsatian custom obliged her to marry. He had Romanov coloring, and his face looked a lot like Granfer's; but she could read the uncertainty of his posture, and she could fairly smell his terror.

  Now, that changed everything. Maddy squared her young shoulders, straightened her spine, and walked toward him. Her would-be bridegroom. Dr. Barrett released her arm, and the girl heard the physician's harsh breathing grow quiet behind her.

  “I'm sorry to interrupt,” she said, not sure whether she was addressing everyone present or directing her words to one person. “You're Farren, aren't you? I'm your cousin. Madeleine ... Romanova."

  She'd never called herself that before, except (a few times only) for expediency's sake. Which was, of course, the reason she called herself by her mother's name now; but this time it wouldn't be a temporary thing. And that was, she also realized, only the first in the series of compromises she must now make.

  So be it. But wh
y was everyone staring at her so—well—sorrowfully? Hadn't Doctor Cab, and Cousins Johnnie and Reen, all urged her to do this—to cooperate when brought here—because she would be acting for Narsai's good? (Cousin Tena had told her the same thing, of course; but what Cousin Tena thought, or wanted, didn't count. Maddy could see why Mum had never liked her, and could guess why Cousin Tena had never liked Mum.)

  Granma had been standing, when Maddy and Dr. Barrett came in. She sat down now, stiffly. As if she were moving in a daze.

  Farren put out his hands toward his prospective bride. He was smiling now, and she could see relief in his eyes. “Yes,” he answered, as she took the last step needed to bring her within touching distance of him. “I'm Farren Kourdakov. Heir to your grandmother's Council seat, as you're heir through your mother to your grandfather's; and Proprietor of the Romanov Farmstead, someday when my own grandfather no longer holds it. Did you come to tell me something, Madeleine?"

  “Yes.” The two sets of people all had their eyes fixed on her. On them. Which, at ease though she unaccountably felt about what she was doing, made Maddy's face flush from the concentrated adult attention alone. No one could force a Narsatian girl to accept her tradition-dictated betrothal ... and that was because her words must initiate it. Not her parents’ words, or her grandparents', or those of her husband-to-be or his relatives. “We should marry, Farren. One day when I'm old enough. Will you pledge yourself to me?"

  In other words, would he forswear other women forever to accept her as an occasional partner in his bed now; and as his full-time partner for life, later on. Farren opened his mouth to answer, and Maddy didn't doubt he intended to utter an affirmation. The last thing she anticipating hearing, instead, was her grandmother's protest from behind her. “No, Madeleine!” the old woman said, her husky voice throbbing with power.

  With passion, too. For some reason that Maddy couldn't imagine, her Granma was angry. With her? For giving in, and doing at last what she'd truly thought both of her mother's parents would greet joyfully?

  They were both standing, when she turned away from Farren and toward them. Granfer was holding out his arms. So Maddy took her hands out of her cousin's clasp, and asked, “Granma? Granfer?", in a voice that had lost all of its adulthood and self-confidence.

  “Play the recording for her, Lester,” Trabe Kourdakov ordered. “You did record that downlink from the Aragon, didn't you?"

  Maddy felt cold, then. She looked next at Cabanne Barrett, who spoke up sharply. “What's happened?” the doctor asked, not of Maddy but of Farren.

  “I accept your pledge, and I give you mine in return.” The younger Kourdakov claimed what he'd been offered, before the girl could withdraw her proposal and before anything could happen that might make her want to do so. And then he added, “Don't make her watch the recording, Uncle Trabe. Just tell her. Or if that's too hard for you and Aunt Cabbie, I'll do it for you."

  “Tell me what?” Maddy asked, almost shivering now.

  Her betrothed husband's voice lanced through her. “The ship that your mother and her husband were on, headed toward Mistworld. A Star Service vessel following standing orders fired on it and destroyed it, after it left this system. Admiral Benedon transmitted an excerpt from that vessel's visual log, and we viewed it together,” Farren gestured to include everyone else in the reading room, “just before you and Dr. Barrett arrived. I'm sorry, Madeleine. I really, truly am."

  * * * *

  “The Council stands adjourned.” Cabanne Romanova had held senior chair for years, as her husband's immediate predecessor. She'd said the same words many times before. Any Councilor could say them, actually; because, in one of the informality-worshipping Narsatians’ few deliberate imitations of the old Terran system for conducting public meetings (as laid down in an ancient book called Robert's Rules of Order), any Council member had the right to call an end to any session at any time. Then the others present could accept that call to adjourn (that “motion,” as the older and far more formal procedure had termed it), or choose to continue in spite of it.

  In actual practice, of course, the Council usually ended a meeting only when its senior chair holder so decreed. But Trabe Kourdakov didn't raise his voice to override his wife, and neither did anyone else. Instead the room that had hosted them many other times (since Narsatian public buildings, and even some private ones, were put to as many uses as possible—a necessity on this planet where most of the usable land must be reserved for farming and ranching, with streets, structures, and recreational facilities kept to the minimum required by its populace), the rest of the Council's members sat and stared. The Commissioners also stared ... at Cabanne Romanova, Trabe Kourdakov, Farren Kourdakov, and Madeleine Romanova. Not at all at Cabanne Barrett, until the woman for whom the physician had been named turned toward her in quiet yet visible fury. “Did you think this was what I wanted you to do, Cab?” the old Councilor asked the much younger Commissioner.

  “The meeting's over!” Trabe Kourdakov spoke up then, with authority. “To my office. Now!” He indicated the two youngsters, his wife, and the Commissioner of Medicine. “Everyone else, we'll reconvene in two hours. Lester, would you please let Admiral Benedon know that? And notify the Terran Ambassador, as well?"

  The librarian, his dark face turned gray, nodded. No one else moved, despite the dismissal. Except the Kourdakov men and the Romanova women, who walked out through the library's main door and straight into the lift across the hall.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  “A whole world's waiting to find out what its fate will be, and we're fooling around with family matters!” was the one thought no one had, and therefore no one expressed, after the door to Trabe Kourdakov's conference room (his office was too small to hold three adults and two adolescents) closed. They'd been silent in the lift, and in the hallways. For a Narsatian, family matters couldn't be treated as less important than others that affected their population as a whole; because on Narsai, family came before all else.

  No. Family was all there was, actually. Yet some matters must be kept private, and this—Cabanne Romanova thought with relief—was among them. Thank goodness. She spoke up as soon as she knew that she could, and she addressed Cabanne Barrett. Furiously, as she had before. “I told you to keep Madeleine safe until her mother was too far off-world to even think about coming back! Not to get her betrothed!"

  “Isn't that what had to happen in the end, though, Aunt Cabbie?” The younger woman stood her ground. “You wanted her kept on Narsai. You wanted me to stop Katy from taking her away again, because you were afraid she'd never come back. And you were worried that Farren,” Barrett nodded toward that name's owner, “would have to marry outside the family, so that there'd be no more Romanovs after you and I and Johnnie. So what did you think would happen next, since Farren's come home and they're both of age for betrothal?"

  Romanova let the disrespectful tone, and the undue emphasis on that fatal word “think,” pass. She cast a defiant glance at her husband, and then an apologetic one at her granddaughter. “Maddy. You were only just settling in. Just starting to understand what it means to be who you are! And as much as I love your mother, Katy never really has understood that. Or at least, she hasn't cared about it as she should. She's always done her duty to everyone and everything else in the universe, except to her family here on Narsai! She ran away from that, every time she didn't like what it required from her. And as her mother, I couldn't let her keep teaching you to do the same. So I did what I did; I kept you here when she left. With help from someone else who had an interest.” Now, finally, she nodded toward her namesake.

  “Did you not want me to agree to marry my cousin, Granma?” Maddy was standing at one end of the conference room's long table, and Farren was demonstrating his sense of drama by moving to her side. Separating themselves from the older trio, and—by standing together—establishing their identity as a couple. As supposed allies, or at least potential ones.

  “Eventu
ally, I wanted you to.” If the girl had reacted by crying, or screaming, the old woman thought that she could have held onto her anger. Could have gone on feeling betrayed, furious, and self-justified. But seeing young Madeleine stand there so calmly, with dignity far beyond her not yet fourteen years—and seeing her resemblance to Katy, despite her thinness that contrasted with Cabanne Romanova's memories of how her own child had, from babyhood, always tended toward plumpness—robbed the old lady of the comforting certainty that she'd done no more than her duty. “But not like this. Not because you thought you had to, Maddy. I wanted you to have time first, to realize for yourself that it's your duty. And that duty's a good thing. What gives our lives purpose! And I didn't know then,” she fixed her brown eyes on Farren Kourdakov's identical ones, “that we were going to lose your mother. That she was going to die, not just go away for awhile as she's always done before. Nor did I know that this fellow hadn't enough honor to stop you from offering yourself to him, when you were about to find that out and he knew it!"

  She stopped talking then. She'd shifted her gaze from Farren to Maddy, at some point during that much-longer-than-intended speech, and for the life of her she couldn't imagine what was going on behind her granddaughter's eyes. The girl had lost so much. First the only home she'd known, and the alien couple who'd helped rear her, when she left Kesra. Next, her father. Now, her mother; and the stepfather whom she'd come to love. How could she be so calm right now?

  Perhaps it just hadn't hit her yet, this latest pair of losses. Maybe focussing on Farren, and on what was happening in the here and now, was mercifully anesthetizing her. As it was anesthetizing Cabanne Romanova herself, enabling the old woman to put off the moment ... the dreadful, inevitable, unsupportable moment ... when she wouldn't be able to avoid facing it. Because for the second time in their married life, she and her husband had lost their only child.