by Kate Elliott
“What is this intrusion?” he demanded. He spoke in the clean, clipped Anglais that those few stewards assigned to direct intercourse with humans used. “I insist these offices be cleared.” His gaze skipped from the guard to Sojourner. “Of these females.”
Tess stood up. The Chapalii steward looked at her. Like an indrawn breath, the pause that followed was full of anticipated release.
The green cast to his white skin shaded into blue distress. His thin, alien frame bent in the stiff bow Chapalii accorded only and always to the members of their highest aristocracy.
“Lady Terese,” the steward said in the proper formal Chapalii. “I beg you will forgive my rash entrance and my rasher words.”
Unable to trust her voice for a moment, Tess simply folded her hands together in her human approximation of that arrangement of hands called Imperial Clemency. The steward’s complexion faded from distress to blessed neutrality again, white and even. Sojourner rose to stand next to Tess.
“I am here,” said Tess in strict formal Chapalii, high rank to low, “to advise the captain of the Oshaki that I will board his vessel and depart with it so far as my brother’s fief of Dao Cee.”
He bowed again, obedient. “You would honor me, Lady Terese, if you granted me the privilege of showing you in to see Hao Yakii Tarimin.”
“Await me beyond.” Tess waved toward the still open seam in the wall. The steward bowed to the exact degree proper and retreated. The wall shut behind him.
“God, but it gives me pleasure to see them ordered around for a change,” muttered the guard. Tess flushed, and the man looked uncomfortable, as if he was afraid he had offended her.
“Are they difficult to work for?” asked Sojourner quickly.
“Nay. Not if you do the work you’re hired to do. They’re the best employers I’ve had, really.” He lifted his hands, palms up. “Which is ironic. Say, did you say Sojourner King?”
Sojourner chuckled, and Tess watched, envying her friend’s easy geniality. “Yes. I was named after my great-grandmother, that Captain Sojourner King of the first L.S. Jerusalem.” She intoned the words with relish, able to laugh at her inherited fame in a way Tess had never managed. Then she sobered and turned to Tess. “I guess we part here, Tess. Take this, for luck.” She took an ankh necklace from around her neck and handed it to Tess. “Keep well.”
“Oh, Soje. I’ll miss you.” Tess hugged her, hard and quickly, to get it over with, shook the hand of the guard, picked up her valise, and walked across the room. The wall opened before her, admitting her to forbidden precincts.
“And don’t you dare forget to send me a message from Odys,” Sojourner called after her.
Tess lifted a hand in final farewell as the wall seamed shut, sealing her in to the corridor with the silent, patient steward. He bowed again, took her valise, and turned to lead her through the branching corridors. His lank hair and achromatic clothing lent the monotonous bleached-orange walls color in contrast, or at least to Tess’s sight they did. She did not know what the walls looked like to his vision: like so much else, that was information not granted to humans.
It was hot, so hot that she immediately broke out in a sweat. Her hand clenched the computer slate. She felt like a traitor. Because she had no intention of going to Odys. She was afraid to go there, afraid to tell her own and only sibling that she could not carry on in his place, that she did not want the honor or the responsibility—that she did not know what she wanted, not at all. She did not even have the courage to tell a good friend. And Sojourner had been a good friend to her, these past years.
In the suite reserved for the captain, three Chapalii stood as she entered, bowed in by the steward. He hung back, retraining his hold on her exalted valise, as the wall closed between them. Tess surveyed her audience with dismay. To interview the captain was bad enough. To face three of them…
She refused to give in to this kind of fear. The captain, thank God, was easy to recognize, because he wore the alloy elbow clip that marked his authority as a ship’s master. She drew in her breath, lifted her chin, and inclined her head with the exact degree of condescension that a duke’s heir might grant a mere ship’s captain.
Before the captain could bow, one of the other Chapalii stepped forward. “Who has allowed this interruption?” he demanded in formal Chapalii. “Our business here is private, Hao Yakii.” The Chapalii turned his gaze on Tess, but she knew her ground here; indeed, conduct was so strictly regulated in Chapalii culture that she usually had a limited number of responses. It made life much easier. Knowing he was at fault, she could regard him evenly in return. As he realized that the captain, and, belatedly, the other Chapalii, were bowing deeply to her, his skin hazed from white to blue.
“I am honored,” said the captain, straightening, “to be the recipient of your attention, Lady Terese. May I be given permission to hope that your brother the duke is in good health and that his endeavors are all flourishing and productive?”
“You may.”
The slightest reddish tinge of satisfaction flushed the captain’s face. He bowed in acknowledgment and gestured to his companions, introducing them in the formal, long-winded Chapalii style, not only their names but their house and affiliation and title and station and level of affluence: Cha Ishii Hokokul, younger son of the younger son of a great lord, no longer well off, traveling back to the home world; Hon Echido Keinaba, a fabulously wealthy merchant traveling to Odys to negotiate several deals with the merchants of the esteemed Tai-en Soerensen’s household. Hon Echido bowed a second time, skin white, secure in his quick recognition of the duke’s sister and doubtless hoping that his acumen here would stand him in good stead in the haggling to come. Cha Ishii bowed as well, but it was not nearly as deep a bow as a duke’s heir merited.
Tess acknowledged them and nodded again at the captain. “Hao Yakii. I desire passage on your ship, to the Dao Cee system.”
He did not hesitate. Of course, he could not. “It is yours, Lady Terese. You honor me and my family with your presence.”
Before she could reply, Cha Ishii compounded his first offense by addressing the captain in court Chapalii. “Hao Yakii, this is impossible that a Mushai’s relative should be allowed on this run. You must prevent it.”
Hao Yakii went violet with mortification, whether at Ishii’s effrontery or at some mistake he had just realized. Hon Echido watched, neutral, unreadable, and doubtless unsure whether any human could actually understand the intricacies of court Chapalii.
But Tess’s dismay had evaporated, drawn off by her irritation at Ishii’s assumption that she could not understand him, and by sheer human curiosity at the mention of that name, Mushai. “You refer, I believe,” she said directly to Ishii in court Chapalii, thus indirectly insulting him, “to the Tai-en Mushai. Was he not a duke who rebelled against one of your ancient emperors?”
Ishii blushed violet.
Violet and pink warred in the captain’s face. Approval won. “Lady Terese, it is, as you would call it—” A long pause. “A fable. A legend. Do you not have legends of ages past when your lands ran with precious metals and all people of proper rank had sufficient wealth to maintain their position, and then a traitor who would not adhere to right conduct brought ruin to everyone by his selfish actions?”
Tess almost laughed. How often as a child had she and her classmates been told of that time a mere two centuries ago when a consortium of five solar systems bound by inexplicably close genetic ties and the enthusiasm of newly-discovered interstellar flight had invested their League Concordance as law? A brief golden age, they called it, before the Chapaliian Empire, in its relentless expansion, had absorbed the League within its imperial confines.
“Yes. Yes, we do,” she replied. She felt a fierce exultation in confronting these Chapaliians whom she now outranked, thinking of her brother’s failed rebellion against the Empire, ten years before her birth, because he was not a traitor to his kind, to humankind, but a hero. Even now, when the Chapalii,
for reasons only Chapalii understood, had ennobled him. Even now, made a duke—the only human granted any real status within their intricate hierarchy of power, given a solar system as his fief, endowed with fabulous wealth—Charles Soerensen simply bided his time, and the Chapalii seemed not to suspect.
“The honored duke will be pleased to see his heir on Odys,” said Hon Echido.
His colorless words shattered her thoughts, exposing her to her own bitter judgment: that she was afraid, that her life lay in chaos around her, and that even what little her brother asked of her she could not grant. She wanted only to retreat to the quiet, isolated haven of the palace in Jeds and be left alone, with no one expecting anything of her. Suddenly she felt oppressed by these Chapalii watching and measuring her. She felt short and grossly heavy next to the gaunt delicacy that swathes of fabric and flowing robes could not disguise. Ishii’s skin bore a blended shade that she could not recognize nor interpret. Yakii seemed torn between addressing a duke’s heir and Ishii’s demands.
“Lady Terese,” said Hon Echido, either sensitive to these currents or else simply pressing his advantage, as a canny merchant must, “it would be a great compliment to my house if you would allow me to escort you personally to the Oshaki. With Hao Yakii’s permission, of course.” He bowed to her and acknowledged the captain with that arrangement of hands known as Merchant’s Favor.
With mutual consent, the parting went swiftly. Tess left Yakii and Ishii to their debate, and walked to the shuttle with Hon Echido in attendance, the steward carrying her valise five paces behind. There would be time enough to arrange with Hao Yakii that she was going to Rhui, not to Odys. Both planets, being neighbors in the Dao Cee system, were on the Oshaki’s scheduled run.
Hon Echido proved a pleasant and undemanding companion. His concerns were material, his conversation pragmatic, and he seemed determined to treat her as he would any duke’s heir, despite the fact that she was both human and female.
“May we be given to understand, Lady Terese,” he asked as the shuttle lifted away from Earth and out toward the Oshaki’s orbit, “that the more frequent cargo runs to Rhui indicate that the duke will soon be opening that planet up to exploitation as he has the planet Odys?”
“No. Its designation as a natural preserve under the Interdiction Code protects it for at least a century. My brother desires to preserve the native cultures for as long as possible.”
“Lady Terese, certainly the natives are quite primitive. Not equal to the worth to our societies of Rhui’s magnificent natural resources.”
“Ah, Hon Echido, but is it not here that our valuations of worth differ? While to you they are merely a less important part of Rhui’s other natural resources, to us they are cousins.”
Echido stroked his mauve robes. “More than cousins, surely. Are you not, in virtually every particular, identical species?”
If it was meant to be an insult, it was smooth. Tess could not refrain from smiling, but the expression was completely lost on the Chapalii. “Yes, we are both Homo sapiens. That is why you Chapalii cannot be allowed on the planet. However primitive the Rhuian natives might be, some of them are intelligent enough to question those characteristics by which the Chapalii differ from humans.”
“Are they truly so intelligent?” he asked without a trace of irony. “How can you know, Lady Terese?”
“Because I lived on Rhui for three years, in a city called Jeds. That was about ten years ago, when I was a child. My brother allows limited contact between humans in his employ and the natives, for research purposes.”
Echido settled his hands into that arrangement known as Merchant’s Accord. “Certainly the duke is wise to ascertain the extent and disposition of Rhui’s resources before exploiting them. It is a rich planet. My family can only hope that we will be allowed the privilege of bidding on any expedition once the interdict is lifted from the planet.”
“I assure you, Hon Echido, that should it come to that, I will put in a good word for you with my brother.”
He was delighted. It struck Tess that the mauve of his robes and the reddish tint of satisfaction that flushed his skin did not remotely match. God, but she was tired.
Stewards met them at the Oshaki’s lock and vied for the honor of showing her to a suite of rooms suitable for a passenger of her eminence. The original steward kept his grip on her valise. It was a relief to be left alone in the suite. The solitude was palpable. It was also hot.
She developed a routine quickly as the Oshaki left Earth orbit and began its run to Dao Cee and thence to the home worlds. She slept and washed, and ate her meals alone in her rooms. She wanted to wallow in depression. All the anger and frustration and the caustic wound of Jacques’s rejection of her had room to swell up and fill her until she mostly just lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She could not manage tears: she wanted them too badly.
But when, one half day out from Rhui, yet another begging invitation from Hao Yakii that she dine at his table came in, she felt guilty. She owed it to Charles. He would expect her to dine, to converse, to glean any slightest bit of information that might be valuable to the cause. And she needed to tell Hao Yakii that she was going to Rhui, not to Odys.
The ship was large, and a steward appeared to escort her to the captain’s dining hall. The dining hall itself was as big as her flat in Prague. Hao Yakii rose at her entrance. Five other Chapalii rose, bowing. She acknowledged, in formal Chapalii, the two she recognized: Cha Ishii Hokokul and Hon Echido Keinaba. The others were introduced: minor lords and merchants. Somehow, Echido managed to sit beside her, and his presence acted as a buffer because he was so good at keeping the conversation on a technical, commonplace level. To her relief, the dinner went smoothly.
She rose finally. Echido begged leave to escort her to her suite. At the door, she paused: She had not told Hao Yakii about her true destination. It was so hard, in front of these strangers. She hesitated, struggling with herself. She could simply send him a message through the comm, but God, she was damned if she’d be that cowardly.
Behind her, in court Chapalii, one of the merchants said to the captain: “Will the Tai-endi be confined to her suite until you leave Rhui orbit?”
The captain flushed green, glancing toward the door. Cha Ishii flushed blue, though he did not look toward her, and a moment later, the merchant flushed violet, mortified.
“Hon Echido,” said Tess in clear, formal Chapalii, “you did not tell me if Keinaba has already opened negotiations with the Tai-en?” A quick glance back as they left showed her that the captain’s flush had faded to white.
Echido was tinged blue along the jawline, a faint line of distress. “We have not, Lady Terese. Unforeseen events have brought us to Dao Cee.” Then, smoothly, he took the subject off on another tangent.
Alone in her suite, Tess sat down on her bed and pondered. Why should the captain confine her to quarters? He could not, in any case. Becoming fluent in the language had not given her, or any human, much insight into the Chapalii mind. That someone of lower rank should presume to prohibit their superior any place whatsoever was inconceivable to the Chapalii. On a Chapalii starship, whose highest official was a captain she outranked, she could go anywhere he could go. To suggest confining her, then—the implications of that were staggering.
They were hiding something. They must be. Something to do with Rhui, or the cargo shuttle. What unforeseen events had Hon Echido been talking about? Perhaps it was a good thing she was here, after all.
She opened her valise and changed into the clothing she had brought, clothing that could pass as native on Rhui: light undergarments, special thermal cloth cut into tunics that layered over trousers, and leather boots. The cut and texture of the clothes felt strange. At least the thermal cloth insulated her from both heat and cold.
A pouch hung from the belt she put on. She filled it: Jedan coins, mostly, a handkerchief, gloves, the old Egyptian ankh necklace given to her by Sojourner, unremarkable odds and ends for hygiene, a
volume of philosophic essays from the university in Jeds. Anything else she needed she could get once she arrived at the palace in Jeds.
She laid the computer slate down on a table and reread her letter. The sentence about her dissertation she erased, and in its place she wrote: I have reason to be suspicious of this cargo run. I’ll keep my eyes open. She locked the slate’s memory. A looped message on the screen instructed that the slate be taken to her brother. On impulse, she keyed the cosmetic function and ran a hand over the screen. It darkened to a reflective surface, mirroring her. Light brown hair—some called it auburn. Not slim, though her former fiancé had constantly reminded her that she could be. She only resembled her brother in her deep-set eyes, her high cheekbones, and in a certain grace of form lent by the coordination of parts and an evenly proportioned body. Perhaps it would be best just to go on to Odys. God, though, she did not want to face Charles.
Even as she thought it, the captain’s intercom, which she had left on, chimed to announce that the cargo shuttle would depart in one Chapalii hour. She slapped the reflective screen off, not even wanting to face herself, and left the suite. She was doing her duty to Charles, going to Rhui on this shuttle.
A steward waited outside. She waved him off and headed alone by lifts and passageways down to docking. Her retinal-ident scan gave her access to the entire ship. As she passed, stewards bowed and got out of her way. She cycled through the decontamination threshold and crossed the transom to the feeder that snaked out to the waiting shuttle. In the holding room off to one side, Hao Yakii, elbow clip gleaming, stood speaking with a cluster of Chapalii.
Tess hesitated. No one, not even a steward, blocked the feeder. Doubtless cargo was being transferred into the shuttle farther down. To go over to Hao Yakii demanded that she change her direction, announce her arrival in another room, and inform him of her change of plans in front of an audience. A real investigator would just go on, not asking for permission. She barely slackened her steps as she walked up the feeder and on to the shuttle.