Scales of Empire

by Kylie Chan

  ‘No, Jian, really,’ Dianne said. She jumped to her feet, radiating panic. ‘Everything will be okay. We love you. Stay, okay?’

  ‘We really do. Three together, remember?’ Victor said. ‘We can do anything. We have a kid coming – and you have to be part of it.’ He yawned loudly, then winked at me. ‘Let’s go have a shower and I’ll rub your back. You always love that.’

  Dianne linked her arm in mine, and Victor went to my other side and put his arm around my shoulders.

  ‘No more aliens,’ Dianne said. ‘Let’s talk about us.’ She looked up. ‘Can you make that Marque go away? I feel like there’s a video camera over my head.’

  ‘I’m not watching you, but I won’t leave Jian-sama,’ Marque said.

  ‘Go keep my mum company for a while, Marque, make sure she’s okay,’ I said. ‘Some of the villagers might be harassing her for info on Shiumo while I’m with my spouses. Come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Marque said.

  ‘Put an app on my tablet to contact you just in case.’

  ‘There’s already one there,’ it said. The door opened and the sphere flew out, then closed the door behind it.

  ‘It’s been far too long,’ Victor said, and this time his emotions were more love than anything else.

  I let him take my bag, and he put it back on the floor, then kissed me, and Dianne wrapped herself around me from behind. They radiated love, but there was also still the excitement of having access to Shiumo, tinged with ugly avarice.

  I hesitated, feeling torn. I couldn’t stay with them if they were just planning to use me … but it felt so good, and I’d missed them. It had been a long time.

  Victor pulled back to smile at me, and put his hand on the side of my face, his expression full of adoration that matched his tender emotions.

  I didn’t want to hurt them. Maybe once they were used to the idea of Shiumo, the next five days would be like old times, the three of us knocking about together. Maybe they wouldn’t put any pressure on me about Shiumo once I’d explained how things worked.

  I smiled and followed Victor into the bathroom.

  The next morning I woke with both of them wrapped around me. It really was just like old times. Dianne wriggled off the bed and raced to the bathroom, then climbed back in and spooned her back into my stomach. Victor pulled me tighter and I sighed with bliss.

  ‘You awake?’ Dianne said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, and kissed the back of her neck.

  ‘That general asked me to pass on a message when Marque isn’t around. She said to call her when you feel your head is clear. You won’t need to say anything if you can’t ditch Marque, but just call her.’

  I sighed heavily. I searched my feelings; they were no different. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Does that mean something’s wrong? Your head isn’t clear?’ Dianne said.

  ‘Nothing; they worry too much. My head is fine. They’re just being paranoid.’

  ‘Guess what I have,’ Victor said, bumping my back with his pelvis.

  ‘Morning wood,’ Dianne and I said together, and giggled.

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Make love to my darling Dianne,’ I said, and pulled her around to face me.

  ‘Works for me,’ Victor said.

  We spent the morning together, then went up to the village. My mother was waiting for us at her cottage and it was a crush with the four of us inside.

  ‘So what do you need done?’ I said. ‘Do you need more terraces, or anything like that? I can dig you another couple of fields.’

  ‘No need,’ she said smugly. ‘Come on and I’ll show you.’

  She took us down the path through the jungle to the bottom of the mountain, a walk of more than half an hour. We passed the deserted terraces and abandoned residences of people who’d moved to the city, and arrived at the base. There were a few fenced fields holding some scraggly sheep, then the mud flats that led to the ocean – except there was no ocean now, only mud to the horizon, with two of the salt-extraction units running over its surface.

  ‘We didn’t get any geologists here, but the ones that visited further south all say the same thing: in two years this will have dried out enough to build on,’ Mum said. ‘Each village resident is allocated fifteen hectares, and some city folk will be taking what’s left over. The scientists are suggesting sheep or goats, or fruit trees, or something like sorghum or even wheat.’

  ‘Is there talk of cattle?’ Dianne said.

  ‘It won’t be warm enough!’ Mum said with delight. She turned to us, grinning broadly. ‘They say we may even see snow for the first time in two hundred years, and there’s a chance we could create ski runs down the mountain if we break up the terraces. Can you imagine it – making our muddy home a ski resort?’ She shook her head. ‘There’ll even be enough oxygen to breathe all the way to the top of the mountain.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘Do you know which parcel is yours?’

  Mum waved one arm over the mud. ‘They’ll put a road in and signpost everything in two years. Right now I’m filling out the paperwork to make my claim.’ She smiled. ‘It’s a shame you’re with the alien instead of the army. I could really use a spare pair of hands.’

  ‘I can leave –’ I began.

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘She’s helping us so much! Stay with her.’

  ‘I’ll come help you on the weekends, if you give me space to sculpt,’ Victor said.

  Mum held her hand out and he slapped it. ‘Done.’

  ‘So I can’t help you on the land yet?’ I said. ‘Do the terraces need clearing in the meantime? I need something to do!’

  Mum linked her arm in mine and turned us to walk back up to the village. ‘The celebrity does not dig, or shift rocks, or pull weeds. You’re not doing anything like that while you’re here; you’re too important. Everybody wants to have you over for tea.’

  I lowered my head. ‘But I want to help you.’

  She squeezed my arm. ‘You’re famous now, Jian, get used to it. You’re visiting all the neighbours first, then heading to the next village, where they’ve set up a community hall for the mayor of the prefecture to interview you for the network.’

  ‘I’d rather just dig terraces for you,’ I grumbled. ‘I’m going to be bored to death.’

  I finished telling the gathered villagers – for what felt like the millionth time – about my life on Shiumo’s ship.

  ‘And she’s at the Japanese colony now?’ the mayor said.

  I nodded. ‘She keeps in touch through Marque. She’s running the colonists backwards and forwards.’

  ‘And it’s our turn next?’

  ‘That’s right. Euroterre’s colony will be on the third planet of the star Wolf 1061. I’ll help to establish the colony there, and I’ll be sure to take plenty of photos to send back home.’

  ‘I’d like to hear how you three met,’ the mayor said. ‘We’ve all heard about the alien and the dragon ship – but how long have you three been together? Was it two of you to start off, and a third joined later?’ She leaned closer to Dianne and Victor. ‘What will you do when Corporal Choumali leaves Earth to travel with Princess Shiumo?’

  ‘Well, I hope we’ll be going with her!’ Victor said in a jolly tone, and the audience laughed. ‘I don’t want to be separated from my darling Jian. We’ve known each other forever.’

  ‘And you, Dr Liebowicz?’

  ‘Same,’ Dianne said, with laughter in her voice. ‘The three of us attended high school together in New Llanfair, and made a pact to stay together after I went to uni, Victor went to the polytech, and Jian joined up.’

  ‘We vowed to stick together,’ Victor said. ‘You should have seen us back then, knocking about Llanfair, causing trouble as kids will. I bet half the shopkeepers in town cannot believe that all three of us went on to much greater things.’

  ‘Victor and I have set up house in New Birmingham near the university, and Jian visits us whenever sh
e can get leave,’ Dianne said, and smiled at me. ‘We don’t see her nearly as much as we’d like, but we understand. Her military career is important to all of us.’

  ‘Dr Liebowicz, you’re a biologist?’ the mayor said.

  Dianne nodded. ‘I’m doing postdoctoral research on temperature-resistant fruit strains, but now the temperature’s dropped worldwide I think I’d better change my focus to working on ways we can re-establish all those favourite crops we lost. We’ll be able to grow peaches in the open air!’

  A smattering of applause rippled through the audience.

  ‘And Mr Barrett?’

  ‘I’m an artist,’ Victor said. ‘I’m very lucky to have Jian and Dianne supporting me – I wouldn’t be able to do it without them.’ He grinned at us. ‘I think I’m the luckiest man in the world.’

  ‘We’ll all agree when you move up to the ship with Jian,’ the mayor said.

  ‘I can’t move up yet,’ Dianne said. ‘It’ll have to wait until after the baby’s born. Victor’s going to be a father, and Jian’s going to be a second mother!’

  The audience applauded loudly, and some people in the back cheered.

  ‘That’s wonderful news!’ the mayor said. ‘So –’

  Victor raised one hand. ‘If you don’t mind, Mayor, there’s something I need to say.’ He nodded to Dianne. ‘Something that Dr Liebowicz and I both have to say.’

  ‘What’s that?’ the mayor said.

  Victor and Dianne stood and took one of my hands each, pulling me to my feet. Then they clasped their free hands together so the three of us were standing in a circle.

  ‘Please don’t do this to me right now,’ I said.

  The mayor made a loud sound of enchantment, and the audience echoed her delight. ‘That’s so sweet.’

  ‘Jian Choumali,’ Victor said loudly, ‘and Dianne Liebowicz. Will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?’

  ‘Victor Barrett,’ Dianne said, ‘and Jian Choumali. Will you both marry me?’

  They waited expectantly.

  I could say yes, and have them with me for the rest of my life – sharing the experience of living on Shiumo’s ship, travelling to the stars. It was the chance of a lifetime for them.

  But I was damn sure that I didn’t want them along every minute of the day. I did want to be a second mother, but the idea of being their wife and with them all the time …

  ‘I can’t do this right now,’ I said, and fled.

  I ran across the stage, out the hall’s back door, and was sitting in a corner of Mrs Chan’s inn nursing an awful, locally produced whisky before I was aware of my surroundings.

  I tried to raise the glass and couldn’t move my hand. It was frozen. I pushed against the force field holding it, and realised what was happening.

  ‘Let me drink it, Marque.’

  ‘It isn’t a solution to your problem,’ Marque said. ‘Nothing’s ever so bad that you need to take your own life. Stop and think about it.’

  ‘I’m not taking my own life – don’t be ridiculous. I’m getting drunk because I’m running from commitment again, and breaking the hearts of two people who love me dearly.’

  ‘Getting drunk?’ Marque said. ‘By the six galaxies, you humans really do take poison as a recreational substance! I saw the fermented grape juice before, but the level of toxicity in that glass is off the scale.’

  ‘Let. Me. Go!’ I said, and my hand was released so quickly that the whisky splashed over me. I gulped the rest down and put the glass back on the table. I waved at Mrs Chan behind the bar and she brought me another one.

  ‘I saw what happened, Jian,’ she said. ‘Don’t be mad at them. It was the obvious thing for them to do. You’re allowed to not be ready to commit to a relationship.’

  ‘I’ll never be ready to commit.’ I sipped the second drink more slowly. ‘I’m a complete bitch.’

  She shook her head, took my empty glass, and went back to the bar.

  ‘Jian, you really need to stop this,’ Marque said. ‘That stuff is poison!’

  ‘Go away,’ I said, and waved a hand at it. ‘Shoo. Piss off. Leave me alone!’

  The sphere hovered for a moment, then whizzed out the door and away.

  ‘Good,’ I said, and took another gulp of the whisky. It really was awful.

  Thirty minutes later I was into my fifth glass, unwilling to return and face Dianne and Victor, and well aware of the fact that I had nowhere else to go.

  ‘Well, this is lovely,’ my mother said in front of me. ‘Here I am, about to be a grandmother, and the bride’s getting cold feet.’

  I looked up at her. ‘I don’t want to marry them, Mum.’

  ‘You made that very clear.’ She sat across the table from me. ‘They’re saying that if you won’t marry them, they’ll leave you. That sounds like an unreasonable ultimatum to me.’

  I looked down. ‘I’m not surprised.’ I sucked in a huge breath. My nose was clogged, but I wasn’t crying. Definitely not teary. I spat the words out. ‘They just want to use me to get to Shiumo. I’m a way for Dianne to study the alien. They don’t really care about me that much at all.’

  ‘Is that what you see?’

  ‘It’s what I know,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Is it what you see?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, understanding. I thought about their feelings for me, and slumped over my drink. ‘Yeah. It’s what I see.’

  ‘Well, it’s good you said no then, isn’t it? You’re better off without them.’ She linked her arm in mine and lifted me to my feet. ‘Come on, let’s call the car and go home.’

  ‘I have to talk to them,’ I said.

  ‘Send them back to the hotel to bitch about you tonight, and they can meet us in the village tomorrow. By then they’ll be used to the idea that they’re not going to ride you up to the alien spaceship.’

  ‘I’m letting them down.’

  ‘Better than letting yourself down.’

  It was raining outside, making the air so chilly that I shivered as Mum called the car with her tablet. The world spun around me, and I leaned on her until the car arrived and she pushed me into it.

  ‘Come home and sleep it off,’ she said. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘Then why does it hurt so much?’ I said, and flopped sideways on the seat.

  Dianne and Victor were waiting at Mum’s house, hunched and miserable in the pouring rain. We hurried inside, and they followed us.

  ‘You might as well stay until the rain stops,’ Mum said, then added sternly, ‘But don’t give Jian any grief. This is her decision.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we won’t,’ Victor said. ‘Are you sure about this, Jian?’

  Dianne sat on the couch, and Victor sat on the floor next to her feet. I pulled out a dining chair and sat across from them, the room still moving around me.

  ‘I’m sorry you feel pressured,’ Dianne said. ‘We weren’t expecting you to run out like that. We’ve known each other forever, Jian; we thought you’d be happy.’

  ‘I’m just not ready,’ I said. ‘You two go ahead and get married. Give our child a home. I’ll come visit.’

  They shared a look, and I could see their emotions were relieved. I realised I was on the outside now. We’d been drifting apart for a while, and it was only Shiumo’s appearance that had kept them with me.

  Dianne gasped and her face pinched.

  Victor looked up at her, concerned. ‘You okay?’

  ‘He kicked me,’ she said.

  ‘Kicking already? He’s a strong one,’ Mum said, putting the teapot and cups on the coffee table in front of the screen.

  ‘Here, Jian.’ Dianne held her hand out. ‘Come and feel.’

  I hesitated, then went to her. She put my hand on her stomach – she didn’t look terribly pregnant, just sort of … round. Nothing happened, then what felt like a rubber ball bounced against my hand. It slid under Dianne’s skin, then disappeared.

  I gasped with delight. �
�That’s amazing!’

  ‘You’ll still come visit, won’t you?’ Victor said.

  His emotional tone had changed. Now that I was leaving them, he was relieved. He’d settled into life with just him and Dianne, and I was in the way.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, pulling my hand away and picking up a teacup. ‘And next time I’ll bring the dragon.’

  Dianne leaned forward. ‘Do you think she’d let me study her biology?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. She can do things you wouldn’t believe. Did you know she can take a two-legged form? She can stand upright.’

  ‘How does she manage that?’ Dianne said.

  ‘Let me tell you what’s really remarkable about her two-legged form,’ I said, and sipped my tea.

  The taste set off the amount of alcohol I’d drunk, and I dropped the cup and saucer with a clatter, clapped my hand over my mouth, and ran to the bathroom.

  16

  I woke on Mum’s couch with the puppy lodged under my arm. I pulled the blanket higher – it was cold. I checked my tablet, thinking I may have heard it ping, and was right. There was a message from Shiumo. I checked the time zone. She’d returned a day early to load the ship, but she’d only be on-planet for a few more hours.

  I swung around so I was sitting and shifted the dog off me, ignoring her as she whined and buried herself under the covers.

  ‘Marque, are you here?’ I said softly.

  ‘Above your head. The after-effects of that poison must be brutal, Jian. Hydrate yourself.’

  ‘I’m fine. I’ve had much worse in barracks.’ I reached under the couch and brought out my gift, already wrapped. ‘Shiumo will be on-planet for a couple more hours. Can you carry this to her before she leaves?’

  The sphere dropped so it was just above the gift. ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘One of Victor’s sculptures; he’d like her to have it. It’s an Earth dragon.’

  ‘What a thoughtful gift. She treasures artworks from her –’

  ‘Call me her consort and I’ll use you for batting practice,’ I said. ‘So can you make it to her in time?’