Imperial Stars 2-Republic and Empire

by Jerry Pournelle

  Bril, who had been watching the woman's swift movements across the courtyard through the transparent wall opposite, controlled a start. "I am unused to your ways and wondered what she was doing." he said.

  "She is preparing a meal for you," explained Tanyne.

  "Herself?"

  Tanyne and his son gazed wonderingly. "Does that seem unusual to you?"

  "I understood the lady was wife to a Senator," said Bril. It seemed adequate as an explanation, but only to him. He looked from the boy's face to the man's. "Perhaps I understand something different when I use the term 'Senator.' "

  "Perhaps you do. Would you tell us what a Senator is on the planet Kit Carson?"

  "He is a member of the Senate, subservient to the Sole Authority, and in turn leader of a free Nation."

  "And his wife?"

  "His wife shares his privileges. She might serve a member of the Sole Authority, but hardly anyone else—certainly not an unidentified stranger."

  "Interesting," said Tanyne, while the boy murmured the astonishment he had not expressed at Bril's bubble, or Bril himself. "Tell me, have you not identified yourself, then?"

  "He did, by the waterfall," the youth insisted.

  "I gave you no proof," said Bril stiffly. He watched father and son exchange a glance. "Credentials, written authority." He touched the flat pouch hung on his power belt.

  Wonyne asked ingenuously, "Do the credentials say you are not Bril of Kit Carson in the Sumner System?"

  Bril frowned at him and Tanyne said gently, "Wonyne, take care." To Bril, he said, "Surely there are many differences between us, as there always are between different worlds. But I am certain of this one similarity: the young at times run straight where wisdom has built a winding path."

  Bril sat silently and thought this out. It was probably some sort of apology, he decided, and gave a single sharp nod. Youth, he thought, was an attenuated defect here. A boy Wonyne's age would be a soldier on Carson, ready for a soldier's work, and no one would be apologizing for him. Nor would he be making blunders. None!

  He said, "These credentials are for your officials when I meet with them. By the way, when can that be?"

  Tanyne shrugged his wide shoulders. "Whenever you like."

  "The sooner the better."

  "Very well."

  "Is it far?"

  Tanyne seemed perplexed. "Is what far?"

  "Your capital, or wherever it is your Senate meets."

  "Oh, I see. It doesn't meet, in the sense you mean. It is always in session, though, as they used to say. We—"

  He compressed his lips and made a liquid, bisyllabic sound. Then he laughed. "I do beg your pardon," he said warmly. "The Old Tongue lacks certain words for certain concepts. What is your word for—er—the-presence-of-all-in-the-presence-of-one?"

  "I think," said Bril carefully, "that we had better go back to the subject at hand. Are you saying that your Senate does not meet in some official place, at some appointed time?"

  "I—" Tan hesitated, then nodded. "Yes, that is true as far as it—"

  "And there is no possibility of my addressing your Senate in person?"

  "I didn't say that." Tan tried twice to express the thought, while Bril's eyes slowly narrowed. Tan suddenly burst into laughter. "Using the Old Tongue to tell old tales and to speak with a friend are two different things," he said ruefully. "I wish you would learn our speech. Would you, do you suppose? It is rational and well based on what you know. Surely you have another language besides the Old Tongue on Kit Carson?"

  "I honor the Old Tongue," said Bril stiffly, dodging the question. Speaking very slowly, as if to a retarded child, he said, "I should like to know when I may be taken to those in authority here, in order to discuss certain planetary and interplanetary matters with them."

  "Discuss them with me."

  "You are a Senator," Bril said, in a tone which meant clearly: You are only a Senator.

  "True," said Tanyne.

  With forceful patience, Bril asked, "And what is a Senator here?"

  "A contact point between the people of his district and the people everywhere. One who knows the special problems of a small section of the planet and can relate them to planetary policy."

  "And whom does the Senate serve?"

  "The people," said Tanyne, as if he had been asked to repeat himself.

  "Yes, yes, of course. And who, then, serves the Senate."

  "The Senators."

  Bril closed his eyes and barely controlled the salty syllable which welled up inside him. "Who," he inquired steadily, "is your Government?"

  The boy had been watching them eagerly, alternately, like a devotee at some favorite fast ball game. Now he asked, "What's a Government?"

  Nina's interruption at that point was most welcome to Bril. She came across the terrace from the covered area where she had been doing mysterious things at a long work-surface in the garden. She carried an enormous tray—guided it, rather, as Bril saw when she came closer. She kept three fingers under the tray and one behind it, barely touching it with her palm. Either the transparent wall of the room disappeared as she approached, or she passed through a section where there was none.

  "I do hope you find something to your taste among these," she said cheerfully, as she brought the tray down to a hummock near Bril. "This is the flesh of birds, this of small mammals, and, over here, fish. These cakes are made of four kinds of grain, and the white cakes here of just one, the one we call milk-wheat. Here is water, and these two are wines, and this one is a distilled spirit we call warm-ears."

  Bril, keeping his eyes on the food, and trying to keep his universe from filling up with the sweet fresh scent of her as she bent over him, so near, said, "This is welcome."

  She crossed to her husband and sank down at his feet, leaning back against his legs. He twisted her heavy hair gently in his fingers and she flashed a small smile up at him. Bril looked from the food, colorful as a corsage, here steaming, there gathering frost from the air, to the three smiling, expectant faces and did not know what to do.

  "Yes, this is welcome," he said again, and still they sat there, watching him. He picked up the white cake and rose, looked out and around, into the house, through it and beyond. Where could one go in such a place?

  Steam from the tray touched his nostrils and saliva filled his mouth. He was hungry, but. . . .

  He sighed, sat down, gently replaced the cake. He tried to smile and could not.

  "Does none of it please you?" asked Nina, concerned.

  "I can't eat here!" said Bril; then, sensing something in the natives that had not been there before, he added, "thank you." Again he looked at their controlled faces. He said to Nina, "It is very well prepared and good to look on."

  "Then eat," she invited, smiling again.

  This did something that their house, their garments, their appallingly easy ways—sprawling all over the place, letting their young speak up at will, the shameless admission that they had a patois of their own—that none of these things had been able to do. Without losing his implacable dignity by any slightest change of expression, he yet found himself blushing. Then he scowled and let the childish display turn to a flush of anger. He would be glad, he thought furiously, when he had the heart of this culture in the palm of his hand, to squeeze when he willed; then there would be an end to these hypocritical amenities and they would learn who could be humiliated. But these three faces, the boy's so open and unconscious of wrong, Tanyne's so strong and anxious for him, Nina's—that face, that face of Nina's—they were all utterly guileless. He must not let them know of his embarrassment. If they had planned it, he must not let them suspect his vulnerability.

  With an immense effort of will, he kept his voice low; still, it was harsh. "I think," he said slowly, "that we on Kit Carson regard the matter of privacy perhaps a little more highly than you do."

  They exchanged an astonished look, and then comprehension dawned visibly on Tanyne's ruddy face. "You don't eat together!
"

  Bril did not shudder, but it was in his word: "No."

  "Oh," said Nina, "I'm so sorry!"

  Bril thought it wise not to discover exactly what she was sorry about. He said, "No matter. Customs differ. I shall eat when I am alone."

  "Now that we understand," said Tanyne, "go ahead. Eat."

  But they sat there!

  "Oh," said Nina, "I wish you spoke our other language; it would be so easy to explain!" She leaned forward to him, put out her arms, as if she could draw meaning itself from the air and cast it over him. "Please try to understand, Bril. You are very mistaken about one thing—we honor privacy above almost anything else."

  "We don't mean the same thing when we say it," said Bril.

  "It means aloneness with oneself, doesn't it? It means to do things, think or make or just be, without intrusion."

  "So?" replied Wonyne happily, throwing out both hands in a gesture that said quod erat demonstrandum. "Go on then—eat! We won't look!" and helped the situation not at all.

  "Wonyne's right," chuckled the father, "but, as usual, a little too direct. He means we can't look, Bril. If you want privacy, we can't see you."

  Angry, reckless, Bril suddenly reached to the tray. He snatched up a goblet, the one she had indicated as water, thumbed a capsule out of his belt, popped it into his mouth, drank and swallowed. He banged the goblet back on the tray and shouted, "Now you've seen all you're going to see."

  With an indescribable expression, Nina drifted upward to her feet, bent like a dancer and touched the tray. It lifted and she guided it away across the courtyard.

  "All right," said Wonyne. It was precisely as if someone had spoken and he had acknowledged. He lounged out, following his mother.

  What had been on her face?

  Something she could not contain; something rising to that smooth surface, about to reveal outlines, break through . . . anger? Bril hoped so. Insult? He could, he supposed, understand that. But—laughter? Don't make it laughter, something within him pleaded.

  "Bril," said Tanyne.

  For the second time, he was so lost in contemplation of the woman that Tanyne's voice made him start.

  "What is it?"

  "If you will tell me what arrangements you would like for eating, I'll see to it that you get them."

  "You wouldn't know how," said Bril bluntly. He threw his sharp, cold gaze across the room and back. "You people don't build walls you can't see through, doors you can close."

  "Why, no, we don't." As always, the giant left the insult and took only the words.

  I bet you don't, Bril said silently, not even for—and a horrible suspicion began to grow with him. "We of Kit Carson feel that all human history and development are away from the animal, toward something higher. We are, of course, chained to the animal state, but we do what we can to eliminate every animal act as a public spectacle." Sternly, he waved a shining gauntlet at the great open house. "You have apparently not reached such an idealization. I have seen how you eat; doubtless you perform your other functions so openly."

  "Oh, yes," said Tanyne. "But with this—" he pointed "—it's hardly the same thing."

  "With what?"

  Tanyne again indicated one of the boulderlike objects. He tore off a clump of moss—it was real moss—and tossed it to the soft surface of one of the boulders. He reached down and touched one of the gray streaks. The moss sank into the surface the way a pebble will in quicksand, but much faster.

  "It will not accept living animal matter above a certain level of complexity," he explained, "but it instantly absorbs every molecule of anything else, not only on the surface but for a distance above."

  "And that's a—a—where you—"

  Tan nodded and said that that was exactly what it was.

  "But—anyone can see you!"

  Tan shrugged and smiled. "How? That's what I meant when I said it's hardly the same thing. Of eating, we make a social occasion. But this—" he threw another clump of moss and watched it vanish "—just isn't observed." His sudden laugh rang out and again he said, "I wish you'd learn the language. Such a thing is so easy to express."

  But Bril was concentrating on something else. "I appreciate your hospitality," he said, using the phrase stiltedly, "but I'd like to be moving on." He eyed the boulder distastefully. "And very soon."

  "As you wish. You have a message for Xanadu. Deliver it, then."

  "To your Government."

  "To our Government. I told you before, Bril—when you're ready, proceed."

  "I cannot believe that you represent this planet!"

  "Neither can I," said Tanyne pleasantly. "I don't. Through me, you can speak to forty-one others, all Senators."

  "Is there no other way?"

  Tanyne smiled. "Forty-one other ways. Speak to any of the others. It amounts to the same thing."

  "And no higher government body?"

  Tanyne reached out a long arm and plucked a goblet from a niche in the moss bank. It was chased crystal with a luminous metallic rim.

  "Finding the highest point of the government of Xanadu is like finding the highest point on this," he said. He ran a finger around the inside of the rim and the goblet chimed beautifully.

  "Pretty unstable," growled Bril.

  Tanyne made it sing again and replaced it; whether that was an answer or not, Bril could not know.

  He snorted, "No wonder the boy didn't know what Government was."

  "We don't use the term," said Tanyne. "We don't need it. There are few things here that a citizen can't handle for himself; I wish I could show you how few. If you'll live with us a while, I will show you."

  He caught Bril's eye squarely as it returned from another disgusted and apprehensive trip to the boulder, and laughed outright. But the kindness in his voice as he went on quenched Bril's upsurge of indignant fury, and a little question curled up: Is he managing me? But there wasn't time to look at it.

  "Can your business wait until you know us, Bril? I tell you now, there is no centralized Government here, almost no government at all; we of the Senate are advisory. I tell you, too, that to speak to one Senator is to speak to all, and that you may do it now, this minute, or a year from now—whenever you like. I am telling you the truth and you may accept it or you may spend months, years, traveling this planet and checking up on me; you'll always come out with the same answer."

  Noncommittally, Bril said, "How do I know that what I tell you is accurately relayed to the others?"

  "It isn't relayed," said Tan frankly. "We hear it simultaneously."

  "Some sort of radio?"

  Tan hesitated, then nodded. "Some sort of radio."

  "I won't learn your language," Bril said abruptly. "I can't live as you do. If you can accept those conditions, I will stay a short while."

  "Accept? We insist!" Tanyne bounded cheerfully to the niche where the goblet stood and held his palm up. A large, opaque sheet of a shining white material rolled down and stopped. "Draw with your fingers," he said.

  "Draw? Draw what?"

  "A place of your own. How you would like to live, eat; sleep, everything."

  "I require very little. None of us on Kit Carson do." He pointed the finger of his gauntlet like a weapon, made a couple of dabs in the corner of the screen to test the line, and then dashed off a very creditable parallelepiped. "Taking my height as one unit, I'd want this one-and-a-half long, one-and-a-quarter high. Slit vents at eye level, one at each end, two on each side, screened against insects—"

  "We have no preying insects," said Tanyne.

  "Screened anyway, and with as near an unbreakable mesh as you have. Here a hook suitable for hanging a garment. Here a bed, flat, hard, with firm padding as thick as my hand, one-and-one-eighth units long, one-third wide. All sides under the bed enclosed and equipped as a locker, impregnable, and to which only I have the key or combination. Here a shelf one-third by one-quarter units, one-half unit off the floor, suitable for eating from a seated posture.

  "One of—
those, if it's self-contained and reliable," he said edgily, casting a thumb at the boulderlike convenience. "The whole structure to be separate from all others on high ground and overhung by nothing—no trees, no cliffs, with approaches clear and visible from all sides; as strong as speed permits; and equipped with a light I can turn off and a door that only I can unlock."

  "Very well," said Tanyne easily. "Temperature?"

  "The same as this spot now."

  "Anything else? Music? Pictures? We have some fine moving—"

  Bril, from the top of his dignity, snorted his most eloquent snort. "Water, if you can manage it. As to those other things, this is a dwelling, not a pleasure palace."