by J. Naomi Ay
My grandmother whispered something about my dad and the Empress, but I didn't believe it. I had seen the Empress. Once she even spoke to me. She had hard icy blue eyes that seemed to look right into your brain at all your thoughts. She made me feel as if she could bite off my head if she wanted to.
My mother and Aunt Lookah said she was nice even though she had been a Starship Captain in the Allied Spaceforce. I couldn't imagine my dad even trying to do anything with her. I could imagine her putting a bullet in him or slashing him with a light sword as she did to the evil Prince Akan.
I once told this to my mom, and she laughed and said I had it wrong. It was the Emperor who could read your thoughts and who had no qualms killing anyone that pissed him off.
After that, I steered clear of the both of them by hiding in the back of the Temple when the Emperor came to worship, or working in the distant fields if the Empress was visiting our village.
Even though my dad was a lesser prince and me even lesser still, my mom wasn't anything at all. She came from the village of Kirkut which was across three mountain passes and in the middle of the continent. It took four weeks to get there on horseback. If we had speeders like the Mishaks, we might have gotten there in an hour, but we in Karupatani still followed the old ways.
My mom was Seesi, my dad's third wife and twenty years younger than him. She was barely sixteen when they met and only seventeen when they got married. I was born a month later, so it was obvious what had happened.
Seesi said she was descended from the original Duke of Kirkut, but my Sister Mother Carina told me that was a big lie. The only true descendant of Kirkut, his daughter Elise, ended up marrying into the Shrotru family and staying in the village of Shrotru and my mom didn't have any relations there.
This meant my mom's people didn't come from Rozari at all, but were the original Lightie people who had owned Karupatani before the Great Father Karukan arrived.
I guess that wasn't important anyway as my dad had enough royal genes, having been descended from the de Kudishas, the de Shrotrus, and de Kirkuts.
At any rate, I was way down on the totem pole, practically buried in the dirt beneath my eleven brothers. The line of succession had to pass through all of them and my nephews before it got anywhere near me.
I didn't have any whole brothers or sisters as my dad lost interest in my mom shortly after I was born. He moved on to others although my mom was the last one he married and as far as we knew, he didn't have any more kids.
Sister Mother Carina ran our house, and Sister Mother Letitia worked our garden, while Mother Seesi taught in the school house but only to the younger grades. Seesi couldn't do anything beyond basic sums, and her reading sounded the best when no one else could read the words. She had lots of patience for the little kids and was perfectly happy to spend all her time coloring pictures or stacking blocks with them. She never minded their dirty diapers either. Seesi lost it with me when I approached my teen years and needed more than a kiss to heal my pains.
Most of my brothers had all left Karupatani and were dispersed all over the Empire by the time I turned fourteen. Some of them had gone off to the universities and others joined the SpaceNavy or the Imperial Guard.
Tuman, the oldest, and throughout my life, the largest star in my sky, was serving in the Imperial SpaceNavy on a Starship somewhere.
The only two that remained in Karupatani were the twins, Lehot and Daneh, the sons of Letitia. They worked the farms and the fields after they both bombed out in school. The both married early to another set of twins and already had started breeding their own. I had never liked either one of them. Most of the time, I couldn’t tell them apart anyway. Being twins they never had a need for anyone other than themselves Most family dinners, they looked at me, their eyebrows raised in tandem, an expression of wonder on their identical faces as if they had never seen me before I showed up here at their table.
My grandfather, also called Tuman, returned to Karupatani when I was about seven years old. He had disappeared more than thirty years earlier, after the village was massacred by the evil Prince Akan. Why he had left and taken so long to return, I hadn't understood, and I wasn't particularly interested either. He had tried once or twice to tell me his stories when he lived on another planet and spent his years fishing a warm ocean. I wanted to hear tales of sword fights and lasers, of destroying aliens by blasting them into bits. All he could talk about was ugly three-eyed fish, or how challenging skinning an octopus was if your knife wasn't very sharp.
"Then I saw the Empress," he said one evening as we sat on his porch, whittling wood carvings to sell in my Aunt Lookah's store. "She was living in a hut on the beach."
"I've already heard this story," I replied sharply. "And then you both rang for a spaceplane and came home."
My grandfather looked at me for a moment, his dark eyes neither angry nor sad, just studying me as if he too could reach into my brain and my thoughts.
"You're so young, Pedah." He sighed with what sounded like disappointment. "You are like my brother, your namesake in many ways. Like him, you are so impatient for life to begin. Don't hurry, grandson. It will come soon enough."
At that point, I mistakenly carved too sharply and cut off the horse figure's leg.
"Kari-fa!" I swore and tossed my work into the fire. "I don't want to do this anymore."
"What do you want?" Grandfather asked his eyes still boring into me though his hands continued to carve.
"I want to watch the vid. Why must I only see a movie twice a year when we visit Mishnah? Why can't I have a vid here in my house like everyone else in this bloody empire? Why must we live like people from a millennia ago? Our cousin is the greatest Emperor in the galaxy, and we don't even have internet."
Grandfather shrugged and took his eyes away. "Some of us find this life peaceful and do not wish for all those modern things."
"Internet is not modern," I grumbled and snapped my knife closed. "Kari-fa, if I had my own speeder, I'd be flying everywhere on this planet instead of being trapped here with all of you and a horse that needs to be fed."
"Go." My grandfather waved turning his shoulder to me. "Go to Mishnah. Go to Rozari. Go to wherever your heart takes you."
"I will." I rose to my feet and went into our house, calling to my grandfather over my shoulder as if my situation was all his fault. "As soon as I finish high school, the day I graduate, I'm out of here. I'll go to the University, and then I'll never come back."
"I've heard this before," he mumbled as I slammed the door.
Sure. With seventeen grandchildren, he probably had heard it a lot.
I wasn't a particularly good student at school in Karupatani. Sure, I did alright at coloring pictures and stacking blocks. High school was boring, and my grades were only fair, even though everyone kept telling me that I could do better if I tried. I was smart enough. I never doubted my intelligence. I just couldn't be bothered to study. Why should I learn about history or physics when neither was relevant to my life?
"Because you still need to get admitted to the University," my grandfather lectured. "You can't get in there on just your good looks."
"But I can with my last name," I retorted because it was true.
He knew it, too. We all had a free pass. With marginal grades and an endowment from the Emperor, I followed my brothers to the University of Turko. I joined a fraternity and learned how to party. I drank and smoked my way through every weekend. During the weekdays, I made an effort to go to class, but the lectures were boring and put me to sleep. Some days I skipped school and others I might as well have for I passed out as soon as I sat down in my chair.
"You screw up in school," my father said one of the few times I was home. "You'll be back here shoeing horses and shoveling manure."
"He could join the SpaceNavy,” my mother whispered and then bit her lip preparing for my father to snap at her to shut her mouth.
Father was already well into his drink and not paying attention to t
he conversation anymore.
"You don't want to join the SpaceNavy, Pedah," Sister Mother Carina lectured while reaching for the meat. "Without a degree, you'll be just a spaceman. You need to go in as an officer or not at all."
"Of course, he'll be an officer," Sister Mother Letitia interrupted. She spoke with her mouth wide open and full of potatoes. My grandmother always said Letitia acted like a peasant even though Grandmother spoke the same way. "He's a de Kudisha prince, is he not? Doesn't that mean he gets a special dispensation?"
"Absolutely not," Carina snapped. "My Tuman had to work twice as hard as any other. He has an engineering degree." She pointed her fork at me. "And still he had to scrub the floors of the toilet."
"As did Shika," my grandfather added and winked at me while nodding his head. "Shika had to work harder than anyone else so don't think that you'll get a pass. Go back to school and study hard, Pedah. Give it your best and you'll turn out alright. I have full faith and confidence in you."
"I will, Grandfather," I mumbled between bites though something told me, it was too late. The term was almost over, and my grades were poor. In fact, they were so bad I might be kicked out of the university.
"Are you doing alright in school?" my grandmother asked. I nodded and tried to smile reassuringly. I could tell from the thin line of her smile that she didn’t believe me.
I decided not to go back to school. I decided to take my tuition money and go somewhere else. I didn't have to stay in this backwater, and I didn't have to study. I told everyone that's where I was going, but I didn't. Instead, I bought myself a ticket to Derius II, the same place Grandfather hid out instead of living here. He always said the beaches were awesome, and the weather was always great. I'd hang out there for a while, maybe do a little fishing like he did. Maybe I'd come back and maybe I wouldn't. I'd just see what fate had in store for me.
Chapter 7
Jerry
"Don't you think it's kind of rude?" Janet remarked and then took a sip of her beer.
I glanced over at Thad, who was pacing just outside the pub on the boardwalk. Up and down he went, oblivious to the skaters who narrowly avoided him. Tourists wandered past him while he talked on his cell, scratching the back of his head which was already showing a pretty significant bald spot.
"He's busy." I shrugged and sipped my own beer, alternating it with handfuls of popcorn from the basket.
I liked this pub. They always had fresh air popped corn that was sprinkled with olive oil and just a pinch of sea salt. Popcorn like this was actually very healthy, full of fiber. The oil added good Omega 3s too. The beer was a local microbrew and rich with bone-building silicon. Overall, happy hour here was almost like a trip to the gym.
"Yeah, but he came to visit us so he should get off the phone and visit." Janet downed the rest of her glass. "Hey," she yelled to the waitress, waving the now empty popcorn basket. "We need more over here."
Thad had reached the end of the boardwalk, the point where the cracked cement just fell off into the sand. Instead of returning, he just stood there scratching his head and looking up at the sky, the phone still plastered to his ear.
"You gonna order food tonight?" The barmaid tossed another two baskets of popcorn onto the table in front of us. "Otherwise, I got someone else to sit at this table."
"Yeah? Who?" Janet turned and made a show of looking at the door where a few tourists milled about reading the chalk board which listed the entire selection of beers. "Who you got that's more important than Duke Kalika-hahr?"
"I don't see no duke of nothing around here. I only see a couple of quack Moonbeams. Next time you want more popcorn, you get up and get it yourself."
"Sure," Janet replied. "And next week when you come in for your chiropractic adjustment, you do it yourself too."
Janet thought she was funny and showed me her knuckles so I would bump them in agreement. I wasn't in a knuckle bumping mood. Thad looked seriously disturbed practically scratching a hole in the back of his head as he continued his conversation.
"I wonder what's wrong."
"Maybe he's breaking up with his latest girlfriend," Janet suggested as the sky became dark.
A cloud or something moved across the Derian star for a moment, leaving us all suddenly in the shade. Eventually, Thad returned to our table pulling up his chair and waving for a beer.
"So guys," he said, smiling as if nothing was wrong. "What's on the agenda for tonight?"
"A little drink, a little food. Maybe we could go back to our house, sit on the deck and chat. Whatever you want, Thad." I raised my glass in a half toast.
"So what was that call about?" Janet asked as her waitress friend arrived with a platter of nachos.
"Sweet," Thad whistled through his teeth, referring to the waitress instead of the food. "What time does the entertainment start?"
"Any time you want it, Duke." The waitress smiled and tugged at the overly tight top she was wearing. I thought it made her look like a sausage in a wrap. Obviously, Thad had a different opinion.
"How about a lap dance right now?" Thad pulled out a hundred dollar note with Ron's face on it. "I have this just waiting to tip someone."
"Put it right here, sugar." The waitress grinned and leaned forward so Thad could stick it in her impressive cleavage. I couldn't help but imagine how Ron would feel having his face nestled where it was right now. "I get off at midnight, Duke Who-Ever-You-Are. It'll be a pleasure to serve your royal self."
"I love being a duke." Thad smiled broadly, turning back to us, and reaching for the obnoxious pile of chips, jalapenos, beans and cheese. "Bring me another pint of dark ale on your way back, sweetheart."
"Another light beer for you, Dr. Moonbeam?"
"No, I'm still working on this one." I smiled and raised my glass again. The waitress ran her hand across Thad's head and as she sauntered away.
"So Thad," Janet smiled through gritted teeth, "how's Gina?"
"Gina? Good. Real Good. Whoa, Jer. Get a load of that hot babe at the bar."
Janet rolled her eyes. I glanced at the blonde in the tight shorts and t-shirt, who was leaning over the bar to get some popcorn out of the machine. Her position, not unlike the Downward Facing Dog, gave everyone behind her a good look at her ass…assets.
"Are we ordering dinner?" Janet demanded.
Thad was obviously preoccupied.
"I thought we were going to dinner at the Fish Shack,” my wife continued. “I'm ready for chowder. If not, I'm going to head home. As entertaining as this is, I'd rather put my feet up and read a book, than watch Thad hit on everyone here. Frankly, I'd rather watch grass grow than this."
"Sure, no problem, Janet." Thad rose and headed toward the bar himself. "Good seeing you."
"I'm out of here," Janet snapped and left, glaring at me as if I was responsible for Thad's behavior.
I sat at the table by myself eating the nachos, watching Thad cruise. I wondered what Ron thought about Thad's adventures these days, or if he even cared.
Back in the old days, when I was still practicing at SdK Rozari, all employees had to maintain a certain standard of dignity and decorum. The rules were more strict there than in Spaceforce. Messing around on his wife like this would have gotten Thad immediately dismissed. Ron had upped Thad to a duke a few years ago. Maybe Thad's new royal status gave him a pass on everything.
"Moonbeam." The Sherriff sat down next to me, a beer in his hand.
"Lew." I nodded and then pushed over the plate of nachos. "Help yourself."
"Come on, Moonbeam. You know better than anyone my digestion can't handle any of that."
"Live a little, Lew," I replied and took one small chip myself.
Lew had been in last week for a calendula ointment to use on his hemorrhoids. I wanted to ask him how they were doing, but it probably wasn't good conversation for a bar.
"You know that guy?" Lew pointed a chip at Thad. A bit of salsa dripped off the chip onto the table, mixing with some popcorn kernels and spilt
beer.
"Yes, that's Thad, Duke of Kalika-hahr."
Picking up a napkin, I swabbed at the spill. I hated these crummy brown recycled napkins. We used to have these on the ship. In the cafeteria at SdK Rozari, the napkins were thick and white and so soft you could wrap a baby's bottom in them. They all had the SdK logo on them and later the Eagle Coat of Arms in gold. That was right before Ron took over the planet Rozari, just before I moved here.
Lew nodded and ate a large portion of the nachos, his eyes still fastened on Thad. "He bring his own speeder?"
"A rental," I replied, recalling the Lexus that was parked outside my house.
"If he gets too drunk to drive, you make him stay home tonight. Got that, Moonbeam? I don't care what kind of fancy duke he is. I don’t care if he's the Emperor's best bud. You don’t let him get behind that wheel wasted. Right, Moonbeam?"
"Right Lew," I replied and now wiped my mouth with one of those lousy napkins. It practically fell apart in my hand. "And just for the record, he is the Emperor's best friend, one of them anyway. Or at least he used to be."
Lew sniffed as if he didn't care, and then grabbing a few more nachos, he ambled away from my table.
I watched Thad move around the bar a little while longer. Each stop he made was in front of a different girl. Each time he stopped, he refilled his glass. Eventually, when my own glass was drained, and the cheese on the nachos had gotten cold and pooled into droplets of milk fat, I got up and reminded Thad I was still here.
"Let's go get something to eat," I said trying to pull him away from a red-head that had her hands on Thad's pockets, probably feeling up his wallet.
"Oh, sorry, Jer. I guess I'm not all that hungry for food. Go ahead without me. We'll catch up later."
"Sure, Thad." I paid the bill for the nachos and the bar tab so far, and then I left a nice tip on the table.
After that, I walked home by myself. It was a pleasant night, around seventy degrees. The ocean was calm and far away in a low tide. The sky was filled with billions of stars, and an occasional spaceplane soared across the horizon.