The Summer Queen

by Joan D. Vinge

  “Because the idea of seeing a Police uniform or a Hegemonic representative ever again for as long as she lived did not appeal to her,” Gundhalinu murmured, remembering the day of their parting, and the Commander’s badges Jerusha PalaThion had taken from her own collar and pressed into his hands.

  He reached the edge of the dais, below the foot of the throne, and stopped, making a formal bow once more in acknowledgment of the woman who sat there. He lifted his head, meeting her gaze at last. “Lady,” he said softly, evenly.

  “Your eyes…” The words were barely audible; her eyes held him riveted. “I had forgotten your eyes … how they—” She broke off, but her face, which until that moment had been as rigidly expressionless as his, colored suddenly, betraying the strength of her hidden emotion. “Inspector Gundhalinu,” she said at last, speaking clearly and calmly. “Welcome back to Tiamat. I never expected that I would live to see … to see you again.” She smiled, a smile that touched him tenderly, without seeming to.

  Gundhalinu felt the cloud of tension in the group of men at his back dissolve; felt his face, which had seemed to him a moment ago to have frozen to death, actually begin to smile. “It’s Chief Justice Gundhalinu now, Lady. But I’m honored you still remember me, after so long.” He kept his eyes on only her, afraid now to look away and encounter any of the others witnessing what passed between them.

  Moon rose, moving forward until she stood at the edge of the raised dais, facing him directly. “It would be difficult to forget, even after so long, the kindness you did me then.” She held her hand out to him, and to his surprise met his own hand palm against palm, Kharemoughi-fashion, not clasping wrists as he remembered the Tiamatans doing. “It is good to see you again.”

  He let his hand fall away, feeling as if her touch had seared it, wondering if she felt the same thing. “I hope that … our relationship,” he stumbled imperceptibly on the word, “will be as mutually amicable in the years to come.”

  “So it has truly happened, that you’ve come back to Tiamat … that the Hegemony has. To stay.” Her glance flicked past him, touching the faces of Vhanu and the others in brief acknowledgment, and assessment. He looked past her at Sparks Dawntreader; looked away again. “The Millennium has finally come, as your people used to say.”

  He smiled, and nodded in wry amusement. “Yes. We have the stardrive again. It means a great change for both our peoples.”

  “For better or worse,” she murmured. Her eyes were dark, as if she had not been reassured by what she found in the faces of the men behind him. She turned away, moving back to her throne; but she did not sit down. She stood, with her own people flanking her. “The stardrive means that the relationship of the Hegemony and Tiamat will be permanent, from now on,” she said. “I hope that means that you intend to deal with us as you deal with your other member worlds. We deserve and desire equal citizenship with the rest of the Hegemony—equal right to leave and return, equal access to technology, equal treatment under your laws. We want a relationship based on autonomy and mutual cooperation. I hope that is the sort of change you mean. We’ve waited a millennium of our own for that to happen. I think we’ve waited long enough.”

  He stared at her, pressing his lips together to keep his smile from becoming a sudden grin of pleasure and admiration. “Your point is well taken, Lady,” he said, and nodded. “I think you’ll find that our vision of Tiamat’s future is more like your own, this time.” He hesitated, sensing the restlessness at his back. “We have observed that you’ve brought considerable change to Tiamat yourself, in the years since the Departure,” he went on, carefully. “Some of my people were surprised to find that you had made so much technological progress. That had not been our experience with previous Summer Queens. I told them that perhaps the gods … including your Sea Mother … have given both our people a gift.” He spoke the words reluctantly, knowing that he could not afford to ignore the obvious.

  Moon nodded serenely, although he was not really certain her confidence ran any deeper than his own. “Yes,” she said. “You have been given the stardrive, and we have been given the use of the sibyl network.”

  Gundhalinu felt the words pass through the listeners behind him like a sword. Mutterings of disbelief, questions in Sandhi, filled his ears. He heard a low, querulous voice accuse “that renegade bitch”—Jerusha PalaThion—of treason, of handing over the forbidden secret of enlightenment to the miserable primitives of Tiamat.

  He turned, taking a step up onto the dais so that he stood looking down on his companions as he ordered them sharply into silence. “Listen to me,” he said softly, in Sandhi. “How the people of this world learned the truth about the sibyl network is unimportant—it’s meaningless, it’s in the past. Do you understand me? Recriminations are pointless—the secret is out. Nothing can change that.” He held them with his eyes. “And frankly, I believe it no longer matters. As the Queen said, everything has changed about our relationship with this world. We no longer need ignorance as a weapon to control them during our absence—because there will be no Hegemonic absence, ever again. To keep the truth about the sibyls secret would be immoral—and not only that, it will be impossible, now.”

  There were more muttered protests, dark looks, abrupt angry motions; but the patch held. He stood his ground, staring them down until all protest subsided. He turned back to face the waiting Tiamatans, wondering how much, if anything, they had understood. He remembered that Moon knew some Sandhi, and so did Jerusha PalaThion. From Moon’s expression, she had at least guessed what the reaction to her words had been.

  And he realized, and suddenly appreciated, the intent behind her blunt revelation—the risk she had taken to deliver the message that she was neither ignorant of the truth, nor of their part in suppressing it. That she was in charge of her people’s future; that she was not afraid. And he recognized the other message that lay hidden within the words: That she trusted him … that she was not afraid to test him, or to rely on him. He smiled inwardly, and was suddenly aware that he was still standing on the dais—standing on her ground now, and not with his own people. He stepped down, still keeping her gaze. “Then both our peoples must learn to accept that the inevitable has come to pass for us, Lady—and make the best of it.”

  “Yes,” she said, and sat down, the motion full of control and grace. “So it seems.” Her hands closed over the convolutions of the throne arms.

  “There will be far too many other questions about every aspect of the reopening of Tiamat to begin addressing them here,” he said, pressing on. “Perhaps we can set up a schedule of preliminary meetings, with our advisors. But first I’d like to present my staff, with your permission.”

  She nodded, leaning back as she did, as if some part of her were instinctively shrinking away from contagion.

  “NR Vhanu, Commander of Police for the Tiamat sector…” He went on through the introductions; listening, watching, trying to gauge the responses of her people and his own as each of his administrators made a brief bow, and spoke a few awkward words in Tiamatan.

  Moon replied with guarded solicitude, her eyes frequently glancing away from the face of yet another alien-looking stranger to his face. When he had finished she rose from the throne again, and introduced the small gathering of advisors who surrounded her on the dais. She named Jerusha PalaThion as her Chief of Constables, and the blind woman, Fate Ravenglass, as the head of something she called the Sibyl College. There were a handful of civic leaders, both Winters and Summers—Tor Starhiker, the woman who had stared at him as if she knew him, among them. There were other sibyls, including a man with a Winter clan affiliation.

  “… and my family—” she said at last, “You have met my daughter already, I think.” She smiled briefly at Ariele, who shifted from foot to foot beside the throne, looking restless and uncomfortable as she met Gundhalinu’s eyes. “And my pledged—” he felt her almost self-consciously using the Tiamatan word, and not the offworlder term “husband,” “Sparks Dawntread
er Summer.”

  Gundhalinu met Dawntreader’s gaze, realizing as he did that he had been avoiding it. Dawntreader’s expression was neutral now, under control. There was no real recognition in his gaze to match the suspicion.

  “I believe we’ve met,” Gundhalinu said, unable to stop the words.

  “Where?” Dawntreader asked, taken by surprise.

  “In a dark alley.”

  “I don’t remember you,” Dawntreader said flatly.

  “Do you still play the flute?”

  Dawntreader’s expression changed suddenly, as realization filled his eyes. He glanced at Jerusha PalaThion, away again as she nodded. He grimaced. “Yes,” he said finally.

  “My son also plays the flute,” Moon said, gesturing someone else forward from behind the crystal throne.

  A boy stepped up beside her almost reluctantly; it was difficult to tell, looking at him, whether he was younger or older than the girl. Gundhalinu struggled to control his response, seeing a second nearly grown child of the lover he had left behind so long ago; yet another reminder that she had been someone else’s wife through all these years, and not his own.

  But as the dark-haired boy stopped at his mother’s side and raised his head, Gundhalinu felt astonishment pass through him like light through a prism.

  “This is my son.…” Moon said. “Tammis.” And all at once her voice seemed oddly changed, distorted by the same emotion, and he knew that she saw what he saw, as he met the boy’s stare—met eyes too much like his own looking back at him from a face where they did not belong, the face of another man’s son.

  “A pleasure,” he murmured; seeing curiosity and uncertainty begin to seep into the boy’s expression, as if he almost realized the same thing. Gundhalinu glanced at Sparks Dawntreader, saw that the sudden surprise had spread to his face; saw his surprise darken. Gundhalinu looked back at Moon again; at the change that had come over her own face, at once anguish and wonder, as she looked at them both; looked at them, all three.… I had forgotten your eyes.

  He looked from face to face again, suddenly comprehending the real change he had forced on all of their lives, including his own … and that it was far more irrevocable than he had ever imagined.

  PART II: THE RETURN

  After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

  .… Unnatural vices

  Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues

  Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.

  These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.

  —T. S. Eliot

  TIAMAT: Carbuncle

  “Jerusha PalaThion to see you, sir,” the disembodied voice of his aide informed him.

  “Send her in.” BZ Gundhalinu rose from the chair behind his desk/terminal, where he had been sitting for what his body told him was far too long. He stretched, hearing joints crack, shaking the fog of data and fatigue out of his head.

  His aide, Stathis, showed Jerusha PalaThion into his office. Nearly six months had passed since his arrival on Tiamat, and this was the first time she had entered this room. She paused just inside the door, taking in her surroundings with the unthinking glance of a trained observer before she looked back at him. “Justice Gundhalinu,” she said, with a nod and a sudden, slightly bemused smile. Her hand moved almost imperceptibly, as if she had felt the urge to salute him, and he read incredulity as well as pride in her gaze.

  “Commander,” he murmured. He made a formal salute, giving her the acknowledgment of her old Police rank even though, in her present position as head of the local constabulary, it was hardly what it had been.

  Jerusha returned the salute solemnly, perfectly; irony widened her smile. “It’s been a long time since we stood like this, BZ,” she said. “The last time it was to say goodbye.”

  “I still have the Commander’s badges you gave me off your old uniform.” He smiled too, remembering. “You said then I’d need them someday. I hardly believed you. But you were right.” He shook his head.

  “And now you’ve outgrown them.” She nodded at his trefoil.

  He glanced down; gestured her toward a seat. “Help yourself to some food. I haven’t had lunch yet.” He looked at his watch, and realized that it was nearly time for dinner. A platter with an untouched meal on it still lay on the low, rectangular greeting-table. He sat down across from her in one of the solid, wood-framed native chairs. They were all the furniture to be had, until the flow of imported goods had satisfied the new government’s vast and immediate technological needs, and ships had space in their holds for less vital commodities. “It’ll take me a minute to clear out my head, anyway. I’ve been reviewing data the hard way for most of the afternoon. Gods, I’d forgotten the kind of aggravation we had to put up with in the old days here—” The embargoes and restrictions that had existed when he served here before had meant that even the Police were forced to make do with outmoded, inadequate data systems.

  “You didn’t know the half of it, then,” Jerusha said, taking a piece of cold fish. “You were only an inspector. When I became Commander of Police, I found out what real red tape was. I expect you know what I mean now.”

  “For several years now, unfortunately.” He nodded, matching her grimace. He chose what appeared to be a vegetable fritter, and began to eat it. It was cold and greasy, but he was hungry enough not to care.

  “It’s a lot of water under the bridge since we said our goodbyes. What have you been doing all these years, BZ? I’ve heard—well, call them rumors.” She glanced significantly at the walls, the air. She looked back at him for a moment, before she casually touched her ear. He nodded. Their conversation was being recorded; everything that happened here was on the record.

  “Developing the stardrive technology, on Number Four, and back on Kharemough.” He shrugged slightly. “Two excellent training grounds in bureaucracy.”

  Her gaze met his, reading what lay behind the self-effacing words. “I thought you said you’d never go back to Kharemough again, after … what happened here.”

  He glanced away, remembering the scars he had borne then—the marks of his suicide attempt, the crippled image of himself. “I said then that there were two worlds I never expected to see again—that one, and this one. Kharemough and Tiamat. And I believed it, then. But what happened on Four changed both those things for me.”

  “You discovered the truth about Fire Lake.” She shook her head. “I know that part. And you became a sibyl.” She smiled again. “I suppose that’s all the explanation I really need.”

  “What about you?” he asked. “The last time we spoke together I was getting on the last ship going up from here at the Final Departure—and you weren’t. I’m still not sure what gave you the courage to stay, when you believed it would be forever. I didn’t have that kind of courage.…” He shook his head.

  “It was as much desperation—or pride—that made me stay, as it was courage,” she said. “And it was love.…” He realized that she did not mean a love of justice, or some noble ideal; she meant human love. He felt himself flush, as if she had somehow spoken his own deepest thoughts. He reminded himself fiercely that she was telling him about her life, not his, in the years since the Departure; and he felt incredulity fill him again.

  “Really—?” he said softly. She had always seemed to him to wear self-reliance like body armor, when she had been his commanding officer and the only woman on the force. He found it almost impossible to believe someone had gotten through her defenses far enough to capture her heart … that it had somehow happened right in front of his eyes, and he had never even noticed. “Who?” he asked.

  “Ngenet ran Ahase Miroe.”

  He scratched his nose, searching his memory. “Gods—” he said suddenly. “Him? That one? The smuggler—?”

  Her smile filled with unexpected sorrow as she nodded. “That’s the one.”

  He shook his head. “Strange bedfellows,” he murmured.

  “More alike than you know,” she said, again with the strange so
rrow in it. “For better or worse.”

  “So that was why you stayed, then.”

  “Not entirely.” A flicker of the old defiance showed in her eyes. “I told you then, I wasn’t a quitter. What gave me the courage to … trust my heart, was knowing the truth. About what Moon Dawntreader was. About what she wanted to do, making the Change mean something. Miroe wanted that too. I knew it was work we could both give our lives to, willingly.”

  He smiled, nodding; his smile faded as the animation went out of her face. “Are you still married?” he asked, carefully.

  She shook her head. “Miroe died, a little over a year ago. An accident. A fall.”

  His face pinched. “I’m sorry,” he said, understanding now what had changed her so painfully and profoundly. The measuring intelligence was still there in her eyes, but something was missing. Since he had last seen her, she had spent close to twenty years, hard years, on a hard world; but it was not so much that her body had aged. It seemed to him that what had been lost was the thing he had always admired most about her: her stubborn resistance to fate.

  “So am I.” She looked up at him again. “Every day.”

  “Do you have any children?” he asked, to fill the awkward silence.

  She shook her head, and her expression then was too mixed to read. At last it became curiosity, as she looked back at him; but she did not ask the question he read in her eyes. She picked up a piece of pickled meat, elaborately noncommittal. “But the past is behind us, now, anyway,” she murmured. “History. The Change has come, and we’re supposed to cast off our old lives, try on new ones.”

  “I thought that only applied after the proper rituals, when the Sea Mother gave her blessing,” he said, with a smile.

  Jerusha raised her eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you believe in that, now—”

  He shook his head. “Don’t tell me that you do.”

  She shrugged. “But things have changed, whether we want them to or not—haven’t they?” She looked at him speculatively. “Everyone was afraid, on some level, that the Hegemony’s coming back would mean we’d be crushed under its boot again.”