The Summer Queen

by Joan D. Vinge

  Gundhalinu frowned slightly. He wondered how much Wayaways really knew—if he really knew anything—about the struggle with his own Judiciate members and chiefs of staff, including Vhanu, to win their support and gain even that grudging concession from the Central Committee. “There is also the matter of whether continuing unrestricted slaughter of the mers, sentient or not, will cause them to become extinct … and a study needs to be done concerning the feasibility of synthesizing the water of life…” He let his voice run on through all the arguments he had used to sway his own council, not sure why he felt compelled to justify himself, except that something in Wayaways’ tone put him instinctively on the defensive. He didn’t like the feeling, any more than he liked the man. “Do you have some personal interest in this matter?” He took the offensive again. “I seem to remember reviewing your applications. You were the first to request that your holdings be hunted—”

  Wayaways made an unreadable gesture. “Is that against the law?”

  “No,” Gundhalinu said, aware that Vhanu was looking at him sidelong.

  “Then why shouldn’t I put in my application? It’s no more than what I’ve always done.… Well, of course, you’re too young to remember that far back…” He shrugged again. “You were only on Tiamat for … what? About five years, before the Change. I seem to remember seeing you at Arienrhod’s court, along with Commander—Chief Inspector—PalaThion, when she was only an inspector. In fact, I remember an amusing incident.…” He broke off, as Gundhalinu’s expression darkened. “But you’ve probably forgotten that encounter with Starbuck, long since. I remember much more vividly that spectacularly heroic moment during the final Festival, when young Inspector Gundhalinu burst in on the mob in the Hall of the Winds, as Arienrhod was trying to have Moon Dawntreader thrown into the Pit. You single-handedly saved the woman who became the new Queen.”

  “Ye gods,” Vhanu murmured in Sandhi, looking at Gundhalinu as if he had never seen him before. “Thou never told me about that, BZ.”

  “He exaggerates,” Gundhalinu said abruptly, answering in the same language. “Moon Dawntreader saved herself, Wayaways—” switching back to Tiamatan, “or don’t you remember how she stopped the wind, when you were in the hall with the rest of the mob?”

  “Yes, I do remember.” Wayaways shook his head. “Incredible. How does she do that? Did she ever tell you?… But you’re too modest, Justice. The mob would have had her anyway, if you hadn’t shown them your Police badge and faced them down.”

  “Father of all my grandfathers,” Vhanu said. “Why would the Snow Queen want to kill Moon Dawntreader in the first place? Arienrhod surely couldn’t know that she would become Queen.”

  “Well, because Moon was—” Wayaways hesitated, glancing suddenly at Gundhalinu, his gaze like a spotlight, “a sibyl. You know, Commander, how stupidly superstitious we used to be about sibyls, before the Summer Queen enlightened us.” He laughed. Gundhalinu pressed his mouth together. “But there was more to it, there was Sparks Dawntreader, Moon’s pledged. The Queen had him for a lover, and Moon wanted him back. Jealousy is one of the great random factors in history, you know. But I probably don’t need to tell you gentlemen that, considering the positions you find yourselves in.” His eyes danced speculatively from Gundhalinu’s face to Vhanu’s, and back. “It’s no wonder the Queen is so fond of you, Justice. She must have been someone special to you back then for you to risk your life for her.”

  “I was doing my sworn duty as a Police Officer.” Gundhalinu looked straight ahead, frowning again. “That was all.”

  “But you chose to come back to Tiamat, after all this time, knowing she was Queen. And the way you’ve supported her policies—”

  “That has nothing to do with the present.”

  “I say, BZ, how did you come to know Moon Dawntreader?” Vhanu asked. The faintly scandalized fascination still showed in his eyes.

  “Really, he never told you—?” Wayaways exclaimed, in mock surprise.

  “It’s a long story, and exceedingly unremarkable,” Gundhalinu said, his voice grating.

  “Not the version I heard,” Wayaways protested. “Something about techrunners, and nomad thieves up in the interior; that the two of you were lost together—”

  “We’re here.” Gundhalinu stopped abruptly, cutting Wayaways off. He looked up at the newly installed sign above the ancient doorway, which marked the reopened Survey Hall. He turned back to Wayaways, meeting the Tiamatan’s gaze with a stare of cold warning. “Some other time,” he said. He looked back at Vhanu, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  Wayaways nodded and shrugged. “Until then,” he said, gracefully retreating. “Have a pleasant evening. The Survey Hall must seem like a haven of peace and respite for strangers like yourselves, far from home.” He raised his hand in farewell, turning away, disappearing into the crowd even as he spoke the words.

  Gundhalinu stared at the Tiamatan’s retreating back; his body quivered, caught between the urge to go after Wayaways, and the urge to be rid of him. He looked back at Vhanu, finally.

  “A chance remark?” Vhanu murmured. His expression said that he doubted it.

  Gundhalinu shook his head. “No.”

  “I thought there were no Tiamatan members of Survey,” Vhanu said.

  “So did I.” Gundhalinu turned back, looking toward the dark, shadowed rectangle of the building entrance, below the static image that displayed only a single data figure, the ancient star-and-compass symbol of the order. He had never seen a Tiamatan face inside this building, when he had visited the Hall during his previous tour of duty on Tiamat. He had been told that the locals were excluded from membership, and he had simply accepted it. But back then he had thought that this was merely a social club. He had not known then anything of what he knew now … about the secrets this building held, even from the majority of its membership; or the secrets within secrets signified by that symbol above its door. He looked back at the crowd eddying past along the Street. Wayaways had disappeared.

  “He must have picked up the expression during the previous occupation. He seems to have collected a great deal of unexpected information.…” Vhanu glanced at Gundhalinu again; curiosity still glinted through his doubt and concern.

  “He was a user.… I suppose anything is possible,” Gundhalinu said, still frowning. Even that he is Survey. But not the one they knew and served.

  “A user—of people?” Vhanu asked.

  “Of the water of life.” Gundhalinu’s mouth pulled down. “Of people too. I wouldn’t trust anything he says, if I were you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Vhanu nodded. But Gundhalinu felt Vhanu’s eyes linger speculatively on him a moment longer.

  He shook off his unease, cursing Wayaways under his breath for making him doubt the one man he really depended on, for making that man doubt him, even for a moment. He went in under the overhang, into sudden darkness; pushed through the ancient, windowpaned doors and on into the light.

  Superficially the Survey Hall was just as he remembered it from before: one large main room for social functions, with smaller offices and meeting rooms above it. Now he knew there were rooms within the rooms, hidden inside each other like Samathan votive-boxes. The main room was still rather spartan, with few of the odd souvenirs of other worlds that had formerly decorated its walls and native-crafted shelves, an accretion of mementos that had been left there by visiting members over a century and a half. He wondered what had become of the old collection; supposed the things had been carried off by the locals, or thrown away.

  The room was sparsely populated tonight, even though this was the night of a scheduled meeting. There simply were not enough Survey members on-planet yet to fill the Hall. It was late enough for them to have missed the somewhat tedious pattern of rituals that had opened this evening’s gathering, at least. Most of the men and few women stood clustered together in small conversational groups, eating and drinking desultorily, or huddled on the clusters of cushioned benches in
the ghostly light of their dozen gaming tables.

  The air was rich with the mingled odors of various recreational drugs—none of them on the prescribed list, since the majority of people in this room were wearing the uniform of the Hegemonic Police. He wondered what they would think if they knew what kind of mind-altering substances were sometimes used in the hidden rooms just behind these walls—just beyond their knowledge. It astonished him to think of some of the drugs he himself had been forced to take, under strict supervision, to guide him toward deeper levels of insight and strengthen his concentration.

  There were a few random non-uniformed figures, dressed in the melange of styles typical of the Hegemony’s disparate cultures. Out of habit his eyes took in each outsider, seeing loose robes, pragmatic coveralls, lace-edged funeral foppery.… His gaze caught on a figure standing across the room, leaning against the wall beside the mantel above an artificial hearth. The figure wore loose pants and robes of a deep midnight blue; face and head were almost entirely covered by the serpentine folds of a night-blue length of scarf. All that he could see were eyes, gazing back at him through a narrow window of exposed flesh. He felt vision and memory make a connection abruptly: Ondinee. His immediate image of a traditional Ondinean was that the women covered their faces among strangers, not the men; but this one wore a man’s garments. He remembered hearing about a perversely independent cult that defied the dominant theocracy; where the women went unveiled and were not treated like slaves, where the men covered their faces instead, probably as much to escape persecution by the government as to preserve their spiritual essence.

  The man looked away abruptly, just as it struck him that he was being studied in turn, and began to inspect some object on the mantel.

  Gundhalinu turned back to Vhanu, telling himself that he had probably imagined the man was staring at him; that his nerves were on edge. Vhanu had drifted away into a conversation with YA Tilhonne, Pernatte’s grandnephew. Mithra Kitaro, the Police inspector he had first met at KR Aspundh’s, approached him to ask whether he needed anything. He requested lilander, allowing himself that indulgence. He sat down on a bench and activated the gaming table in front of him; not really in the mood to play games, but needing some semblance of social activity to cover a few moments of uninterrupted thought.

  He was not sure what Kirard Set Wayaways had wanted from their unexpected encounter, but he was certain that Wayaways’ intent had been neither harmless, nor casual. He decided that he would speak with Jerusha PalaThion about it, privately, tomorrow.…

  He glanced up again, realizing that it was not for the first time, to check on the Ondinean. The other man had moved a short distance away, and was talking to a Kharemoughi whose back was turned to Gundhalinu. The Ordinean glanced past the other man’s shoulder at Gundhalinu, as if he felt himself being looked at.

  Kitaro returned with a tall lilac-tinted glass of lilander. He touched Kitaro’s arm as she handed him the drink. Gesturing unobtrusively at the Ondinean, he asked, “Do you know that man?”

  Kitaro glanced away, and back. “Only that he’s a stranger far from home.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  Kitaro looked at him, surprised. “Absolutely, Justice. He wouldn’t be inside, otherwise.” Not only human intervention, but also certain hidden surveillance checks made certain of it. “I remember seeing him before. Is something the matter?”

  “No.” Gundhalinu shook his head. “Just curious. I suppose I wore that uniform,” gesturing at Kitaro’s blue tunic, “for too long. A man who hides his face makes me nervous.” But he knew, in his gut, that what bothered him was not so simple. It wasn’t the man’s hidden face. Something about the way he carried himself, the way he moved, was familiar. Gundhalinu knew that body language, in the same way he might have recognized the work of a familiar artist, deep in the nonverbal sectors of his brain. But the part of his mind that thought it knew could not speak, and the part that could, couldn’t remember.

  He sipped the lilander, letting its pungent sweetness fill his senses and still his impatience. Maybe it was only his imagination, after a day full of nerve-racking, tense debates, and an evening’s walk filled with unpleasant innuendos.… But he found himself on his feet again, moving not-quite-casually across the room in the direction of the Ondinean, who seemed to drift away with equally deceptive randomness … or was he just imagining that too? But the part of his brain that was still taking the measure of every movement the stranger made told him he was not.

  He reached the mantel, with its dark, fancifully carved supports and its litter of small, foreign oddities. He picked up the thing he had seen the Ondinean handle. It was a silver vial, almost like a perfume bottle. He studied it for a moment, trying to remember where he had seen such a thing before. Recognition caught him suddenly, painfully: It was a container for the water of life. Not the liquor, but the genuine water of life, the extract from the blood of mers.

  He turned it around in his fingers, handling it carefully, cautiously. It had not been here a few days ago. Where had this come from? Who would have left such a thing here? He looked up, searching the room. Or had the Ondinean put it there himself? The Ondinean had his back turned now, as if he were oblivious to whatever Gundhalinu was doing; although Gundhalinu was certain he was not. The water of life … It had been on his mind ever since he had arrived here. It had been in his thoughts and on his lips constantly for the past weeks, as he had hammered out his compromise with the Judiciate and the representatives from the Central Coordinating Committee. Finding this here, now, he felt as if he had conjured it up out of his own preoccupation.

  But he had not. Someone had left it there, intentionally—and in this Hall, there were no coincidences. He reached into the belt pouch underneath his jacket and pulled out a scanner, part of the Police-issue equipment he still habitually carried with him. He ran a full scan on the vial, measuring and recording everything that could be known about its age and previous provenance, including the fingerprints of anyone who had touched it.

  He put the scanner back into his belt pouch, placed the vial back on the mantel. Then he glanced away into the room, to see whether anyone had been watching. Only the Ondinean was looking back at him, standing perfectly still at the opposite side of the room. Gundhalinu started toward him, keeping eye contact; unable to see anything about the other man’s expression. VX Sandrine caught his arm as he passed; he murmured an abrupt excuse and moved on, willing the Ondinean to stay put. The stranger stood unmoving, still gazing back at him, until he had almost closed the distance between them. And then the man turned suddenly, and disappeared through the darkened doorway behind him.

  Gundhalinu started after him; stopped, looking down suddenly, as the call beeper sounded on his belt remote. He swore, knowing that the only message he would be getting at this hour would be an urgent one. He glanced over his shoulder at the room behind him, knowing that he should find a place to take the call—looked back, to find that the dim-lit hallway ahead of him was empty. He swore again, in disgust. Standing just inside the hall entrance, he put the call through on his remote.

  “Judiciate,” a disembodied voice said.

  “This is Justice Gundhalinu,” he said, as the link came alive. “You have a message for me?”

  “Justice Gundhalinu—?” The voice that answered him sounded nonplussed. “No, sir. No message.”

  “You just called me,” Gundhalinu snapped. “There must be a message.”

  “No, sir—” He could hear the embarrassment in the voice that answered him. “There must be some mistake. No one called you. There’s no record of any call here.”

  “All right,” he said brusquely. “Thank you.” He shut off his comm link with an angry motion of his hand. He went back into the main hall, crossing it to where Vhanu stood in conversation with JK Wybenalle, one of the Central Committee representatives. Beside them was a table that held a buffet of native foods, prepared with surprising skill by a local restaurant called, oddly, Stasis
.

  “… And what do you suppose this is?” Wybenalle was saying, in Sandhi, as he prodded a flaccid, glistening piece of meat with a silver-pronged pick.

  Gundhalinu reached past him and speared a slice off the plate. He put it into his mouth and chewed. The taste was indescribably spicy, the texture chewy, just as he remembered it. “Try some,” he urged, speaking Sandhi, as Wybenalle always insisted on doing. “It’s quite good.”

  Wybenalle accepted the slice he proffered, looking at him with raised eyebrows and so missing Vhanu’s look of disbelief, which was plainly visible to Gundhalinu. Gundhalinu smiled.

  “Interesting,” Wybenalle said, chewing gamely. “What do they call this?”

  “It’s pickled squam,” Gundhalinu said. “A kind of indigenous sea slug, I believe.”

  The scattering of pale freckles on Wybenalle’s brown, narrow-featured face turned a sudden, anemic white. He swallowed the mouthful of squam like a man swallowing poison.

  “Try some of this—” Gundhalinu gestured at a platter of small cakes heaped with fish eggs.

  “Excuse me…” Wybenalle mumbled, beginning to turn away, searching the room with desperate eyes.

  “We grow or we die…” Gundhalinu said, smiling pleasantly as Wybenalle left them abruptly, heading for the bathrooms. “Right, Vhanu?” He looked back at his Commander of Police, letting his smile widen.

  Vhanu grimaced. “Do thou really think that was wise?” he said, still speaking Sandhi.

  “No.” Gundhalinu shook his head, still smiling. “It wasn’t kind, either. But by all my sainted ancestors, that man has given me enough grief for a lifetime in the past weeks. Allow me the privilege of being petty.” He shrugged, trying to loosen the tense muscles in his shoulders and neck. He reached into his belt pouch, and pulled out the scanner. “I have some data I’d like you to run a check on for me, NR.”

  Vhanu produced his own scanner, and let it replicate the readings Gundhalinu had taken off the vial. “I should have the analysis for you some time late tomorrow. Will that be soon enough?”