The Summer Queen

by Joan D. Vinge

  He watched and listened to the webs of relationship form again on the screen, in the air, inside his mind; beginning to feel a kind of awe take hold of him at the subtle artistry of their creator. And he realized, suddenly, watching the screen, that the music itself was only a carrier: the mathematical information it contained was the critical element. And he knew the significance of those equations, those relationships flashing across the screen … he had worked every day for months on similar problems with Reede Kullervo, as they struggled to bring the stardrive plasma under control. The mathematics within the music had to do with the manipulation of smartmatter.

  But there were gaping holes in the logic flow, where critical elements had been lost, destroyed along with the mersongs that had contained them. He saw Sparks’s tentative attempts to reconstruct the missing elements—the valiant efforts of an intelligent, resourceful mind that lacked the formal mathematical and programming experience to complete the revelation it had begun. An admiration for the accomplishments of Sparks Dawntreader that was not at all grudging filled him. He queried the computer, gave it another set of commands; sending the data into his own computer system with instructions to begin a series of transformational functions on it, to ask it the right questions …

  “You’ve found something,” Moon said, behind him, and he became aware suddenly that she and Tammis had been standing there, watching him watch the screen for some time. “What is it?”

  He looked up at them, letting her see the admiration still in his eyes. “Sparks found it,” he said. “The key to the mersong. It’s based in fugue theory—” He gestured at the book lying on the desk next to him. “The fabric of the music has mathematical equations woven into it. There is a pure mathematics to music, at the most basic level,” he said, seeing the uncomprehending looks on their faces. “Every tone lies in a precise, unchanging relationship to all others. Complex mathematical relationships can be expressed within the structure of a musical composition like a fugue, as if it were a sort of code. Sparks has laid out the basic structures—it’s all here. It deals with smartmatter manipulation. I’ve instructed my own computer system to run a program on it that should be able to recreate the missing segments, and then maybe we’ll finally be able to see what problem it exists to solve.…” He looked back at the screen, as the haunting sounds of the mers’ calling voices, synthesized but uncannily realistic, filled the air around him.

  “You already know the answer,” Moon murmured, her voice barely audible above the music.

  He turned to look up at her, saw her eyes shining with astonished vision. “What…?”

  “The mers are coming toward the city,” she said. “There can be only one reason—” She broke off, her eyes finishing the thought her lips could not speak. It needs them.

  His mouth fell open, as a circuit closed suddenly inside his brain, filling his mind with the light of revelation. “Smartmatter status maintenance…” he whispered. “Yes, by all the gods!” It needs them. He stumbled up out of his seat and took her in his arms. “It fits together!”

  “What are you talking about?” Tammis asked. BZ looked at him, as Moon did, with useless apology. “We can’t explain it to you, Tammis,” Moon said, looking down. “Not yet.”

  “But you think it will help Ariele?” he asked.

  She looked back at BZ, and now it was her doubt and sudden desolation that were reflected in his own face. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “We have to believe it will.”

  Moon shook off her mood, letting him go as she faced Tammis again. “It’s late.… Go home to Merovy, and give her my congratulations, and my love.” She smiled; the smile stopped. “But don’t tell her what we did here today, or why. Don’t tell anyone; please, Tammis.”

  He nodded, his face intent. He embraced her one last time, in farewell.

  “Thank you for your help,” BZ said, as the boy looked at him.

  Tammis nodded again. “And thank you for yours,” he said, his voice husky. He turned away, starting toward the door.

  Moon watched him go, with a forlorn, wondering expression. “Lady bless them,” she said, almost absently. She sighed, closing her eyes. “They say … they say the Mother loves children above all else.…” Her voice faded. “Lady help them all: my children, and Yours.” She opened her eyes again; but there was no hope in them. She looked up at him. “Why did Tammis thank you?”

  BZ shrugged. “For being an outside observer,” he said, glancing away. He put his arms around her, because that at least was once again his right. He smiled down at her suddenly, ruefully. “I’m too young to be a grandfather,” he said.

  She looked back at him, with a smile as sudden and as bittersweet. “Not on this world,” she said. “You’re on Tiamat now, you know.” She looked down again. “Stay with me tonight, BZ.” She pressed her face against the cloth of his jacket.

  He nodded, knowing that he should not, but knowing that he could no more bear to spend this night alone with his hope and his fears than she could.

  She led him through the cold, rococo halls of the palace to her bedroom, neither of them having any appetite for a late supper. He lay down beside her in the bed, sighing as the bird-down mattress embraced him like his lover’s arms. Having no strength left for lovemaking, either, they only held each other, for a long time, saying little, trying to think of even less. Moon left a lamp burning on their bedside table, unable to bear the oppressive power of utter darkness.

  She slept, finally, finding peace in his arms. And watching over her, with the breathing warmth of her body pressed close against his own, he felt his own eyes grow heavy, and at last he slept.

  * * *

  He did not know whether it was hours or only minutes later when the doors of the room burst open with an unceremonious crash, jolting him awake. He sat up in bed, sleep-fogged and befuddled. Moon pushed up onto her elbow beside him, pulling the covers over her breasts as they confronted half a dozen men in blue Police uniforms.

  “Vhanu—?” BZ said incredulously, shielding his eyes with his arm as the lights came up in the room. “What the hell are you doing here? What in the name of a thousand gods is the meaning of this!”

  Vhanu stood looking down at them where they lay, side by side. What Gundhalinu saw then in the eyes of his former friend—the pity, the unforgiving censure, the desperate resolve—were all the answer he needed. Vhanu straightened his shoulders as if he were about to salute, but he did not. “Justice Gundhalinu, I have come to arrest you.”

  “On what charges?” BZ asked, still not entirely certain that he was not having a nightmare.

  Vhanu’s mouth pulled down. “It is my … difficult and painful duty, Justice, to inform you that you are charged with treason.”

  TIAMAT: Carbuncle

  Moon followed the taciturn officer through the blur of motion that was the interior of Police headquarters, staring straight ahead at his uniformed back. All around her she sensed the surprise spreading outward, like the wash from a ship’s prow—the gossip, the speculation, the curious stares: It’s the Queen. She’s come to see Gundhalinu, come to see her lover. Caught them bare-assed together, committing treasonable acts … Gundhalinu the hero, Gundhalinu the traitor: What does the Mother-lovers’ Queen want with him now that he’s locked up?…

  She had asked the duty sergeant to let her see Chief Justice Gundhalinu. He had shaken his head and said, “No one is permitted to see the prisoner.” The prisoner. No indication of what he had been, until yesterday; what he had meant to his people, all he had done for the Hegemony. She had demanded to see the Chief Inspector. He had handed her over to one of his officers, and sent her through this gauntlet of smirking gossip.

  She passed through it, scarcely even registering the unwanted attention, her mind preoccupied with losses and questions of such magnitude that the mockery of the strangers surrounding her was reduced to the meaningless noise that it was; until the voices began to fall silent, as if they realized it too, and she passed beyond the
m.

  “The Queen to see you, ma’am.” Her guide showed her into an office, saluted, and left, shutting the door behind him.

  Jerusha PalaThion looked up at her in surprise, over an armload of supplies. Jerusha dropped the supplies unceremoniously into an empty crate.

  Moon hesitated, half-frowning. “What are you doing?” she said. There were other boxes piled up beside the desk/terminal, already filled; the shelves and storage units of the office were virtually empty.

  “I’m clearing out my desk,” Jerusha answered, her voice heavy with irony. “The Commander of Police informed me this morning that he had charged BZ with treason, and declared martial law. And that after today is over I will no longer be serving as Chief Inspector.”

  “Lady’s Tits!” Moon struck the closed door with her fist, as the memory of last night filled her. She sagged against the ancient, unyielding surface, suddenly strengthless. “Damn him! May he rot in any hell he chooses.” She looked up again, to find complete agreement in the other woman’s eyes. “Have you seen BZ—have you spoken with him? Is he all right?”

  Jerusha shook her head. “Vhanu won’t let anyone near him; particularly not anyone who might be tempted to help him. By the Boatman, I’ve tried.” She sat down in her desk chair, resting her forehead on her hands.

  Moon crossed the room. “You said he’s declared martial law? What gives him that right?”

  “He’s second in the power structure after the Chief Justice. With BZ stripped of his office, Vhanu’s in charge. He’s calling it a state of emergency, until he receives orders from the Central Committee, or they send a new Chief Justice. It basically empowers him to do anything.” Jerusha’s face turned grim.

  “And if I object—?” Moon broke off, turning as the office door opened suddenly behind her.

  “Then I have the power to enforce my decisions,” the Commander of Police said evenly. He made a small, correct bow. “Lady.” He looked away from her, toward Jerusha. Jerusha rose from her seat, and saluted stiffly. He returned the salute, expressionless.

  Moon felt her face burn. “Are you threatening to attack my people?” she said, shaken by anger.

  “Not unless you give me cause.” His eyes were as impenetrable as obsidian.

  “And what do you mean by that?” She stood away from the desk, her arms rigidly at her sides.

  “I intend to resume hunting the mers. If you or your people give me trouble over it, I will retaliate. Needless to say, your people will be the ones on the losing end of any conflict, not the Hegemony.”

  “Is this what ‘autonomy’ means to the Hegemony, then?” Moon said. “That you don’t interfere in our internal affairs, unless you feel like it? Unless we don’t put your right to exploit our world before our culture and beliefs or even the right of the mers—who have more claim to this world than any of us—simply to live and not die?”

  “A state of emergency, and martial law, are justified in a situation of extreme civil unrest or strife,” Vhanu said tonelessly. “Our purpose here is to keep the peace.”

  “I have been told that your people value honor above everything else. I see that I was misinformed,” Moon murmured. She felt more than heard Jerusha draw a sudden breath; saw Vhanu’s eyes flicker, and knew that she had stung him.

  Vhanu’s mouth thinned. “I would walk softly, if I were you. Lady. Your much-prized autonomy is the only thing that protects you from the same charges I brought against the Chief Justice.”

  She flushed. “You had no right—”

  “I had no right—?” His hand jerked, fisted. “You had no right to seduce him, to use your body to make him give you anything you wanted! He had no right, to turn his back on his own people! He had no right to be so weak. Someone had to stop this madness, before he ruined everything we had here. I was his best friend, damn you—!” A tremor shook him, as if he had to restrain himself from laying hands on her.

  “But only for as long as he gave you everything you wanted,” she said, softly, coldly. “He loves me, and I love him. But he made the choices he did not because he is my lover, but because he is an honorable man.”

  Vhanu looked at her, his lips twitching, for a long moment. He muttered something in Sandhi, finally, glancing away. She translated the sour words: barbarian whore.

  In Sandhi, she said, “Would you prefer to speak your own language, Commander Vhanu? I understand it fairly well.”

  He looked back at her; the scattering of pale freckles across his brown face flushed blood-red. He took a deep breath. “I think there is very little left for us to say, in any language, Lady,” he answered, in Tiamatan. He began to turn away.

  “I want to see him,” Moon said. “You can’t deny me the right to see him.”

  He turned back to her. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. He’s no longer here.”

  She froze. “What?”

  “He’s gone.” Vhanu shrugged. “Back to Kharemough, to face charges before the High Court. If he remained here, there was too much threat of strife, so I had him deported immediately.”

  She felt his satisfaction tighten around her throat, as if it were his hands. “You mean,” she forced the words out, “that there was too much risk that he was right; that his voice would be heard, and everyone who heard it would know.”

  “Walk softly, Lady,” he repeated, frowning more deeply. He bowed to her again, with perfect grace. He turned away, opening the door; stopped, turning back. “By the way,” he said. “I know now that your fanatical predictions about our decimating the mer population were not only superstitious rubbish but complete lies. My people tell me that the waters are teeming with mers. Their numbers are far from depleted.”

  “No!” She started forward. “That isn’t the truth, there are no more mers—Search further, search all the seas; you have the means. The seas will be empty.”

  He shook his head, and his eyes pitied her, as if she were beneath contempt. He went out the door without answering.

  Moon stood motionless in the center of the room, until her moment of desperate rage passed. She turned back, then, to face Jerusha.

  Jerusha sat down again behind her desk, her dark eyes filled with questions, none of them reassuring. She reached into her pocket for a pack of iestas, put a handful into her mouth, chewing them to quiet her nerves.

  Moon moved to a seat and dropped heavily into it. “BZ can’t be gone,” she said, studying her hands, which lay in her lap like dying insects. “How can it have happened? It’s impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible,” Jerusha murmured tonelessly.

  “This is.” Moon raised her head. “He had to be here. He was meant to be. They both were.… We were all in place. And suddenly, just when we were ready—they’re gone.” She shook her head, feeling as if she had been beaten, as if she were bleeding inside.

  Jerusha looked at her, and Moon saw an expression on the other woman’s face that she had not seen in years. “Gods,” Jerusha said. “It’s been speaking to you again, hasn’t it—the sibyl mind? The way it did when you told me you were going to become Queen.”

  She nodded, mute.

  “Who is the third person?”

  “Reede … Reede Kullervo.”

  Jerusha’s eyes widened; she looked away, frowning. “He works for the Source. BZ wanted him picked up … wanted it done unofficially. Kitaro was handling it, before she…” Her gaze came back to Moon. “What happened?”

  Moon told her how it had begun, pulling her raveled thoughts back together.

  “And what were the three of you supposed to do?” Jerusha asked, when she was finished.

  “It—has to do with saving the mers.” Moon shook her head. “But that’s all I can tell you. Except that they’re the key to something. If that merkiller Vhanu—” She broke off. “If he only knew what he’s done, not just to the mers, not just to us, but to himself.…”

  Jerusha sighed. “So the Hedge has Gundhalinu hostage, and the Source has Reede—”

  “And A
riele.” She forced the words out.

  “Ariele?” Jerusha paled. “Why, by all the gods?”

  “She was involved with Reede. I didn’t even know.… The Source took them both. Because of … what I know that I can’t tell.” She told the rest of it, numbed by the words as she spoke them, until finally her voice held no emotion at all. “They’re all gone.… And I don’t know if any of them will ever come back.”

  Jerusha sat back in her chair and dropped a remote into a box; looked up again, bleak-eyed. “Is there anything at all that we can do, right now?”

  “Nothing.” Moon shook her head. “Nothing even makes sense to me, right now.” Her body seemed to have turned to stone as she sat there, until now it was too heavy, too inert, ever to rise from her seat again. “Nothing will make any difference.”

  Jerusha leaned forward abruptly, and switched on her comm. “Prawer! In my office. Immediately.”

  Inspector Prawer appeared in the doorway bare seconds later. He saluted. “Ma’am?” He made a brief bow in Moon’s direction; she looked away from his glance.

  “You’re in charge here, until the Commander names a new Chief Inspector. Have my belongings sent to my…” she glanced at Moon, “to the local constabulary headquarters.” Moon looked up, suddenly feeling something stir inside her that was not another tentacle of despair. “I want my old job back,” Jerusha said.

  “It’s yours.” Moon pushed to her feet, glancing at Prawer, and back at Jerusha.

  Jerusha came around the corner of her desk, tossing Prawer a packet of keycards. “Here. Tell Commander Vhanu…” She paused, and spat an iesta pod into the trash basket. Moon saw Prawer’s mouth twitch. “Tell him … he’s mekrittu. Like all his ancestors before him, back to the first.”

  Prawer looked disbelief at her. “Gods, I can’t say that to the Commander—”

  “Quote me,” she said. “That’s a direct order.” She hesitated. “And tell the force that Gundhalinu’s gone.”

  “He’s gone?” Prawer repeated, his face going slack. She nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.” He drew himself up and saluted again. “Consider it done.”