by Scott Meyer
“The schedule for today should seem fairly familiar. This morning Lady Jakabitus has her regular briefing. Lunch will be at the usual time, and it will be attended by Her Ladyship, His Lordship, and Master Rayzo. After lunch, Master Rayzo will have sports practice.”
Migg had deliberately omitted any mention of Hennik, hoping to goad one of the staff into asking her a question. The staff deliberately chose not to do so. It would have given her a sense of legitimacy in her new position that they simply did not want her to have.
Migg graced the staff with another pleasant smile, then said, “I’m sure you are wondering where Master Hennik will be. In light of his recent behavior, Lady Jakabitus has ordered that he be confined to his room. Chef Barsparse, Her Ladyship has asked that for the time being Master Hennik be served the same dishes as the Jakabitus family. This is to keep up appearances while Her Ladyship decides his fate. But though you have strict orders as to what to serve him, how much of it you serve, how promptly you deliver it, and how much care you put into preparing it are all entirely at your discretion.”
Migg gave a sly smile as she said this, but received no encouragement from Barsparse or any other member of the staff.
“This concludes the reading of the schedule,” Migg said. “Unless anyone has any questions?”
Again, there was another piece of information that Migg knew they wanted, but this time, she was going to make them ask for it. She cocked her head to the side and looked questioningly at the assembled group.
“No questions?” she asked. “Nothing? Don’t be shy. This is your chance.” She waited a moment, then said, “All right then. Since there are no questions, this concludes—”
A female voice called out, “Query.”
Migg hid her irritation. “I recognize Phee, my protégée.”
Migg had assumed all of Wollard’s duties. That included mentoring Phee. So far, the mentorship had consisted of two brief chats—one the previous afternoon, wherein Migg gave Phee the rest of the night off, and one prior to the morning meeting, in which they discussed the schedule. So far, Phee had been unfailingly courteous and professional, and had done an admirable job of almost hiding the loathing and anger she felt for Migg. During the entire morning meeting, Phee had stood dutifully by her new mentor’s side, expressing her displeasure by showing no emotion at all. Now, by putting forth the query Migg had guessed was coming, Phee would effectively demonstrate her allegiance lay with the staff and Wollard, not with Migg.
Phee said, “While there has no doubt been talk, I’m certain that the staff would like to know, officially, where Wollard is, and what will happen to him.”
Glaz, the staff’s nominal leader, smirked faintly and nodded, a sign of approval and support that would have been almost imperceptible if every other member of the staff hadn’t done the exact same thing at the exact same moment.
A man they trusted is gone, Migg thought, and their trust has transferred not to his replacement, but to his former pupil. Understandable. I will either have to convince all of them by winning her over, or convince her by winning them over.
“Of course,” Migg said. “I know that many of you think very highly of Wollard. I myself consider him a kind man and a skilled Master of Formalities. I am also certain that all of you have by now heard some incomplete account of yesterday’s events. Those who were there have been sworn to secrecy as to the details, but can, without breaking said vow, attest to the fact that poor Wollard was under a great deal of stress. As a result, he made a mistake that, while it seemed quite minor, may well have dire consequences for his future. As such, he has been removed from his position as Master of Formalities. Shortly before his removal, my position as a Master of Formalities had been revealed, and as such, form dictated that I should take over in his stead.”
Sensing their reaction to that last part, she chose to digress. “On a personal note, I want to say that I regret having misled you all. While my actions were in keeping with etiquette and protocol, and were, I assure you, in impeccably good form, your feelings of betrayal and distrust are understandable.”
She surveyed the staff, looking for signs that her words were winning them over. She found none, as expected.
“I realize,” Migg continued, “that it is hardly reassuring for a person who has misled you for weeks to give you her word. I cannot express to you how grateful I am for the way all of you have treated me up until now, and proper form prevents me from expressing my distaste for the Hahn—their behavior, their society, or their ruling family, to whom I was assigned by the Arbiters. For what little it’s worth, I can give you my word that I will serve Lady Jakabitus to the best of my ability until the day I am replaced as her Master of Formalities. To save you the trouble of asking, the soonest that can possibly happen is two standard weeks. That’s the minimum amount of time it will take for the situation to be analyzed, for a replacement to be selected, and for that replacement to make his or her way here . . . and it’s an optimistic timeframe. The gears of the Arbiters grind slowly.”
Ebbler asked, “And what will happen to Wollard?”
Under normal circumstances, Migg would have made him raise his hand and call, query, before answering, but she chose to let that formality slide on this occasion.
“None of us knows for sure what will happen to Wollard,” Migg said. “The best case scenario is for him to be found without fault and simply reassigned to a different great house for a fresh start, although that outcome seems unlikely, given what Wollard did.”
“Aren’t you supposed to say allegedly did?” Ebbler asked.
Migg said, “Ebbler, in the future, please preface all questions by saying query. As for the content of your question, I think it would be not only better form, but also an excellent training exercise to have my protégée, Phee, answer.”
For a moment Phee stood silent and motionless, an act designed to hide her emotions, which—unfortunately for her—accomplished the opposite effect. Finally, she said, “Were Migg discussing the actions of a second person as reported by a third person, then you would be correct in your assertion that she should have prefaced her reportage of the second person’s actions with the descriptive, alleged. In this case, however, as Migg is relating the actions of a second person, Wollard, that she herself witnessed, she is the person doing the alleging. She does not need, therefore, to describe Wollard’s actions as alleged. She merely has to allege, which she has done, and continues to do.”
“Well put, Phee,” Migg said. “I would ask for one point of clarification. Were you not also present when the events that I have alleged took place?”
“Yes, I was,” Phee said flatly.
“Are my allegations in any way inaccurate?”
“No,” Phee said. “They are not.”
Migg made an expression that was meant to convey twenty percent sadness, fifty percent resignation, and thirty percent hope for the future. “So there’s the situation,” she said. “To his credit, Wollard has already left the planet without making a scene or subjecting anyone to awkward good-byes. Next, he goes to the Central Authority, the Arbiters’ home world and headquarters. He’ll plead his case to the Arbiters and face their reprimand. He is unlikely to ever return to Apios. If he does, it will be in his new role as Master of Formalities to some other dignitary. In the meantime, I shouldn’t worry about Wollard. He is tougher than he seems, there were extenuating circumstances, and I doubt his punishment will be too severe.”
43.
The confinement was terrible, but Wollard had found ways to cope. He tried as best he could to quiet his mind. He stifled the urge to stand, to spread his arms, to stretch, to scratch that itch in the middle of his back that had asserted itself the instant he’d realized he wouldn’t be able to scratch an itch in that exact spot.
Food was a welcome distraction, but it was delivered with disdain, and was of such poor quality and in such meager port
ions that he suspected a great deal of study and discussion had been spent in deciding exactly how small a serving could be for the recipient to still grudgingly refer to it as a meal.
Wollard was surprised to find that the worst part of his situation was the emotional component. The helplessness. The hopelessness. The knowledge—not suspicion, knowledge—that he was no longer a person. He was an object. A commodity. Really, he was an inconvenience.
The fact that he was surrounded by, and often pressing up against, countless others who were in the exact same position did not make it better. There was no esprit de corps. Certainly, nobody was banding together to ease this difficult ordeal. Instead, many of those present were trying to make things a little better for themselves by making them much worse for the people around them.
None of this surprised Wollard on an intellectual level. He knew that anything the wealthy were willing to pay outrageous sums to avoid, and the nonwealthy were willing to lie and cheat to escape, would not be a pleasant experience, but no amount of mental preparation could have prepared him for the grim realities of traveling third class.
It wasn’t the first time Wollard had traveled interstellar distances inexpensively. It was the second. The first had been when he was much younger, back when both his body and his expectations were much smaller.
Up to that point, Wollard had never left his home world, a bucolic backwater called J-Harris 5. The name signified that it was the fifth planet orbiting the star J-Harris, which had been named centuries before in honor of a man named Joshua Harris, whose mother had celebrated his birthday by paying a small sum to have a random star named in his honor.
Like most of the more sparsely populated planets, J-Harris 5 (the locals pronounced it quickly, as one word: Jarrisvive) contributed to the galactic economy mostly through bulk-farming, bulk being the genetically engineered crop that supplied all bulkfab-based technology with the raw molecular material to fabricate any number of useful, tasty, or lethal items. It was a warm, simple, slow-paced world, and the people who lived there suited it perfectly, but Wollard had never felt any sense of belonging. When, at age twelve, vocational testing identified him as a desirable candidate for work in Arbitration, he leapt at the chance and left the planet immediately.
That time, as with this one, there had been few good-byes. The tests tagged him for Arbitration, he accepted the offer, and three hours later he was leaving his parents. Yesterday, he’d been sternly rebuked, and within three hours, he’d packed, fabricated a traveling suit (he was no longer allowed to wear the formal blacks of a Master of Formalities), and left for the spaceport, where the Arbiters had booked him passage on the cheapest available flight.
Of course, back then he’d been setting off for the Academy of Arbitration, with a glorious career ahead of him. Now he was going to the Central Authority, and for all he knew, his glorious career was behind him.
Being rebuked itself hadn’t been so bad. He’d experienced it as if he were watching it happen to someone else, someone he did not envy. Only later, when it was over and done, had the true horror of it sunk in.
Good form had dictated that he do everything in his power to prevent his departure from turning into an undignified emotional scene. He wished Migg good fortune in her new role. He told Phee that she had a bright future ahead of her, and he’d been lucky to have her for a protégée. He thanked Lady Jakabitus for having allowed him to serve her, and she in turn thanked him for his service and offered to have one of her interstellar transports take him to the Central Authority for old time’s sake. He’d declined, as to accept would have been poor form, which was ironic because the form his cramped third-class seat was contorting his body into could also be described as poor.
Of course, due to the energy required, the building and maintenance of the transports, and the sheer logistics of the endeavor, interstellar transportation was astronomically expensive. Only the wealthy and powerful, or those doing important work on behalf of the wealthy and powerful, could afford to have their own transport and travel directly to a destination. Everyone else had to pay for the privilege of packing into an immense transport that traveled via predefined routes, and often got you close to your goal without actually bringing you to it.
On the rare occasions that Wollard had accompanied a member of the Jakabitus family on a commercial voyage, they had, of course, traveled first class. They waited in a smaller craft, more lounge than vehicle, which then attained orbit and docked with the interstellar ship. After it had successfully docked, they transferred into a large, open space with ample room, comfortable seating, and an atmosphere more like a private club than a mode of transit. Aside from the view out the floor-to-ceiling windows, the only reminder that one was traveling was a catwalk suspended from the ceiling, which the second- and third-class passengers shuffled through on their way to their seats. The catwalk itself was opaque, but it was suspended from the ceiling by sheets of transparent material that sealed out sounds and odors, while allowing an unobstructed view both ways.
Wollard had always considered the catwalk a strange design decision, but now, having just walked through one, looking down at the first-class passengers, he realized it served a purpose. Making the second- and third-class passengers miserably file past, with looks of undisguised envy on their faces, instilled in passengers of every class the desire to fly first class whenever possible.
Wollard tried to focus on the positive, and the fact that there was so little positive on which to focus made the effort all the more worthwhile. He craned his neck forward to get a peek out the window, a round portal about the size of a slice of Barsparse’s bread, set into the wall five seat-widths away.
I’m traveling, Wollard thought. That’s always nice. And I’m going to the Central Authority. I’ve always wanted to go there someday. Of course, I’d hoped to go there to receive a promotion, but you can’t have everything. Also, while this leg of the journey is on one of the older, smaller cruisers, the next leg is on one of those newer, larger ones with the greatly increased capacity. That should be interesting. Really, this trip is going to be an excellent opportunity to get used to not having everything. That’s not the brightest of bright sides, if I’m being honest. Perhaps I need to adjust my expectations to prepare myself for dimmer bright sides.
Wollard became aware that he was frowning rather intensely, which he told himself was due to the amount of effort he was putting into remaining positive.
44.
Phee followed the Master of Formalities, a tall, slender figure in the traditional formal blacks, walking at an improbably high speed through the dazzling Grand Gallery of Palace Koa, as she did every morning, yet the very act of following Migg felt like a betrayal.
Of course, Wollard’s last words to her had been, “Do your job, Phee. Follow the Formalities and serve Her Ladyship. Give me something of which to be proud.” One might think that would have helped, but it didn’t. Instead, it covered her with a second layer of guilt. She felt guilty for doing her job, then she felt guilty for feeling guilty for doing her job.
For a moment, in her mind’s ear, Phee heard her mother admonishing her not to beat herself up. Her mother would no doubt be disappointed in her, but she chose to ignore that thought, sensing the danger of starting a self-sustaining chain reaction of guilt.
“Phee,” Migg said without turning or even slowing her stride, “I would ask you what’s bothering you, but I fear it’s too broad a topic. Instead, I’ll ask you to pick the most pressing issue weighing on your mind, and we’ll start there.”
After a few silent steps, Phee said, “You didn’t give them your word.”
Migg considered this, then replied, “Excellent. Thank you for your candor. I now have three follow-up questions. They are when, who, and what?”
“During the staff meeting, you told the staff that you could give them your word that you’d serve Lady Jakabitus, not that you did give them your word
. That you could.”
“Ah, you do have sharp little ears, don’t you Phee?”
“Yes, and you’re not supposed to mislead people. Our entire role is built on the reliable and precise communication of complex concepts.”
“And that’s exactly what I did, Phee. Nothing I said was inaccurate.”
“But it was misleading.”
“Have I failed to serve Lady Jakabitus in any way in the time since I uttered that sentence?”
“No, not yet.”
“Then I haven’t broken the word that you claim I never gave. In a sense, I’m being more honorable than if I had fully given my word. I’m keeping promises I didn’t even make.”
Migg looked over her shoulder at Phee and grinned, then asked, “Is there somewhere nearby where we can speak without fear of the staff or the ruling family overhearing?”
Phee was bound by duty to say, “The library is on the second floor.”
Once they were alone in the library, and Migg had taken a moment to marvel at the most spectacular collection of books, art, and furniture she had never seen, she addressed Phee’s concerns.
“You’re right. I chose my words to the staff carefully. They are good, smart people, and making promises to good, smart people is always dangerous. The problem is that their definition of serve might be very different from mine. The loophole in my speech means that if I am someday forced to do something that serves Her Ladyship’s long-term interests but does short-term damage, I will merely look slippery rather than seeming like an outright liar.”
“Is that better?” Phee asked.
“Much. You only look like a liar if you get caught lying, which means you’re not even a good liar. If people think you’re slippery, at least they think you’re clever. Either way, it’s a fallback position. The hope is that it will never come to that. If it makes you feel better, Phee, because of your training and the precision with which you parse words, I can make you a solid promise. I promise you that I will do everything in my power to serve Her Ladyship’s long-term goals.”