First Salik War 2: The V'Dan

by Jean Johnson

  “. . . You seem to be quite dedicated,” Kuna’mi replied out loud, though from the unchanged mental placidity, she could have been replying to Jackie’s verbal words. “I hope you are equally trustworthy.”

  Jackie did not take offense. “I am aware that trust only builds with time, through a measuring of how well one’s words and one’s deeds match. I look forward to the chance for both our peoples to build that trust, as well as extending respect to one another.”

  That made the blue-eyed doctor snort. “I’ll wish you the best of luck in that. Markless adults have to be five times as good as anyone else just to get an equal amount of respect. I’ll presume you’ll want some sort of mark-free version of jungen though, given how you are not V’Dan.”

  “That would be correct,” Maria stated, lifting her chin a little. “I am not going to inject any genetics-altering virus that will change the way they look into any of our people. We stopped judging each other based on the color of our skin well over a century ago. We will not go back to such an immature system.”

  Jackie stepped in verbally. “. . . What the doctor means to say is that we are not V’Dan, and our cultural viewpoint on such matters is therefore different. It will be easier if the V’Dan people simply keep repeating that to themselves, that we Terrans are different, and that we should be judged as you would judge other non-V’Dan.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t do you, personally, any good to get the virus with the marking ability intact,” Qua said. “You’re past the age of puberty, when the virus makes its changes. You’d only get marks out of children caught just before puberty or earlier, and it’ll still take a few generations before everyone has them.”

  “Which we don’t want to do, as it would run contrary to Terran values,” Jackie said. She gestured at Maria. “Doctors, if you’ll give Dr. de la Santoya your full attention, I’m quite sure she’s impatient to start getting familiarized with your V’Dan version of genetic-sequencing machines. Once we’ve gotten everyone up to speed on Terran versus V’Dan machinery and terminology, you’ll be able to get to work right away.”

  APRIL 26, 2287 C.E.

  DEMBER 20, 9507 V.D.S.

  His Imperial Highness, Kah’raman Li’eth Tal’u-ruq Ma’an-uq’en Q’uru-hash V’Daania, thirdborn child of Empress Hana’ka, stared into the mirror in his semiprivate cabin and acknowledged that he did not feel like himself anymore.

  It was a strange thing to admit, but over the last five years, ever since shortly after joining the military at the age of twenty-seven, Li’eth had slowly grown used to not being an Imperial Prince. Yes, the officers of the Second Tier were considered technically equal with the lesser nobles, but when one was off in a ship for months on end, the social lines blurred. There was some distance, some formality . . . but the best crews in his experience were those whose officers weren’t rigidly strict on fraternizing only within their “own kind” as it were.

  Captain Li’eth Ma’an-uq’en could mingle just fine with his bridge officers, his wardens, his sergeants, even the enlisted, though mingling with the lowest ranks was a rare thing. Imperial Prince Kah’raman . . . I don’t even think of myself as Kah’raman anymore, Li’eth admitted.

  Li’eth, which meant Year of Joy, was a fairly common name actually, popular around the time of his birth. He’d encountered a good ten, twelve men during his years in the Imperial Army that shared the name. Most of those encounters had been good, leaving him feeling comfortable being a fellow “Li’eth.”

  Kah’raman, which meant King of Starshine, was not a common name. It was literally a regal name, a name reserved for the Imperial Tier, a name with a royal title embedded in it right from birth. Thirdborn, but still royal, Imperial, distinct from all others.

  I’m glad I had those years of getting used to being “just plain Li’eth” in the military before encountering Jackie’s people, he decided, reaching for the complimentary shaving stick tucked in the mirrored cabinet. They have very little in the way of a caste system. A much wider variety of cultural backgrounds—vastly wider, he acknowledged, activating the stick with a touch of the upper button. Carefully, he rubbed the glowing end over his right cheek, removing the hints of light brown and burgundy stubble that had grown there overnight. But fewer social strata.

  Thinking on how loose and fluid social climbing or sinking can be in the Terran system . . . I think I can understand how adrift Shi’ol must have felt. No automatic deference once she pointed out her civilian title, and no automatic looking to her for leadership. No sense of “you’re allowed to do that because that is the way of your Tier” or the equally important “you’d never do that because it’s just not the way your Tier behaves.” Such as the cleaning they’d all had to do.

  He’d gotten used to the more relaxed ways of the military . . . and the greatly lessened expectations laid on a youngish man presumed to have been born of Third Tier parents—highly educated but not ennobled. Captain Li’eth Ma’an-uq’en had been a commoner. One with a close resemblance to His Imperial Highness save for the bit of burgundy stripe he had concealed on his cheek.

  But he wasn’t Captain Ma’an-uq’en anymore. He didn’t have the freedom to mingle with the lower Tiers with impunity, even just casually. An Imperial Prince was almost never casual. It went against the order of things.

  So why am I thinking back to that looh-ow picnic we had on the beach of her home island, with her family and important locals and their friends? He eyed his image in the mirror, half-shaven, and sighed. I know why. I’m not used to being an Imperial Prince anymore. Even when I went home on Leave for celebrations . . .

  The real reason? He hadn’t seen the Terran way of life back then. The way they flowed from formal to casual with graceful ease. How their welcoming warmth was the grease that made those transitions look so easy. They had social strata—in giving their V’Dan guests a sampling tour of their world and insystem colonies, the Terrans had not avoided showing them slums, poverty-stricken regions, the homes of the wealthy, or menial labor versus the work of the highly educated.

  They weren’t apologetic in the sense of being embarrassed; on the trip around the Sol System, the V’Dan had been shown archived documentaries of a selection of worst and best moments in Terran history, including genocide on a scale seen only a few times in the Empire’s very long history. The Terrans had simply said, “These are some of the worst things in our history, things we have recordings for, whereas with others we do not have as much. We teach ourselves and remind ourselves of these things, of the evil in them, in the hopes that we will continue to avoid repeating these mistakes.”

  Matter-of-fact. That was how they handled their mistakes. No stammering denials, no overly dramatic breast-beatings. Just a simple, straightforward message of, “We have bad things and good things in our history, we are aware of it, and we aren’t going to pretend they never happened.”

  Like the Massacre of the Valley. Men, women, elders, children . . . even the infants. Cross-bound and gutted alive, among other horrors. Not my ancestor’s brightest nor most blessed hour. That Emperor had been slain by those who were horrified at what he had ordered done, along with the troops who had done the deeds alongside him. The War Crown had passed to a collateral line, a cousin of the First Tier . . . but though the civil war had been won by the right and just side, it could not erase the horrific crimes committed against a people whose only transgression was that they wanted no nobles set over them, that they wanted their people to be deemed equals with each other.

  Eventually, the Valley of the Artisans had been repopulated with both survivors and newcomers and deemed a protectorate of the Empire. The lessons learned had gone into the history books and never been taken out. Sometimes softened, but never removed. Of course, he had no control over what the Terrans would be shown of V’Dan history, its highlights and its lowest points such as the Valley. He had no idea if those who were in charge would be quite so open. No
t that it could be kept secret; eventually, they would get their hands on unexpurgated historical accounts. But would his own people be so . . . so comfortable with themselves?

  Somehow, Li’eth doubted it. Finishing up his shaving with a touch of the wand to neaten his left sideburn, he checked his image, then shut it off and tucked it back into the cabinet. A splash or two of water washed off the little scraps of stubble, along with a swipe from a cloth to dry his face. He had already showered, then dried and braided his hair. It was time to don one of his uniforms.

  These were true uniforms, properly tailored and properly styled, not the approximation the Terrans had managed. Properly armored against most handheld weapons, too. Not that he expected to be attacked, but without the plasflesh painting his cheek, hiding the distinctive length and hue of the jungen stripe extending beneath his right eye, he couldn’t hide who he was. Imperial Prince Kah’raman V’Daania and not merely Captain Li’eth Ma’an-uq’en. Someone always had a grudge against the Imperial Family. Sometimes, they tried to express that grudge physically.

  For that matter, the Salik could strike at any time. There wasn’t a prophecy guaranteeing his survival if he became a Salik captive a second time. That meant staying out of their tentacles. He’d fight to the death if that happened again.

  (I’m getting some grim, unhappy subthoughts from you,) Jackie’s mental voice interrupted. Her telepathic touch felt like a warm ray of sunshine slipping down between the clouds spreading gloom throughout his mind. (Is something wrong?)

  (Just thinking,) he tried to dismiss, leaving the washroom. A prod from her, however, told him she wasn’t going to let the subject go until he aired it. Pulling out his clothes, Li’eth replied while unwinding the towel from his hips. (I had bad dreams again, this morning. About the Salik. On top of that, today is your semiformal introduction through the windows. I’ll be expected to be on hand as the highest-ranked anyone inside quarantine. There is always someone in any large crowd who has a grudge against the Imperial Family.

  (Your people constrained themselves to just shouting an occasional, “Go back wherever you came from!” and “Earth for the Earthlings, not for the weirdlings!” but I didn’t feel physically threatened. Then again,) he allowed, threading a belt through his pant loops, (your people had no idea anyone else of our race was out here, away from your home system.

  (I’m not sure how my own people will react, though. Knowledge that we came from another world is a major religious foundation stone. It’s sort of been expected that if anyone survived the cataclysm of the Before Time world, they’d have grown up to be wise and mature and . . . not what your people actually are, which is very V’Danic . . . ahh . . . what’s the word in Terranglo . . . Humanistic? Very Human, at any rate. Mortal and fallible and prone to the same lows and highs in every direction . . . which may be disappointing for many, and outright mind-shattering for some. Concerns for our safety are therefore making my thoughts grim.)

  While she mulled that over, he pulled on undershorts and socks, then reached for the dark crimson trousers with their hard-to-puncture meshweave interfacing. Cream-colored shirt, bright red jacket with golden lapels and matching meshweave interfacing. Jacaranda did not press the point as he continued to dress but changed the subject somewhat.

  (Part of me isn’t thinking grim thoughts about that, so much as I’m busy thinking this is going to be like seeing a new species of animal in a zoo,) she told him. (“Come, watch the rare polar bear through the bars of the cage! Throw peanuts at the albino elephant! Watch out, for that monkey will try to fling its own feces at you! Step right up, it’s just ten credits per visit to see the new Terrans at the Alliance zoo!”)

  A snort escaped him. Mouth involuntarily twitching up at the corners, Li’eth straightened from tugging on his boots and checked his image in the mirror on the inside of the washroom door. Blond hair damp but neatly braided, with streaks of burgundy here and there, the one long tendril of burgundy angling down across his right eye, the broad side lapel, the frogging neatly . . . no, that one was twisted. He unbuttoned it, smoothed out the braiding, and reattached it.

  (Which is just silly, a touch of nervousness at the unknown,) Jackie continued, (with no idea how everyone will react to us. Or even if they’ll like our version of “pageantry.” I know that Lord Ksa’an is a bit dubious on how little we have for the moment.)

  (Imperial First Lord Ksa’an,) Li’eth corrected her, checking over his image carefully from head to feet, even turning to check the Imperial posterior to make sure the coattails lay smooth and perfect. (It’s very important not to skip the Imperial First bit. He’s very proud of his status.)

  (Duly noted . . . though I think your people are going to be shocked by how casual we Terrans tend to be. Or at least by how short our titles are. I keep trying to turn and check to see who this “Grand High” Ambassador is. We don’t have different degrees of Ambassadorship, you know.)

  (Yet. You may find it useful as you send more and more to the various worlds out here.) A tug and twitch of his trouser leg made the dark red fabric drape properly over his left, calf-length boot rather than bunch up on the cuff edge. He even had replacement medals, brightly enameled metal disks on pins rather than dangling from colorful ribbons like the Terran ones. The solid steel triangles of his captain-rank pins gleamed at the collar, on the shoulder boards, and at the cuffs of his military coat, large and visible . . . which made him wonder if he was going to retain the lowly Second Tier rank of a captain.

  It wasn’t as if he could hide his true identity anymore, after all. The Terrans in their negotiations had mentioned his identity freely. He couldn’t blame them for doing so, however; Li’eth understood that such things were their way of showing trustworthiness, of honor and integrity.

  That thought made him wonder if he should assert his rank a little, and not the military one. A mere captain couldn’t dictate where a leftenant superior should serve—they were placed in command of them, not allowed to pick—but an Imperial Prince could command that, say, a certain Leftenant Superior V’Kol Kos’q should serve him directly.

  And didn’t Empress Kah’nia-sun instruct her son, Hi’a’gon, that, “A prince should always strive to have two good friends about him, good enough to be honest and tell him ‘no’ when he needs to hear it,” back in the seventh millennium? Wait, eighth. It was in the mid-7600s . . . somewhere . . . When exactly did Great-plus Grandmother rule . . . ?

  He shook it off as unimportant. With forty-five centuries’ worth of ancestors to keep track of, surely even an Imperial Prince could be forgiven the sin of forgetting exact dates of specific reigns now and then. That, and the clock set in the wall by the door said it was nearly time for the semiformal viewing. No time to look it up on the workstation.

  The meeting would take place in the observation lounge, which had a nearly floor-to-ceiling viewing window. Reporters would be few and carefully vetted. Officials would also be few and carefully selected. Questions would be few and carefully prepared in advance. In archaic hydrofluid terms, this was an interview meant merely to “prime the pump” with a splash of information, sharpening the curiosity of the currently available public, and setting things up for a hopefully smooth broadcast to the other worlds. Either by slow mail courier, or by those Terran hyperrelay things.

  It was kind of exciting simply to be here and now, at this place and time, knowing that they were making progress on bringing the Terrans into the Alliance and into helping them win the war.

  —

  Entering the observation lounge, Jackie selected one of the center seats in the double row of chairs lining the chamber. With her were nine others selected from the Terran delegation to be the first to meet and converse with locally based representatives of the other sentient races in the Alliance. Rosa took a seat to her left, and Li’eth picked a spot near the broad, floor-to-ceiling window that filled most of the forward wall.

  That
window was shuttered at the moment. The others filed in, ranging from Captain al-Fulan and two Marines who were free at the moment in their duty shifts to attend, to Clees and his ever-present hovercameras, a couple nurses, and a handful of embassy personnel. The Imperial Prince subtly tugged his uniform jacket straight as they took seats, and began.

  “Today, you will be meeting the Choya. They are an amphibious race, preferring temperatures and humidities warmer than customary for . . . our joint species,” he amended, carefully not calling anyone a V’Dan. “Under previous conditions, you would have met representatives from both the Choya and the Salik at the same time, as they both prefer humidity and heat . . . but obviously that is no longer possible. For reasons of comfort, the others will be introduced in their own pairings.”

  He paused, lifting his head a little. Jackie glanced over her shoulder to see that one of the two Marines had lifted her hand. Upon being acknowledged by their host, she stood, shoulders and chin level, arms at her sides. “Imperial Prince, I am wondering why you would introduce the aliens in pairs, sir!”

  Jackie felt a touch of humor in Li’eth’s underthoughts. They colored his aura with bits of gold, making her reflexively blink the vision away. She wasn’t used to seeing auras; that was his ability, and a distracting one for the Gestalt to give to her. Seeing things from a distance—more like sensing but with some inner vision—yes, she could see things via clairvoyancy, when it related to wanting to merge a holokinetic illusion with its surroundings, but not auras.