Tale of the Spinward March: The Great Khan (Tales of the Spinward March Book 1)

by David Winnie

  Two figures passed through the curtain of willows on the far side of the pond. Angkor recognized Buru, his seventeen-year-old son. His heart swelled; the last time he had seen his son was five years ago when Sophia insisted on “dropping in” to see the boy while they were returning from Indianola. He had been a gangly boy then, shorter than his mother. Now he was nearly as tall as his father, but slender like his mother. His face was long, narrow like Sophia, his hair wiry black like his father. The boy’s stride was confident and fluid as a cat moving through tall grass.

  Buru was leading a girl who appeared to be his age. She wasn’t pretty, shorter and heavier than Angkor preferred and with milky white skin and rich red hair. They seated themselves on the bench opposite the older man. Angkor narrowed his eyes at the closeness of their bodies. Buru took her other hand in his. The couple shared a quick glance, then he looked to his father’s reflection in the pool.

  “I greet you, my father.”

  “I am up here, Buru. Look at me,” Angkor instructed.

  The boy raised his gaze to meet his father’s. “I greet you, Father. Thank you for meeting with me.” Buru’s voice was polite.

  “I greet you, my son,” his father replied, evenly. “I am pleased to see you.”

  “And I you. Mother is well?”

  “She is. You could call her on your comm more,” Angkor admonished. “She is much happier when she speaks with you.”

  Buru nodded his head.

  “This is my…friend, Annabelle Klerrk, Father.”

  “I greet you, Emperor Angkor.” Her voice was accented, scratchy.

  “Annabelle Klerrk,” Angkor returned the greeting. “ South Africa, yes?”

  “My ancestors are Afrikaner, yes,” she answered. “We emigrated two centuries ago to Luftstra, an independent farm planet.” Her green eyes blazed as she uttered the word independent.

  “I know of your world,” Angkor responded. “It lies outside my protection.”

  The girl bristled.

  “Your naming day is in three weeks.” Angkor now ignored the girl. “Has your mother or grandmother contacted you about your robe?”

  “Grandmother has. She tells me you put it off until the last minute,” a small smile formed on the boy’s face. “She says you hated the rainbow robe.”

  “I still do. But it is tradition now, so I have no choice in the matter,” his father said ruefully. “I would suggest you meet with her quickly so you have more time to select a, ah, dignified robe.”

  “Tradition, yes,” Buru’s gaze returned to the water. “Father, I will not be attending the Naadam festival or the naming ceremony.”

  “Oh? And where will you be, my son?”

  “On Luftstra. With Annabelle. My wife.”

  “So,” Angkor maintained his exterior calm demeanor. Inwardly, he seethed. “When did this marriage occur?”

  “We are not married yet, Father,” Buru said. “We will move there first, then get married. Annabelle and I have it all worked out.”

  “And your schooling? There is an accredited university on this Luftstra, I assume?” Angkor was struggling to maintain his control.

  “I will not be attending university father,” Buru stated. “Annabelle’s family owns the largest farm on Luftstra. I will work for them, learning the farm on Luftstra Prime. When I demonstrate the ability to run the farm, Annabelle and I will take over the farm on Luftstra Four.”

  “And this prepares you for assuming my title one day - how?” Angkor could hardly contain himself.

  “He does not want your title!” the girl interrupted.

  Buru patted the girl’s hand. Returning to Angkor, he said, “I do not wish to be Emperor, father. I have learned much about myself here in temple over the years. You are becoming a legend. I do not wish to be legend, nor do I want to follow a legend. I have found a way to carve out my own life, free of the obligations of your legend. Annabelle and I love each other. We want to make a life together, have children and live out our lives together in peace.”

  “This is foolishness!” Angkor was beyond control, “You will forget this foolish plan this instant! Buru, you will join me and return to the Keep today. Young lady, I am pleased to meet you. But I will not condone this ridiculous plan. After Buru becomes a man and earns his degree, we can revisit this marriage. But until then, I would suggest you return to your studies here, then go back to your family with my blessing and rethink this plan.” He spat out the last words.

  “Are you demanding as my father?” asked Buru. “Or ordering me as my emperor?”

  Angkor’s mouth gaped, stunned by his son’s insolence. He gathered himself and croaked, “What of your people? What of the Khalkha? All these years, all this study. You have responsibilities, my son. Are you just going to walk away from your duty for this girl?”

  “What of my free will?” Buru asked. “You have told me that free will is a fundamental right. Does that extend to everyone save your own son?”

  “What of your mother?” Angkor asked, “What are you going to say to her? For that matter, when are you going to tell her?”

  Buru hesitated for a minute, then answered, “Mother will understand. She left her parents, after all, when she came of age.”

  “Her circumstance was different,” snapped Angkor. “And she was of age. She was a tea merchant when I met her, not the son of the headman and heir to the Empire.”

  The wind increased, whistling through the fronds of the willows. The limbs writhed and fluttered in the gust. Thousands of leaves whisked about, circling the patio and pond.

  “Be sure of what you are doing, Buru,” warned Angkor. “If you do this, if you walk away from your family, your people, there will be no return.”

  Angkor felt his heart break as Buru wrapped his arm around the girl. “I have made my decision, Father.”

  A gust of wind struck the line of willows. They bent, groaning from the maelstrom that had struck, stripping millions of leaves from their branches. The magic which kept the leaves from the terrace couldn’t hold back the wind; the green cloud of foliage surrounded the couple and Angkor, obscuring them from each other. The wind died, blowing the leaves away, save two. Their stems were joined, gracefully they twisted and danced as they fell, settling on the surface of the reflecting pond.

  Angkor stared at the leaves resting on the placid waters. The kami of this place had spoken. So be it. “Then you are dead to us,” he told Buru. “Your name will be removed from the lists of the people of the Khalkha. You are banished from our lands. Our ancestors turn their backs on you and your children. Your very name will be a knife in the hearts of your mother and me.”

  Angkor Khan, Headman of the Khalkha, Emperor of the Terran Empire and father to only one son, turned his back and strode away.

  Chapter 24

  October 3062

  Mars Station

  The laboratory door slid open with a hiss and a clatter. Elian reminded herself for the thousandth time to ask maintenance to look at the noisy door.

  The thump of the door’s opening was accompanied by the scrabbling clatter of pointed feet entering the lab. “Good morning, Doctor Elian Lumburg!” In the eight years they had been working on Mars Station, Elian had been unable to convince Third Scientist Daughter to use her given name.

  She readily agreed to allow her Terran peers to refer to her as Three. Her antennae would curl and shake, the Vinithri equivalent of laughter. But she and the rest of the Vinithri simply wouldn’t use the Terrans’ first names. “Oh, Doctor Elian Lumburg, I could never be so informal,” she explained. “It would be so impolite, oh my, yes. As I am part of your nest now, I must maintain the correct level of civility. Even if you monkeys are so, so…” her whole body would shiver and she couldn’t speak.

  “Good morning, Three. Wonderful to see you,” Elian replied. “I trust you slept well?”

  “Oh, my, yes, very well, thank you,” bubbled the irrepressible Vinithri.

  The Vinithri were a constant sourc
e of amusement and wonder amongst the Terran researchers. The etymologists had studied hive and nest insects of Terra and her colonies. Those observed were tightly structured and organized and the Vinithri matched insects in these terms. Their portion of the labs were always the neatest and most organized. What was shocking was the amount of laughter and joy exhibited by the Vinithri scientists.

  A cluster of Vinithri would spend hours studying their unusual devices, barely speaking, moving in unison on a particular problem or another. Suddenly, one would stop, start gyrating her body and emitting pheromones that the translators would identify as singing. The words were incomprehensible to Terran speakers; it sounded like melodious chattering to them. Several Vinithri would rub their vestigial wings and the scritch-scratch-scratch added to the alien melody.

  Other times, the singing would start, then quickly change to a slow, sad melody. The Vinithri antennae would droop and they would all lower their heads until the nerve ganglion at their necks were exposed.

  Elian asked Three about the singing. “Oh, Doctor Elian Lumburg,” she tittered, “we live so close all the time. We love being together and the most unimaginable situation for a Vinithri to be in is alone. So, naturally, when we feel a rush of emotion, we start to sing. And when one of my sisters start to sing and dance, I want to sing and dance! And, sometimes, one of us will feel sad. So when she starts to sing about being sad, I want to sing about feeling sad. Don’t Terrans do the same thing?”

  “We like to celebrate together, yes,” Elian said. “But usually when I am sad, I want to be alone.”

  “That’s terrible,” gasped Three. “When I am sad, I absolutely must be with my sisters. Is it not the same with you and your male, Doctor Rolf Lumburg?” It had been difficult for the Vinithri to comprehend the female Terrans living and working with their males. In Vinithri society, males existed only long enough to mature. After mating with the Queen, they were taken away to die.

  Three clattered over to her work station and set to a task immediately. “We had a wonderful treat this morning,” she chirped. “Doctor Beau Melesky received what he called a care package from his family in Vermont in Occident. He had something called maple syrup. Oh my, oh my, oh my, Doctor Elian Lumburg, I haven’t the words to describe how astounding this Vermont in Occident maple syrup is. When we move into the Keep, will there be this maple syrup?”

  Elian smiled at Three’s excitement. “Certainly and much more goodness besides. Rolph and I are hoping we will be able to commute from our home in Seattle when we shift our operations there.”

  Three’s antennae drooped slightly. “It will be good to go to Terra, I suppose,” she said, “but it will not be our home. Second Scientist Daughter and I have discussed the new Queen’s care after she is hatched. I will travel with her to Falleron and help her settle in. Once she is inseminated, I will return to Terra to work on your Emperor’s plan for his heirs. I will return to Falleron only should First or Second Scientist Daughter die. Then I would ascend upward one spot and assume the next position.”

  “Then you would go home to Falleron.”

  Elian smelt the flat, ozone smell of Three’s response. She had lived and worked around the Vinithri scientist to recognize despair.

  “No, I would return to Falleron.” Three’s antennae hung loosely, touching the floor as she bent over in sorrow. “None of us can go home again.”

  Hours later, the cranky door opened with its screech and bang. Rolph Lumburg entered the lab whistling, carrying an opaque box under his arm. Three’s antennae began to quiver. “Hello Three, hello Elian,” Rolph sang. He kissed his wife and whistled again at the Vinithri.

  Three quivered again. “Oh, Doctor Rolph Lumburg,” she quivered. “You sing such naughty things!”

  The Lumburg’s laughed. “Actually, I came to see you bearing a gift, Three.” He set the box on the table and opened a tiny door at the bottom. “You remember our friend Apis Cerana Royala?” The two-inch-long, Asian honey bee queen preened on his index finger.

  “Of course.” Three extended her foreleg; the large bee crawled along the proffered forelock. “Greeting, Majesty.” Three’s greeting was respectful, as she lay her antennae flat and exposed her neck ganglion.

  Rolph opened another door in his gift box. “I’d like to introduce you to another friend, Three,” and could not hide the pride in his voice. On his finger was an ant, brown and red, three inches long and fat. “This is Dinoponera Paraponera Clavat Royala. She is the largest ant to be found on Terra.”

  Three extended her other foreleg; the large ant crawled onto Three and waved her antenna. “Greetings, Majesty,” the Vinithri scientist repeated. She looked to Rolph. “I assume this represents progress on our mission?”

  “Third Scientist Daughter, this represents the solution to our mission!” Rolph could hardly hold back his excitement. “We know the honey bee queen produces a close facsimile of the queen jelly we need to feed your queen pupa. Unfortunately, she produces so little, we would need five hundred thousand queens to produce the jelly over the course of one year. Dinoponera, on the other hand, produces copious amounts of the jelly, enough that five hundred queens can produce in a month what five hundred Apis Cerana produces in one year. Further, the Dinoponera is hardier; we can produce five hundred thousand in less than half the time than the Apis Cerana.”

  “Wait, wait!” Elian interjected. “Dinoponera don’t produce the queen jelly compatible for our needs.”

  Rolph grabbed his wife and spun her around, “This one does, my love,” he said. “She has to be fed Dinoponera queen jelly while pupate. But we have spliced the necessary gene sequence into Dinoponera so, when fed correctly, will produce the Apis Cerana-Vinithri hybrid jelly we need to produce for the queen pupa!”

  The Vinithri scientist’s four legs collapsed beneath her. “Is this true?” she gasped. “Have you done this? Are you telling me you have saved my race from extinction?”

  Rolph extended his hands and cautiously took the two queens. “Yes, lady, we have found the solution to save your race. Already we have half the Dinoponera queens we need. Within the month, we will have all the queens available to produce the jelly needed to maintain your queen.”

  Three struggled to her feet. “Then the Vinithri must get busier still,” she said. “We need to inseminate the chosen egg now so the pupa can hatch in three months. Then we will be ready to move to the Emperor Angkor’s Keep to grow our queen.”

  A fierce wind whistled and howled around the mountains of Angkor’s Keep. It was fitting; Angkor had rarely felt out of control in his life.

  Sophia’s cries still tore at him. She had fallen to her knees when Angkor told her of the banishment of their son, tearing at her clothes and grabbing Angkor’s feet. “No, my husband, no,” she wailed. “Not our son! Please tell me you have not done this to our son!”

  He had wanted to kick her away while he wanted also to throw himself to the floor as she had done, to wail alongside her. The anger and frustration had all come to a head and he had no way to release the pain. Instead, he had stalked away, leaving her to her despair.

  Now, Angkor sat with his legs dangling over the rail-less balcony of their chambers, overlooking the Gobi. He had wanted none of this. His plans had him and Sophia a hundred million miles away, safe and snug on Ganymede Station. Perhaps Buru would have fulfilled his duty to the tribe and they could have been a family. Suishin’s fall had been a mercy for him, never having to be exposed to the hell his life had become. Perhaps he should join his brother in death’s sweet embrace.

  But he had a mission. Tok and Ng were quite specific. He was to write the law for his Empire. He was to set the Terran Empire on its course for the next ten thousand years. Or some such drivel.

  Most of all, he could not do that to Sophia. He had caused her enough pain and misery. For him to kill himself in such a cowardly fashion…No, he would not do that to her.

  He heard her delicate footfall approach. The gentle rustle of cloth as she kn
elt behind him. Her slender fingers began to knead his back and shoulders. “You are so tense, my husband,” she spoke in her tender voice. “Here, let me help you.” Strong fingers followed the knotted muscles in his shoulders, massaging and pressing the tense ropes down his spine. She always knew just how much pressure to apply, just where she needed to press and rub next.

  His tears coursed lined cheeks. Here, in this place with his blessed wife, here he could cry at last. Out of the prying eyes of the public, behind the stone walls shading him from his spying generals. Here, he and Sophia could share their grief.

  “He told me you would understand,” Angkor said, his voice hoarse. “I pray you do, because what he has done is far beyond my understanding.”

  She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and kissed his neck. “I do understand. As I understand your decision. I don’t agree with either of you. But as Buru’s mother, I know what it means to follow your heart. And as your wife, I know that you are bound to your honor and the honor of our people.

  “There is little I can do for Buru. Now he will have to find his own way, just as I had to when I left Calcutta. It will be difficult for his wife and him. But if they love each other enough, work hard enough and the gods look with favor on them, then we have no need to fear for them.

  “I will watch over them, Husband. I am his mother and it is my job to do so.”

  She gave him a gentle tug; he turned and lay on her lap. Stroking his hair, she said, “You are a great and mighty Emperor. You are the Khan of our people. For them, for all of your Empire, you must be strong and firm. Our people, indeed all of Terra and the Empire must see that you, of all people, honor and follow the law and traditions. For you, my husband, I shall do all the wailing and crying, suffering the indignities life will heap upon you.

  “But in here, in our privacy, you can unleash your pain with me.”

  “What did I ever do to deserve you?” Angkor asked. “I did not plan any of this when I took you away from that vile merchant in Delhi. When I sought your father’s blessing, I only thought it would ever be just you and me. I did not want this,” he waved his arm around. “I did not want to become Emperor. I did not want to write the law. I still don’t want these things. These things that drove our son away. And yet, still, here you sit, holding my aching heart and showering me with love. What did I ever do for all this?”