by Debra Doyle
"My own tailors stand ready," Kasander said, turning to escort them back through the far locks and through the diplomatic sections to the yacht slips. The Exalted's slipper-bearer stood silent as they passed, then followed.
"I wonder what all this is in honor of?" Blossom said. She looked down onto the landing field at Port of Diamond from her position at the Dusty's guns. "Flute players, flower girls, and a gentlesir in a morning-robe that I wouldn't have believed in even if you'd described it to me twice… I haven't seen a reception committee like this one since Jos took 'Rada home to Entibor."
"We'll probably find out about everything soon enough," Bindweed replied over intraship comms from the other gunnery station. "Amaro—Errec—has gone down with Trav to meet the natives."
"Trav knows he's supposed to keep an eye on the captain, right?"
"Right. I just hope he remembers."
Blossom heard the sound of the Dusty's ramp sighing open, then the noise of footsteps on metal as Trav Esmet and the captain walked down. She could just see the two men at the edge of her gunnery station's viewscreen.
The gentlesir in the amazing morning-robe stepped forward to speak with the captain and the navigator. There was a brief colloquy at the foot of the ramp. Then the gentlesir turned aside and made a tiny hand gesture. The flower girls began to drift away with their baskets of white and lavender petals, and the flute players started putting their instruments back into their cases.
"Looks like trouble," Bindweed said.
"I guess we didn't have the right cargo," Blossom replied. "Since up until Sapne our cargo was just three young people that nobody was supposed to know were here—"
"—I'd say we need to look more closely at the situation."
Blossom leaned forward suddenly. She'd spotted an unexpected flurry of movement at the edge of her screen. "Wait a moment. The game's not over yet. The gent in the morning-robe is going off with our captain."
"Strange are the ways of Khesat," Bindweed said. "But unless I'm awfully mistaken, this isn't the sort of greeting every random merchant gets, even here."
Blossom switched the intraship comm to the engineering spaces. "Chaka? If you're not occupied, come up and meet us in the common room. It's time we had a serious talk."
The town house of Jens's cousin-once-removed was like nothing Faral had ever seen, except in holovids and in the illustrations of adventure books about the days before the Magewars. The private entrance hall into which the Exalted of Tanavral first escorted his guests had walls paneled in carved ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Heavy brocade curtains with deep valances covered the windows. The ceiling had chandeliers and allegorical frescoes, and the floor had parquetry and Ilarnan millefleur carpets.
Miza, wide-eyed, had identified all those things to Faral, and had given him an estimate of their worth that made his breath catch in his throat. The two of them hadn't had long to talk—a few minutes only, while Rhal Kasander spoke urgently with his personal tailor at the other end of the long chamber. Then the tailor's attendants, both male and female, had descended upon Jens and his companions, and hurried them off separately for measurings and fittings and the presentation to each of them, in less time than Faral had believed possible, of an elegant new wardrobe.
Now the cousins were back together for the first time in several hours, in the upstairs reception room where they had been taken to await the return of Miza. Jens, newly resplendent in the High Khesatan mode, wore a full-sleeved day coat of black moire spidersilk lined throughout in lapis lazuli, with a string of opals braided into his long yellow hair. Around his neck, plainly visible against the pure white of his shirtfront, he still wore the leather cord strung with bits of bone that the oracle on Sapne had given him for luck. Combined with the opals, the effect was one of perverse, and somehow entirely Khesatan, distinction.
Mercifully, the tailor had not attempted a similar transformation with Faral, contenting himself with providing a plain suit of well-fitted garments in the basic Galcenian style. Faral supposed that the difference in clothing implied all sorts of things about rank and status to the eyes of Khesatan observers, but he didn't care. What counted at the moment was that for the first time in some hours he had an opportunity to talk with Jens alone.
*What are we really doing here, foster-brother?* he asked urgently. *And when do we get something to eat?*
He spoke in Trade-talk for privacy's sake, and because the shared language was still a link between them. To his relief, Jens answered him in the same tongue.
*If you're asking for a hearty serving of rare meat and blood sauce, you won't get it any time soon. Late afternoon is for small pale sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off.*
*I can hardly wait,* said Faral. *And you didn't answer my first question.*
*I'm here for reasons of my own,* Jens said. *And you're here because you stuck to me like a wool-burr from the moment we left Maraghai—*
*I stuck to… !* Faral's indignation left him briefly speechless.
*—and I'm damned if I know why your friend Miza is still with us at all.*
Faral regained his voice again with some difficulty. *That "reasons of my own" line is getting thin, foster-brother. Time for me to speak plainly, I think.*
*If you must.*
*All right. It was important for you to get to Khesat, I could see that. So I went along. You mentioned danger and intrigue and backing the winning candidate. That didn't sound like your usual style, but I didn't argue with it because the other choice was calling you a liar. But things are happening now that I don't understand even a little, and I think you ought to tell me the truth.*
Jens let out his breath and sat down abruptly on one of the carved wooden chairs. All of a sudden he looked much more like his usual self, in spite of the moiré spidersilk and the string of opals. *I got a message,* he said, *the night you were going to leave Maraghai with Chaka and go off wandering.*
*What kind of message?*
*My father was with Space Force Intelligence for a long time,* Jens said. *Maybe he still is, I don't know. Anyway, he arranged things so that if anything bad ever happened to my mother or to him, I'd be sure to get word of it whether he could make contact himself or not. That kind of message.*
*Did it say what was going on?* Faral tried to imagine how trouble that bad could possibly have befallen his aunt and uncle. He'd always thought of them as dazzling and somehow invincible, living an exciting life in some place very far away, like people in a holovid. *Did they ask you for help?*
Jens shook his head. The opals glittered. *Nothing that clear and obvious. But I'm worried that both Dadda and Mamma are being held incommunicado by someone on Khesat who wants to use them in setting up a new Highest. If I want to learn anything more, I'll have to play the game as if I intend to be a candidate for the office myself. Is everything clear enough for you now?*
Faral couldn't think of an answer that wouldn't sound either rude or stupid. Finally he gave up. *Shouldn't you call Public Security to report a kidnapping first?*
*So far, nothing illegal has happened. But you can go a long way on Khesat and stay inside the boundaries of the law… especially if you're a Worthy and confine yourself to dealing with others of similar rank.*
*I can see why your father joined the Space Force and left the planet,* said Faral after a moment.
*Not yet you can't,* Jens told him. *But you will.*
"Well," Blossom said. "That was certainly an unusual reception."
Along with Bindweed, Chaka, and Trav Esmet, she was sitting at the table in Dust Devil's common room. She poured herself some cha'a, hot and bitter, and swirled it around in the cup before looking over at her partner. "Have you ever seen the like?"
"No," said Bindweed, "but I've never been to Khesat before, either."
"Granted. Trav, did you happen to catch who that gentlesir in the morning-robe might have been?"
"Hafelsan," the navigator replied. "Gerre somebody somebody Hafelsan."
"You mu
st improve your memory for names," Bindweed told him. "Such things may be important someday when you've got a ship of your own."
Blossom ignored her partner's comment and concentrated on the navigator. "But do you recall what was said?"
"Yes," Trav replied. He laced his fingers around his cha'a cup—Blossom had poured it for him herself, so that he'd know he wasn't in trouble with the owners—and continued.
"The gentlefellow in the morning-robe inquired of the captain for his passengers. Captain Amaro said no, we carried none. The fellow with the morning-robe grew impatient, and asked if the captain was sure that no one named Jens Metadi-Jessan D'Rosselin had taken passage. 'None such,' the captain said, but from the way he looked when the fellow spoke the name 'Metadi' I could see that some memory was being jarred loose.
"The fellow in the morning-robe started to head off, but then he seemed to change his mind. He came back and put an arm around the captain's shoulders and said, real hearty-like, "There are some things I want to show you.' Then they walked off together and neither one looked back."
Blossom turned to the Selvaur. "What do you think, Chaka?"
* Weirder than anything I've ever heard.*
"This whole trip has been strange, I'll grant you that. Now, my dears, here's what we will do. Bindweed and I will play the role of dotty old ladies on holiday."
"That sounds like grand fun!" Bindweed said. "We shall go shopping, yes we shall!"—delivered with a manic leer that made the others laugh in spite of themselves.
"Trav, you will remain on the ship, with Sarris and the rest of the crew," Blossom continued. "Carry out business as usual, the same way you would in any working port. The captain may return, and he may wish to set a course elsewhere. Follow his orders, of course.
"However," she went on, "unless I miss my guess, someone will approach you and ask you to hire on with them, or to sell them information, or something of that nature. Normally, I'm sure, your loyalty to the ship would preclude your accepting any such offer. This time, you will accept after holding out for the best price you can."
"We'll let you keep whatever you gain," Bindweed put in. "Don't sell yourself cheaply. No one will believe it."
Blossom nodded. "As I was saying, we as owners of this craft give you permission to sell out. Do what's asked. Take careful note of who, where, and what, as well as other details you may notice, and bring back a full report."
"It should be fascinating," Bindweed said. She rose and set aside her empty mug. "Now we'll have to dress for town."
*And if fame beckons?* Chaka asked.
"Then seize it with your fangs," Blossom replied, "and don't let go. Despite your misgivings, I believe that fame is to be had here."
She took a deep breath. "Yes, fame is in the air of Khesat today."
"Does no one in this room speak whatever beastly language those two boys are using?" asked the Exalted of Tanavral. He sat with Caridal Fere, Master of Nalensey, in the latter's study. The voices of the Worthy cadet-Jessani and his traveling companion issued from a desktop comm link molded in the shape of a black crystal lily. "What's the use of sewing ears into their robes if they're going to jabber to each other in some uncouth tongue?"
"I believe that they're speaking one of the Selvauran dialects," said Fere. "Nearly impossible to learn unless you're brought up with it. Or so I'm told."
"Find me a translator," the Exalted said. "One without political affiliation, if possible."
"If such a thing exists on Khesat at a time like this," said Fere. "The scholars at the university have a Worthy of their own already, so we can't ask them. And the staff at the Maraghaite Embassy claims to refuse all such requests as a matter of principle." He paused. "If we look outside the usual channels… on that ship from Sapne, the one that Hafelsan made such a fool of himself over meeting, the engineer's apprentice is a Selvaur. Shall we hire it to listen to these two and bring us translations?"
Rhal Kasander began to smile. "An off-worlder," he said. "Excellent. No local ties to create… misperceptions. And no one will notice its absence after the events, when witnesses may no longer be necessary."
The Master of Nalensey clapped his hands twice. A young woman appeared. He did not address her, but instead spoke aloud with his back to her.
"There is a ship in port from Sapne," he said. "There is a Selvaur on that ship. Hire it. Bring it here."
The woman bowed, and left.
Kolpag Garbazon sat with his partner Ruhn at a sidewalk cafe in Ilsefret, sipping fruit juice and looking over the poetry section in the Galactic Intelligencer. Kolpag was finding the famed Khesatan decadence to be considerably less impressive than folklore made it out to be—for his money, you could find more of it, and better, in Freemarket Plaza on a LastDay night.
Ruhn was even less impressed. He cleared the screen on the Intelligencer's text display and said, "More nonsense. We might as well have stayed home in Sombrelír."
"Patience," Kolpag said. "Everything is here, and all we need do is wait for it to present itself. Our analysis could not be wrong."
"Oh yes it could," Ruhn said. "And we're sitting a long way out in the cold for my comfort, on a planet where they won't put booze in their fruit juices because they think it ruins the natural bouquet."
"They've got a point, you know."
"Of the juice?"
"Some people care about such things, I suppose." Kolpag nodded toward Ruhn's discarded newsreader. "And speaking of cold comfort, did you catch the word of a new plague out of Sapne? The opening of the Tremoncton Gallery—it's in that squib."
"There's nothing of interest in these papers written in Galcenian," Ruhn said. He picked up the newsreader again anyway. "Did you know that in Khesatan, the same word means stranger, foreigner, non-native-speaker, and mannerless boor?"
Kolpag grunted. "Not surprising. What's more surprising is the number of words that rhyme with it."
"I still don't see where you got that bit about the plague."
"Plague from Sapne, that's what they mean by the Miller's White. And when you combine that with the news of a merchant spacer found dead in an alley yesterday afternoon…"
"Where did you see that?" Ruhn demanded.
"In the off-planet message feed," said Kolpag. "It helps to pay attention. I put up a stop-and-hold on any mention of known members of the Dust Devil's crew, and guess who didn't make it?"
"Bindweed and Blossom," said Ruhn, "if there's any justice in the universe."
"None that I know of. It was our friend Captain Amaro, the man in too much of a hurry to pick up the cargo he'd contracted for."
"Maybe one of the people he stiffed wasn't happy with him, and sent him a present."
"Maybe indeed," Kolpag said. "But when you combine that story with no news of anyone of importance arriving on that ship, it tells me that our package surely did arrive on it. Now watch the long knives appear."
"In what form?" Ruhn asked.
"A series of entertainments," said Kolpag, "to which we won't be invited. Followed by an entertainment to which everyone will be invited, and to which we'll invite ourselves."
"Don't be so cryptic. You're starting to go native."
"Not if I can help it," Kolpag told him. "I improved my mind during the transit by reading everything that was available on Ophel about Khesatan politics. Made me glad I'd been born in poverty before I was done."
He had arrived on Khesat. That was right, it was the proper place. More and more was coming to him. People he recognized. He was sure he had been a starpilot, the skills were there. Skill did not fail him.
In dreams he saw himself dressed in white, a white staff in his hand, striding across the worlds, finding the corruption and exposing it, cleansing the worlds, then binding them so that they could never escape from control again.
Then came the waking, and a delegation meeting him. A memory stirred, of the end of a war, of being happy, the awards and the honors. Coming down from the starship where Tilly and Nannla ran the gun
s, a Selvaur in the engineering spaces, and there he stood with the captain beside him—
And the man in the morning-robe said the word "Metadi."
Rosselin and Metadi.
The memories came in a rush. He was Ransome, Errec Ransome, the Breaker of Circles. The final chance had come, the final Circle waited to be broken. Now everything was within his grasp, along with the vengeance.
Vengeance on Rosselin and Metadi, the ones who had killed him before his time.
Ransome willed the man before him to approach.
"There are some things I want to show you," the man said.
Good, Ransome thought. There are some things I want to see. And I shall see them through your eyes.
Chapter XVII.
Khesat
« ^ »
Jens Metadi-Jessan D'Rosselin, cadet-Jessani, Worthy scion of a Worthy Lineage, stood in the reception hall of Rhal Kasander's town house, sipping moon-flower wine from thimble-sized glasses while being sized up, it seemed, by every Worthy dowager on the planet.
Shopping for their great-granddaughters, he thought. At least I hope it's for their great-granddaughters.
The reception hall was high and airy. An early-autumn rain pattered against the windows, and the breeze through the clerestory brought blessed coolness to what might otherwise have been an overcrowded scene. Retrofitting the antique heating and cooling systems of the town house for proper climate control was well within the means of Jens's cousin-once-removed, but doing so would have spoiled the architect's carefully planned patterns of natural air circulation.
Jens put aside his wineglass without looking—one of the Exalted's servitors slid a silver tray into place beneath it before he released his fingers—and strolled over to the retiring-corner. There, low tables and piles of cushions awaited the pleasure of those who chose to recline and view the passing scene. Having chosen a cushion, he sank back, resting on his elbows, and surveyed the room.