Rothsam escorted me all the way to a sleeping compartment.
“You will remain in this compartment until I come for you at planetfall. A bathroom is attached. There is a dumbwaiter for food and drink. You’re welcome to use the communication unit.” He smirked at that. I could see his point. Who would I talk to?
After I’d recovered from the shock, I spent my time shifting from sobbing to puking, so I had nothing left to feel when the images on the communications unit dissolved into a screaming headline: “Matsumoto Kills.”
My grief for Edward was intense. My mind was empty without him there. I felt oddly hollow and my thoughts filled the void about as well as a single land vehicle fills a multi-level garage. I wanted to talk to him so I could tell him how much he had meant to me. I wanted to thank him for saving me. I wanted to ask him what to do and what to think, but what hurt the most was knowing that even if he were alive he probably wouldn’t talk to me.
I was a traitor. I’d killed, but not by instinct or by accident. I’d killed on purpose. It was in self-defense, true. It was to stop a killer, true. But those facts did nothing to change the truth. Rothsam was right - I was no longer a Matsumoto. The dove had morphed into a vulture.
Can you fight fate? Can you ever go against what you were born for and not pay the price? There was a price and I would pay it. The Emperor would probably execute me. The thought felt hollow, like I didn’t really care. At least my death would be at the hands of family.
And yet there was still something that seemed wrong. One tiny voice in my core was crying out against the code I was raised with. It screamed out that my continued life was not only a good thing, but the most important thing. I tried to crush the thought, arguing with myself that I was a Matsumoto and Matsumotos did not kill. I was a traitor and I deserved death. I was split into two halves, one arguing against the other.
You aren’t a Matsumoto anymore, are you? my mind asked, and if you aren’t a Matsumoto then how can self-defense be wrong?
If I am not a Matsumoto then I am nothing, I screamed back, Nothing! Can’t you see, I’m not me anymore!
Then who are you? If you aren’t you then it’s time to find someone else to be.
It won’t matter anyhow. I won’t live the week out.
Yes, my second half agreed, you won’t.
It was the only thing we agreed about on the whole trip.
I fingered the communications pad, regretting that I had no living parents to call, but glad that they would never know of the humiliation I had brought on our family. I had to talk to someone, though.
Without thought I pulled up a call program and keyed in Denise’s link. The pad buzzed through, but prompted me to leave a voice message. Was Denise screening my calls?
In despair I pulled up another connection. Albert. He picked up immediately.
“Albert?”
“Vera, is that really you?”
“Yes!” I said, relief flooding my voice. He was taking my call!
There was a long silence on his end.
“Don’t call me, Vera. I don’t want to talk to you.” He sounded so cold.
“But Albert, you have to talk to me, I have no one else.” My voice broke. “Edward is dead and-” He cut me off.
“And you should be, too. Goodbye, Vera.”
The link terminated for the second time in a row. I stared numbly at the communications unit.
My hands were trembling around the communications pad as I gasped out long, wrenching sobs until there was nothing left in me. No one came to comfort me. There was absolutely no one in the entire universe who ever would.
We landed on New Greenland four days after we departed. It turned out that solitary confinement was worse than seeing everyone avoid my gaze. I was almost relieved when Captain Rothsam opened my door and shoved a fresh set of grey scrubs into my arms.
“Change. Our shuttle will be here in twenty minutes.”
I changed without protest.
Moments later the door slid open again and Rothsam gestured curtly for me to follow him. I was once again surrounded by the black-uniformed squad. We marched down the corridors and up and down the grav lifts like a scintillating snake. The crewmembers still were carefully avoiding having to dirty their eyes with the sight of me, so the show was entirely lost on them.
A blush burned my face with the humiliation of that walk. It had been just as humiliating the first time, but that time I had been in too much shock to really feel it. Now I could feel it and I knew what it meant. I was no longer a Matsumoto. I was a walking corpse. The fact I was breathing was just a detail.
When we entered the shuttle, the lighting was dimmer than the ship’s and it took me a moment for my eyes to adjust. We were sharing the space with a long, black coffin. Edward. We were going to go planetside with Edward. I placed my hands, palms down, fingers spread across the glossy surface of the coffin.
Goodbye, Edward, I thought, I couldn’t have asked for a better guardian. I will miss you more than anything. I-
My goodbyes were interrupted when a rough hand pulled me away from the coffin and shoved me into a seat at the back of the shuttle. Captain Rothsam grimaced as he lowered himself into the seat beside me. Apparently criminals weren’t allowed goodbyes or regrets.
The flight was too short and too long both at once. I felt the anticipation of meeting the Emperor and the fear of being executed in equal measure. Would they do it right away? Or would they wait to do it publicly? This had never happened in my lifetime. As far as I knew, it had never happened in the nine generations of the Matsumoto Dynasty. It would be horrible.
THE EX-PACIFIST: 8
WHEN WE LANDED, A VENTURI model hover car was waiting. A red carpet had been pulled out and surrounded by an honor guard. Out of long ingrained habit, I started to move towards the carpet until I felt the iron grip of Rothsam’s hand pull me back
“Edward Nakamura is a hero with a hero’s welcome. He never forgot his duty.”
I looked down, chastened and ashamed. Of course the red carpet treatment wasn’t for me. I must have been crazy in that half-second when I thought it was. I was glad, though, that they were honoring Edward. He deserved it. Like Rothsam said, he never forgot his duty.
After Edward’s casket was loaded into the Venturi and the honor guard escorted him off the runway, our own transportation arrived. I was loaded with considerably less ceremony than Edward had received into a black-windowed, base-model hover car.
Captain Rothsam’s hand clenched my shoulder hard and never relaxed as we moved from the shuttle to the car. I wasn’t sure what he thought I could do to get away from a squad of Special Forces in the middle of a crowded spaceport. A part of me wished I knew, because then I could have tried it, but the rest of me – the loyal, dutiful Matsumoto part of me that I had once thought was all I was – squelched that thought quickly and guiltily.
We took a direct route to Confederation Hill, where the Emperor’s Spring Palace sprawled. It was a daunting fortress designed to look like part of the rocky outcroppings that were a natural feature of Confederation Hill. I had never liked the Spring Palace. To me it was the most cold and terrifying place the Matsumotos possessed. I sighed. It was fitting that I would die there.
We slowly ascended the hill and rounded the curving road up the dark mountain and as we approached the imposing gates I heard Captain Rothsam let out a long breath of relief. I guess he was in a hurry to get me to sentencing.
Protocols were exchanged between the Special Forces people inside the car and the Special Forces people outside the car. Curt directions were given to us on where to go and what route to take, and the staff in the palace were buzzed to tell them we had arrived.
I was clearly expected, but I was surprised when I overheard Rothsam directed to the Red Room. Apparently I would be judged immediately. That surprised me, because Cousin Nigel, Emperor of the Blackwatch Planets and Associated Worlds, was not usually quick to come to decisions. I guess this one was easy to
make.
My blood pounded in my skull as we turned up the driveway. This was it. It was hard to make myself believe that I could be dead in a few short hours. Somehow it felt like I should know when the end was coming. I felt like I had years to live, like I was only just starting out. Did everyone feel like that at the end? Like their life was being cut short before its time?
The self-preserving part of me that was born on Nagara was screaming in my ears so loudly that I was barely able to hear the pleasantries exchanged between Rothsam and the staffer that greeted us at the door. It was screaming that I needed to do something to extend my life. It was screaming that this was too soon, and even the docile part of me who knew my execution was completely justified had to agree that this tiny heinous part of me was right about one thing. This was too soon.
That moment of weakness fed the traitor in me and I could feel it swelling now, racing to devise a plan. I let it. I only had a short time to live and I knew nothing could save me. Why fight an internal battle now when what I really should be doing was savoring my last breaths?
I sucked in a deep breath, acting out my thoughts and drawing in the cloves and lavender scents of the Spring Palace. My eyes flickered over the familiar works of art as we passed through the hallways. All the riches of a hundred generations lined the walls, oil paintings of Old Earth, sculptures both fanciful and historic in nature, hand painted wall papers and beveled sconces and gilded crown molding and porcelain vases and exotic plants. My mind was racing over every one, absorbing nothing in its desperate desire to absorb everything. A million memories bubbled in each alcove. A thousand half remembered songs sprung to mind and my racing heart provided the tempo, and my sizzling brain the fireworks, and I felt like I was throbbing to the pulse of the planet’s molten core. I had never before felt so alive.
We entered the Red Room at the same measured pace that we had entered the palace. Rothsam held my arm in a vice-like pinch while his men fanned around me in a protective circle. Not to protect me from others, I was certain, but to protect others from me. We stood in the flower-like pattern, the guards at attention, as I tried desperately to look calm and collected – like a Matsumoto – despite my rumpled scrubs and the figurative blood dripping from my hands.
The Red Room was a small room for the palace, but larger than many people’s houses, and painted red, of course. The dark wood wainscoting and carved flowered panels across the ceiling were polished to a perfect gleam. It was devoid of furnishings or modern technology. Wide French doors led to the terrace outside, but these were closed and the heavy red drapes were drawn across them.
Martial décor was the order of the day here. Crossed swords, battle axes, and hideous maces lined the walls. Warriors from various centuries, made timeless by an unknown sculptor, were engaged in battle, positioned about the room.
In the center of the room rose a small dais with a low, padded chair in worn black leather. The marble tile of the floor was red and ivory, cracked and ancient. I traced the patterns with my nervous eyes, still trying to grasp details of the items as familiar to me as my own bedroom.
It struck me, for the first time in my life, that it was very strange for a family of pacifists to have a room like this. It has always been for judgments and for meeting with enemies, clearly it is meant to intimidate, but exactly what threat were we proposing with this room? And were people who make threats of violence really pacifists?
My eyes sprung wide at that thought and I struggled to suppress the blasphemy. I must have been closer to the edge of sanity than I thought to think such things.
At that exact moment, as if he could catch me in my traitorous thoughts, the Emperor entered the room. Nigel Matsumoto wore a close fitting black suit with a mandarin collar, like he always did. He looked just like the statues.
The part of my brain that was barely clinging to sanity wondered if he was one of the statues come to life, but of course not. Nigel was my cousin. I had known him all my life. He was only eight years older than me and before he was crowned Emperor - at sixteen! - he had stolen cookies for me from the kitchen and I had teased him about a girl I thought he liked.
He seated himself on the dark dais chair and his guards formed a protective ring around him, leaving his line of sight clear so he could look at me. The Emperor looked me up and down and if his expression was anything to judge by, the verdict was already a resounding ‘guilty’.
“Vera,” the Emperor said. His voice sounded dead and it sent little chills racing up my back.
I greeted him in the customary fashion with my fist over my heart, and offered a half bow from the waist. The room dropped by almost ten degrees, or perhaps that was how it felt because the blood pounding in my head dropped suddenly to my feet and my entire mind was demanding that I use those feet to run. I did not run. Running would have been useless, and I wouldn’t disgrace myself with an empty gesture. Criminal or not, I was still a Matsumoto and I would remain on my feet.
The Emperor regarded me steadily, his eyes cold and his face hard as flint. I felt my own face grow stony, as I desperately tried to control my emotions.
“Disgrace,” he hissed, so low I could barely hear it. He was leaning forward in his chair, his brown almond-shaped eyes boring into my matching ones. With each word, his hiss grew louder. “Embarrassment. Traitor. Killer.”
He paused, letting his condemnation sink in. One of his hands gripped the arm of his chair till the knuckles went white. He was vibrating in the chair, barely able to keep himself in it, and I felt myself start to vibrate in kind. My emotions were almost impossible to contain. Fear. Self-loathing. Desperation. The sweat started on my forehead, and a bead of it shot straight down the side of my face across my temple and down the side of my jaw. I kept my face as still as stone, unwilling to disgrace myself any more with a reaction.
“You were once a Matsumoto, so I do not need to tell you how you have humiliated your people. I do not need to tell you how every member of our family has pled with me for your swift execution. You are worse than nothing to us. We ache with every breath you still breathe, longing for them to end.”
If I hadn’t known our family so well I’d have thought he was being melodramatic. With what I knew, though, I suspected he was sparing my feelings. I felt my stomach flip in a peculiar way and I struggled to keep my bile down. This would not be as easy as simply standing in front of a firing squad.
“You are a problem without a solution,” he said, “or I should say that you are a problem with only one solution, but even that is not enough.
“When I execute you, do you think that will be enough to erase our humiliation? Hardly. Perhaps if your death is long and painful? Perhaps if I trot you from world to world to give a heart-rending apology? Perhaps if you are publicly tortured? What should I do, Vera, to assuage the guilt of my people? How will I properly deal with you to bring them closure?”
My mind wheeled, desperately trying to pull up an idea that might spare me.
“Redemption,” I whispered.
“What was that?” he said, angry that his soliloquy had been interrupted.
I coughed, trying to clear the massive lump from my throat.
“Redemption,” I said.
He snorted. “And how will you manage that, Vera Matsumoto, fallen cousin of the Emperor? How will you manage to redeem yourself so well that we feel our disgrace is cleared? Your death will barely suffice. How could your life be any better?”
I pulled my courage together, desperate for a way out. I was making this up as I went along. I had no idea how to save myself.
“My death won’t be enough. You’ve already admitted as much. It won’t give people enough of an ending. They’ll be left wanting more and needing to see me suffer more. What I need is a punishment that will satisfy them, but will add to the glory of the Matsumotos.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying. We need a proper torture for you, Vera. Do you propose to help me devise it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
I barely kept the squeak from my voice.
“Yes?” he asked, with thick disbelief.
“What you need is an impossible task. Something you don’t dare give anyone else, because it is almost certain to kill me. Something that if I can accomplish it, will be for the good of our Empire and will bring you greater fame, but something that if I fail at it, will surely kill me, keeping your hands lily white without a speck of my blood on them.”
That sounded brilliant, although I had no idea where I was going with it.
Nigel pulled himself back from the edge of the chair, leaning into its low back and bringing his white-knuckled hand up to his chin. He watched me for a long moment, clearly waiting for me to break in some fashion, but when I didn’t he took a long breath and made a show of looking at one of the statues.
“Your idea has some merit. At a time like this I cannot afford mercy. Not for you.” He gave my hands a poisonous look as if I were literally dripping blood on his red and white floor. “What is more, I have a suitable task. A task that is deadly enough to kill you properly and maybe even with a little torture thrown in if my suspicions are right.”
He was musing to himself, now, and he turned his gaze back to me, a smile forming on his smooth face, and his eyes narrowing to tiny black slashes. “Yes. An elegant solution. I will think on it and tell you my verdict. Until my decision you are under house arrest.”
He waved a hand idly in my direction, a thoughtful expression on his face. Captain Rothsam’s painful grip forced me out the door before I knew what was happening. My knees were growing weak as Nigel’s words began to sink in. Torture. Death. I had known it was coming, but I had thought it was going to be summary execution.
I struggled for breath, gasping and hiccupping. Rothsam shot me a poisonous look and redoubled his grip and his pace. Clearly he feared I would pass out before he got me to the hover car. I had heard of hyperventilating before and I thought that might be what I was doing now. I had a certain grim satisfaction just before I passed out when I realized that Rothsam would have to carry me. He would hate that.
The Matsumoto Trilogy: Omnibus Edition Page 4