Worlds Apart (ThreeCon)

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  Hari looked at the plate. “It looks okay to me.”

  “It’s synthesized food, Chief,” Chio said. “He’s probably not used to it.”

  Hari looked at the plate again. All at once, his mouth twisted in a saturnine grin. “That’s true. Very true, Chio. And there’s only one place aboard this ship where no one eats synthesized food.”

  Prax watched the older man closely. There was no deceit in him. Not real deceit, but something close to it. Some trickery that was almost enough to alert Prax’s gift.

  “Chief, do you mean—”

  “Never mind,” Hari said before Chio could finish. “Don’t worry, Praxiteles. You won’t have to eat that food.” He leaned across his desk and pressed a key. “Rurhahn, how are you doing on the list?”

  A deep, gravelly voice spoke out of the air. Prax was used to disembodied voices by now, but there was something strangely unnerving about the deepness of this voice. “I’ve got a few titles, Chief, but that’s all. This isn’t my usual line of work, you know.”

  “Don’t worry. That’s enough to get him started. Give me the titles.”

  “The World Where Terrans Come From,” the deep voice said. “The Universe Around Us, and Why Don’t People All Look Alike?”

  “Sounds good,” Hari said, pressing some keys on his desk. “I think this should be plenty for the first day. Wouldn’t want to overload him. Keep working on it, though.”

  Prax got to his feet, annoyed. He was tired of people speaking about him as if he weren’t in the room. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m arranging for some educational programs for you,” Hari said, pressing another key. “Draghnachh, are you there?”

  After a brief pause, another voice sounded. This one was much higher, almost lilting. Prax couldn’t tell if it was a man’s voice or a woman’s. “Yes. I’m here.”

  “Has Mistress Trahn ordered lunch yet?”

  “Yes, a moment ago. She wants it served in two hours.”

  “Make it for two, would you, please?”

  Another brief pause, and then the lilting voice said, “Certainly, Chief Ijeomah.”

  “And remember, she skipped breakfast. Be sure you make plenty.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks.” Hari pressed a few more keys and leaned back with a satisfied look on his face. “Okay. Two down and one to go.”

  “Chief, do you need me?” Chio asked. “I’m on duty.”

  Hari’s smile was serene. “I know that. And your assignment at the moment is to show Praxiteles how to watch the first program on Rurhahn’s list.” He glanced around the room. “He can watch the first one here. I’ll call you in about an hour.” He grinned at Prax. “There you go, Praxiteles. Something to take your mind off the lack of windows on a starship.”

  A small square box on one end of a shelf suddenly sprang to life. Prax jumped as the box hummed with sound, and a shape formed in front of it. A friendly female voice spoke in Standard. “We’re going to pay a little visit to Terra, the world where Terrans come from. Come along!”

  The shape was a dense black cloud filled with tiny points of light. As Prax watched, he had the sensation of zooming through the blackness until one tiny point of light got brighter and brighter.

  “That’s Terra’s star, called Sol,” the voice said, “and this is Terra.”

  A glowing sphere formed in the blackness. It reminded Prax of the view he had seen of his own world, except that only a tiny part of this world was in shadow. Most of the lighter side was a beautiful shade of blue that reminded Prax of the sky above the plains.

  The sphere got closer and closer until Prax felt as if he were swooping over the surface of it. He drew in a breath and barely noticed when Hari left the office.

  “Sit down,” Chio said, pushing him into a chair. “It looks like we’re both going to be here for a while.”

  Prax sat, entranced by the bird-like view as they flew across a vast canyon and then suddenly swooped upward among the clouds as they traversed a mountain range.

  “This isn’t too bad,” Chio said, reaching over to adjust the image so that the field grew larger. “I’ve never been to Terra.”

  Prax didn’t bother to answer.

  RISHI was immersed in her ledger program when Hari’s special notes sounded. She set her teeth, but her mood lightened when she saw the time. She would have to stop soon for lunch, anyway.

  She turned off the AI, pushed the screen away, and turned her chair toward the main room. “Come.”

  Hari strode in jauntily. “Hello, Rishi! You know how you’re always complaining that you eat alone too often?”

  Her mood brightened. “Are you joining me for lunch? Great!”

  “Not exactly,” Hari said.

  Chapter Five

  Rishi sipped her soup and wondered what to say.

  Across from her, Praxiteles gripped his spoon like it was a weapon and watched her anxiously. He took a tentative sip and seemed pleased with the result. “This is good soup, lady.”

  Rishi sprinkled some fried noodles into the bowl. “Yes, it is. Draghnachh always does a good job with soup.”

  Praxiteles reached for his fried noodles and copied her gesture. “Who is Draghnachh?”

  “She’s my assistant cook. She comes with me when I travel because Thulan, my regular cook, refuses to leave Subidar.”

  “Did Draghnachh,” Praxiteles frowned, as if it took an effort to say the name, “cook the scrambled eggs and ham that Chio brought to me?”

  Rishi laughed. “I expect no one cooked them. When we’re at home, Thulan cooks for everyone in the household. She has Draghnachh to help her, and a huge kitchen, and she likes cooking for a big group. But when I travel, Draghnachh complains the ship’s kitchen is too small to cook for a group. That means everyone else gets synthesized food, which is what the crew eats when I’m not here, anyway.”

  Praxiteles crunched a spoonful of noodles. “What is synthesized food?”

  It occurred to Rishi that explaining technology to someone who had never seen it only highlighted her own ignorance of how things worked. “Instead of a person cooking real eggs and real ham, a machine made them both from biomass. That’s a mixture of grain and vegetable matter reduced to its most basic chemical levels.”

  Praxiteles made a face. “I do not truly understand it, lady, but it sounds terrible.”

  Rishi finished her soup and moved the bowl to one side. Instantly, the servoid picked up the empty bowl from the table. Its cavity opened, and one robotic arm placed the bowl into the cavity while the other served her a plate of steaming stroganoff.

  Praxiteles watched, looking mesmerized, and then moved his soup bowl. When the servoid placed the stroganoff in front of him, he stared down at his plate. “What is this, lady?”

  Rishi stirred her food with her fork and sniffed. Maybe she wouldn’t attempt to explain vat-grown meat. It might put him off this food, and she didn’t want him to starve. “The sauce is called stroganoff. I’m not sure about the meat. It could be beef from Terra or it could be something more exotic like prueba from Shuratan. Draghnachh likes to experiment.”

  Praxiteles took a bite. “It’s very good. It tastes a little like bodi.” He watched her almost shyly. “Thank you for letting me eat with you.”

  Rishi fought a blush, recalling how she had protested when Hari told her his plan. “It’s no trouble, Praxiteles. When you consider what I did to you, it’s a small enough favor to ask in return.” He still looked abashed, so she smiled at him. “Besides, except for breakfast when I’m not very social, I dislike eating alone.”

  This comment seemed to cheer him up. He ate several bites of stroganoff before venturing another question. “Have you no family traveling with you, lady?”

  She did her best not to let her distress show on her face. “Actually, I have no family lef
t. My parents died some years ago.”

  His eyes opened wide. “No family at all?”

  She shrugged. “Except for some second cousins.”

  He looked interested. “On your mother’s side or your father’s?”

  “My father’s.” She decided to shift the conversational burden onto him. “What about you? I know you have a mother and a brother. Who else is in your family?”

  “I have two brothers, lady. Apollo is older than me, and married to a woman of the Zemikis. He lives with them now. Nikos is eleven, but he’s not married yet.”

  “Eleven!” Rishi was shocked for a second. The wounded boy she had seen seemed young, but much older than eleven. “Oh, you’re counting in Celadonian years.”

  Praxiteles looked lost by the comment. “Pardon?”

  Rishi had a glimpse of what Hari meant when he said Praxiteles had a lot to learn. “Never mind. You’ll learn about that later. Go on. What about sisters?”

  “I have two, also. Penelope is married and has three children, two girls and a boy. Iphigenia is the youngest of us. She’s only nine.”

  “You all have such interesting names,” Rishi said. “I never met anyone named Praxiteles before.”

  “And I never met a woman named Rishi before.”

  She had to smile. “You’re not likely to again. It’s actually a man’s name. I was named after my mother’s favorite philosophy professor.”

  He looked confused. Possibly the Elliniká weren’t familiar with academic titles; or perhaps they had no leisure time to study philosophy. Determinedly, Rishi steered the conversation away from family matters. “Did you like the program Hari found for you to watch?”

  Praxiteles’ face lit up. “It was amazing, lady. It was as if I were flying over this other world where my ancestors lived.” He went on to describe the wonders he had seen—immense canyons and tall mountains, vast deserts and wide oceans, lakes, waterfalls, and cities of every imaginable configuration.

  Watching him, Rishi felt rather jaded, as if she had lost something this primitive warrior still had. She realized it was a sense of wonder. He could be amazed at so many things that had lost their power to move her in any way.

  “Now, tell me about your world,” Rishi ordered. “Tell me what it’s like to live in a wagon on the plains of Celadon.”

  He blinked, as if he had never stopped to consider his own environment as worthy of comment. “It’s not an easy life, lady. We have to work hard. We have no plumbing, no power fields, no machines of any kind. But we live together, in families and in clans. We have our laws and traditions. We’ve been on Celadon as long as anyone has, and we’ve made our place in our world by hard work.”

  “What kind of work did you do?”

  He shrugged. “Almost everything is work. Hauling water to wash or cook. Building a fire. Riding herd. Butchering a bodi. Driving the wagon. Making things, like tools and furniture. But some things are more pleasant work. Riding herd is good duty, so long as the herd is not spooked. When the sun shines and the breeze brings the scent of the wildflowers, it is very agreeable to sit on an alogos’ back and watch the bodi graze.”

  “It sounds quite nice.”

  “It was, yes.”

  His eyes had a stricken look. Rishi suffered a pang of regret at causing him to suffer. She reached over and touched his hand. “I can send you back as soon as we get to Subidar.”

  He shook his head. “The Mercouri owe a debt.”

  Rishi patted his hand, surprised to find herself immensely pleased that he was staying. “Well, then, I’ll send you back as soon as it’s paid.”

  He nodded. “When I first heard your voice, you said to Hari that ThreeCon would make you pay a fine. ThreeCon is like a clan for all the worlds, yes?”

  “In a way.” Rishi was impressed that he had picked up that much knowledge, but then she remembered that he had traded in the cities of Celadon, where ThreeCon had a limited presence. “The full name is the Third Confederation of Planets, but everyone calls them ThreeCon.”

  “You must tell me how much they make you pay, lady, so I’ll know how much I must work for you.”

  Rishi frowned. “Praxiteles, it’ll be a huge amount of money. It might even be more than a security guard makes in a lifetime.”

  He looked into her eyes. “That does not matter, lady. I will work until I can work no more.”

  She felt a shiver run up her spine. She had thought she was disciplined, but something in his voice told her that her idea of determination paled before what the Elliniká instilled in their people. “Now you’re making me feel terrible.”

  His distress was instantaneous. “Why?”

  “Because I brought this on you.”

  Surprisingly, he laughed. “Achilles Kazanti brought this on me when he told me I had to learn the language of the cities.”

  Rishi laughed with him, but in her heart she knew it wasn’t just his language skills that had brought him to the Golden Hawk. Whoever had given him those blue eyes had ordained that he would draw her notice. “This has been very pleasant,” she said, getting to her feet. “I hope you’ll join me at dinner, too. Hari will most likely be there.”

  Praxiteles gave a little bow. “Certainly, lady. Whatever you wish.”

  The respect in his voice gave Rishi a heady taste of power. It would be very tempting to spend time with someone who thought she was more than admirable. Someone who thought of her with reverence. Really, she would have to be careful not to let it go to her head.

  PRAX stared. The images on the monitor hadn’t prepared him for the reality of the being approaching him in the corridor of the Golden Hawk. “Rurhahn,” Hari said, “I want you to meet someone. This is Praxiteles Mercouri. He goes by Praxiteles, by the way. His people are almost like Shuratanians as far as names.”

  Prax cleared his throat, trying not to sound nervous. “My friends call me Prax.”

  Hari looked pleased as he nodded. “Good. That’s easier to say. Anyway, Rurhahn, Prax will be joining our staff once we get to Subidar.”

  Prax drew in a breath and had to remind himself to let it out. Vaguely shaped like a human, Rurhahn was about the same height as he was, but he must have weighed close to twice as much. The only thing more massive than his legs was his torso. Even his face had a craggy look—a long narrow cleft for a nose and a wide slash full of teeth for a mouth. His skin was a deep gray, and his eyes were the same color, only darker, and wet looking, like stones set in clay. He wore the same uniform as Hari, but the shirt was open at the neck, revealing a tuft of fur on his chest.

  “Prax,” Hari said, a formal note in his voice, “this is Rurhahn na bhudan, my second in command. Once we get you signed on, you’ll take orders from him just like they came from me.”

  Prax nodded. He understood delegation of authority.

  Rurhahn’s face split into an alarming grin, showing two rows of very white, very sharp teeth. “Happy to meet you, Prax.” He offered an enormous hand.

  Prax allowed his own hand to be swallowed up with some reluctance, but the Miloran didn’t grip it to an uncomfortable degree. “I am happy to meet you, also.”

  The formidable being nodded politely at Hari. “I’m on my way to check the duty roster, Chief. Did you need anything else?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He ambled off down the corridor. Prax could feel the floor shaking.

  “Well, now you’ve met your first non-Terran,” Hari said as they started walking again. “How are you doing on those programs?”

  Prax made himself breathe normally. “I finished the third one. Chio told me that there were more.”

  Hari nodded. “We were lucky we had a chance to get them. Once we start generating fold, we won’t be able to communicate with any planets or space stations, and the Golden Hawk doesn’t carry much in the way of educational programming.”
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  Prax felt the now-familiar sense of frustration that came from not understanding what was plainly everyday conversation. “How does one generate fold?”

  Hari laughed. “Sorry. I should have caught that. We don’t generate it, the ship does. That’s how we travel such immense distances so quickly. The ship can alter space, sort of folding it up like you might fold a blanket, so that the distance from one point to another becomes much shorter.”

  It made no sense to Prax, but he didn’t comment. They stopped at Rishi’s door.

  “Rishi tells me she’s made tonight a sort of dinner party,” Hari said, putting his hand on the access panel. “She invited Dr. Warchovsky, as well as you and me.”

  “I shall be glad to see the doctor again. She helped my people very much.”

  A few moments later, Prax was less gratified. Dr. Warchovsky took one look at him and put down her drink. “That man is an Elliniká.”

  Prax was mortified. Everyone else who had seen him seemed to know at once who he was. From the sly glances he had attracted from several people, he guessed that they also knew how he had come to be on the Golden Hawk.

  Rishi’s smile looked nervous. “You remember Praxiteles, don’t you, Dr. Warchovsky?”

  “Of course.” The doctor’s expression hovered near a frown. “Bad burn on his left side. Standard emergency burn treatment, with an anesthetic patch for the pain.”

  There was an awkward silence, which Hari finally broke. “Prax is going to Subidar with us. He’ll be joining my staff once we get a contract straightened out.”

  Dr. Warchovsky’s frown cleared. “If he’s no longer a resident of an interdicted world, then I can offer him normal treatment. He should go under a healing accelerator right away.”

  Rishi let out a breath and even Hari looked relieved.

  “I never thought of that.” Rishi sounded chagrined. “Praxiteles, does your wound still trouble you?”

  The amount of fuss they were making over a minor matter perplexed Prax. “Only a little. The bandage protects it. It only hurts when I stretch.”

  “I’ll take him to sick bay right after dinner,” Hari said. “If that suits you, Dr. Warchovsky?”