The Valkyries of Andromeda

by Lindsay Peet

CHAPTER TWO

  The next day, my first as the Inspector General’s adjutant, began well. Already on waking I had inspected my bed and its linens; directly thereafter I attended to the bathroom, with particular attention to the shower and its many valves and spray heads; after that I examined my freshly-laundered and pressed clothing, then the cooking, and finally the staff, lingering on some of the more coquettish ones. Make no mistake, power, even once-removed as his Excellency’s adjutant, is a great liberator and aphrodisiac.

  All accommodations were top-flight, and left me eager for more inspections.

  I took it for granted that the staff was inspecting, or spying on, us, out of curiosity if not patriotism. It stood to reason – the planet Caliuga, and this community of Caliuga City, had disappeared from the known universe somehow. The first strangers in who-knew-how-long stumble into town bearing ‘tokens of the ruler,’ (for that’s what they took the treasure balls to be), so the stranger-in-charge was the Inspector General. In their own way they were just as lost and apprehensive as I was, but less experienced at the big-time bullshitting aspects. Our relationship would unfold as a delicate dance where we felt each other out, learned each other’s tells, made moves and counter-moves, smiling all the while. Kind of like dancing in the dark while listening to different melodies and hoping that they somehow sync up.

  I could dance. I liked dancing.

  That morning over breakfast we four had a conference. It was somewhat awkward, trying to keep my people on the same page while planting stories for the staff to relay back, but I managed it. Rather than the easy authority I’d already been asserting among them, I assumed the control and dignity befitting an aide of the Emperor’s emissary.

  I decided to do this through Lordano, because his Bafflefishian would make them unsure of just what they were hearing, and what they weren’t. Also, although he had poor judgment in companions, and his language was awkward, I’d come to appreciate that he wasn’t the fool I’d at first taken him for.

  “Lordano, what have you done with the Emperor’s records of Caliuga?”

  He looked baffled, but the help would take it for distressed, “Whereof talk you now, Jaf?”

  “Now that we are off the ship you must be more formal, Lordano. Refer to me henceforward as Chief Adjutant Daskal, or you shall be exiled to Anestulia. Now, the records – don’t tell me you lost them in the crash?”

  “I have no records – Chief Adjutant Daskal.” Then his eyes lighted. “Yes, yes, in the crash are they lost being, yes sir, sir!”

  “So – the extensive inventories, assessments, and tax records – all gone?”

  “Yes, sir.” Now he looked properly crestfallen, yet I saw the twinkle in his eye. “Nothing.”

  “Nothin’ ‘cept them two big balls, -- Chief, sir,” chimed in Jedub.

  I leapt to my feet, broadcasting cold rage. “You are speaking of the tokens of the Emperor, Jedub. You shall speak of them with the respect they, and he, are due!”

  “Respect they are due, ‘tis true, if only you knew,” smiled Wanliet. His clothes also had been laundered and pressed, but somehow they still looked like hermit-garb. He was still the shabby ascetic, and the best use I could figure for him in our charade was as our mainly silent leader, whose cryptic utterances would confound plotters and confuse sycophants. As for the clothes – who among us had any idea what our hosts believed an Inspector General would wear, especially since they’d been separated from the Empire for generations?

  It was time to prepare our faces to meet the faces they would meet. By messenger I arranged to have a conference with the municipal government after breakfast.