He was right, Shion realised. It wasn’t Ali’s ability to understand which had changed, but her own ability to find references and parallels which would make sense of the story for him.
She had come a long way, she realised, since she had spent her first days in League space. And there was no question, not for one moment, of her giving up everything she’d worked for here in order to stay on Lundane with her aunt. That choice had already been made. And as the days went on, it became clear that Lady Ursele was depending on her less and less. By the end of the second week it was the attendants who were taking up most of Shion’s time, with all the training and guidance she was providing for them.
Then, just as people were starting to think that the chamlorn and her attendants would remain in their quarters for the whole of the journey without seeing anyone else, Shion reported at morning briefing that Lady Ursele was now ready to receive visitors.
‘As of – well, now,’ Shion told them, with a glance at the time, ‘her grace may send singers out to bring people to meet her. You’ll recognise them by the peach stripe in their sashes. They will only say one word, when they come up to you – sheha – which means ‘come’. Like this…’
She got up, moved around to Alex and held out her left hand to him, murmuring deferentially, ‘Sheha.’ And, as he got up, she took his hand and led him slowly away from the table, just a few steps.
‘You can say no,’ she said, releasing Alex and both of them coming back to the briefing. ‘But be aware that refusing to go when a chamlorn has summoned you is really, really rude, like giving the middle finger to a president.’
‘Nobody,’ said Alex, ‘is going to say no.’
And nobody did. Though the chamlorn’s choice of her first visitor came as a surprise to everyone. Most people were expecting her to ask for Alex, or for Davie North, or for both of them together. And most people assumed, too, that when the attendants began emerging from the chamlorn’s suite, they would be timid and lost, needing guides to show them to anywhere they wanted to go.
There were, in fact, guides on call to do just that. The command school class had been given the particular task of assisting the attendants when they emerged, with an alert to their comms when any of the attendants came out into the corridor.
They were in a class with Buzz later that morning when that comm alert went off. Which was, to Mister at least, a very welcome distraction. What little interest he had had in psychology had long since been exhausted by the post-grad course Buzz was teaching the command school class and a handful of the Venturi’s officers. They were at a phase in the course where they were required to make snap-shot observations of one another in various circumstances and produce analytical essays for discussion in the seminars. Mister felt that if he had to listen to one more exhaustive breakdown of a three minute observation he might well break down and spend three minutes banging his head against the table. He’d already been to the lavatory twice during the seminar, out of sheer boredom. Now, as a priority alert pinged someone’s wristcom, he raised his head like a hunting hyena scenting a rabbit.
‘Excuse me, sir.’ The lucky officer got to his feet and at a nod of dismissal from Buzz, left the room. Mister watched him go with pitiful envy, but the door closed behind him and the seminar went on.
In fact, the officer leaving the seminar was quite sorry to leave. He’d put a lot of work into his observational essay this week, after a skimped and embarrassingly low-graded effort last time. Part of the grade was in the presentation and discussion and they’d been coming up to his turn to present.
Still, at least he’d been called away for something important. His comm had told him that one of the attendants had emerged from the encounter room, passing through the ante-room outside it and out onto the interdeck refectory.
He expected to find her standing there, amazed by an environment so very different from that inside the Pirrellothian suite. But there she was, walking quietly but confidently through the refectory, taking no notice of the people who were in there at the time. Some of them had got up, uncertain, not sure whether to offer to help her. But seeing the commander arrive, they resumed their seats, looking on with interest.
‘Hello – good morning.’ He had been told that all of the attendants spoke Standard, though with varying levels of proficiency. ‘My name is… oh.’ He was obliged to step aside as the lady had just continued to walk, very slowly, as stately as if she was in a parade, but evidently not going to stop. ‘Ah.’ He remembered from their training, then, that a messenger being sent by the chamlorn was rather like an official courier, not allowed to be stopped or distracted. ‘My name is Marc,’ he told her, changing tack and walking alongside her. ‘May I be of any assistance?’
The lady glanced at him and shook her head very slightly; a pleasant but firm leave me alone.
‘Oh.’ Marc was daunted, but he was not a quitter. ‘I could, uh, show you, if you tell me where you want to go?’
The lady glanced at him again. What she was attempting to tell him, if she had been in a position to have a frank conversation right then, was that she really did not want or need his help. She was one of the most highly educated people on her planet, with the equivalent of five university degrees. She spoke four languages, too, and was well on the way to mastering the fifth. And she had been aboard this ship for nearly three weeks, now, with full access to holoscreens. Learning about the ship, where things were and how to move around it, had taken several days. Learning how to find any person you wanted to speak to by accessing the ship’s handy locator screen had only taken minutes. You didn’t need to understand how tech worked, after all, in order to be able to use it. So she already knew where the person she wanted was and how to get there.
Marc did not get a fraction of that from the slightly quelling glance she gave, but he definitely got the message that she found his insistence more impolite than helpful.
‘Uh – I’ll, just…’ he said and trailed a little behind, unable to let her just go off on her own but not sure what else to do.
It was awkward, though. The pace she set was too slow for comfort, leaving him feeling clumsy and conspicuous. And she was heading, he could see, to the zero-gee hatchway over in the corner, which was making him feel very anxious.
‘There is a, nuh, companionway…’ he glanced over his shoulder, though it was far out of sight. The ship only had one set of stairs, included in the design as an archaic requirement even for warships. It was almost in the nose of the ship, a tight squared-off spiral which ran all the way down through the decks and was automatically sealed off when the ship came to alert. It was the only way for non-spacers to get about the ship without having to use the zero-gee ladders. When they had passengers aboard they routinely had two people helping them with ladderways, one to steer them and the other one to catch. And Marc was not at all sure how that would go with a lady who, as far as he knew, had only been in freefall before when she was unconscious.
It wasn’t even, he thought, as if she was dressed for it. Like all the Pirrellothians they had brought aboard, she was physically attractive, not unusually tall but slender, with a straight back and long neck which made her seem taller. She had dark hair worn in a coiffured cloud which came to her shoulders, an aquiline nose and generous mouth. Her eyes, deep brown, were rounded, with a clear white sclera contrasting with the ebony hues of her skin. She was wearing the traditional dress of an attendant, a light robe which fell straight from the shoulders to ankle length and a filmy sash worn on her right shoulder only, hanging loose. Marc dreaded to think what kind of tangle she could get into, flailing about in freefall. And he had not asked, none of them had liked to ask, whether attendants wore underwear.
‘Perhaps if I…’
He broke off helplessly and watched as the attendant stepped calmly out into freefall and moved herself down the ladder with just the same slow, controlled movements as she had used when walking. She remained, in fact, completely upright, which was excellent contr
ol. And when she came out of the zero-gee ring at the bottom of the ladder, she simply stepped out and carried on walking as if she had been doing it for years. Neither her robe nor her sash flew about, either. It was apparent, as she went down the ladder, that the hem of her robe was fastened in some way to her shoes and that the ends of the sash had been discreetly fastened, too, so that it would float as it should when she walked, but not fly off.
‘Oh!’ He followed her down the ladder, quite astonished. ‘That’s very good!’ he said admiringly and got another glance, for that, which in Pirrellothian terms was downright withering.
She could have explained, had she not been out on an errand. There was a freefall shaft within the Pirrellothian suite – a backstairs, as it were, between the attendants’ quarters and the ante-room outside the encounter zone above. This not only provided the attendants with a way in and out of their quarters without having to pass through the chamlorn’s chambers, but had been a training facility for them, too, from as soon as they had the confidence to have a go at it. So all the flailing and squeaking and banging into things had been done strictly in private. And none of them would be coming out here, representing the chamlorn, unless they were sufficiently proficient to do so with dignity.
It took her four minutes to make her way down three decks and along to find her quarry, by which time there was an interested buzz around the ship as people passed the news around that one of the attendants had emerged and that she was demonstrating amazing skills in freefall.
It caused quite a stir when she walked onto Mess Deck Three, too. There weren’t many people there at that hour and most of those who were there were on standby watch, working on courses.
Simmy was one of them. She was at one of the small tables at the quiet end of the mess – all mess decks, even in the Fourth, had the eight-seater tables where people would sit to be sociable and a few two-seater tables set a little apart. People sat there to work, to have more private conversations, or just to get some quiet time.
Simmy was working. She was stuck on module nine of the entry-level Technician course and one of her friends was there, patiently walking her through it. This would have been easier if Simmy had been able to remember even a quarter of her high school science courses. But as with most people, she’d got through with buddy-assisted coursework and cramming for exams. Now, she had only the vaguest notion of what ½ mv2 was about, which was making it very difficult to get to grips with the kinetic equations in the theory unit of module nine.
‘Oh – hello!’ Simmy got up, as everyone else had, at the arrival of the VIP – and all eighteen of the attendants had been given VIP status as a matter of diplomatic courtesy. ‘Can I help you?’ It was obvious that the Pirrellothian was heading straight for her table and looking straight at her, too, evidently looking for her. Simmy’s first thought was that she might want her, as the commodore’s steward, to take her to him. And her response was one of pleased, eager willingness to help.
‘Sheha.’ The lady held out her left hand, speaking and smiling softly, the gentlest of invitations.
‘Uh…?’ Simmy took a minute to cotton on. ‘Me?’
The lady stretched out her left hand a little further and Simmy put her right hand into it more out of instinct than thought.
‘Am I being taken to… are you sure you… me?’ Simmy asked, in a breathless muddle, even as she allowed the Pirrellothian to lead her in slow, measured steps. ‘But I’m nobody!’ Simmy said, bewildered. ‘I’m the most junior…’
She broke off, realising. She was the most junior member of the Venturi’s crew, the lowest rank aboard the ship. And while this was something she was working very hard to get out of, that most-junior rank did come with some perks. There were all kinds of little ceremonies in the Fleet in which the most junior ranking member of the crew got to take a leading role. And this, apparently, was another.
‘Oh, wow…’ Simmy’s face was starting to light up with excitement, now, but there was anxiety, too. ‘Shouldn’t I have a shower or something?’ she asked, as she was led off the mess deck and as they vanished up the nearest ladderway, she could be heard confiding, ‘I may need the toilet.’
She got both. Once up in the ante room – with the door politely closed against the still haplessly following Marc – Simmy was shown into a shower and left alone there to make herself comfortable. When she emerged, smelling strongly of disinfectant and with her uniform crisp with clean-room chemicals, she found that there were two more women waiting there for her.
They did her hair and rubbed her hands with sweet-scented cream, taking their time, every movement thoughtful. And as the minutes passed, their tranquillity began to calm Simmy, too.
‘When we enter the Hall,’ her original escort told her, ‘Keep your eyes lowered. I will show you to a seat. Sit there quietly. Do not speak. When I nod…’ she demonstrated a slow inclination of her head, ‘lean forward and touch the surface of the...’
‘Oh, I know!’ Simmy burst out. They had all watched footage of the flower greeting ceremony and Simmy had even practised it too, with some of her friends, taking turns at being the chamlorn.
Her escort broke off what she was saying and gave her a look which carried immeasurable patience and some amusement, too. Now, child…
‘Sit there quietly,’ she repeated. ‘Do not speak. When I nod… lean forward and touch the surface of the starpool, so…’ she demonstrated. ‘Try not to rush. Then sit and watch the flower – watch it quietly, do not speak, try not to fidget. Only when the flower reaches the other end of the pool may you raise your eyes and look upon her grace. Her grace will then speak to you. Her grace will speak in Pirrellothian, through an interpreter. Answer her grace with courtesy. Please,’ a little twinkle in her eyes, with that, ‘do not interrupt. When her grace signals that the flower is to return, remain seated quietly until it has come back to you. I will hand you a flower – it is a gift from her grace, a memento of your meeting. You need only say thank you and I will escort you out. Is there any part of this which is not clear to you, Ordinary Star Yasmen Semach?’
‘Oh – Simmy. Everybody calls me…’ Simmy broke off. ‘Never mind.’ She began doing what she always did when learning a new skill, rehearsing it with a talk-through and mime. ‘Walk in – sit down – get a nod – lean over, do the …’ she gestured in a swirling gesture. ‘Watch the flower – look up – yes your grace…’ she made an odd little bobbing curtsey movement with that which made them gaze at her in some surprise, ‘flower comes back – here’s a souvenir, thank you your grace, leave.’ She looked hopefully at her guide. ‘Yes?’
‘Yes,’ said her guide, completely straight faced, though she would howl with laughter, later, re-enacting this for her colleagues.
She led Simmy into the encounter room, anyway, and after one furtive glance at the figure at the far end of the holoscreen starpool, Simmy dropped her gaze instinctively. There was something about the chamlorn which would have made it feel brash, rude, to just walk in there and stand and stare at her.
She was glad of her guide, who led her to a rectangular cushion at the edge of the pool and waited there while she seated herself. Then she moved herself unhurriedly to a similar cushion at the side of the pool, where she sat, far more gracefully than Simmy, with her legs curled beside her.
Two, three minutes went by. Simmy was keeping her eyes down while watching her guide and taking in the rest of the environment with rapid glimpses, too. It was bigger than she had expected – bigger than it had seemed when this was Silvie’s encounter room, anyway. And it was beautiful, with the starpool reflecting onto those elegant drapes.
By the time her guide inclined her head, Simmy had been able to get her bearings, though she was still feeling overwhelmed. And when she came to do it, leaning over and swirling her fingers onto the surface of the holoscreen no longer seemed like a trivial thing at all. There had been a lot of giggling when she and her friends had ‘practiced’ this, like kids playing a game. But now, it
was for real and it felt important.
To her relief, the flower appeared and began to drift away, floating across the starfield. As Simmy watched it, there was the odd illusion of actually watching it moving through space. Even though she knew it was just a hologram on a holoscreen, it felt as if she was watching a flower gliding through infinite void. And it was, too, very calming. Her breath slowed over the fifteen minutes that it took for the flower to reach the other end of the pool, when another attendant up there put her fingers onto the screen to still it.
Simmy was, by then, already looking almost straight at Lady Ursele and it felt natural, now, to lift her head that fraction and look at her directly.
Oh, my…
It could have been Shion. Lady Ursele was taller – quite a bit taller, in fact, since karee continued slow growth until their full physical maturity at around a hundred and thirty. And Lady Ursele had the most amazing hair Simmy had ever seen, springing out from her head and falling to her waist in a huge mass of helix strands. But her face… she could have been Shion’s twin.
Lady Ursele spoke and Simmy felt a little shiver brush across her skin.
And she understood, now, she understood exactly why people on worlds the karee had visited before had remembered them as goddess-like, if not actual goddesses. There was a poise about Lady Ursele that went beyond regal, a serene… something. Simmy couldn’t put it into words, then or later. But she felt it. It was an almost mesmeric power, a feeling of being utterly captivated. I gaze in wonder, she thought, and she did.
‘Her grace,’ said the attendant standing beside the chamlorn’s chair, ‘bids you welcome, Ordinary Star Yasmen Semach and asks, are you content to be here?’
‘Yes…’ Simmy breathed. ‘Oh… yes, your grace.’
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