by Philip Hamm
Producing a clone of Zizania was a relatively simple task; no genetic manipulation was necessary. They didn’t need her to be faster or stronger like a Sagan. They didn’t splice her DNA with another species like the quasi-humans of the Firelands. All the Rickobites wanted and demanded was an exact copy.
In absolute secrecy, they grew the sample of her cells into a complete and perfect replica of Quill’s heir to the throne. From a test-tube to her ‘birth’ in an incubation tank, the process took less than a month. The baby was then placed in the care of a foster family in Barras City before Procurator Ynch took over her education when she was old enough.
It’s often said that Rickobites are incapable of finer feelings like love or compassion. Their reputation for using cold arithmetic in their treatment of other races, their love of money and their apparent cruelty towards humans in particular would lead anyone to conclude they were simply sociopaths focussed on doing the will of their ultra-alien masters without any consideration for the welfare of other species. From the evidence, their dedication to the cause of building an economic empire to dominate the rest of the Third Sphere seems absolute and beyond that, it’s assumed they have no more feeling than one of their calculating machines.
That Ynch could be a good ‘father’ to faux-Zizania was beyond anyone’s imagination or expectation. It was impossible to believe he could have any paternal feelings. And yet, not being able to have children himself, the Rickobite doted on his charge. True, her first toy was an abacus and their games together invariably involved counting of one kind or another, but she never lacked for comfort when she fell over, was always praised when she did well and was treated with exceptional kindness, even compared to a ‘normal’ child.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Third Sphere, the real Zizania was turning into a monster. Where the clone played nicely with her toys, was always polite and rarely showed any sign of temper, the original was fractious, screamed when she didn’t get her way and generally made life miserable for everyone who came into range. Her parents were unable to contain her, her brothers and sisters despaired and most of the servants on the Royal Platform thought should have been thrown from the platform at birth.
From a very early age, Zizania had been able to tell she wasn’t wanted. After having eight children, Queen Zivola had hoped her duty to produce children was over and she could concentrate on worshipping Pater and Mater in less physical ways. She often admitted she’d never enjoyed being pregnant. It didn’t help that her last child, Prince Rhizic, the previous heir to the throne, had been a perfect baby; he had rarely cried and had grown into a caring and loving child. Everyone had agreed he was going to be an excellent king. And then, after an unexpected liaison with the king following a particularly enjoyable party, she had fallen pregnant again.
The ‘miracle’ of Zizania’s birth to the middle-aged queen soon lost its lustre as the they realised, with a heavy heart, they would have to start over preparing the new child for her eventual ascension to the throne. Zivola even encouraged the rumour that the child wasn’t hers and King Tragacanth wondered if he could change the law. But the DNA tests proved Zizania was the rightful heir and the priests were adamant the law of ultimogeniture was immutable.
They were stuck with her and that disappointment fed into the child’s psyche and, as it often does with unwanted children, it warped her personality. She refused to settle as a baby, wouldn’t stay still as a toddler and began to be a real terror before she was even a teenager. Jewels went missing, vases were broken and there was even a fire nobody could account for. As her antics grew worse, her parents appointed nanny after nanny, each one increasing in severity, to try and deal with her misbehaviour, but none of them lasted very long.
Only the people loved her - but that was because they never met her. On Holy Days, when the Royal Family was wheeled out to meet the public, to stand on a balcony and wave or be carried between cheering crowds, Zizania was hidden away. The official excuse was always to do with her health or her security but neither reason had ever prevented Prince Rhizic from being paraded around like a trophy. The truth was, they didn’t trust her not to lift her skirts and show her bottom, or scream like a gull in the quiet moments of the ceremonies, all of which she had done at one time or another.
When Zizania was fifteen years old, the king and queen decided to send her to the Cissoid Corindon. Her sister, Princess Quillaia, eleven years older than Zizania, had been the first Quill to join Kalmia Allodium’s travelling university and had returned, in triumph, extolling its virtues. The King liked the idea enormously; getting rid of Zizania for six or seven years sounded like a blessing to him. The Queen was slightly worried her daughter might disgrace herself and the reputation of the Royal Household. But ultimately, she agreed and hoped, if Quillaia was correct, the university might broaden Zizania’s mind and make her easier to live with when she came home.
The King’s Council, composed of his brothers, sisters and the eldest of their children, might have raised objections if most of them hadn’t witnessed Zizania’s behaviour or been a victim of her temper. His brother, Tragus, Rao of Rhizome, for instance, had felt the full force of her anger when he had tried to stop her from carving her name into the Royal Throne and Rani Troolie of Waratah lost her prized collection of parakeets when Zizania let them out of their cage quite deliberately.
Only Rani Rhus, the youngest of the King’s sisters, who hated children in general, seemed to have the ability to reason with the child. Zizania was never rude towards her and knew better than to scream or shout in her presence. But Rani Rhus raised no objections either.
For her part, Zizania pretended not to care one way or the other. But when Quillaia described what life was like on the Cissoid, she began to take an interest, especially in the balls and parties they attended. Specifically, she took an interest in the idea of boys. She kept her thoughts to herself in case her parents changed their minds and spoke instead of wanting to learn about other civilisations and cultures. But beneath the surface, she imagined endless queues of young men lining up to make to love to her.
An envoy was sent to Cissoid Corindon, inviting Kalmia to bring her ship to Rhizic and when she arrived there was a great ceremony of handing over the princess. There was weeping among the populace as the ship departed with their future Queen, but relief among everyone who knew her. On the Royal Platform, both family and staff opened bottles of wine and held a number of parties. Secretly, some of them thought it might better if she never returned.
The burden passed to Kalmia and it wasn’t long before the staff on the Cissoid knew the truth about their new student. At the first available opportunity, Zizania slipped away and lost her virginity to a young man on Rhyton. He was the first of what would become a scandalous many. Young, old, human or quasi-human, as long as they were reasonably attractive, she found a way to bed them.
But while the real-Zizania was sleeping her way across the Third Sphere, her clone was learning how to be a princess. In the storybooks Ynch brought her, the princesses were always kind and generous. They loved animals and sang songs to cheer people up. They were modest and chaste. They were everything the other Zizania was not – with the exception that both the original and the clone were truly beautiful. With their long black hair, big eyes and dark skin, they were like birds-of-paradise. But in real-Zizania it was a voluptuous, tempting kind of beauty and the way she looked at a boy (or a man) made it very difficult for him to resist. In faux-Zizania, it was a naïve beauty that wanted to please rather than be pleased.
Alongside stories of maidens and bold warriors, Uncle Rimmon brought tales of the Zarktek. As charmed by her as Procurator Ynch, Rimmon could sit all evening telling her about his great heroes, of the Zarktek princes, the tsars of their worlds and the generals who bravely defended them. She loved to listen. She never interrupted and she never doubted what he told her was true. Together, Ynch and his protégé led the girl to believe the human empires were a great evil and needed to
be defeated...
*
Fratris was indignant, “But that’s a lie!”
“Is it?” said Faam.
“It’s the Zarktek who are evil – not Zamut, Saron or even Tun...”
“It’s a matter of perspective,” she said.
“No – it’s a matter of history: look at the way the tsars treated their slaves...”
She smiled, “I thought you didn’t like history.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m completely blind,” he grumbled. “I’ve seen the books in my uncle’s library, I’ve seen the pictures of the old slaves’ quarters and the maps showing how they escaped from their Zarktek masters. If the tsars were so good, why did so many people want to get away from them? Why did humanity rise up and fight a war to drive them away?”
“I hear what you’re saying,” Faam said calmly. “But what did I say about the current state of the empires...?”
Fratris looked at his feet, “They’re not much better,” he admitted.
“For someone like Rimmon, who made it out of the rubbish dump and into a position of trust and responsibility by his own hard work, the Zarktek were like a shining beacon. Their stories inspired him, kept him going and through his devotion to their memory, he was able to succeed. The clone was just another example of their greatness. None of the human empires are capable of genetic manipulation. The Tun Empire actually forbids the use of Zarktek science – including such useful inventions as radios and radar...”
“I’ve never understood that,” said Fengtai. “It’s not as though you’re communicating with the meta-world, is it? The dead can’t come back through a radio-set...”
Crotal said, “Is that what they think might happen?”
“No,” said Faam. “But the Tun people were the main victims of Zarktek technology, either by their experiments, being kept in slavery or by warfare. Is it any surprise that they’re still suspicious of it? But remember, Rimmon was born on Barras; he didn’t have the same prejudices as humans in the southern hemisphere.”
“But you said his parents died in poverty,” said Fratris. “Why didn’t he hate the people who had killed them?”
“Because he didn’t blame them; for all their faults, the Rickobites, through their use of taxation and fiscal laws, want to manage people rather than rule them. They didn’t kill his parents, they died because they were unable to care for themselves. I know it seems harsh to our ears but in Rimmon’s view, they were to blame and not the system. Besides, as we’ve seen, Procurator Ynch gave him an opportunity to rise above his poverty. And, as we’ve also seen, Ynch was capable of being kind; he loved the clone as much as any father could love his child.”
“And nobody loved the real Zizania,” said Fengtai.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Faam smiled. “I think her parents did love her but they hated the way she behaved.”
Innocently, Crotal asked, “Why was she so interested in boys?”
“Because she thought they would give her the love she desperately craved.”
“And did she get it?”
Faam had assumed Taylia was asleep but then she heard her laughing quietly.
“Yes,” she replied, trying not to smile. “I think you can say she had a lot of love over the next few years.”
“What about her duty to her people?” said Fengtai, clearly upset by her behaviour. “Didn’t she want to learn to be a good queen?”
“If she did, she wasn’t shown the best examples. Her ‘friends’ came from the highest echelons of the aristocracy, the Tun Royal Family or the daughters of the presidents and senators of Zamut or the trading houses of Saron, and they were equally rich and spoilt. Though she didn’t need any encouragement, they certainly didn’t help.”
“But the fake Zizania was nice…?”
“She was shown idealised versions of royalty which were as fake as she was.”
Crotal asked, “Do you think it would have been better if the real Zizania had stayed at home?”
“For our sake, yes – but it wasn’t quite as simple as that. While she was with us, she had an opportunity to see what the Third Sphere was really like and she wasn’t lied to in the same way as faux-Zizania. She was shown a better way and even if she often rebelled against our teachers, I refuse to believe she was blind to everything she was taught. And despite how we might feel about her moral lapses, even her relationships with so many men and boys had a kind of positive effect. She understood how people are basically equal. She showed no favour to one species over another – unlike faux- Zizania and her belief that only the Zarktek were truly noble.”
“Still,” said Fratris. “I expect you’d have preferred the fake rather the real Zizania on board your ship.”
“Life would have been easier,” she admitted.
7 - The QMM Apus
The King and Queen of Quill were not entirely heartless. Though they had effectively rid themselves of their awkward child, they still cared about her welfare and it was decided somebody should contact Zizania on the Cissoid as regularly as possible just to make sure she was safe and healthy. His advisors examined the ship’s itinerary and picked a number of worlds along the route where an envoy could meet her, attend to her needs and return to Quill to report on her progress every few weeks.
It was a complicated task. The university’s semester lasted three months and during that time it travelled in a circuit around the Third Sphere which, on first appearances, followed a pre-determined route. But each semester wasn’t exactly the same and the timetable was incredibly complex.
There were a number of annual events, such as the flower festival on Lithobius, the Grand Imperial Ball on Momus, poetry readings on Hiraethus, fashion week on Thulia and now, by arrangement, a new Holy Day on Rhizic in their own empire. These were fixed points on the yearly schedule. At the end of each semester, they spent a fortnight on the aquatic world of Agnatha in the northern Empire of Xramaria. Every second semester, they stopped for a fortnight on Kajawah, the Cissoid’s home port, where the ship would be refurbished while the students visited the famous hubs high above the Xramarsis Empire. Every third year there was an Olympiad on Acroterion they always attended. In between, there were academic seminars, such as economics and fiscal studies at the RBCC northern headquarters on Arroba, literature at the University of Whekau, history symposia at the University of Rhyton, and philosophy and science at the University of Urbino – all of which were subject to availability and could last from a few days to a couple of weeks.
To make the task of tracking the Cissoid even more difficult to predict, unique events such as Imperial coronations, presidential investitures, births, deaths and marriages, often demanded their attendance. And there was the ever-present threat of pirates and local disputes that could force the ship to change its course. Thus, frequently, the margin between where the ship was supposed to be and where it was actually sailing grew so large, Vade Mecum, the deputy-principal, frequently had to issue a revised timetable and leave it with the captains of traders travelling ahead or behind to let the relevant governments know where their precious cargo had got to.
It was pointless trying to locate the ship while it was in transit; the volumes between the systems were too vast. Anyone needing to make contact with a particular student had to wait at a fixed point and hope they hadn’t been delayed too long elsewhere.
After studying the list, the king’s advisors suggested the fortnight spent on Agnatha might be as good a place as any to intercept the Cissoid and receive whatever bad news they expected concerning Zizania’s behaviour. Then came the matter of whom to send and with a spitefulness he was now familiar with, Rhatany suggested Nacyon. “It’s not as if the Rao of Sapadilla is doing anything else, is he?” he said to his father.
The King didn’t bother to summon Nacyon to see him personally but sent a note with his official seal. In it, he commanded the Rao to go to Agnatha every three months to make enquiries of his daughter, to interview Kalmia, the principal, an
d whomever of her tutors she had regular contact with, and to answer questions Zizania might have concerning home. He was to deliver the good wishes of her family and to make sure she was provided for in the matter of money. At Rhatany’s suggestion, he was to have the exclusive use of the QMM Apus and its crew for the task.
In his tiny lodgings, in a distant corner of the Royal Platform, Nacyon read the note several times before its message, like a rusty iron nail, was driven into his brain. “What did I ever do to them that I should deserve such punishment?” he said to Quail.
After fifteen years of loyal service, Quail felt he could speak his mind, “Maybe they think you’re too useless for anything else, sir.”
Nacyon might have been annoyed but it was true; his last task had been to report on the building of the new flagship, the QRN Aquila, on Rhipidat, which he had described as ‘satisfactory’ only to have Admiral Queach reveal to everyone it was ten months behind schedule. “Rhatany was with me – it wasn’t just my fault,” he said to Quail.
“The Prince is not your friend, sir,” the servant replied.
“No,” he agreed.
“And now it seems he’s dropped you in the guano again.”
“Like Kakapo,” he said bitterly.
“Yes, sir, just like that unfortunate occasion...”
On the private reserves of Kakapo, the King had led a hunting party in search of the giant Poa-birds, bred for the purpose. Nacyon had been with Rhatany at the time and, somehow, they had separated from the main group. A Poa-bird had appeared ahead of them, rearing its ugly head above the ten-foot grass, and Rhatany had given Nacyon the honour of shooting it. He had brought it down with a single shot to the head; a remarkable and never-to-be-repeated feat. He was about to celebrate when the King had appeared with the rest of the entourage; he’d been aiming for the same bird and was less than pleased.