Alien Chronicles 1 - The Golden One (25 page)

Israi released a gusty sigh and walked on without looking back.

Ampris frowned, patiently following at Israi’s heels. Israi said nothing, but that was all right. If she was still angry, she would have ordered Ampris to leave her. It took time for Israi’s temper to cool. Soon she would be full of smiles and mischief again, and all would be well.

The farther they walked, the cleaner and quieter the passageway became. The construction noise faded behind them, and there was only the smell of clean, polished stone and new plaster. Relieved, Ampris blew through her nostrils to clear them.

Ahead, the passageway ended at a closed set of doors beneath an archway of dressed stone. Above it hung an inscription that Ampris could not read.

Israi paused, tipping back her head to look at it. “Knowledge is for the many,” she read aloud. “What a quaint saying.”

“What language is it?” Ampris asked.

“Viis, silly.”

“But I can’t read it.”

“Old Viis,” Israi said impatiently. “Two thousand years ago. When this palace was first built.”

“Oh.”

Ampris squinted at the letters, but they were no more decipherable than before.

“The year four hundred ninety-five, in the third dynasty of the Vrahd,” said a quiet voice from behind them. “That’s when that quotation was chiseled into the stone and a library was established to hold the palace records.”

Ampris and Israi turned, and found a Myal standing there with a neatly wrapped package in his hands.

Ampris sniffed and knew the package held his lunch. She could smell a fruit medley tossed in a light vinaigrette mixed with stouraseeds and honey.

He was short, coming no taller than her shoulder, although he was adult. He had stippled black and silver fur, very distinguished, and a full silver mane floated in silky strands about his intelligent face. Something alert and kind in his black eyes made Ampris like him immediately.

He carried his long prehensile tail neatly curled and tucked up against his hindquarters. His short, bowed legs and soft pouchy belly made him look like a scholar.

Israi wore her haughty expression, standing straight and tall with her head held high. Her green eyes glittered in sudden tension.

Ampris took one look at her and stepped quietly between her friend and this stranger. Although he was only a Myal, and probably harmless, Ampris found her heart beating faster.

It was one thing to run freely about the safe confines of the new palace, with guards stationed at the doors to provide unobtrusive protection and courtiers and attendants always nearby. It was another thing to venture here, deep into the old palace, with its unknown corners, construction laborers, locked-away sections that were completely fallen into ruin and disuse, and lack of security. Ampris found herself very conscious of Israi’s vulnerability. Without attendants of any kind, the sri-Kaa had only Ampris as protection.

The fur on Ampris’s neck bristled, and she stood ready to defend her friend.

“Who are you?” Ampris asked, making the question a challenge.

The Myal smiled in a gentle, friendly way. He made no threatening moves, and seemed either unaware of or uninterested in their alarm. “Bish is my name,” he said. “Chief archivist of the libraries and records.”

He spoke his answer in the Viis language, not in slave patois. Ampris thought she was the only abiru allowed to speak Viis. She took immediate offense.

“Bow when you speak,” she said sharply. “Are you Viis, to speak in the tongue of your masters? Keep your eyes down. Show respect to the sri-Kaa!”

Bish’s dark eyes widened. He gasped slightly and gave Israi a deep bow. “Forgive me,” he said with the utmost respect in his tone, although he still spoke Viis. “The sri-Kaa I did not recognize. No one informed us of an official visit.”

Ampris’s temper grew hot. From deep in her throat came a rumbling growl.

“Ampris!” Israi said in swift rebuke. “Stop that. He is an archivist and researcher. He has the right to use our language.”

Ampris blinked, feeling both undermined and foolish. “Why?”

Israi flicked out her tongue, and Ampris bowed her head, letting the question drop at once.

Already she knew the answer. Bish could speak Viis because it was allowed by the complexities of court protocol. Archivists, whatever they were, clearly had privileges.

“Well, Bish,” Israi said, doing her best to achieve the lofty tones of ennui affected by so many courtiers, “we have come unannounced in an unofficial capacity. What in the Archives will you show us?”

Bish bowed low again. “The sri-Kaa honors me with the presence of herself and her golden pet. Of course. I should have immediately recognized the golden pair of such renown. For such an error, may I be forgiven? As for the Archives, the entire collection stands at the Imperial Daughter’s disposal. All can be seen, if the Imperial Daughter has time.”

Israi gave him a dignified gesture, and Ampris struggled to hold back a giggle. She knew how much Israi loved to play the grand lady, and this silly Myal believed every bit of it. Ampris knew Israi would let Bish chatter on with his boring lectures until the tour was actually started, then she would back out and leave him standing there looking foolish, puzzled as to how he had offended.

Stepping around them, Bish approached the doors and spoke a clear command in coded words.

A light flashed upon him from overhead, scanning him. Then the doors unlocked and swung slowly open.

Bish hurried inside and bowed to Israi again. “Please enter.”

Ampris met Israi’s eyes and saw the mischief gleaming there. Again, she stifled a giggle. “Isn’t he boring?” she whispered. “Are you actually going in?”

Israi blinked at her in their secret look. “Yes,” she whispered back. “I want ideas for our next project.”

They laughed together.

“Please,” Bish said. “Come inside.”

Another worry touched Ampris, and she tugged at Israi’s sleeve. “Is it safe? Without your guards?”

“Don’t be so protective. Of course it’s safe.” With her head held high, Israi swept inside.

Ampris followed, and the doors swung shut automatically behind her.

“The Archives were the first part of the restoration project to be completed,” Bish said proudly. He gestured at the room around them. “This main exhibit chamber and two other areas are redone. Our offices have been updated, and my staff is busy cataloging an incredible warren of old materials. It will take us years to sort through everything. A fabulous opportunity for study lies here.”

At first Ampris wondered when they planned to fill this empty room, then as Bish and Israi walked on, with Bish chatting and pointing out various items to the sri-Kaa, she realized the room was
supposed
to be empty. Only what hung on the walls held any importance.

She glanced around and caught her breath. Panel after panel of constellation maps depicted various populated worlds within the far-flung Viis empire. Despite the political and civics lessons Ampris had yawned her way through, for the first time she received a very clear, graphic grasp of just how immense the Viis holdings were.

Beyond the constellation panels hung holograms of planets rotating in midair, delineated perfectly to scale, with continents and oceans sliding beneath the clouds of atmosphere.

Israi stopped between two spinning planets and laughed. “Rogis Four and Mynchepop . . . Father
loves
Mynchepop. He speaks of it often. He has promised me that when I reach adulthood I may travel there.”

“From all accounts it is a world of breathtaking beauty,” Bish said agreeably.

He glanced at Ampris and pointed at another planet, a small, dusty brown world that spun slowly as though tired. A slender band of water encircled its equator. The rest was solid landmass.

“Homeworld of the Aarouns,” he said quietly to Ampris, his black eyes bright and watchful. “The origin point of your race, young cub.”

Startled, Ampris frowned at him, then stared at the planet in curiosity. It was an ugly world, especially when compared to others with interesting continents mottled green between large blue oceans.

She wondered what it had been like to live on such a small, brown world, and could not imagine it. Still, Aarouns had come from it. Her ancestors had once walked its ground and breathed its air. The idea of it intrigued her. For the first time, she could visualize the homeworld as an actual place.

“What is it called?” she asked.

“Bish!” Israi said imperiously before he could reply. “I wish to examine the jewelry collection. My father has told me much about the old State jewels, but I have never seen them.”

Bish bowed to her at once. “Yes, of course. They are locked in the special vaults on a floor below this one. Let us go down.”

But as he spoke, he glanced at Ampris again and touched a button on the projector base beneath the planet hologram. Aaroun homeworld vanished and in its stead appeared a vista of open sky tinged a pearly-gray hue with wide grass-lands spread beneath it. Hot, dry wind gusted into Ampris’s face, and she smelled a mingled wealth of new scents: the bitter, herbal scent of the tall grass, the hot arid ground, and an animal scent—perhaps that of a small fearful rodent. Instincts inside her quickened automatically. Her mouth watered with an unfamiliar anticipation. Her nose twitched, attuning itself as she located the rodent nibbling at the roots of the grass stems. She focused on it, feeling her muscles ripple across her back. It was prey.

“Ampris!” Israi said sharply. “Have you gone deaf? Come at once.”

Startled, and with a feeling of disorientation, Ampris came back to the here and now.

Bish pushed a button, and the grasslands vanished, leaving only the spinning planet in their place.

Ampris frowned in disappointment, finding herself yearning to see more.

“Come,” Bish said gently to her. “There are other things to show you.”

Again she followed Israi and Bish, this time down a narrow spiraling staircase into a darker, more cramped region of small exhibit rooms, offices, and cleaning chambers that held long tables stacked with rotting fabrics and rusted artifacts. They walked past a library holding scroll cases, bound volumes, fragile tape spools, disks preserved in clear cases, and endless racks of sivo data crystals.

Ampris’s head swiveled constantly as she stared, fascinated by the wealth of things here. She expected Israi to stop at any moment and turn back. That was, after all, the game. But Bish was still chattering about the jewels, describing them and their vivid histories, along with accounts of the imperial personages who had worn them. Israi was rapt, as though she had forgotten the prank she wanted to pull.

Just before they reached the vault, Bish paused and opened a door that revealed a dim, shadowy room. “Perhaps you would care to look inside here,” he said to Ampris in his gentle way.

His eyes, however, bored into her with an intensity she did not understand.

“What is there?” Israi asked sharply, her rill half-raised. “Why do you send my Ampris there?”

Bish turned back to the sri-Kaa and bowed. “I thought she might find it interesting. It has information on her people. Why should an Aaroun care about the jewels which will one day be the exclusive property of the sri-Kaa?”

Israi lowered her rill and flicked Ampris a casual glance of permission. “Go in there, and see your history,” she said, and turned away.

There was a derisive, almost contemptuous note in her voice as she spoke. Ampris did not mind it. She knew that none of the slave races had illustrious histories, nothing to compare with the advanced Viis civilization and its glory.

Still, perhaps there might be something as interesting as the hologram of the grasslands had been. Obediently Ampris stepped into the room.

At first it looked dusty and poorly lit. She saw a jumbled stack of things on the long table. Sighing, she walked over to look at the pictures on the wall. Some were authentic paintings. Others were computer-generated reconstructions. She saw portraits of Aarouns of all ages and colors, their long-lashed eyes staring gravely at her from the past. There was something unusual about them, something she could not quite define.

Unless . . . She suddenly realized how bold their eyes were, how free. They stood straight, without the hunch of submission. They looked fearless and content.

A lump filled her throat, choking her before she swallowed it away. She looked at other pictures, seeing settlements, towns, and individual houses. The architectural styles seemed simple—squares and rectangles, mud brick and stucco construction, natural shelters both functional and efficient that were appropriate to the landscape. She found herself studying one house that was larger and far more elaborate than the rest. Low to the ground, it surrounded a courtyard and loggia. A simple pool of water adorned the courtyard. Aaroun youngsters crouched there among clay pots of flowers. She could see the carved pebbles in the cubs’ hands, and the game board they played with.

Again a lump filled her throat. All her life she’d believed her people to be nothing. She’d never understood that once they had been separate and independent of the Viis empire, with their own lifestyles and their own customs.

She moved on to another display, and learned about birth celebrations, adulthood rituals, wedding ceremonies, and funerals. Then she came to a display case that lit automatically when she approached. Within, a necklace hung suspended. At first she saw nothing special about it, for compared to Israi’s jewelry this piece looked simple and plain. A leather thong, brittle with age, was strung through a small disk with radiating points, like a sun. The center of the disk held a smooth, clear stone—almost as clear as glass, except she could see minute flecks and inclusions within it. Squinting for a closer look, Ampris thought for a split second that she saw a spark of radiance come to life in the transparent stone’s center. Her heartbeat quickened in response, and she felt suddenly breathless, although she knew not why. Then the fleeting radiance vanished, and it was just an old amulet hanging on an age-worn thong of leather, nothing special at all.