The Summer Queen (57 page)

The uncertainty of the future he saw had made him long to be
in places like this room, with its sense of permanence and tradition and
perfect peace. This room touched his memory, and fulfilled a need in him, in
ways he had not experienced in nearly half his lifetime.

But since his return he had spent every single moment of his
time up in space, involving himself in every aspect of the new stardrive
technology that he had been able to insinuate his presence into—and the
leverage his new prestige and his Survey contacts gave him was profound.

Because his Survey-guided sibyl Transfer had informed the
leaders on Kharemough about his discovery, they had begun the work of planning
and constructing ships that could utilize the new technology, as well as ways
of converting the thousands of existing ships to the new drives, before he even
arrived. And they had begun work too on the kinds of advanced weaponry that
they had formulated plans for, but found small use for, when their only realistic
means of control over the other worlds of the Hegemony was economic.

As a result, when he returned home he had been both relieved
and disturbed to discover that the new drive units and the fleet already under
construction were riddled with errors in design and function. He had seen an
actual stardrive unit, had worked with the plasma, and knew things no one on
Kharemough could have known. But with their access to the sibyl net, the
engineers and researchers should have had flawless design data available to
them. The sibyl machinery had shown signs of deterioration over time—hardly
surprising, in such an ancient system—but he had been stunned to find error
after error in the data he had been shown by the research teams.

The possibility of a major breakdown in the informational system
upon which the entire Hegemony depended was almost entirely off his scale of
disaster. He had seen the looks in the eyes of the people around him as they discussed
the possibility, and told himself fiercely that the sibyl net, at least, was
not his responsibility. He was here to build starships, and errors in data were
things that could be corrected. The potential problems with the sibyl net only
meant that they must make progress with all possible speed, in case a
system-wide failure actually was coming. And in trying to bring home that point
to the researchers and engineers, he slowly came to realize how the problems
with sibyl-net data had become a source of excuses for inefficiency,
bureaucratic mishandling, and a lack of rigor.

He had come home to this, hardly expecting to find such problems
among his own people. The truth had struck him with the impact of a stasis
field. But his hard-earned new perspective had let him look at the technocracy’s
way of doing things with an outsider’s eye, and a stasis field was as good an
analogy as any to what was wrong.

He admitted to himself alone the mixed emotions that knowledge
had created in him: disillusionment and regret, when he thought of his people,
his world’s heritage, his own pride ... frustration, and relief, when he
thought of Moon Dawntreader and Tiamat. Every year of delay that kept the
Hegemony away from Tiamat gave her more time to do the work she was destined to
do. Sometimes he had to fight down dis own urge to delay the process he had
begun; half believing that that was the way ne could best serve the symbol they
both wore.

But then he would force himself to remember her face—remember
her ghost reaching out to him at Fire Lake, hazed in blue. A memory of the
future, a promise of a moment they both had yet to live ... the words / need
you. And the realization that every day he was growing older, and she was ...
that nearly nine years had passed for him since they had parted, and sixteen
for her, on Tiamat. He could not believe that it had been so long; the years
seemed somehow to have dissolved, like the snows of Tiamat melting in the
spring. He had not seen her face in all that time, except on a specter. He had
spoken to her only twice, and only in Transfer; the first time half-mad with
Fire Lake’s delirium, the second using Hahn as a medium simply to let her know
that he had survived. Sometimes he wondered whether he was deluding himself,
clinging to a dream of a love that had no right to exist, that had never
existed in the first place. And yet his memories of his time with her—that
extraordinary space outside of time, when he had been more alive, more real,
than at any moment in his life before or since—were still as vivid as his face
in the mirror: his face, which every year showed him new lines at the corners
of his eyes that had not been there nine years ago ....

And then frustration would drive out longing, goad him to
more endless hours of work, of supervision and argument and adjustment. He
worked now not only with the top researchers in the habitats, but with the
practical engineers and construction hands out in the shipyards. He had come to
see that he had as much in common with them now as he did with his own class,
and often better rapport. Earning their trust and loyalty had doubled the measurable
results his polite suggestions and solicitous modifications of data had won him
among the Technicians who oversaw their work.

But his casual fraternizing with the lower classes had
caused friction and unease in some quarters, particularly political ones. He
was all too aware that he could not afford to offend his peers, particularly
considering his clouded background, which was never entirely forgotten even if
it was politely unmentionable among the highboms who held the power on
Kharemough. He wanted to get back to Tiamat as soon as possible—because that was
when the elite wanted to get there, to get at the water of life again. And he
not only wanted to get there first, he wanted to get there controlling enough
political power of his own to have some effect on what they would try to do to
that world, to its people ... to its Queen. Enough power to help her stop the
exploitation. Because if he couldn’t, then he would have worked all his life only
to betray her ...

He turned away from the windows, from the dim points of the
stars beginning to prick through the light veils on the darkening sky. He would
not see Tiamat’s twin suns among them even if he tried—they were too enormously
distant, at the other end of one of the random spacetime wormholes that joined
the Black Gates. The Hegemony was in a sense an empire of time more than space—of
worlds that could oe reached within a reasonable journey-time, due to the
Gates, but which had no meaningful relationship to one another in physical
space. But all that was about to change, too. 15 And he had better change his clothes,
he thought wearily, before the party beyond this room’s flawless silverwood
double doors became a memory, and BZ Gundhalinu, the guest of honor, missed it
entirely. He was here to mend offenses, to charm and disarm, ingratiate and
manipulate to the best of his ability—and thanks to his years of bureaucratic
gymnastics on Four, his ability was now considerable. He knew the social codes,
he knew what would flatter whom; and now that the new starships were making
more satisfactory progress, his political progress would be measured only by
his ability to stomach rich food and his own hypocrisy. This was the first of a
number of intimate and large gatherings here on the planet—where most of the
wealthy elite still kept homes—as well as up in the orbiting habitats. ‘He was using
both his network of old family ties, most of whom were now almost painfully eager
to renew his acquaintance, and his network of new Survey contacts to set them up.
This was only the beginning ....

Which was probably why he found it so hard to overcome his
own inertia and move, to cross the room toward the private bath where a
solicitous house system had left him a fresh uniform encrusted with all the
appropriate honors, insignia, medals, orders, ranks and degrees, including his
family crest, which he had not seen since he left home. Technically speaking,
he had no right to wear it tonight, since he was not the eldest sibling of his
generation. But the most rigid Technicians—the ones he most needed to make a
good impression on—put breeding above everything, and this would at least
remind them that his lineage was above reproach.

If it was a long time since he had seen that crest, it was
equally long since he had been waited on by servants, electronic or otherwise,
and Pernatte’s estate had one of the most sophisticated household systems he
had had the pleasure of experiencing. Even so, after all this time offending
for himself, it made him uncomfortable, at first; but he reminded himself that
this was, after all, only a series of servomechs, sophisticated programming.
The highest and lowest classes on Kharemough were not even permitted to speak
to one another without a formal interpreter; the highborns got around the
servant problem by building their own. These were not his fellow human beings
treating him as if he were a god—or staring with any interest whatsoever at his
bloodshot eyes and unsightly stubble of beard, at the state of his disheveled
hair and rumpled worker’s coveralls.

He unsealed his coveralls with one hand, scratching his
side, wrinkling his nose. He began to move more eagerly toward the bath that
was waiting for him in the next room, which he knew would be exactly the
temperature and consistency he wanted. The scent of steaming herbs would clear
out his head, the massage jets would know just where and how to touch his
aching-muscled, travel-weary body to leave him relaxed and energized ....

Across the room, the silverwood doors opened suddenly,
briefly, letting in a rush of bright noise.

Gundhalinu turned, startled. Someone had closed the doors
again, with unseemly haste. And he was no longer alone. The intruder was
standing across the room, staring back at him. The glowspot pasted to the palm
of her uplifted hand abruptly illuminated the space that had grown almost dark
around him without his really noticing it—illuminated the face of the stranger
who now shared it with him.

“Oh—” She stared back at him, a momentary reaction of startled
dismay fading as she took in the details of his appearance. Her gaze was level
and almost painfully open, but there was no recognition in it. He did not know
who she was, either. Her features were more striking than classical, but he saw
strength and humor there, and intelligence, and unexpected beauty. He broke the
gaze of her golden-brown eyes, vvhich seemed to find him so transparent; took
in the headdress of pearls that framed her face in luminous strands shifting
gently with her motion. She wore a long gown of night-black velvet, its high
neckline a collar of pearls, the pearls flowing into the blackness like stars
expanding though space until they were lost in night.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” she said, with such calm
conviction that for a moment he found himself wondering if it was true.

“Why not?” he asked, disconcerted and amused. He was glad
that she had not caught him handling the very expensive and very old piece of
sculpture he had been admiring earlier; she would have had him feeling like a
thief.

“Because I’m not, either.” She smiled suddenly, her eyes shining
with conspiratorial excitement. “I need a place to be unobtrusive, until enough
guests arrive so that I can lose myself among them. You won’t give me away,
will you—?” It almost wasn’t a question; as if she had made some judgment about
him on sight.

“Should I?” he asked, uncertainly. He bent his head,
inviting her with the gesture to explain.

“I’m quite harmless,” she answered, her smile filling with
gentle irony. “Truly. I’m only here because I wanted so badly to meet the
famous hero Commander Gundhalinu.”

Gundhalinu stopped the sudden laugh of disbelief that almost
got away from him, keeping his expression neutral. If she was playing a game,
it wasn’t with him; he was sure that she did not recognize him. “Well,” he
said, mildly, almost surprised at himself, “you’ll have some time to kill until
then. Would you like a drink?” He gestured at the clean-lined cabinet beside
him; he had been informed that it contained a fully stocked bar.

“Will you join me?” Her smile made him smile with a sense of
shared truancy. He nodded. “Something innocuous please,” she said. “My senses
are quite overstimulated as it is.”

Gundhalinu touched the spot on the seemingly solid surface
of the tabletop that had been indicated to him earlier. The smooth grain of the
wood vanished under his touch as the bar obediently listed its contents for his
consideration. “Do you prefer to drink, inhale, or absorb?” The Pernattes had
an impressive assortment of mind-altering substances available, all of them
perfectly legal.

“To drink, I think.” There was laughter in her voice as she
crossed the room toward him. “The act is not too active that way, and not too
passive.”

“Good point.” He glanced up at her. “They have the water of
life—?”

He saw her face register the same play of emotions that had
filled his mind: Not the real thing ... but even the imitation was rare enough.
“Oh, yes,” she murmured. “Yes.”

He spoke an order, looking at her where she stood leaning
casually against the cabinet beside him. She smelled of something exotic and
heady; he realized that he probably stank of sweat. But she smiled that
strangely appealing smile at him, meeting his gaze with unnerving directness.
He glanced down, lifting his hand to meet her proffered one in a polite
greeting. “How do you do?”

She touched his palm almost playfully with her own glowlit
hand. Light and shadows danced as the glowspot flickered. But as he would have
let his hand drop she took it in both of hers, keeping it there as she turned
it over; illuminating it, running her fingers unselfconsciously across his
palm, like a blind woman trying to see. The touch against the sensitive skin
made him shiver. “You have calluses. Hands were made to do things. I like real
hands.” She turned his hand over, studying its shape, the length and form of
his fingers. “You have beautiful hands.”