The V'Dan (7 page)

“I requested that they leave a light on since there are privacy curtains that can be pulled across the bunk openings, but as they are asleep, please stow your gear quietly. I will stay out here because it is too crowded inside with three people moving around all at once.” Touching the door controls, she opened it up, showing the dimly lit cabin. The curtains were indeed pulled shut, and one of the women inside was snoring softly.

Since the door slid sideways into the wall, the two women were able to access the lockers easily. Each doctor paused to sort a few belongings, stuffed most into one of the two lower cupboards, and picked up the small bags and sturdy cases that no doubt contained personal versions of the tools of their trades.

Once the door was shut again, leaving the two women inside to sleep in peace, and the group was following Dr. de la Santoya, Dr. Qua eyed Jackie. “So what is the verdict on what you will do about the medical reaction your people are having to our food? You said you had less than twenty days of food.”

“We’ve already shifted cargos and dispatched six of our ships to head out to meet other vessels from the Terran fleet at the midpoint, which are being stocked and sent under way with extra packs of preprocessed foods,” Jackie revealed. “We’re still in negotiations on shipping fresh foods other than meats, eggs, and dairy, since we don’t want to contaminate the V’Dan agricultural system with plant matter that could potentially resprout before it finishes composting.”

“What about frozen or canned foods?” Kuna’mi asked.

“Those have been given clearance because they fall under preprocessed; it’s all been blanched or cooked so that it cannot germinate,” Jackie clarified. She rubbed at her brow briefly. “All these things are topics that I never really thought I’d have to consider. I’ve assigned staff members to track dietary needs versus what we can ship, versus what we cannot yet ship due to quarantine requirements . . . They’re doing a wonderful job of being both flexible and willing to take up whatever task needs managing, so I don’t have to do it all myself, but since I’m the person in charge, they want to run everything past me to make sure it’s a good idea.”

“Will you be running off to handle all of that, then?” the markless V’Dan asked. Her inner aura was still a mask, an illusion similar to Dr. Qua’s, but her expression hinted at a touch of hope, if not her tone.

Jackie shook her head. “Since it’s easier for two
psis
to share quarters at the same time—since if we bump into each other, we know it’s an accident if we sense anything and thus it’s more quickly forgiven and forgotten—it’s their current sleep cycle. That means if you want to get to work, I’m the telepath on duty. The two gentlemen, Darian and Clees, are on a different sleep cycle from each other, as well as from the two ladies, but I’m not sure yet which one of them picked to be on duty at this hour.”

They reached the infirmary. Maria led the way inside. Her two patients had been let go after extensive observation, so the interconnected cabins were empty of bodies though they were full of strange equipment . . . and a lot of signage in V’Dan explaining explicitly how to use each piece of equipment. The signs themselves were actually poster-thin monitors with displays that rotated slowly from manual to manual, alternating with lists of items found in cupboards and drawers behind each one. Jackie thought it was incredibly clever since there was never any guarantee that a medical professional would be caught in need of quarantine, or in a healthy enough shape to manage such things.

“I’d hate to bore you with highly technical matters,” Kuna’mi said, tipping her head a little. “We should be fine without you.”

“This is also the single largest stumbling block to us setting up an embassy on your homeworld,” Jackie pointed out. “It makes sense for me to be involved, or at least to be on hand to observe and thus be more likely to understand what’s going on, should any decisions need to be made right away.”

She hesitated, then deliberately reached out with a mental set of knuckles and “rapped” on the other woman’s illusions and inner shield. That got her a slight but swift narrowing of Kuna’mi’s blue eyes.

(
I’m guessing that you’re capable of hearing this,
) Jackie sent privately, meeting the other woman’s gaze with nothing more than a mild blink of her own eyes. (
I meant it when I said that my people’s ethics insist that I not spill any mental secrets of those around me . . . including the fact that you are
far
better trained than anything I’ve heard to date on how V’Dan mental abilities should be. You’re not getting rid of me . . . and if it is determined that an additional translation session is necessary to impart the proper understanding of our disparate medical lexicons, I will perform that task . . . and whatever I may learn of you of a personal nature, I will refrain from sharing with Dr. de la Santoya, nor ever mention to anyone else that I have learned it.
)

“. . . You seem to be quite dedicated,” Kuna’mi replied out loud, though from the unchanged mental placidity, she could have been replying to Jackie’s verbal words. “I hope you are equally trustworthy.”

Jackie did not take offense. “I am aware that trust only builds with time, through a measuring of how well one’s words and one’s deeds match. I look forward to the chance for both our peoples to build that trust, as well as extending respect to one another.”

That made the blue-eyed doctor snort. “I’ll wish you the best of luck in that. Markless adults have to be five times as good as anyone else just to get an equal amount of respect. I’ll presume you’ll want some sort of mark-free version of
jungen
though, given how you are not V’Dan.”

“That would be correct,” Maria stated, lifting her chin a little. “I am not going to inject any genetics-altering virus that will change the way they look into any of our people. We stopped judging each other based on the color of our skin well
over a century ago. We will not go back to such an immature system.”

Jackie stepped in verbally. “. . . What the doctor means to say is that we are not V’Dan, and our cultural viewpoint on such matters is therefore different. It will be easier if the V’Dan people simply keep repeating that to themselves, that we Terrans are different, and that we should be judged as you would judge other non-V’Dan.”

“Well, it wouldn’t do you, personally, any good to get the virus
with
the marking ability intact,” Qua said. “You’re past the age of puberty, when the virus makes its changes. You’d only get marks out of children caught just before puberty or earlier, and it’ll still take a few generations before everyone has them.”

“Which we don’t want to do, as it would run contrary to Terran values,” Jackie said. She gestured at Maria. “Doctors, if you’ll give Dr. de la Santoya your full attention, I’m quite sure she’s impatient to start getting familiarized with your V’Dan version of genetic-sequencing machines. Once we’ve gotten everyone up to speed on Terran versus V’Dan machinery and terminology, you’ll be able to get to work right away.”

APRIL 26, 2287 C.E.
DEMBER 20, 9507 V.D.S.

His Imperial Highness, Kah’raman Li’eth Tal’u-ruq Ma’an-uq’en Q’uru-hash V’Daania, thirdborn child of Empress Hana’ka, stared into the mirror in his semiprivate cabin and acknowledged that he did not feel like himself anymore.

It was a strange thing to admit, but over the last five years, ever since shortly after joining the military at the age of twenty-seven, Li’eth had slowly grown used to
not
being an Imperial Prince. Yes, the officers of the Second Tier were considered technically equal with the lesser nobles, but when one was off in a ship for months on end, the social lines blurred. There was some distance, some formality . . . but the best crews in his experience were those whose officers weren’t rigidly strict on fraternizing only within their “own kind” as it were.

Captain Li’eth Ma’an-uq’en could mingle just fine with his
bridge officers, his wardens, his sergeants, even the enlisted, though mingling with the lowest ranks was a rare thing. Imperial Prince Kah’raman . . .
I don’t even think of myself as Kah’raman anymore,
Li’eth admitted.

Li’eth
, which meant
Year of Joy
, was a fairly common name actually, popular around the time of his birth. He’d encountered a good ten, twelve men during his years in the Imperial Army that shared the name. Most of those encounters had been good, leaving him feeling comfortable
being
a fellow “Li’eth.”

Kah’raman
, which meant
King of Starshine
, was not a common name. It was literally a regal name, a name reserved for the Imperial Tier, a name with a royal title embedded in it right from birth. Thirdborn, but still royal, Imperial, distinct from all others.

I’m glad I had those years of getting used to being “just plain Li’eth” in the military before encountering Jackie’s people,
he decided, reaching for the complimentary shaving stick tucked in the mirrored cabinet.
They have very little in the way of a caste system. A much wider variety of cultural backgrounds—vastly wider,
he acknowledged, activating the stick with a touch of the upper button. Carefully, he rubbed the glowing end over his right cheek, removing the hints of light brown and burgundy stubble that had grown there overnight.
But fewer social strata.

Thinking on how loose and fluid social climbing or sinking can be in the Terran system . . . I think I can understand how adrift Shi’ol must have felt. No automatic deference once she pointed out her civilian title, and no automatic looking to her for leadership. No sense of “you’re allowed to do that because that is the way of your Tier” or the equally important “you’d never do that because it’s just not the way your Tier behaves.”
Such as the cleaning they’d all had to do.

He’d gotten used to the more relaxed ways of the military . . . and the greatly lessened expectations laid on a youngish man presumed to have been born of Third Tier parents—highly educated but not ennobled. Captain Li’eth Ma’an-uq’en had been a commoner. One with a close resemblance to His Imperial Highness save for the bit of burgundy stripe he had concealed on his cheek.

But he wasn’t Captain Ma’an-uq’en anymore. He didn’t have the freedom to mingle with the lower Tiers with impunity, even just casually. An Imperial Prince was almost never
casual
. It went against the order of things.

So why am I thinking back to that
looh-ow
picnic we had on the beach of her home island, with her family and important locals and their friends?
He eyed his image in the mirror, half-shaven, and sighed.
I know why. I’m not used to being an Imperial Prince anymore. Even when I went home on Leave for celebrations . . .

The real reason? He hadn’t seen the Terran way of life back then. The way they flowed from formal to casual with graceful ease. How their welcoming warmth was the grease that made those transitions look so easy. They had social strata—in giving their V’Dan guests a sampling tour of their world and insystem colonies, the Terrans had
not
avoided showing them slums, poverty-stricken regions, the homes of the wealthy, or menial labor versus the work of the highly educated.

They weren’t apologetic in the sense of being embarrassed; on the trip around the Sol System, the V’Dan had been shown archived documentaries of a selection of worst and best moments in Terran history, including genocide on a scale seen only a few times in the Empire’s very long history. The Terrans had simply said, “These are some of the worst things in our history, things we have recordings for, whereas with others we do not have as much. We teach ourselves and remind ourselves of these things, of the evil in them, in the hopes that we will continue to avoid repeating these mistakes.”

Matter-of-fact. That was how they handled their mistakes. No stammering denials, no overly dramatic breast-beatings. Just a simple, straightforward message of, “We have bad things and good things in our history, we are aware of it, and we aren’t going to pretend they never happened.”

Like the Massacre of the Valley. Men, women, elders, children . . . even the infants. Cross-bound and gutted alive, among other horrors. Not my ancestor’s brightest nor most blessed hour.
That Emperor had been slain by those who were horrified at what he had ordered done, along with the troops who had done the deeds alongside him. The War Crown had passed to a collateral line, a cousin of the First Tier . . . but though the civil
war had been won by the right and just side, it could not erase the horrific crimes committed against a people whose only transgression was that they wanted no nobles set over them, that they wanted their people to be deemed equals with each other.

Eventually, the Valley of the Artisans had been repopulated with both survivors and newcomers and deemed a protectorate of the Empire. The lessons learned had gone into the history books and never been taken out. Sometimes softened, but never removed. Of course, he had no control over what the Terrans would be shown of V’Dan history, its highlights and its lowest points such as the Valley. He had no idea if those who were in charge would be quite so open. Not that it could be kept secret; eventually, they would get their hands on unexpurgated historical accounts. But would his own people be so . . . so
comfortable
with themselves?

Somehow, Li’eth doubted it. Finishing up his shaving with a touch of the wand to neaten his left sideburn, he checked his image, then shut it off and tucked it back into the cabinet. A splash or two of water washed off the little scraps of stubble, along with a swipe from a cloth to dry his face. He had already showered, then dried and braided his hair. It was time to don one of his uniforms.

These were true uniforms, properly tailored and properly styled, not the approximation the Terrans had managed. Properly armored against most handheld weapons, too. Not that he expected to be attacked, but without the plasflesh painting his cheek, hiding the distinctive length and hue of the
jungen
stripe extending beneath his right eye, he couldn’t hide who he was. Imperial Prince Kah’raman V’Daania and not merely Captain Li’eth Ma’an-uq’en. Someone always had a grudge against the Imperial Family. Sometimes, they tried to express that grudge physically.