The View from the Imperium Page 4

  “I’m just me,” I said modestly.

  Xinu pretended to stick his finger down his throat. “False modesty makes me tired,” he said. “Admiral Podesta has been known to kick people out when they’re fifteen seconds late, and you sashayed in after ten minutes. Why aren’t you back in your cabin eating survival rations?”

  I shrugged disarmingly. “I suppose I owe it all to my mother. She’s an admiral, too. Professional courtesy, I suppose,” I added, glancing back in alarm at Podesta, who was eating a green salad from a pale blue china bowl with quick, stabbing bites of a gleaming silver fork.

  “He’s never heard of it,” said the dark-furred Wichu beside Redius. His name was Perkev. He showed his rows of pointed teeth. “You will see. I nearly starved after making a noise during inspection. I cannot eat the preekech that you humans consider palatable.”

  Like anyone who adored languages, I had a working knowledge of all the curses and swear words used in the many cultures and systems of the Imperium. It was an inspired choice of epithets for the survival rations, whose unassuming acronym had been reapplied by my peers and me to other, less savory terms when we had had to taste the bars in question. The aromas coming from the serving hatches were appealing. I compared it with my memory of survival rations, and peered once again at Podesta. Was he that much of a stickler for rules? Why had I not heard about that during our transfer to the Wedjet?

  Ah, but I must have heard it, but not retained the fact for future use. Where had this sense of dread anticipation been while I was admiring my new uniform in the mirror? I had thought that after spending more than half my life running into the Emperor casually in the hallways of the Imperium Compound I would consider any lower form of authority pussycatish in comparison, but frankly, what my tablemates were saying made a large, cold lump appear in my stomach. I swallowed deeply, feeling my throat constrict. “I’ve got some bridge-rebuilding to do, I see.”

  “You won’t get the chance,” the Uctu said, the blue spots on his forehead glowing slightly. “I’ve never known to change his opinion, Podesta.”

  My heart sank. “My mother,” I said, “is going to flay me.” I supposed that the admiral would write to her about the white stripe on my trousers, too. Why hadn’t I listened to Parsons?

  “Wait . . . Kinago?” Xinu asked, curiously. “Tariana Kinago Loche is your mother?”

  “Er, yes,” I admitted. I had already begun to compose the explanation I would have to make to Mother in my head. Words came glibly to mind, but she could just turn off the audio portion of my missive, so my eloquence would mean little. A pang of conscience told me she would not believe it. If I added a suitably pitiable expression and an austere background with a suggestion of the dungeon about it, perhaps I could elicit her maternal sympathy on my behalf. I gave another quick peek at Podesta and tried to guess his age. He might have been a contemporary of hers. They may even have been at Academy together. I gulped unhappily and added two or three more abject apologies to my mental text. “That’s her.”

  “The First Space Lord?” Redius asked, dropping his jaw in interest. I nodded, feeling more miserable by the moment.

  “Your mother is a hero!” Anstruther exclaimed, raising her hands in ecstasy. Her champagne-colored eyes sparkled. “I’ve viewed everything there is to see about her. The battle of Marquardt’s Pass, the siege of Colvarin’s Department Store system, the border defense against the Geckos . . . sorry, Kolchut.” The golden-eyed female ducked her head abjectly.

  “No offense taken,” the Uctu said. “Born in the Imperium. My parents fled the Autocracy.”

  “You, a noble of the Imperial House, are only an ensign?” Xinu asked.

  “Well, everyone’s got to start somewhere,” I pointed out modestly. “I graduated from the Academy only two weeks ago.” I decided not to mention the brevet lieutenancy.

  “Do we call you ‘your lordship’?” Anstruther asked, with a dreamy expression on her face.

  “Only on formal occasions,” I explained hastily. “We’re fellow officers now, equals in the Space Navy in service to the Imperium.” Maybe I could mitigate Mother’s coming outpouring of fury by mentioning her many fans on board. I had my camera with me. A few video testimonials should go down well. But Mother had this very uncomfortable way of finding the needle of truth secreted in the proverbial haystack of obfuscation. That attention to minute detail was, in fact, one of the reasons she had become a hero.

  “Your sire must be something special to have won her hand,” Perkev said.

  “No doubt,” I said, feeling a twinge of conscience.

  I thought of my father with concern.

  Rodrigo Park Kinago must have been a handsome man at one time. I resembled him somewhat: he was tall, his long face with handsome bones and light eyes in a warmly tinted skin that attracted surprised glances by those who had not noticed him at once upon entering a room he occupied. Clearly, something had happened in the past to affect his mind. He seemed uninjured on the surface, if more gray and drawn-looking than a man of his middle years might expect to in these days of rejuvenation treatments and general longevity. I loved him, but I hated to talk about him. “Poor, brave Rodrigo” was almost always how my relatives referred to him. Not just “Rodrigo,” but “Poor, brave Rodrigo,” and pretty much always with the sad smile that one saves for such occasions as a good friend who had shot off his own foot accidentally, who had been widowed, or who had suffered some other inescapable and overwhelming misfortune not of his own making. My curiosity on the subject overwhelmed me. The closest I’d ever come to hearing what had actually happened to my father fell from the lips of my great-uncle Perleas during one of his weekly drunks when my great-aunt Sforzina wasn’t around.

  “It was in the last war against the pirates, nephew,” Uncle Perleas had begun, sipping the fermented coca liqueur that he favored. He paused, thoughtfully. “No, Rodrigo really couldn’t have done anything else than exactly what he did. And certainly not after that.” I’d moved closer, agog. Uncle Perleas took an intake of breath, and was about to exhale details when, at that agonizing point, my aunt had come in and confiscated Uncle’s bottle and gave him a look that would have stopped the onset of winter, let alone an old man telling stories. I didn’t hear any more of the story that day, and when I tried to ask him about it at another suitably unguarded time, Perleas denied absolutely that he’d ever said anything. I certainly couldn’t ask my mother. She got very angry when I tried, with all of my eight-year-old tact, to inquire whether there wasn’t something odd about my paternal unit. I never tried again. My resultant grounding and deprivation of all privileges for a week was enough to deter my siblings from ever asking, either.

  My father didn’t provide me with any more clues. He pottered around in our rooms and the workshop assigned to him in the Craftworkers’ Courtyard, a vast expanse of cobbled paving dotted with small enclosures and chambers purpose-built for a variety of hand- and machine-oriented construction at one edge of the Imperial Compound, a vast city-within-the-capital-city of Taino. His specialty seemed to be coming up with alternatives for archaic substances or devices that had largely slipped out of usage altogether. I had never heard of “sealing wax” before he showed it to me. With most personal and official documents electronically transmitted these days, the utility of his fresh formulation seemed limited, but making it made him happy. I loved him, and in my small-child’s way, I wanted him to be happy. It worried me that I didn’t know why he was not like the fathers of my cousins or friends. Naturally, I wanted to be different than he was, so as not to be spoken of with pity.

  Father seemed content to remain within the ambit of those small spaces in the workshop, whereas I, my brother and sister couldn’t wait to slip the bounds of earth and go for illicit rides on borrowed suborbital skimmers or over the walls to parties thrown at exclusive clubs in town. No, Father had come to terms with his condition, and enjoyed a sunny if doddery disposition. I rarely considered his strangeness in latter days unless
forced by conversational circumstance. As now.

  “He is very special,” I assured my new shipmates.

  “Was that your C.O. who came in with you?” asked Nesbitt, M., an ensign on the other side of Xinu. He had thick, dark brown brows over a long, jowly, red-complected face. In mass, he would have made two of me, though his bulk was arranged to form a mega-human a good twenty centimeters taller and twenty wider at the shoulders than I.

  I frowned. “Parsons? No, he’s my aide-de-camp.”

  If the stares I had received from my tablemates had been admiring on behalf of my mother, they switched to envy or puzzlement. “Why is he with you?” Anstruther began.

  “Well, he’s been around since I was a boy,” I explained. “Always has been. Always kind to me. I was forever asking him questions, you know. He was like my personal information outlet. I hung on his every word. Parsons knows everything. You should ask him something; you’ll be amazed at the depths of his knowledge and erudition, though I admit the delivery lacks a bit in terms of excitement. An hour with him is worth a month at school. I just admire the fact that he is so calm all the time. That calm demeanor goes all the way to the core. I’ve attempted to interfere with the coolness, but no efforts of mine have ever been sufficient to break it. He has eternal patience, and he can do anything. When I was a scrub he played games with me, taught me the first rudiments of sword-fighting, including some fantastically dirty tricks I’ve never seen anywhere else, and he’s a better 3D jai-alai player than I am, which modesty prevents me from saying is very impressive indeed . . .”

  Anstruther waved a hand. “No, I mean why do you have an aide-de-camp? You’re an ensign. You’ll be doing the same scutwork we are, fetching and carrying for lieutenants and upward.”

  “Well, there are things that I need him to do I can’t do for myself,” I said. It sounded reasonable to me, though not to my new acquaintances.

  “Why are you able to get special privileges?” a black-browed man asked in a growl. His name plate read Sarpenio. “Is it because you’re a noble?” He gave the word the same connotation as “baby-eater.” I gave him a modest smile.

  “Part of my responsibilities,” I said, mysteriously. “I can say no more at this time.”

  “I never served with one of you before,” Xinu said. “Do you get to bring servants wherever you go?”

  “ ‘Servant’ is an outdated class,” Redius stated, his tongue flicking.

  “Well, actually it’s not. There are thousands of servants in the Imperial Palace,” I explained. “It’s a job, like any other. Servants can quit if they want to, and most of the time they do. I recall one time when His Imperial Majesty had ordered a huge banquet to honor the Oligarchs of the Trade Union, and the cooks walked out just a day be—”

  “Is that commander a servant, then?” Redius asked. “Is he a bondsman, sworn to you in some blood oath, or does he owe your family a debt?”

  “Debt? Of course not!” I said. “He’s an old family friend. I can’t think of a time when he was not around the family home or somewhere in the Imperium Compound. One of my earliest memories is toddling around in one of his gardens, no doubt bent upon some infant mayhem. He intercepted me before I reached the rhododendrons, and took me to play some less harmful game. When I was five he started teaching me swordplay, which every gentle needs to know. I respect him greatly. He’s rather good in crises. They seem to melt away whenever he gets near one. Something about his calm exterior demands attention, you know, even if many of the things he says at the time don’t sound all that interesting. I recall once that he sat me down to explain to me the difference between diplomacy and tact—”

  “Then he outranks you,” Xinu pointed out, interrupting the flow of my story, which was just as well, because once I began to recall the details, they were embarrassing to the Imperial family as well as to yours truly.

  “In the service,” I reminded him. Sarpenio, the black-browed man glowered even more. I sensed an animosity there toward persons of high birth. I thought I had better make use of some of the Kinago charm as well as the Loche aegis. I gave him a warm smile. He shook his head as if to clear it.

  “But you’re in the service, aren’t you?” Nesbitt asked.

  “With all my heart,” I agreed, planting my hand over my chest wherein reposed that organ.

  “Who died and made you . . . ?”

  “Why do you need . . . ?”

  “What is he . . . ?”

  Anstruther flung up her hands to halt the spate of simultaneous and no doubt similar questions from our tablemates. “Why does an ordinary ensign,” she enunciated carefully, “have an aide-de-camp?”

  “It’s most likely because I’ve got a sealed assignment,” I said sheepishly, ducking my head a trifle. “And that’s all I know about it. My scout ship is in the hangar. I haven’t even seen it yet.”

  The faces of my tablemates lit up.

  “You have a scout ship? What kind?” asked a male human my age with white-blond hair. His tag read parvinder, m.

  I felt foolish admitting the truth. “As I said, its details are a complete mystery to me. I have been informed I will see it in time.”

  “That sounds weird,” Anstruther said, though she regarded me almost shyly. “Shouldn’t you be familiarizing yourself with it? Every craft has its kinks.”

  “I am sure I will be soon. I can’t imagine the Navy being so careless as to keep me from practicing before my mission,” I said. “We take pride in its reputation for thoroughness as well as courage.”

  “We—you make it sound like you’re the Emperor himself!”

  “Well,” I began modestly, “five times removed, but I can still call him cousin.”

  “Do you know him? Have you seen him?” Nesbitt asked, curious in spite of himself. I felt there was still an opening to impress there.

  “Often,” I said. “His Imperial Highness takes frequent constitutionals in the gardens of the compound. He finds them relaxing in between dealing with affairs of state. He hasn’t been Emperor that long, you may recall. His grandmother, Tirasiani VIII, passed into eternity less than five years ago.”

  “Eternity be kind to her,” Xinu said, bobbing his head.

  “As we all hope,” I said, acknowledging his courtesy. “Her grandfather was Emperor Irsan I, my great-great-grandfather. You can look up the family tree on my Infogrid file.”

  Parvinder pressed me for more. “What’s he look like? I mean, His Imperial Highness. Do you call him Shojan?”

  “Oh, well, that’s not the name he grew up with, you know,” I said. “It’s his throne name. He was named Vasco at birth. But, no, I didn’t call him Shojan, either; as he was in the direct line of succession, and was one of the chosen candidates for the throne from youth, he’s always been a Highness even to the family. He looks younger in person than his official portraits. In fact, he is only five years older than I am, a year younger than my oldest brother. Very handsome. Even the bronze statues don’t do him justice.”

  “I’ve seen him in the digitavids,” Nesbitt said. “My sister has recorded every appearance he ever made. She’s crazy about him, quotes his speeches, and everything.”

  The wry look on his face seemed to call for a light deprecating response, so I employed my special laugh. I had cultivated this laugh for approximately the last month. With limited facility for amusement within the confines of the barracks where I and the rest of the noble cohort had stayed during our basic naval training, we fell back upon the earliest of amusements: storytelling, music and poetry, making rude noises and playing tricks on one another. My laugh was a cross between a gurgle and a snort, with a glottal stop at the bottom of each explosion of breath. I had to admit it was a masterpiece.

  At the sound, heads turned, and not only at my own table. I reflected too late that my voice had a carrying quality. During basic training, it had been a useful means to share my talent with the greater number of my fellow nobles. Guiltily, I glanced toward Parsons, but that dignita
ry did not flinch or wince. I hoped the absence of a reaction indicated that he hadn’t heard me. Faint hope, I knew; Parsons seemed to have ears as well as eyes in the back of his head.

  I turned back to my fellows to see whether they had taken offense, or whether they appreciated art. Even Nesbitt shared a grin with me. Success!

  “My sister embarrasses me, too,” I confessed.

  “How many of you are there?” Redius asked.

  “Three,” I said. “I’m the middle child. A brother and a sister.”

  “A good family,” Anstruther said, enviously. Due to concerns about overpopulation in humans, large families, over two children, were uncommon. “I’ve got a sister.”

  “Three twins,” said Perkev. “I am of the eldest pair.” Wichus were not prone to the same societal pressures as humans. But they bred less frequently.

  “I’m an only,” Xinu said, with a grin.

  The others offered their own family details. I listened carefully, making note of all. I was pleased with myself. I had managed to earn the admiration of my tablemates—well, most of them—and discovered much common ground among common folk. It made the three months’ work in boot camp worthwhile. I had often doubted my own commitment to it at the time, though I had joined the Space Navy for several reasons, a few of them so intensely personal that I rarely admitted them even to myself as being a bad risk for gossiping about them at idle moments. Certainly, none of those private thoughts had ever made it to my personal file on Infogrid.

  A pause fell inevitably into the midst of our conversation. In the lull, I realized that there was a delay in the service of the salad course. I realized how very hungry I was. I had certainly overanticipated the moment of my arrival upon my first assigned ship, running over scenarios in my mind, and had undoubtedly picked at my lunch. In fact, I could not recall what I had eaten earlier in the day. This was on the end of the worst, having earned the disapproval of the commanding officer, instead of the gratitude and joy of many of the captains and admirals of my imagining that I had come to join them. Still, it looked as if this was going to be pleasurable, even an adventure.