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, which 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.”
He took his hand from hers as the drinks appeared, surprised and slightly embarrassed, relieved to have an excuse to free himself. He offered her a goblet grown of synthetic sapphire, with the heavy silver liquid lying restlessly in its convolutions. She took it as he lifted his own in acknowledgment.
“To adventures,” she said, with a sudden, glinting grin. The light in her palm shone through the goblet in her hand, illuminating it like some uncanny magic.
“No,” he said softly, and shook his head. “Adventures are only tragedies that didn’t happen.”
She glanced down, considering. “Then to life—” she said, looking at him again.
He nodded. “To life.” He sipped the silver liquid they called the water of life, feeling it fill his head with the bittersweet taste of memories. The last time he had drunk it he had been hardly more than a boy, still living in his father’s house, on the ancestral estates.… He remembered his home, the beauty and peace of the land, his father’s voice. He took another sip, and remembered the future—remembering Tiamat, the source of the genuine water of life, and suddenly, vividly. Moon, her face as pale as the endless fields of snow, her body warm with life against his own.… He took another sip, and forced his mind back into the present, forced his eyes to register the astonished pleasure on the face of the elegant stranger standing beside him now.
She sighed. “Oh, this is well-named.”
He smiled, and nodded again. They shared a space of silence, savoring the guilty pleasure of each other’s company. At last, moved by his own curiosity, he asked, “You truly weren’t invited to this party?” He could see nothing about her that would make her an unwelcome guest. He thought, rather surprised at himself, that if anyone consulted him right now, he would put her high on the list of people he would like to share the evening with. He blinked, forcing his eyes away from her face.
“No.” She lifted her head, the pearls whispering against her neck. “I was specifically excluded.”
He opened his mouth, about to ask the obvious question, when there was a knock at the silverwood doors. She turned, startled, her face betraying barely controlled panic.
Gundhalinu gestured her to silence, urging her aside as he moved toward the doors.
The doors swung inward before he could even reach them. He stopped, blinking, caught like a moth in the flood of light and noise. He stole a quick, cautioning glance at the dark angle behind the left-hand door, which now concealed the uninvited guest from view. She had closed her hand, stopping the light from the glowspot.
“Excuse me, sir—” The new intruder wore the formal clothing of a party guest, but Gundhalinu recognized the discreetly disguised communicator worn by house security personnel. She shifted slightly, trying to see past him into the dim-lit corners of the room.
“What is it?” he asked, his awkward discomfort sounding to his own ears like impatience.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,” she said, “but I had a message that an unauthorized visitor had come into this room.”
“Not while I’ve been here,” he said, amazed at how easily the lie came out. “I’ve been trying to catch a few minutes of rest—” He nodded at the darkened space behind him in explanation.
“No one at all has been here?” She gave him the kind of look that he had once given to suspected conspirators.
“Someone did stop in for a moment to ask whether I needed anything.” He shrugged, all too casually. “Perhaps that was what it was.”
She nodded, looking relieved. “And do you need anything, sir—?”
“Only to be allowed to clean myself up and chan
ge in peace,” he said.
“Of course, sir.” She nodded again, chastened. “I’ll see that you aren’t disturbed.” She backed out of his presence, closing the doors after her.
Gundhalinu sighed, feeling giddy, as the woman in black stepped out of the shadows and opened her palm, releasing light into the space around them again.
“Thank you.” She smiled, bowing her head in gratitude, pearls whispering against her neck.
Gundhalinu opened his mouth to call on the room lights; hesitated, suddenly realizing that he preferred the shadows, the subtle mystery of this shared conspiracy. “Tell me,” he said, “what made you so certain that you could trust me?” He had thought for a moment that she had seen his sibyl trefoil; but it was inside his clothes, and he doubted that she could see the tattoo on his throat in this dim light.
“You have clear, deep eyes,” she said softly. “When you looked at me, I saw that you have an old soul.”
He almost laughed, taking it for fatuous nonsense, until he heard what she was really saying—paying a tribute to the ancestors he had been taught in youth to venerate, and emulate. He had never heard it put that way before. Instead of laughing, he smiled.
“And so I sensed that you would be an honorable man.”
It struck him as ironic that she considered it honorable to help a total stranger crash an exclusive party. He said, “I’ve never done this kind of thing before.” And yet he had, he suddenly realized. On Tiamat. But this time the results of his impulsiveness would hardly change the course of a world. Or even his life.
She bent her head, pearls whispering. “Then tell me why you trusted me.”
“I don’t think I can.” He glanced away, suddenly reluctant even to try putting it into words.
“Perhaps because you sensed that what I wished to do was, in truth, honorable.”
“Perhaps,” he murmured, looking back at her. “You know, you needn’t be here under false pretenses. I can speak to someone.…” No one had consulted him about the guest list—assuming, he supposed, that he had more important things on his mind, which was true.
But she hesitated. “You’re Technician, aren’t you?”
He nodded, thinking that she seemed surprised. But then, he hardly looked the part, the way he was dressed. Perhaps she had taken him for some hired worker.
“Do you know Commander Gundhalinu personally?”
“Yes,” he said, not sure why he didn’t simply tell her the truth. But then, he was not quite sure of anything just now, except that he was enjoying this game far too much. “Since childhood.”
“Then, no thank you. It wouldn’t be fair to compromise you with such an old friend.”
“It will hardly—” He broke off, as he remembered what she had been saying when they were interrupted. “Did you tell me that you were specifically excluded from attending this party?”
“Yes,” she said, less certainly than she had said anything since they met; as if she were regretting the confession now. She glanced away. “At his own order, I expect.”
“Really?” Gundhalinu said incredulously. “Does he know you, then?”
“No.” She looked back at him and there was sudden anger in her eyes. “He does not. Nor does he wish to, obviously.”
Gundhalinu blinked, wondering what odd quirk of social scandal he was inadvertently taking the blame for. He thought of his brothers, wondered suddenly whether she had had some unpleasant dealing with them. It would be like them to blame him for it. “Well…” he said self-consciously, “he’s been away, you know, for some years. He’s changed a great deal.…” He smiled earnestly. “He used to be an insufferable little snot, I have to admit, but he’s become almost human, actually. If there’s been some misunderstanding, he’ll want to put it right. What was the problem—?”
She shook her head; the fall of pearls rustled with her refusal. She looked away from him again. “It’s nothing that should concern you … and I don’t want to talk about it. Besides. I don’t want that to be what you remember me by.” She smiled, a little sadly this time.
He sighed, and nodded in resignation. “Then, if you’ll excuse me, I have to change my clothes or they’ll be evicting me instead.” He gestured ruefully at his filthy coveralls, and toward the lighted doorway of the suite’s bath and dressing rooms. “Stay as long as you like, until you feel comfortable about joining the party.”
“Thank you.” Her smile widened. She put out her hand suddenly, as he began to turn away. “Who are you—?”
He shook his head. “No names. That would spoil it. The next time you see me, ask me again.”
Her mouth opened, and closed. Her smile turned ironic as she acknowledged his request, realizing that he had bested her at her own game.
He went on into the next room, carrying the half-empty goblet of liquor with him, not letting himself glance back. He locked the door behind him. He bathed and changed into his formal clothing, completing his transformation into a shining shadow of himself. He finished the water of life in the sapphire goblet slowly, savoring it, fortifying himself for the ordeal to come. And then he left the suite by a different door, without looking in to see whether his mystery guest was still waiting.
He stepped out into the bright splendor of the Pernattes’ manor house, entering a shifting sea of bodies; colors swirled like oil on water, music and the sound of voices filled his senses. He stopped moving as the door closed behind him, trying to remain unobserved for long enough to orient himself, waiting for the surge of adrenaline he needed to face the crowd. He had never been naturally outgoing, and he realized by now that he never would be, no matter how many parties he attended, or how many speeches he made. Entering a crowded room would always be like walking head on into a closed door.
“Commander!”
He looked up as NR Vhanu, his chief aide, materialized out of the crowd beside him. “Vhanu,” he said, smiling in relief as he returned a salute. Vhanu had been his liaison while this affair was being planned, and, he trusted, knew everything about it that he did not.
“There you are, sir—” Vhanu brightened, and a certain amount of relief showed on his own face. “I was beginning to wonder if you were all right.”
Gundhalinu glanced at him, mildly annoyed, but could detect only eagerness and concern in the younger man’s expression. “Worry about me when I seem to be enjoying one of these affairs too much,” he said.
Vhanu looked at him, his incomprehension barely concealed. “But sir, I thought you wanted this party. The honor that is being paid to your family tonight—deservedly, of course … that is, this is probably the social and political event of the decade. I’ve never seen such a gathering anywhere but at a visit by the Assembly.… Have you met with the Assembly, sir?”
“Yes, I have,” Gundhalinu said, and didn’t say anything more. He had met with the Assembly, while he was serving on Tiamat. And they had all but spat in his face, calling him coward, failed suicide. Just as anyone in this room would have done, had they been there. He had believed, in that terrible moment, that his life was over. And yet here he was, a Hero of the Hegemony. If any of these people knew of his former disgrace, he doubted they would ever have the nerve to refer to it now.… He took a deep breath, as he realized that his chest ached.
He looked back at Vhanu, who was gazing out across the crowd again, probably tallying famous faces, with a look that was at once complacent, slightly dazzled, and completely unselfaware.… It reminded Gundhalinu of himself, ten years ago. Like himself, Vhanu had as honorable a family history as anyone in the room—he was the younger brother of JM Vhanu, an old school friend who was now a respected researcher at the Rislanne. And like himself, Vhanu had chosen a career in the Hegemonic Police—a common profession for a younger son forced out into the world by the rigid Kharemoughi inheritance laws, which gave family title and any wealth to the eldest child.
He had encountered Vhanu on his return—remembering him (although he had not admitted it) only as a small, shri
ll, rather obnoxious presence on the perimeter of numerous earnest discussions about datamodeling, conduit physics, and the Meaning of Life. But the Vhanu he had found on his return was a responsible career officer, already a Captain, capable, likable, and politically aware, if somewhat conservative and status-conscious. But then, Gundhalinu had discovered to his regret that most Kharemoughis of his social rank now struck him as conservative and status-conscious. At least, with everything else, he had gained the perspective to realize that it was he who had changed, and not his world. He had first met Vhanu in the relatively egalitarian setting of a Survey Meeting Hall, and they had hit it off. He had needed assistants he could rely on, and Vhanu had quickly made himself indispensable.
“Sir, there are the Pernattes. Let me introduce you to them first.”
He nodded, and let himself be guided with faultless grace through the murmuring curiosity of the crowd, on into the next room.
This room was even larger than the last, with the same severe, almost monolithic grace. The walls were of unadorned gnarlstone, polished to a glassy sheen. Gnarlstone was another legacy of the Old Empire; they had found its strange, fractal-patterned strata all over the planet. Gnarlstone was dead smartmatter sediment, lithified by the volcanic heat of its own catacylsmic failure. The most prized varieties contained lacy deposits of calcium, from human remains. The burl-like complexity of the matrix reminded him of the beach at Fire Lake. He looked away from it.
“Sir—” Vhanu touched his arm, catching his attention.
He turned, and saw the Pernattes progressing toward him, saw guests stepping aside discreetly to let them pass. He recognized them both easily: AT Pernatte had been prominent in Kharemoughi politics for as long as he could remember; he had seen the man’s long, slightly morose face on the threedy, and occasionally at parties before he had left Kharemough—though only from a distance. Pernatte had aged imperceptibly in the sixteen realtime years that Gundhalinu had been away from Kharemough—just as Pernatte had seemed never to age at all before, or his wife either. Their marriage had combined two of the wealthiest and most influential Technician lineages on the planet.