Gundhalinu had dealt more directly with Pernatte’s wife, though not in the flesh—CMP Jarsakh held the controlling interest in the shipyards which were endeavoring to build the new faster-than-light fleet. She was looking back at him now, showing the recognition her husband lacked. It was widely, if privately, held that she was the mind behind the ever-growing success of their already vast mutual holdings, that she put into Pernatte’s mouth the words that he spoke before the Council. Having dealt with her himself, Gundhalinu could see where there might be truth in it. His experience with his own brothers had made him painfully aware that being the firstborn child of a Technician family did not necessarily confer intelligence along with inheritance; but he would not make the mistake of underestimating either of the Pernattes.
He gathered himself to make the expected bow as the couple stopped before him and Vhanu began to formally present them. Vhanu was a relative of the Jarsakhs, not close, but not too distant to use the familiar form of address or to speak with them easily and comfortably.
Gundhalinu caught himself just in time, as the Pernattes bowed first to him, extending him the greater honor. He returned the bow, and touched each proffered palm.
“A great honor, Gundhalinu-eshkrad,” Pernatte murmured.
“The honor is mine, Pernatte-sadhu,” Gundhalinu answered, more sincerely than he had said anything in public in a long time. He was secretly pleased that of all the assorted titles he now bore, Pernatte had chosen the one which marked him as a scientist. He sometimes found himself groping among the complexities of honorary titles in Sandhi for the correct forms of address for his peers, after having spoken nothing but foreign languages for so long; just as he had almost forgotten the use of the personal thou, after so long among strangers. But then, he had not used thou with anyone since he had returned, either. Most of his old school friends were scattered among the stars; the few he might hope to see tonight he probably would not even recognize.
“You look splendid in your rightful uniform, Commander,” Jarsakh said, looking him up and down, her eyes assessing his assortment of honors, medals, and crests with an almost predatory interest. “It’s much more gratifying to see you in the flesh.…” She raised her eyebrows, and smiled.
“Thank you, Jarsakh-bhai.” He nodded in self-conscious acknowledgment, keeping a straight face and using her family name, as he had become accustomed to doing when he dealt with her as an industrialist. It was an unexpected side effect of his position that when he wore his full military uniform and honors—or sometimes just spoke his name—women he had never met or who had barely acknowledged his existence suddenly began undressing him with their eyes. He found it more embarrassing than flattering. “It’s an honor and a relief to hold a conversation in such magnificent surroundings.”
The Pernattes exchanged a look of mutual satisfaction that might even have been fond. They both wore the uniforms that were their right and duty as the heads of two important lineages; but no expense had been spared on subtlety of design, use of color and embellishment, to transform the spare lines of a robe and slacks into something unique and beautiful.
Gundhalinu found his own eyes glancing from one youthful, perfect face and fit, flawlessly dressed body to the other in helpless fascination as he went on making small talk. He deftly answered the kinds of questions about his career and discoveries that everyone seemed to ask, feeling vaguely surprised that even the Pernattes would ask the same things.
While he was growing up his family had been well-off financially, the bearers of a family line whose ancestry was unimpeachable and whose contributions to technological progress stretched back through Kharemough’s history for countless generations. But the Pernattes were rich; so rich that they had been able to afford the water of life. Their bodies wore the unmistakable proof of it as unselfconsciously as they wore their clothes—Pernatte was at least as old as Gundhalinu’s father, who had married late and been an old man when Gundhalinu was born; but he looked scarcely older than Gundhalinu himself. Pernatte’s wife looked younger; her skin, a glowing mahogany color dusted with pale freckles, was almost completely unlined.
“… and my wife says that you are progressing very well with the new technology,” Pernatte said.
“Yes.” Gundhalinu glanced at Jarsakh; she smiled a professional smile at him this time, meaningless and full of steel. They had collided often enough over his impatience with errors and delays in production. “There have been some setbacks in getting our new equipment up to specs, but there is no question that we will have our fleet, and the base for equipping all the Hegemony’s ships with stardrive units within the decade.”
“The sooner the better, eh?” Pernatte said. “We must maintain our rightful place as leaders of the Hegemony—and we will, thanks to all you’ve done. As well as establishing permanent ties with our ‘lost colony,’ Tiamat. We’re not getting any younger, you know.” He laughed, with the casual thoughtlessness of someone who assumed the listener would both get and sympathize with his jest.
“You served on Tiamat in the Hegemonic Police, didn’t you?” Jarsakh asked.
Gundhalinu nodded, with a meaningless smile of his own. “Until the final departure.”
“That must have been a sight. Did you see the sacrifice of the Snow Queen?”
“No.” He glanced down. “I was in the hospital with an illness, at the time.”
“Dreadful, backward place—you’re lucky you didn’t die.” She shook her head. “That would have been a terrible tragedy for all of us.”
Gundhalinu made no comment.
“Young Vhanu here tells me you’ve expressed an interest in entering politics, once the starship technology is fully established,” Pernatte said.
“Yes, in fact I have been considering that.” Gundhalinu glanced at Vhanu, letting his pleasant surprise show, and Vhanu smiled, looking down. “My family has never been active in politics, however. I’m afraid I have a lot of process to learn.…”
Pernatte’s smile widened, as Gundhalinu had been hoping it would. “It would give me great pleasure to serve as your mentor. As you know, I have more than passing knowledge of the occupation.”
Thank you, gods! Gundhalinu bowed once more, to hide the unseemly rush of elation rising inside him. “I would be most grateful, Pernatte-sadhu.”
“Then you must allow CMP and myself to guide you to some of our more influential acquaintances tonight. It would be a shame to waste such an occasion on gossip and hero worship. Have you given thought to what sort of service you would be interested in? Something in the world government, perhaps, or the Hegemonic Coordinating Council. Even an Assembly seat would not be out of the question for a man of your reputation and family, if there was an opening.…” He touched Gundhalinu’s arm, guiding him with the motion.
Gundhalinu gave a faintly incredulous laugh and shook his head. “My aspirations are more down to earth. Actually I had thought of something in the judicial branch or the foreign service … in fact, perhaps the Chief Justiceship of Tiamat, when it’s reopened to contact.”
Jarsakh’s luminously calculating eyes widened with a surprise that looked genuine. “Father of all my grandfathers! You actually want to return to that backward, unfortunate world? But you said you almost died there—”
He remembered saying nothing of the kind, although actually it was true enough. “Perhaps that’s why I want to go back, bhai.… To oversee its development into a modern society, one which can be a full, contributing partner in the Hegemony, seems to me to be a worthy career, and one that ought to take a lifetime—” He smiled carefully, not sure himself what the words meant.
“Modernize those barbarians?” Pernatte shook his head. “A selfless goal, but I daresay it’s a hopeless task, trying to uplift a people who practice cannibalism—”
“Human sacrifice, best beloved,” Jarsakh interrupted gently, “not cannibalism.”
“Whatever,” he murmured, annoyed. “Better simply to find more permanent ways to control
them, I should think. After all, the damn world is all but uninhabitable anyway, by anything but savages. All they have that’s worth the trade is the water of life.”
“But of course that’s worth the ransom of worlds,” Jarsakh said dryly.
Gundhalinu bit his tongue. Vhanu was still at his side, gazing at the Pernattes as if he were hearing the voices of his ancestors—which he was, in a way, Gundhalinu supposed. “All the more reason to have someone in charge who can monitor the safety of the supply,” he said, choosing his words with the painstaking care of someone picking up shards of glass. To see the path of Light clearly, they said on Four, you must walk in the shadows. “I’m very interested in undertaking a thorough study of the water of life. I have a theory that it may function by the same technoviral mechanism as the stardrive plasma. And now that we are learning how to deal with that—”
“You mean you might find a way to reproduce it?” Jarsakh said, meeting his gaze almost hungrily. “An unlimited supply—?”
He glanced down. “That would be my hope.… It’s certainly within the realm of possibility.” He had no idea whether it was possible or not. But if it would save Tiamat, he would try … he would lie, he would—
“Forgive me—” a voice interrupted, in a tone that was deferential but not to be denied. “I couldn’t help overhearing your discussion of Tiamat, Commander Gundhalinu.”
Gundhalinu turned, found himself looking down into the face of a frail-looking old man in a sedate ceremonial uniform. “KR Aspundh,” the man said, offering his hand.
Gundhalinu met Aspundh’s dry palm briefly with his own; felt a shock of recognition that was almost subliminal. He had known the Aspundhs slightly, years ago—he would not have recognized KR without an introduction, after so long. But there was something else: an odd bright bit of random memory, in which a native girl named Moon told a Kharemoughi Police inspector named Gundhalinu tales of her visit to his homeworld, “… and we visited KR Aspundh, and we drank lith, and ate sugared fruits.…” The vision almost kept him from noticing the brief, hidden fingersign that told him suddenly why Aspundh had had the temerity to interrupt this conversation. Aspundh was Survey. Gundhalinu’s eyes registered the sibyl trefoil the other man wore, the only visible symbol of status besides an unobtrusive family crest. “Yes,” Gundhalinu answered. “I served there for several years.”
“He wants to go back there, if you can imagine, KR,” Jarsakh said, apparently not offended by the interruption. KR Aspundh was a first-generation Technician; his lineage was irrevocably Nontech … but his father had been posthumously raised up, due to the creative innovations in long-distance EM sensing apparatus that had come out of his independent work with production methods. He had not gotten the credit he had deserved in his lifetime, but his children had benefited from it.
KR Aspundh was respected by Techs of old lineage because of the sibyl sign he wore, but also because it had been their decision that he was deserving of respect—unlike nouveau riche upstarts who bought their way into respectability by purchasing the estates and ancestors of deserving highborns who had fallen on hard times. KR Aspundh, as far as Gundhalinu knew, was a staunch supporter of the status quo that had put him where he was. And yet, his interest in Tiamat could hardly be casual curiosity.… “Have you ever known anyone who would willingly give up Kharemough for a lifetime on Tiamat—?” Jarsakh asked, bemused.
“Only one person,” Aspundh said mildly, glancing at Gundhalinu. “And that was years ago.”
“And did she?” Gundhalinu asked, trapped again inside a moment of double vision.
Aspundh looked back at him in sudden surprise. His gaze turned measuring, and his face became expressionless. “I believe she did. But then, she was not, of course, a Kharemoughi.” He smiled slightly. “I have never been to Tiamat myself, but I’ve felt a fascination with the place ever since, wondering what could have obsessed her so about it.”
“It does get under your skin, somehow,” Gundhalinu said, feeling a faint smile turn up the corners of his own mouth. “I had always wanted to see the place, when I was young.”
“Where are you staying while you are planetside, Commander? At your family estates?”
“He’s staying with us,” Pernatte said. “Right, BZ? I may call you BZ—?”
“Please.” Gundhalinu nodded and his smile widened, barely covering his surprise. He wondered whether Vhanu had forgotten to tell him about his accommodations, or whether he had merely forgotten that he had heard about them. He glanced at Vhanu, whose own expression looked slightly disoriented.
“Call me AT, then,” Pernatte said, and his wife echoed him, “CMP—” When the Pernattes took an interest in someone’s life, their interest was, it seemed, peremptory. He took a deep breath, remembering that it was not BZ Gundhalinu, a complete stranger with a past they would find reprehensible and future plans they would consider treasonable, whom they were taking into their lives like an orphaned child; it was a construct, an image, a Hero of the Hegemony—a glittering, fame-encrusted shell, bright enough to blind even them. Ride it, just ride it.
“… is not so far away, then,” Aspundh was saying. “I realize your schedule must be extremely tight, Gundhalinu-ken,” using the title that marked him as a sibyl, “but perhaps you might find space in it for a quiet meal at my home? I would very much like to talk more with you about our mutual interest.”
“Thank you, Aspundh-ken.” Gundhalinu nodded, reading what lay in the older man’s eyes. “I would enjoy that.” He glanced at Vhanu. “Make rearrangements, will you, Vhanu?” He smiled apologetically. There seemed to be no natural breathing spaces in his life at all, anymore.
Vhanu nodded, looking both surprised and resigned. “Yes, Commander.”
“I’ll make arrangements with your aide.” Aspundh bowed graciously, as if he sensed the growing restlessness of his hosts. “I know everyone here is eager to make your acquaintance.”
Gundhalinu damped his curiosity and let himself be led on through the crowd, from one introduction to another, gradually progressing from one room to another. He realized with a kind of surprise that he was actually beginning to enjoy himself; because for once the people he was being forced to meet were his own people—people who spoke his language, not simply figuratively but literally—who looked like him, acted like him, responded predictably to his jokes and stories. More than predictably—enthusiastically. Old and new acquaintances, the best and brightest of the people he had admired for a lifetime, were all around him now, proclaiming their admiration for him. And after all, it was not as if he had done nothing to deserve it; he had. He could let himself acknowledge that now, let himself begin to believe that he truly had expunged his dishonor in his people’s eyes.
Vhanu rejoined them after a time, relieving Gundhalinu of having to remember the names and credentials that went with every face he saw, and making him remember again his odd brief encounter with KR Aspundh. He checked his calendar unobtrusively and found the requested dinner date there. He ate another pastry, listening to the silent reminder in his brain that said nothing was what it seemed.
But the cool, fluid strains of music moved with him like a sense of ease from room to room. The music was always changing, because there was a different group of musicians, with different instruments, in each new hall—and yet it was always the music he remembered from his youth, the classical refrains with their hidden mathematical secrets of structure and counterpoint that he had studied in school. Music was a form of mathematics made tangible, and so it was everywhere in the world of the Technician class, reminding them always, gracefully, of their place. The food and drinks circulating through the crowd were a movable feast, all his favorite delicacies of boyhood, beautifully prepared, exquisite to look at, tasting even better to his heightened senses than he remembered.
The Pernatte manor house had been decorated with the same relentless sophistication as the Pernattes themselves, furnished in what he assumed was the most modern fashion, since he did
not see any furniture that seemed to be in a style he remembered. There were vast islands of low modular couches in intense but subtle combinations of colors, and flat, slab-like tables that probably contained hidden functions he couldn’t imagine. The polished stone walls were empty of any decoration unless it appeared to be functional; the works of art scattered on stone pedestals among the bright settee islands were all historical—archaeological treasures, remnants of the Old Empire’s glory. The effect in the vast space of the rooms was striking but austere, almost monolithic, even when the space was cluttered with bodies, as it was now. From time to time he became aware that his eyes were searching for the mystery woman, but he did not see her. He hoped that he would find her before the evening was through, enjoying the prospect of the encounter with guilty pleasure.
“Ah—” Jarsakh said, beside him, as a gleaming servo murmured a few inaudible words in her ear. “I believe our entertainment for the evening is about to begin. We’ve reserved the best viewing spot for you. I hope you enjoy art.” She took his arm.
“Very much,” he said. “And frankly I haven’t had much of an opportunity to view it, in recent years.”
“You’ll have an opportunity to do more than that, tonight. You’ll have a chance to interact with it—”
He smiled, intrigued, as she led him outside through the sighing breath of a door onto a patio open to the sky.
“BZ—!”
His smile faded abruptly. He turned, peering across the shifting dance of the crowd. He almost swore, remembered himself in time, swallowing the bitter words like vomit. “Excuse me, CMP,” he said to Jarsakh, and left her side. “Vhanu,” he murmured, keeping his voice down with an effort. “What are they doing here?”