“Who, Commander?” Vhanu tried to follow his gaze.
“My brothers.” Gundhalinu felt every muscle in his body tense as if he were about to be attacked, as he watched his brothers make their way inevitably toward him.
Vhanu registered his answer, looked back at him uncomprehendingly. “Your family, sir? Didn’t you want them here?”
“No,” he said gently, “I did not want them here. I do not want them here. They—” They tried to murder me. “We do not get along.”
“I’m sorry, Commander.” Vhanu shook his head, his expression caught between embarrassment and curiosity. “But they are your only close relatives, I believe—? Your eldest brother is the Gundhalinu head-of-family. We could hardly have excluded them, if you wanted this occasion to be—”
Gundhalinu waved him silent as Jarsakh rejoined them, with her husband at her side. “Is everything all right, BZ?”
“Yes, fine,” he answered, a little too abruptly.
“BZ—” His oldest brother, HK, reached him first. HK had regained all the considerable weight World’s End had stripped off of him. He wore the proper family uniform; it was loosely tailored and carefully draped to make the least of his soft, fleshy body. “Gods, it’s like a miracle—to have thee back home, and the family reunited. I can’t tell thee how proud it makes me feel to share tonight with thee—” He went on babbling inanities as he pressed Gundhalinu’s automatically raised palm—held up as much in a warding gesture as in greeting—with too much force. Gundhalinu watched his brother’s glance touch his wrist, checking surreptitiously for the scars that had once been there, the brand of his dishonor. But the scars were gone—along with any illusions he had had about the relative worthiness of his brothers’ lives, and his own.
SB, their middle brother, drew up behind HK like a shadow, regarding Gundhalinu with a measured silence that was the antithesis of his brother’s diarrhea of well-wishes.
“SB…” Gundhalinu said, with a curt nod, not even offering his hand this time.
“How are thou, little brother?” SB murmured, his voice toneless, his eyes alive with envy.
“Fully recovered, thank you,” Gundhalinu said, meeting the bitterly cold stare with his own. The mark his brothers’ treachery had left on him, after he had brought them alive out of World’s End, had been far more difficult to erase than the damage he had done to himself.
“So I see,” SB murmured. “How nice for thee. Wearing the family crest tonight, are thou? That’s a little premature.”
Gundhalinu turned away from the insinuation, from SB’s eyes, as HK’s obsequious chatter finally, mercifully ceased. “It’s good … to be back,” he said, struggling with even those empty words; not having become a skillful enough liar yet to attempt something more personal. He made perfunctory introductions between his brothers and the Pernattes, because not to do so would not only have been socially awkward, but inexplicable. The Pernattes were already looking uncomfortable; Vhanu looked as if he were watching for hidden weapons.
“And is this the first time you’ve seen each other since you left Kharemough—?” Jarsakh asked, in mild astonishment. “Haven’t you even paid a visit to your family shrine, to venerate your ancestors?”
He looked down. “I am afraid I have been remiss, CMP,” he said quietly. “I haven’t even been planetside before today, since my return. The urgency of our concerns upstairs claimed every moment from me until now. It has been … a profound oversight, as you so rightly observe.” Realizing as he said it how shamefully true it was—realizing the painful, overwhelming array of reasons why he had not even let the possibility of a visit enter his mind until now. Not the least of them was the fact that his brothers controlled the family estates, where the remains of all their ancestors, including the father who had died during his absence, lay. “I shall rectify it as soon as humanly possible.” He bent his head in acknowledgment.
“CMP—” Pernatte chided.
Gundhalinu raised his head again; saw her smile with something which for once looked like rue, or honest sympathy. “Please,” she said, “let me apologize, not you. It was not my place to criticize you, when your unselfish service to our people has all but robbed you of a life.”
“Come on, BZ, the entertainment’s going to start without us if we don’t pay a mind to it,” Pernatte said, “and by my sainted ancestors, we paid enough for it that I don’t want to miss a minute. Bring your brothers. I’m sure you must have a lot of catching up to do.”
Gundhalinu nodded, helpless to do otherwise; knowing without looking behind him that his brothers would not leave him alone. He was guided to his reserved spot among the guests who were standing patiently, or perched on an astonishing assortment of cushioned antique leaning-posts arranged over the wide expanse of patterned stone.
In their midst was an open space, on which sat an unremarkable chest that appeared to have been hand-fashioned. Overhead the pollution aurora was a symphony of color rippling across the perfectly clear autumn sky. He thought fleetingly of other skies—a sky hung with colored lights, in the something-like-a-dream of his initiation into the inner reality of Survey; the emberglow of a Tiamatan sky. The air was crisp and pleasant, the anticipation around him was almost tangible, and the scent of night-blooming aphesium filled his head with pungent nostalgia.
The nostalgia pushed unpleasantly into realtime as his brothers settled onto the ornate bench beside him. A servo deferentially offered him a finely filigreed headset—a work of art in itself, he thought—along with brief droning instructions for its use.
“The artist is a biochemical sculptor—perhaps the most highly acclaimed one in her field,” Jarsakh said, as if she had also prepared a lecture. “Her works are interactive, rather than preprogrammed, which accounts for her remarkable popularity, I’m told. She calls them mood pieces; supposedly they mirror the emotions of the user so that they are always appropriate to the occasion, and satisfying to experience.”
“It must be extraordinarily difficult to create the kind of programming something like that would require,” Gundhalinu said.
“Yes, I’m told that it is. The sculptor has several degrees in the advanced sciences, even though she is merely an artist,” Jarsakh said. “We support the arts whenever we can; I have always believed that one cannot be well-rounded without an interest in the nontechnical areas … but we try to support only artists who show a particularly strong design sense, or an imaginative use of technology.”
“You seem to have a taste for antiquities, as well.” Gundhalinu remarked, remembering the art he had seen displayed inside.
“Well, yes, traditional static art is of interest mostly for its sense of historical perspective, don’t you think?” Jarsakh shrugged. He wondered suddenly whether she had ever taken more than a superficial look at anything in the house. Any sense of real history in this place had been buried long ago.
“Is the artist who designed tonight’s work here? What’s her name—?” He wondered whether it was anyone he had heard of before he left. He saw Vhanu murmur something to Pernatte, behind her.
“She wasn’t able to attend,” Pernatte said, interrupting and ending the conversation all at once, in a way that left Gundhalinu wondering.
“Her name is Netanyahr,” SB said suddenly, sourly. “I recognize her work. She’s the one we lost the estates to, until thou took them back, BZ. No wonder they don’t want her here in person.”
Gundhalinu turned where he sat, feeling anger and humiliation burn his face like a slap.
“SB,” HK muttered, “hush up, will thou? He’ll never—”
SB snorted, shrugging HK’s warning hand off his shoulder. “Why should I? If they had the bad taste to hire her to display a work here, why shouldn’t I have the bad taste to mention it? We’re all friends here—” He met Gundhalinu’s withering stare with a look of empty mockery. “True, little brother?”
“If you will excuse us, BZ—” Pernatte said, visibly chagrined. “We must join CMP’s ho
norable relatives over there for a time, or they will be unforgivably insulted. And I’m sure you have much to talk about with your brothers.… But when everyone is settled, please, be the first to use the headset, and begin the entertainment for us.”
Gundhalinu looked down at the circlet of filigreed silver in his hands, feeling his brothers’ eyes on him. “Delighted. Thank you so much,” he murmured, with an inane smile. He watched the Pernattes move away through the gathering crowd, discreetly taking Vhanu with them; saw Pernatte say something to his wife and gesture at the waiting piece of art. He wondered how in the name of a thousand ancestors they had come to choose the work of someone so intimately associated with the humiliation of his own family name. He was sure it had not been intentional. But if they hadn’t known of his family troubles before, they certainly knew now. If SB had only kept his goddamned mouth shut—
“How long are thou going to be down here, BZ?” HK ventured, beside him.
“No longer than I have to be,” Gundhalinu snapped, not looking at them, struck by the irony that the only people he was required to address with the personal thou were the ones he felt least close to.
“Thou are welcome at the estates,” HK went on, with awkward insufferability. “That is, if thou want to visit father’s ashes, and make an offering, Thou are even welcome to stay, if—”
“I have a place to stay.” He forced the words out, still looking away, amazed at the blackness inside him, the welling up of bitterness and bad feeling that came with the rush of memories he had tried to suppress. Their rigid, tradition-bound father had tried, before his death, to get him to displace his brothers in the line of inheritance. But the youth he had been then had been unable to violate tradition so profoundly, when his own father had lacked the will to do it.… And so his brothers had ruined the family’s fortunes, just as his father had feared—weak, self-indulgent HK led willingly into disaster by SB, who should have made a life for himself decades ago, if he had had any shred of self-respect or character.
And after they were done ruining their heritage they had come to Number Four, where he was stationed, to deliver the final blow to his crumbling facade of control—to tell him how they had lost the estates, sold the family name to some social climber with money for honor. Until then, he had been able to go on functioning, as long as he kept his own dishonor hermetically sealed; believing that his family was unstained by his humiliation as long as he stayed away from Kharemough. But his brothers had destroyed that last hope, and had come to Four to tell him that they intended to buy back the estates by striking it rich in World’s End. He had warned them off, warned them about making what the Fours called the Big Mistake … watched them go anyway. And then when they did not return, he had gone after them; not because he cared about them, but only because there was nothing he cared about anymore, not even his own life.
He had found them … and the stardrive. World’s End had changed his life forever. But it had changed his brothers, too. He had brought them alive out of that soul-eating hell … and then they had ambushed him and stolen the stardrive plasma he had brought out with them, leaving him for dead in a back alley of the Company town.
But he had not died. He had lived, to see them arrested, see that the plasma was delivered into the rightful hands of the Hegemony, and not held for ransom. And then he had used the sudden influence that his “selfless patriotism” had thrust upon him, to reclaim his family’s estates and name.
He had sent his brothers home under a kind of glorified house arrest, with enough money doled out to them by a trust fund—and enough threats of retribution—to keep them comfortably under control. Because blood was still thicker than water. He had told himself the stress of their ordeal in World’s End had made them turn on him; that even though he had never gotten along with them, they weren’t murderers, only fools—and someone had to oversee the estates.…
But now he was back on Kharemough, and the very sight of them was enough to paint everything within his vision black.
“BZ—?” HK said again, and Gundhalinu realized that his brother had gone on speaking, even though he had stopped listening. “Why did thou refuse to let us do it?”
“What?” he said, frowning. The crowd around them seemed settled now; an expectant silence was falling. He realized they were waiting for him to begin the entertainment. He looked at the headset, like a silver crown, clutched between his clenched fists. He forced his hands to loosen, afraid of crushing it.
“The opportunity we had to invest in lightspeed shipfitting? Now that you’ve—now that thou have returned, and the new fleet is almost ready … well, there’s no going back is there? It’s a sure investment. Since thou’re on such good terms with Jarsakh-bhai, thou could still put in a word, couldn’t thou?”
“No,” he said, cutting off the flow of HK’s speech. “Thou get more than a sufficient stipend to cover thy needs. I told thee, if thou ever tried to profit off the stardrive again, in any way at all, I’d have thee up on charges. I meant it. And I’m here, now.”
“Yes, but, BZ, I’m head-of-family—”
SB caught HK’s arm, jerked it, silencing him again. “Drop it,” he said, speaking to HK but looking at BZ. “He’s not interested. He thinks he’s some kind of god. We’ll do it our own way.”
BZ frowned. “If thou cause me any embarrassment, thou will be stripped of all rank and rights. Push me further and there will be charges of attempted murder. Just remember that.” He looked away, and settled the headset carefully onto his head. SB sniggered as if he were crowning himself. Gundhalinu swore under his breath, pressing the contact points until he felt the tingling sensation of on-line seep in through his ears. Whatever was in the box would respond to his emotions, translated into some sort of electronic stimuli, he had been told. Then gods help it, he thought. He shut his eyes, concentrating.
Red-gold incandescence exploded into the air, to the gasps and startled cries of the waiting crowd. Wave upon wave of it spilled out of the box and fountained into the sky like erupting magma, congealed as it struck the stones, thickening, darkening, struggling like vague semi-human forms wrestling to the death, filling their collective vision with fire and blood, Fire Lake—
BZ slammed the controls down on his emotions, astounded and appalled; was relieved to hear a chorus of sighs and a patter of applause from the unsuspecting watchers. He pulled himself together, watching the colors fade and soften as the violence of the exploding material died back into a sinuous outpouring that made him think of fog, smoke, water falling into that molten sea, rising up again in clouds, filled with rainbows, filled with ghosts.…
He concentrated now on the artsong he could hear still being played somewhere inside, its graceful, poignant measures and counterpoints like a dance between would-be lovers, stepping forward, moving back, filled with hesitancy and yearning.… He saw the music and his vision of it suddenly begin to appear, in front of him, not quite real, not quite imaginary, like the ghosts he had seen in Sanctuary, like the face he saw in dreams, her face, hazed in blue.…
She was there, forming out of the not-quite-matter, not-quite-fog, always re-forming and melting away at the same time, her hand held out to him, as he remembered her, as he had wanted to believe she was, waiting for him.…
He rose from his seat, lifting his own hand, oblivious to his brothers’ stares or the murmurs of the crowd as he stepped forward into the vision, to gently mime the touch of his hand on hers, feeling the cold, faint tangibility of the mist from which she took her form as he began to lead her with his thoughts, and with his heart, through the precisely patterned motions of the dance that matched the music. And she smiled and met his gaze, with her eyes the color of mist and moss agate, filled with yearning like his own, and her long, pale hair tendriling about her like fog.…
They danced until the music began to fade away; he bowed to her with its final strains, letting her fade back into the mist, into formless swirls of color like a rainbow, like the ribbons of light
in the night sky overhead. He turned back to his seat, through a starswarm of applause, already reaching up to lift the crown from his head and pass it on.…
He stopped dead, staring, as his eyes cleared of one vision and he saw, standing before him like another, the mystery woman he had given sanctuary to this evening.
She stood before him, shimmering in pearls and black velvet, staring back at him with equal astonishment—and an upraised pitcher, in midswing through an arc, its contents aimed straight at him.
He flung up his arm in a defense gesture—saw her expression already changing from disbelief and recognition to horrified dismay: Her arms jerked as she tried, too late, to stop the motion. He lowered his guard just in time to watch the contents of the pitcher spewed squarely onto his brothers’ heads. HK bellowed in surprise and SB fell off the end of the bench. Whatever had been in the pitcher was all over them now, and looked like liquefied garbage. Smelled like it, as the odor hit him.
The space around him was absolutely silent then, for an endless moment, except for the gasping and cursing of his brothers, and his own sudden, wildly heartfelt laughter.
The aghast crowd of partiers sat gaping a moment longer. And then household security appeared, human and otherwise, surrounding the woman in black where she stood motionless and unresisting, staring back at him with a look that he suddenly understood perfectly. His laughter fell away, and he opened his mouth.
“BZ, ye gods, are thou all right—” Pernatte was beside him, putting an arm around him; not even looking toward his brothers. Vhanu was at his other side, frantically asking him something he ignored, as Pernatte gestured at the waiting security staff, “Take her away, for gods’ sakes! Have her arrested!”
“Wait!” Gundhalinu put up his hand, stopping them in midmotion as they began to lay hands on the woman. “Let her go,” he said, walking toward her, and the armed guards, with a calm authority he didn’t quite feel. They looked past him at Pernatte, who must have given them a signal, and then backed off. “There’s been a misunderstanding here. It was … just a part of the art experience. No harm.”