Sharon L Reddy
Governor's Tribute
©2012
Target Yonder
ISBN 978-58338-960-7
Chapter One
Thiretess Boer Hadlain watched the delegation from the planet his ship was orbiting walk toward him. There were more of them than there should have been and some were obviously not delegates. The emperor, his second-cousin, Tam, had warned him the entrenched bureaucracy would not be pleased to have a governor appointed and were the prime reason one was needed. He'd done it quite some time before and Boer had been working on getting himself ready to not please them for several years. Then he saw the small person in the midst of them was hooded, cloaked and being dragged along.
"What's the meaning of this?"
"Meaning? We've brought the concubine required by the treaty of Relatross. Remove the hood."
He held himself still. The "concubine" was a terribly scarred boy. He fought the men who held him, who dragged him forward by his cuffed wrists. Boer slowly stood and glared at the chief delegate. His sly smile was a mistake.
"Gen scan, Anverd."
"Excellent, Governor. Physical scan says he's capable of reproduction. I'm sure he's adult by their laws."
"He obviously can't see. Can he hear?"
"No."
"How old is the damage?"
"At least six years. Nine bones were broken in addition to the obvious burns. None were set. There's no indication any treatment was given for any of the injuries. It must have really surprised a lot of people that he survived. He meets the treaty specifications. There's nothing that says the person selected for the governor has to be of the opposite sex."
"Thank you, Anverd. He's accepted. Take those cuffs and hobbles off him."
"What?"
"He's an interesting choice as advocate for your world within my family."
Boer moved fast when the cuffs were removed. He pulled the boy into his arms and held him gently, but firmly, against him and laid his cheek on his head. The boy stopped struggling and slowly raised his hands, both missing fingers, to touch the face of the huge man who held him. Boer guided them to feel his tears, then slowly began to undress him. The marriage must be consummated. The scars were terrible and the fact he was capable of reproduction amazing.
He grasped his wrists and moved them to the position in which the cuffs had held them, held them with one hand while he touched the scars where his eyes had been, then dropped his wrists. He raised one of his hands to touch the coronet he wore, then guided the other to his genitals. The boy jerked his hand back, but then laid it on Boer's chest and stepped forward. Boer gently picked him up and carried him to his bedchamber.
The chief delegate was not politely escorted to the witnessing booth. Lieutenant Jastorim noted it hadn't been used in awhile and was a bit dusty when she shoved him in and slammed the door. Lieutenant Urber said it was too bad the bath the delegate was going to need would only wash the "crud" off the outside. They set the bio-monitor that was the only recording of the consummation kept for imperial court records. An assurance it would be, when the governor and one chosen for his family became well-acquainted, was usually all the proof planetary delegations wanted or needed.
The bureau directors who'd had a stranglehold on the people of their world for over three hundred years had made a mistake. Instead of choosing a nice girl and giving the new governor no excuse to look closely, they'd listened to the stories about the "Great Boar" and decided just how to make him angry enough to repudiate the treaty. Lieutenant Urber noted a real challenge always did get "the general" excited. Lieutenant Jastorim grinned and nodded.
Anverd glanced up from his comp panel and smiled. No one had offered refreshment, or chairs, to the group in the middle of the ornate audience chamber of the ancient official ship. He certainly didn't plan to. He completed the extrapolation and sent it and the information from the scans to his wife. He expected an explosion so turned down the volume on the comm button in his ear. It proved a wise precaution.
"THOSE BASTARDS! Those heartless, cruel... Anverd, I want him now!"
"He's busy now, Ven. You know the treaty and the general. They thought they did. Surprise."
"Surprise. The answer is I think so, but it's going to take awhile."
"Estimate?"
"Ninety-plus days."
"What?!"
"You think Boer wants him to have prosthetics? I could do that in three."
"No. He's something very special."
"A feeling?"
"Observation. You saw the scan. Now the meeting."
"Oh, my. Anverd, do they know he's first?"
"No."
"Good. Let's not tell them."
"Oh, I'm sure we won't. It's chilly up here."
Boer realized the boy was trying to tell him something. Suddenly he understood. He carried him to the bath and hunted 'slick' while he used it. He was working on what else he'd been saying. When it dawned on him what it was, he laughed and started hunting through the cabinets. He hadn't stocked them, which made it more, not less, probable he'd find what he was looking for. When he found it, he placed the boy's hand on it and got a nod after he'd examined it with the two fingers and thumb of his left hand. Boer was working on whether he was left-handed or ambidextrous. He smiled when he realized he was thinking about everything, and anything, but what they were trying to accomplish.
He'd gone from 'handed,' to wishing he knew his name, to what had happened to him, to why the injuries hadn't been treated... He decided 'the boy' had made up his mind to accomplish what was necessary and knew more about it than he did. That made him angry. Then he decided it wasn't experience. Someone had answered all the questions an adolescent had.
He glanced in the mirror and nearly winced when he saw the coronet. It was the same reaction he always had to it, but he was beginning to get used to it, at least to the reaction. When the emperor had put it on him, he'd told him he knew it was a lousy thing to do to a friend, but at least it wasn't as heavy as the one he had to wear. He sighed and brought his attention back to what needed to be done, again. Somehow, the two of them would manage it.
It took awhile, but they did manage. Boer used the towelettes in the cabinet above his bed to clean them both, pulled the boy into his arms and fell asleep curled protectively around him.
Anverd called Captain Farner and told her to get the delegation off the ship. She said she'd appoint someone to escort them because asking for volunteers would empty every duty station. A bit more than a standard hour later, the shuttle docked and the ship left orbit. Ten minutes later, translight drive was initialized. The old ship had some very new pieces. There were other members of the governor's family to be picked up, thirteen of them in a very specific order. He called his wife again.
"What else did you learn, Ven?"
"He's all the way through beautiful in a badly damaged case. I assume you got into their comp files."
"I had nearly three hours."
"You've been reading for about two."
"Two-and-a-half."
"You're bragging."
"Of course."
"The injuries are almost seven years old. He was a child, Anverd. Why didn't they heal him?"
"They didn't expect him to survive. It would have been expensive and 'heroic effort' isn't wasted on the poor. There are too many of them, anyway. Basically, you get medical care if you're a member of the bureaucracy, or can pay for it. If there are any who can. He's got some type of skill, Ven. Someone did work to keep him alive and teach him something useful enough to earn food, probably because it would irritate the bureaucrats."
"Whatever it is, he must be
fairly good at it. He has fewer nutritional deficiencies than I expected."
"Small is genetic?"
"Yes. Did you learn anything about him?"
"He was scanned to see if he fit the criteria, rinsed, dressed and declared an adult by the court."
"No identity."
"None. He was chosen because he was the ugliest male they could find in eleven hours."
"Boer's escapades are legendary and severely exaggerated."
"It's considered a matter of honor by his marines. All the women who seek his attention are great beauties and the number is beyond counting."
"It did keep him from being considered a good marriage prospect by a great many ambitious parents."
"Speaking of which, we're on our way to Dereva."
"You don't think they'll be happy."
"Oh, I think they'll be delighted. Ainda Brumerani will be intensely irritated and that will please them all, especially Dirda Brumerani. She'll be the choice if she can manage it, specifically because she isn't the first. She'd do everything she could to avoid it if she was. Her mother has been trying to marry her off to royalty since she was born. Becoming 'one of' the new governor's wives would be perfect."
"That fool said, 'concubine,' to Boer."
"He could have chosen a worse term."
"Worse?"
"He could have said, 'tribute.'"
Boer carried his bride to the medical section and gently laid him on the diagnostic bed. He didn't know if he'd understood what he'd been trying to explain to him or not. He looked into the eyes of the finest physician in the empire and smiled wryly.
"Surprise. You love him."
"I've been arguing it's because he's small and been hurt so terribly, Venida, but I'm not winning."
"He's the first person you ever met who is truly your equal, Boer."
"What?"
"Your size, station, rank, reputation and actual accomplishments wouldn't awe him, even if he knew them all. He'd find the accomplishments impressive, but not awe-inspiring. You find his accomplishment impressive."
"I think I'm awed."
"No, just amazed and impressed. It'll take ninety-three days."
"What?!"
"Do you want him fixed or healed?"
"You know the answer to that, but it creates a problem."
"Thirteen of them. Bring them down here. Let them see why you accepted him and why he is first to you. Not the damage, but the very young man who battled to survive it and made the decision to do what you indicated was necessary. Boer, he knew you weren't going to hand him back over to those who had put the cuffs and hobbles on him and dragged him around, from the moment you put your arms around him. He probably doesn't know what the coronet means, just that it's a crown and your reason for what you asked him."
"I didn't ask."
"Of course you did. He was sure of it. He gave you a very clear answer."
"True. He led me through the whole thing. He knew what to do. I didn't. I was angry at first, then decided it probably wasn't experience."
"It wasn't."
"You could tell that?"
"I can tell he wasn't raped and could see yours was the first caring embrace he's known, at least since this happened. Compression fractures. Not much lung scarring at all. Very strange. I think we're looking at damage from a very hot explosion, not a fire."
"A bomb?"
"Your military background is showing."
"That's not military service. It's family history. Tell me about him."
"Would you believe me if I said he's very healthy?"
"Despite appearances, yes."
"He's just shorter than average, even for Nunceon, about the opposite side of the bell curve from you. He's a little dark-haired doll. Satiny blue-black curls with cute little pink ears peeking out of them. Big, light green-blue, eyes with long thick lashes. Want to see what he looks like?"
"No, I'll be here to watch him heal one day at a time. How old?"
"Adolescent, but that's a stage of development, not an age. Quarner is adolescent physically and she's twenty-four standard. Thormeike's son is and he's thirteen. She's not much farther along than he is. He's about the same. My guess is sixteen-plus. I'd be less surprised if he's twenty than fourteen. Make you feel a bit better?"
"I'm trying to estimate how much education he had?"
"Oh, that's a good one. There's an imperial library on NuncTura. Because the government does not provide full medical restoration to the general populace, it has a hard-copy Vart printer. That's raised type designed to be read by touch. The government can't tax it, charge for it or deny access to it. The imperium pays for delivery to anyone who needs it and the library computer sends the kit to teach a person how to read with the fingers to start with. If anyone told the library comp about him, including sticking 'blind and deaf' in a public record, he got one and a catalog and return delivery-paid punch cards."
"He'd have had to have an address."
"That's what I said when Anverd was telling me all this. No. The comp will send a courier to a street corner at a certain time a certain day. Your cousin's great-grandmother got very upset when she found out 'permanent address' was working rather well as a subsidy for slum landlords on Jumis. They charged rent to use one, but anything that came to the address was just dumped. However, you had to have a permanent address to get a very expensive gov postal box, one family same surname only. The poor were paying a quarter of their subsidies to get their subsidies. She couldn't change the local regulations, but she made a very strong statement that the imperium did not approve. Quote, 'The imperial library provides services for the people most abused by the local system and nothing that system does will keep it from doing so.' She was twenty-three at the time and no one on Jumis knew she was on Jumis."
"Princess Evair the Fair, went only her mother knew where. She read the Prince and the Pauper when young. When she became twenty-one, she said, 'Mother, I'm going out there.' One of my favorite nursery rhymes. My father was good at them. All my nursery rhymes were family history. Princes are expected to know who their ancestors were as soon as they can talk."
"Boer, you worked to end up with that thing around your head."
"Tam was sure a governor was needed and I was the only one who could both qualify for and do the job. I'm a prince, but not in the direct line of succession. I commanded a division of marines for six years. I... wasn't married."
"Thump!"
"Thump. No exchange of vows, but that's what it is. They can petition for someone from their world to replace them after a half standard year, but I can't for any reason, except refusal to consummate the marriage. Heal my bride, Doctor. He's the only one who accepted me. The others will all accept the position. I'll bring him back after I find a way to tell him what you're going to do, how long it will take and I'll... miss him."
"Day after tomorrow. Early."
"Thank you."
Boer spent the two days and two nights with his bride. He sat in the floor with their feet touching and rolled a ball to him, which he delightedly rolled back. He grinned when his marines came up with ideas for games for them to play and ways to teach him things. He surprised himself a great deal when he 'showed' them both he wanted to make love to him again the night before he took him to medical to be healed. He whooped when his bride giggled aloud for the first time and pulled him toward the bath. They were six days from Dereva when he laid him gently in the surgical unit, closed it and watched the unit make the circulatory connections and fill with fluid.