Human, page 32
part #1 of Humanity Ascendant Series
It was a great relief to finally make peace with whatever changes the Varangians had made to his most trusted retainer.
E th brought his facial expression back under control, surprised at how good it felt to see his lord again. He could feel the tension in Mishak’s mind suddenly melt, almost as if the young Quailu had recognized the friendly facial expression. There was no trace of his earlier discomfort at Eth’s unreadability.
“Lieutenant,” Mishak greeted. “It’s good to see you, even if this isn’t the best time.”
“I apologize for our lack of subtlety, Lord.” Eth pulled the data chip from his pocket. “But the Lady Bau insisted that we deliver her message to you with all possible haste.”
Mishak’s head moved back, tilting upward in surprise. “Bau?” He stared at the Humans. “You have a message from Bau? Did she come to Heiropolis after I left?”
Eth allowed himself another grin, feeling the gesture register in his master’s mind. “She told me that she’d anticipated such questions, Lord, and that she included an answer in her message.” He glanced at Marduk briefly.
“Considering who you are currently meeting with, My Lord, the haste she pressed upon us seems to make a great deal of sense.”
Mishak gazed at him for a moment, then sighed. “You’d better have something important on that chip, Lieutenant.”
Eth drew a deep breath. “Oh, I do, Lord. You’ll either be very pleased by it or you’ll be ordering my execution for overstepping the bounds of my commission. Frankly, I’m hoping for the first option but…” He trailed off with a shrug.
That was enough to hook Mishak. He turned to Sandrak and Marduk. “Will you both please excuse this interruption?” he asked, though he clearly had no intention of altering his plans based on any response from either of the two.
“Privacy,” he commanded, waving a hand to indicate where he wished to create a partition.
A wall of shimmering energy split the lounge into two roughly equal halves. It would prevent sound from passing, though Eth could clearly feel anger from Sandrak and mild annoyance from Marduk.
How strange. He’d been a slave only a few months ago and here he was feeling the emotions of the emperor’s chief of staff.
He slid the tiny locking clip off the data chip and the barge’s system read the data, activating a life-size holographic image of Bau.
Eth now felt curiosity from Sandrak and… alarm from Marduk. He glanced over, noticing the Emperor’s chief advisor was now at least a full step back from where he’d been standing.
Mishak, of course, was immensely curious. Why was an influential noble like her sending a message to him, rather than to his father?
“Greetings to my noble cousin the Prince Mishak,” the holograph said with as much warmth as a shimmer of light could muster.
“I wish to convey my gratitude for the small force you sent to assist me in my recent difficulties at Arbella. Though they were few in number, they were able to have an impact beyond all logical expectations.” She bowed.
Eth could feel the surprise from Mishak. It matched Sandrak’s and both were wildly accented with curiosity. Marduk, however, had gotten his reactions under control and now simply presented mild disinterest. Did he actually have to convince himself in order to project such feelings? Eth wondered.
“Suffice it to say,” Bau continued, “if not for your timely intervention, your uncle would most likely have killed off Shullat by now and would have been busy consolidating his new position as lord of my own holdings and as an elector of the HQE.
“I won’t bore you with the minutia of it all, but I am alive, thanks to your assistance, and will certainly support you in any endeavor you might wish to undertake.”
She held up her right hand and, with great solemnity, extended her middle finger as the image faded.
“Did she just give me the finger?” Mishak turned to focus both his eyes on Eth.
“Ah…” Eth could feel his ears reddening. “She’s a keen observer of… intra-species communication…”
“So you’re saying she saw your people give each other the finger? Nobody extended that gesture to her? I need to be sure before I tell her the true meaning and that’s a task best done while she’s got a favorable opinion of us.
“And speaking of favorable opinion…” He gestured to where the hologram had been. “Hammurabi’s ears!” Mishak looked back at Eth. “What the hell have you been doing since I left Heiropolis?”
Eth filled him in on the broad strokes.
“How did you know Uktannu was going to cause trouble for her?” Mishak demanded.
“An oracle gave us strong reason to believe it was going to happen,” Eth said, seeing Mishak’s eyes slide over to Sulak. He judged it was time to sort out the Sulak mystery for good or bad.
“And it was that same oracle who convinced the Lady Bau to record her ‘urgent’ message, wasn’t it, Father?” He turned his own gaze on Sulak, who now took a step back, alarm radiating.
Eth grinned, though the expression was wasted on the oracle. “Didn’t see that coming, did you, Father?”
“Wait,” Mishak blurted. “What am I missing?”
“Well, Lord, if I had to guess, I’d say that the good Father Sulak, here, serves someone with an interest in your affairs.”
They all turned to look at Sulak who, it appeared, was engaged in a valiant effort to pretend none of this was happening. He finally gave up a feigned search for something in his robes and sighed.
“If you must know,” he said, resigned, “I serve your childhood friend.”
“Tashmitum?” Mishak leaned forward. “What interest does the crown princess have in my affairs?”
Sulak chuckled. “Can you think of none, Lord? She told me of how you two used to play ‘house’ as children…”
“What of it?”
“Now she would like to make it a little more permanent. She knew of the plot with your uncle and, hoping it would be overcome by you or your father, she dispatched me to Heiropolis with a broad mandate.
“I was to take any actions I felt necessary to mitigate whatever damage her father’s schemes might cause and, if possible, to advance your own standing in the empire.
“When I learned that your native troops were there, I attached myself to them and suggested that fate wanted them to help Bau.” He waved a hand at Eth.
“I expected us all to die horribly, of course, but the gesture of support represented by your forces would have burnished your reputation, not to mention cooling the speculation that you would be as system-hungry as your lord father.”
“Interesting,” Mishak mused. “Marduk is waiting for my reply to an offer as we speak. I’ve been offered the chance of serving as Tashmitum’s consort. It’s a neat little way of neutralizing us as a threat, seeing as our first-born would rule after her.”
“And yet, she seems to be grooming you to be her husband instead,” Eth said, daring greatly to intrude on such a pivotal point in the future of the empire.
“Indeed,” agreed Mishak thoughtfully.
Eth could feel a wave of relief come over his lord.
“If you had any idea who my father has in mind for me to marry…” he muttered. “I’d rather marry Father Sulak, here.”
“You flatter me, Lord!”
“Not nearly as much as you think,” Mishak groused, “but I need to improve my bargaining position if I’m to get a better offer.
“I’ve already started isolating the emperor from his more powerful supporters,” he added. “That attack at Ashurapol…”
“That was your doing, Lord?” Eth asked, surprised. “It was clearly a false-flag operation. Real terrorists would never have placed the explosives in such a sloppy manner…” Eth trailed off, realizing he was criticizing his lord in front of witnesses.
Fortunately, Mishak didn’t take it as criticism. “It’s just the sort of sloppy machinations the imperial court gets up to, isn’t it?” He offered Eth his own bastardized version of a Human grin.
“It happens all the time,” Mishak continued. “Something that’s clearly false but only to those who bother to connect the dots, and it quickly fades into the following news cycle.”
“Then why…”
“Because I also had one of my people arrange a conference in a neighboring lord’s system.” Mishak chuckled. “Anos would have certainly realized the attack on his own capital world was a false-flag operation. Hearing that a conference of infrastructure companies was taking place nearby and that they were discussing possible contracts on Ashurapol…”
“Anos now thinks the emperor is plotting against him?” Eth looked around at the others. “Should we be hearing this, Lord?”
Mishak waved off the concern. “By the time Anos realizes he’s been out-maneuvered, we’ll have brought the entire matter to a conclusion. In the meantime, my position is stronger, especially now that you’ve brought your own news.”
He straightened up.
“Well,” he said briskly, “the obvious next step in this dance is to refuse Marduk’s offer, though now I know Tashmitum won’t take offense!”
“Your father won’t like you refusing to make his grandchild an emperor,” Eth suggested.
“Quite the opposite, I should think,” Mishak countered. “He intends to take back our family’s ancestral throne and serve as a king within the empire. He sees himself as becoming the permanent power behind the imperial throne.”
He waved a dismissive hand, a gesture he’d learned on Kish. “He has no idea that I know this. His arrogance works against him far more than he realizes. He’ll see my refusal as working to his advantage. Otherwise, there would be the uncomfortable tangle of being his heir and an imperial consort at the same time.”
If indeed, Mishak was the intended heir to that kingdom. His father had been even colder lately, more distant, if such a thing were possible for Sandrak.
“The masses would need to believe there’s a separation between his kingdom and the imperial throne,” Eth said, feeling his master’s agreement even before Mishak gave him a considerate, Human nod.
“Right,” Mishak glanced toward his father and Marduk who were both trying to appear as though they weren’t waiting on him. “I’ll refuse to be her consort and offer myself up as her mate instead.”
“And how do you do that, Lord?”
“We have to go to Throne World. I place myself at Tashmitum’s mercy and hope I haven’t read this situation incorrectly.” He turned to Eth. “It would be best if I can get to the palace undetected.”
Eth grinned. “I have just the thing, Lord. You recall our scout-ship program?”
“I’m afraid security around the palace is tighter than you’d find in a fleet,” Mishak told him.
“Indeed, Lord, but we’ve made an interesting improvement to our scout-ships!”
Eve sighed.
“Up to our arses in it now,” she muttered.
In Transit
G leb nodded. “Makes sense,” he said simply.
Eth, sitting opposite the younger man in his small stateroom aboard the Coronado , found it hard to believe his account had been accepted so readily. He’d left out most of the background information about the Varangians, knowing what would happen if he said too much.
Still, he’d just told Gleb that he could read emotions and move objects with his mind. Would it kill the little bastard to show at least a little incredulity?
“No, really,” Gleb insisted, clearly reading the look on his officer’s face. “The whole stepping out of your current frame of reference explanation makes sense. You can’t remain unchanged after an experience like that.”
He leaned in. “Can you teach me some shit?”
Eth leaned back a little, eyebrows raising.
Could he?
“You realize how dangerous this is?” Eth asked. “If the empire found out – even if our own lord found out…”
“This needs to be done carefully,” Gleb said, nodding seriously, “but it needs to be done. You can’t allow yourself to be the only one. If you die, our people lose an incredible advantage.”
Eth reached out, feeling the sincerity. He also felt what he could only describe as a casual relationship with the beliefs and norms of their society. It made him a ruthless fighter but it might also make him a good student. He nodded, taking out his coin.
One Possible Solution
N ow would be a good time,” Eth advised. “That freighter to starboard is masking our exit-point for the next few minutes.” He turned to Mishak, who stood next to Gleb at the scout-ship’s tactical station.
“Are you certain about this, Lord?”
“Certain?” Mishak laughed. “Of course not! She might just have me killed, but you can’t go through life without taking the odd chance.”
“The odd chance…” Eth looked at his master for a moment. “Very well, sir. Oliv,” he called over his shoulder, “get us moving. You know where we’re headed.”
He stepped past Mishak to poke his head into the engineering space where Meesh was making adjustments to one of three new protrusions around the engines. Noa was watching a series of holo readouts behind him.
“How are we looking for emission management?” Eth knew there was little he could do about it if the answer were something along the lines of ‘shitty’, but he needed to know what the ship’s weaknesses were.
“Better than our projections,” Noa muttered, frowning. “That worries me.”
“Uh huh,” Eth replied. “Of course it does. I’d hate to see what you’d do if it suddenly achieved one hundred percent heat transfer or something.”
“I wouldn’t be happy about that, either,” Meesh retorted. “The carbon nanotube coating we put on The Reason We Can’t Have Nice Things is catching almost all the light coming our way.”
“Which is generating an ass-load of heat energy,” Noa put in. “Not such a big deal, out in interstellar space, but we’re close to the local star, in orbit on the day-side of Throne World. Just imagine how hot this baby would get sitting in the middle of the central plaza, down in front of the palace. There’s even more solar radiation hitting us up here where we don’t have the atmosphere running interference for us.”
“So, how long do we have before the new heat sinks lose containment and start frying us in our own juices?”
Noa shrugged. “About an hour.”
“An hour?” Eth shook his head. “We’ll be inside the palace in twenty minutes. You two are a couple of frightened old ladies. I was getting ready to be mildly perturbed about all this.” He waved a hand at the three new heat sinks.
He stepped back up to the co-pilot’s chair and strapped in. “Any sign we’ve been spotted?”
“Not yet,” Gleb replied. “We’re ghosts.”
“Good. Once we’ve…” He glanced up at his holo displays. “…Why are we stopping?” His skin suddenly felt cold. “Damn!”
“Yeah,” Eve said. “That exclusion zone just popped up on our screen. Some big important noble is descending from orbit and he’s getting a hell of a big security cordon.”
“Too big to go around?” Mishak asked, coming to stand behind Eth’s left shoulder.
“About an hour, from the looks of it,” Meesh offered, poking his head past Mishak and looking at the holos. He grinned at Eth. “Maybe you’d like to help this frightened old lady write her death poem now?”
“Meesh had just one job,” Eth replied,
“Protect us with a heat-sink,
“And we all snuffed it.”
Eth returned the engineer’s grin. “Go babysit the heat sinks; we’re not dead just yet.” He turned back to the displays. “Computer, add lines inter-connecting each ship in the security cordon.”
A dense network of lines crisscrossed the display and Eth activated a target reticule on the largest of the gaps. “Head through there, Eve. They can’t see us and, as long as we don’t get directly between any two ships in the cordon, they won’t suddenly see one of their ships blink out of sight and start wondering what’s going on.”
They started moving again and Eth watched the shifting lines closely. “Noa,” he called loudly, “will going faster be a net gain in safety margin, assuming that we’re able to reduce our travel time?”
“If Eve decides to punch it and we get down there in ten minutes instead of lollygagging around at legal approach speed?” Noa went quiet for a few seconds. “Yeah, we end up with a twenty-minute margin on the sinks, especially seeing as we get into the night-side that much faster.”
Eth grinned again. “Go wild, Eve.”
Though the little ship fully compensated for the sudden acceleration, Eth could hear Mishak’s gloves creaking as he grasped the stanchion behind him. He clearly felt his master’s fear as the planet suddenly came racing toward their windows.
The ships of the security cordon whipped past them as the scout-ship darted through a gap in the lines of sight and Eve altered course to take them straight to the Imperial Palace.
“I forgot this was your first time seeing what our new scout-class ships can do,” Eth admitted to Mishak.
The Quailu wiped sweat from his blunt forehead. “I was on the bridge of the Dibbarra when you pulled your little disappearing stunt during the shakedown. It was impressive enough watching my crew try to figure out where you’d gone.” He shuddered. “Must have been terrifying from your perspective.”
“Not something you’d want to try on manual control,” Eth admitted.
“Coming around to the dark side,” Eve advised.
Father Sulak came to stand next to Mishak. “Is it strange that I’m hungry at a tense time like this?”
“For most people, yes,” Eth replied absently, scanning the holo. “In your case…” He turned to grin at him. “Who’s to say what’s normal?”
“Best to keep an empty digestive tract for now, Father,” Mishak advised. “If this goes sideways on us, the Varangians might just slice off our heads, and you don’t want your corpse to embarrass you in its last moments of life, do you?”
