Ruler of Naught, page 7
part #2 of Exordium Series
The children were quiet. Some were standing, most seated. Many of these had imitated her posture, assuming the ancient lotus position with the effortless flexibility of youth. They ranged widely in age, some as young as seven years, others nearing adulthood. In some the spirit glowed white-hot, in others, like banked coals—and a few, she judged, would leave Desrien when their majority came, unable to tolerate the soul-mirroring airs of the planet.
She began to speak. “Desrien and all its beliefs and faiths rest in the Hand of Telos, which has five fingers.” Her hands moved in the pattern of the mudras, adapted from her own tradition, that were part of the language of the Magisterium. “These principles enfold us all, but there are many ways to speak and hear and live them. I will share mine with those of you who wish.”
Some of the children leaned forward, eager to hear. Others listened politely, with the respect they had been taught was due a Phanist, the highest rank in the Magisterium. At the back of the group stood a small, redheaded boy, with the pale, blotched skin of an atavism, his gaze hungry with an indefinable longing. She smiled at him and continued.
“We all encounter the numinous, a message from something that is beyond all measurement and knowledge.” Her left hand was poised beside her at eye level, palm-up as if supporting a water jar; her right touched the top of her head, the center of her forehead, and the center of her chest in a fluid movement.
“We all possess some fragment of whatever sends these messages, however we may conceive it.” Both her hands came together vertically before her eyes, cupped around a space, and then descended to her chest.
“We all live a story which has no ending we can see or understand.” Now she brought both her hands together before her, thumbs and middle fingers touching in a circle parallel to the ground. She transformed the circle into the ancient symbol of infinity by bringing the fingers and thumbs together, then rotated her right hand until its palm faced outward, thumb to finger and finger to thumb, and folded her hands together, circle to circle. The symbol of the projective plane, true infinity.
From beyond the group of children, the redheaded boy watched, but his hands were busy with something she couldn’t see, hidden behind the heads of those seated in front of him.
“We all suffer because we are attached to things that really don’t matter.” Here she used one of the most ancient of the mudras, Turning the Wheel of the Law.
The red-haired boy began tossing the object in the air rhythmically; it was a small silver ball. The setting sun sparked highlights off of it, small splashes of glory dappling the deepening shade of the tree overarching the courtyard. A wave of dizziness and disorientation overwhelmed Eloatri and she fell out of the world into the Dreamtime.
o0o
The path was dull gray, wide and edgeless, suspended in an infinite space. A golden light shone from behind her. She turned and beheld the face of the Buddha at the beginning of the path, inhumanly calm and indwelling with transhuman compassion, its lips curved in a smile terrible with possibilities.
The Buddha’s eyes opened. She shriveled under his gaze. His mouth opened on a soundless resonance as the Word resounded throughout the Wheel of Time and a slow procession of figures came forth, all dressed in the finery of the High Douloi. Among them she saw the tall figure of the High Phanist, his face enshadowed in his cowl. There was the sound of weeping, and a blow against her heart.
o0o
Eloatri opened her eyes, staring without comprehension for a moment at the field of purple and yellow that slowly resolved into the dense canopy of the higari tree. Through its branches glimmered a star.
An anxious face bent over her, an elderly man with a green band around his forehead: a healer.
“Are you returned, bodhisattva?”
She levered herself up on one elbow, feeling light-headed, and looked around. Most of the children were gone; a few still stood at some distance, looking worried. A small group of adults stood to one side, less worry in their faces than respectful waiting.
“Yes.” She sat up as the dizziness passed. The redheaded boy was not among the remaining children. She felt his loss. His spirit had glowed brighter than his hair.
“The redheaded boy,” she said. “With the pale skin. Where is he?”
The healer hesitated, puzzlement lengthening his face.
“The one who was standing at the back of the group, playing with a silver ball.”
The healer sighed, apparently considering his words, before replying. ‘There is no redheaded boy in this village.”
FOUR
PANARCHIST BATTLECRUISER GROZNIY
From his seat at the senior table, Lieutenant Commander Mdeino ban-Nilotis could see most of the junior officers bridge wardroom—not surprising, given that he topped most on Grozniy by a head. That didn’t help him see into the little alcoves that ensigns tended to hide in to avoid catching extra duty. But right now, an hour before watch change, the compartment zinged with nervous energy and he was sure those alcoves were empty.
Nilotis was better than most of his rank at the peripheral people-watching required of officers. He’d had to be, given that the heritage of the bomas of Nyangathanka had given him not only a elongated build but flaming red hair and night black skin. One did not overlook Mdeino ban-Nilotis in most company, no matter how much he might wish you to.
He needed every bit of that talent right now. The next watch would see the battlecruiser Grozniy’s emergence back into the Thousand Suns after seven months out-octant. The most animated conversations in the wardroom—those in which hands shaped air and lips shouted laughter—surely involved boasts and speculations about the coming liberty in Wolakota System, famous—or notorious—for its hospitality to Naval personnel.
Other colloquies were more sober, though no less intense, as revealed by the set of shoulders here, and fingers stiffly tapping the table over there. Beyond Wolakota, a few weeks further into Rouge Nord octant, lay the end of their tour of duty and the further definition of career trajectories: the summing up of rank points gained or lost, new assignments, new ships, new captains.
And then there were the junior officers Captain Ng was rotating into the alpha crew for the first time this next watch, the most senior of whom sat across the table from Nilotis right now.
Nilotis grinned at Lieutenant Rom-Sanchez, who was picking at his food. “Gee-flutters, Sergei?”
Rom-Sanchez dropped his fork on his plate and pushed his food away. Like the rest of his body, his hands were lean and quick-moving. Next to him Lieutenant Denil Methuen chuckled in a light baritone. “He’d rather be back in the lock of that bubbloid.”
Rom-Sanchez was spared the necessity of a reply as Lieutenant Tang dropped into the seat next to Nilotis. “I can never resist a look of misery,” she said brightly, her straight black hair swinging about her ears, a couple of centimeters past regulation. “Especially on the face of the most junior lieutenant in the wardroom an hour before his appointment with destiny.”
“Thanks, Mabel,” Rom-Sanchez muttered. “You’re such a comfort.”
“Anytime, Sergei. Just remember, all those Rifters could have done was kill you. Hero.”
Nilotis laughed. “That’s enough of that. Denil and I have had sufficient time to get his head back to normal size since the Captain’s momentary lapse in judgment.” He canted a look at the new lieutenant’s tabs Rom-Sanchez was trying not to finger.
“It’s our duty.” Methuen nodded soberly. “We have the ship’s reputation to think of.”
Everyone laughed, but Nilotis noted how forced Rom-Sanchez’s was, and dropped the teasing. “Sergei. Look at it this way. Giving you tactical on the alpha crew is the captain’s way of underscoring your success at Smyrna. As your last station on this tour, it will look good on your record, especially since it’s not for just any emergence, but our triumphant return to civilization.”
Rom-Sanchez snorted at the mockery in the last phrase, but shook his head doubtfully.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” said Methuen. “Wolakota’s a liberty port, not an out-octant hellhole like Smyrna or Breakpoint. Tactical’s a sinecure on an emergence like this: Captain’s actually going easy on you.”
“Right.” Nilotis tipped his chin towards a short, powerfully-built lieutenant watching two other officers playing L-4 Phalanx, the Tenno version forbidden in tournament play but popular throughout the Navy for both training and entertainment. “Mzinga, there, he’s on Nav—always possible to screw up at that station, no matter where we come out.”
Rom-Sanchez glanced in that direction, and his brows contracted in a quick frown. Nilotis realized that Rom-Sanchez wasn’t paying any attention to Mzinga. His attention was on the console, specifically the Tenno evolution one of the players was attempting.
Then Rom-Sanchez shook his head and turned back again. “Yeah, but Mzinga’s been alpha before.”
“He had a first time, too. We all did, at least on Grozniy. Lot of ships you can’t say that about.”
Rom-Sanchez grimaced but said nothing. As far as Nilotis knew, the younger officer was largely apolitical, although it was hard to tell whether that was innate or the regrettably necessary discretion practiced by Highdwellers like him in a Navy increasingly dominated by the Aerenarch Semion’s Downsider connections. Well, we don’t have to worry about that with Margot Ng at the helm, even if it does mean we spend most of our time out-octant.
As if to belie his words, the wardroom hatch slid open, and Nilotis didn’t need to look up to know who had just entered the compartment. The sudden bubble of quiet and the wariness of the two young lieutenants told him it had to be Lieutenant Commander Eisel ban-Tessler.
“Uh, oh,” said Tang under her breath. “Stuffcrotch has that brass-polishing look of his, and I’m on my tween watch, which means ‘available for scut work’ as far as he’s concerned.”
Accurate as the epithet was, Nilotis had to uphold the respect for rank that made Naval hierarchy work smoothly, and he glanced Tang’s way.
She flushed. “Tell you what, Sergei, why don’t you take another shot at convincing me that Warrigal’s L-5 Phalanx doesn’t rot your brain?” Her gaze flickered to Nilotis. “Lieutenant Commander Tessler won’t bother us there.”
Nilotis suppressed a smile. He’d heard the faint emphasis on Tessler’s rank and name. Tang was always trying for the lower orbit, trying to keep ahead, which tended to cost her rank points that her ability would otherwise garner.
“How about you, Denil?” Tang turned his way.
The other lieutenant shook his head theatrically. “Brrrr! No way I’m letting that wire-dream blunge into my head—that would be all I need, transposing her impossible Tenno into the middle of a real fire fight.”
“Who’s going to be looking at the screen?” replied Tang. “Not me. I like watching the players sweat.”
The three juniors excused themselves just ahead of Tessler’s arrival at the table.
Tessler was carrying a compad as was his invariable custom. As he sat down, he looked after Tang and Rom-Sanchez with a sour expression that deepened the frown lines on his long face.
“Our newest lieutenant seems pretty casual about his first alpha,” he said. “Or does he think that fantasy Phalanx is a good warm up for Tactical?”
“I can think of worse,” replied Nilotis mildly, with a glance at Tessler’s compad.
Tessler’s lips tightened. Scuttlebutt had it that Tessler had entered the Academy with high hopes for a fighting career, with patronage linked to the Aerenarch. That he’d ended up in Supply was, Nilotis suspected, in large part because he had found the Tenno tactical glyphs difficult to master. There was nothing wrong with that—the Navy needed logisticians as good as Tessler. But it wasn’t good enough for the man himself.
“Well, he’ll hardly gain any rank points kissing up to Warrigal.”
Kissing up. Like too many Downsider officers, whose families were satellites to the older Tetrad Centrum clans, Tessler tended to see things first in terms of Douloi preference, then Naval rank. A regrettably common viewpoint among many connected to the Aerenarch—especially those not invited to Narbon.
“They’re distantly related, I understand,” said Nilotis, “and both in Tactical.” Tessler’s face soured even more at the reminder that the two juniors would have to acknowledge some acquaintance, given their families’ relationship. “The Warrigals freighted Rom-Sanchez’s Highdwelling, I don’t know, three or four centuries back.” And the Warrigal shipping interests have helped start Highdwellings many times, since before there was a Panarchy, in fact. So Rom-Sanchez has little to worry about from you, especially since they’re both under me, not in Supply.
“As you say,” said Tessler, somewhat stiffly, pushing his chair back a bit. Nilotis tended to loom over just about anyone on the ship. He called Nyangathanka home, a planet deep in the Tetrad Centrum that had joined the Panarchy in the first century of Jaspar’s Peace. There I go, doing the same right back at him. Disgusted with himself, Nilotis leaned back in his chair.
“I suppose it’s harmless enough,” Tessler continued. “It’s not as though she’s likely to have much to do otherwise, given the circumstances of her transfer from Narbon. No rank points, came out as she went in, an Ensign.”
Nilotis shrugged. “Captain seems happy enough with her. So am I. Her doctorate in tactical semiotics, coming so early, doesn’t hurt.”
“Doesn’t help much, either that I can see,” replied Tessler. “Close to a calculated insult to turn in a game as a thesis. A game,” he repeated in disgust. “While the Aerenarch struggles to build up the Navy to face a real threat.”
Nilotis managed not to roll his eyes. Dol’jhar again.
“Sorry, Eisel, I just can’t see a failed serial-chip empire as a real threat. It shattered like glass after Acheront. What’s left is maybe ten or fifteen planets with raving sociopaths barely in control, while Sodality syndicates make a fortune smuggling and jacker raids keep them off balance.” Nilotis laughed. “If they start to get out of line, there are entire Rifter fleets willing to take them on if we open up the Dol’jharian sector for bidding on a Writ.”
“You just don’t get it,” said Tessler in exasperation. “Why did we just spend seven months out-octant from Rouge Nord? Because Eichelly dropped out of sight two years ago, just like Charterly and others.”
Nilotis snorted. “No surprise there. There were enough derogations to have put his Writ under litigation a dozen times over. The Justicials vacated it just before we left on patrol.”
“Exactly. It took them over a year, which ended up costing the Navy three battlecruiser tours of duty, plus who knows how many destroyer squadron tours? And that’s just for our assigned recognizance. It’s happening elsewhere. Raving sociopath or not, the Avatar of Dol’jhar is dispersing our forces.”
“To do what? With one capital ship?” asked Nilotis, wearying of the familiar argument. Tessler could hardly be expected to feel otherwise, not and expect to retain his connection to the Aerenarch, who would never forgive the murderer of his mother.
“You know how I see this. Eichelly, those others, are just part of the natural expansion of the Peace. He’s deep out-octant by now, establishing some petty fiefdom. He’ll either end up plasma, Shiidra food, or the founder of a polity that a few centuries from now will be petitioning for a protectorate. Yes, it costs tours of duty. That’s how it works, so I think it’s pretty senseless to build up a core fleet that never leaves the Tetrad Centrum.”
The first watch-change bells sounded, interrupting Tessler’s reply, and Nilotis shifted his attention, watching the group around Warrigal break up and hurry to the hatch, on their way to the ready room. Tessler watched, too, stiff with disapproval.
They are cutting it close, Nilotis thought.
Warrigal, now alone, was still tapping intently at her compad as though nothing had changed. She often seemed to be in a world of her own, as though walking in the Dreamtime of her ancestors on Lost Earth. Was that why Captain Ng hadn’t yet given her a shot at alpha, despite her tactical skills?
Tessler followed the direction of his gaze, and snorted. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He scooped his compad off the table and stalked out of the wardroom.
Relieved, Nilotis settled back to his watching-not-watching. He’d been working hard, and this was his wind-down before he hit the rack. He’d sleep through emergence so he could be fresh for Wolakota. Rom-Sanchez could handle this emergence in his sleep. Once he got used to being on the bridge under the captain’s eye. After all, what could possibly happen?
o0o
In the last few seconds of the countdown to emergence, Ng looked around Grozniy’s bridge, wishing she could have more time with this new alpha crew, young as some of them were. They were smart, ambitious, and several of them were perhaps a bit too unconventional for their own good—just as she had been twenty-five years back. She hoped that their new captains would recognize their potential. Especially Rom-Sanchez. Aside from a regrettable emotional distraction of the sort she’d dealt with before, he’d demonstrated command potential on this cruise, and not just at Smyrna.
“Emergence.”
The descending tones of the bells blended with the quiet voice of the navigator as the battlecruiser Grozniy dropped back into fourspace with a barely perceptible shudder.
After a pause Lieutenant Mzinga looked up, puzzled. “No beacon, sir.”
Captain Margot O’Reilly Ng leaned forward in her command pod.
“Siglnt. Verify.”
Yeo Wychyrski at Siglnt tapped scrupulously at her console, her profile intent. Lieutenant Rom-Sanchez glanced at Ng from the tactical pod; she briefly checked his display echo next to the main screen and noted with approval that he was already setting up the appropriate range of presets for a no-beacon emergence.
