Confronting the Princess · Part 1 (1/2)
Next
Journal Entry 191 / 0737
"You okay?" P'nyssa asked, looking at me quizically over the bar separating the kitchen from the living room.
"Tired," I replied. "I ate too much, you know what that does to me."
"Why don't you take a nap then?"
"If I do that, I won't be able to sleep later. And I need to maintain a day schedule for a while."
P'nyssa nodded, coming around the corner with two glasses filled with iced tea. I accepted the one she held out to me. "What's that?"
"A history of llerkin, in llerkindi. I've gotten the spoken down, mostly, but written llerkindi isn't quite that easy. This way I'm forced to do two things at once." I sighed. "I thought Aaden wasn't any good at languages. Have you seen the books he's got? There's more llerkendi botany in the library now than I think there is Terran!"
She nodded and leaned over to kiss me. "I love your cheeks," she said.
"I know, you tell me that all the time."
"And are you upset by my telling you?" She smiled.
"No," I said easily, "I love hearing it. Love you."
"Love you too," she said.
We laughed softly, only to be interrupted by the Castle AI. "Ken, Ambassador Agima is calling."
I raised my eyebrows, giving P'nyssa my mock-exasperation look. "Duty calls," I said. She nodded. "In here, Dave."
The image resolved in front of me, the deliberate slight flicker in the image an idiosyncracy I had asked for to tell me that this was just an image. Sometimes our imaging technology almost seems too good. "Good evening, Agima. What can I do?"
"Vatare' Shardik," he said in a voice that immediately made me feel wary. Something was wrong. "I have recieved a message from the Princess Anlestin. She is accompanying the warship Metyslenki, enroute to Pendor. I do not know why she is coming, and I am concerned. She has asked for a private meeting with 'Vatare Ilye Pendoro Shardik.' The wording of the message is most formal."
"What do you think it might mean?"
"I have no guesses. Princess Anlestin is, as you well know, someting of a–" he sought for the right word– "A free spirit. Formality of this type does not become her easily."
I smiled, remembering my last encounter with the lovely Anlestin. "I am aware of that, Agima. When will she be arriving?"
"Within the week."
After Agima's image had left, I turned to P'nyssa and said, "Okay, you two, ideas? Suggestions? Thoughts?"
Dave answered first. "There is little data to go on. If we're going to discuss this from the point of view of in-house knowledge, let's discuss that you have a unique relationship with Anlestin. You are the first alien she ever slept with."
"Her request's to meet with you," P'nyssa said.
"Right, so this has to do with something personal. Something between her and me?"
"Have you written her since the Treaty?"
"Of course. At least three or four times. They were always friendly letters, and I always got friendly letters in return."
"So that's not it," P'nyssa said. She threw up her mittens in frustration. "I don't know."
"I'm equally in the dark, Ken."
"Great. Me too. I guess we wait."
"I guess so," Dave and P'nyssa said in tandem. I looked at P'nyssa, then we both turned slowly to stare at the ceiling. Then the three of us broke out in laughter.
Four days later, I wasn't laughing quite so easily. When the Metyslenki has set into orbit, I had joined Joshua at the Arc to welcome them in-system and to personally greet the Princess. The response had been cold and formal, an acknowledgement of permission to transit in- system from the Captain of the vessel. When I had requested a communique' with the Princess, I had been rebuffed.
Later that day, I had received an invitation to meet the Princess, aboard her vessel, alone. The strange part of the invitation read "in person."
In a shuttle of llerkin manufacture we coasted from the P. S. F. Parma to the Metyslenki. I sat in the chair on the right, tapping my fingers in nervous boredom; on my left Shen, a llerki on Agima's staff and someone I counted on as reliable and trustworthy, tended to the controls. "Any idea, Shen?"
"No, but sorry, Ken." I smiled. He was getting the hang of Quen just a little slowly. "Orders have come from Agima to me to be formal. When we reach the ship, I must behave myself." I nodded, getting the general drift.
"You have to act like a soldier," I said in llerkin.
"Yeah," he replied, using a colloquial llerkin "Yes." "You won't need that," he said, indicating the biocybe unit I was carrying. "Agima told me that they've tuned the atmosphere to make it more suitable to you, since we have no trouble breathing your air. Two trillis, Ken." About three and a half minutes. I put the biocybe pack in a pocket, just in case he was wrong. He easily coasted the ship into the docking bay and set about routine shut-down as the doors closed behind us.
"This way," he said. "Good day, Vatare'." I nodded and left the shuttle, bending down under a door that was too short even for llerki. Taking a deep breath, I found the air acceptable. Outside, I was met by an 'honor guard' of six armed soldiers in light battlegear and two llerki I had never met before. The one on my right I recognized as The Captain, but lacked a name for him. The other I knew not at all, although she was an older llerki. "Vatare'," she said with some formality, "I am Ipsi, The Princess Anlestin's personal secretary. Will you join us?"
"Before I do," I said, looking at the Captain, "it is your vessel. Permission to come aboard?"
He smiled, finally. For the reptilian llerki, he looked like a handsome and self-assured mel, but he also looked slightly uncomfortable. "Granted, Vatare'."
"Then I will join you, Ipsi." She shook her head slightly, which in llerki is our equivalent of a nod, and turned, walking away. I followed. The Captain took up behind me, the honor guard behind him in two rows.
The Mestylenki looked like a very comfortable ship; the halls were spacious and, if not the padded leather interiors of Pendorian vessels, they were at least paneled and painted in comfortable natural tones.
The two of them led me down to an elevator, and together we took it to another level. The honor guard did not follow, but I was not at all suprised to find another one waiting for us when we exited. I thought furiously as to what could require that I be accompanied by six armed llerki at all times.
"Through there," Ipsi said, indicating a door. It was not labled. "Alone."
I nodded and said, "Thank you for your hospitality, Captain." He shook his head in response. I turned to the door and walked in; the two halves parted as I did so, then closed behind me with a snap.
Inside was a living room, done in a comfortable dark green, a color not unlike the Princess herself, who stood behind a large desk set in one corner of the room. "Stay where you are," she said. A cold fear began working its way up my neck. That was not the Anni I had met four years ago. The thought rammed its way into my consciousness again, Something is wrong.
She ignored me for the most part, examining the data screen in front of her. She smiled for a moment, then said "Good." She looked up at me, walked around the desk to stand in front of me, just at arm's length. "This time, it is you." With that she hit me.
Not just slapped me, but _hit_ me, hard across the face with a closed fist. I shook my head with disbelief, staring at her, rubbing my jaw with my hand. "What was that for?" I said.
"You prag, how dare you insult me by sending that abomination under the guise of a peace treaty to violate me."
I stared at her for a few seconds, not sure what to say. Not sure what she meant, either "I… I don't know what you're talking about, Anni."
"Do not dare call me that," she said. "I do not know you, and you do not know me. You will address me as 'Your Highness.'" I stared at her, uncomprehending. She continued. "On Hermoc the 40th, do you deny that you sent an android with your appearance to llerki to attend the dinner given in honor of the Peace of Fahn to be signed Remmar first?"
"A what? Princess, that was me."
"With the exchange writ recently, we have been allowed to review some of your current technologies. According to your own documentation, the basis of your respiratory function does not perform on llerkin. You would asphyxiate if you came to my world, Shardik. Do you deny, therefore, that what was on llerki was a machine of some sort, sent as your proxy?"
I sighed. "No, I do not deny it. That was an android."
She smiled, a chilling sort of smile. "I cannot make war on Pendor, Shardik, for I know who would lose. But I can kill you."
"Wait a second!" I said quickly. "Don't you want to hear the other part?"
"What other part, Shardik? What is there to discuss?"
"Okay, Back on Remmar 1st, that wasn't this body, but that was me!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Anni, if you've read our tech-level reviews, then you also know that one of our major science is biocybernetics. Maybe that wasn't this body in your bedroom at the Skypalace, but that was this mind, this soul, talking to you."
"Are you trying to tell me that your technology allows you to move minds from one body to another?"
"Yes. In certain cases. But that wasn't what was happening that night."
"Explain it to me," she said.
"I can, if I need to, shunt all input from my senses to a storage buffer and substitute any other set of sensory input I want. I admit, that night and the next day this body that stands in front of you was held in a sensory-deprivation facility aboard the Eldarfaroth. But that was so that I could freely get input from the android on the ground. Anni, as far as I know, I was on llerkin. That was me down there with you." I decided to press my luck. "You do remember, don't you? In the Skypalace? I said you were cute. You remember my touching you, tasting you? Remember how hot you said I felt, how warm my skin was? Come here, touch me. You'll find it the same."
"I do not trust you." She bit slightly at her lower lip.
"Dammit, Anni, I'm seven hundred years old. I've had plenty of time to learn a martial art or two. Do you think if I really wanted to kill you there's anything to stop me?"
She looked at me, emotions warring on her face for supremacy. Finally she walked towards me and put her hand on my cheek, right where she had slugged me just minutes ago. "It feels the same."
I smiled, my jaw aching only slightly. "I can prove it. If you are willing to trust me."
"How can I? I am still angry that you did not tell me the truth."
"What would the point be? From your point of view, either was a lie. That was me on llerki that day, talking to your mother. I remember you telling me about Maerts. I remember you slipping the note into my pocket. Tell me, was that a common style, or did Aaraon arrange for that?"
She smiled slightly and said, "I asked Aaraon for your dimensions and had the clothes delivered to the embassy."
"My dimensions. They fit me well enough, didn't they?"
She thought about that for a second. "Very well, I will accompany you."
"Alone."
"Anni, I put myself into your hands by coming here. Trust me in return." I paused for a second. "Please?"
That bite of the lip came back, and finally she said, "Shardik, there is one difference between us. If I were to kill you, I would die as well in the ensuing war. If you were to kill me, all llerkin would have to show for it is another humiliating defeat by the Pendor Fleet and the loss of a Princess. There is something riling in the knowledge that nothing but a peculiar concept of peace keeps Pendor from making a servant of llerkin."
"That and our wealth."
She sighed. "I will go with you."
"You don't have to."
"Yes, I do." She turned to the desk and said, "Captain, you may dismiss the honor guard. And prepare a shuttle. I will be returning with Vatare' Shardik to the Starship Facility."
There was a pause, and then the Captain said, "Yes, Your Highness."
We boarded the shuttle together, she first. Ipsi was more than a little distressed, but Anlestin raised her voice and Ipsi relented.
"Shen!" I said as I boarded.
"Greetings, Vatare'. Good to see you again."
"You too," I said with earnest. "I trust you recognize The Princess Anlestin?"
He shook his head, bowed down on both knees and said "It is an honor, Your Highness."
She shook her head and said, "Please stand. I cannot abide the formality."
"Shen, we will need cargo door sixteen on Parma. Can you find that?"
"Like the back of my paw," he said in Quen.
"Back of your hand, Shen. Hand. You don't have paws."
"What's the difference, then?" he asked. I proceeded to explain the conceptual differences between hands, Hands, paws and mittens. He shook his head finally. "So Centaurs, Humans and Satryls have hands, Dolphins and Pamthreats have 'Hands,' Tindals have mittens, and everybody else has paws."
"Right."
"But I've met Satryl's with fur on their hands," he pointed out.
"They're still called hands."
He sighed, bobbing his head. "I'll never figure this out."
He frowned at that. "And AI's just have whatever happens to be lying around."
"Pretty much."
He shook his head in frustration.
I finally had a good chance to look at Anni. Not that she had changed much in four years. Her skin was made of very fine dark-green scaling, almost microscopically fine over the bridge of her nose and under her eyes, which were wide with vertically-slitted irises of a coppery-blue color. On the sides of her hairless head two tall, narrow triangles ending in sharp points were her ears. Her hands had three fingers and a single, opposable thumb, and I smiled when I realized that she, like me, had the annoying habit of tapping her fingers when she was bored. She was still thin, although I wondered if she would gain the same weight her mother had; the Queen Stevves was quite overweight. llerki have no visible mammae.
Shen interrupted my musing. "Cargo door sixteen, dead ahead."
"Take us in easy and put us next to the door by the far right."
"No problem," he replied, setting the shuttle down just where I had indicated.
"Princess, if you will follow me," I said.
"Yes," she replies, rising from her chair. We walked down a corridor and into a SDisk control room. I asked that she step on the platform, and she agreed. "You've never ridden one of these before, have you?" I asked.
"No," she said. "But I am familiar with what they do."
"Good. Josh, I need to contact Halloran Eldar."
Josh, local AI and Commander of Parma and The Arc, replied "That's an unusual request. Okay, you have him."
"Hal?"
"Good evening, Ken. What is it you want?"
"Castle Hidden."
Confronting the Princess · Part 1 (1/2)
Next
