A Chapalii female! In shape he could not have told any differences between her and the two males. But the skin… Unlike the two males in the room, whose skin was pale, almost dead white, whose skin flushed colors betraying their emotions, the female's skin was dark, a kind of tough-looking, all-purpose gray. It seemed scaly, without being scaled. She wore a lank tail of hair hanging from the slight bulge on the back of her skull. In dim light, he could not have told them apart, except for her thin hank of hair, and that might have been a class difference. But in bright light, she looked alien. The males might pass by some far stretch of the imagination for human, or humanlike, creatures. She had the same build, but her strange coloration, her thick, dry epidermis, betrayed her fundamental otherness. She was weird; she was eerie. And David was used to the idea of unearthly beings.
"So?" David asked, when he found his voice.
"So once we got into the room, Rajiv and the ke-the female servant there-got inside the system within one hour. It's all there, David. The contents of the Mushai's computer banks.''
"We knew that."
"Yes, but we never got past the surface layer before. And there's more, much more than was on the cylinder Tess brought. They've spent the last five hours figuring out how to translate the information off this system and on to some transferable media. Evidently the cylinders only work off the consoles they come from. Like matched sets. Information is so valuable a commodity that it's hoarded just like-like the jaran hoard gold."
"They don't hoard gold," corrected David, "they wear it."
"I think the analogy still holds."
"What if they can't transfer the data off."
Maggie shrugged. "How should I know? Rajiv will probably come live here for the next ten years and transcribe everything manually onto his modeler. But even so he'd never get the hundredth part of it that way. Still, that ke is a brilliant engineer, according to him, and his standards are high. They ought to be able to work something out together."
"David." Charles came over, the merchant at his side. "You have met Hon Echido, I believe."
"Honored," said David, recalling his polite Chapalii. He gave a brief greeting bow, which Echido returned exactly.
"Let's leave them to it," said Charles. "I have no doubt they'll be up all night. And the next day, as well."
Charles gestured to Maggie and David to precede him. Echido waited behind Charles. The steward stayed where he was, presumably to aid Rajiv and the ke, who were oblivious to this desertion. They left the room and walked back through the quiet palace by a roundabout route. Their path took them to the vault of the huge dome. They halted there. The cavernous depths of the hall and the height swallowed them, muffling the sound of their footsteps on the marble floor, making whispers of their voices. In the darkness, the thin pillars that edged the distant curved walls gleamed a pale pink, like a hint of sunrise to come. Above, far above, the dome seemed splintered with stars and luminous cracks and amorphous blots of utter darkness, like a portal onto the depths of space.
David held Maggie's hand, finding comfort in the heat of her skin, in her proximity. Farther off, Charles stood and stared up. Echido stood slightly in front of Charles. In the darkness, his robes, too, seemed luminous, as if fibers of light were woven into the purple fabric. The Chapalii lifted up his left hand. He spoke a sentence.
The dome lit. Everywhere, everything, lights, blinding, scattering, crystal sparking in a thousand colors and rainbows arching in vivid, astonishing geometric patterns so high above in the vault of the dome that they seemed unreachable. Across the marble floor light fragmented into colored patterns, animal shapes intertwined, plants interlaced, helices and chevrons, so bewildering in their profusion that it staggered him. All perfectly placed to create a web of light, a latticework of color, a net of brilliance, that seemed to David's eyes to represent everything and nothing, order and chaos at once. It was glorious. It was uncanny. It was beautiful.
David gaped. Maggie gaped, gripping his hand. Even Charles gaped, for once shocked into speechlessness.
"The Tai-en Mushai," said Echido in his colorless voice, his Anglais fluent and uninflected, "became so notorious that although his name is obliterated forever from the emperor's ear for his rashness, his title lives on nevertheless. Not least because of his sister, who is known as one of the great artists of my people. It is she who designed the Grand Concourse leading from Sorrowing Tower to Reckless Tower to Shame Tower. I am grieved that this achievement here must rest in obscurity."
"End it," said Charles suddenly, startled out of his stupor by Echido's calm voice.
"As you command, Tai Charles." He spoke another sentence. Glory vanished, to leave them shuttered in a darkness which seemed as endless as the void. Silence descended. After some minutes, David could make out the traceries in the dome again, distinguish the faint gleam of the pillars along the walls. He understood Echido's sorrow, that such beauty must be concealed. A moment later he realized how astounding it was, his sympathy with Echido's sadness.
"I humbly beg your pardon, Tai-en," Echido added, "if I have by my rash action troubled you. I recall that this planet is under an interdiction of your making and the emperor's approval."
"No," said Charles, "no, I don't mind this once. I've never seen anything like that. It was…" His voice betrayed his awe. "… beautiful. But it must not happen again, here or elsewhere in this palace, not as long as there are natives on the precincts."
Echido bowed. "To have given you pleasure, however brief, Tai-en, is a great honor to me."
"I am pleased," said Charles, acknowledging Echido's gift. "David has a map of the palace, and I would dearly like to know what other-art-is hidden here, and how it might be brought to life. How did you do that?"
"But surely-" Echido hesitated. "Tai-en, every princely and ducal house holds to itself a motto, I believe you would name it in your tongue. Said thus, it illuminates both the noble lord himself and what his family has created in his name."
"Ah," said Charles. "Of course. How did you know the Mushai's motto? Surely it has been a long time since his name was spoken in the halls of the emperor.''
"Uncounted years," said Echido. "Tai-en." He bowed. "But all know it, still, because its very words are-as reckless as he was. So it remains with us, over time uncounted and years beyond years. 'This hand shall not rest.' That is one way it might translate into your language, although I am sure the Tai-endi Terese could render a more accurate, fitting, and poetic translation."
"I am sorry," said Charles, "that she is not here to see this."
"I, too, Tai-en, am saddened by her absence. Our acquaintance was brief, but I count myself favored that she dignified my presence with her attention." He folded his hands in front of him. David knew that the arrangement of fingers and palm had meaning, that it signified an emotion, a statement, a frame of mind, but he could not interpret it. Tess could, but Tess wasn't here. No wonder Charles refused to let her go. She was invaluable to his cause.
"We must go," said Charles. "I hope no one was awake to see this display, however much I am pleased to have seen it myself. Otherwise there could be awkward questions." He started to walk. Maggie let go of David's hand and paced up beside the Chapalii merchant. David fell in next to Charles. They paused at the buttressed arch that led into a long hall lined with alternating stripes of pale and black stone. Echido and Maggie kept walking, but Charles turned to look back into the vast hollow behind them. From this angle, no lights shone, not even faint ones. It was as black as a cave. Only the immensity of air, palpable as any beast, betrayed the cavernous gulf beyond.
"So what will your motto be?" David asked, half joking.