Now he felt like the floor was moving, or that he was; he couldn't be sure which. Only the two dukes appeared stable to his eyes. He fixed on Charles.
The air shone in front of Charles, took on weight and coalesced into matter. A braid of silver fire hung in the air. David saw the shift as gravity grabbed hold of its substance. The air stilled. The braid fell. But Charles caught it before it could touch the floor. David saw how heavy it must be by the way it weighted down Charles's arm. "Seal the braid of fealty."
At that instant David understood. The braid of silver was the emperor's seal. And he had delivered it to Charles in order to seal with imperial approval Charles's act of taking the Keinaba merchant house into the Soerensen ducal house. But where had it come from? How had it reached them? There had been nothing there; Charles now held a silver braid that undeniably possessed mass and volume. The problem, the possibilities, made David's head whirl. He just stood there and let the chamber reel around him and after a moment, as he forced himself to focus on the silver braid in Charles's hand, the world stopped moving.
The stars vanished. Now they stood in a glade carpeted by perfectly manicured pale orange grass; probably not grass at all, but that was what it looked like. Twenty-one white-barked trees ringed them. Slender trunks shot up, endlessly up, to a kaleidoscopic canopy so high above that David could not measure it. Beyond, impossibly high, he saw the faint spires of towers.
Naroshi stood opposite Charles. Against the stark white trees, Naroshi's complexion bore the barest tinge of blue, so pale that in any other surroundings David would not have noticed it. Blue was the color of distress. Clearly, Naroshi was not happy to be here-wherever here was.
Charles faced Naroshi across the pale grass, and Marco and David flanked Charles. David wondered if they really had been somehow transported into the imperial presence-into the emperor's presence-or if this was just an incredible projection. If he stepped forward, would he bang into the couch? He felt it the safer option not to move at all.
"I thank you," said Charles into the silence, hefting the braid in his hand. "I ask permission for myself and some companions to visit the planet where my sister and heir has ceased to exist, so that we may suitably mourn her, without interruption."
Marco glanced sidewise at David and winked. Yes, clearly that last little qualifier was aimed at Naroshi. But Marco's ability to remain unwed in the most awe-inspiring circumstances gave David heart. He winked back. Against the purity of the white bark of the trees, Naroshi's complexion shaded in the slightest degree from blue to green, the color of disapproval.
The humming stopped. David had not really noticed it until it ceased. Then he was aware of its absence, and as abruptly as a light is switched from light to dark, they stood in the octagonal chamber again. Mosaics glowed on the far walls, seen through the double arches. The images flowed, as if the figures stirred, but David could not be sure if they really moved or if he was still recovering from the whirling of the stars.
A pink scarf lay draped over Charles's shoulders. Pink was the color of approval. For a moment, Charles simply stood there. Then he lifted his free hand to touch the scarf, to check its color. His chin shifted, just a little, but David knew him well enough to know that he was pleased. He bowed, low, to the precise degree by which a duke honors the emperor, dipping to touch one knee to the floor. Then he straightened and regarded Naroshi in silence.
In this light, David could discern no slightest tint of color in Naroshi's pallid complexion. "I will watch your progress with interest," said Naroshi.
Charles inclined his head in acknowledgment, but said nothing more.
The steward reappeared and led them out the way they had come. By unspoken consent, the three men did not talk at all until they left the secured line on Staten Island and transferred to a lev-train that would take them back to London. Charles sank into a seat. He draped the silver braid across his thighs. It was as heavy as gold, and as supple as the finest silk. David and Marco sat on either side of him. It was the old pattern from their university days: Marco on the right, David on the left.
" 'I'll be watching you,' " mused Charles as he stared out the window at the gray ocean. "But is Naroshi for me or against me?''
Marco shrugged. "Does our concept of dualism even apply to the Chapalii? Maybe he's for you and against you."
"I hate equations that don't add up," muttered David.
CHAPTER THREE
As soon as Yomi called the break, Diana fled the rehearsal space.
"And if Hyacinth keeps flinging himself all over the stage like that, I'm going to scream!" Anahita proclaimed.
"I don't think she's got more than one tone to play Titania with," muttered Quinn to Hal. "If she's going to go on like that for the whole trip shut up in this boat, then I'm going to scream."
Hal pulled a hand through his hair, tousling it, and heaved a great sigh. "What an awful day. I feel further from this scene than I ever did."
Gwyn stared at the plain wooden floor, and by the way his right hand turned up and then down, Diana could see that he was still thinking about the scene they had just rehearsed, a scene from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Phillippe was massaging Hyacinth's shoulders and Hyacinth was, of course, smirking. Owen and Yomi had lapsed into a cabal, heads together over the table that was the only furniture in the space. Ginny sat in a chair, keying furiously into a notepad.
"Di?" called Hal. "Do you want to go to dinner?"
Then the door closed behind her, and she was mercifully free of them. What a bad day it had been. The tempo ran slow and they kept clumping together in the ensemble scene. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic. That was one thing she liked about Chapalii ships: they built their passageways wide, even if they were a strikingly ugly shade of orange and heated right to the level of sticky hot. She waited outside the door while a pack of human university students swarmed by her, chattering and giggling, ignoring her except for one red-haired young woman who threw her a startled and surprisingly vindictive glance; then a trio of alien nar skittered by, flicking their secondary dwarf wings at her in polite acknowledgment. She answered with a brief bow and set off in the opposite direction, toward the dining hall.
It still surprised Diana that Charles Soerensen ate his meals in the regular dining hall, along with all the other passengers. All the non-Chapallii passengers, of course; the Chapallii themselves remained in segregated quarters. He had somewhere developed the ability to sit at a different table every meal while making it seem as if he was as much graced by his tablemates' presence as they were by his. Marco Burckhardt sat on his right. Marco looked up, saw her, and smiled.
Don't do it, she told herself fiercely as she picked up her meal. Twenty steps later she stopped beside Marco's chair.
At least he didn't stand up. "Golden fair, please, sit down.'' Marco had the ability to look at you as if you were the only object in the world of interest to him.
She sat down. Her heart pounded in an annoying yet gratifying way.
"You've met Charles, of course," said Marco. "This is David ben Unbutu, and this is Suzanne Elia Arevalo."
Soerensen greeted her with polite interest, David with evident good nature, and Suzanne with a pitying glance. Then Soerensen, Suzanne, and the two mining engineers they sat with fell back into a heated discussion about the ratio of volume to cost in the transport of metals in the Dao Cee system from the asteroid belt to the processing plants orbiting the planet Odys.
"How is rehearsal?" Marco asked.
"Slow. A little frustrating today. Owen says you've actually met the nomadic people we're going to be traveling with, once we've left Jeds. What are they like?"