While he was growing up his family had been well-off financially, the bearers of a family line whose ancestry was unimpeachable and whose contributions to technological progress stretched back through Kharemough’s history for countless generations. But the Pernattes were rich; so rich that they had been able to afford the water of life. Their bodies wore the unmistakable proof of it as unselfconsciously as they wore their clothes—Pernatte was at least as old as Gundhalinu’s father, who had married late and been an old man when Gundhalinu was born; but he looked scarcely older than Gundhalinu himself. Pernatte’s wife looked younger; her skin, a glowing mahogany color dusted with pale freckles, was almost completely unlined.
“…and my wife says that you are progressing very well with the new technology,” Pernatte said.
“Yes.” Gundhalinu glanced at Jarsakh; she smiled a professional smile at him this time, meaningless and full of steel. They had collided often enough over his impatience with errors and delays in production. “There have been some setbacks in getting our new equipment up to specs, but there is no question that we will have our feet, and the base for equipping all the Hegemony’s ships with stardrive units within the decade.”
“The sooner the better, eh?” Pernatte said. “We must maintain our rightful place as leaders of the Hegemony—and we will, thanks to all you’ve done. As well as establishing permanent ties with our ‘lost colony,’ Tiamat. We’re not getting any younger, you know.” He laughed, with the casual thoughtlessness of someone who assumed the listener would both get and sympathize with his jest.
“You served on Tiamat in the Hegemonic Police, didn’t you?” Jarsakh asked.
Gundhalinu nodded, with a meaningless smile of his own. “Until the final departure.”
“That must have been a sight. Did you see the sacrifice of the Snow Queen?”
“No.” He glanced down. “I was in the hospital with an illness, at the time.”
“Dreadful, backward place—you’re lucky you didn’t die.” She shook her head. “That would have been a terrible tragedy for all of us.”
Gundhalinu made no comment.
“Young Vhanu here tells me you’ve expressed an interest in entering politics, once the starship technology is fully established,” Pernatte said.
“Yes, in fact I have been considering that.” Gundhalinu glanced at Vhanu, letting his pleasant surprise show, and Vhanu smiled, looking down. “My family has never been active in politics, however. I’m afraid I have a lot of process to learn. …”
Pematte’s smile widened, as Gundhalinu had been hoping it would. “It would give me great pleasure to serve as your mentor. As you know, I have more than passing knowledge of the occupation.”
Thank you, gods! Gundhalinu bowed once more, to hide the unseemly rush of elation rising inside him. “I would be most grateful, Pernattesadhu.”
“Then you must allow CMP and myself to guide you to some of our more influential acquaintances tonight. It would be a shame to waste such an occasion on gossip and hero worship. Have you given thought to what sort of service you would be interested in? Something in the world government, perhaps, or the Hegemonic Coordinating Council. Even an Assembly seat would not be out of the question for a man of your reputation and family, if there was an opening… .”He touched Gundhalinu’s arm, guiding him with the motion.
Gundhalinu gave a faintly incredulous laugh and shook his head. “My aspirations are more down to earth. Actually I had thought of something in the judicial branch or the foreign service … in fact, perhaps the Chief Justiceship of Tiamat, when it’s reopened to contact.”
Jarsakh’s luminously calculating eyes widened with a surprise that looked genuine. “Father of all my grandfathers! You actually want to return to that backward, unfortunate world? But you said you almost died there—”
He remembered saying nothing of the kind, although actually it was true enough. “Perhaps that’s why I want to go back, bhai. … To oversee its development into a modern society, one which can be a full, contributing partner in the Hegemony, seems to me to be a worthy career, and one that ought to take a lifetime—” He smiled carefully, not sure himself what the words meant.
“Modernize those barbarians?” Pernatte shook his head. “A selfless goal, but I daresay it’s a hopeless task, trying to uplift a people who practice cannibalism—”
“Human sacrifice, best beloved,” Jarsakh interrupted gently, “not cannibalism.”
“Whatever,” he murmured, annoyed. “Better simply to find more permanent ways to control them, I should think. After all, the damn world is all but uninhabitable anyway, by anything but savages. All they have that’s worth the trade is the water of life.”
“But of course that’s worth the ransom of worlds,” Jarsakh said dryly.
Gundhalinu bit his tongue. Vhanu was still at his side, gazing at the Pernattes as if he were hearing the voices of his ancestors—which he was, in a way, Gundhalinu supposed. “All the more reason to have someone in charge who can monitor the safety of the supply,” he said, choosing his words with the painstaking care of someone picking up shards of glass. To see the path of Light clearly, they said on Four, you must walk in the shadows. “I’m very interested in undertaking a thorough study of the water of life. I have a theory that it may function by the same technoviral mechanism as the stardrive plasma. And now that we are learning how to deal with that—”
“You mean you might find a way to reproduce it?” Jarsakh said, meeting his gaze almost hungrily. “An unlimited supply—?”
He glanced down. “That would be my hope… . It’s certainly within the realm of possibility.” He had no idea whether it was possible or not. But if it would save Tiamat, he would try … he would lie, he would—
“Forgive me—” a voice interrupted, in a tone that was deferential but not to be denied. “I couldn’t help overhearing your discussion of Tiamat, Commander Gundhalinu.”
Gundhalinu turned, found himself looking down into the face of a frail-looking old man in a sedate ceremonial uniform. “KR Aspundh,” the man said, offering his hand.
Gundhalinu met Aspundh’s dry palm briefly with his own; felt a shock of recognition that was almost subliminal. He had known the Aspundhs slightly, years ago—he would not have recognized KR without an introduction, after so long. But there was something else: an odd bright bit of random memory, in which a native girl named Moon told a Kharemoughi Police inspector named Gundhalinu tales of her visit to his homeworld, “…and we visited KR Aspundh, and we drank lith, and ate sugared fruits…” The vision almost kept him from noticing the brief, hidden fingersign that told him suddenly why Aspundh had had the temerity to interrupt this conversation. Aspundh was Survey. Gundhalinu’s eyes registered the sibyl trefoil the other man wore, the only visible symbol of status besides an unobtrusive family crest. “Yes,” Gundhalinu answered. “I served there for several years.”
“He wants to go back there, if you can imagine, KR,” Jarsakh said, apparently not offended by the interruption. KR Aspundh was a first-generation Technician; his lineage was irrevocably Nontech … but his father had been posthumously raised up, due to the creative innovations in long-distance EM sensing apparatus that had come out of his independent work with production methods. He had not gotten the credit he had deserved in his lifetime, but his children had benefited from it.
KR Aspundh was respected by Techs of old lineage because of the sibyl sign he wore, but also because it had been their decision that he was deserving of respect—unlike nouveau riche upstarts who bought their way into respectability by purchasing the estates and ancestors of deserving highborns who had fallen on hard times. KR Aspundh, as far as Gundhalinu knew, was a staunch supporter of the status quo that had put him where he was. And yet, his interest in Tiamat could hardly be casual curiosity… . “Have you ever known anyone who would willingly give up Kharemough for a lifetime on Tiamat—?” Jarsakh asked, bemused.