“Yes, fine,” he answered, a little too abruptly.
“BZ—” His oldest brother, HK, reached him first. HK had regained all the considerable weight World’s End had stripped off of him. He wore the proper family uniform; it was loosely tailored and carefully draped to make the least of his soft, fleshy body. “Gods, it’s like a miracle—to have thee back home, and the family reunited. I can’t tell thee how proud it makes me feel to share tonight with thee—” He went on babbling inanities as he pressed Gundhalinu’s automatically raised palm—held up as much in a warding gesture as in greeting—with too much force. Gundhalinu watched his brother’s glance touch his wrist, checking surreptitiously for the scars that had once been there, the brand of his dishonor. But the scars were gone—along with any illusions he had had about the relative worthiness of his brothers’ lives, and his own.
SB, their middle brother, drew up behind HK like a shadow, regarding Gundhalinu with a measured silence that was the antithesis of his brother’s diarrhea of well-wishes.
“SB …” Gundhalinu said, with a curt nod, not even offering his hand this time.
“How are thou, little brother?” SB murmured, his voice toneless, his eyes alive with envy.
“Fully recovered, thank you,” Gundhalinu said, meeting the bitterly cold stare with his own. The mark his brothers’ treachery had left on him, after he had brought them alive out of World’s End, had been far more difficult to erase than the damage he had done to himself.
“So I see,” SB murmured. “How nice for thee. Wearing the family crest tonight, are thou? That’s a little premature.”
Gundhalinu turned away from the insinuation, from SB’s eyes, as HK’s obsequious chatter finally, mercifully ceased. “It’s good … to be back,” he said, struggling with even those empty words; not having become a skillful enough liar yet to attempt something more personal. He made perfunctory introductions between his brothers and the Pernattes, because not to do so would not only have been socially awkward, but inexplicable. The Pernattes were already looking uncomfortable; Vhanu looked as if he were watching for hidden weapons.
“And is this the first time you’ve seen each other since you left Kharemough—?” Jarsakh asked, in mild astonishment. “Haven’t you even paid a visit to your family shrine, to venerate your ancestors?”
He looked down. “I am afraid I have been remiss, CMP,” he said quietly. “I haven’t even been planetside before today, since my return. The urgency of our concerns upstairs claimed every moment from me until now. It has been … a profound oversight, as you so rightly observe.” Realizing as he said it how shamefully true it was—realizing the painful, overwhelming array of reasons why he had not even let the possibility of a visit enter his mind until now. Not the least of them was the fact that his brothers controlled the family estates, where the remains of all their ancestors, including the father who had died during his absence, lay. “I shall rectify it as soon as humanly possible.” He bent his head in acknowledgment.
“CMP—” Pernatte chided.
Gundhalinu raised his head again; saw her smile with something which for once looked like rue, or honest sympathy. “Please,” she said, “let me apologize, not you. It was not my place to criticize you, when your unselfish service to our people has all but robbed you of a life.”
“Come on, BZ, the entertainment’s going to start without us if we don’t pay a mind to it,” Pernatte said, “and by my sainted ancestors, we paid enough for it that I don’t want to miss a minute. Bring your brothers. I’m sure you must have a lot of catching up to do.”
Gundhalinu nodded, helpless to do otherwise; knowing without looking behind him that his brothers would not leave him alone. He was guided to his reserved spot among the guests who were standing patiently, or perched on an astonishing assortment of cushioned antique leaning-posts arranged over the wide expanse of patterned stone.
In their midst was an open space, on which sat an unremarkable chest that appeared to have been hand-fashioned. Overhead the pollution aurora was a symphony of color rippling across the perfectly clear autumn sky. He thought fleetingly of other skies—a sky hung with colored lights, in the something-like-a dream of his initiation into the inner reality of Survey; the emberglow of a Tiamatan sky. The air was crisp and pleasant, the anticipation around him was almost tangible, and the scent of night-blooming aphesium filled his head with pungent nostalgia.
The nostalgia pushed unpleasantly into realtime as his brothers settled onto the ornate bench beside him. A servo deferentially offered him a finely filigreed headset —a work of art in itself, he thought—along with brief droning instructions for its use.
“The artist is a biochemical sculptor—perhaps the most highly acclaimed one in her field,” Jarsakh said, as if she had also prepared a lecture. “Her works are interactive, rather than preprogrammed, which accounts for her remarkable popularity, I’m told. She calls them mood pieces; supposedly they mirror the emotions of the user so that they are always appropriate to the occasion, and satisfying to experience.”
“It must be extraordinarily difficult to create the kind of programming something like that would require,” Gundhalinu said.
“Yes, I’m told that it is. The sculptor has several degrees in the advanced sciences, even though she is merely an artist,” Jarsakh said. “We support the arts whenever we can; I have always believed that one cannot be well-rounded without an interest in the nontechnical areas… but we try to support only artists who show a particularly strong design sense, or an imaginative use of technology.”
“You seem to have a taste for antiquities, as well,” Gundhalinu remarked, remembering the art he had seen displayed inside.
“Well, yes, traditional static art is of interest mostly for its sense of historical perspective, don’t you think?” Jarsakh shrugged. He wondered suddenly whether she had ever taken more than a superficial look at anything in the house. Any sense of real history in this place had been buried long ago.
“Is the artist who designed tonight’s work here? What’s her name—?” He wondered whether it was anyone he had heard of before he left. He saw Vhanu murmur something to Pernatte, behind her.
“She wasn’t able to attend,” Pernatte said, interrupting and ending the conversation all at once, in a way that left Gundhalinu wondering.
“Her name is Netanyahr,” SB said suddenly, sourly. “I recognize her work. She’s the one we lost the estates to, until thou took them back, BZ. No wonder they don’t want her here in person.”
Gundhalinu turned where he sat, feeling anger and humiliation burn his face like a slap.
“SB,” HK muttered, “hush up, will thou? He’ll never—”
SB snorted, shrugging HK’s warning hand off his shoulder. “Why should I? If they had the bad taste to hire her to display a work here, why shouldn’t 1 have the bad taste to mention it? We’re all friends here—” He met Gundhalinu’s withering stare with a look of empty mockery. “True, little brother?”
“If you will excuse us, BZ—” Pernatte said, visibly chagrined. “We must join CMP’s honorable relatives over there for a time, or they will be unforgivably insulted. And I’m sure you have much to talk about with your brothers. … But when everyone is settled, please, be the first to use the headset, and begin the entertainment for us.”
Gundhalinu looked down at the circlet of filigreed silver in his hands, feeling his brothers’ eyes on him. “Delighted. Thank you so much,” he murmured, with an inane smile. He watched the Pernattes move away through the gathering crowd, discreetly taking Vhanu with them; saw Pernatte say something to his wife and gesture at the waiting piece of art. He wondered how in the name of a thousand ancestors they had come to choose the work of someone so intimately associated with the humiliation of his own family name. He was sure it had not been intentional. But if they hadn’t known of his family troubles before, they certainly knew now. If SB had only kept his goddamned mouth shut—