“How did you get there and get back again?” he asked. “No one has been able to leave your world for years—and before that, I believe any Tiamatan who did leave was proscribed from returning. Isn’t that right—?”
“I’m afraid I broke the law,” she said simply. “But that was long ago … what I did is no longer illegal, under the terms of our new relationship with the Hegemony. And I am most grateful to you for your wisdom in changing the old, oppressive system. It was an unjust law … there were many of them in those days. Isn’t that true, Justice?” She looked suddenly at Gundhalinu, as if she had felt his eyes on her.
He smiled, his own smile as guarded as the one he saw on her face now. “True justice is what we hope to establish in our relations with your people this time, Lady,” he said softly. He glanced at Vhanu’s face, seeing barely controlled annoyance, and at Sparks Dawntreader. Dawntreader looked at him with a cold speculation that was not the expression he had been expecting to see; one that triggered an unpleasant reaction in his gut.
Dawntreader looked away again, staring out at the landing grids, at the recently arrived ships of the Assembly in the docking bay beyond the windows, with a kind of fierce hunger. Gundhalinu wondered whether he was really wishing that he could fly away, disappear, leave this world and all its sorrows. Or maybe he was only wishing the Hegemony would disappear, instead….
He heard a sudden stirring in the crowd across the room: The Prime Minister and the Assembly members were making their entrance at last. For half a second, he knew exactly the emotion Dawntreader had been feeling.
“Well, the Living Museum of Ancient History has arrived,” Jerusha PalaThion said dryly, and quite clearly.
“PalaThion!” Vhanu snapped, his indignation not simply for appearance’s sake. But Gundhalinu felt his own sudden paralysis disappear. A faint trace of smile pulled up the corners of his mouth as he looked at his Chief Inspector. He gave her an imperceptible nod; a thank-you. Moon smiled openly, behind Vhanu’s back. Sparks turned away from the windows, all his attention suddenly on the doorway. Gundhalinu remembered that Dawntreader was the son of one of the Assembly members, fathered during the same Mask Night when Arienrhod had had herself cloned.
Gundhalinu started forward, a signal to the people around him to follow, knowing that the Assembly members would expect that courtesy as their due. Even though they had functioned as nothing but figureheads through virtually all of Hegemonic history—and had just become even more of an anachronism, as the stardrive transformed the nature of the Eight Worlds’ real power structure—still they remained the living symbol of the Hegemony’s influence. He understood Vhanu’s reflexive anger at Jerusha’s casual remark, even though he had long ago ceased to feel the kind of pride and reverence that the sight of Assembly had once inspired m him.
Because the Assembly members were little more than actors living a perpetual role, their arrival anywhere was generally an excuse for holidays and celebration, for remembering what was good about Kharemough’s dominance as first among equals in the Hegemony.… He hoped suddenly, with all his heart, that it would be that way tonight.
The crowd of expectant offworlders and influential Tiamatans parted as though some word of magic had been spoken, opening a path between him and the waiting Assembly members. They were resplendent in gem-brocaded, perfectly tailored uniforms, crusted with the honors and decorations awarded to them during their endless cycle of returns to the Eight Worlds.
Gundhalinu glanced down at his own clothing, seeing the austere black uniform of a Chief Justice. Tonight its uncompromising plainness was crossed by a band of silver, on which his family crest and his own honors and decorations were displayed. He had felt disagreeably ostentatious when he put it on; but suddenly he was glad he had, as if he had remembered to put on body armor before confronting a mob of rioters.
He stopped before the Prime Minister, flanked by Vhanu and Tilhonne, with the other officials of his government gathered behind them. He made his bow as they were introduced, one by one, by the Prime Minister’s protocol officer.
Prime Minister Ashwini touched Gundhalinu’s upraised hand briefly, with a look of benign distraction, and murmured a polite pleasantry which Gundhalinu immediately forgot. The Prime Minister appeared to be in his mid-sixties, but his body was still youthful-looking; he was distinguished and obviously Technician in his bearing. He was only the fourth Prime Minister since the Hegemony’s formation, and Gundhalinu had no idea how long ago, in the realtime history of his homeworld, Ashwini must have been born. He had probably known it once, in school, but he had long since forgotten. Given the access the Prime Minister had to the best available rejuvenating treatments, and frequent use of the water of life, he was certainly much older in actual years than he looked to be. And because he, and the rest of the Assembly, had spent most of their time in sublight travel between Gates and worlds, their memories carried back even further, a patchwork of random moments of history—most of them probably too much like this one.
“Honored, sadhu,” Gundhalinu murmured, speaking Sandhi, as everyone else was now. He stepped aside to give the Prime Minister and the Assembly a clear view of the others who waited behind him. “May I present to you the Summer Queen—”
“Arienrhod!” the Prime Minister said, his face filling with surprise. “I say… .” He touched his nose briefly with his hand, glancing at Gundhalinu again. “Isn’t she supposed to be dead? Didn’t we see them drown her, a few months ago—?” He broke off, before Gundhalinu could make an answer; his eyes glazed over as if he were listening to someone speaking inside his own head, Gundhalinu realized that Ashwini was getting a datafeed from somewhere, possibly from his protocol officer, or else some file of stored information tuned to his own speech. “Oh,” Ashwini said, after a brief moment that had begun to seem interminable; and then, “Of course. This is the Summer Queen. My apologies. Honored, Lady, to be sure.” He stepped forward, holding out his hand like a local. Moon bowed, with equal dignity, and shook it solemnly. “Is this something new, then?” he said to her. “Do you have yourselves altered to match your predecessors, now?”
Gundhalinu saw Moon flush, and winced inwardly. “No,” she said, without using titles, as one equal to another. She spoke Sandhi that was slightly stilted buf perfectly clear. “We do not.”
“Oh,” he said, and the look of consternation filled his face again. “But what are you doing here at all? Your people weren’t even permitted in the starport, the last time I was here.”
“Things have changed, sadhu,” Gundhalinu said, with gentle urgency. “If you recall. Because of the stardrive. Our relationship with Tiamat included.”
Ashwini half frowned, and seemed to listen to his inner voice. “Of course they have,” he said, blinking. “Well, of course, that makes perfect sense.” He nodded to Moon again, as if they had just been introduced, before looking back at Gundhalinu. “And you are the man we have to thank for it all, are you not, Justice?” he said, with a smile that actually seemed genuine and full of appreciation. “You must tell me the whole story of it, in your own words, at dinner—”
“It would be my pleasure, sadhu.” Gundhalinu returned the smile, briefly, before the Prime Minister’s attention wandered. Gundhalinu exchanged glances with Vhanu as Ashwini looked away; seeing his own disconcertion reflected in Vhanu’s eyes. Gods, the man is a shufflebrain, a walking cipher. But he went on making introductions, as if nothing had happened, presenting Sparks Dawntreader, “…the Queen’s consort, the son of First Secretary Sirus …”