A murmur went through the gathered men and women of the Assembly, and he saw someone push forward for a better look—Sirus himself, if he recalled the half-remembered face correctly. The man looked no older than Sparks Dawntreader did now; but he smiled, with pride and feeling, as his eyes found his son. Gundhalinu felt Dawntreader look back at him in brief surprise, before turning to face his father.
The Prime Minister was being guided on into the room with gentle insistence, chaperoned by a handful of advisors and protectors. Gundhalinu felt his neck muscles loosen with relief as other members of the Assembly and their companions came forward to greet him and his staff, by turns blandly congenial, or unthinkingly arrogant, or seeming vaguely disoriented, as the Prime Minister had. They spent the majority of their time in their own hermetically sealed floating world, except when they left their ships to attend functions like these—an endless succession of sparkling soirees and elegant dinners among the ever-changing elite of world after world. Generally they only elected new members when someone died. He supposed it was surprising that their behaviors did not seem even stranger.
He accepted a drink from the assortment of mild drugs offered by a passing servo, as its highly burnished form wove an expert course through the flesh-and blood bodies of the gathered guests. He swallowed down half the drink at once, disgusted at himself for needing it, for letting his memories get on his nerves so much. He had encountered the Assembly only once before, in that brief, bitter meeting at the port hospital. That meeting had been thirteen years ago for him, but these people had scarcely aged, and it seemed to him that some of their faces were familiar, too like the ones burned indelibly into his brain.
What was it, he wondered, that gave humiliation such a terrible power over the human soul, making the painful memories of half a lifetime ago more vivid than his memories of last week, let alone of all the good and worthwhile things he had accomplished in the years between? When he had returned to Kharemough with the stardrive, no one had dared mention his disgrace. Years had passed without a single disapproving stare or a cutting remark about his past. His suicide attempt had even begun to seem like ancient history to him.
But for these people, the memory of their last encounter with him was only a few months old. He had been barely twenty-five then, and looking half-dead besides; but even so he found himself praying to the shades of his ancestors that no one would remember, or make the association …
“Justice Gundhalinu,” a voice said, too loudly, from just behind his left ear. “A great pleasure to meet you, sadhu—someone who has come to be a living symbol of what makes Kharemough great, of why we still rule the Hegemony, after so long.”
Gundhalinu turned, backing up a step from the other man’s uncomfortable proximity, and the overpowering scent of cologne. His stomach turned at the odor, one he had never forgotten.
“IP Quarropas,” the man said, “Speaker of the Assembly.”
“Honored,” Gundhalinu murmured automatically, meeting the Speaker’s palm as he looked down into the other man’s fleshy, smiling face. The Speaker had obviously been a handsome man in his youth, but his life of ease and privilege had not worn well on him.
“I feel we’ve met this way before—” A strange expression came over the Speaker’s face as their hands touched. “Have we?”
“No, I don’t think so.…”
“But I remember your name, from before—” Quarropas wagged his finger, and Gundhalinu watched the answer struggling inexorably toward the surface of his mind.
Gundhalinu kept his expression neutral with an effort, as memory doubled his own vision. “Yes, Quarropas-sadhu,” he said quietly, “we have met. On your last visit to Tiamat. I was a Police inspector then.” And Quarropas had refused to touch his hand in greeting, because he had crippled it, in his attempt to slash his wrist.
“Inspector Gundhalinu,” Quarropas murmured. “Sainted ancestors! Are you that one—the one from the wilderness? How is it possible? I’d thought that you would have done the honorable thing years ago, after so debasing your family and your class that night—” Several people near him turned around to stare, in open disbelief or scandalized curiosity. Gundhalinu heard someone whisper, “I said so . …”
Gundhalinu said nothing for a long moment, seeing Vhanu among the onlookers who were suddenly bearing witness to this confrontation. “The ‘honorable thing’?” he repeated, finally, his voice perfectly even. “By that do you mean that I should be dead now?”
“You were a failed suicide,” Quarropas said. The term also meant coward. “And with a filthy native girl for a mistress besides—”
“Do you mean Moon Dawntreader?” Gundhalinu asked, damming the flood of words. “Then you are referring to the Summer Queen—” He nodded toward Moon, who stood motionless in the crowd near them, with her expression caught somewhere between anger and pain. Sparks was with her, and there was only bleak disgust on his face. “In that case,” Gundhalinu continued, with deadly calm, “you are mistaken. She was, and is, married, to First Secretary Sirus’s son. Their children are here among the guests tonight. She helped me in a time of need; I did as much for her, a long time ago. That was all. There is nothing more to be said about the matter ” He took a deep breath. “Except that I came to realize that to throw away my life was the real act of cowardice. The truly honorable choice was to go on living, and by my actions earn the right to forget the past.”
“Well said, Gundhalinu-ken.” Sirus, the First Secretary, was standing now behind Sparks Dawntreader. His dark, shrewd eyes met Gundhalinu’s. “And well done, too. I daresay, Quarropas,” he murmured, lowering his voice as he moved forward to stand between the Speaker and Gundhalinu, “I would sooner commit suicide myself than speak such words to this man here. We both committed an unworthy act during our last visit, to have questioned his honor even once, under circumstances we could not fully understand. To insult the honorable Gundhalinu-eshkrad twice is unforgivable.” Quarropas bristled, glaring at Sirus with the shoe of attention suddenly on his own foot, and pinching.
“If it were not for the Chief Justice,” Sirus went on, “I would not have the great pleasure of seeing my son again tonight, or meeting his family. His wife would not be Queen of this world … we would not be here at all, with a new future before us, and the water of life back in our hands, if he had not given us the stardrive. I salute you, sadhu.” He looked toward Gundhalinu, and raised his enameled goblet. The crowd began to murmur again around him; but this time there was nothing hostile or mocking in the sound. Gundhalinu saw other glasses raised, and palms held up in solemn acknowledgment to him.
Gundhalinu nodded, letting Sirus read the gratitude in his eyes. Sirus smiled and turned away, and time began to flow again.
“By the Boatman, you skewered that kortch neatly.” Jerusha PalaThion was suddenly standing beside him. She touched his arm, and he saw their shared past mirrored in her eyes.
His mouth pinched. “I’ve had enough years, lying awake nights, to think about what I would say this time….” He shook his head, and smiled faintly. “Maybe I’m really not a coward.” He looked back at her. “How are you doing?”
She shrugged. “I’ll live. I’ve had worse receptions. But I think I need more fortification.” She moved away, following the track of a servo.
Gundhalinu sipped his own drink, searching the crowd until he spotted Vhanu. Vhanu met his gaze briefly, then glanced away, his eyes filled with uncertainty.
Gundhalinu started forward, wanting to speak to him. But the Prime Minister was suddenly in front of him, between them, smiling at him with benign dignity. “A toast to Chief Justice Gundhalinu? Nothing could be more appropriate, or give me more pleasure. Few people in our history have deserved our tribute more, for their contributions to the prominence of Kharemough and the prosperity of the Hegemony.