The Summer Queen (60 page)

Vhanu nodded, looking both surprised and resigned. “Yes,
Commander.”

“I’ll make arrangements with your aide.” Aspundh bowed graciously,
as if he sensed the growing restlessness of his hosts. “I know everyone here is
eager to make your acquaintance.”

Gundhalinu damped his curiosity and let himself be led on
through the crowd, from one introduction to another, gradually progressing from
one room to another. He realized with a kind of surprise that he was actually
beginning to enjoy himself; because for once the people he was being forced to
meet were his own people—people who spoke his language, not simply figuratively
but literally—who looked like him, acted like him, responded predictably to his
jokes and stories. More than predictably—enthusiastically. Old and new
acquaintances, the best and brightest of the people he had admired for a
lifetime, were all around him now, proclaiming their admiration for him. And
after all, it was not as if he had done nothing to deserve it; he had. He could
let himself acknowledge that now, let himself begin to believe that he truly
had expunged his dishonor in his people’s eyes.

Vhanu rejoined them after a time, relieving Gundhalinu of having
to remember the names and credentials that went with every face he saw, and
making him remember again his odd brief encounter with KR Aspundh. He checked
his calendar unobtrusively and found the requested dinner date there. He ate
another pastry, listening to the silent reminder in his brain that said nothing
was what it seemed.

But the cool, fluid strains of music moved with him like a
sense of ease from room to room. The music was always changing, because there
was a different group of musicians, with different instruments, in each new
hall—and yet it was always the music he remembered from his youth, the
classical refrains with their hidden mathematical secrets of structure and
counterpoint that he had studied in school. Music was a form of mathematics
made tangible, and so it was everywhere in the world of the Technician class, reminding
them always, gracefully, of their place. The food and drinks circulating
through the crowd were a movable feast, all his favorite delicacies of boyhood,
beautifully prepared, exquisite to look at, tasting even better to his
heightened senses than he remembered.

The Pernatte manor house had been decorated with the same
relentless sophistication as the Pernattes themselves, furnished in what he
assumed was the most modern fashion, since he did not see any furniture that
seemed to be in a style he remembered. There were vast islands of low modular
couches in intense but subtle combinations of colors, and flat, slab-like tables
that probably contained hidden functions he couldn’t imagine. The polished
stone walls were empty of any decoration unless it appeared to be functional;
the works of art scattered on stone pedestals among the bright settee islands
were all historical—archaeological treasures, remnants of the Old Empire’s
glory. The effect in the vast space of the rooms was striking but austere,
almost monolithic, even when the space was cluttered with bodies, as it was
now. From time to time he became aware that his eyes were searching for the
mystery woman, but he did not see her. He hoped that he would find her before
the evening was through, enjoying the prospect of the encounter with guilty
pleasure.

“Ah—” Jarsakh said, beside him, as a gleaming servo murmured
a few inaudible words in her ear. “I believe our entertainment for the evening
is about to begin. We’ve reserved the best viewing spot for you. I hope you
enjoy art.” She took his arm.

“Very much,” he said. “And frankly I haven’t had much of an
opportunity to view it, in recent years.”

“You’ll have an opportunity to do more than that, tonight.
You’ll have a chance to interact with it—”

He smiled, intrigued, as she led him outside through the sighing
breath of a door onto a patio open to the sky.

“BZ—!”

His smile faded abruptly. He turned, peering across the
shifting dance of the crowd. He almost swore, remembered himself in time,
swallowing the bitter words like vomit. “Excuse me, CMP,” he said to Jarsakh,
and left her side. “Vhanu,” he murmured, keeping his voice down with an effort.
“What are they doing here?”

“Who, Commander?” Vhanu tried to follow his gaze.

“My brothers.” Gundhalinu felt every muscle in his body
tense as if he were about to be attacked, as he watched his brothers make their
way inevitably toward him.

Vhanu registered his answer, looked back at him uncomprehendingly.
“Your family, sir? Didn’t you want them here?”

“No,” he said gently, “I did not want them here. I do not
want them here. They—” They tried to murder me. “We do not get along.”

“I’m sorry, Commander.” Vhanu shook his head, his expression
caught between embarrassment and curiosity. “But they are your only close
relatives, I believe—? Your eldest brother is the Gundhalinu head-of-family. We
could hardly have excluded them, if you wanted this occasion to be—”

Gundhalinu waved him silent as Jarsakh rejoined them, with
her husband at her side. “Is everything all right, BZ?”

“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—

“How long are thou going to be down here, BZ?” HK ventured,
beside him.

“No longer than I have to be,” Gundhalinu snapped, not looking
at them, struck by the irony that the only people he was required to address
with the personal thou were the ones he felt least close to.

“Thou are welcome at the estates,” HK went on, with awkward
insufferabihty. “That is, if thou want to visit father’s ashes, and make an
offering. Thou are even welcome to stay, if—”

“I have a place to stay.” He forced the words out, still
looking away, amazed at the blackness inside him, the welling up of bitterness
and bad feeling that came with the rush of memories he had tried to suppress.
Their rigid, tradition-bound father had tried, before his death, to get him to
displace his brothers in the line of inheritance. But the youth he had been
then had been unable to violate tradition so profoundly, when his own father
had lacked the will to do it .... And so his brothers had ruined the family’s
fortunes, just as his father had feared—weak, self-indulgent HK led willingly
into disaster by SB, who should have made a life for himself decades ago, if he
had had any shred of self-respect or character.