He smiled, sinking back with satisfaction.
"That was the source of all their power," he said. "Their ability to create art and science, to field soldiers, to keep the population whole in times of drought and flood. The excess wealth of the agricultural revolution. But a huge pile of grain is a very tempting target."
"For rats," Oxham said.
"Armies of them, breeding unstoppably, as any parasite will when a vast supply of food presents itself. Almost a biological law, a Law of Parasites: accumulated biomass attracts vermin. The deserts of Egypt swarmed with rats, an inexorable drain on the resources of the proto-city, a dam in the rushing stream of civilization."
"But a huge population of rats is also a tempting target, sire," Oxham said. "For the right predator."
"You are a very astute woman, Senator Nara Oxham."
Realizing that she had charmed him, Oxham continued his narrative. "And thus, from out of the desert a little-known beast emerged, sire. A small, solitary hunter that had previously avoided humanity. And it took up residence in the temples, where it hunted rats with great efficiency, preserving the precious excess grain."
The Emperor nodded happily, and took up the tale. "And the priests dutifully worshiped this animal, which seemed strangely acclimated to temple life, as if its rightful place had always been among the gods."
Oxham smiled. It was a pleasant enough story. Possibly containing some truth, or perhaps a strange outgrowth of a man's guilt, who had tortured so many of the creatures to death sixteen centuries ago.
"Have you seen the statues, Senator?"
"Statues, m'lord?"
A subvocalized command trembled upon the sovereign's jaw, and the faceted sky grew dark. The air chilled, and forms appeared around them. Of course, Oxham thought, the high canopy of diamond was not only for decoration; it housed a dense lattice of synesthesia projectors. The garden was, in fact, one vast airscreen.
Senator and Emperor were in a great stone space now. A few shafts of sunlight illuminated a suspension of particulate matter: dust from the rolling hills of grain that surrounded them. In this dim ambience the statues, which were carved from some smooth, jet stone, glistened, their skins as reflective as black oil. They sat upright in housecat fashion, forepaws tucked neatly together and tails curled. Their angular faces were utterly serene, their posture informed by the geometries of some simple, primordial mathematics. They were clearly gods; early and basic totems of protection.
"These were the saviors of civilization," he said. "You can see it in their eyes."
To Senator Oxham, the eyes seemed blank, featureless black orbs into which one could write one's own madness.
The Emperor raised a finger, another signal.
Some of the motes of grainy dust grew, gaining substance and structure, flickering alight now with their own fire. They began to move, swirling into a shape that was somehow familiar to Oxham. The constellation of bright flairs formed a great wheel, slowly rotating around senator and sovereign. After a moment, Oxham recognized the shape. She had seen it all her life, on airscreen displays, in jeweled pendants, and in two-dimensional representations from the senatorial flag to the Imperial coat of arms. But she had never been
inside
the shape before—or rather, she had always been inside it: these were the thirty-four stars of the Eighty Worlds.
"This is our new excess grain, Senator. The material wealth and population of almost fifty solar systems, the technologies to bend these resources to our will, and infinitely long lives, time enough to discover the new philosophies that will be humanity's next astronomy, mathematics, and written language. But again this bounty is threatened from without."
Nara Oxham regarded the Emperor in the darkness. Suddenly, his obsessions did not seem so harmless.
"The Rix, Your Majesty?"
"These Rix, these vermin-worshiping Rix," he hissed. "Compelled by an insane religion to infect all humanity with their compound minds. It's the Law of the Parasite again: our wealth, our vast reserves of energy and information summon forth a host of vermin from out of the desert, who seek to drain our civilization before it can reach its true promise."
Even through the dulling effects of the apathy bracelet, Oxham felt the passion in the Emperor, the waves of paranoia that wracked his powerful mind. Despite herself, she'd been caught off-guard, so circuitously had he arrived at his point.
"Sire," Oxham said carefully, wondering how far the privilege of her office would really protect her in the face of the man's mania. "I was not aware that the compound mind phenomenon was so destructive. Host worlds don't suffer materially. In fact, some report greater efficiency in communications flow, easier maintainence of water systems, smoother air traffic."
The Emperor shook his head.
"But what is lost? The random collisions of data that inform a compound mind are
human culture itself.
That chaos isn't some peripheral by-product, it is the essence of humanity. We can't know what evolutionary shifts will never take place if we become mere vessels for this mutant software the Rix dare to call a mind."
Oxham almost pointed out the obvious, that the Emperor was voicing the same arguments against the Rix that the Secularists made against his own immortal rule: Living gods were never beneficial for human society. But she controlled herself. Even through apathy she could taste the man's conviction, the strange fixity of his thinking, and knew it was pointless to bring this subtle point to his attention now. The Rix and their compound minds were this Emperor's personal nightmare. She took a less argumentative tack.
"Sire, the Secular Party has never questioned your policy on blocking compound minds from propagating. And we stood firm in the unity government during the Rix Incursion. But the spinward frontier has been quiet for almost a century, has it not?"
"It has been a secret, though no doubt you have heard rumors the last decade or so. But the Rix have been moving against us once again."
The Emperor stood and pointed into the darkness, and the wheeling cluster of stars halted, then began to slide, the spinward reaches coming toward him. One of the stars came to rest at his extended fingertip.
"This, Senator, is Legis XV. Some five hours ago, the Rix attacked here with a small but determined force. A suicide mission. Their objective was to take our sister the Child Empress, and to hold her hostage while they propagated a compound mind upon the planet."
For a few moments, Oxham's mind was overwhelmed.
War,
was all that she could think. The Child Empress in alien hands. If harm came to her, the grays would reap a huge political windfall, the rush to armed conflict would become unstoppable.
"Then, m'lord, that is the cause of the Loyalists' move toward a war economy," she finally managed.
"Yes. We cannot assume that this is an isolated attack."
Her empathy caught a flicker of disturbance from the Emperor.
"Is your sister all right, Sire?"
"A frigate is standing by, ready to attempt a rescue," the Emperor said. "The captain has already launched a rescue mission. We should learn the results in the next hour."
He stroked the cat. She felt resignation in him, and wondered if he already knew the outcome of the rescue attempt, and was withholding the information.
Then Oxham realized that her party was in peril. She had to withdraw the legislation before news of the Rix raid broke. Once this outrage was made public, her counterthrust to the grays would seem traitorous. The Emperor had done her and the Secular Party a favor with this warning.
"Thank you, sire, for telling me this."
He put one hand on her shoulder. Even through her thick senatorial gown, she could feel the cool of his hand, the deadness of it. "This is not the time to work against each other, Senator. You must understand, we have no quarrel with your party. The dead and the living need one another, in peace and in war. The future we seek is not a cold place."
"Of course not, sire. I will withdraw the legislation at once."
After she had said the words, Oxham realized that the Emperor hadn't even asked her. That was true power, she supposed, one's desires met without the need to give orders.
"Thank you, Nara," he said, the fierce mania that had shaped his mind a few moments before sliding from her awareness, as he returned to his former imperious calm. "We have great hopes for you, Senator Oxham. We know that your party will stand by us in this battle against the Rix."
"Yes, sire." There was really nothing else she could say.
"And we hope that you will support us in dealing with the compound mind, which may well have succeeded in taking hold on Legis XV."
She wondered exactly what the sovereign meant by that. But he continued before she could ask.
"We should like to appoint you to a war council, Senator," he said.
Oxham could only blink. The Emperor squeezed her shoulder and let his arm drop, turned half away. She realized that no acceptance was necessary. If another Rix incursion were underway, a war council would have tremendous power granted to it by the Senate. She would sit in chambers with the mightiest humans in the Eighty Worlds. Nara Oxham would be among their number in privilege, in access to information, in ability to make history. In sheer power.
"Thank you, m'lord," was all that she could say.
He nodded slightly, his eyes focused on the white belly of the calico. The beast arched its back languorously, until the ridge of the symbiant almost formed an omega on the warm red stone.
War.
Ships hurtling toward each other in the compressed time of relativistic velocities, their crews fading from the memory of family and friends, lives ending in seconds-long battles whose tremendous energies unleashed brief new suns. Deadly raids on opposing populations, hundreds of thousands killed in minutes, continents poisoned for centuries. Peaceful research and education suspended as whole planetary economies were consumed by war's hunger for machines and soldiers. Generations of human history squandered before both sides, wounded and exhausted, played for stalemate. And, of course, the real possibility—the high probability—that her new lover would be dead before it all was over.
Suddenly, Oxham was appalled at herself, her ambition, her lust for power, the thrill she had felt upon being asked to help prosecute this war. She felt it still there inside her: the resonant pleasure of status gained, new heights of power scaled.
"My lord, I'm not sure—"
"The council shall convene in four hours," the Emperor interrupted. Perhaps he had anticipated her doubts, and didn't want to hear them. Her reflexive politesse asserted itself, calming the maelstrom of conflicting motivations.
Say nothing until you are sure,
she ordered herself. She forced calm into her veins, focusing on the slow, synesthetic wheel of eighty worlds that orbited herself and the sovereign.
The Emperor continued, "By then, we shall have heard from the
Lynx.
We'll know what's happened out on Legis XV."
Her gaze was caught and held by a red star out on the periphery of the Empire. Darkness gathered in the corner of her eyes, as if she were close to blacking out. She must have misheard.
"The
Lynx,
sire?"
"The Navy vessel stationed over Legis XV. They should attempt a rescue soon."
"The
Lynx,"
she echoed. "A frigate, m'lord?"
The Emperor looked at her with, for the first time noting her expression. "Yes, exactly."
Oxham realized that he had misinterpreted her knowledge as some sort of military expertise. She controlled herself again, and continued. "A stroke of luck, sire, having such a distinguished commander on the scene."
"Ah, yes," the Emperor sighed. "Laurent Zai, the hero of Dhantu. It would be a pity to lose him. But an inspiration, perhaps."
"But you said the Rix force was small, m'lord. Surely in a hostage rescue, the captain himself wouldn't..."
"To lose him to an Error of Blood, I meant. Should he fail."
The Emperor moved to stand, and Oxham rose on uncertain legs. The garden lightened again, obliterating the false hills of grain, the godlike feline statues, the Eighty Worlds. The faceted sky overhead seemed for a moment fragile, a ludicrous folly, a house of glass cards ready to be toppled by a breath.
As preposterous and shattery as love, she thought.
"I must prepare for war, Senator Oxham."
"I leave you, Your Majesty," she managed.
Nara Oxham wound her way out of the garden, blind to its distractions, blending the Emperor's words into one echoing thought:
To lose him, should he fail.
EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Katherie Hobbes paused to gather herself before entering the observation blister. Her report was essential to the captain's survival. This was no time to be overwhelmed by childhood fears.
She remembered her gravity training on the academy orbital
Phoenix.
The orbital, stationed low over Home, was reoriented every day at random. Through the transparent outer ceilings and floors, the planet might be hanging overhead, looming vertiginously below, or tilted at any imaginable angle. The orbital's artificial gravity, already compromised by the proximity of Home, was likewise reconfigured throughout the academy on an hourly basis. The routes between stations (which had to be traversed quickly in the short intervals between classes) might require a dozen changes in orientation; the gravity direction of each corridor shifted without pattern. Only a few hasty markings sprayed onto the rollbars showed what was coming when you flipped from hall to hall.
The objective of all this chaos was to break down the two-dimensional thinking of a gravity-well-born human. The
Phoenix
had no up nor down, only the arbitrary geography of room numbers, coordinates, and classroom seating charts.
Of course, in the career of a naval officer, gravity was one of the mildest crises of subjectivity to overcome. For most cadets, the Time Thief, who stole your friends and family, was far more devastating than a wall turned overnight into a floor. But for Hobbes, the loss of an absolute
down
had always remained the greatest perversion of space travel.