by Mary Lou Mendum Based On Catherine Asaro's Skolian Empire Series |
||||||||||||
Skolian Empire Fan Fiction Index
Part V
Chapter 19
In which Imperial
Space Command launches an invasion of Greater Annandale
After his late night at the White House, Del slept until ten. The
storm had passed, leaving bright sunlight pouring through the windows.
He took a quick shower, threw on a clean pair of mesh jeans and a
T-shirt, and went to find coffee, breakfast, and news, preferably in that
order.
The dining hall was almost empty, as it should be so late in the
day. There were only three
people present. Nona
Esmerelda, whose daughter Rose worked as part of the house staff, huddled
on a chair in the sun, a brilliantly patterned shawl draped around her
hunched shoulders and her knobby, arthritic fingers clutching an almost
empty cup of coffee. Chef
Choong Lee’s two nephews, Jung and Sun-wu, were working by the buffet
table, replenishing the coffee and replacing the remains of breakfast with
a pot of hot soup and a collation of bread, cheese, and fruit.
Del approved of his chef’s choices.
Storm cleanup would disrupt what passed for the normal schedule, so
simple, filling food that would hold and that could be eaten quickly was
essential.
Del greeted Jung and Sun-wu.
A few questions (with pauses to correct his still-imperfect Korean)
elicited (with pauses to correct Jung’s still-imperfect English) the
information that Eldrin had organized those inhabitants of the estate who
hadn’t been bogged down in diplomacy until the wee hours to inspect the
property and ascertain the extent of the storm damage.
They were to report back with their findings in half an hour.
Nodding his approval at his older brother’s sensible actions, Del
filled a plate with a sandwich, fruit, and the last two breakfast
pastries. He added two cups of
the fresh coffee to his tray and set it down on the table next to Nona
Esmerelda’s. Hands freed, he
gave the old woman his best Court bow and addressed her in the most
flowery Spanish he could contrive.
“Grandmother, might I have the extreme pleasure of sharing your
company and your wisdom over a cup of coffee this morning?”
“Flatterer!” the old woman scolded, even as her wrinkled face split
in a wide grin of pleasure.
Taking that as a “Sí,” Del moved the tray over to her table and sat
down. After doctoring the
first cup of coffee to her specifications and the second to his own, he
began working his way through his breakfast.
As he ate, he learned that Esmerelda’s youngest grandchild,
five-year-old Carlita, had been frightened by the noise of the storm but
that her mother and older brother Juan-Carlos had finally gotten her to
stop crying and sleep.
“They reminded her that there have been many people working to make
sure that the house is strong, and that even such a storm as this could
not blow it down.” Esmerelda’s
white head nodded firmly.
“I am very glad that they were right,” Del said.
“Is she feeling better this morning?”
“Much better. She is
helping her mother and some of the other small ones to clean the leaves
and mud off of the patio so that the outdoor kitchen can be used.
When they are finished, I will tell them stories.”
“Excellent.” That would
ensure the smaller children didn’t get too close to the creek, the
drainage ditches, or the pond, all of which would be unusually full after
the storm.
Del picked up his last bite of pastry and looked at it with regret.
It really was an outrage against his sense of artistic integrity to
hurry through one of Choong Lee’s croissants, but there were times when
every Bard—or prince, for that matter—had to attend to the more mundane
aspects of his responsibilities.
Popping the morsel into his mouth, he asked Esmerelda if she needed
anything else. She shook her head, declaring that the sun felt good on her
old bones, so he put his empty dishes back on the tray and carried them
back to the buffet table. He
asked Sun-wu to fetch the old woman’s lap rug for her when there was a
moment to spare, then went to find Eldrin.
He found his older brother in the parlor that had been commandeered
by the ISC engineering team who were overseeing the estate’s repairs and
modifications. It was a large
room on the first floor with oversized windows that provided ample light
and a good view of the grounds.
It also had space for a conference table and the second-best mesh
connections in the building.
The most elaborate connections, including the secure Kyleweb node Kelric
had designed as the heart of the estate’s private mesh, were reserved for
a room in the other wing from which his security team monitored the
estate, the local, continental, and planetary police and civil
authorities, the mesh newsfeeds, and for all Del knew, the activity of
every worker ant in every anthill within six miles in their perpetual
search for any potential source of danger to his royal person.
Personally, he thought they were overdoing the paranoia thing.
He tried to slip unobtrusively into the room, but an alert ensign
standing along the far wall spotted him.
Her already upright posture assumed ramrod rigidity as she alerted
her less observant superiors with a loud, “Your Highness!”
Tyra knew better than to greet him in his own home with the formal
etiquette which the protocol experts inflicted upon members of the Ruby
Dynasty, Eldrin was family, and grounds crew head Francisco and head
housekeeper Isadora were Allied citizens directly employed by Del, firmly
on the civilian side of the estate’s chain of command and subject to his
orders. The remaining people
in the room were Imperial Fleet or Pharaoh’s Army officers off the
Roca’s Pride who had volunteered
to assist with the renovations: the equivalent of elite Navy and Marines,
as the Allied Worlds viewed such things.
They were decidedly not under Del’s command and were therefore not
obliged to abide by his more relaxed notions of the respect due a surplus
Ruby Prince-turned-holorock singer.
It was a circumstance they evidently cherished.
Del could feel the wave of militaristic pride as every low-ranking
ISC officer in the room snapped to rigid attention while their ranking
officers greeted his entrance for the formation with crisp, perfectly
executed bows.
Knowing that they could and would maintain the ridiculous poses
until he released them or gave up and left the room, he gave the
regulation wave of acknowledgement and “I thank you” in Iotic that
military etiquette demanded from high-ranking civilians and breathed a
mental sigh of relief as they relaxed.
Turning to the housekeeper, he switched to Spanish and asked,
“Señora Isadora, is all well with the household?”
Across the room, Eldrin murmured a translation in Flag.
“Sí, mi patrón,” she answered.
“Some of the little ones were frightened by the storm and Carmine
slipped and sprained her ankle, but Doctor Lahayfa fixed it.”
Del was glad the ISC physician that Kelric had added to his staff,
a specialist in neural disorders peculiar to psions, was earning her keep
by looking after patients who actually needed her services.
“How are we set for supplies?”
“There was a delivery yesterday.
We can last a week if we must.”
Del nodded his thanks and turned to his head groundskeeper.
“Francisco, how is the land?” he continued in Spanish.
“Señor Del, the damage was not great,” Francisco reported.
“The old tool shed blew down and Jesus tells me that three chickens
got out of the coop and drowned.
He has given them to Chef Lee to make soup.
Estevon and Raúl found six trees down, but none of them damaged
anything as they fell.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
“So, how did the house weather the storm, Major Barghatt?” he
continued, switching to Skolian Flag. While many career military officers
learned at least rudimentary Iotic, all four branches of the Skolian
military used Flag as their primary language. As he spoke, Eldrin smoothly
reversed course, translating the Flag to imperfect English for Isadora and
Francisco.
The chief engineer in charge of supervising structural alterations
to the estate returned to a mercifully soft version of attention as she
reported, “Your Highness, there are a few shingles blown off the roof, two
broken windows with minor water damage in the south wing, and we lost a
tarp on the smallest of the three lumber stockpiles.
The wood will have to dry before we can use it, but it’s still
sound.”
“Good. Lieutenant
Quath?”
The infrastructural engineer mimicked his superior’s respectful
pose. “Your Highness, there
was no damage to the plumbing, electrical, mesh, or sewer here on the
estate. We are running on
backup generator power at the moment because the local power grid is down.
The power loss also took down much of the local mesh, which makes
it more difficult to determine when the damage will be repaired.”
Del nodded his thanks and turned to his head of security.
“Tyra, first of all, how are Randall and his parents?”
“Randall was sleeping comfortably when I brought his parents home
around eleven,” the Jagernaut reported. “They returned to the hospital at
seven.”
Her attitude was informal, but alert and respectful enough to
pacify any of the military types who might take offense at seeing a Ruby
prince treated like an actual human being instead of a sacred national
symbol. Del admired the adroit
compromise.
“We lost some outdoor sensors around the perimeter of the estate,”
the Jagernaut continued, “but those can be replaced easily enough.”
“We’re in decent shape, then,” the singer summarized.
“What about the rest of the community?”
Tyra shrugged. “As
Lieutenant Quath said, there are a lot of fallen trees, and a lot of them
took power lines down as they fell.
That means no power or mesh, which makes it hard for people to call
for help if they need it.
Blocked roads are making it hard to get emergency and repair vehicles
where they need to go. There
was localized flooding around some of the creeks and from clogged storm
drains, according to the police chatter.
Their dispatcher has been sounding progressively more frazzled all
morning, Wasther reports.”
“In other words, it’s a mess.
That fits what Kelric and I saw coming home last night.”
Del looked around at the others.
“Perhaps we should do what we can to assist in the cleanup, at
least locally.” Another
language swap. “Francisco, how
many chain saws do we have?”
“Tres,” came the answer, “All are in good condition, although one
is small.”
“Good. Have the crew
get them together, along with any pruning tools you can find.
Oh, and Raúl should get the forklift from the hay barn.
If it can lift hay bales, it can lift tree trunks.”
Del turned to Major Barghatt, as the senior regular ISC officer
present and continued in Flag.
“Major, I propose to expedite the cleanup, at least in this neighborhood,
by clearing the downed trees out of the streets so that the broken power
lines can be restored more easily.
More hands will make the work go faster, so I would like to call
for volunteers from among the Roca’s Pride crew who are rotating through.”
“Your Highness, if you take my work details, the work on your
estate will not proceed today.”
Del shrugged, spreading his hands in a gesture of resignation. “I
realize that, Major, but you have been making excellent progress on the
repairs. With the treaty talks
stalled, you will have more than enough time to finish before the
Roca must leave.
Taking a day off won’t do any lasting harm and if the situation is
as bad as Tyra reports, the Allied civil workers—and my new
neighbors—could use the help.”
“I’m sure they could,” the
Major conceded. “If you are
taking my work details with you, I might as well come along.
You’ll want someone who can identify whether damaged power cables
are still active.”
Del smiled. “Thank you,
Major.”
Barghatt blinked as if stunned, then recalled herself.
“I will tell the volunteers to assemble on the back patio, Your
Highness.”
The Annandale estate was currently hosting about thirty crew
members off the Skolian flagship who had volunteered to assist with its
refurbishment in exchange for a chance to escape the dull routine of a
battleship in orbit around a friendly planet.
The twin lures of seeing Old Earth and offering personal service to
a member of the reclusive Ruby Dynasty had proved so irresistible that the
entire group of volunteers was being rotated out every other day.
While Major Barghatt complained that it made her job harder to
constantly change her workforce, Captain Devon Majda thought that it was
good for morale to allow as many volunteers as possible to participate.
Kelric concurred, which had settled the matter.
The current volunteers assembled on the back patio, now clean
thanks to Rose and the smaller children.
About half of this group was naval officers and half Pharaoh’s
Army. Their day uniforms
gleamed formidably in the sun, making quite the martial show.
Del had never considered himself enough of a politician to give
good motivational speeches to masses of strangers.
However, he told himself that they were just another audience and
was gratified by their enthusiastic response after he explained what he
intended.
The Skolian invasion of greater Annandale was launched less than an
hour later. In the lead were
Angela and Juan-Carlos on their bicycles.
They were to scout ahead and report back when they found fallen
trees blocking the road or other storm damage.
The rest of the group walked in an amorphous mass, with Del,
Eldrin, and their Jagernaut bodyguards in the center.
The ISC volunteers surrounded their princes in a protective shield,
but refrained from forming ranks or marching in step.
Del gave Tyra full credit for enforcing this breach of military
discipline. Her argument that
the unannounced appearance of an organized, foreign military force in the
neighborhood might provoke alarm and hostility, potentially endangering
the two Ruby princes, had been inspired.
Behind the ISC infantry were the irregulars: Francisco and his
field crew. Their worn jeans
and faded shirts contrasted with the military spit and polish of the main
group, but they walked with the proud assurance of people who knew that
their specialized skills would soon be in demand.
The mechanized division brought up the rear.
Major Barghatt drove the battered, ancient golf cart used by the
field crews to transport people and equipment around the estate grounds,
with Doctor Lahayfa beside her, clutching her medkit.
The back seat and rear cargo area were filled to overflowing with
chain saws, pruning equipment, an orchard ladder, rakes, an oversized
plastic keg of water, and two large boxes of Chef Lee’s homemade granola
bars. Behind the golf cart
came Raúl on the forklift and the procession ended with Lieutenant Quath
on the versatile, all-purpose small tractor, which was called a “cat” in
English for some odd reason Del had never investigated.
It had been rented to move dirt and supplies, dig ditches, and
generally supply extra power where needed.
It had proved so useful during the reconstruction that Del was
seriously considering whether he ought to buy one outright.
Their initial goal was to clear a path through the residential
streets to a long-term nursing facility that occupied a small hill close
to the local reservoir. It was
a scenic location, but there was no immediate access to the major roads
that were the first priority for the civil tree-removal crews.
Del was worried that its elderly and infirm residents might suffer
from the enforced isolation.
They found their first downed tree within a block: an oak had
proved too shallow-rooted to withstand the tropical storm winds.
The wind had guided its fall directly into the road, so although no
vehicle larger than Angela and Juan-Carlos’s bicycles could pass, there
was no obvious damage to the power lines.
A half dozen assorted people were standing in the yard next to the
massive base, staring glumly at a grey-haired man in his mid sixties
wearing a blue shirt and grease-smeared jeans.
The man was kneeling on a tarp on the lawn beside a partially
disassembled chainsaw. As the
parade neared, they turned to stare at the newcomers instead.
Del had seen people paralyzed by disasters before.
It was part of his job as Dalvador Bard to break that paralysis and
organize an effective response.
He threaded his way though the intervening ISC uniforms and
approached the group. The
older four adults looked skeptically from Del, to the armed Jagernauts
flanking him, to the obvious military uniforms in the rest of the group,
then back to Del. The younger
two, a boy and girl of high school age, just stared at Del in incredulous
delight. He wondered if they
were fans of the band.
However, it was the older generation that concerned him at present.
The singer flashed his most disarming smile.
“Hello,” he greeted them in English.
“I’m Del Arden, your new neighbor; I just bought the old country
club.”
The grey-haired man levered himself stiffly to his feet and nodded
skeptically in return.
“Welcome to the neighborhood, Mister Arden.
I’m Josh Selman and these are my kids and grandkids.”
He offered a hand to shake, noticed the black grease smears across
the palm, and withdrew it apologetically.
“You’ll forgive me if I was hoping you were the municipal tree
crew.”
“Grandpa!” came a scandalized whisper from the girl.
“That’s Del Arden!”
“His songs are at the top of all the holorock charts!” her brother
chimed in. “And he’s a real
prince!”
“Ultra,” the girl confirmed, nodding vigorously.
“We’re not the city crew, but we do have two working chainsaws, a
little brush trimmer, and lots of hands,” Del pointed out with what he
hoped was a disarming smile.
“We were hoping to clear the streets so the city crews can get in to
repair the power lines.”
The elder Selman’s skepticism thawed a bit.
“Now, that’s right neighborly of you,” he admitted, somewhat
grudgingly. “I had the same
idea, but my saw’s blade is off and I can’t seem to get it properly
adjusted.”
“Raúl is good at that,” Del offered.
“Another full-sized saw will make the work go a lot faster.”
While they had been talking, the engineers had done a brief scan
for damaged wiring, pipes, or other potential trouble. “We don’t have to
worry about anything but the tree, Your Highness,” Major Barghatt
reported, standing at attention.
Mercifully, military etiquette did not require an additional formal
bow when Del had been part of the group continuously since the last one.
“Although there are at least two damaged irrigation emitters and a
couple of cracks in the sidewalk underneath.”
“Thank you, Major.” Del
turned to Francisco and passed on the engineer’s all-clear in Spanish,
along with the information that Selman’s chainsaw could probably be
brought to working condition.
“Raúl, check the saw,” Francisco said. Raúl handed the chainsaw he
had been carrying to Estevon and approached Del.
The field hand was a small, wiry man whose ability to tinker with
machinery rivaled an engineer’s, but whose terminal shyness, lack of
formal education, and inability to learn English had prevented him from
any possibility of advancing to a leadership position.
He smiled, white teeth flashing in his sun-darkened face, murmured
a greeting to Selman in Spanish, then knelt down to check the partially
disassembled saw.
“We trim the branches first,” Francisco briefed his crew, while Del
translated his words to Flag for the military contingent.
“They should be dragged clear and stacked in neat piles by the
curb. When we have cleared
down to the trunk, we’ll bring in the forklift and cat to support the
trunk while we trim the weight-bearing branches underneath and cut it to
size.”
As the two working chainsaws and the brush trimmer snarled and
started sectioning the smaller branches, the rest of the party sorted
themselves out. Soon piles of
brush were sprouting across the street.
It wasn’t long before Selman’s grandchildren started grabbing and
hauling branches, unable to resist the lure of working alongside their
favorite holorock star.
Everybody cheered when Raúl brought Selman’s chainsaw roaring to life and
the atmosphere became almost festive.
With the additional saw, the branch-stacking details had to
scramble to keep up. Perhaps
encouraged by the friendly rivalry, Selman’s two sons and daughter-in-law
pitched in, as did three or four other neighbors who had been attracted by
the noise. By the time the
saws rattled into temporary silence so that the forklift and cat could
move into place, the elder Selman’s skepticism had thawed considerably.
When the last of the trunk had been sectioned and the road was
clear, they moved on to the next block, where Angela reported a large
branch had fallen, damaging two vehicles that had been parked underneath.
Their equipment was augmented by the elder Selman’s chainsaw, which
he had offered to loan to Raúl for the day.
Also swelling their ranks were the two Selman grandchildren, their
mother, and three other older volunteers.
They worked systematically through the neighborhood for the next
hour, clearing half a dozen roadblocks and gaining two more chainsaw
operators and almost twenty volunteers.
Because so many people could not work efficiently on a single
downed tree, they split into teams.
The first team, consisting of about half neighborhood volunteers
and half ISC military types, was armed with brush loppers, pruning shears,
and the brush trimmer. Their
job was to clear the smaller, leafy branches out of the way so that the
full-sized chainsaws could be used efficiently.
Del went with this group to explain their efforts to the residents
and to determine whether there were additional problems.
When Lieutenant Quath had checked for live power lines or other
dangers, the demolition would begin.
By the time the next crew arrived, with two of the full-sized
chainsaws, most of the rest of the ISC work detail, and the younger, more
physically fit volunteers, plus Eldrin to translate, all branches of less
than six inches were removed and stacked in neat piles out of the way. The
second crew would section as much of the trunk as they could safely
manage, leaving the remaining scaffold for Francisco’s expert team to
clear, aided by the cat and forklift.
Doctor Lahayfa circulated among the groups in the golf cart,
tending to the inevitable bumps and bruises.
Chapter 20
In which
Jagernaut Primary Tyra Jarin commits a breaking-and-entering
When Del noticed the incidence of minor scrapes increasing, he
called a break. Conversation
broke out in half a dozen languages as the water and granola bars were
distributed among the crews.
Del took advantage of the relative quiet, and the working mesh link to the
Kylenode that Kelric had installed to run the security system at his
estate, to contact the utility company and advise them that the area was
ready for their repairs. It
took some negotiation with a dispatcher who happened to be a fan before he
was able to speak with one of the engineers responsible for supervising
the repair crews.
The supervisor, a graying, no-nonsense man with the unlikely name
of Edward Bosc, made it clear from the outset that he was not a holorock
fan. He was also, he stated in
no uncertain terms, far too busy with his very important job to talk to
Del. His job, he continued,
was managing the crews trying to restore power to people who might not
happen to be spoiled and pampered celebrities, but who were nevertheless
valued customers of Wrexley Utilities.
Valued customers, he explained, some of whom were old, ill, or
infirm and needed power to run assistive devices.
Del appeared to be a healthy young man, he advised, and was
therefore likely to survive without access to his fan page until Bosc’s
crews could get around to restoring power to his neighborhood.
Which would not happen until the downed trees could be removed,
which was the responsibility of the Parks department, not Wrexley
Utilities.
At that point, Bosc finally had to pause for breath.
Del smiled as disarmingly as he could manage and said, “Actually,
Mr. Bosc, I am calling to let you know that my neighbors and I have been
clearing out the downed trees in our area, so that one of your crews can
get in to restore our power.”
Bosc was not mollified.
“We advise the public not to meddle with trees that have fallen on or near
power lines. It is too
dangerous. It takes
specialized equipment to determine which lines are still carrying current.
We don’t want anybody getting killed.”
“I share that concern.
However, I happen to have an expert with the proper equipment with me—he
was supervising some work on my estate…”
“He doesn’t work for Wrexley Utilities!” snapped the supervisor.
Del was beginning to find the man’s attitude annoying.
“Lieutenant Quoth has been supervising repair crews aboard the
Skolian Firestorm battle cruiser
Roca’s Pride for over a decade,” he said firmly.
“In that time, he has unfortunately had a great deal of experience
repairing battle damage.
Believe me, he is every bit as capable of flagging a live power conduit in
a mess of wreckage as any of your crews.”
Bosc was momentarily at a loss for words.
Now that it appeared the man might be prepared to listen, the
singer smiled in a conciliatory fashion.
“He has also been keeping track of exactly what damage was done
where, and what spare parts are required to fix it.
Would that information be of assistance to your crews?”
In the little screen on Del’s wristcom, Bosc blinked.
“Well, yes,” he admitted.
“That would help a great deal.”
The conversation that followed was somewhat awkward, since Bosc
spoke no Flag, Quoth spoke no English, and Del spoke no engineering.
Quoth finally resorted to describing the functions and structural
composition of each missing part, so that Del could learn the English
vocabulary for terms like “transistor,” “strain insulator,” and “circuit
breaker.” Once that had been accomplished, communication improved.
Bosc was so impressed at the thoroughness of the lieutenant’s
report that he gave Del his direct comcode so that he could receive
further updates. He was even
feeling collegial enough to give them some unwelcome news.
“We can fix the downed cable and transformers, but there won’t be
any power to that section for at least three days.
The substation was damaged and the replacement parts have to be
shipped in and installed.” He
shrugged. “Right at the
moment, I’m trying to use my crews where their repairs will actually
restore power to our customers.
Still, I’ll do my best to make sure that your neighborhood power
grid is functional by the time the substation is.”
“I can’t fault your priorities, Mr. Bosc,” Del said, “and I thank
you for your honesty and for your service.”
Bosc blinked in surprise, as if he were unused to honest praise,
then said gruffly, “I’d better get back to work.”
“We, too, should continue our efforts,” the prince agreed, and
ended the call.
Two blocks, one tree, and four major tree limbs later, they found
the worst damage yet. A twist
in the road’s orientation had allowed the wind to blow a tree down onto
the roof of a house, rather than into the street.
While this had spared the power lines, the roof had sustained
considerable damage. Most of
the residents of the block had gathered on the street and were holding a
vigorous discussion with the family who lived there on whether it was safe
to go inside to salvage their belongings.
Del offered the services of Major Barghatt and Lieutenant Quoth to
settle this important question.
While the engineers conducted a thorough inspection, the singer
continued what had become a routine by asking whether all residents on the
block had weathered the storm safely.
Elvira, the young woman who owned the damaged house, scanned the
crowd. “Everybody’s here,” she assured him, shifting her young daughter to
the other hip. “I mean, I
haven’t seen old Mrs. Haggarty across the street, but she doesn’t get out
much. Only when her helper
comes to get her into her wheelchair, and I haven’t seen him today.”
“In that case, I might as well check on her while we’re waiting,”
Del said. “Just to make sure.
Would you introduce us?”
The woman shrugged, then handed the little girl to her husband.
“Certainly,” she agreed, and led the way.
Tyra and Secondary Wasther followed.
Mrs. Haggarty’s house was small but comfortable, with a front
veranda lushly overgrown with ivy.
It was surrounded by tall, unpruned hedges, as if it had once been
a manicured showpiece but had gradually been allowed to run wild as its
owner lost the ability to keep it in check.
Del’s guide knocked on the door, calling, “Mrs. Haggarty?
It’s Elvira, from across the street.
Are you all right?”
There was no answer.
After a moment, Elvira shook her head.
“I suppose she’s sleeping, the poor dear.”
“I don’t think so,” Tyra said, cocking her head.
“In fact, I think she’s calling for help.
“I don’t hear anything,” Elvira said doubtfully.
Del couldn’t, either, but he didn’t have a Jagernaut’s enhanced
hearing. On the other hand, he
didn’t necessarily need it.
Taking a deep breath, he lowered his barriers, and caught a faint wave of
hunger, thirst, and helpless frustration, even over the babble from the
minds of the crowd across the street.
“I think Tyra is right,” he said.
“Do you or any of the other neighbors have a spare key?”
“No, not that I know of,” the woman admitted.
“She keeps to herself.”
“Then we’ll have to do this the hard way,” Tyra said.
“It’s too bad the house mesh is out, but other ways exist.”
She carefully inspected the door, which was a solid plank of wood
flanked by two windows that were split into six small panes each.
Completing her inspection, the Jagernaut turned to Elvira.
“I don’t suppose you have a board about so big?”
She held up her hands to indicate about a three-foot length.
“And a hammer and nails?”
“Why, yes,” a confused Elvira admitted.
“Do you need them to get in?”
“No,” Tyra said. Clenching her gauntleted fist, she punched neatly
through the pane closest to the door handle, sending glass tinkling down
to the floor inside, then added, “But they’ll be handy for boarding up the
damage afterwards.” She
knocked the remaining slivers of pane out, reached through the hole, and
unlocked the door from the inside.
She opened it, gave the hallway inside a practiced scan, then moved
aside for Del.
“Mrs. Haggarty?” the singer called, stepping into the dark
entryway. “My name is Del.
Your neighbors were worried about you.”
“I’m in the living room,” a
voice quavered from the left.
“My chair doesn’t work and I can’t get up.”
Del followed the sound and discovered a frail, withered old woman
huddled in a recliner. A
wheeled support frame for walking was beside it and there was a strong
scent of urine in the air.
“You’re not a policeman,” Mrs. Haggarty said, pointing an accusing
finger at the prince-turned-singer.
He gave her his most disarming smile.
“No, I’m not a policeman, or a fireman, or anybody official.
I’m just a busybody of a neighbor.
But we can help you out of that chair.”
Together, Del and Tyra got the old woman standing.
Then Elvira helped her to the bathroom to clean up and change
clothes while the Skolians tackled the mess in the chair.
When Elvira rejoined them, she was shaking her head.
“She can’t manage on her own without her powered recliner,” the
young woman explained. “To
make matters worse, her helper is on vacation for the next two weeks and
her only son is off-planet.”
“I can manage just fine,” a querulous voice maintained from down
the hall. It grew slowly
louder, accompanied by the clank of the walking frame.
“There’s nothing wrong with me, just a little arthritis.
There’s nothing wrong with my ears, either.”
As Elvira blushed at the reprimand, Del considered the options.
There was no way that Mrs. Haggarty could be left on her own, not
when it would be days before there would be power.
It was equally plain that the old woman was too proud to accept
charity of any kind.
On the other hand, Del reminded himself, sometimes those who are
too proud to accept charity aren’t too proud to give it.
“Mrs. Haggarty,” he began, “I can see that you manage quite
handily. So I was wondering if
you’d be willing to help out some of your neighbors who didn’t come
through the storm as well.”
She reached the entryway and paused to rest.
She barely came up to Del’s chin, but she still managed to look
down her nose at him. “Young
man, don’t try to sell me a washtub of malarkey,” she said firmly.
“I’ll have you know I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Del wondered what malarkey was.
Perhaps a soap of some kind, if it came in washtubs?
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured her.
“I don’t know if you’ve had time to look out the window, but a tree
fell onto Elvira’s house last night.
There’s quite a bit of damage to the roof.
She and her husband and daughter need a place to stay for a few
days, until they can make other arrangements.”
“Oh.” The old woman
turned her gimlet gaze on Elvira.
“Is that true?”
The young woman caught on to Del’s tactic in time to shuffle her
feet as if embarrassed. She
even managed a vaguely guilty expression.
“I’m afraid it is, Mrs. Haggarty.”
“Well, I suppose you do need to be close enough to keep an eye on
things,” came the grudging agreement.
It became less grudging when Del flashed her his mercurial smile.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
And so it was settled.
It was mid-afternoon when they finally reached the long-term care
facility by the reservoir.
Arcadia Gardens was a pleasant enough complex, nicely landscaped and of
recent enough construction that there were no trees of any size close
enough to damage the buildings.
The manager, a lean young man with straight, dark hair and dusky
skin that emphasized the dark circles under his eyes, came out to greet
them. “Thank goodness you’re here,” he cried in near-hysterical relief,
tugging nervously at the large-print nametag pinned to his shirt that
proclaimed his name to be “Bakhshi.” “The day shift never reported and
nobody on night shift knows how to coax that temperamental generator into
running and without power the dining hall can’t make hot food and I can’t
reach the management because the phones are out and what would have
happened if one of the clients needed an ambulance and I thought they
would never send anyone…” He
stopped talking quite suddenly, as if realizing that he was babbling.
Del gave what he hoped was a sufficiently reassuring smile.
“We weren’t sent by your management, but I think we can solve at
least some of your problems.”
Fifteen minutes later, Quoth and Barghatt were in the basement
checking whether the generator could be brought online, Dr. Lahayfa had
been dispatched to examine an elderly man who had been complaining of mild
chest pains and one of the staff who had slipped in the dim light from a
flashlight and badly twisted an ankle, and Bakhshi was clutching a Skolian
military field com.
“None of these symbols on the buttons are familiar,” he admitted,
squinting to see if that would clarify them.
“They’re Skolian glyphs,” Del explained.
“You don’t need most of the functions.
All you need to remember is that you push this one—the yellow
eagle—to turn it on, and this one—the brown triangle—to make a call.
It’s preset to contact the closest ISC military communications net,
which happens to be the security switchboard at my estate.
They can pass on a message if you need an ambulance or the police.
When you’re done, press the black circle to end the call.
I ask you to please only use it for emergencies.”
“That is understood,” Bakhshi agreed.
“I will return it to you as soon as the power comes back on and
mesh service is restored.”
Most of the English-speaking volunteers from the neighborhood went
inside to help the exhausted staff, many of whom had been working for
twenty hours straight. Eldrin
went with them to coordinate the effort with his superior diplomatic
skills. By the time he got
everybody working productively and stepped back outside, the Skolians had
flopped down on the front lawn to rest like the experienced campaigners
they were. Interspersed with
them was Del’s field crew.
Unlike that first dinner at the estate, the Allied citizens were no longer
avoiding the military details, although the lack of a common language
limited communication between them.
Del had completed his business with Bakhshi and rejoined them when
a loud roaring of engines caught his attention.
“That sounds like the sort of engines that move heavy equipment,”
Tyra observed quietly at his elbow.
“And it’s coming closer.”
“Maybe Bosc found a free crew to work in this neighborhood?” the
singer ventured, looking down Arcadia Gardens’ long, curving driveway.
He thought he could see movement through the hedges that lined it.
“That’s not a repair crew!” Tyra barked, switching from their usual
English to Skolian Flag.
“That’s a group of motorcycles.”
The Marines responded instantly, jumping to their feet and reaching
for random pruning equipment, since they had left their usual weapons
behind. The naval crew were
half a heartbeat behind. By
the time twenty-one motorcycles rounded the last curve, riding in ten
closely spaced pairs behind a lone leader, they had the two Ruby princes
and their Jagernaut bodyguard details surrounded in a protective circle.
Peering through a narrow space between two broad shoulders, Del
watched the motorcycles approach.
They maintained their formation even as they negotiated the changes
in terrain from road to gravel path and then grass.
From what little he could see, the riders were not wearing obvious
armor. Instead, they wore
brown or black leather jackets with patches on the back depicting a
snarling grey dog, or maybe it was a wolf.
The leader’s helmet repeated the angry canine.
They gunned their engines as they traced a graceful but deceptively
fast curve across the lawn. As
they approached the tense Skolians obliquely, the Jagernauts rested hands
on their Jumblers.
“Don’t shoot,” Del ordered quietly in Iotic.
“They’re trying to impress and intimidate us, but I don’t think
they’d be viewing us as a source of hope if they planned to actually
attack.”
“Del’s right,” Eldrin agreed.
“I think they want to talk to us.”
Neither Ruby prince had the authority to order their bodyguards to
stand down if a plausible threat to their persons was present, of course.
However, Tyra respected both their empathic ability and their
judgment enough to keep her weapon in its holster as the motorcycles
skidded to a flashy halt about twenty feet in front of the Skolians,
sending a shower of mud, grass, and occasional pebbles in their direction.
The leader, who on closer inspection was probably male, raised his
hand and all but his own motor died.
He circled around the formation, making his front wheel lift off of
the ground. When he was about
halfway between his followers and the Skolians, he dropped the front wheel
back down to the grass, bringing the motorcycle to an abrupt halt in a
spray of muddy turf fragments.
He cut the motor and pulled off his helmet.
The others removed their helmets at the same time, with
near-military precision.
They were young, late teens or twenties, Del guessed.
Most had the same gleaming black hair, high cheekbones, and brown
eyes as his Spanish-speaking staff.
They held themselves with the brittle pride of people who had
little in the way of power, wealth, or status, but who nevertheless
refused to accept the world’s casual dismissal.
The leader glared across at them, the picture of confidence, but
Del caught his dismay at the calmly alert way the Skolians stood their
ground in the face of his display.
Still, he looked at them squarely and spoke Spanish-accented
English in a ringing voice. “I
am Manuel Diego de la Mendoza, captain of the best motorcycle club in
Northern Virginia, Los Lobos Grises, the Gray Wolves.”
He indicated his followers with a flourish.
“We outrode the Alligators and the Eagles when they challenged us
to a contest, and now people in Annandale Manors move aside to let us
pass. Who speaks for you?”
“It’s an invitation to parley,” Del said in Flag.
“Where is Annandale Manors?”
“It’s the poorer neighborhood adjoining the area we’ve been
clearing,” Tyra answered softly.
“The Gray Wolves are a frequent source of disturbances requiring
police intervention. Illegal
street races, mostly.”
Del nodded. “Let’s not
give them reason to take offense, then.
Let me through.”
In a show of military solidarity, or perhaps just chain-of-command
bloody-mindedness, the double row of uniformed backs in front of Del
didn’t part until Tyra ordered, “Step aside.”
Del walked through the gap and closed about three quarters of the
distance between himself and Mendoza’s motorcycle, placing the two
ostensible commanders in the no-man’s-land between their opposing forces.
The singer didn’t have a motorcycle, but Tyra and Wasther flanked
him on either side, hands on their Jumblers.
Following the diplomatic protocol appropriate to a parlay between
honorable leaders trying to decide whether they were friends or enemies,
Del spoke in Spanish, in as close as he could improvise to the form
Mendoza had used.
“My greetings, Manuel Diego de la Mendoza,” he announced with a
respectful, formal nod of his head.
He let his voice resonate, projecting so that everybody on both
sides of the confrontation could hear.
“I am Del-Kurj Arden Valdoria kya Skolia, prince of Skolia,” he
continued, then indicated the tense group of Skolians behind him.
“These are crew and fighters—I think the closest Allied equivalent
is Marines—off the Skolian flagship
Roca’s Pride.” He let his
mouth quirk upward in an ironic smile.
“People don’t generally make a point of stepping out of their way,
even on Skolian planets, but they did fight the Eubian military to a
standstill. Twice.”
As Del spoke, Mendoza’s shoulders slumped slightly and his fists
clenched, the response of a person who wants to lash out but knows that he
couldn’t possibly win the confrontation.
His frustration increased, fed by an underlying urgency.
“You don’t talk like a prince,” he objected, in Spanish this time.
“You talk like you live in the barrio like the rest of us.”
“I speak the Spanish of the people who taught me,” the singer
explained, gesturing toward Francisco and his crew.
“Badly, at times. Or so
they tell me.”
That earned him an outbreak
of rapid-fire commentary from his own side and gave Mendoza a moment to
regroup. It didn’t reduce the
man’s frustration or worry.
Something was badly wrong.
“How did Annandale Manors fare in the storm?” the prince asked
gently, beginning his inquiry with the most likely cause of distress.
“We have no mesh and no electricity for our houses,” Mendoza said,
tossing his head and straightening his shoulders as he recited what was
obviously a rehearsed list of grievances.
“But the big tower that they put through our neighborhood, it has
power. So does the cable that
broke and fell across our playground.
They sent a police officer to tell the children not to play there,
but would they come and fix it?
No. We are just a poor
neighborhood. All day we hear
the sound as they work up here to give people with more money their power,
but nobody comes to keep my little sisters, or Gilberto’s brother, or
Rico’s cousin from dying. So
my friends and I, we come up here to tell them, you must fix the tower
first and make our playground safe.”
Del shook his head sympathetically.
“My friend, the noise you heard was me and my friends here, and a
lot of other people from this neighborhood, clearing the trees that had
fallen so that repairs can be made, when there is someone available to
make them. They tell me it
will be a few days.” He
explained about the damaged substation, and why the repair crews were
working first in areas where power could be restored quickly.
“A live high-voltage cable on the ground, though…such a thing
should have been fixed by now.”
Del had no standing in the Allied government.
He didn’t work for the power company.
He had no authority to order anything to be fixed.
Yet the simple act of having somebody from outside of their
neighborhood agree that their grievance was valid washed away much of the
miasma of anger and frustration that had been hovering over the Grey
Wolves.
Hoping to capitalize on the mood shift, the singer continued.
“I have two engineers with me.
Right now, they are fixing the generator here so the elders can
have a hot meal. They can’t repair
a broken power cable with the equipment they have with them, but they
might be able to figure out how to cut the power to it so that it is no
longer a danger. At the least,
I have the com code for one of the Wrexley Utility engineers who
supervises repair crews in this area.
We can make sure that he understands the urgency.”
“You would do this for us?”
Hope and disbelief warred on Mendoza’s features.
“Of course,” Del said.
And in doing so, he won the unconditional loyalty of the entire
motorcycle gang.
Chapter 21
In which a
Jumbler is fired.
In the end, Eldrin decided to stay at Arcadia Gardens.
Because the storm had hit during the night shift, none of the
minimal staff who had been trapped there worked in the kitchen.
A survey of the available talent turned up an ISC Marine who knew
how to run a field kitchen, but was unfamiliar with many of the Earth
foods in the pantry. Two of
the neighborhood volunteers were serious competitors on what they called
“the BBQ circuit,” however, and one of the Grey Wolves worked in the
kitchen of a local restaurant.
With the help of good translation, it was hoped, they could manage to
produce a hot meal for all.
When Barghatt and Quoth had fixed the generator and trained Bakhshi
and two others how to operate it properly, they and the rest of the
Skolians set out for Annandale Manors with the Grey Wolves.
In this poorer area, the houses were older, the yards were smaller,
and there were fewer large trees.
They only had to pause twice, briefly, for the cat and forklift to
clear branches from the road.
Such a large and noisy procession could not help but attract
attention. Small children ran
alongside them, shouting, while their elders came out of the houses to see
whether the fuss was the long-awaited repair crew.
The playground was a small patch of mostly bare dirt, packed so
hard that even last night’s storm hadn’t been able to make much mud.
A swing set occupied one corner, its two working swings flanking
one that was missing its seat.
A small merry-go-round listed to one side.
Two small benches provided sitting space of sorts, for those
parents who dared brave the peeling green paint and occasional missing
staves on the seats and backs.
The only fully functional piece of play equipment was the climbing
structure, if only by virtue of its having no moving parts to malfunction.
Or it had been functional.
Like the rest of the playground, it had undergone many repairs in
its lifetime. Its last
refurbishment, fifteen years before, had replaced two rusted-out steel
supports and several other bars with a carbon-based composite, but left
the rest of the original steel intact.
When the heavy electrical cable had fallen across it, tangling in
its upper reaches, the massive electrical voltage had flowed through the
steel bars in search of a ground, arcing across the gaps and melting parts
of the structure to slag. What
was left was a sculpture worthy of Salvador Dali.
A bulky, sandy-haired police officer stood at the entrance to the
playground, presenting an imposing barrier to any children who might find
the altered climbing bars too great a temptation to resist.
He looked as immovable as a mountain, but Del could feel his
exhaustion and impatience, magnified tenfold by hunger, thirst, and a
cruel urgency that made his duty a torment.
“That’s O’Ryan,” Mendoza muttered in Del’s ear.
“He’s a proper hard-ass.
Hassles us all the time.”
Del shook his head. “If
you think he’s a hard-ass, you should have met my brother Kurj.
I can handle him.”
“The only way to handle a prick like him is to beat him senseless
until he stops shouting.”
“We’re all on the same side today,” the singer reminded him.
“Where is the closest decent public bathroom?”
“Huh?” The motorcycle
club captain looked bewildered by the
non sequitur.
“There’s one in the deli over there that you could use.”
“Thank you, but it’s not for me,” Del said.
Stepping to the head of the group, he addressed O’Ryan, who was
frowning at the odd procession in open suspicion.
“Good afternoon, Officer O’Ryan.
I’m Del Arden, the holorock singer.”
He nodded at the melted climbing bars and observed.
“That’s a nasty situation.”
O’Ryan looked at Del, then let his eyes roam over the ISC uniforms
and motorcycle club jackets before agreeing, “So it is.
What brings you to Annandale Manors, Mr. Arden?
Slumming?”
The Grey Wolves stiffened at the implied insult, but Del just
smiled easily. “Actually, my
crew and I were clearing trees off the road up that way.”
He gestured toward the more prosperous part of the neighborhood.
“Mr. Mendoza and his friends thought we were a utility crew and
came over to tell us that there was a more urgent problem here.
How long have you been waiting for the utility crew, anyway?”
O’Ryan shuffled his feet.
“Since ten this morning.”
“Without a relief?” Del
asked, with unfeigned indignation.
“The department’s short-handed today and the situation at the
utility company is even worse.”
He shuffled his feet again, the slow dance of a man whose bladder
has gone beyond urgency to crippling pain, then shrugged in resignation.
“Can’t let the kids wander into
that.”
“Indeed not.”
Del felt confusion from Mendoza and his followers.
Apparently, they had viewed O’Ryan as a personal enemy for so long
that they were having trouble accepting the idea that he genuinely wanted
to protect their younger brothers and sisters, and was willing to suffer
personal hardship to do so.
“Officer O’Ryan, I can’t make the utility company fix their cable
any faster, but I do have a dozen veteran ISC Marines off the
Roca’s Pride here, plus
additional naval crew and the Grey Wolves.
Between us, I think we can guard the playground for ten minutes or
so while you go across to the deli there and take a break.”
The prospect of relief made the policeman’s discomfort almost
unbearable, but he said, “I have my duty.”
“And you have carried it out for what, five hours now?”
The singer smiled gently.
“We can take on the burden for a few minutes.
If Chief Kauptmann objects, which he won’t, let me know and I’ll
talk to him.”
O’Ryan thought about it for a moment more, but Del’s ready use of
the police chief’s name carried weight.
“Ten minutes,” he agreed, and waddled briskly toward the deli.
“We’re guarding the playground and managing crowd control while the
policeman takes a break,” Del informed Major Barghatt in Flag.
She nodded and gestured to the senior Marine, who quietly started
deploying her forces around the playground, with particular attention to
the crowd that was milling around across the street, watching the
uniformed strangers. Turning
to Mendoza, the prince continued in Spanish, “Manuel my friend, these
Marines are very good at guarding, but they speak neither Spanish nor
English. Will your Wolves
stand with them to tell people why they must stay away?”
Mendoza nodded and spoke to his followers.
They moved almost as efficiently as the ISC veterans in their pride
at being needed to protect their community.
Meanwhile, Barghatt and Quoth inspected the damaged cable.
By the time a much-relieved Officer O’Ryan rejoined them, holding a
sandwich, chips, and a soda, they had a preliminary report.
“There’s no way to turn off the power to the cable without getting
up to the top of the tower,” Barghatt said.
Del craned his neck to look up at the tower, which loomed some
thirty meters into the sky.
“That doesn’t seem very practical,” he remarked.
“No, it isn’t.” She
looked at Quoth. “My
subordinate does have an idea for a partial solution, though.”
The lieutenant shrugged.
“It’s only a temporary fix, but we could cut the cable, high enough
that the dangling end doesn’t endanger anybody.
That leaves a safe situation down here until they get around to
fixing it.”
Del eyed the thick cable.
“Cut it with what?
Pruning shears?”
“I had in mind something more technologically sophisticated and
much less conductive.” Quoth
nodded toward the formidable weapon hanging at Tyra’s hip.
“Like an anti-bition particle accelerator.”
“You want my bodyguards to shoot down the cable with their
Jumblers?” Del couldn’t see
the already skeptical Officer O’Ryan going along with such a solution,
although the show would certainly impress Mendoza and his followers.
“A laser carbine would work as well, but we don’t have one here.”
“No, we don’t,” Del admitted.
Annandale was not an enemy-occupied hostile territory and it had
never occurred to any of them to consider the practical uses of heavy
armament as a demolition tool.
A definite oversight, the prince decided.
“Let me consult with Bosc before we take such a drastic step,” he
said, reaching for his wristcom.
“It could be that they will have a crew here shortly to repair the
cable properly.”
Bosc’s response, however, was disappointing.
“I can’t authorize destruction of Wrexley Utilities property,” he
said. “I can’t send a crew to
repair it, either.” He held up
a hand to stop Del’s protest.
“I know it’s bad, but I have my orders.
From the top dog:
Bundham Wrexley the Third himself.
So I can’t argue or appeal.”
“And why, may I ask, does the owner of your company insist that you
leave a live high-voltage cable dangling in a playground?”
“Mr. Wrexley is touring the worst of the storm damage with his good
friend, Congressman Ron Lundgrun.
He wants the Congressman and the reporters to have some significant
damage to see.”
“So this is about justifying that rate hike he’s asking for?” Del
asked. Although such increases
were most often quietly approved by the regulators without much
discussion, this time Ginny Alvins, the hostess of the prince’s favorite
local newscast, had made quite a fuss about the high percentage of the
proposed rate increase that was earmarked for padding shareholder profits
and compensation for company executives, chief among whom was Bundham
Wrexley the Third.
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Bosc said, his face in the wristcom’s
tiny screen impassive. “And I
couldn’t tell you if I did.
Not if I want to keep my job.”
And that was all he would say.
Del ended the call without getting any clear answer as to just how
long Wrexley Utility planned to leave a deadly hazard in the middle of a
playground. He was pacing in
indecision when a fancy limousine pulled up to the curb halfway down the
block, followed by several other, less pretentious, vehicles.
A mob of local news crews poured out of the latter: camera techs
with remotes orbiting around them, waiting for direction, sound mixers
with mics, and no less than five well-manicured reporters smoothing their
hair and clothing. When they
were ready, the back door of the limo opened and two men emerged.
One was about forty, tall and handsome by Allied cultural
standards, and had the professionally genial smile common to actors and
politicians. The other was
older and shorter, with silvered hair combed across his balding skull and
an unmistakable air of authority.
“Representative Lundgrun, will you be asking Governor Norris for
disaster aid?” one reporter shouted, elbowing to the front of the pack.
The younger man smiled for the camera drones.
“We are in the process of assessing the needs of Northern Virginia.
No decision has been made at this time.”
“Mr. Wrexley, how long with it take Wrexley Utilities to restore
power to its customers?” another newscaster called.
“Does your company have enough technicians and equipment to handle
the damage caused by a storm like Ethan?”
The silver-haired man looked grave.
“Storms like we just experienced are, fortunately, rare events in
Northern Virginia. Wrexley
Utilities is paying a lot of overtime to get power back to all our
customers, but our resources are limited.”
Ginny Alvins was a small, slender woman.
Unable to shove her way through the mob around Lundgrun and Wrexley
to ask a question, she had dropped back so that her crew could film the
inspection and the damage to the playground in a broader context.
In the meantime, she cast a practiced eye around the gathered crowd
for a suitably photogenic and articulate native to provide local color to
her presentation. Her eyes lit
on Del and widened in recognition.
“Hey, that’s Del Arden!” she called to her crew, motioning
frantically for them to point their cameras in the prince’s direction.
Unfortunately, her cry came during a temporary lull in the barrage
of questions with which her colleagues were peppering Wrexley and
Lundgrun. Her competitors from
the other local ‘casts were solid professionals.
In the ironclad pecking order imposed by the brutal competition for
audience share and ratings, a popular holorock star far outranked a junior
congressman and a wealthy, only mildly controversial business executive.
Like a school of sardines darting off in a new direction, the
entire mob headed toward Del at top speed, leaving Wrexley and Lundgrun
talking to thin air.
Tyra had been Del’s bodyguard long enough to become somewhat
accustomed to the aggressive habits of the Allied press corps, whose
political leaders lacked the sort of lethal, hair-trigger protection
enjoyed by top-ranking individuals among the more warlike Skolian and
Eubian empires. Secondary
Wasther and Tertiary Ja’chmna, however, had joined the prince’s detail
more recently. Their hands
moved to rest on their Jumblers as they stepped firmly between their
charge and the news crews. The
ISC marines and naval crew, who had not been able to follow the developing
situation because of the language barrier, saw the Jagernauts preparing to
defend Del and scrambled to place themselves between their prince and
danger. The Grey Wolves,
sensing a fight in the making, moved in to reinforce their new military
allies.
The news crews, suddenly barred from their target by an openly
hostile, unyielding wall of uniforms and leather jackets, stumbled to a
halt. As they milled around in
confusion, Del hissed a firm, “Stand down!” in Iotic, Flag, and Spanish.
Ginny Alvers recovered faster than her colleagues, perhaps because
her size made her more accustomed to being physically blocked from her
target. “Mr. Arden!” she
called, in a voice that carried almost as well as a trained singer’s.
“What brings you to Annandale Manors today?”
Hoping to defuse the tension before his protectors resorted to real
violence, Del dodged around Wasther and nudged two of the bikers who
occupied center positions in the impromptu blockade.
Not being subject to the ISC chain of command or its central
doctrine of protecting Ruby psions from harm at all costs, they yielded
like good beta wolves, stepping aside to let him pass.
“It’s good to meet you face to face, Ms. Alvers,” he said, flashing
the reporter a smile and breathing easier as he saw out of the corner of
his eye that Wasther and Ja’chmna no longer had their hands on their
weapons. “I’ve been enjoying your ‘casts analyzing the proposed utility
rate hikes.”
Behind Alvers, he could see the congressman recover from the shock
of being abandoned and assess the situation.
Like any relatively junior politician, Lundgrun had developed a
strategy for dealing with the fickle attentions of the press: if the
reporters wouldn’t come to him, he would go talk to whomever they were
interviewing. He restored the
easy, relaxed smile to his face and started for Del.
The much smaller Wrexley bobbed along in his wake.
This suggested interesting possibilities to Del.
Ignoring shouts from Alvers’s colleagues demanding to know when his
next vid was coming out and whether he planned to do a benefit concert to
aid victims of Hurricane Ethan, he answered her question as if they were
alone. “I was helping some of
my neighbors clear fallen trees off the road and heard there was a
dangerous situation here at the playground.
I can’t seem to get any clear information from Wrexley Utilities
about when this hazard will be removed, so I’m very glad to see their CEO
here. Perhaps he will know.”
He shifted his focus to the grey-haired businessman.
Opening his throat wider in a singer’s trick to make his voice
project clearly without appearing to shout, he called, “Mr. Wrexley!
I’m Del Arden. When
will your repair crews arrive to remove this damaged cable from the
climbing bars?”
The reporters evidently thought this exchange had the potential to
drive up ratings without their active input, so they stepped out of the
way so that Wrexley and Lundgrun could approach Del.
The camera remotes almost crashed into each other as they jockeyed
for position, seeking to capture all three celebrities and the half-melted
climbing bars in a single frame.
Wrexley, whose interests did not include either holorock or foreign
policy, appeared to mistake Del for another reporter.
Or perhaps he just saw an opportunity to deliver his rehearsed
talking points, after all.
“Such repairs take time,” he announced.
“Our resources are limited.
We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience they may suffer
and ask for their patience as we try to restore power to as many people as
quickly as possible.”
Unfortunately for Wrexley, Del was not a reporter.
He wanted specific answers, not vague sound bites with which to
fill an evening news segment.
“That cable is carrying enough power to melt the climbing bars,” he
pointed out sharply. “It will
kill any person or animal who comes too close.
That’s a little more than an ‘inconvenience,’ Mr. Wrexley.
It’s risking the lives of the people who live here.
Why hasn’t the power to that cable been cut so it can be removed
from the children’s playground?”
Wrexley’s expression stayed calm, but the singer could feel his
anger rising with each word of criticism.
Well and good. Del was
angry, too.
“High-voltage electrical equipment is more complex than people who
aren’t trained to work with it understand,” the businessman explained in a
vaguely patronizing tone, as if it were beneath him to answer questions
about his business practices.
“Operating the cranes required to lift a repair crew up to the tower is a
specialty in itself. Removing
the danger here can’t be done quickly, however much we’d like to.”
“You’re wrong, actually,” Del said confidently, making sure his
voice carried to the crowd of onlookers who had gathered to gawk.
“We happen to have here two ISC engineers who have spent the last
decade and more leading battle damage control crews aboard a Firestorm
battle cruiser. Battle damage
has certain similarities to hurricane damage, in that lives depend on
restoring a safe environment as quickly as possible.”
Wrexley, unsure of the situation, did not try to argue this point.
“If you can’t make the repair,” Del continued before the CEO could
regroup, “Major Barghatt and Lieutenant Quoth suggest simply cutting the
cable off, high enough that the ‘live’ end poses no danger to the people
below until full repairs can be made. As the CEO of Wrexley Utilities, do
you agree with this sensible safety measure?”
The CEO’s eyes narrowed.
“Young man,” he announced, “I strongly advise you to find someplace
else to play soldier with your buddies.
That cable carries enough power to fry you and everybody else here,
too. It takes specialized
equipment to cut through it, anyway.”
“We have several small but powerful anti-bition particle
accelerators with us that Lieutenant Quoth assures me will do the job
quickly and safely.” Del
spread his hands at Wrexley’s incredulous expression.
“They happen to be standard issue for certain branches of the
Skolian military. We cut the
cable, Lieutenant Quoth’s excellent scanners confirm that there are no
other problems, the children have their playground back, and Officer
O’Ryan here can finally eat his lunch in peace.”
“I can’t authorize any persons not employed and trained by Wrexley
Utilities to work on live power lines,” Wrexley insisted.
“Besides, do you know what those cables cost?”
Del promptly lost any sympathy he might have had for the CEO.
“Strangely enough, I do know what such cable costs,” he replied.
“We used some during the repairs on my new estate.”
He looked at Wrexley sternly.
“I also know that even if Wrexley Utilities was buying cable at the
same retail rate I paid, which we both know it isn’t, the cost of the
length of cable I propose to destroy is about…”
He paused for a moment as he converted the figures to octal and
divided.
“I make it less than a quarter of the cost of paying Officer O’Ryan
and his colleagues to mount a full-time guard here, depending on how long
it takes you to get around to fixing the problem.”
He smiled thinly. “The difference, of course, is that the much
higher expense of mounting a guard would be paid by the taxpayers of
Annandale, not Wrexley Utilities.
We happen to have quite a few of those taxpayers here.”
Looking around at the onlookers, he asked, “What do you think, my
friends? Do you want to pay
for a full-time police guard to save Wrexley Utilities a little money?”
“No!” roared the crowd.
Faced with united opposition, Wrexley’s expression grew even more
stubborn. “The cable is
valuable property belonging to Wrexley Utilities,” he insisted.
“It must not be damaged.”
“Can you commit to having a repair crew here within the hour?” Del
asked, not giving an inch.
“You know I can’t.”
“In that case, Tyra, would you do the honors?”
“Gladly.” The Jagernaut
drew her Jumbler in a smooth motion.
She didn’t have to pause to aim; she simply looked where she wanted
the beam to hit. The close
interface between the Jumbler and her biomech web took care of the rest.
There was an actinic orange flare and most of the now-dead cable
dropped to the ground, leaving about a ten-foot length dangling.
The Grey Wolves cheered, joined by quite a few of the onlookers.
Wrexley’s face turned an interesting shade of purple.
“Officer,” he demanded of O’Ryan, pointing at Del, “I insist you
arrest that man immediately for vandalizing the property of Wrexley
Utilities.” Ignoring
Congressman Lundgrun’s frantic gestures for him to shut up, he turned to
Del. “What do you say to that,
Mr. Rock Star?”
The prince sighed. He
had really hoped he could avoid trading on his family connections, but
there was no way nearly two dozen veteran ISC officers were going to allow
a Ruby prince to be arrested by an Allied police officer.
“I say, ‘diplomatic immunity,’” he answered the CEO.
“What?” Out of all
possible responses, this was obviously one Wrexley had not considered.
“I have diplomatic immunity,” Del repeated.
Reluctantly, he fished his passport out of his shirt pocket and
handed it to the policeman.
O’Ryan inspected it and his eyes widened.
“He’s telling the truth,” he stammered.
“How does a holorock singer get diplomatic immunity?” Wrexley
didn’t quite dare to call the policeman a liar, but his skepticism was
obvious. Again, he ignored
Lundgrun’s attempt to get his attention.
“I’m Skolia,” Del answered quietly.
“So you’re Skolian,” the CEO began.
“That doesn’t mean you can…”
“Not Skolian,” the still-stunned O’Ryan interrupted, holding the
passport out to Wrexley and pointing.
“Skolia. He’s a member
of the Skolian ruling family.”
The utility executive’s eyes followed the policeman’s finger to
where Del’s name was printed in elegant script across from his picture.
He read it several times, but the engraved letters persisted in
spelling out “His Royal Highness Del-Kurj Arden Valdoria kya Skolia.”
Perhaps realizing at last that he had overreached, he turned to
Lundgrun in outraged appeal.
“I tried to tell you, Bunny,” the hapless politician muttered, in
what he mistakenly believed was too soft a voice for the newscasters’ mics
to pick up. “He’s the bloody
Imperator’s brother.”
“But he…”
“Mr. Wrexley, I can’t touch him.” O’Ryan said, with what even a
non-empath could tell was false sympathy, as he returned the passport to
Del. “You could try a civil
suit if you really wanted to, I suppose, but it’d cost you way more than
just replacing the cable, even if you managed to convince a jury that
leaving a high-voltage power line dangling in the middle of a playground
was a good idea.”
“Be content with what you have,” Del suggested softly.
There was no active threat to his words, just the combined
authority accrued by generations of Lyshrioli Bards and Ruby queens.
“You’re no longer in danger of facing a wrongful death suit because
some child blundered into a deadly danger you refused to remove.
Your reputation isn’t going to suffer from forcing the overworked
police to provide full-time security and the taxpayers to pay thousands of
dollars to save your company a minor inconvenience.”
He smiled slightly.
“There remains the matter of the children’s climbing bars, which have been
ruined by your company’s malfunctioning equipment.”
Wrexley, who had almost been lulled into cutting his losses,
stiffened at Del’s last words.
“Don’t press your luck, Arden,” he snapped.
“Foreign prince or not, we know how to treat community organizers
in Annandale.” Whirling, he
stalked toward his limo, ignoring the shouted questions from the pursuing
reporters. With an apologetic
half-bow toward Del, Lundgrun scurried after him.
Ginny Alvers was not as easily diverted.
“Are you a community
organizer, Your Highness?” she asked pertly.
Del considered the question.
“On my homeworld, I am the Dalvador Bard, like my father,” he said,
his Lyshrioli accent thickening as it always did when he thought of home.
“Part of a Bard’s duties includes making sure the community acts
together when things must be done that are too much for one family to
manage. So, yes, I organize
it.”
General Fitz McLane was less than pleased when his aide, Major
Baxton, handed him an account of Del’s incursion into Annandale, with
reference to Alvers’ newscast.
It was never good news when a large file was produced by the staff tasked
with tracking Del’s daily activities and assessing their potential to
cause trouble for all three empires.
“Just what we need,” he grumbled to Baxton when he had finished the
report. “A community organizer
with foreign connections and a hobby of dabbling in politics at the
highest level to turn everything upside down.”
“Surely you’re overestimating the risk?” Baxton suggested
hopefully. “All he did was
convince people to cut up some trees, fix dinner for some octogenarians,
and argue with a minor businessman.
He didn’t even speak to anybody with real power or influence.
How much difference can that sort of thing make, in the long term?”
“You’d be surprised,” his superior retorted.
“Back in the twenty-first century, the United States made the
mistake of electing a community organizer named Barack Hussein Obama as
their President. Before his
hapless constituents knew what hit them, he’d pulled the United States
economy out of the second-worst collapse in its history, ended two wars
begun by his predecessor, reformed the health care system and the
financial industry, raised the minimum wage, improved support for military
veterans and education, and slashed the demand for imported energy that
was ruining the balance of trade by raising efficiency standards and
switching the industry to renewable sources where possible.
If he hadn’t been fighting the most blatantly obstructive
legislature in history, who knows what he might have done?”
“I will look him up, then, sir,” Baxton promised, and presented the
next report for his general’s attention.
Chapter 22
In which Randall
Gaithers finds his opinions in high demand.
Zachary’s sister’s benefit gala went off nearly as planned.
To be sure, Ariadne found it a bit disconcerting to have her home
suddenly occupied by a detachment of the Pharaoh’s Own off the Skolian
flagship. On the other hand,
having uniformed guards swarming all over the place only emphasized the
importance of her star performers.
Kelric was still unhappy with the security, but even he had to
admit that the last-minute nature of the engagement meant that any Eubian
attempt to snatch a pair of Ruby princes would have to be a similar
last-minute improvisation.
Equally unhappy with the security arrangements was George Sparnelli, whose
Uncle Nicki had been hired to cater the event.
After their unsuccessful attempt to obtain a piece of the action at
Del’s Annandale estate, mafia boss Johnny Sparnelli had taken his nephew
off of collections and assigned him to help with his youngest brother’s
restaurant. It wasn’t a
punishment, simply a practical way to keep him safely out of sight of the
Skolians, who were often out and about in the neighborhood in pursuit of
work and pleasure. The mafia
enforcer tried hard to appear meek and harmless as he lugged heavy trays
of steaming eggplant parmesan and chicken picatta from the catering van
into the kitchen.
The gala itself was to take place in the ballroom that occupied one
wing of the mansion. There was
a low wooden platform at one end of the room that served as a stage.
The rest of the space was taken up with tables.
Del was no mathematician like his aunt, but by his calculation, the
guests were paying a very large sum to spend an intimate evening being
impaled by the elbows of their immediate neighbors.
Watching from the sidelines, Del counted at least three plates that
slid off the too-small tables onto the floor and six glasses of wine
deposited on shirts or dresses due to jostled arms.
As promised, the gala audience was small but very exclusive.
The men were dressed in sober and expensive black evening suits, as
if they were attending a funeral.
The women glittered with a glacier’s worth of diamonds.
It reminded Del of a nature program sequence he’d viewed that
detailed the goings-on in a colony of penguins.
When the guests had been served dessert, a tiramisu topped with
shavings of dark chocolate, Ariadne took the stage to welcome them.
The vividly colored peacock tail feathers in her turban bobbed
dramatically as she outlined the plight of the opera and her search for
alternative entertainment for them.
She begged them to consider making an additional donation to help
cover the unanticipated costs, then introduced the “two Skolian princes
all the way from Parthonia” as “holorock sensation Del Arden and his
brother, Prince Eldrin.”
The opera fans offered a round of polite applause as Del and Eldrin
took the stage. It was very
different from the wild cheers that usually accompanied Del’s entrances,
but Eldrin had warned him that opera enthusiasts used a different
etiquette than holorock fans.
Still, it didn’t take Ruby empathy to sense their audience’s apprehension
as they approached the mics.
Part of that was Del’s fault for refusing to wear the customary
black formal wear. It was one
thing to dress like an opera singer to answer Senator Greeley’s challenge,
he had insisted, but quite another to do so because Zachary Marksman found
him a convenient way to placate his sister’s ego.
Eldrin, on the other hand, found the costumes of a holorock star
far too immodest for his taste.
It had caused a certain amount of acrimony between the brothers
until Chaniece told them to stop squabbling like children and suggested
that they wear the Bard’s costumes they had used for Anne’s wedding.
It was clear that the gala guests didn’t quite know what to make of
their matching embroidered shirts, blue trousers, and black boots.
Rather than give them more time to think about it, Del thanked them
for coming and introduced the first song.
They had prepared a short program, a mixture of Lyshrioli art songs
and some of their father’s compositions, which they accompanied on their
harps. While the main
selection criterion, of necessity, had been whether one or both of them
could remember the accompaniment, the songs did showcase the skill of the
singers and the unusual, six-octave range of their voices.
As the hour progressed, Del could feel the apprehension fading,
replaced with dawning delight, interspersed with an occasional island of
utter boredom that the singer attributed to the hapless, non-opera-loving
halves of some of the attending couples.
Even those showed some sparks of interest during some of the faster
pieces.
Eldrin was in his element and, mindful of his twin’s stern warning,
Del tried hard not to let his lack of enthusiasm for the project spoil his
brother’s fun. The songs might
not be his favorite kind, but singing them properly was a technical
challenge in which he could immerse himself.
They ended their prepared set with
Ave Maria, sung
a capella.
It had been very late by the time they got around to rehearsing
that part of the show, which perhaps accounted for their distinctly
Lyshrioli treatment of the melody: sometimes singing in close harmony,
sometimes alternating lines in every register from bass to coloratura. For
a last-minute revamp—they had originally planned to draft Randall to play
for them because neither of them felt able to do justice to the
accompaniment on such short notice—it turned out well.
So well, in fact, that they ran past their two prepared encores and
had to fall back on the wedding song Del had written for Anne and Cameron
as a third. Or perhaps their
audience simply wanted to feel like they’d gotten something for the
extortionate amount of money they’d paid for their tickets.
When the brothers finally yielded the stage back to Ariadne for a
final pitch for donations, Zachary met them outside the ballroom, dressed
in the ubiquitous penguin costume.
“Good job, both of you,” he greeted them, clapping Del familiarly
on the shoulder.
“I hope the opera will get enough additional donations to put on
its fall season,” Eldrin said.
“Who cares about them?” Prime-Nova’s tech-mech king said callously.
“What matters is that Ariadne’s guests liked you, so her party is a
success. Latham and I would
never have heard the last of it if you’d flopped.
Oh, and Arden?”
“Yes?” Del asked, with due caution.
“You need to get busy on some new songs.
We’re working on something big for your next tour.
Can’t give you the details just now, but like I said, if it comes
together it’ll be big.” He
glanced nervously back at the ballroom, where Ariadne’s appeal was
reaching a climax. “Got to
run, or I’ll be stuck here talking opera all night,” he announced hastily
as she finished. “I’ll call
you in a week or two.” And he
was gone, dodging a stream of waiters carrying carafes of coffee and tea.
Randall fought his way down the hall, leaning against the wall as
he forced his injured leg to work.
The pain rose with every step, until he was forced to sit down on
the rustic couch that decorated the alcove near the main hall or faint.
Grimly, he considered his options.
He had made it over two thirds of the way to the common room, with
about thirty feet remaining.
It might as well have been thirty miles.
He had been feeling so much better, on this third day home from the
hospital, that he had persuaded his parents to take a few hours off and go
see the sights of old Washington, D.C.
Some better. He felt
like limp noodles.
Around him, the estate swarmed with activity like an anthill,
filled with people painting, pruning, repairing, mowing, rearranging,
cleaning, and otherwise getting the building and grounds ready to live in.
And here he was, useless Randall, not even able to walk down the
hall and get his own lunch. He
felt a tear escape his left eye and angrily scrubbed it away.
He was in such a funk that he didn’t hear the approaching footsteps
until a deep voice asked in Iotic, “My greetings, Ser Gaithers.
Do you need help?”
Randall looked up. And
up. Kelric Skolia loomed over
him, glittering metallic gold brows slightly furrowed in concern.
“My greetings, Imperator Skolia,” he answered, groping through his
limited Iotic vocabulary. “I
need help not, ser.” He suspected “ser” wasn’t the appropriate honorific
to use when addressing the Imperator, but he didn’t know any others, and
he hurt far too much to attempt the deep bow that Skolian etiquette
demanded of a non-noble civilian addressing a member of the Ruby Dynasty.
“I be good after sit. I
only feel…” he had to guess, “sad for me?”
“I think the phrase you’re looking for is ‘wrapped in the tragedy
of your own hair,’” Kelric observed, providing the idiom.
“I’m not surprised. Del
said you were healing well.
Let me guess: the medics took
you off some of the drugs, you started to move around, and you’ve found
that nothing will work properly?”
“Yes,” Randall agreed, the frustration bubbling up again.
“I no walk to eat with not sit in passage like old grandmother.”
“Your stamina will improve in a few days,” the Imperator assured
him, leaning against the wall and crossing his gauntleted arms across his
massive chest. Randall
wondered for a moment if the man was so in the habit of intimidating
everybody around him that he loomed automatically.
Then it occurred to him that someone so large, who also had a lot
of biomech, might not trust standard furniture.
“It will take longer to get your leg working properly again, of
course.”
Kelric spoke with the confidence of personal experience.
There were no negotiations today, so he was dressed lightly in
deference to the oppressive East Coast summer heat and humidity.
This close, Randall could see scarring on the massive biceps and
thighs. Lots of scarring, of
the type that only results when a human body is smashed like a bug on a
windshield and repaired by multiple surgeries.
“If I might offer some unsolicited advice?”
“Certainly, ser,” Randall agreed.
“The physical therapists will stop once you can walk again.
Don’t settle for that.
Have you met Secondary Wasther yet?”
“Not muchly.”
Wasther was one of the new Jagernauts who had joined Tyra and
Cameron on bodyguard duty for Del.
Like Cameron, he looked strong enough to bench press a horse.
Given Jagernaut biomech, he could probably bench press Del’s racer,
too, if he wanted. At the same
time. Randall hadn’t had the
nerve to introduce himself.
The man looked almost as intimidating as his current conversational
companion.
“His last assignment was as a physical fitness instructor at the
Dieshan Military Academy. He
handled medical rehabilitation, too, so he knows a great deal about how to
rebuild damaged muscles and tendons.
If you ask him, I expect he’d be willing to help you get your legs
back.”
“That sound…very work well, ser.”
Randall tried to wrap his mind around the concept of having a
Jagernaut drill sergeant as his personal trainer.
It was the sort of idea that Hollywood scriptwriters would put into
a comedy. He preferred not to
contemplate how it would look as a reality show.
The Imperator’s chuckle reminded Randall, too late, that the man
shared Del’s uncanny ability to sense the emotions of those around him—and
also, he suspected, the holorock star’s talent for guessing the thoughts
behind those emotions.
Quite accurately, as it turned out.
“It wouldn’t be that
bad,” the Skolian leader assured him. “You’ve survived rehearsals with my
brother, after all. And I
assure you, where his music is concerned, Del’s temper is
much worse than Wasther’s.”
Randall blushed, then found himself smiling back.
“I have teacher in school, for…” he groped for the word… “games
with running?”
“Athletics?”
“I think so, yes,” Randall agreed.
“I was very bad student.
I see not why put sphere through circle is important.
The teacher say, he wish to see how his old Army sergeant make me
work.”
This time, the Imperator’s laugh was more spontaneous, and Randall
caught a glimpse of the gold-haired, cheerful little boy that Del had
described. It emboldened him
to say, “Much thanks for bring parents to here, ser.”
“You’re quite welcome,” the Imperator said.
“Are they comfortable?”
“Yes, muchly,” Randall said.
“I feel gooder today, so they go Washington to see.”
“It’s a beautiful city; they’ll enjoy it.”
The stringer player nodded.
“Better than sit with bad-mood son.”
“Surely not.” The
Imperator’s tone was gently mocking, with a wryness that implied he
himself was not the most amiable of patients.
“It not be so bad, but doctors say I not can play stringer for two
weeks. Weight bad for leg.”
“No wonder you’re bored.”
He contemplated Randall for a moment.
“If you’re seeking something useful to do, would you consider
giving me some assistance?”
“Assistance, ser?” For
the life of him, Randall couldn’t imagine why the Skolian Imperator would
want the help of a crippled Allied stringer player.
From what Del had said, the man didn’t even like holorock.
On the other hand, Randall had to admit that he owed Del’s brother
a great deal.
“Yes. Our negotiations
with your government’s leaders would be helped by clearer communication.
Senator Greeley, in particular, often uses words and phrases that
evoke a very different emotional response in his English-speaking audience
than they do after translation into Iotic or Flag.
I’d like to know what he means, not just what he says. I expect
your manager, Mac Tylor, is doing something similar for ASC.”
“Mac?” Randall couldn’t
imagine for a moment why ASC would recruit a band manager, however
successful. “Why because he is
friend of Del?”
“Yes, and because he was the liaison between ASC and our family
when your military protected Lyshriol during our last conflict with the
Traders. That’s how he and Del
met.”
“Why ask me? I speak
only English good, Spanish and Iotic not so good.
Del’s Iotic is much gooder than mine.”
He paused, but had to admit, “Del’s English is much gooder than
mine, also.”
“It’s ridiculously unfair, isn’t it?” the Imperator asked, with
genuine sympathy. “Del and
some of my other siblings can learn a new language in a month or two
without even really trying, while the rest of us mere mortals have to
settle for sounding like idiots. I
like reading, but still…”
The massive shoulders shrugged.
“For all his linguistic talent, you have one advantage Del doesn’t:
you grew up here. You know the
culture and history of this world as well as its language.”
“My history teacher say you wrong,” Randall warned.
“I never much interested in politics, too.
You could find the better person.”
“Probably. On the other
hand, that would take time…and you’re here and available.”
“You think I help, I will try.”
He spread his hands.
“Have no other thing to do, after all.”
“Good.” Kelric
addressed his gauntlet. “Bolt,
would you ask the kitchen to send lunch for the two of us to Ser Gaither’s
room?” Turning back to
Randall, he said, “There was a particular instance yesterday when Senator
Townsend addressed Senator Greeley and raised the hackles of almost every
English-speaking listener in the room.
The reason did not survive the translation into Iotic.
I would be glad of your opinion as to why.”
One ham-sized hand extended in a matter-of-fact offer of
assistance. Still bemused by
the irony of the situation, Randall placed his own hand in the Imperator’s
and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
Which is how stringer player Randall Gaithers, undistinguished
graduate of the San Diego public schools and more recently a resident of
the artistic slums of Annapolis, previously remarkable mainly for having
joined a holorock band just before it made the big time, found himself
drafted as a cultural advisor to the justly feared and respected military
dictator of Imperial Skolia.
The sense of unreality continued as, over grilled turkey
sandwiches, he struggled to explain what the phrase “peculiar institution”
meant, when used by a black Northerner about a white Southern gentleman in
the context of failure to condemn slavery.
It was quite obvious from his probing questions that while Kelric
Skolia knew very little of the history of the Allied Worlds, he knew a
great deal about how long cultural grudges could last, especially when
those holding them had no other way to justify the reprehensible behavior
of their ancestors.
Del poked his head in around two, grinned, and warned his brother
not to tire Randall out too badly.
The Imperator seemed to take the admonition to heart, because he
stopped the session, with what sounded like sincere thanks, just about the
time Randall’s energy ran out.
The days of Randall’s convalescence fell into a pattern after that.
He spent part of each morning working with Tertiary Wasther, who
put him through a workout designed to make sure that the rest of him
didn’t lose too much strength while the leg healed.
It wasn’t quite as bad as the stringer player had feared:
the Jagernaut did seem to understand how important it was to a
musician to keep his fingers nimble, and went to some trouble to devise
hand exercises.
Randall was always tired when they were done, and napped for a few
hours after lunch. That left
him relatively fresh when the Imperator returned from the day’s
negotiations with more questions.
By a week after his return home from the hospital, Randall’s
stamina had improved enough that he insisted on attending a party
Prime-Nova was giving to celebrate the
Carnelians Finale vid’s
continued stay at the top of the charts.
The evening resulted in two insights.
The first was that compared to Kelric Skolia and the Jagernauts who
answered to him, Zachary Marksman’s heretofore impressive posturings just
weren’t that formidable, which might explain Del’s disregard for them.
The second was that his stamina had not improved to the extent he
had believed.
Mac found him huddled on a couch, fighting down smoke-induced
nausea and gamely trying not to flinch as the gesticulations of the couple
sharing the other end caused it to rock and jostle his leg.
“You look like you’ve had enough partying for one evening,” the
manager said quietly. “Would
you like me to call the van around to drive you home?”
Miserably, Randall nodded.
“This crowd’s a little much,” he admitted.
The next day, the doctor scolded him and told him to stay home and
take it easy for a while.
Randall hadn’t told the man about his Jagernaut-supervised workouts, and
didn’t. For all their
thoroughness, it had become obvious that Wasther knew exactly what he was
doing. Randall might be tired
after the Jagernaut was done with him, but the leg always hurt less, not
more. His general mobility had
improved, too.
He was feeling rather cheerful as he made his way out to the
parking lot to meet Mac, who had offered to give him a ride since the van
was being used to shuttle building materials that morning.
Once in the car, however, Mac turned to look at him.
“I know you’re tired,” he said, “but there’s a good friend of mine
who is very interested in meeting with you.
Do you have enough energy for a quick stop?”
No professional musician who wanted to stay a professional declined
such an offer from his manager.
Randall wondered briefly why Mac’s contacts hadn’t been invited to
Prime-Nova’s party and why they didn’t want to talk to Del instead, but
agreed without much thought.
When the stringer player saw who was waiting in Mac’s office,
though, his temper soared. No
one in the music business wore a crisp military uniform with such an
expanse of medals. He looked
to Mac for an explanation, hoping against hope that he was wrong.
“Randall Gaithers, this is General Fitz McLane and his aide,
Major…”
“No,” Randall interrupted, stopping in the entryway to glare at the
manager. “Oh, no.
Absolutely not.” He
widened his disapproval to include the display of military might in the
office. “Just for once, can’t
I be introduced to somebody’s Aunt Ethyl from Oklahoma who never did
anything more newsworthy than win third place for her pickles at the
county fair, but who actually likes our music?”
Five-star General FitzWilliam Raymond McLane, supreme commander of
the Allied Space Command, chuckled from his seat behind Mac’s desk.
“Sit down, son,” he ordered, not unkindly, gesturing toward the
closest chair. “I expect that
broken leg of yours could use the rest.”
Beside Randall, Mac’s eyes pleaded silently with him to not make a
scene.
“I’m starting to see why Del complains so much about living in a
fish bowl,” Randall grumbled as he complied.
“Does every government official out there get a daily briefing on
how many pain pills I take and whether I cheated on my physical therapy?”
The General shrugged.
“I couldn’t say,” he admitted reluctantly.
“I’m not sure how closely Eubian Emperor Jaibriol the Third is
following events here. Their
covert intelligence is good; we haven’t cracked it.”
Randall’s jaw dropped, then he started swearing.
In three languages.
“Mind your manners, boy,” the major standing behind McLane snapped,
his crew cut bristling with offense.
“Major Baxton, you’re not helping,” the General said tiredly.
Returning his attention to Randall, he continued.
“Look, I know you and the rest of your band have been subjected to
a lot of extreme measures, but you have to admit that a Skolian Ruby
prince making a living as an Allied holorock singer is an unusual
situation.”
“It’s a security nightmare,” the major grumbled.
“Imperator Skolia will blame us if anything happens to his brother.
Whether or not we were at fault.”
“That, too,” the General agreed.
“All we want to do is play music for our fans,” Randall pointed
out. “And we really, really
wish that everybody would just leave us alone to do that.”
“Believe me, I share your wishes,” McLane sympathized.
“This whole band thing has been a headache for me from the start.
But it’s not going to happen as long as Prince Del-Kurj Skolia is
your songwriter and lead singer, so you might as well look at the bright
side.”
“What bright side?” Randall asked, in what he thought was a
reasonably polite manner under such trying circumstances, although the
major’s expression made his disagreement clear.
“You do have the most efficient, hardworking roadie and tech crew
in the business. Ever wonder
how it happened that you didn’t get the usual drunks, druggies,
incompetents, and drifters?”
“No,” Randall moaned, closing his eyes.
The General nodded. “Every member of your crew has passed both our
security check and the Skolians’. Some of them are our agents, working
undercover to provide extra security.
I have reason to believe that Imperator Skolia sent some of the
others. They’re all good at
their jobs, which makes things run much more smoothly.
And if something unfortunate does happen, there will be a trained
response crew on site.” The
tired mouth twitched in a wry grin.
“For that matter, it isn’t chance that you, Anne Moore, and Jud
Taborian are all relatively stable, sensible individuals as well as
competent musicians. How many
bands can say that?”
“With compliments like that, who needs critics?” Randall grumbled
under his breath. He looked up
at the General, who at least looked less offended by his decidedly
unmilitary presence than Major Baxter or Baxton or whoever he was.
“I suppose you might as well go ahead and tell me why you had Mac
bring me here to meet you,” he admitted grudgingly.
General McLane relaxed just a little in Mac’s chair, while somehow
managing not to lose his ramrod-straight military bearing.
“I realize that it might be difficult to take in, but the truth is,
your government needs your help.
We are in dire need of some information that only you can supply.”
Another surge of anger brought Randall to his feet—foot, rather— in
an instinctive effort to reclaim the height advantage he had ceded by
sitting down. The effect was
somewhat spoiled when one crutch flew across the office, narrowly missing
Mac, and he had to grab the desk to keep from falling.
“I am NOT going to spy on the Skolians for you,” he insisted,
glaring at the General. “Come
on, Mac. We’re going.”
Mac did not move in response to this demand.
Major Baxter, on the other hand, looked angry enough to have
Randall arrested on the spot.
“General,” he pleaded, only to be waved to silence.
“Calm down, son,” McLane urged Randall.
“Nobody is asking you to spy on anybody.
Nor would we. You don’t
have the skills or the aptitude for that kind of work.”
“Glad to hear we agree on something,” the musician grumbled.
The General chose to take this as encouragement and continued, “I
understand you don’t have much of an interest in politics, but you may
have noticed that the talks between us and the Skolians have reached a
stalemate.”
“It’s kind of hard to miss that.”
“The truth is, we’re being squeezed between two immensely powerful
empires who have been shooting at each other for generations.
We can’t afford to provoke either of them; I’m proud of our
military, but we don’t have the numbers or the equipment to come out ahead
in any armed conflict. The
longer the negotiations drag on, the more pressure the Eubians bring to
bear on the Senate and the worse the situation gets.
And all the time, that damned Firestorm battlecruiser is up there
in orbit, just a friendly little reminder that Imperator Skolia could
easily reduce Earth to a flaming fireball any time he chooses.”
Randall realized, for the first time, that this five-star decorated
General, who had the entire Allied military at his command, was genuinely
afraid of a man Randall had come to like and trust.
It would have been funny if it weren’t so dangerous: frightened
people tended to do stupid things.
Fortunately, he could offer reassurance on that particular subject
without betraying any confidences.
“The day the Imperator arrived, some of the talking heads on a
newscast we were watching were talking about the
Roca that way,” Randall
observed, unconsciously using the familiar nickname by which the Skolian
flagship’s crew referred to their vessel.
“Do you want to know what Del said?”
McLane leaned forward attentively.
“I do. Very much.”
“He said they were idiots.
That the Imperator didn’t bring the
Roca’s Pride as a political
statement, but because it has equipment he needs to work in Kylespace.
The Pharaoh can’t maintain the entire Kyleweb by herself for so
long.”
The General blinked.
“That…puts a different perspective on the matter, to be sure.
And it’s exactly the sort of perspective we need.
Desperately.” He
settled back in his chair and continued, “The fact is, the Allied Worlds
aren’t used to dealing with hereditary dynasties.
We don’t have a good feel for how the balance of power works and
how that affects their decisions.
You are probably the only Allied citizens who has ever talked with
Imperator Skolia informally long enough to have some sense of what kind of
person he is. We need to
understand him, badly, before some accidental misstep of ours offends him
and lands us in a war we don’t want and which we probably can’t win.”
“He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’s petty enough to
start a war because somebody insults him by mistake,” Randall pointed out.
“And he’s an empath, like Del.
It’s not as if he’d have any trouble at all figuring out if an
insult was intended.”
“That’s not as reassuring as it might be, with Senator Greeley
around,” the General muttered under his breath.
“If Imperator Skolia were to choose to take offense at something
Greeley says or does in the name of the Allied Worlds, we’d never know
until it was too late,” Baxton elaborated. “The way he stands in the back
of the conference room with that grim expression on his face, like he was
some kind of living statue...it’s not natural.
Does the man even know how to smile?”
“He smiles plenty,” Randall parried.
“Did it never occur to you that you’re not giving him anything to
smile about? That he might not
appreciate having his time wasted by Greeley’s speeches about how slavery
is just a quaint local custom we should respect, not a blatant abuse of
human rights that’s against our laws as well as the Skolians’?”
He turned back to McLane.
“I’ve only seen the grim Imperator you describe twice and, well, I
can’t hold those against him.
Most of the time he’s perfectly approachable.
Impressive as hell, and the sort of person you really, really want
in your corner and not the other when the shit hits the fan, but he’s as
human as you or me.” He
glanced sideways at Baxton, unable to resist temptation.
“Not sure yet about your friend Baxter.
Does he always scowl like that?
And his spine doesn’t look like it can bend.
Are you sure he’s not a robot?”
Randall had the satisfaction of watching Baxton’s face flush
purple. “We’re wasting our
time here, Sir,” he complained.
“Prince Del-Kurj and his brother don’t get along.
Maybe that could be exploited?”
“I really wouldn’t count on that, if I were you,” Randall said,
turning back to General McLane in appeal.
“Remember I said that I’d only seen the Skolian Imperator you
describe twice?”
McLane nodded.
“The first time was at Anne’s grandparents, when Del was being
threatened by those armed idiots in sheets.
The second time…”
Randall sat back in his chair.
“It was when I asked him what the problem was between him and Del.
I thought maybe they could reach some kind of compromise.”
The General leaned forward with interest.
“Did he answer?”
“Yes,” Randall said. He
paused for a moment, wondering if he ought to answer.
But McLane was right:
the Allied Worlds hadn’t had a real, functioning monarchy in centuries.
No one quite knew how to deal with the Ruby Dynasty.
“What happened?” McLane asked quietly.
“He went all cold and unyielding, like a gold-plated granite
statue. Then he said, ‘My
brother Del views himself as expendable.
The rest of us disagree.’
But it was the way he
said it. As if, on that
particular issue, Hell would freeze over before he’d give an inch.”
Chapter 23
In which Del’s
Baltimore concert garners mixed reviews.
Anne and Cameron returned from their Hawai’ian honeymoon with the
obligatory healthy tans, new shirts in wild, colorful prints, and boxes of
chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.
Jud, too, returned from his family visit, and with Randall
recovered sufficiently to play the stringer again, the band resumed
rehearsals in preparation for their next concert, which was to be in
Baltimore. The suffocating
heat and humidity of August eased a little in September, the repairs to
the house and grounds were completed at last, Chaniece returned to
Skyfall, and Zachary Marksman finally summoned Del to hear his promised
plans for their next tour.
When Del and Mac entered the office of Prime-Nova’s vice president,
preceded by Cameron and followed by Tyra, they were greeted by a cheerful,
“Del! There you are.
Grab a seat.”
“Hello, Zachary,” Del returned.
The courteous smile with which he had greeted the Tech-Mech king
gained real warmth as he nodded toward a corner of the office.
“Staver.”
“Del.” The Skolian
bowed formally, a gesture that Del tolerated only because the respect that
accompanied it was directed at him personally, not at his family.
“Since your identity came out, your sales among the Skolian outlets
have soared,” Zachary said.
“It’s time to capitalize on that.
At Staver’s urging, I’ve decided to accept Metropoli Interstellar’s
offer to send you on a tour of the Skolian worlds.
We’re not sure exactly which worlds yet.
It depends on what venues are available, and if you attract
anything like the audiences you’ve been getting on Earth, we may extend
the tour beyond what we’re considering now.
We’ll lease a freighter, so you won’t have to worry about the
liners losing the equipment in transit…”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Tyra asserted, breaking bodyguard
discipline as she looked at Zachary Marksman in appalled disbelief.
“You’ve got a problem with that?” Prime-Nova’s vice president
asked. He was not used to
being interrupted by the talent, much less hired muscle.
Tyra Jarin, of course, wasn’t the average hired muscle.
“A fat, slow, helpless freighter?
You might as well send a note to Jaibriol Qox, ESC, every Aristo
with a slaver fleet, and all the freelance pirates, too:
one Ruby empath to order, delivery schedule to follow, come and get
it.”
“Oh, come on,” Zachary protested.
“That’s just paranoia talking.”
“She’s got a point,” Del agreed reluctantly.
He hated it when being a prince got in the way of being a musician
“Kelric would throw a fit.”
“I can supply you with a list of planets on which we’d like His
Highness to perform,” Staver told Tyra.
“If you could pass them on to ISC?”
“Sure thing,” the Jagernaut agreed.
“I’ll let you know which ones are realistic options.
You do realize that publicity for specific venues will have to wait
until the band arrives at a particular world?”
“Of course,” Staver agreed.
“What kind of a damn fool plan is that?” Zachary objected.
“How are we supposed to sell tickets if we can’t advertise in
advance?”
Del could see that the conversation was going nowhere fast.
“Zachary, I’m sorry, but there are certain security restrictions
that come with being a member of my family.
One of them is that we’re not supposed to travel between planets
except in total secrecy—not an option in this case—or on transport
provided by ISC. Generally,
that means a fairly substantial task force.
Kelric is usually pretty reasonable about such things, but there
will be a lot fewer delays if we plan the tour around ISC’s schedule.”
The Prime-Nova executive shook his head in disbelieving scorn.
“Are they really that terrified that you’ll stub your royal toe if
you’re forced to make do like a normal human being?”
Staver and Tyra turned on Zachary, identical outraged snarls on
their faces. Del threw up a
hand in an unusually princely gesture to forestall their objections and
silently ordered them both,
Let me handle this.
“Look, Zachary, I know you don’t follow even Earth politics all
that much, never mind interstellar disputes, but here’s a short history
lesson,” the prince began.
“The Skolian Imperialate has survived two wars with the Traders only
because it has the huge military advantage of the Kyleweb.
Making a Kyleweb takes two things:
a Lock, like the one ESC captured at the end of the last war, and a
Ruby psion to activate it and become its Key.
That means if one member of my family falls into ESC’s clutches,
the Imperialate could fall.
And then the Traders would mop up you Allieds for dessert.”
“Oh, come on,” Zachary scoffed.
“Tarex kidnapped you, and the world didn’t end.”
“We were all very, very lucky,” Tyra said.
“Tarex was too greedy and self-absorbed to realize what he had in
his clutches. If he had, he’d
have been gone long before we could stage a rescue.”
She looked at him steadily.
“Believe me, none of the Aristos will make
that particular mistake again.”
“Kelric agreed to let me stay on Earth—against his better
judgment—because I probably couldn’t survive becoming a Key,” Del
continued. “Of course, they
thought our father was a bad risk, too, and he served as a Key for fifty
Earth years.”
“Metropoli Interstellar is confident that we can offer a successful
tour, even within the necessary restrictions,” Staver offered.
“I don’t see how,” Zachary argued.
“With only, what, a week’s lead time, max?
You’re not going to be able to get any reasonable venue on a decent
night. They’ll be booked
months in advance. Even if you
could get the venue on an off night, you’d still be stuck trying to sell
enough tickets to make a profit on ridiculously short notice.
Del has an organized fan base here on Earth, but there’s nothing
like it for Skolian fans. How
in the world do you think you can locate his local fans in time to tell
them Del’s giving a concert in their area on such short notice, much less
give them time to buy tickets and make plans?”
“I thought to start the tour on Parthonia,” Staver ventured.
“That’ll work,” Del nodded.
“We announce a tour of the Imperialate and stick around long enough
to do a couple of concerts the normal way.
No hassles there: the Sunrise Palace has security even Kelric
agrees is sufficient and my mother’s been after me to visit for a long
time. When the newies cover
it—and they will—the fans elsewhere start talking to each other, wondering
where we’ll go next.”
“All of which is very touching,” Zachary allowed, “but you’ve still
got to find them.”
Del shrugged. “That
part’s easy. I’ll ask my Aunt
Dehya to find them for us.”
Zachary blinked. “Your
aunt?”
“The Shadow Pharaoh,” Staver elaborated.
“If it’s on the mesh, she can find it.”
“Mind you, she’ll probably insist that we add the Orbiter to the
tour in exchange,” Del added, “but I haven’t met my latest nephew yet,
so…” He paused.
“Are you all right, Zachary?”
The usually ebullient Zachary was looking rather as if he had just
been hit over the head with a large, solid object.
He pulled himself together long enough to mutter, “Sure, kid, I’m
fine,” but he was unnaturally subdued for the rest of the meeting.
Tickets for the Baltimore concert sold briskly, promising to pack
the arena as full as any football game.
The vid sales and fan chatter proved that the break in the band’s
performance schedule hadn’t killed interest in
Carnelians Finale.
Speculation was rife as to what song would be chosen to replace
their megahit. Some of the
suggestions were good enough that Del told his personal EI, Claude, to
remember them for possible future use.
The ticket sales were so brisk that they threatened to cause
President Hannah Loughten some domestic problems.
Sasha had insisted that the only present she wanted for her ninth
birthday was tickets to see ‘Del Arden’ perform in concert and Melanie had
enthusiastically seconded the request.
With no other options, their mother had agreed.
“We may have a problem with the Del Arden tickets, Madam
President,” Hannah Loughten’s invaluable chief staffer warned her, the day
the tickets went on sale.
Loughten frowned. “A
problem?”
“The Secret Service says the security isn’t adequate in any of the
available seats.”
“But…what happened to the owner’s box, Lauren?
I thought we had decided to reserve that?”
“It never went on sale this morning.”
Lauren shook her head.
“I asked, and it looks as if the owner’s box was one of two boxes held
back by Prime-Nova.”
“Held back? Are they
doing some promotional thing?
Maybe they’d be willing to accommodate us.
It’s not like there aren’t plenty of seats.
Including other boxes, even if they don’t have bulletproof
shielding around them.”
What the existence of the assault-proof box said about the paranoia
of the owners of the Ravens—and the prowess of that venerable team, she
preferred not to consider.
“I put out a call,” the staffer said.
“I’m still waiting to hear back.
I just thought I’d warn you in case Prime-Nova gets stubborn.
Any major crisis is easier to manage if you have some warning.”
“Thank you, Lauren.
You’re right. If the girls
don’t get their promised treat, I might as well move out of the White
House for the duration.”
Prime-Nova refused to release the box, but did agree to check with
the party who had reserved it to see if they were willing to switch.
There the matter sat during a long day of speeches and meetings, as
the delegates tried to work out trade details with the Skolian
representatives. The Imperator
was on his flagship, so Ambassador Tron was heading the Skolian
delegation.
That worthy Amazon approached her as she was about to leave the
talks. “Madam President, I
have a message for you from Prince Del-Kurj,” she announced.
Hannah blinked in surprise.
“Prince Del-Kurj?” The
prince-turned-holorock star had never felt the need to communicate through
the Ambassador before. She
would have expected him to just call the White House switchboard in person
if he had something to say to her.
“Yes, Madam President.
His Highness regrets that his reservation of the secure owner’s box at the
Baltimore Arena has put him in conflict with you.
While his brothers can unfortunately not be accommodated elsewhere
for security reasons, he also does not wish to ruin your daughters’ treat.
He therefore suggests that you and your family join his own in the
box as his guests. There is,
after all, plenty of room.”
Hannah smiled in relief at having her domestic difficulties solved
so easily. “You may tell His
Highness that we would be honored.”
A week later, Del grinned out at the cheering throng that filled
the Baltimore Arena. “Thank
you very much! You’ve been a
wonderful audience tonight. We
come now to the portion of our program that was modified by order of
Senator Greeley and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
A chorus of enthusiastic boos rang out and the reporters in the
press box leaned forward in heightened interest.
Like their father the Dalvador Bard, Kelric reflected, Del knew how
to play an audience. It was a
skill he himself lacked. Down
on the stage, his brother raised a hand to cut the boos off before they
became ugly, admonishing, “Now, now, the Senator from Mississippi has the
undisputed right to ask a foreign national like myself not to use a public
entertainment venue like this to sing songs about controversial issues,
like whether it’s a good idea to maintain close ties with an Empire that
views slavery and genocide as normal.”
He raised his hand to cut off a new wave of boos, mixed with
hisses. “Instead of
Carnelians, tonight we have a
traditional folk song for you.”
He glanced toward the owner’s box as he finished, “It was written
hundreds of years ago, but I think you’ll all agree it still makes sense
today.”
As the audience scooted forward in their seats in anticipation,
President Loughten leaned toward Eldrin and murmured a question.
Eldrin obligingly translated, “The President wants to know what Del
is going to sing.”
To which Kelric could only reply, “I have no idea.
Do you?”
On stage, Randall’s stringer, set to sound like guitar, strummed an
upbeat chord progression.
Jud’s morpher and Anne’s drums joined in as the sequence repeated.
Del’s grin flashed white on the big screens as he lifted the mic
and sang in his bass range.
Eldrin translated the lyrics for Kelric silently, so as not to distract
from his brother’s artistic effect.
If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning,
I’d hammer in the evening, all over this land.
I’d hammer out danger, I’d hammer out a warning,
I’d hammer out love between
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
Del’s voice soared to soprano, invoking his chime notes, for the
next verse:
If I had a bell, I’d ring it in the morning,
I’d ring it in the evening, all over this land.
I’d ring out danger, I’d ring out a warning,
I’d ring out love between
My nephews and my neices,
All over this land.
He dropped to a particularly warm baritone for the third verse:
If I had a song, I’d sing it in the morning,
I’d sing it in the evening, all over this land.
I’d sing out danger, I’d sing out a warning,
I’d sing out love between
My sons and my daughters,
All over this land.
And recovered his usual holorock snarl for the final one:
Well, I have a hammer, and I’ve got a bell,
And I’ve got a song to sing all over this land.
It’s the hammer of justice, it’s the bell of freedom,
And it’s the song about love between
My brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
The critical responses were mixed:
“…And afterward, we got to go backstage and meet the band—Del
Arden’s band! In person!—and
they sang happy birthday and Randall said thank you for the drawings and
he was real nice and so was Jud Taborian and Anne Moore is soooo pretty
and all Eddie wanted to do was play with the toy plane Gold Man gave him
and he dropped his cake on the floor and almost sat down in it and the
band all autographed my cube of the Jewels Suite and…”
“So what the hell did he choose that song for?” Fitz McLane
wondered, looking at a foot-tall holo of Del singing that adorned the
middle of his desk. “It didn’t
address the issues of censorship or slavery like his other substitutions.
Maybe Prince Del-Kurj was trying to be diplomatic, for once?”
He considered that for a moment, then shook his graying head in
rejection. “Never mind, silly
idea. Still, I wouldn’t have
thought our protesting Prince would pass up an opportunity to get on his
soapbox with the President as a captive audience.”
“Prince Del-Kurj looked straight at the owner’s box when he
announced the song,” Major Baxton added.
“He obviously intended us to figure out his message.”
Mac Tyler spread his hands.
“Don’t ask me. The only
ones who know what Del’s going to sing during these ‘Carnelians
breaks’ and why are the members of his band.
I’m just the manager.
Unless…” He thought a moment,
then gestured toward the General’s desk.
“May I?”
McLane waved permission and Mac bent over the desk, typing in a
search. He read the results
carefully, then nodded.
“Look here,” he said, pointing at the text he’d called up.
“These are the original words to that song, as written more than a
hundred years ago by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. You’ll notice that there
are two lines that are different:
‘brothers and sisters’ becomes ‘nieces and nephews’ in the second
verse and ‘sons and daughters’ in the third.”
“So he’s bringing the whole family into it,” Baxton said
impatiently. “So what?”
“An astute observation,” Mac agreed.
“He is bringing the whole
family into it. Specifically,
his own.” He turned back to McLane.
“He’s singing about the Triad:
his half-brother Imperator Kurj, his aunt the Ruby Pharaoh, and his
father, the Dalvador Bard.”
At McLane’s gesture, the band manager elaborated.
“Look, he sings the first verse about the ‘hammer of justice’ in
his bass range and talks about loving brothers and sisters.
The Skolian newsies call the Imperator the “Fist of Skolia,” which
is close enough. The second
verse, about the ‘bell of freedom,’ is soprano and talks about loving
‘nieces and nephews.’ By taking over the government, the Pharaoh freed her
family from the control of the Assembly.
The third verse, about the ‘song of love’ and ‘sons and daughters,’
is baritone. Del normally
sings as a baritone, but did you notice he used a warmer tone than usual
for this verse? He does that
when he’s singing songs written by his father.
I never heard the man sing, but I’d bet money Del’s imitating his
style. Del’s own sharper,
holorock-style edge returns in the last verse.”
“And this is significant because…?” the General hinted.
“If I’m right, the last verse is his personal pledge to them and to
the rest of the family, living and dead, to carry forward their campaign
against the Traders and their slave empire.
Because of the love he bears his family, and which they return.”
The General did not look relieved.
“I was afraid it was something like that.”
“All that, in one song?”
Baxton didn’t bother to hide his skepticism.
“It fits.” McLane took
a sip from his ever-present coffee mug, then shook his head with a rueful
smile. “Only Del could manage
to say ‘fuck you’ to Senator Greeley and ‘I love you’ to his family with
the same song.”
Kelric’s critique was characteristically short and direct.
“Don’t you think that whole ‘Fist of Skolia’ metaphor is a bit
overdone, without you adding fuel to the fire?”
|
|
|||||||||||
Skolian Empire Fan Fiction Index COMMENTS can be addressed to Mary Lou as @ML MENDUM (all small letters) on
the Sime~Gen Group on Facebook. Read all about Claire Gabriel | Star Trek Universes on simegen.com | Star Trek Showcase | Explore Fandom | Sime~Gen Domain | |
|
|