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FEVRAL 40, 621 ROMANOVAN227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFYoJaUA4hj
ZHOVTANA 24, 2670 GENRICHIAN
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"'ALLO, 'ALLO," CRIED YVAN DRAGOMILOV,227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjcYot8oAhx
"FOR WHY DO YOU STARSAIL SO HIGH?"227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4jA73oo6gB
"I'M A RICH MERCHANT-STARSHIP BOUND FOR THE FRONTIER,227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsQd4M5eHul
FRONTIER,227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWyvHLFXLjy
FRONTIER,227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNKKrQs6L3A
ATTACK AT YOUR PERIL, YOU STARBANDIT OF GENRICH,227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVvrt91eL4d
GENRICH,227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfbJG6RmPB4
GENRICH."227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoNVAlQtfyY
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Mistress Tris Trezleniya-Silvertou stood on a polished floor inlaid with exotic hardwoods, within a shaft of golden sunlight that fell upon her hair and bare shoulders from a pair of tall windows behind her.
For the moment she was relaxed without altogether knowing it, resigned to what was bound to happen to her---in truth relieved that it would not be worse----possessed of that total unselfconsciousness which can only arise in utter certainty that one is alone and unobserved.
In one small hand she held a fold of her voluminous skirt, as she had done so many times before in this spacious, familiar chamber where she had been taught to dance---and to listen to the music---eyes half-closed, lips half parted. Her other hand made gentle, preliminary motions to the melody and rhythm beginning to issue from a nearby file player. This---as with all she had said or done the past fortnight---would be the final time. The thought stirred within her, as it never failed to do, sensations of anguish and futile outrage. Which of late (she found this infuriating by itself) had begun to be displaced, or, at least, mixed-up, with a kind of curious anticipation by which she felt self-betrayed.
Before her, a floor-to-ceiling mirror set between the windows conveyed a view of herself as she turned with an unhurried, flowing motion upon her little feet, rising to her toes and down again, coming around to face the image she didn't recognize as that of a beautiful young girl. She was both fair and freckled, the latter a golden smattering. Her hair, arranged in the elaborate-simple fashion of the Romanovan elite, was a warm-brown-auburn. Although diminutive of stature, she was well proportioned, so that individuals seeing her in surroundings that lent no indication of scale invariably, and incorrectly, believed her to be taller.
She was delicate of face and form, gifted with a touching natural grace she was unaware existed or was visible to others. On the contrary, at this instant in her life, one fraught with change imposed on her by others, she wondered, and rather doubted, whether she might ever be, to any man she could regard as worthy of respect, the woman whom he might love all his life.
"Will that be all for you, Miss?" Tris stared in that manner possible only when one's certainty she is alone proved to have been inaccurate. A lifetime's education in restraint kept her from showing any sign of it.
"Thank you, Kostolom. I believe so, for the time being."
Kostolom inclined his upper extremity. "Very good, Miss."
Tris let her eyes see what her mind had amended from the image, of the chamber, not of herself, in the mirror. Two broad double doors, standing opposite the windows (in one of which Kostolom stood), led from this place. In addition to serving as a studio for dance practice, it was at other times employed as a ballroom, recital hall, and grand dining room. Along an expanse of decorated wall between the doors, dozens of ugly mesh containers had been filled, and with Kostolom's always uncomplaining assistance, stacked, unstacked, emptied, rearranged, refilled, and stacked again, during the ten days or more she had been preparing for her hated, yet somewhat looked-forward-to, voyage. To one side stood the object Tris thought she would miss most, since taking it was out of the question. Her mother's old-fashioned atrikeo, covered with a protective cloth, was next to the only physical reminder she had left of her dead parents. She had taken lessons and, in the end, mastered the complex musical tool, only after her guardian had been at considerable expense to find a teacher. She still played almost every day.
Tris also found herself seeing Kostolom clearly for the first time in years. Looked at him as if she'd never seen him before---or in this case as if she might never see him again----he was rather odd sight. At just over one measure and a half---no taller than Tris herself---Kostolom and the rest of his race, the kankrin, had evolved on a small but massive planet with a gravitic pull twenty times that of Romanova. This lent them agility and strength which, on human-occupied planets, made them the ideal butlers and maids.
Just as everything of importance about a human being might be described as dwelling above his shoulders, so everything important about Kostolom dwelt below his "hips." Here he made contact with the ground through hundreds of still, buff-colored locomotive organs, each one a couple of dozen lines long, no larger than the wire from which metalloid mesh was fashioned. Here also his nervous system centered. Rising above the twenty-line width of his lower body, a wandlike "trunk," shades darker than the rest of him, elevated his sensory organs. It was sensitive to light over a broader spectrum than the human eye (less so to sound---to Kostolom, Tris's fascination with music remained incomprehensible), and to a variety of other energies, some of which humans appreciate only by means of scientific instruments. A third of the way from the rounded tip of Kostolom's uppermost extremity, a pair of long, file-thin arms looked to her as if they were attached as an afterthought. Despite their ridiculous appearance, they were stronger than human arms and terminated in deft, powerful 3-fingered hands.
Maybe most significant, in terms of their being ideal servants from a human standpoint, was the fact that Kostolom's people were, to a remarkable degree, unambitious and noncompetitive. Like intelligent species everywhere, the kankrin people were their planet's most aggressive predators. All things being relative, however, and life upon the kankrin planet being relatively quieter and slower-paced than elsewhere, by a standard more universally applicable, they were disinclined to violent behavior and adapted well to being told what to do----a quality of mind which no one, especially her guardian uncle, Flownx Trezleniya-Silvertou, would ever have accused Tris of manifesting.
As an alternative offered to what had first been planned for her, she had, without an instant's hesitation, chosen Kvadratriok, a handful of icy, barren lumps circling a dim red cinder in the furthest-flung locale where her family claimed an interest---and thus, it was hoped, beyond the reach of political memory or retribution. Of somewhat greater importance, the system was convenient (only in a comparative sense) to the neighboring imperium-conglomerate of Grobdreg-Ugulovsk, whose exile alone did not suffice in the Premier's view and the furies of the Droom pursue her even to this ragged end of everything.
The unfortunate natives of Kvadratriok (it crossed her mind that, given troglodytic habits imposed by climate, a more apposite, if denigrating, the expression might be "denizens") were dedicated, for lack of better occupation, to the cultivation of ice algae, a commodity useful, but far from critically important to Romanovan pharmaceuticals. Their chief reactions appeared to consist of gambling and drug addiction---for which she could barely find it in her heart to blame them----manic-depressive suicide, and occasional mad slaughter which left whole families dismembered in smoking pools of their own blood. Otherwise, with reference to the remainder of the galaxy, nothing of interest or importance had ever happened in the Kvadratriok System, and it was an excellent guess that nothing ever would. Try as she might, Tris had been unable to find anything, within the wealthy household she and her uncle shared, or offered by any shop or salon she frequented, which had originated there or which had been produced employing any product or process unique to the place. Few Romanovans were aware that it existed. Among those who were---those like her uncle, who derived a portion of his income from it---the first response seemed to be a shudder at its mere description, and the second an attempt to forget it again as soon as they had been reminded.
It was dark there. The system, it was generally agreed, lay steeped in amber twilight so depressing that the starker black of the interstellar Deep was considered a relief. One survey had reported conditions being the cold conditions there being so extreme that evolution itself had ground to a halt or been slowed so greatly that the biological development lagged billions of years behind the rest of the galaxy. Tris was unsure that evolution operated in such a manner. In the first place, it was a random phenomenon for which no universal agenda could be claimed to exist. In the second, it seemed to her that stresses inherent to an environment so extreme should hasten the process, rather than obstruct it. She had noticed that the argument had been made not by a scientist, but rather in an article written by a sociology professor.
Nonetheless, native life forms were held by all informants to lie dormant all but four or five days out of an impossibly long year. Most unspeakable about Kvadratriok was that she would be lying dormant as well. Her income was provided for, modest by Romanovan standards; lavish by those of where she was going; sufficient so that she wouldn't have to lift a finger to maintain her existence; even if she scrimped (which might prove rather easy, since almost nothing existed there to purchase), for passage home across the empty lightyears. Her fate thus arranged fulfilled every concept she entertained of damnation. But Tris, as a little girl reading from mythology, had always considered Limbo a worse consignation than Hell.
This thought caused her to shake her auburn curls in violent dismissal. Seeking control of her emotions, as well as reestablished concentration upon more immediate, practical matters, she stepped towards the wall, with its high-stacked crates, attempting again to determine which of her beloved possessions must be left behind, maybe never to be reclaimed. Nestled in one open-topped crate, among a dozen stuffed animals, lay the flofilm microscope her uncle had given her for her 8th birthday, an example of maybe the subtlest application made of purge-physics. This she would take, since it weighed next to nothing, occupied scant volume, and represented a diverting manner in which to occupy the many empty hours she anticipated lay ahead.
She hesitated over a container of datafiles she had studied not merely to satisfy her uncle, but in hopes of gaining some greater understanding of herself and of the dark and complicated universe she lived in than might have been claimed by the ordinary run of young Romanovan women in whom a good general education was regarded as among the least important of qualifications for success in her life. Her eye happened to fall upon a particular favorite, Beylkhorn and Tavkhelidze's Galactic Political Economies. She hushed the file she had left playing and replaced it with the text, accessing a passage at random.
.....established in the imperia-conglomerate and other polities, known as "charter capitalism," a system of production and distribution consisting of an interwoven partnership between producers and rulers. In previous times and circumstances, this partnership was variously known as "mercantilism" "state capitalism" "corporate socialism" or "fascism," depending upon minor details in the arrangements between partners, or, more importantly, upon which of them predominated.
Tris shook her head again. How synchronous, she thought, that she had turned to this lesson at this particular moment. Yet, upon consideration, it was not synchronous at all. She had all but memorized this file. Here, she realized, were the roots of all her personal difficulties, laid out in remote and desiccated tones, complete with index, scrollnotes, filmography, and the neat, if tendentious, schoolgirl marginalia she herself enfiled:
Within the Romanovan Imperium-Conglomerate, it is Premier and Cosmopolity, the political partner, predominant, whereas the zhgutik wags the evglena in the Dzendayn Empery-Cirot.
Tris smiled at this remembrance of a younger self. It was like this throughout. Here, where the authors had written...
...reserving to itself a cosmopolity upon the production, distribution, and retirement of the principal medium of exchange. The official currency of the Cosmopolity is the "rubel." Within the Dzendayn Empery-Cirot, it is the "imperatorskiy," at present equal to three rubles."
....she had added:
....neither supported by anything of value save the willingness of each respective polity, inside of its territory, to coerce those subject to its authority into employing it.
A notation followed, referring to one of many further comments, appended at the end of the text. Grinning to herself, Tris found a crate to sit upon and manipulated the knurled bands of which the file was mostly constructed, turning them against each other and observing the result of her adjustments in the air above the player. She came to the right place:
The names of the reigning polities, their units of currency, as well as many titles they confer, descend from those of commercial entities founded earlier in history. This is an obscure fact, in general, known solely to historical and linguistic scholars, and relatively few of the former remain---and even few of the latter---since a close study of history or linguistics is, for obvious reasons, highly discouraged.
True, she thought, and, as with State and Capital under mercantile socialism, entwined inextricably among the reasons her life was in turmoil. How had it happened that an obscure fact of history and linguistics came to have so direct a bearing on her personal misfortune? The steps of Tris's line of reasoning were many and she retraced them now as she had not been able to avoid doing several times a day over the past weeks.
Step One: the truth in any form---linguistic, historical, or otherwise---is, according to an ancient proverb, the first casualty of war. The imperia-conglomerate had waged war for a millennium over trade routes and colonies, representing markets for goods manufactured in better-settled regions, like Romanova itself, and sources of supply. Aside: after a millennium, how much was left---linguistic, historical, or otherwise---of the truth?
Step Two: the topmost contenders of this era were the mighty domains known as the Cosmopolity of Romanova and the Dzendayn Empery-Cirot. It was inevitable that victory and defeat should shift to and fro between them, decade by decade, century by century, with no genuine resolution in the offing. Before the Thousand Years' War had become quite so formalized, a planet or two, which, for a time, had provided centers for embryonic imperia-conglomerate of their own, had been blasted into cinders, wiped clean of every life form, rendered, for millions of years to come, uninhabitable. Later, purge-fields, and their capacity for neutralizing atomic weapons, had come into common usage. More to the point, the survivors of previous disasters had learned to appreciate that war---with all its myriad convenient justifications for secrecy, taxation, conscription, and suppression of the troublesome individual---is, indeed, "the health of the State." Thus it was arranged that victory and defeat should become eternally transitory.
Step Three: temporary victors of any moment were free to grant franchised access to whatever they had won to favored entities with requisite family or financial connection. In that portion of the galaxy under Dzendayn control, the process was more complicated. Families and financial empires granted the state its operating franchise, in effect, in a manner roundabout, making commercial concessions to themselves. Under either system, the unauthorized individual enterprise was suppressed with vicious enthusiasm.
Step Four: none of this, naturally, had ever found direct expression in Tris's texts, nor had her tutors ever told her of it in so many words. None had ever conceded, straightforwardly and without euphemism, that, because of the way affairs had been arranged for centuries, all intellectual, technical, and economic progress within the human-occupied galaxy had remained at a standstill for generations, save in those frontier reaches the imperia-conglomerate couldn't control. Teachers, even of the children of the rich and powerful, who made a point of airing seditious opinion, found themselves---if they were lucky----banished to those frontier reaches, even as Tris now was bound for exile for a rather different assortment of reasons. Such areas, as Tris knew---and knew she'd soon appreciate at closer hand---were many, the present age being, despite the self-induced stagnation of the central planets, one of broad-ranging exploration. They acted as a safety valve for individuals whose personal furies were left unsatisfied by the chance to participate in the Thousand Years' War.
Aside: maybe, as some contended, always with discretion, a change was coming, a widespread revolt which would cure every evil and set every injustice to right. Observers agreed it was too far in the future, even for those who could sense its putative inevitability, for anyone, upon any side of any issue of the day, to be much concerned. Meanwhile, as Tris had found recent occasion to discover---and was this Step Five or Step Six? As always, she lost track and gave up counting at this point. One imperium-conglomerate, her own Cosmopolity of Romanova, had become desirous of a respite. Doubtless, the Premier's purpose was to gain some tactical advantage, if only to gather resources for a subsequent outbreak of civilized savagery. In any event, and whatever his purpose, he had determined to offer, to his best-esteemed and longest-standing army, a truce.227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPdl9zqzcbu
One cannot wage continuous war for a thousand years. Such hiatuses weren't unprecedented, nor the treachery they often presaged. She entertained not a moment's doubt that upon receiving the offer, doddering Vladimisayanskfei XXIIV, Premier of the Dzendayn Empery-Cirot (or whatever wagged his zhgutik these days) suspected trickery and would be well prepared to trick back. For the time being, through diplomatic channels, he had expressed a certain willingness to listen to the proposition. And thus, following customs older than the Thousand Years' War itself, and in token of all this fake cordiality and nonexistent good faith, an exchange of gifts seemed called for...227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC5hylJ7t41
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"Miss?" Kostolom reentered the sunny chamber and glanced from the doorway to the pile of crates. A subtle ripple passed through his hundreds of locomotor filaments, his species' equivalent of a sigh, followed by a shrug, a human gesture he had somehow absorbed over the many years he'd been a faithful retainer to the Trezleniya-Silvertou family.227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfOWjI9SE6k
His young mistress was worn out by the many preparations for her coming voyage, as well as by stresses engendered at the prospect itself. Not to mention those emotion-charged events between her uncle and herself which had precipitated it. Yet (and she was like her uncle in this) she wasn't willing to acknowledge her exhaustion and remedy it, instead, once more, seeking refuge from her troubles in her textfiles. She lay now, her weight supported by one craft, leaning back against another, eyes closed, breathing shallow and even. The player, balanced atop a 3rd crate, had shut itself off.
Tris stirred at his mellow-accented voice, not quite emerging from the warm, half-dreaming state into which she had slipped without noticing. Another ripple passed through his supporting filaments as he whisked across the room and lifted Tris in his arms as he had so many times before when she was just a little girl and had fallen asleep in exactly this way.
"Kostolom?" her sleepy voice was younger in pitch and timber than had earlier been the case.
"Yes, Miss?" The alien servant was incapable of anything like a facial expression, yet his tone reflected abiding affection for the human girl.
"It is still daylight, not yet time for bed. Where are you taking me?"
Kostolom made a murmuring sound which served him as a chuckle. They entered the dynalift at the core of the house and ascended. "To your suite, Miss, for a rest. A much-needed one, if I may be so bold as to say so. You may count on me to awaken you in good time to dine with your uncle."227Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtndECtifeh
The dynalift whummed, bathing them in its scary glue purge-glow, before Tris was able to sort out anything resembling a lucid reply. "Very well, my stalwart Kostolom, I shall. I was only thinking, anyway. It was quite warm and pleasant. Now, what was I thinking about?"
"I am afraid," he lied, for he knew what subject had been uppermost in her mind for two almost sleepless weeks, "I could not say, Miss." Exiting the lift, Kostolom carried her along a broad carpeted hallway towards the suite of rooms that had been hers since her earliest childhood. She was again oblivious to her surroundings as he exercised typical Kostolomlike decorum in summoning a kankrin maid to ready her for her nap. Yes, he thought, she had been thinking that an exchange of gifts seemed called for. And had his young mistress not spoken out when she did, earning, thereby, the exile she was about to enter, she---Tris---would have been that gift.
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