"Lichtenberg,.Jacqueline.-.Dushau.Trilogy.01.-.Dushau.(V1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lichtenberg Jacqueline)

From : Purpose and Method
By: Shoshunri, Observing Priest of Aliom

ONE
Heraldry Rampant
THE KAMMINTH OLIAT HAS RETURNED, AND IS SCHEDULED TO RECEIVE COLONIZABLE PLANET DISCOVERY HONORS. IN THE NAME OF EMPEROR RANTAN, ALL SURVEY BASE PERSONNEL ARE COMMANDED TO ATTEND THE AFTERNOON AUDIENCE.
The words crawled onto Krinata Zavaronne's desk screen and refused to be banished: an imperial command.
She swore. As a programming ecologist she was "Survey Base Personnel." The new Emperor would not allow her to put duty above protocol, even though with the food riots and threats of whole species seceding from the Allegiancy Empire, her work was more critical than ever. The Emperor obviously hoped pomp and ceremony would whip up a sentimental loyalty to carry them over the crises. But Krinata knew this was the worst possible time for her department to delay putting new planets on the open market. When the throne was vacant, I got things done faster.
In the privacy of her office, she squirmed into the formal red taffeta tunic. It fit tightly down the arms while blousing above her knees and made her feel silly.
It's a mistake, that's all. She was Kamminth's debriefing officer; she should have been asked before this useless ceremony was scheduled.
She'd have said, "No. Absolutely not!" And that would have been the end of it. Exposing the seven members of an Oliat to a public ceremony before they'd been debriefed and dissolved the peculiar psychic bond among them was nothing short of public torture.
She'd failed one of her Oliat teams by assuming everything would return to normal now that they had an Emperor again, so it was up to her to do something about it. As she draped the black sash around her waist, then up over her shoulder and fastened it to show the three linked circles of her family crest, she bent over her screen and punched up Finemar, the infirmary's Sentient computer. The Emperor's command remained overlaid on the screen.
Finemar projected himself onto her screen as a Lehiroh maleЧthe Emperor's speciesЧvisually indistinguishable from human. He greeted her pleasantly, adding, "I'd have expected you to be on your way to the Audience, Krinata."
"Has Kamminth's reported in to donate blood yet? Have you done their physicals?"
"Kamminth's Oliat lost a member on location and returned badly disoriented. I'm treating them for Dissolution shock. On order of Emperor Rantan, I have just released five of them, against my judgment, to attend their HonorsЧ"
"Which five?" demanded Krinata. "Is Jindigar..." Is he dead? A hollow panic seized her guts.
"The Receptor Jindigar is attempting to become the team's Outreach during the Dissolution." Finemar named the surviving officers of Kamminth's Oliat, adding that the Outreach had been killed, and he had the Inreach under heavy sedation, despite the Emperor's demands. "Do you think I'll get in trouble?" fretted the Sentient.
"No," reassured Krinata, hugging a sense of relief to herself. "But get Doctor Phips to countersign your order."
"Now, that's a good idea!" Finemar signed off.
Krinata grabbed her leptolizer, the jewel-encrusted symbol of her station, from the activation slot on her console, secured it to her sash, and headed for the throne room, arguing with herself. Rantan has no right to do this to an Oliat, no right! But he was so new to the throne, he probably didn't realize. Even so, his advisors should have warned him. But obviously, they hadn't.
As Krinata crossed the open rotunda between Survey's office building and the refurbished palace, Honor Guards saw her leptolizer and snapped salutes to her.
She couldn't get used to that. There had been no palace guards since she was a child. In the government hierarchy, she was the most minor and powerless functionary. Her hereditary rank in the third oldest family of Pesht, tenth Terran colony to join the Allegiancy Empire, had never meant anything to her. But she'd gladly use it to spare Jindigar. Or any Oliat! she told herself.
Her costume got her past all the guards inside the palace along the route to her proper entry to the audience chamber. But when she turned aside, she had to stay in the midst of the crowd heading to the front of the chamber, where higher-ranking nobles sat. Finally, she turned into a deserted corridor, carpeted in dark red, lit by mock torches, hung with the banners of the Emperors.
Before huge, carved seawood doorsЧbathed by a falling sheet of waterЧshe was stopped by guards unawed by her.
They were a pair of Holot: six-limbed, heavily furred, formidable. "Public viewing of the robing chamber," said one, rolling his 'r's and gazing disdainfully over her head, "will recommence in the morning."
She fingered the jeweled wand and her belt. "I'm the Kamminth Oliat debriefing officer."
"Third rank enter the audience chamber from the blue doors, that way." He'd seen her three-circle badge.
"Thank you," she said, turning away while taking the leptolizer from her belt, "but I have business within." Before the Holot could block her move, she spun and flashed the beam of the leptolizer at the sensor plate on the doors. She wasn't sure it had been keyed to that high a security clearance, and if it hadn't she'd be in real trouble.
But the doors opened. She darted between the hulking guards. Furry arms grabbed her about the waist and shoulders, and she hung suspended, gazing into the opulent backstage robing chamber.
Three male Dushau huddled protectively around a single female seated in an all-form chair before an open fireplace where green flames danced welcomingly. On the spiral pattern of the rug before them, Jindigar sat playing delightedly with a piol pup, wholly absorbed in the baby animal's discovery of
the world. Sternly, he commanded it to sit up, and it lay down. The other Dushau laughed, but Jindigar shot them a quick glance, they quieted, and he repeated the command patiently. The pup sat, and Jindigar laughed, plucked it up and cuddled it.
Jindigar, like the other Dushau, was dressed in the shapeless white shirt and pants of the infirmary while against one wall stood a rack of archaic Dushau formal wear.
The guards started to creep backward and close the doors on the scene. Krinata squirmed. "Put me down!"
As the piol licked his face, Jindigar turned to the doors. He rose smoothly, striding forward. In unmistakable welcome, he called, "Krinata!" His eyes, set wide and high on his head without protecting ridges, lit with hope.
The guards paused. One of them muttered, "That's the first he's spoken to anyone."'
The other answered, "Our hides if we abort him!"
They hastily set Krinata down, and she offered her hands to Jindigar, in formal ritual. But he scooped her up with one arm, the other protecting the rooting and snuffling baby piol, and buried his face in her hair, holding her as if from desperate physical need.
He was shaking, and the dense indigo nap that formed his skin was cold and damp, not warm and dry as usual. She'd never been on such terms with a Dushau; never expected to be. But after her initial startlement, she felt his bone-deep fear and hugged him in reassurance, trying to imagine what Kamminth's had been through to bring the always self-possessed Dushau to such straits.
And an odd thing happened. Behind her closed eyelids, she saw the chamber as it had once been: newly gilded fretwork, plush new upholstery, too-bright colors. It was as if she were looking into an infinite stack of transparencies of the room, each one only slightly different from the one adjacent to it. But as she watched, the top one of the stack slid aside, and the others followed, fanning out like a deck of cards. Then images scattered chaotically in every direction. Her head swam, her stomach rebelled, and raw terror blossomed as an infinite chasm opened within her.
She gasped, forced her eyes open, and focused on an odd
stain on the wall beside a chipped bent grille. I'm here; U is now. She clung to that thought desperately, and her heart slowed.
Within seconds, Jindigar's fit abated and he withdrew, offering his hand formally. "I'm sorry. I'll explain." He glanced at the Holot, and his indigo features changed.
Turning she said to the guards, "That will be all. Thank you." She was amazed her voice didn't tremble.
They hesitated, then retreated and closed the door.
But Jindigar didn't offer his explanations. Instead, with that distantЧfrightenedЧlook on his face, he pleaded, "Krinata, what has happened here?"
She gazed at the instrument in her hand, at her scarlet tunic, bloused black pants, black boots. Oh, yes, things had changed since Kamminth's had departed for the unknown,
"Just after you left, food riots devastated the Vincent and the Shashi Route Interchange Stations which made the Tri-Species Combine threaten to secede from the Allegiancy. Rantan Lord Zinzik took charge with all the legendary dazzle and charm of his several-times-great-uncle, Emperor Turminor, and put down the riots, provided food supplies from nowhere, and convinced the Tri-Species Combine not to secede."
Krinata met his eyes, trying not to inject her personal bias into the news. "People compared him to Turminor. Since Turminor was the last Emperor before the throne was vacated, they said Rantan was his obvious successor. After all, Rantan was doing as miraculous a job as Turminor hadЧand Turminor brought eight decades of prosperity.
"After three hundred years of doing without an Emperor, people were saying the Allegiancy needed a new Emperor. Suddenly, Rantan was crowned. He reinstated aristocratic privilege, and even I got promoted without earning it first. Nobody seemed to understand."
As she spoke, Jindigar's expression lightened to comprehension and the underglow of fear dissipated. "Of course! It's so obvious!" He set the piol on top of Ms head where it perched, happily grooming itself. Then he said something Dushauni to the others of his Oliat who relaxed along with him. To Krinata, he added, "I'd have grasped it sooner but for Dissolution and having to..."