** Note ** **
This is chapter 2 of Reflections on a Shattered Glass. If you have not read
chapter 1, you are in the wrong place. **
Happy reading, ** -- Krin
(krin@hotmail.com
mailto:krin@hotmail.com) **
http://www.geocities.com/mode6.geo/fanfic/ **
/Note **
Reflections of a Shattered
Glass
-- two
--
Jurai
"Hey Sammy!" Ryouko called down the
corridor she and Tenchi traveled to the young woman walking toward them, head
hung low and trailing a pair of guardians.
The halls of Jurai's royal
palace were labyrinthine in their complexity, primarily the product of hundreds
of millennia of slow, unplanned expansion. Ryouko and Tenchi had wandering
aimlessly for much of the morning through wide corridors floored with a sort of
thick cloth padding, softer than the carpets of Earth but requiring a bit of
adjustment for someone not used to the sensation.
While Tenchi lay in the
hospital most of the others had come to visit at one point or another, but their
party had not been together in one place and simultaneously conscious since
leaving the campground. So now Ryouko and Tenchi were searching for the rest of
their family in the hopes of calling a reunion to explain what had happened the
previous day and figure out what to do now. The camping trip was over. Though
Jurai seemed a good place to spend their holiday they had not had much luck so
far. The Guardians were unhelpful at best, always very closed-mouthed about
anything involving any of the royal family and not kept briefed on the location
of the literally hundreds of guests to the palace, so Sasami was their first
discovery.
The Guardians moved
around the princess, quickening their pace when Sasami hurried toward her
friends. When she was a few yards away they stopped, crossing their staves to
prevent Sasami from approaching
closer.
"Ganaoi shokae," the
younger Guardian said sternly, "Minos nikk tille he
nef."
Tenchi touched Ryouko's
mind uncertainly asking, //You speak Jurain, right? What did he
ask?//
//It was more like a
command,// Ryouko responded, //Jurains lift the end of a phrase to show they
expect you to comply, not for questions. He wants to know who we are and what
we want with Sasami.//
Sasami
frowned from behind the crossed staves. "These are my friends," she explained,
pushing the wooden poles aside, "Speak Japanese when we're around
them."
The guardians looked
pointedly away from the princess as she stepped between them and tapped their
staves, just above the textured area of the grip, before saying together in
perfect Japanese, "Yes highness. As you have spoken, we
obey."
"Hi Sasami," Tenchi
said, glancing nervously at the guardians who were now facing the walls, "What's
wrong? You looked kind of
down."
Sasami sighed. "It's
complicated," she said, twitching her head slightly toward the guardians behind
her. She frowned, wrinkling her nose and looking down at the padded floor for a
moment before brightening and asking, "Say, do you wanna go to the gardens?
There's an entertainer there for the
morning."
"Well, we were just
looking-" Tenchi stopped when Ryouko nudged his ribs
meaningfully.
"Sure Sasami,"
she said with a warm smile, "That sounds
great."
//I thought we were
going to look for everybody?// Tenchi asked as they followed the princess' two
guardians, the pair having inserted themselves between Sasami and her friends,
apparently for the duration of the
walk.
//Sasami looked upset,
and she obviously can't talk about it in front of her guards,// Ryouko
explained. //She can probably go to the gardens without them and wants to talk
to us alone, that's why she mentioned it. And since Sasami can command the the
guards we'll find everyone much more quickly if she
helps.//
Tenchi leaned
against the back of the bench from which they watched the entertainer. He was a
small, man-shaped creature with thick, wrinkled, purple skin and a fringe of
hair-thin, writhing tentacles surrounding each eye. Sasami said he was from
some world with a large number of 'k' sounds in its name that Tenchi did not
think he would remember even had he heard it a dozen times rather than just
once. His hands, overly long things of only three fingers, wove intricate
rhythms in the air and a bird made of light flapped glittering wings above them.
His art was something like a cross between shadow puppetry and a neon sign.
Sasami explained that his race could weave delicate forcefields and that their
entertainers used them to hold glowing, electrified gasses much the way
earthlings used glass tubes. It was a stunning display and the three had been
sitting and watching the little purple man weave threads of light in patterns
that occasionally seemed only symbolic and, most often, took the form of strange
animals, for nearly an
hour.
Sasami's guardians had
reluctantly separated from their charge at the gate to the garden courtyard.
Apparently it marked a boundary within the palace beyond which the royal family
could walk unaccompanied. She explained that she really was not upset, just
having a hard time readjusting to palace life after so long away from it.
Before leaving with Aeka she had been restrained to the inner palace for safety
and hoped that with her Change she would be allowed more of a free reign over
her own actions, but was now discovering that the palace staff seemed to keep an
even closer eye on her than before. Since being separated from Nobuyuki after
their arrival in the palace she had not had a chance to see any of them between
being fitted for a new wardrobe and briefed by the guardians on what areas of
the palace she could visit without accompaniment. Apparently such things
shifted almost daily depending on the location of certain visitors whos motives
Jurain intelligence did not entirely
trust.
Ryouko had suggested
that she simply could have had her friends summoned to her, but Sasami frowned
and said it would not have felt right. She was a princess, true, but she had
spent the past four years on Earth living a life not at all like the one a
princess of the House Jurai would expect. Now she felt more like Sammy, a
teenage student attending highschool in Tokyo, than like Sasami Jurai, second in
line for the throne of an empire.
Ryouko and Tenchi talked her
around to having the guardians invite, Sasami was very specific that it be only
an invitation, Washuu and Ryou-ohki to the park and now the cabbit sat in her
lap where she sat on the ground, leaning back against Ryouko's knees. Washuu
had begged off the invitation, sending her apologies and a promise to be along
as soon as she took care of
something.
Ryouko laughed,
taking one hand from Sasami's shoulders to point past the princess at the figure
floating in the air above the entertainer's supple hands. She started on a
quiet story about the home world of the many-limbed creature that quickly
absorbed Sasami's attention as she watched the writhing
light-sculpture.
*If Ryouko
looked a few years older I'd swear she was Sasami's mother,* Tenchi thought
wistfully, *I wonder if either of them realizes the way they act together?* He
had tried discussing it with Ryouko once a couple of months ago, but she seemed
shocked by the idea that someone could mistake her for Sasami's parent and he
quickly dropped the subject. He tried hard to avoid mentioning children around
her most of the time, in fact. It was not that she was incapable of having
them. She explained some time ago, her face flushed and her voice quiet, that
it was important he wear protection when they were together because her body was
easily capable of overcoming any prophylactics her mother could give her, even
without a conscious command to do so.
No, Tenchi avoided talking
about children with Ryouko because she was terribly afraid she would not make a
good mother. He thought it was silly, especially after seeing her with Sasami,
but Ryouko was adamant. Her difficulties with Taro, coupled with doubts about
her depth of experience in any sort of normal dealings with other humans, had
Ryouko convinced she was incapable of properly caring for and raising a child.
Tenchi knew she wanted one though, deep down. He could see it in her eyes and
feel it across their bond when she saw a mother with a young child, and she was
always delighted to help when Sasami came to her with a problem. Ryouko had
been the weapon of a madman for a very long time, and the pleasure she derived
from her newfound role as nurturer and confidant was phenomenal. Not that she
would admit it, even to
herself.
Tenchi sighed quietly
and slid his arm around Ryouko's waist. He was sure she would make a wonderful
mother, but was more than content to wait until she was ready. In worrying
about Ryouko's feelings Tenchi had put his own off to one side, having spent
only scant moments wondering about his own opinions on child-rearing. Now that
he considered the idea Tenchi was not sure he was any better prepared for it
than Ryouko felt she was. He was, after all, only a college freshman and it was
not so long ago that he had undertaken his father's manhood ritual. Tenchi knew
he did want to have a child, some day. He liked the idea of having someone to
teach the things he knew and thought it would be nice experiencing what fond
memories of time with his father he held from the other end. But that day, he
felt, was still a ways off and he would wait until Ryouko was ready before even
approaching the concept for himself. Until then he was glad she had Sasami to
take care of and hoped the princess would be returning with them to Earth. The
apartment would feel very empty without her cheerful presence and he knew Ryouko
would miss her terribly.
*I
would too,* Tenchi thought, smiling when Sasami laughed delightedly at Ryouko's
story, *I guess if Ryouko's acting as her mother that would make me the father.
Maybe I should try to talk to her more.. she always goes to Ryouko if she's
upset and I don't want her to think I don't care
too.*
"Highness, the woman
you summoned." The speaker was a guardian, a man in his apparent middle years
followed by Washuu who was, in turn, followed by a young-looking guardian. *I
wonder if they're all paired up like that,* Tenchi thought, *It seems like they
always go around in pairs.. one old, one young. I'll have to ask Ryouko about
it.*
"Thank you," Sasami said,
tipping her head formally, "You may go
now."
The guardian tapped his
chest twice and bowed. "Highness, his majesty has requested that his daughters
and their guests attend him for the evening
meal."
Sasami nodded. "Please
assure his majesty that the minos will be in attendance." She turned, her tone
dropping the formality with which she spoke to the guardian. "Do you two wanna
eat dinner with my dad?"
The
guardian looked shocked, though it was obvious he was trying to hide
it.
"Sure Sammy," Ryouko
answered for the pair, "We'd love
to."
Sasami turned back to the
bearded guardian and said, "Nashim Tenchi and his fiancee will also be in
attendance. I will inquire with my other guests and inform the staff at a later
time."
The guardian's eyes
widened and moved to Tenchi. He mouthed the word 'nashim,' apparently unaware
of his own lips' movement. Remembering himself he looked hurriedly away and
bowed deeply, his forehead actually passing below the plane of his waist, and
tapped his chest again, nervously, before turning away. He did not straighten
until he was two steps further away from the bench. Then he said, without
looking back, "His majesty will be informed. As you have spoken, we
obey."
Washuu, who had stepped
out of the guardian's way as he joined his companion to leave the gardens,
smiled and sat down next to Ryouko on the side opposite
Tenchi.
"Er," Tenchi asked
nervously, rubbing his neck, "What was all that about? What's a 'nashim'? And
how'd you know about me and Ryouko? I didn't think anybody but Washuu and my
grandfather knew."
Sasami
flushed. "I'm sorry," she apologized, "I didn't mean to, but I kinda saw about
you proposing while I was Tsunami at the campground. I hope I didn't mess
anything up?"
Tenchi shook his
head. "No, we were going to tell everybody as soon as we could get them in one
place. But what was he so upset
about?"
Sasami looked
uncomfortable and Ryouko only shook her head, she had no more idea than he did,
so Washuu took the burden of explanation. "Nashim is a Jurain honorary, Tenchi.
It means something like 'one who would be king but has taken the path of
humility.' It's very, very rarely used. Sasami's responses to the guardian
were conditioned by her lessons and she used the title
automatically."
Sasami nodded,
then frowned. "How'd you know that? Nobody's supposed to know what I got
taught."
Washuu grinned. "We
geniuses have to have a few secrets, don't
we?"
"Hi mommy," Ryou-ohki
said, startling everyone. She had hopped away from Sasami and assumed her
humanoid form during Washuu's explanation.
"Hello Ryou-ohki," Washuu
replied with a smile, "Having fun with your
sister?"
Ryou-ohki nodded
excitedly. "Uh huh. We watch.. purple man make bird." Ryou-ohki's speech was
improving quickly thanks to her long association with telepathic communication,
but it was still a little rough. "You find Mihoshi and Kiyone,
mommy?"
Tenchi, Ryouko, and
Sasami turned as one to look curiously at the
scientist.
"I was looking for
them earlier," Washuu explained, "That's why I didn't come straight here. I
realized I had only seen them once since we got here, and then only down a
hallway walking with a pair of guardians. I wanted to talk to Kiyone about..
about an experiment she's helping me
with."
Ryouko quirked an
eyebrow but refrained from asking. Tenchi followed her lead, if Washuu did not
volunteer any information about an experiment she probably was not ready to
discuss it at all. She got that way with any big projects, she would clam up
about them completely for days at a time. Then it would reach some turning
point and it was all they could do to get her to talk about anything else for
five minutes.
"So did you find
them?" Tenchi asked.
Washuu
nodded. "You won't believe it, but they were in
jail."
"What?!" The
exclamation came simultaneously from all four listeners, slightly delayed from
Ryou-ohki as she struggled momentarily to remember the
word.
Washuu grinned. "Yep.
Apparently they were found wandering around the inner palace after being dropped
in an unused bedroom by the portal. They left their IDs back on Earth so
couldn't prove who they were. There was some kind of screw up with the
paperwork and nobody called to confirm their story until I tracked them down in
the holding cells."
Sasami
frowned deeply. "That's not right. Aeka and I told the Guardians that any of
our friends found anywhere in the palace were to be treated as honored guests."
Sasami stood and walked to the
nearest tree, little more than sapling. She touched the trunk and whispered
something under her breath. Moments later the pair of Guardians who had
accompanied Washuu came running up the
path.
"Azaka," Sasami said,
turning to the younger of the pair, "I wish an investigation of the guards
supervising the palace's prison
facilities."
The guardian
bowed, tapping his chest. "As you have spoken, we
obey."
When they were gone
Tenchi asked, "Azaka? That's wasn't.. was
it?"
Sasami shook her head.
"No, that Azaka's still on Earth. Guardians take names passed down from the
first guardians to emperor Himori. Aeka's bodyguards were given nodori, the log
bodies they have, when they were killed in battle. Since they died their names
got put back in the pool for new
guardians."
Tenchi scratched
his head. "Sounds
confusing."
Sasami shrugged.
"I guess. It's just how it
is."
"So the girls are out of
jail?" Ryouko asked her
mother.
Washuu nodded. "They
called Dalris and got their identities confirmed, so they let them go and
apologized for fifteen minutes. Kiyone's going to file a complaint with GP
headquarters."
"Are you going
to come to dinner with us mom?" Ryouko
asked.
"Can me come?"
Ryou-ohki asked before Washuu had a chance to respond. "I want eat too, and wear
dress like Sammy?"
"Can I
come," Washuu corrected, "Well Sasami, is Ryou-ohki invited
too?"
Sasami blinked, slowly
focusing on the scientist. "I'm sorry," she shook her head as if to clear it,
"What?"
Ryouko frowned. "Are
you okay Sasami?"
Sasami
nodded. "I'm sorry, I was.. I was thinking about
something."
"I asked if
Ryou-ohki could come to dinner tonight as
well."
"Oh," Sasami smiled
brightly, "Of course she
can!"
Ryou-ohki clapped furry
hands and smiled for a moment, then frowned and furrowed her eyebrows. "I not
have any pretty dress
here."
"Yeah," Ryouko agreed,
"All my clothes are back on Earth. I had to borrow these from a nurse while I
was waiting for Tenchi to wake
up."
Tenchi, who was wearing a
simple outfit of dark greens gained of similar means, agreed. "I don't know
much about Jurain clothes, but I don't think these would be appropriate for
dinner with the king. And I know none of the rest have anything formal with
them."
"Oh, that's okay,"
Sasami said, "I'll get the lady that has all my clothes made to get you some.
We should probably go do that now.. it'll take a few hours and you'll need 'em
in time to get ready for dinner. I'll have the Guardians find
everybody."
* *
*
Aeka looked nervously around
in the gathering darkness. She had only been down to Tsunami's tree once in her
life. All members of the House Jurai had to visit her tree for their naming
day, but she barely remembered it. Strange shapes seemed to flow in the
distance down here where the white walls grew dark and the light of the air
seemed to fade.
Originally
Aeka planned to speak with the goddess last, but somehow this interview seemed
least difficult of the three she knew she must make. At first she thought
Katsuhito would be easiest to talk to, having spent the past four years living
near him, but slowly realized that she was dreading the answers he might give to
her questions. She could think of no reason why he would have done what he did,
letting her fall in love with Tenchi when he knew all along that he was pushing
him toward Ryouko. Her questions for Tsunami were along a similar line, but she
did not really expect an answer from the goddess. Aeka had been taught all her
life that Tsunami was beyond mortal reckoning and so she felt, deep down, that
she would probably get little more than that Tsunami's actions were part of the
affairs of the gods and not for her mortal ears. And as for her father... Aeka
could barely think about that
conversation.
"Hello
Aeka."
The crown princess
looked up at the sound of Tsunami's voice. She had been staring at her feet as
she walked, concentrating against growing resistance to keep the path she
followed leading toward Tsunami's tree. Space worked differently within the
Inner Chamber, and your direction of travel depended more upon your desires than
the way your feet moved. To approach the very center was like walking into a
gale, but now the resistance seemed to fade away to little more than a gentle
breeze.
Tsunami had taken her
older form, the one in which she appeared on the night Aeka spoke with her at
the onsen, and somehow it reassured the princess. She had chosen to come here
rather than to speak with the goddess through Sasami in the hopes that her
sister would not hear her conversation. Aeka was not sure if it would work, but
she knew Sasami was still upset over the incident that had taken place upon her
return to Earth and did not wish her to hear what she had to say to Tsunami
today.
When Aeka came home
through the portal she went first to Sasami, only to find her sister sitting
outside by the lake reading a book, wearing an extremely tight t-shirt and a
pair of shorts so short Aeka felt they should be more properly classified as
some sort of wide thong. Aeka knew Earth styles were different from those of
Jurai, and tried to keep herself calm, but Sasami saw through her immediately.
When Aeka gave up and demanded Sasami go change into something more appropriate
the younger princess grew angry and shouted that Aeka should stop trying to
control her life. She was a big girl now, she said, and her friends and Ryouko
and Tenchi all treated her like a big girl and it was time Aeka did too. She
said she did not need her sister to tell her what to wear anymore and that if
she wanted to wear clothes like those she would. Aeka tried to explain that as
her older sister it was her duty to make sure Sasami did nothing to harm
herself, and that wearing such clothes was an invitation to lecherous types who
would try to take advantage of her. Sasami looked truly angry then and stormed
off to the house without saying another word. Later they apologized quietly to
one another, simple 'I'm sorry'-es without any sort of explanations behind them.
Aeka knew her sister was still upset about it, but did not know what to do. She
knew Sasami looked like an adult now, but to see her little sister dressing that
way.. and to have her yell at her.. it was all too
much.
Now, facing a fully adult
Tsunami Aeka felt her confidence bolstered. She had begun to think of the
goddess as looking like her sister, and found that being able to separate the
two made the words come more easily.
"Tsunami," Aeka said with a
deep bow. There were no titles in Jurain for gods. One simply referred to them
by name, an honor accorded not even to the emperor. "I wished to speak with
you."
Tsunami nodded. "I know
Aeka. But I'm afraid I have no answers for you. I did not give Yousho those
visions. Until Sasami's Change I did not even have the ability to know beyond
the boundaries of the
trees."
"What?" Aeka asked,
startled. She had expected something other than a straightforward answer,
perhaps even some sort of cryptic goddess-like response, but not an outright
denial. "You mean he
lied?"
"No. Your brother
believed the visions to be from me, but they were
not."
"Then,
who?"
Tsunami shrugged but a
compassionate smile lit her eyes to show Aeka her lack of answers was not from
lack of concern. "Perhaps he invented them himself as explanation for his
actions. Humans are remarkably good at seeing what they want to
see."
"You.. you don't
know?"
"Perhaps you should ask
him about this, Aeka?" Tsunami asked, raising her eyebrows and tilting her head
slightly, "Would you wish me to discuss your actions with
another?"
Aeka shook her head
slowly. "No, I suppose not." She sighed and said, "Well, there are two other
things I wished to speak with you
about."
Tsunami nodded, but
remained silent.
"I wanted
first to thank you," Aeka said, "For your help in taking me to Tokimi's realm,
and for the knowledge you gave me to guide me
there."
Tsunami smiled. "You
would have found the way on your own
eventually."
Aeka nodded.
"Yes, but it would have been too late by
then."
Tsunami smiled
silently.
"Thank you,
Tsunami."
"The other thing?"
Tsunami asked.
"Oh, yes," Aeka
shifted uncomfortably, "I.. I wished to speak with you about Sasami. I am very
grateful for your actions yesterday, but I do not appreciate what you are doing
to my sister."
"I show her
nothing she cannot accept," Tsunami said seriously, her smile dropping by a
fraction.
"That's not the same
as showing her what she should have to
accept."
"No, perhaps not. But
she will one day become me as I will become her. There are many things amongst
the worlds worse than the glimpses of your memories she gained through
me."
Aeka sighed heavily. "Is
it really necessary for her to see all that? She's only a little
girl..."
"Sasami is not a
little girl anymore, Aeka," Tsunami said gently, stepping forward to rest her
hand on the princess' shoulder. "She has had her Change and by the customs of
this world that makes her an adult. She has the emotions of an adult and is
very intelligent. I have seen many older people who display far less wisdom
than does your sister."
Aeka
sighed, "I suppose I simply cannot stop imagining her as the little girl I left
behind when I returned to
Jurai."
"She is your sister,
Aeka," Tsunami said, squeezing Aeka's shoulder comfortingly, "She always will
be. When we are one, we will be your sister then too. She loves you, it is
important that you remember that. But she is not a child any longer. Picture
her as the little girl she was in your mind's eye if you will Aeka, but treat
her for the adult she has become or she will grow to resent
you."
"I.. You're right, of
course. But.. pretty soon she's going to be going out with boys. I think
there's even a boy she likes.. Eti or Ito or something. What if she wants
advice about dealing with men? Or about these Earth clothing styles she wears
now? How can I act as her elder sister when I cannot help her with her
problems?"
"Be there for Sasami
when she comes to you Aeka, and she will ask no more. She knows the things you
cannot help her with and she will find her answers elsewhere, but in cases when
she needs you there is no other who will do. Remember that and be her sister
for her. And do not resent those to whom she goes with problems you have
admitted you cannot
solve."
Aeka frowned, trying to
discern the meaning of Tsunami's words. "You mean.. if she goes to.. to Ryouko,
about men, or clothes, or to Washuu, I should just let her? But what if she
gets.. what if they tell her the wrong
things?"
"Do not believe you
are the only one who loves your sister
Aeka."
Aeka sighed.
"Everything is so confusing
now."
"All things are confusion
Aeka. It is the nature of change, and all things
change."
Aeka cautiously took
the goddess' hand from her shoulder and held it. "Thank you Tsunami. Your
words.. I feel better for having spoken to you, even if nothing I came to say
got said the way I
planned."
"Often those things
which we do not plan are the course meant for us to take, and lead to greater
happiness than could the well charted
path."
"Even
you?"
Tsunami smiled. "Even
me, Aeka. I am not omniscient all the
time."
Aeka looked down and
asked quietly, "How can I speak with father? I dread that conversation more
than I feared this and more than I fear the answers I may get from my brother.
What if he isn't sorry for what he did? What if he tells me it was right? What
if he tries to do it
again?"
"Your father is a wise
man Aeka, he would not be ruler otherwise. You know he was not born to the
throne, and he could not have held it were he not compassionate and just. Think
of his actions on Earth. Would an inherently cruel man have set Seriyou as a
challenge for Tenchi, knowing of the powers he
possessed?"
Aeka had never
really considered why her father did that. She had simply assumed that Seriyou
was convenient so Azusa used him for his challenge, but as emperor there was no
reason for him to even pose such a challenge. He should simply have either
given them leave to stay on Earth or demanded they return to Jurai. Aeka and
Sasami would have protested the latter, but would have followed his order. No
Jurain would defy Azusa's command, to do so would simply be unthinkably wrong..
nearly as bad as blaspheming Tsunami within the Inner Chamber. No, Aeka
realized, her father had known Tenchi would win, one way or another, and set the
challenge to save face. He did not want to back down from his wish for them to
join him aboard the Minawematiro, but he did not wish to have them hating him
for dragging them away from their happiness
either.
Aeka sighed, looking
down at the featureless path upon which she stood. She did not want to think
well of her father right now. Aeka wanted only to remember what he had done to
her and use it to give herself the strength to do what she felt must be done,
but she could not seem to help remembering how much more often he was kind than
cruel. She knew that what he had done was a consequence of the lessons
instilled in him, but that made it no less an atrocity. She wanted to be angry
with him, not feel pity for
him.
"What do I say to him?"
Aeka asked desperately, "How can I tell him, the emperor of Jurai, that he was
wrong for doing what is prescribed by Jurain
custom?"
"Do you remember what
I told you before Aeka?"
Aeka
frowned thoughtfully. "That you can't tell me what to do, because I'll do
something else?"
"That's
it."
Aeka sighed. "Then I will
go to my brother next."
"Fare
well, Aeka."
"Thank you,
Tsunami."
"You lied,"
Sasami accused, a ghostly image of the young woman stepping from the trunk of
Tsunami's tree to confront the
goddess.
"I did not lie,
Sasami," Tsunami countered, "Every word I spoke was
true."
"You know our sister
gave Yousho his visions. And you don't know anything about what happened after
Aeka went to our sister's
realm."
"I know nothing of the
sort, Sasami, and if Aeka wishes to believe my hand guided her actions in that
place it will do her no
harm."
"But there's a big hole
there about Yousho. That only happens when it's Tokimi. Or.. or the
Other."
Tsunami frowned. "I
have told you not to speak of her. You are mortal yet and may overstep the
laws."
Sasami sighed. "I'm
sorry. But you should have told
her."
"If I told Aeka that our
sister attempted to lead Ryouko to Tenchi she would hate her. She still harbors
love for him as a woman for a man and though she would not realize it at first,
hate would grow in her heart for
Tokimi."
"You don't think she
already hates her, for what she
did?"
"Aeka knows, somehow,
that much of the slave's actions were undirected by our sister, and that those
which were had reason behind them. She does not know of her own knowledge, but
she knows. The knowledge that those visions were possibly created by our sister
would solidify Tokimi as an object of scorn for Aeka. Now her anger is focused
on the dead slave and our sister remains an
abstraction."
"It just doesn't
seem right." Sasami sighed. "I know our sister didn't mean to hurt my sister,
but..."
"Tokimi did not mean
anything one way or another Sasami. She did as was required, just as I did with
you and as I have done for millennia. And as I did in withholding information
from Aeka."
"But what good is
being able to know everything if we can't tell
anybody?"
Tsunami sighed, this
was the hardest part of assimilating with Sasami.. convincing her that things
she would not understand until after the process was complete were, in fact,
beyond her understanding. "You know what may happen between our sister and Aeka
and you know that our sister's actions have been to facilitate that. Sometimes
the affairs of the cosmos require things which seem wrong to mortal eyes. Would
you have me tell Washuu and Ryouko the whole of the truth as
well?"
Sasami bit her lip and
looked away. Finally she sighed and said, "No.. I guess not. But that all
turned out okay, I mean Ryouko is Washuu's daughter again and she's in love with
Tenchi. If everything hadn't happened like it did neither of them would have
been happy."
"You understand
that because you can see my memories, Sasami," Tsunami said gently, "Just as I
knew that when I took my actions thousands of years ago. But if I were to tell
them now they would not understand, and they are already happy. Think how much
worse it would be if I told Aeka now, when she still
grieves."
Sasami nodded sadly.
"I guess you're right."
"Go
back to your friends Sasami. You are not ready to split your attention this way
for so long, even this close to me. And I must attend to matters among the
worlds."
* *
*
"Kiyone?" Mihoshi asked
from within the cell, "I.. I can't find my
shoes..."
Kiyone turned to see
Mihoshi on her hands and knees feeling around under her bunk, her shoes sitting
all of a half meter to her right. Kiyone sighed and went back into the cell,
retrieving Mihoshi's shoes and guiding her up to sit on the bunk while she
helped her put them on. As she stood she realized Mihoshi had buttoned her
shirt crookedly as well.
Kiyone
tried to keep herself from saying anything. She knew how hard a time Mihoshi
was having since her sudden onset of blindness and could hardly blame her
partner for having trouble with her clothes. Kiyone could not imagine how she
would be able to function without being able to see, and did not really think
she could do any better than Mihoshi
was.
"Wait," Kiyone said as
Mihoshi started to stand, "You've got your shirt buttoned all crooked. No, just
sit, I'll do it."
"Thanks
Kiyone," Mihoshi said quietly while the green-haired woman unbuttoned her shirt
and started re-buttoning it. "I don't know what I'd do if you weren't my
partner."
"I'm more than your
partner, Mihoshi..."
*What did
I just say?* Kiyone thought in a mild panic.
"What do you mean
Kiyone?"
"I.. I.. I'm your
friend, right Mihoshi?"
"Oh,"
Mihoshi smiled, "Of course you are Kiyone." Kiyone finished the last button of
Mihoshi's shirt just as the blond threw her arms around her. "I love you
Kiyone!"
Kiyone blinked, her
arms frozen at her sides.
"W..wuh..wuh..."
"You're my
best friend," Mihoshi explained, releasing her from the hug, "Since you became
my partner it's like.. like I have a sister I
guess."
"Oh..." Kiyone felt as
though her heart had just shattered, but tried desperately to convince herself
she did not. "I... You're my best friend too, Mihoshi."
She could not repeat the
blonde's sentiments. She desperately tried to convince herself otherwise, but
she knew if she said it there would be no turning back. She could not tell
Mihoshi she loved her and not mean it in the way she wanted so badly to believe
she did not.
"Come on partner,"
Kiyone said, trying to make herself sound cheerful, "Let's get out of this
hole."
* *
*
"Alright Kittan," Takima
growled into the hovering comm display, "What the hell are you University people
trying to pull? There's nothing out there but a rogue
star!"
"Captain Takima, please,
calm down." This time the voice was female, a young woman wearing a uniform
similar to Kittan's gently pushed the jittery under-professor out of the way and
moved to the center of the screen. "We did not want to transmit any specific
information about the Artifact over long-range subspace.. even on a secure band.
But it Is there. Please, adjust your sensors to these
parameters."
Takima turned to
the officer manning the sensor array controls and
nodded.
"We have confirmation
captain," the Jurain officer said a moment later, "It's there, but these sensor
settings are insane. They have us looking at distortions in the cosmic
background. It's like those crystals are just.. I don't know, some kind of
spatial distortions."
"You have
good men captain," the female University person said after hearing the analysis,
"That's exactly what they
are."
"But if they're just
spatial anomalies, why are we out here? I'm sure it's a fascinating phenomenon,
but distortion patterns are hardly
artifacts."
The female
professor sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "It's hard to explain
Captain, but they Are an Artifact. We're convinced that they were not always
spatial distortions. We think they were physical objects of some sort that were
somehow.. I don't know how to explain it without going over your head sir.
Imagine if you took an object and removed every physical property except mass.
That's what you would give you those
crystals."
Takima frowned. He
liked to think he was an intelligent man, and that made dealing with University
people even worse. They had all spent most of their lives, sometimes thousands
of years, studying instead of getting real jobs, so even an intelligent man was
left floundering half the time. Finally he hit upon something he understood
which seemed to apply
here.
"You mean like the
transfer to subspace?" Takima asked, "We had a fairly detailed course plan on
subspace physics at Fleet academy, and if I remember correctly objects are
stripped of everything except their locational parameters when they make the
jump."
The professor nodded,
"Yes captain, something like that. But these things are still in normal space,
and until now we didn't think something like that was possible. And even
stranger they seem to exist simultaneously in subspace. There are distortion
patterns in the subspace overlay for this sector of real-space that correspond
exactly to the location and velocity of the
Artifact."
"Alright
professor..."
"Tatoraki, sir.
Tatoraki Atiena."
"Alright
professor Tatoraki. I'm not qualified to deal with this sort of thing, I'm
calling in the planetary confinement team and we'll let them make the
decisions."
Professor Tatoraki
nodded. "Yes sir, that's all we could
ask."
Atiena cut the comm
channel and sighed in frustration. She hated dealing with Fleet people, they
all assumed that just because a person chose to devote their life to study they
were somehow less important that people with 'real' jobs. Like going around
blowing things up had ever helped
anyone.
"And you," Atiena said,
rounding on Kittan, "Jumpy as a startled Timpasian. What kind of opinion do you
think Fleet is going to get if we act like we should be groveling at their feet
for help?"
"Sorry professor,"
Kittan grinned weakly at her, "I'm just no good at talking to them. I'm always
afraid they're going to start barking orders at me or
something."
Atiena shook her
head sadly and turned away from under-professor Kittan, surveying the interior
of the USV Corona. They were not a big ship by any means, this one room
composed nearly half the interior volume not used by their propulsion system and
subspace drive. Atiena crossed the ten meter chamber to where under-professor
Rik'kash was tapping away diligently at a
console.
"How's it going Rik'?"
Atiena leaned over the under-professor's shoulder and peered at the display
floating over his console, "Any luck on the defense
mechanism?"
"No, professssor."
Rik'kash was a Serga, a race of humanoids created, apparently by Jurains, some
two hundred thousand years ago. No mention of the event existed in Jurain
records, but Serga legends indicated it. They had normally proportioned bodies
for humanoids and basically human faces, but were covered in minute scales and
had a distinct hiss to their speech due to the reptilian nature of their vocal
apparatus. "It isss mossst confounding, professsor," Rik'kash continued, "There
appearsss no devisse to control thisss phenomenon, but it isss clearly
obsservable."
The phenomenon
Rik'kash referred to was the fact that nothing, absolutely nothing, entered the
vicinity of the crystal structure. Normally interstellar derbies would drift
into a system and get caught in the sun's gravity well, eventually either
spiraling back out of the system, colliding with a planetoid, or being pulled
into the star itself. But a survey of this system showed absolutely nothing
besides the crystalline spatial deformations.
They had performed a few tests
to see why, exactly, there was no foreign matter in the system. Essentially
they consisted of flying out beyond the edge of the system and firing a probe
back in toward the star. Perhaps not the most glamorous science, but Corona was
not equipped for temporal mapping or trans-spatial diffraction pattern reading,
so it was down to lobbing things at the crystals to see what
happened.
What happened was
that the objects never arrived. The first probe was fired toward the edge of
the system where the largest crystals were, some the size of small moons, in the
hopes that an impact would not damage the Artifact. It veered suddenly off
course, all the while reporting that it was still moving in a straight line
relative to the ship. The second probe they tried dropping down toward the
plane of the ecliptic rather than coming in level. That one floated straight on
down until it was within four hundred thousand kilometers of the upper edge of
the nearest crystal, then simply vanished. A while later it re-appeared on the
opposite side of the ecliptic plane moving at escape velocity for the star and
with the onboard computer insisting that, despite all evidence to the contrary,
the time between its disappearance and re-appearance had not taken place and
that it was moving at approximately half the velocity it actually
was.
The last probe was more
worrying. That one they had sent straight into the heart of the crystal field
with a subspace gate generator aboard. It triggered just beyond the point the
second probe had vanished, popping into subspace and continuing its approach.
Spatial distances were skewed in subspace and they hoped to move it in close,
then yank it back out into realspace to see what would happen, but long before
the probe's subspace pattern was anywhere near interfaced with the nearest
crystal the probe vanished without so much as a subspace ripple. That was two
days ago, it still had not
reappeared.
* *
*
"Father."
Azusa
did not turn at the greeting. He stood on a small balcony overlooking the river
Deori where it wound beneath the Four Bridges. He could not remember if this
was a real balcony, or if the scene upon which he gazed was merely simulation.
Azusa supposed it did not particularly matter anyway, all the simulated outside
views within the palace were as accurate as the viewer wished them to
be.
"Yousho," Azusa said,
leaning on the balcony rail to look down. He was not wearing his robes of
office, only a simple Nia in purple and
black.
"Will you not look at me
father?"
Azusa shut his eyes
and gripped the rail harder. "I will look upon my son when he returns to me,"
Azusa said quietly, his voice level, "I have no interest in elderly Earth
men."
Azusa heard the old man
sigh and the whisper of cloth as he
turned.
"I will see you tonight
at the evening meal
father."
Azusa waited until he
heard the closing of a door before breathing again. His exhalation came out in
a ragged gust and he sagged against the railing. Yousho had spoken the promise
in his true voice, not the repulsive one he affected for his disguise, and it
was all Azusa could do to keep from spinning around to see if his son had
finally returned to him. That Yousho would have thrown off his mask and come to
rejoin his family was too much to hope for and Azusa had lived far too long to
allow unfounded hope into his
heart.
"Toka, Puer, attend
me." Azusa turned from the door without waiting for the guardians' response.
He wore Suji, a light official robe pulled over the Nia to signify he was about
matters important to the throne, and the metal ornaments at his breast ticked
lightly against one another as he sat.
The Guardians shut the door
behind them and bowed upon reaching the edge of the floor mat upon which the
furniture of Azusa's interview room sat. They were his personal bodyguard and
had served in that capacity for nearly six hundred years, they could have sat
without fear of reprimand, but Toka and Puer were far too professional in their
duties to allow any such breach of
protocol.
"How many of our
guests have accepted my request to join me for dinner this
evening?"
Toka, the older of
the two, looked to Puer. They gazed into one another's eyes for a long moment
before Puer turned his attention back to the
emperor.
"Minos Sasami, Masaki
Katsuhito, Hakubi Washuu, Hakubi Ryou-ohki, Hakubi Ryouko, and Nashim Etae have
replied to your summons."
Azusa
frowned. "Nashim Etae?" Azusa asked, his voice touched by disbelief and
annoyance, "You speak of Katsuhito's
grandson?"
Puer glanced
nervously at Toka who replied in his stead, "Yes my lord. We apologize if we
have caused offense, we are unsure of the Nashim's standing at court and sought
to avoid disrespect. It is by this designation that the bodyguard refer to the
Nashim until such time as we are informed of his
standing."
Azusa's frown grew
no less intense with the explanation. "You call him Treeborn. This is no part
of respect for one unknown to the
bodyguard."
"I.." Toka began,
Puer picking up when he trailed off helplessly. "We have heard rumor that the
Nashim is one of the Treeborn, lord. We meant no disrespect in our nomenclature
and will cease to refer to him as such if we are
incorrect."
Azusa stood and
paced across the room, hands folded behind his back. He stopped near the wall
and looked up at a painting which hung there. It depicted a tree in the midst
of a rainstorm, two men and a woman clustered about its
trunk.
"You may go," Azusa
commanded, "The crown will make no proclamation of his standing at this
time."
The guardians bowed,
tapping their chests before turning to rise and walk out of the
room.
When they were gone Azusa
reached out to delicately touch the plaque set into the wooden frame of the
painting, running his finger across the etched characters there. "Nashim Etae,"
he whispered to himself, "The treeborn prince... What did I begin by allowing
them to stay on Earth?"
* *
*
"Well," Ai asked, holding
her arms up and half-turning to give Mataeo a view of her profile. She was
wearing a sort of long shirt with four unobtrusive pockets and a pair of pants
that were cut to accentuate the curve of a woman's leg. Around her waist was a
thin belt of some rough fibrous material traced with a weaving pattern in silver
to match the similar pattern around the wrist of the right sleeve of her shirt.
The top was a deep red and the pants a rich forest green. "What do you think?
Is it me?"
Mataeo looked at his
girlfriend appraisingly for a moment before saying, "Definitely, though I think
you need to do something with your hair. Everybody else I've seen wearing one
of those has had their hair
back."
"It's called a Nia," Ai
explained, stepping back into the changing booth at the rear of the little shop
in which she had found her new apparel. "Have you found anything you like yet?
Maybe we can find a hair salon after we're done
here."
Mataeo rolled his eyes
and went back to searching the racks. He knew what colors he liked, and with
these nia things the only real difference seemed to be the primary color and the
pattern around the wrist; and the wrist part never seemed to be exactly the same
between any two shirts. But he was not entirely sure which were the men's and
which the women's. There were signs that he assumed would give such helpful
information, along with things like sizes, but they were not in any language he
recognized.
Finally, just as
Ai was reemerging from the booth, once more in her own clothing, he found
something that looked appealing. Not a nia, but similar. It had short sleeves
and the pants hanging with it had pockets, the lack of which he disliked in the
nia. There was a sort of round metal button on the left breast of the shirt and
the pants, dark grey otherwise, had a wide blue stripe down the left leg.
"How about this?" Mataeo
asked, holding it up to Ai, "It looks like it's my
size."
Ai flushed and pushed it
down from where he held it up near his shoulder, looking around to see if anyone
had seen. They were the only customers in this part of the store.
"You don't want that one," Ai
said quietly, putting it back on the rack and guiding Mataeo an aisle over,
"That was the uniform for a man petitioning to become a guardian. Here, this is
the same color, how about one of
these?"
Mataeo took the
proffered clothes and headed for the changing booth. Shopping for clothing was
not exactly his idea of fun, even if the shopping was being done on an alien
world, and Mataeo just wanted to get it over with.
"I still can't believe you
borrowed money from Ryouko's mother," Mataeo said through the stall door,
struggling with the unfamiliar
clothes.
"I didn't borrow it,"
Ai replied absently, looking through a rack of long dresses, "She gave it to me.
She said it was only fair after us having to come here. I tried to tell her I
couldn't accept it, but she wouldn't
listen."
"Well," Mataeo said,
pushing the door open and tugging at his new pants in an attempt to get them to
hang correctly, "We're paying her back whenever we get back to Earth. If we can
figure out how much Jurain money is worth in
yen."
Ai draped the dress she
was examining over one arm and tried to hide her grin as she looked at Mataeo.
"You.. you've got them on backwards."
Ai tried to keep from laughing
as Mataeo struggled in vain with his pants and then leaned his head around his
shoulder, turning in a circle while trying to see the back to figure out how it
differed from the
front.
Hanging the dress back
on its rack Ai went to her confused lover and stopped his circling. "Here,
look," she tugged the edge of his pantleg facing forward, "See how this side has
a stitch around the waist? That's the
back."
Mataeo sighed. "Maybe I
should just go naked."
He had
seen a few Jurains doing so, apparently public nudity was less stigmatized on a
world that existed in perpetual spring. Mataeo saw Ai's expression and realized
she must have noticed him noticing the Jurains. "Or maybe I should go put these
on the right way around?"
Ai
nodded sternly, pushing him toward the changing booth. "When you're done we'll
go find somewhere to eat before we look for the
salon."
Mataeo listened
while Ai exchanged some rapid-fire Jurain with the store employee. He had
picked up a few words of the language with Ai's help, but did not hear any of
them in the exchange. It seemed like a fairly easy language to learn once you
got around the fact that apparently a whole sentence could change its meaning
based on whether the person talking was of a higher or lower social station than
the listener, but he had not had time so far to learn more than "hello,"
"goodbye," "thank you," and "where is the bathroom
please?"
Soon enough the
transaction was complete, though Mataeo was unsure if the Ai's dialogue with the
employee was a part of it or only idle conversation. Ai said it was all a part
of shopping on Jurai, but could not seem to explain if it was actually an
integral part of the purchase itself. In any case, money changed hands. Well,
changed accounts through the device of a complicated little cylinder Washuu had
provided Ai for the purpose anyway. Jurains had not had physical currency since
before Earthlings first began using beads and shells for the purpose.
"Come on Mat," Ai said,
handing him their packages and stepping through the shop's doorway, "Let's go
get something to eat."
Stepping
into the quiet rush of Jurai's Great City Mataeo was amazed again at the beauty
of this world. Jurains had no surface transportation, relying on an underground
system something like subways on Earth and a more expensive, per trip, network
of teleportation pads. Mataeo and Ai, wanting to see the sights of the city,
had used neither so far. Instead they walked the wide, grass-paved streets of
the city amidst the strangely subdued crowds.
Mataeo, having grown up in
Hong Kong, expected city streets to be busy and loud, but while the Great City
was certainly busy it was almost eerily quiet. Ai said it was on purpose, some
sort of acoustic effect produced by the atmosphere that subdued loud noises.
Whatever the cause, the effect was magical. Walking through the quiet crowds of
beings in exotic clothing, many of them clearly not human, was like stepping
into a fantasy world. The green streets, their grass somehow remaining
untrampled despite the traffic, and Jurai's flowing architectural style served
only to heighten the surrealness of the
scene.
Mataeo let Ai guide him
down one road after another, though really she did not have any more idea where
they were going than he did, while he looked up in awe at the strange and
beautiful buildings surrounding them. Jurain architecture was a thing of
flowing curves and the careful combination of natural elements, not the world of
sleek metals and glowing plastics Mataeo had always vaguely assumed an advanced,
alien world would be. In fact, there was far less metal and glass evident
within the Great City than on any street in Tokyo or Hong Kong. Most buildings
were a combination of stone and living plants, trees and vines in varying
thicknesses used to decorate or, sometimes, support structures in a staggering
array of stone textures. One building in particular Mataeo thought he would
carry the image of with for the rest of his life. It was a massive, towering
structure of sleek crystalline spikes and orbs hung within a network of wooden
tendrils, the thinnest of them easily twenty meters across. And, rising
majestically in the center of the structure, a twisting triple helix of water
lit with dancing motes of light. Mataeo and Ai had stood watching the lights
dance through the water, flowing through its curves with no visible means of
support, for long minutes before asking a passing street vendor what it housed.
Mataeo had discovered that
Ai's knowledge of Jurai, while considerably larger than his own, was not
encyclopedic. The trees told her much of the world's history and taught her the
language, but they seemed to have difficulty differentiating periods of time and
could give her few specific details about the current state of affairs on Jurai,
much less the layout of the city. So much of their time was spent wandering
aimlessly, hoping to stumble across the places they wanted to visit and
wondering at the strange buildings and stranger businesses housed within.
The vendor explained kindly
that the structure was the home of Jurai's oldest and most respected
architectural firm, and somehow that seemed precisely correct to Mataeo. He had
always wondered at the fact that architects on Earth seemed to work in the most
drab buildings, and that the people responsible for the beautiful vista
surrounding them should be housed in such a magical structure seemed right. The
vendor also mentioned that they should return to see the building, referred to
as Shunimahinae, though whether that was the name of the building, the agency,
or something else entirely Mataeo was unsure, at night when the lights would be
refracted by the water and the artificial crystals in what she assured was a
dazzling display.
"Okay,"
Mataeo said unsurely, "I guess that sounds
good."
Ai frowned and looked at
the menu again. "I didn't really think about the fact that none of the food
here would be like food on Earth. Back at the palace the cooks knew how to make
Japanese food..."
Mataeo
nodded, he had failed to consider the fact they might have trouble finding
something edible as well.
The
two knelt at a low table in a subtly lit restaurant, the ambiance almost eerily
Japanese while remaining alien enough to be clearly not Earth. Ai explained
that the Japanese touches they had been noticing in Jurain culture, like the
restaurant in which they now contemplated strange foods, were thanks to Queen
Funaho's influence. The emperor's first wife was born and raised on Earth in
ancient Japan, and though the people were mistrustful of her when first Azusa
took the throne with an alien wife, they quickly took to imitating her strange
ways in their own daily lives. Now, nearly two thousand years later, things
like kimonos and chopsticks were firmly entrenched in the culture of the
galaxy's greatest empire.
Ai
summoned a waiter and placed their orders, meatless dishes that her extremely
limited knowledge of Jurain culinary traditions said would be something like
rice with steamed vegetables.
"So where are we going after
lunch?" Mataeo asked, flipping idly through the menu. Jurain restaurants left
them at the table rather than taking them away once the customer had placed
their order. He could not read a word of it, of course, but the flowing script
of Jurai was easy to appreciate even without knowledge of the
content.
"I thought we'd find
somewhere to get my hair done," Ai said, running her fingers through her dark
tresses, "And then maybe go back to the palace to see if we can find everybody
for dinner. We haven't all been in one place since we got here and we should
talk to Tenchi about going back
home."
"Home?" Mataeo asked,
raising his eyebrows, "I thought you liked it here? You want to leave
already?"
"Oh, no," Ai shook
her head, "I love it here.. everything's so.. magical, I guess, but we can't
stay forever. If we're not back in a couple of weeks the bills will all be
late."
Mataeo chuckled. "Here
we are, eating in an alien restaurant on a planet so far away from Earth you
can't even see it's star in the sky, and you're worried about the power
bill."
"Well, that stuff is
important," Ai said defensively, "I mean, Jurai is great.. but we can't live
here. Can we?"
Mataeo shrugged
uncomfortably. Since hearing Ai's story about her heritage, told to her the
night before by the being known as Tsunami, he had been dreading this question.
He could see in her eyes when she took in the sight of the City that she wanted
to stay here, possibly forever, and with Jurain blood in her veins he thought
she might be right to want it. But could he stay with her? He had no Jurain
ancestors, he was just a simple Japanese boy raised in China who had no greater
aspirations than to earn his degree in engineering and go to work at the company
where his father had worked since soon after he was born.
"I.. I don't know Ai. I mean,
I guess you could.. but I can't even speak Jurain. What could I do here?
You're part of their royal family, you can probably live at the palace.. it's
big enough anyway, but what would I do? You've seen the stuff they have here,
their science must make ours look like knocking rocks together to make sparks.
I don't see how I Can do anything but go back to Earth and college." Mataeo
paused, toying with the menu and looking down, away from Ai's face. "But if
you.. if you wanted to, you know.. if you stayed and didn't want.. I wouldn't
want to hold you back.. I would.. I
mean..."
"Mat?" Ai took his
hand away from the menu and held it until he looked up at her. "If you're
thinking I'd stay here while you went back to Earth, you'd better just stop
thinking it right now," Ai's voice was soft but full of the iron determination
Mataeo so admired in her. "You know how long I've waited for you to ask me to
move in with you? And now that you've finally done it you think I'm just going
to drop you for a connection to Jurai through an ancestor I didn't even know I
had until this morning? You'd better open your eyes a little wider, Onosami
Mataeo, I love you and if I stay here it's going to be With you. Got
that?"
Mataeo nodded slowly,
squeezing her hand. "I.. I guess so Ai, but everything's been happening so fast
lately. I don't even know what to think anymore, nobody's who I thought they
were and nothing's like I thought it was. You're.. you're some kind of alien
princess or something and I'm just a plain old Earth boy. I was afraid you
might not want me as much when you knew you could have all this." Mataeo waved
widely, a gesture meant to encompass all the Thousand Suns, what Ai said most
people referred to the Jurain Empire
as.
"I don't want all this," Ai
said, repeating his gesture with a wry grin, "If I can't have it with you.
You're more important to me than Jurai could ever be, even as amazing as it all
is. I'd rather live on Earth all my life and never hear the trees or see the
City again to be with you than live here a day without
you."
Mataeo smiled and
blushed. "I love you too Ai. But what are we going to do? Could we really
just go back home and forget about all this? Tenchi and Ryouko live basically
like normal people despite everything they've been through.. but could we do
that too?"
Ai sighed and looked
out one of the restaurant's windows at the strange crowd flowing past. "I don't
know Mat. I always thought Ryouko was a little bit odd, but now that I know
what she's been though it's amazing how normal she was. I don't think I could
live through all the things she did and still be sane. And Tenchi... God, I
can't imagine what it must have been like for him. I mean, I found out a really
distant ancestor of mine was from Jurai and I feel different.. he found out his
grandfather, the guy he spent summers with, was over a thousand years old, from
another planet, and had a bunch of alien women suddenly move into his
house..."
Mataeo nodded. Since
finding out what it was that made Tenchi Tenchi he had been thinking about all
the times when his friend was just another guy and being quietly amazed by the
sort of strength it must take to hold up under everything he had been through.
Here he had only been observing all the things happening to and around his
friends in the past few days and he was thoroughly confused. How would he have
reacted if it had been him who discovered he was related to the ruling family of
a planet-spanning empire?
"I
guess you're right," Mataeo said at last, "We should talk to them about going
back. Maybe Tenchi and Ryouko can tell us how to deal with all this. They've
been doing it for years
afterall."
Ai started to agree,
then turned when conversation in the room suddenly died after a commotion near
the door. There were two men dressed in the uniforms Mataeo had come to
recognize as belonging to the Guardians of the Jurain royal family, a sort of
private army separate from their Fleet as far as he understood it. Normally
they seemed to always appear in pairs, one young-looking man and one old, a
coincidence that Ai could not explain. Either the trees had not told her, or it
was one of the thousands of things they had shown her which had simply not stuck
in her memory. This time it was a pair as normal, but accompanied by a woman
dressed in a similar uniform. It was not exactly the same, the colors were
darker and she wore a skirt rather than pants. And where the Guardians always
carried staves with an energy sword hilt like Tenchi's strapped at their waist,
this woman had no weapons about her except a thin wooden sword draped across her
back.
The trio spoke briefly
with the hostess of the restaurant, their eyes swinging around the room as if
searching for something. When their collective gaze alighted on Mataeo and Ai,
who were looking on curiously like the rest of the patrons, they pushed past the
restaurant staff and came toward
them.
Mataeo looked nervously
at Ai, who returned the
glance.
"Did we do something
wrong?" He asked, watching the three stern-faced figures
approach.
"I.. I don't think we
did..."
"Onosami Mataeo,
Fujihara Ai," said the older of the Guardians, "He kippa shotep masolla.
Mamonla timnaewai photep."
Ai
frowned and translated, "He says we have to come with them because we..." Ai
paused and turned back to the Guardians. "Masolla timnaewai? Monla toda'aoi
shikae shetep, nedor?"
The
guardians looked vaguely uncomfortable but replied at some length in Jurain.
Eventually Ai turned back to Mataeo and said, "Apparently we weren't supposed to
leave the palace because we're friends of the royal
family."
"What?" Mataeo asked
in disbelief, "But that doesn't make any
sense."
"They said that because
we're friends of the crown we have to have a status assigned to us so that
they'll know how to treat us. There hasn't been a proclamation announcing our
positions within the court yet, so they don't know how important we are
officially. If we're Really important we won't be allowed out of the palace at
all, and we'll have to have an escort while we're there. Apparently there's
something like a political civil war going on and they have to be careful with
anybody who's connected to the
throne."
"So are we in
trouble?" Mataeo asked nervously, looking up at the three imposing figures.
"Are they going to arrest us or
something?"
"No," Ai said
slowly, "I don't think so. They're just worried because we were outside the
palace without protection. There was some kind of problem with some of the
guards at the palace and that's why we got out without anyone saying anything.
Now they just want us to come back with them so nobody gets in any
trouble."
"Oh," Mataeo sighed
in relief. The Guardians looked about like they always did.. stern and vaguely
upset, but the woman with them was positively frightening. She glared around
the restaurant constantly like she was expecting everyone there to try to kill
someone. "Well, I guess that's okay.. can we eat
first?"
Ai asked the Guardians
and translated their reply for her lover. "No, they say that even if we're
allowed out of the palace we should only eat at approved restaurants. Otherwise
there's too much danger of.. not poisoning exactly, the word means that, but it
means a lot of things about technology I don't understand too. There's a lot of
stuff you can do to someone's food, I guess. But they said we can eat at the
palace."
"Time this for being
not," the heretofore silent woman said in heavily accented Japanese, her brow
furrowed in what was either anger or concentration, Mataeo could not decide.
"You us are coming with now. The palace to we must take you, consequences bad
to be in happenings other than
this."
The Guardians turned
toward her, looks of shock painted bold across their faces. One began to
protest loudly in Jurain, but she touched him lightly on the chest with two
fingers and he fell silent immediately. "Language of them to be speaking shall
we, in their presence we are. Better at it than I am you are, speaking it to be
you will. And propriety.. matters import of direness being shall be to override
this."
Mataeo looked
questioningly at Ai. They had found that most of the Guardians could speak
Japanese, though they were surprisingly reluctant to do it, and when they did it
was always clear and nearly unaccented. This woman's Jurain heritage was very
clear in her voice and Mataeo was having a hard time picking out the meaning in
her broken Japanese. Ai shook her head with a tiny motion, she did not know
what was going on either.
"Okay, okay," Mat said
cautiously, "We don't want any trouble. We'll come back with you now, right
Ai?"
Ai nodded and rose to her
feet as he stood.
"Who..
who are you?" Mataeo asked of the woman after they had left the restaurant, "I
mean, no offense or anything. But you're not a Guardian, right? I'm not
Jurain, so I don't know much about how all this stuff works. Are you some kind
of special missing persons officer or
something?"
The woman look
startled at being addressed, and the Guardians pace faltered for a
moment.
"Identify me of being
not of importance to you, respectfully
addressed."
Mataeo frowned, did
she mean she was addressing him respectfully or that he should show more respect
for her? Whatever she meant, she quickened her pace and moved to walk in front
of the Guardians, putting them between herself and the trio's two
charges.
It was a long walk and
Mataeo held Ai's hand, their purchases of the morning tucked under one arm as he
tried to split his attention between the amazing buildings between which they
walked and the equally amazing beings forming the crowd around them, leaving a
small sphere of empty space where the woman and the two Guardians walked. He
sighed, thinking that he would probably not get to see the Shunimahinae by night
now, at least not until all this pronouncement business was cleared
up.
* *
*
Aeka summoned her courage and
knocked at the door of the chamber Katsuhito was using. His chambers as crown
prince were still maintained, but he remained Masaki Katsuhito in the eyes of
the court and so was treated as no more than a guest of the throne.
"Gr-" Aeka cut herself off
before the word was begun, she wanted to deal with him as Yousho, not as
Tenchi's grandfather. "Y-" Aeka stopped again, this time finding the word would
not come to her lips. She sighed heavily and knocked again, calling,
"Katsuhito? May I speak with
you?"
Aeka waited for what
seemed hours, but was probably no more than thirty seconds, before knocking
again. After once more receiving no response she sighed and turned away, her
shoulders sagging and gaze sinking to the floor as the courage she had summoned
for the interview faded. He was not there. She had not counted on that
possibility and now wondered if she would be able to find the strength to do
this again.
*There is nothing
for it then,* Aeka thought as she moved off down the corridor, *I will have to
speak with father
next.*
"Aeka?"
Aeka
paused at the door to her father's reception room. There his Guardians, Puer
and Toka, would be waiting to announce his visitors, should they be deemed
worthy of an audience with the
emperor.
"Mother?" Aeka turned
to see Misaki standing a little way up the hall, hands folded before
her.
"So today's the day then?"
Misaki asked.
"The day mother?"
Aeka asked, quirking her eyebrows, "What
day?"
Misaki sighed and looked
away from her daughter's eyes. "The day you will speak with your father about..
about the beatings."
Aeka's
eyes widened. So her mother knew as well? But of course she would.. she was of
the House Jurai by the time of her Second Change, she would have received the
same lessons, basically, as her father and
brother.
"Yes
mother."
Misaki looked up at
her then and there was a confused welter of emotions battling for control of her
face. "My little Aeka... I don't want to lose you Aeka. I think I can guess
your plans, and I wish I could talk you out of
them."
"You won't try?" Aeka
asked, surprised. She had expected breaking the news of her self-imposed exile
to her mother to be more difficult than to Funaho, possibly even more so than to
her father.
"Did you know that
my parents did not want me to marry your father, Aeka?" Misaki asked, suddenly
changing the subject. Aeka was used to her mother's occasional digressions away
from reality and tried to take this one in
stride.
"No mother," she
answered truthfully, "Is that
true?"
"Yes.. yes, it is."
Misaki looked far away, her eyes staring into some unseen distance and her
fingers playing idly with the cloth of her robes. "He was not emperor then, not
even of a Royal House. My House was not very important, really, or he would
never have even been able to meet me. Mother said I was far too young to enter
into marriage with a man already taken of a wife. You know such things normally
wait until after the fourth century at least.. and I was only a little older
than you. But Azusa was so handsome and dashing, and Funaho was a wonderful
woman I just knew I could become a happy wife-sister to. So I defied their
wishes and we were married. Now, of course, they say they were only trying to
lure me to him by forbidding it, but he is emperor now and they could hardly say
that my marriage was a mistake, could
they?"
Aeka shook her head
silently. She had never heard this story before, but wanted to get on to her
father before her confidence fled. But Misaki was her mother, and she would not
interrupt what seemed an important story to
her.
"Your father was a kind,
wonderful man Aeka. I think that he could have become emperor even had he not..
if he were not what he is. He loved me very much, and he loved Funaho, and when
his children came he loved each of you. He has never stopped regretting what
happened to.. to Yousho's brother, though he will never say so. A wife can see
these things, and your father sometimes talks in his
sleep."
"You.. you don't think
the teachings are right, mother?" Aeka asked cautiously, wondering if it could
be true.
Misaki sighed and
squeezed her hands together. "I don't want to talk about that Aeka. But I
wanted you to know that your father loves you, before you go talk to him. I
know you are angry, and you deserve to be. But please Aeka, remember that he is
the emperor. His actions cannot always be his own, and sometimes he must do one
thing when he wishes with all his heart to do
another."
Aeka frowned. "He is
emperor, but he is my father too. The throne should not be an excuse to
mistreat his children."
Misaki
sighed again and turned away, arms folded beneath her breasts to squeeze her
sides. "Your father has had a lot of pain in his life, Aeka. I know you have
too, and I wish I could take it all away for you, but I can't do that. But
please, if you truly want all the pain to stop, do not take the first step
toward your goal by giving your father more than is
necessary."
"I will do what I
have to, mother."
"I know you
will, Aeka," Misaki said quietly, "But I hope when you're done.. if you go away
like Yousho did.. I hope I can still be your
mommy."
"You'll always be mommy
to me," Aeka replied, her voice softening, "Always. No matter what
happens."
"That's good," Misaki
said as she stated to walk slowly away. Her voice held the strange, distant
quality it often took when she was not entirely in focus with the world around
her. "That's good honey. And remember when you talk to your daddy, you should
only bow halfway, because you're a
princess."
Misaki's words
drifted back to her daughter, she was nearly down to the turning of the corridor
now and Aeka knew she no longer spoke to her. At least, not to the her that was
there now. Her mother often slipped into the past, memories becoming
temporarily more real than reality, and at such times Aeka could barely stand to
be around her. Not out of embarrassment or anything so crass, but because it
pained her so to see her mother in that condition. It seemed to happen much
more often now than she remembered from before she left in search of Yousho, and
Aeka hoped desperately that it had not been her actions which led to
it.
Aeka watched Misaki turn
the corner before turning back to the door. She took a deep breath and opened
it quickly, stepping through to confront the Guardians and, beyond them, her
father.
* *
*
"Sasami? Can I talk to you a
minute?"
Sasami looked up from
the dresses she was trying to choose between and nodded happily at Tenchi.
"Sure Tenchi, what's up? Don't you like your
robes?"
Tenchi looked down at
himself before answering. The robes were Sasami's idea. He wore a garment
composed of a slightly off-white shirt and loose, charcoal grey pants beneath a
long black, purple, and green robe decorated at the wide, angularly cut neck
with small metallic buttons, one of which dangled a thin strip of something like
paper. Sasami said that it was the traditional robe of a nashim and that it was
important to wear formal robes if you were entitled to them when you went to a
function like tonight's dinner. Tenchi was not entirely convinced, primarily
because he did not think he was really entitled to the amount of respect
seemingly attached to the title Sasami had given him. That is, he knew he was
entitled by his ancestry, but he had not chosen to pass up the throne.. he
simply had not even known there Was a throne to be
refused.
Finally he put on a
smile and said, "No, they're very nice Sasami. I'm not sure I feel right
wearing them, but your tailor is very good. I wanted to talk to you about some
other things. Could we sit
down?"
Sasami nodded and sat,
looking vaguely worried. "Is it.. did Ryouko tell you about
Eto?"
Tenchi frowned. "No,
what about Eto?"
"Oh.." Sasami
looked away and blushed before saying quickly, "Nothing. I just got in a little
fight with him, that's all. Nothing important,
really."
Tenchi furrowed his
brow worriedly and made a mental note to talk to Ryouko
later.
"It's not about Eto, no.
But I guess it sort of
is."
"What do you mean?"
Sasami asked, looking at him
curiously.
"Well... You said
you got in a fight with him and went to talk to Ryouko,
right?"
Sasami nodded. "That's
okay, isn't it? Ryouko said she didn't mind talking to
me..."
"Oh, it's fine," Tenchi
assured the young woman. "Ryouko loves talking to you. I just... I wanted you
to know I'm here too. If you ever need someone to talk to, I don't want you to
think Ryouko's the only one who will listen. You know what I
mean?"
Sasami nodded slowly.
"I think so, Tenchi. I guess I don't talk to you as much as Ryouko... But
sometimes I have to talk to her about.. you know, girl
stuff."
Tenchi blushed and
rubbed his neck. "Oh, sure. But if it's not about girl stuff, I'm here too,
okay? I didn't want you to think I don't care about what happens to you
too."
Sasami smiled and gave
him a quick hug.
"Trying to put
the moves on my husband, Sammy?" Ryouko grinned at the pair from where she
stood at the door of Sasami's wardrobe room. Tenchi gasped quietly and stared
at her, his eyes riveted and a blush slowly rising to his
face.
"Wow...
Ryouko..."
"You like?" Ryouko
asked, putting her arms up over her head and turning slowly. She wore a long,
primarily blue, dress made of some sheer, glossy cloth with a high neckline. A
complicated design was cut into the front, from a circle revealing the gem at
her neck down across her chest in a flowing floral pattern. Stripes of emerald
green swept around her back, ending in down-curving spikes along her legs. The
sleeves began tight at her shoulders, billowing out to their ends just below her
elbows and were slashed with a satiny black cloth
beneath.
"Uh huh..." Tenchi
mumbled, unable to compose a
response.
Ryouko swept across the
room to admire Tenchi's new robe, murmuring something in his ear that made the
fading blush return full strength to his cheeks.
"Does it mean something,
Sammy?" Ryouko asked, looking down at herself again. "The seamstress kept
saying how lucky I am and how honored I must feel, but I couldn't remember
enough Jurain to ask why
politely."
Sasami blushed and
was a moment in answering. "I.. I hope I didn't do anything bad... I kind of
told her to make you the dress for a woman just married into a Royal House. And
the black in the sleeves mean you're married to a
nashim."
"Really?" Ryouko
asked curiously, fingering the soft cloth in her
sleeves.
"Sasami," Tenchi said
uncomfortably, "You probably shouldn't have done that. We haven't had a
ceremony yet or anything, and we wanted to surprise everyone at
dinner."
"Oh lighten up
Tenchi," Ryouko said with a smile, "You're just upset because you don't think
you deserve your robe. I like my dress, and we're going to announce the
engagement at dinner
anyway."
"I guess," Tenchi
sighed, deflated, "But I really don't think I should wear this.. I'm no
prince."
"You're all the prince
I want," Ryouko whispered in the sultry voice she knew turned Tenchi's knees to
butter before kissing his
cheek.
Sasami coughed
discretely and the couple blushed, moving slightly away from one another to hold
hands.
"If you don't wear it my
dad won't want to announce you at court," Sasami explained, "And if he doesn't
you won't be able to claim any of the stuff members of the House
get."
"I don't want any of that
though," Tenchi protested, "This place is too much for me and I'm just a guest
right now."
Sasami frowned
prettily and said, "You might though, one day, and if you get announced as just
Tenchi from Earth it'll be really hard." Sasami flashed him a grin and said,
"Besides, Ryouko's right.. you look really sexy in
it."
Tenchi blushed and Ryouko
blustered, "Sasami! It's impolite to listen when people
whisper!"
Sasami grinned and
replied, "Guess you're rubbing off on me, mommy
Ryouko."
Ryouko's mouth snapped
shut and a blush to rival Tenchi's consumed her
features.
"See how it feels?"
Washuu asked, entering the room. She wore a severe black and green dress/robe
that Tenchi recognized as the formal uniform of a senior Professor at the Jurain
University of Science from some old pictures she had shown
him.
Sasami shared a grin with
the scientist while Tenchi and Ryouko attempted to sort out their
embarrassment.
The mutual
trading of compliments had barely begun when yet another guest joined the party.
This time it was a tall woman with close-cropped pink hair wearing a uniform
that closely resembled that of the Guardians. She had a thin wooden sword
across her back and looked around the room with a gaze like
daggers.
Tenchi stepped
unconsciously between the new arrival and the three women, his hand moving
without thought to his hip, but he was
unarmed.
The woman's gaze
leveled on Tenchi and she stared him directly in the eye for a long beat before
bowing deeply.
"Masaki
Tenchi," she said, pronouncing the vowels with the stuttering manner of Jurain
speech, "Minos Sasami. Your guests recognize I am afraid I am not doing. This
woman assume I do to be Hakubi Washuu? And you are ignorant, or wife to this
man, by your dress. Ignorant you do not appear, so must you be
Ryouko."
"Who are you?" Sasami
asked in her most official-sounding princess voice, "What are you doing in my
chambers unannounced?"
"By your
honor, Vianna am I being. Mother, yours, the queen Misaki, is being sending me
to have ascertained whom of guests, yours, will attending dinner
being."
"Why did she not send
Guardians?" Sasami asked suspiciously, "What is your station? And why do you
speak Japanese so
badly?"
"Learning it, I am, the
slower way. To mother, yours, am being I personal
guard."
Sasami frowned and
called loudly, "Azaka! Kotori! Attend
me!"
The guardians filed
quickly into the room from their stations outside. Within her chambers Sasami
was allowed freedom of privacy, but they always waited just outside in case she
left or needed help.
"Who is
this woman?" Sasami demanded. "She claims to be queen Misaki's personal
guard."
The Guardians glanced
at one another before the younger, Azaka, replied, "This is true, your highness.
She is called Vianna and is of your mother's elite
guards."
Vianna smiled smugly,
vindicated.
"When were women
allowed into the Guardians?" Sasami asked, "And where is her other
half?"
Tenchi glanced at
Ryouko, hoping for an explanation, but she was absorbed by the
exchange.
"They are not,
highness," the elder guardian responded, "And she has none. Some time after
your departure the queen began training very young women as guards. The lady
Vianna was her first
student."
Sasami's frown
remained but she dismissed the Guardians with a wave of her hand before turning
back to Vianna.
"If you are
truly my mother's messenger, tell her that I and all my guests but Tenchi's
grandfather will be attending. I do not know if he will be for I have not seen
him today. I have also not seen Aeka, so do not know if she will be in
attendance tonight. And please inform her that I wish to speak with her
regarding her guard's
manners."
Vianna bowed again
and replied, "I shall. The one, Masaki Katsuhito, signaled has that will be in
attendance shall he. The crown princess, made no announcement she
has."
"You may leave," Sasami
commanded. A tiny smile touched Vianna's lips and she turned, striding
confidently through the
door.
"What was That?" Tenchi
asked when he was confident she was well
away.
Sasami shook her head.
"I don't know..."
* *
*
Ryouko caught her mother's
sleeve, stopping Washuu from leaving the room after Tenchi and
Sasami.
Washuu turned back to
her daughter and asked, "What is it
Ryouko?"
Ryouko bit her lip and
looked away, seemingly considering how to ask what she was about to ask.
Finally she sighed and asked simply, "Can you open your portal from here to
Earth?"
Washuu frowned and
shook her head, wondering what was on Ryouko's mind. "No, I can't. The portal
gear is in my lab, and the subspace interface has a limited range. I could open
it from Mars, probably, but not anywhere outside the inner Sol system. Why?
Worried about getting back to Earth? And you know that thing might be waiting
back there for us."
Ryouko
shook her head and sat in one of the straight-backed chairs scattered around
Sasami's dressing room. "No, not exactly. It's just..." Ryouko sighed and
shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again she had a look of grim
determination about her
features.
"Okay, look Mom,"
Ryouko said seriously, "This isn't working. I'm just going to say it right out,
and if you laugh at me I swear I won't talk to you for a
week."
Washuu raised an eyebrow
and nodded.
"When we came
through from Earth we didn't stop to get any of our stuff. Tenchi's condoms
were in his bag in our
tent."
Washuu very carefully
kept her face straight.
"Oh."
"So can you do
anything?"
Washuu frowned,
trying to distract herself from amusement at her daughter's predicament by
concentrating on the scientific aspects of the problem at
hand.
"Well, I can't give you
anything if that's what you mean. You already know how your body deals with
foreign chemical compounds.. any drug I give you would be ejected through your
skin within an hour. I guess I could deactivate your reproductive system, but
that could take time..."
Ryouko
sighed, trying to adjust to the concept of enforced
abstinence.
"Ryouko?" Washuu
asked cautiously, taking a seat across from her
daughter.
Ryouko looked up,
"Yes?"
"You know your chances
of getting pregnant with Tenchi are actually slightly lower than a Jurain or
Earthling woman. If you just.. went ahead, you probably would be
okay."
Ryouko frowned.
"Probably isn't good
enough."
"Why not?" Washuu
asked, her voice low and cautious, the way it always got when she was trying to
avoid saying the wrong thing, "Would being a mother be that
bad?"
Ryouko looked away and
bit her lip. "I'm not ready for that yet. I don't know if I ever will be. I
think Tenchi wants a child, but I don't know if I can give it to him. I don't
think I'll be a very good
mother."
Washuu patted her
daughter's knee comfortingly. "You'd be better than I
was."
Ryouko tried to snort
derisively, but her heart was not in it. "I don't know mom. I mean, what if I
screwed it up? If I mess up now it's just me that gets hurt, but what if I had
a baby and I did something wrong and it got hurt? Tenchi would never forgive
me.. and I don't think I could forgive myself. And what could I teach my
daughter? You're a genius.. I'm just a thing from your lab, I'm not even
human."
Ryouko gasped when
Washuu slapped her, holding one hand to her cheek and looking up at her mother
in shock.
"Don't you ever say
that again, Ryouko," Washuu warned seriously, "You're ever bit as human as any
of the rest of us. Just because you were born in my lab doesn't make you any
less human that if I had pushed you out of my body in a hospital. Aeka and
Sasami were born in labs too, you know. All Jurains are. What I did with my
DNA to make you is no different from what was done to Misaki and the emperor's
to make Aeka, only more advanced. Are they not
human?"
Ryouko only stared at
her, still clutching her reddening
cheek.
"Tenchi loves you,
Ryouko. You're going to be his wife, that's a very human thing. Sasami looks
up to you like a mother, even if you don't want to admit it. I can see it, and
I wasn't in Tokyo with you. She was joking when she called you 'mommy Ryouko,'
but there was truth there too. Think about it Ryouko, who's been there for her
since she had her Change? You. Who's taught her most of what she knows about
boys? You. Who showed her how to put on makeup? You. If you're such an awful
candidate for motherhood, is Sasami such an awful
daughter?"
Ryouko shook her
head slowly, her eyes
wide.
"Damn right she isn't.
You came to me asking for advice on handling the Eto situation, but I couldn't
tell you what to do because you'd already done it all. I'll try to find
something for you and Tenchi, but I want you to think about why you don't want a
child. If you don't want one, that's up to you.. no child should be born in a
family where she isn't wanted. But you shouldn't sell yourself short, Ryouko.
You might not have made a good mother when you first woke up from the cave, but
you aren't the girl you were then. You're a woman now, soon to be a wife, and
I'm damn proud of you."
Washuu
got up with a swishing of cloth and turned to leave. She paused at the door and
turned back to say, "I'm sorry about your cheek." Then she was
gone.
* *
*
Kiyone straightened her vest
and posed in the mirror. She was nervous about dinner tonight, and trying to
deal with it by obsessing over her
uniform.
Not that was her
uniform, really. All her clothes, along with Mihoshi's, were back on Earth and
on the sector station near the star Earthlings called Betelgeuse. This uniform
was a loaner from the Jurai GP station, borrowed with a pile of other clothes
that morning after their release.
Kiyone started to ask Mihoshi
how she looked, but stopped herself in time. Her partner was fiddling absently
with the hem of her vest and staring blankly at the wall.
They had spent much of the day
in the palace hospital having Mihoshi's eyes examined, but the Jurain doctors
could not find anything the matter. Whatever was preventing Mihoshi from seeing
was psychological, not physical, and the hospital's aura scanning gear could not
pick up on the blockage. There were more sensitive instruments at the
University and they would be going there at the end of the week to have Mihoshi
examined, but until then she was stuck with her
blindness.
"I'm scared,
Kiyone," Mihoshi said suddenly, looking in the basic direction of her
partner.
"What about Mihoshi?"
Kiyone asked, moving to sit next to the
blonde.
"I've never been to
dinner with an emperor before.. and now I'm blind. What if I screw
up?"
"You'll do fine Mihoshi,"
Kiyone assured her, "I'll be there right next to you the whole time. And the
cooks and staff know you can't see right now, so they'll make sure your food is
easy to eat without being able to look at
it."
Mihoshi sighed and tugged
lightly at her vest. There were no officers assigned to the Jurain station with
quite the generous proportions of Mihoshi, so her borrowed uniform did not quite
fit. The rest of her clothes were being altered, but there was not time before
dinner to do the complicated job of the dress
uniform.
"Kiyone?"
Kiyone
looked self-consciously away from the swell of her partner's chest and asked,
"Yes?"
"Why did you want to
kiss me, Kiyone? Just 'cause I'm
cute?"
Kiyone sighed, she had
hoped Mihoshi would have forgotten about that by
now.
"I don't want to talk
about that Mihoshi."
"I know...
Only, I don't understand why you wanted
to."
Kiyone was silent for long
moments. Eventually she said, "I don't know Mihoshi. You.. you're... You're
an attractive woman, Mihoshi. And you're my friend. I guess I just got carried
away."
"Okay," Mihoshi agreed,
"But how come you're my
friend?"
Kiyone frowned. "What
do you mean Mihoshi?"
"Well,"
Mihoshi said unsurely, "Why're you so nice to me? Most people just get mad when
I mess up and they yell at me and then go away. But you always try to help me,
and you're really nice most of the time. And when I'm not messing anything up
we have fun together,
right?"
"Uh
huh..."
"But how come you put
up with me? I.. I haven't had a lot of friends, almost not any before I met
Tenchi."
Kiyone shrugged, then
remembered who she was talking to and said, "I don't know. I guess I haven't
had too many friends lately either. You're always yourself, though. Most
people just do what people think they should.. you always do what you think is
right, even if you do the wrong thing sometimes. It's nice being around someone
that you know will say what they mean instead of what you want to
hear."
Mihoshi was quiet for
long minutes and Kiyone sat silently beside her. When Mihoshi spoke again it
startled Kiyone out of another of her endless internal rages over her feelings
for her partner.
"Kiyone... If
you still want to kiss me, you still can. I.. I've never kissed a girl that I
can remember, but if I did once maybe I'd like
it."
Kiyone sighed heavily and
stood up, facing away from her partner and folding her arms. "Don't talk about
that Mihoshi."
"Why
not?"
"It's not right. Where I
come from women only kiss men, unless it's their mother or something. Doing
things like that with someone the same sex as you are is wrong.. that's what I
was always taught. When I wanted to kiss you, I was wrong. It won't happen
again."
"Maybe.." Mihoshi's
voice was tiny, like she expected to be reprimanded for her words, "Maybe you
should just do what you think is right, even if maybe it's
wrong."
Kiyone shook her head
and walked to the mirror, checking her uniform
again.
"Some things are just
wrong, Mihoshi," she explained sadly, "And no matter what, they stay wrong.
Being yourself is good, but everybody isn't right all the
time."
"Okay Kiyone." Mihoshi
sounded unconvinced, but Kiyone did not have to will to explain it anymore. She
had decided that she could not allow there to be anything beyond friendship with
her partner, and she was determined to stick to
that.
*If I keep telling myself
it's wrong,* Kiyone thought, angrily brushing her hair, *Eventually the dreams
will stop. And I'll be able to look at her when she gets out of the shower
without getting all flustered. And when she says I can kiss her if I want to I
won't feel like This anymore.*
*
* *
"Well, you can't say we
didn't warn you."
Captain
'Please, just call me Quan, professor Tatoraki' Takima leaned back uncomfortably
in the cramped confines of her office aboard the Corona. Jurain Fleet ships were
luxury vessels compared to the Corona and he had been having a hard time since
coming aboard.
"So what do we
do?" Takima asked, for at least the fifth
time.
Atiena shrugged, as she
had each time he asked, and shook her head. "I don't know.. Quan. The
planetary confinement team just isn't equipped to handle something of this
magnitude. They agree that our Artifact needs protection, but it would take a
full division of the Fleet to quarantine a whole system. Maybe my people can
come up with something, or we could ask over the
two-U."
Takima cocked an
eyebrow, one of his more common expressions. Like all Fleet captains he seemed
to have a limited array available, all of which were designed to make his
chiseled features appear in a manner that would probably be described as
'dashing' or 'debonair,' were Atiena the type of person to use that sort of
adjective.
"The
what?"
Atiena resisted the urge
to roll her eyes and explained, "It's short for the UUN, which is short of the
UU Network, which is short for the University-band Ultra-space Communications
Network."
"Ohh," Takima said,
the light of understanding dawning in his stereotypically hard-yet-warm eyes,
"The UCT."
"UCT? No, no, I
don't want to know. The last time I made the mistake of asking for an
explanation of a Fleet acronym I spent two weeks trying to dig through the KOL
manual before I gave
up."
"Really?" Takima sounded
doubtful. "I always thought that the Reconnaissance and Exploration Drone
manual was fairly straightforward. But I don't think you should broadcast on
the UCT about the
Artifact."
"What? Why
not?"
Takima glanced nervously
at the door, as though expecting spies to fall through it after leaning too hard
while listening. "Until we have it confined I don't think we should let anyone
know about this outside your ship and the Fleet. We don't know what this thing
is, but we can't let whatever technology controls that defense mechanism fall
into the hands of
anti-imperialists."
"But how
can we confine it?" Atiena asked, exasperated, "It's too big for us. If you
won't let us call in extra help, what are we supposed to
do?"
Takima pursed his lips and
Looked Thoughtful. With Takima you could almost See the capital letters in his
expressions. Either he was Looking Worried or he was Making A Difficult
Decision or, as now, he was Looking Thoughtful. Atiena wondered, despite
herself, what he did when he was out on a date. Perhaps there was a Leering
Seductively expression in
there...
"Hmm." Atiena idly
curled a lock of her blood-red hair around one finger, a habit she had been
attempting to break for going on sixty years now.
Sudden inspiration dawned in
her eyes and Atiena slammed her hand down on the table triumphantly, exclaiming,
"Ahha! I've got it!"
Takima
shifted flawlessly from Looking Thoughtful to Curiously
Expectant.
"The Hakubi
trans-spatial diffraction lens," Atiena explained, pulling up the University
Archive interface on her desktop holo-display. "We can't actually stop people
from getting near the artifact, so we'll make sure they can't see there's
anything to get near."
"I'm
sorry, the what?"
"It's a
device for cloaking extremely large objects," Atiena said distractedly,
navigating carefully through cluttered and little-used portions of
Archive-space. "Nobody's built one since the prototype model, the Holy Council
outlawed them a few decades after the inventor
disappeared."
"Then how do you
know about it?" Takima asked curiously, "And why is it
illegal?"
"The council decided
that being able to hide objects the size of planets would be detrimental to the
continued efficiency of Jurain imperial
security."
"Yes, I suppose that
makes sense. But how do you know about it if it was
banned?"
Atiena glanced up from
the archive display and blushed. "Well.. I did my thesis on Professor Hakubi's
banned experiments. Specifically, on how Jurain government was holding back the
development of the sciences by banning key
technologies."
Takima frowned.
"You're a Uranist."
"I am not,"
Atiena retorted defensively, "I wrote my paper twenty years before Uran came
into power. And I have no association with his following now that he's there..
I think he's a sleazy little bastard and I'll be glad when the emperor finally
crushes him."
Takima raised an
eyebrow, apparently at the passion of Atiena's denial, but made no further
comment.
"Here, look," Atiena
rotated the display so the captain could see the schematic now hovering between
them. "See? Not hard to build at all, and since you're Fleet I'm sure you can
get a dispensation or something to allow us to put one
together."
Takima frowned and
cycled through the schematics. He was no scientist, but you picked up on things
as a starship pilot. "This is insane, it shouldn't work at
all."
Atiena nodded excitedly,
pointing to a particularly redundant clump of circuitry. "See this? Nobody
even knows what it does, but before the device was banned attempts to remove it
from the prototype resulted in complete field degradation. All her work is like
this.. either it's the most brilliant piece of engineering you've ever seen or
it makes absolutely no sense. It's like she already knew all the answers, but
wasn't quite sure how to get there from the
questions."
"Who?" Takima
asked with an air of detached curiosity, still examining the bafflingly complex
schematics.
"Professor Hakubi,"
Atiena explained, "Hakubi Washuu? I'm sure you've heard of her.. everyone has.
She was probably the greatest scientific mind in the
universe."
"Was? What happened
to her?"
Atiena gaped. "I
can't believe you've never heard of Mad Prof Washuu... Five thousand years ago
she just vanished. There was some kind of catastrophic failure in her last
experiment and she was presumed dead for centuries, along with her lab assistant
Yakage." Atiena saw recognition in Takima's eyes then and continued on, "Yes,
that Yakage. Nobody knows what her experiment was, the records were destroyed
in the accident and the Board refused to divulge its own files. Whatever it
was, Yakage was working on it with her. So was Kagato. A few centuries after
the accident Kagato was promoted to A class on the GP's most wanted lists and
some factors in the accident took on a new light. Now most people think she was
either killed or captured by
Kagato."
"Captured? So she
might still be around?"
"Oh, I
doubt that. She was at least ten thousand by the time of the accident, if she
were still alive she'd be the oldest biological humanoid in the galaxy. But
there are people who still insist she's kicking around somewhere. Just a few
days ago there was a big fluff on the two-U over some holo-stills supposedly
taken that day at the palace on Jurai. There's a woman in them that looks like
the old pics of Prof Hakubi, only a little older.. but you know how easy it is
to fake that kind of thing... So what do you say? Can you pull some of that
Fleet muscle and get us the papers so we can build one of
these?"
Takima frowned and
pinched his lip thoughtfully. "I think that could be
arranged."
"Great," Atiena
started to get up, already forming a mental list of things she would need to do
to get the parts and expertise to build a Hakubi lens. "We'll have it ready in
a week at the outside."
"Not so
fast Atiena," Takima raised a finger in reproach, "May I call you
Atiena?"
Atiena sighed. "I
should have known. What does Fleet want in return for the
dispensation?"
"Oh, I don't
think Fleet will want anything. It will get this Artifact problem out of our
branches. But if I'm going to push it through the channels, I want
something."
Atiena's eyebrows
went up involuntarily. Subterfuge? Out of the illustrious captain? "What?"
She asked, her anger temporarily ousted by
curiosity.
"If I get you your
papers, I want you to come over to my ship tomorrow night for dinner. With
me."
*Right again Professor,*
Atiena thought wryly, *If that's not Leering Seductively I don't know what
is.*
* *
*
Tenchi slid his arm around
Ryouko's waist when she caught up to him in the hallway and squeezed her
reassuringly. He did not know what she was upset about, but it was clear from
the feelings she was unintentionally streaming across their link that something
had her riled.
"What's wrong?"
Ryouko only shook her head and
leaned against his shoulder while they walked. Mataeo, Ai, and Ryou-ohki were
down the hall with Aeka's tailor, having been sent off by Sasami's when the
woman discovered just how many people she was expected to clothe in a few hours.
Dinner was still a ways off, but they all wanted to catch up beforehand. And
everyone except Sasami and Washuu were nervous about dining with the royal
family and wanted the princess to give them some idea what to expect. Kiyone
and Mihoshi were supposed to join them shortly, it was taking longer for Mihoshi
to get dressed than normal thanks to her sudden impairment. Even Washuu was
stumped as to what could have caused that particular
malady.
"Come on," Tenchi
prodded gently, "tell
me."
Ryouko sighed and took his
arm from around her waist so she could hold it while they walked slowly along
the wide corridor. She started to speak twice, each time unable to get beyond
the first word.
//I asked mom
about.. you know, your
condoms.//
Tenchi flushed and
squeezed her hand where it rested on his forearm with his free hand.
"Ah."
Ryouko nodded and sent,
//I was so embarrassed. It's all your fault, you know. Before your birthday
and the gems and everything I could have gotten through it without even
blushing. Now just thinking about talking about sex makes me
uncomfortable.//
"Sorry
dear."
Ryouko smiled and shook
her head slightly. "Don't, it's okay. I'd rather be with you and never talk
again than the
alternative."
//Besides,//
Ryouko continued silently, //Not talking about it all the time makes it.. I
don't know...//
//Special?//
Tenchi asked.
//Yeah, I guess.
Before it was just something I wanted.. now it's like it's a secret just between
us. I like that.//
//Well I
certainly hope it's just between
us...//
"Tenchi!" Ryouko
gasped and swatted his shoulder, "You're
impossible!"
"Sorry dear,"
Tenchi repeated with a
grin.
Ryouko rolled her eyes
and hooked her hair back over one ear absently before taking hold of his arm
once more.
"Anyway, mom said
she can't help. There's no way for her to open the portal from here. And she
was worried about the Slave.. we should have told her
before."
Tenchi shrugged.
"We'll tell everybody at dinner. It's better this way than trying to explain it
all half a dozen times. And it's not like everybody's been lining up to be
talked to lately."
Ryouko
nodded slowly. "You're right. I still feel bad though, for making her
worry."
Tenchi patted her hand
comfortingly and Ryouko
smiled.
"So she didn't have any
advice?" Tenchi asked, trying to sound
nonchalant.
"Sort of," Ryouko's
frown returned, "She.. she said I shouldn't be so worried about getting
pregnant. And she slapped
me."
Tenchi stopped in his
tracks, causing Ryouko to falter and stumble at the sudden stop. He turned to
her, his eyes searching her face
worriedly.
"Are you okay? Why
would she do that? Are you hurt? Where is
she?"
"Tenchi," Ryouko said
soothingly, resting a hand reassuringly on his chest, "Calm down Tenchi. I'm
okay. She only did it because I said..." Ryouko trailed off, looking away from
his eyes. She wanted to tell him, but somehow could not. Despite her mother's
words Ryouko still harbored her doubts, both about her abilities as a
prospective mother and about her own humanity. She knew it was silly, but she
was afraid to tell Tenchi about her fears because she worried he would agree.
She knew, intellectually, that he would not, but emotionally she was terribly
afraid that if she said, 'I'm not human,' Tenchi would only nod and say, 'Of
course not.'
*Why does it even
matter?* Ryouko wondered, uncomfortable under Tenchi's worried gaze in her
silence. *What difference does it make if I'm human? He loves me, that's
what's important.* Ryouko sighed inwardly. She knew what it was, even if she
was reluctant enough to admit it that she would not even speak it aloud
mentally. She knew Tenchi loved her, and that was enough for her to be happy,
but she wanted to know he loved her for who she was, not despite it. She was
afraid to let him ever find out about some of the things she had done in the
past five thousand years because she was afraid it would be more than Tenchi
could deal with and his love would turn to fear. He loved her now, she had no
doubt about that whatsoever, but did he love her because she was Ryouko, one
time space-pirate, or despite that she was once a wanted criminal and would
always be a creation of her mother's
lab?
*I'm being stupid,* Ryouko
thought, *Who would love someone because they were a felon? Or a.. whatever I
am. It's enough he loves me how I am now.. it's not like it's an act or
something. I'm not who I used to be, mom was right about that, and if Tenchi
loves the new Ryouko then I'll just forget that the old Ryouko ever
existed.*
"Ryouko?"
Ryouko
smiled, a genuine smile brought to her lips by the caring in his voice. "It's
not important," she said, taking his arm again, "I'm not mad at her, let's just
forget about it, okay?"
Tenchi
nodded slowly, the expression of concern lessening.
They walked on for a few more
moments in silence. They had unconsciously chosen the long way from Sasami's
chambers to those of her sister and were now separated from the others. Any
trip through the palace had at least a dozen possible routes thanks to the
complexity of the sprawling web of corridors and the one they followed would
take a few more minutes at
least.
"So what do we do?"
Tenchi asked suddenly, startling Ryouko. "Do you want
to..."
Ryouko shook her head.
"I'm not mad at mom, but I don't even want to risk that. I'm sorry Tenchi, I
know you want children."
Tenchi
blinked, surprised. "I... I guess I do, someday. I'm not in any hurry though,
and if you don't want them I guess I can live
without."
Ryouko smiled and
nuzzled his arm. "I love you, you wonderful man. I'd love to have your child
Tenchi, but I'm not ready for that yet. Too much responsibility for this
girl... I'm afraid I'd screw
up."
Tenchi raised his arm and
kissed her hand where it rested on his forearm. "You'd make a wonderful
mother," he assured her, "I know it. But nothing before we're ready. I don't
know how great a father I'd make
anyway."
Ryouko sighed. "So
what're we going to do?"
Tenchi
raised an eyebrow and looked sideways at her. "About
what?"
Ryouko rolled her eyes
in dramatic exasperation. "You know..." //...about
sex.//
"Well," Tenchi said
thoughtfully, "We could wait until we get back I guess. Mihoshi and Kiyone
leave at the end of the week, unless Sasami wants to stay longer I guess that'd
be a good time to get back. At least for a while. Too much Jurai all at once
is kind of overwhelming."
When
Ryouko did not respond Tenchi looked over at her and laughed at the horrified
expression on her face.
"What?"
//Wait? You want to
wait? A week? It's already been a week... I thought men were supposed to want
it more than women.//
Tenchi
grinned. //Some of us just have some
restraint.//
//Well quit being
so damned restrained,
husband.//
Tenchi raised an
eyebrow and sent teasingly, //What? You'd rather I was all over you all the
time?//
//Might be nice,//
Ryouko countered, //I like it when you're all over me. Makes me feel
appreciated.//
Tenchi frowned,
his playful mood vanished. "I'm sorry," he said
quietly.
Ryouko matched his
frown and stopped, bringing him to a
halt.
"What's
wrong?"
Tenchi only shook his
head and mumbled,
"Nothing."
"Come on Tenchi,"
Ryouko sighed exasperatedly, "It's obviously not nothing. What's wrong? Was I
coming on too strong? I'm sorry, it's just it's been a whole week and
I-"
"No," Tenchi interrupted
the explanation before it could intensify the blush already rising to her
cheeks, "It's not that. I don't mind.. it's kind of nice knowing someone wants
me. It's just..."
"Just
what?"
Tenchi sighed. "I feel
like I'm taking you from granted Ryouko. We always do things that are important
to me, or that I want to do. You tell me you love me all the time, but it seems
like I don't say it nearly as much to you. And I don't think I'm.. I mean, I
haven't really..."
Ryouko
cocked an eyebrow, looking slightly annoyed but waiting for him to
finish.
"I don't think I'm very
good at.. you know. I mean, you're the only person I've ever.. and I don't
know..." Tenchi trailed off uncomfortably, blushing and looking at his
feet.
"Let's see what's wrong
with all that, shall we?" Ryouko asked, raising a hand to tick off points as
she went along. "First of all, you don't take me for granted. I do like it
when you're the one making the first move, but I never feel unappreciated.
Never. I mean it.
"Second,
we do things I want all the time. Remember last month, that movie you didn't
want to see but you took me anyway? Or when I told you I missed you and you
came to sit in my European Renaissance lecture even though it bored you half to
sleep? You're always doing things I want, but most of the time it's things we
both want. If I want something and you don't agree, you'll know.
"Third, you just asked me to
marry you Tenchi. Marry you! If that's not telling me you love me, what is?
That's enough to make up for a million other times, and you tell me often enough
that I know it."
//And as for
the last one,// Ryouko continued silently, staring at him intensely, //You have
absolutely nothing to worry about. You aren't the only one who was a virgin
that night, Tenchi. And if there's anything I'm missing out on, I'm not sure I
could handle finding out about
it.//
"Really?" Tenchi asked,
a hint of disbelief in his voice though the redness of his face did not
diminish.
Ryouko took his hand
and smiled, her own complexion quite tinted. //You thought I was
faking?//
"I.. Er... I mean..."
Tenchi rubbed his neck and admitted, "Maybe a couple
times."
//Never. I promise.
Every last scream and moan were for real, Tenchi.
Husband.//
Tenchi coughed.
//Maybe we should figure something out after
all...//
Ryouko grinned. "It's
a shame I can't just teleport
back."
"Why can't you?" Tenchi
asked, taking her hand and starting to walk once
more.
"Not enough power.. the
further away I try to go the more energy it takes. I might be able to get there
if I really pulled on the gems, but if a place is far away it's harder to
control. I could end up halfway between Earth and the Moon, or halfway down in
toward the core. If I had enough power I could do it anyway.. you can make up
for control with energy, sometimes, but it'd take a huge
amount."
"Hmm," Tenchi said
thoughtfully. "What about when we went to Tokimi's palace and back? That had
to be pretty far away."
Ryouko
nodded. "It was. I think. I used one of Zero's memories to get us there.
There aren't many of them, she wiped most of her database just before we
assimilated, but there was enough for that. But that was different.. it wasn't
me, it was us.. with the
wings."
"So why don't we just
do that again?"
"What?" Ryouko
asked, startled, "Summon the wings? Together? Like in the
hospital?"
Tenchi nodded.
"Sure. I don't think it would hurt if we did it right. Last time we didn't
know what we were doing. If we summon them with the link open all the way from
the beginning I think we'll be
okay."
Ryouko frowned. "I
don't know..." She did not think she would ever forget that pain. That Tenchi
had survived worse every time he used the wings was more than she could bear to
contemplate. She knew she could never willingly submit herself to that again,
it was worse than anything Kagato had ever done to her with his pain inducers.
Remembering Tenchi's words back at the campground just before he summoned them
made her heart flutter. That he would willingly endure that torture for her...
*How can I doubt him?* Ryouko
wondered, *He went through that, just for me. He would rather have died than
summon the wings again.. but I wanted him to do it and he did. How can I think
he would stop loving me? For any reason?* But the fear remained. And it was
that that held her back from agreeing to Tenchi's plan. The pain was bad enough
in and of itself, but she thought he was probably right about the link. When
she had opened her end entirely the pain had gone away. But opening the link
full-bore meant more than she thought Tenchi realized. They were too distracted
by the pain and its cessation for either to notice last time, but with their
bond totally unrestricted both would have free access to the other's mind.
Tenchi would be able to see all her memories, even the ones she hid from herself
but had not yet had time to fully
purge.
"Come on honey," Tenchi
said, pausing in their journey once more, "I'll go first. If it hurts you can
just shut the link down and you won't feel it, then I'll stop and we can find
some other way. And if it works... I'd like to go back to that place, wherever
it was we went after the pain stopped. It
was..."
Ryouko nodded, agreeing
with his unspoken comment. The sea of light on which they floated after
summoning the wings together the first time was nothing short of amazing. The
way her essence was fused with his, her being existing only as an extension of
Tenchi's.. it was better than sex, by a thousand-fold. The thought of it made
her want to push aside her doubts and fears, even without the opportunities that
access to that vast sea of power would afford
them.
Ryouko bit her lip and
nodded again. "Okay," she said, trying to sound confident, "Okay, let's do
it."
* *
*
"Highness," Puer tapped his
chest as he entered the room, looking off toward the wall rather than directly
at the emperor, "Tanos Aeka requests
audience."
Azusa nodded and
waved a hand agreeably without looking up from the graph hovering above his work
table. It was a complex thing of shifting colors and a small constellation of
accompanying text, all meant to present the political attitudes between factions
loyal to Jurai and those with other interests around sectors nineteen through
twenty-eight. He had, of course, entered all the data himself, but it was often
useful to look at things from other perspectives and in different formats to
find new angles with which to deal with arising problems.
This particular problem was a
singularly thorny one involving the shifting allegiance of some thirty-two
worlds in one portion of the Thousand Suns. A minor dictator had set himself up
as a new emperor on one world, arousing little more than mild curiosity from the
throne. When an empire spanned some nine thousand planets, not to mention
artificial outposts and worlds, like Earth, that were merely under the Empire's
protection, it would be nigh impossible to keep up with every madman making a
claim of
isolation.
Unfortunately, this
madman managed to drag a few billion other people along with him. His central
dogma rested on the idea that Jurain tradition was holding back advancement in
the rest of the galaxy and that only by overthrowing Jurain rule would they be
able to continue the natural progress of science and the arts. There had been,
admittedly, fairly little development in the sciences in the past few centuries.
But most researches attributed it to the Nakumi Paradox, the concept that the
more one learns, the more questions one has, and the harder they become to
answer, rather than to any sort of Jurain social influence. The little dictator
was a smooth talker, though, and convinced a fairly large body of people over
the past two hundred years that his views were correct.
Oddly enough, however, he
apparently had no aspirations for empire. Instead he only wanted concessions
from Jurai to allow the University to find extra-imperial funding and lowering
of restrictions on paths of study. Given that he promised to step down from his
position, but without those concessions he promised to fight Jurai at every
step. The second concession Azusa was willing to grant readily, even if his
opposition had not had a few handfuls of worlds ready to secede from the Empire,
but the first was unthinkable. To allow the University, a Jurain-founded
institution, to seek extra-imperial funding would give factors entirely outside
his control a voice in scientific and military development. It would mean
releasing Jurain military technology to worlds outside the Empire.
Now Azusa was searching for a
means by which to defuse the situation without losing citizens or
face.
*Perhaps,* the ruler of
five trillion citizens thought, *We could allow extra-imperial funding bodies,
but restrict access to the archives? Maybe some sort of Empire-only divisioning
to the University structure to allow for sensitive projects under continued
secrecy while allowing other bodies access to the less critical sections? But
will they go for
that?*
"Father."
"Good
day Aeka," Azusa replied to his daughter's greeting, still studying the floating
graphic. "I did not expect you back from some time yet, did things not go well
on Earth?"
"I..." Aeka stopped
herself from answering, she was not here for idle chatter. "May I speak with
you away from the
throne?"
Azusa nodded
distractedly, rotating his graphic. "The crown is attended," he said
automatically. The phrase was meant to say that the symbol of his office was
under guard, not on his head, and as such Aeka could speak freely as his
daughter.
"You beat me." It
was not a question, and the tone of Aeka's voice brooked no room for
equivocation.
Azusa looked up
then, touching his display off and pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh.
She could see that he knew this day would come eventually. Aeka stood, her
hands trembling behind her back, for moments that seemed to stretch toward
eternity while she waited for him to
respond.
"Yes," Azusa replied
finally, his voice firm.
Aeka
was taken aback. She had not expected a lie, of course, but some sort of
defense at least. Not a simple, flat
agreement.
"Why?" Aeka pleaded,
"Why did you do it? Was I such an incorrigible daughter? Always those same
words, but never an
explanation..."
Azusa sighed
and folded his hands in his lap. "To discuss the lessons of the Second Change
with one not yet of age is-"
"I
already know about them," Aeka interrupted, "I know about the lesson of pain and
that only members of the House Jurai receive it. But that does not explain why
you exercised it on me."
Azusa
shook his head sadly before responding. "You say that you know of the lessons,
but you obviously do not understand them. As emperor it is my duty to maintain
the strictest code of morality with my children, that my family may serve as an
example to all families in the Empire. When I disciplined
you-"
"Beat me." Aeka
interrupted, "You beat me. You did not 'discipline' me. Discipline is a
lecture or the revoking of privileges, what any other girl in the whole of the
thousand suns could expect for the things I received your lesson over." Aeka's
voice hardened as she continued, "You did not 'discipline,' you abused me, and
you abused my brother. My
brothers."
Azusa blinked at
that, but pushed it aside. "It is my duty," he reiterated, "To do otherwise
would be to fail the people of
Jurai."
"And what about me?"
Aeka pleaded, her manner shifting once more from anger to desperation, "What
about your family? Your duty as a father? How could you do that to me? Have
you any idea how it felt to think I deserved to be hurt for my
actions?"
Azusa shook his head
again. "I am sorry that you feel that way Aeka, but when your second Change
comes and you have the complete lessons you will see the truth of it. To hear
bits and pieces second-hand simply is not the same
as-"
"I won't!" Aeka shouted,
"I'll not have them! If the lessons will twist me to believe that striking my
children for minor offenses is right and correct, I won't have
them!"
Azusa's eyes widened and
he stammered, "But.. but, to not take the lessons at the proper time... It's..
it's unheard of, Aeka. You must, you simply
must..."
"I must nothing! I am
tanos of the Empire of Jurai, I will not be told what I must
do!"
"You forget yourself,"
Azusa growled, "I am your father and your emperor. I say you shall have your
lessons as is proscribed by
tradition-"
"Damn tradition!"
Aeka's face was flushed and her hands shook violently with a confused mixture of
rage and pain. "It's wrong! It's all wrong! Don't you see what the lessons
have done to you? You actually believe that beating me nearly to death for
pretending to kiss a servant to make Yousho jealous was
correct!"
"Aeka! Calm
yourself! You are making a
spectacle!"
"Or what?" Aeka
demanded, "Will you beat me again? Shall I go wait in the chamber for your
cane?!"
"If it is necessary,"
Azusa warned, his face clouded with growing anger at his daughter's
impropriety.
"Never! Never
again will I allow anyone to abuse me!" Aeka promised in a shrill cry, "Try it
and I will see you do not succeed without broken
bones!"
Azusa gasped, shocked
at the very concept. "You would threaten me? Me?! Your father? Your
emperor?!"
Aeka tossed her hair
and strode forward, closing the distance between them while loosening the wrists
of her dress.
"Do you know the
consequences of your actions, Father?" Aeka asked, all the rage gone from her
voice. She spoke now in the flat, near-monotone she had employed only a handful
of times in her life, a state beyond anger and
passion.
Aeka pulled back her
sleeves, first one, then the other, exposing faint lines on her arms where old
wounds had not yet fully healed.
"Do you recognize these?"
Aeka demanded, holding her arms out to her father, "Do you recognize their
significance?"
Azusa's anger
melted under growing horror as he stared, wide-eyed, in disbelief at his
daughter's arms.
"No," Azusa
begged, his voice gone small and distant, "No, it cannot be. Tell me this is
some ruse, some mistake... Tell me this is
not..."
"Yes," Aeka confirmed
her father's unspeakable fear, "Yes father. I performed the liann. I gave my
body to a.. a Thing that struck out at me from fear and unreasoning anger, using
your words taken from my own hidden memories. It abused me, telling me it was
for my own good, to keep me from becoming a whore and a liar. And I believed it
father. I thought that blows taken under those words were just and deserved,
and it twisted my mind to feel I deserved the pain. And when it demanded I
perform the liann and offer myself to it, I did it nearly without hesitation.
"That being is destroyed now,
but my body remains its possession. I gave up my right to existence because of
the fear and confusion inspired by your actions, father. Because of you I am
tanda jaliann qe, the wandering, body-less
soul."
Aeka shook her arms
under her father's face. He stood, slack-jawed, unable to tear his eyes from
the horrible evidence on his daughter's
arms.
"Do you see now father?
Do you see the consequence of your actions? Because of you I subjected myself
to the liann. Because of
you."
Aeka turned, pulling her
sleeves back into place. She heard her father trying to say something, but it
came out little more than a
moan.
Aeka buttoned her sleeves
and strode out of the emperor's chambers, leaving Puer and Toka to stare after
her. She fled to her own chambers and sat on her bed, waiting for the tears to
come. Aeka sat that way for what felt like hours, but they never came. Whether
she had simply cried all the tears she had to cry, or if the pain of the
memories had somehow been supplanted, or something else entirely, she did not
know. She knew only that rather than the devastating sadness and pain she
expected, there was only a vague hollowness in the place where once all the
buried grief had rested in a tight knot of
darkness.
In confronting her
father, Aeka realized, she had confronted her fear. She had lived afraid that
he, or someone like him, would forever hold power over her. She feared that no
matter what she did or where she fled, always there would be someone stronger
waiting to beat her for her insolence. But she had thrown herself to the fury
of the storm in her father's eyes and survived unscathed. Now, no matter what
else should happen, she was free. Finally free of the pain that had haunted
her, usually nameless, since the last time she emerged from the darkened chamber
two days after being beaten. Never again would she accept pain without cause,
and never, ever again would she allow herself to be
'disciplined.'
* *
*
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