Kris had faced surprise before. Some had come at her like an alien raider’s base ship materializing a few thousand klicks away from her as it plunged through a jump. Other surprises she’d had to piece together for herself, like figuring out that her ship’s orders to attack an Earth battle fleet did not come from her father but was intended to start a mad war involving all humanity.
She’d withstood the shock and dismay at all of those.
Today was different.
WHAT HAPPENED TO ME MAKING NICE AND NOT BLOWING SHIT UP?
SORRY KRIS. WE TOLD YOUR KING THAT WE HAD NEED OF YOUR SERVICES. WHEN HE ASKED WHY, I TOLD HIM I REALLY DIDN’T KNOW. REALLY, I DIDN’T. NOT FOR SURE. NOT UNTIL JUST A MOMENT AGO. NOW, COULD WE PLEASE CARRY OUT THIS CONVERSATION OUT LOUD? I FEEL IT’S DISRESPECTFUL TO MY CHOOSER TO DO OTHERWISE.
“Sorry,” Kris said. “Can someone brief me on what mission I have just been handed?”
“Not handed. It is more like we have pushed you off a cliff and into the deep, dark sea,” Roth, Ron’s chooser said, his beak open wide in what Kris took for a smile.
“All metaphor aside, what’s going on?” Kris asked.
“In what you might call a nut shell, we have a young Emperor, may he ever be worshiped. Worse, it is a time of rapid change. We Iteeche like our change to come at us over a thousand years. Even longer is better. When we stumbled into that war with you humans, our warships hadn’t changed much in three thousand years. As a just-chosen, I served on a warship that had been built five hundred years before and it was still considered first line, and would have been for another thousand years if you humans hadn’t come along with your frantic changes.”
He shook his head, a rapid process that looked much like an owl shivering. “And now you give us Smart Metal and take our ground-based power plants to space. It roils the water. It roils the water.”
From a distance, a large pavilion born by two-dozen bearers trotted toward them. Roth used two of his hands to wash some of the exhaustion and tension from his face. “You will excuse me, but I have only just begun my daily allotment of meetings. I must shore up my alliance, and I am told by my ears that you have started several small storms.”
He glanced at Kris’s own sedan chair as it now came up the steps. “I’d never thought to use Smart Metal to make such a powerful impression. I had expected you to refuse to kowtow. Ray never did touch his forehead to the ground to me. One of my axe men almost took his head off for his insolence the first time he came into my presence. A bold man would, of course, choose a bold one from the pond. I fear that I have more storms to calm than even I expected.”
“I did what I had to do,” Kris said.
“No doubt you did,” Roth said, again patting Kris on the shoulder. “Still, I must do what I must do. Now, my chosen knows where your palace is. He can take you there and he will no doubt also introduce you to where all the rocks and sand bars are in the ocean you have been dunked into. Farewell, bold human. No doubt we will meet again and you will cause me no end of trouble.”
Roth’s palanquin arrived. The twenty-four Iteeche knelt as he climbed aboard it. One of them closed the door, blocking him from outside view, and Roth was quickly carried off.
Kris glanced around. What had started as a near-lethal meeting had resolved itself without bloodshed. Of course, the day was yet young and there was, no doubt, all kinds of possibilities. She took in her and Jack’s sedan chairs, and Ron’s, as well as her eight porters, and Ron’s own twelve.
“Listen, I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of riding around locked up in a tiny box. What do you say we make one big platform pavilion for the three of us and let our porters lug us out of here while you answer a whole wad of questions?” she said to Ron.
“It is not forbidden,” Ron admitted.
“Nelly,” was all Kris had to say. In a moment, a tendril from Jack’s sedan chair had reached out to Kris’s and the two merged into a single blob that quickly formed itself into one imposing castle supported by four long poles. Harnesses in finely tooled leather appeared marking ten places forward and ten more aft for porters to stand between the four shafts.
With some trepidation, the porters approached their new job. One however, seemed to understand the new arrangement and quickly took his position, pointing others to where they should stand. With twenty porters in place, Nelly let down an escalator from the shoulder high platform and Jack, followed by Ron, was quickly carried up.
Kris waited, as senior, to be the last to enter. She spared the situation one last glance. Did she see small eyes peering around a screen, taking all this in? If she did, curtains fluttered, and there was nothing more to see.
Kris let Nelly’s escalator carry her up to her new, high perch, and into the palatial comfort that Kris strongly suspected Nelly had stolen from some movie’s idea of a harem.
“Okay, Ron, start talking and don’t stop until you’ve answered all my questions.”