A Confusion of Princes (32 page)

‘Why am I here, at the Imperial Core?’ I interrupted, as another thought struck me.

‘The Imperial Mind has announced that you are to be presented with the Imperial Star of Valour, and to be promoted to lieutenant commander in the Imperial Navy.’

:I’m getting the Imperial Star of Valour?: I asked the Mind.

The ISV was the highest decoration the Empire gave, and I certainly hadn’t done anything to be honoured with one. :Why?:

: Citation for ISV. On 272-4456 Prince Khemri III <> in command of obsolete vessel ISN Khorkrek on recovery and salvage mission encountered a pirate fleet of eighteen vessels including light cruiser of recent copy-tek intent on looting Imperial Protectorate Odkhaz. Prince Khemri III engaged the pirate fleet in a close action personally piloting obsolete singleship Kragor 2, destroying all the pirates despite being mortally wounded:

‘Imperial protectorate? Recovery and salvage mission?’ I started to mutter to myself. What was this crap? And the pirates were only there because Prince Atalin had wiped out the KSF.

I wouldn’t mind betting that the Lyzgro light cruiser clone had been a present from a helpful Prince as well.

Why was the Imperial Mind treating what I did as a successful Naval action? And what was the Imperial protectorate about?

:Query effect of Imperial protectorate status for system Odkhaz:

:System Odkhaz directly reserved by Imperial Mind for future unspecified use. Off limits for Princes. No claims, no transit without specific orders. Imperial Survey watch post to maintain vigilance:

That was odd. The whole Kharalchan thing was strange. But at least the system was relatively safe now, to some degree at least. Atalin could not go back to clear away the remnants of the KSF without direct permission of the Mind, and with the main strength of the Porojavian Co-Prosperity Collective destroyed, the pirates couldn’t do it alone. Maybe the long-looked-for Confederation fleet might actually have turned up as well.

Despite trying not to, I thought of Raine again. I felt a pang as I visualised her back home in the Gryphon ring, perhaps lying on the bed we had shared. . . These thoughts were not helpful. I was no longer Khem. Khem the trader was four months dead, buried with the past. Prince Khemri was a few minutes into a new life. I simply could not afford this sentimental reverie. I dismissed the memory, locking it away.

The past
is
another universe, and to all intents and purposes, Raine was dead to me.

‘The reception before the presentation will commence soon, Highness,’ said Haddad tactfully, breaking into the silence. I realised I had been staring into some distant space. ‘Your valets are ready to dress you.’

‘All right,’ I grumbled, climbing out of the bed. I jumped a little on the spot and shadow-boxed to reacquaint myself with my enhanced muscles and reflexes. It was a heady, intoxicating feeling to once again be superhuman.

‘What is the etiquette about assassination here at the Imperial Core?’ I asked Haddad as my two mind-programmed valets entered with my ceremonial uniform, now with the red epaulettes of a lieutenant commander.

‘It is expressly forbidden, and the Imperial Mind is constantly witnessing,’ replied Haddad. I nodded, suddenly noticing the familiar buzz at the back of my neck. ‘However, it cannot be totally discounted, so as always you must remain on guard. There is also another danger you will not be used to, Highness.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Princes at the Imperial Core are not considered as being on duty, so duelling is permitted between those of equal rank and those who do not hold rank in an Imperial service. There are many Princes here now, and with the abdication to come very soon, many see duelling as a means to bring themselves to the attention of the Emperor.’

I knew that last was a figure of speech. No one knew who the Emperor was, or how he or she might be physically manifest in the Empire, because of course they could not go on as the Prince they had been. But they could have assumed any number of new identities, I supposed. In any case, as the ruler of the Imperial Mind, the Emperor could oversee anything, anywhere in the Empire where there was a Prince connected to the Mind. A number of notable successes in duelling would doubtless be noted by the Imperial Mind, and that in effect meant by the Emperor.

Now that I knew that it was possible to transfer a Prince’s consciousness into different bodies, I wondered if I had in fact already met the current Emperor and just didn’t know it. The Emperor might even have a number of different bodies and different identities. . .

It was an interesting thought, but I dismissed it as I took my usual weapons from Haddad and hid them away before buckling on my ceremonial sword and putting on my hat. At least as a lieutenant commander I had a modest peaked cap instead of the ridiculous busby of the cadets.

An overlay of the route from my chambers to Grand Reception Palace Eight appeared in my head, annotated with an etiquette summary. Apparently I was to join 999 other Princes in the reception hall of this particular palace for drinks before we organised ourselves into a single line by level of decoration and proceeded to the Award Chamber, where we would be given our medals by either Grand Admiral of the Imperial Fleet Itzsatz or Domain Governor Leshakh, depending on our service.

Haddad accompanied me, a trusty and very welcome shadow. I realised that Haddad was in many ways the only one of my household whom I had always considered as a person, even before my Adjustment training. In some ways, he had a kind of similar place in my life as Alice had for Raine . . . once again, I had to stop myself thinking such thoughts. There could be no comparison. Haddad was merely my Master of Assassins, assigned to me and replaceable. It was a fault in me that he felt like something more, and I would have to suppress that feeling.

Only Haddad left the room with me, but on the way out I met another twelve new priests who had been assigned to me with my promotion, and six more apprentice assassins.

Unlike the Academy and my candidate temple, most of the Imperial Core was not underground. Or at least, the accommodations and public areas for visiting Princes were sited for aesthetic effect rather than for security. My rooms turned out to be in a small building of its own, situated in a charming park dotted with similar four-storey houses built in a style imitating a region of ancient Earth that favoured high gables and curved extensions thrusting out of multiple, stacked rooflines.

Other Princes, resplendent in the full dress uniforms of their various services and each accompanied by their Master of Assassins, were emerging from the nearby houses and setting out along the broad, paved path toward the Grand Reception Palace. I didn’t need the overlay to find it, for it was the only structure of significant size within sight, a vast white building adorned with multiple turrets and onion-shaped domes that had been brightly gilded. It was not at all in the same architectural style as the Princely houses. In any case, underneath the different stylistic touches, it would all be the same, extruded Bitek composites and Mektek armour.

As I joined the main path between two groups of Princes, a sudden rain of cherry blossoms fell from the apparently empty sky, bringing a sweet scent. I held my breath, closed my nostrils and mouth, and looked at Haddad.

:Routine ceremonial. No danger:

I nodded but still kept my nose filters operational and my mouth shut. I also maintained my distance from the group of Princes ahead of me and the one behind. They were all older, and higher ranking, and there was at least one rear admiral in the group ahead. I caught their ID transmissions, lots of names, ranks, and services washing through my mind, but none meant anything to me until I entered the Reception Room. This was a vast chamber several hundred metres wide and long, with an arched ceiling high above painted with a star map of the Empire’s earliest conquests. Mekbi servitors in white and gold robes were bustling about, offering drinks from silver trays to Princes who seemed to mostly be percolating into groups of their own service.

I took a drink and was idling my way toward a group nearby that was all Navy when I caught the ID broadcast of one of the officers whose back was toward me.

:Prince Atalin I <> Lieutenant Commander, Imperial Navy. To be awarded Hero of the Empire First Class:

I queried the Imperial Mind.

:Citation. On 212-4456 Prince Atalin I <> in command of ISN Khouresk on routine patrol was attacked by an illegal squatter fleet of twenty vessels in system Odkhaz, and destroyed the squatters without loss:

‘That’s a lie!’ I said aloud, anger boiling up inside me.

Atalin turned around, and all the Naval officers stopped talking and looked at me, and then back at her. We did look remarkably similar, though Atalin had longer hair.

We stared at each other for a moment.

‘Were you speaking to me, Prince Khemri?’ she asked finally.

‘The citation for your decoration is at odds with my experience,’ I said. The anger had become stronger than my common sense. I already knew where this was going, but I couldn’t turn back. ‘I think you must agree my reaction is understandable.’

‘You said something about a lie,’ said Atalin calmly.

‘I think it was the part about being “attacked by an illegal squatter fleet”,’ I said. ‘I personally wouldn’t call a preemptive attack with a Null-Space concussion wave on a bunch of primitives being “attacked” by them. Hardly the stuff of heroism.’

‘I think perhaps you are confused,’ said Atalin. ‘The Imperial Mind recorded, as always, the true facts of the matter.’

There wasn’t much of an answer to that. I knew what had happened, but if the Imperial Mind said otherwise, that was that as far as actually proving anything else.

‘Perhaps the Imperial Mind was . . . distracted . . . in this case,’ I said. ‘But whether it was or not, I don’t see anything very heroic in your space “battle”, Prince Atalin.’

Atalin shrugged and handed her glass to a servitor.

‘You seem determined to give offence, Prince Khemri,’ she said. ‘It is a common fault among recent graduates of the Academy. Perhaps you think that your face too much resembles my own, and seek any excuse to have it altered? Very well, I will teach you a lesson you obviously did not get at the Academy. Name your weapons.’

A duel. That was all I needed. In my candidate temple I had thought duels the stuff of Princely life, to be sought out at all times and relished. At the Academy, where duels were forbidden, the only obvious duelist was the Commandant, and I had no desire to be like him. Now, in the heat of anger, I simply wanted to beat Atalin, to teach her a lesson, to punish her for her destruction of the KSF fleet.

My duelling practice with Haddad aboard the INS
Zwaktuzh
Dawn
on our way to Arokh-Pipadh seemed like a lifetime ago, but his advice about choosing uncommon weapons in a duel was suddenly uppermost in my mind.

‘Bolt-and-cable guns,’ I snapped.

Atalin did not appear to be fazed. She turned to her Master of Assassins, a tall, very thin woman with long, sinewy arms. ‘Vivaldra? You will arrange matters with . . . Master Haddad? For after the ceremony?’

Vivaldra bowed and glided over to meet Haddad. They bent their heads together, blue fluid roiling in their temples, so close together they were almost but not quite touching.

:Honorees gather in decoration order now <>:

‘Till we meet again,’ said Atalin. She saluted me, and automatically I saluted back. I hated her for killing Raine’s uncle and all those thousands of other Kharalchans, but at the same time, I couldn’t help admiring her poise and coolness. I had to admit that even six months previously, I would have killed the Kharalchans too, without compunction.

I also couldn’t stop thinking that she was almost certainly my sister. There was something about her, some Psitek whisper that spoke to me, saying that we were of the same blood. That she was to me what Anza had been to Raine, or could have been, if we had grown up together.

But even if this was true, and even if she did feel something similar, it could not and did not mean anything. Not for Princes of the Empire.

‘Congratulations, Prince Khemri,’ said a voice at my elbow. A captain appeared next to me, his uniform a dazzling display of medals and ribbons, including the huge orb of the Imperial Star of Valour hanging from around his neck. ‘Welcome to our small but select order of companions.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I muttered. But the words stuck in my throat. My own decoration was as false as Atalin’s in its way. I wondered what this Captain Garuzk had got his for, but I didn’t query the Mind. I really didn’t want to know if he’d burned off an inhabited planet or something equally horrendous.

I thought about Atalin as I took my place near the very front of the long, long line of Princes. I’d provoked the duel in anger for what she had done, but really, I was angry at the Empire. Besides, fighting a duel wouldn’t bring back the dead of Kharalcha, or stop something like that happening again. It wouldn’t resolve anything. Even if one of us actually got killed, we’d be pretty certain to be reborn. I mean, how could the Aspect of the Discerning Hand find a Prince unworthy immediately after he or she had been decorated? And the Mind was witnessing constantly here at the Imperial Core, so there was no chance of error there.

Besides, what was I doing trying to be the instrument of the Kharalchans’ revenge? I’d never see Raine again, and even if I did, what could I say to her? That I’d fought the Prince who’d killed her uncle and her family, and by the way, she was my sister and I killed her, but only for a little while, because she was reborn? And then we both went on being Princes together, doing whatever we felt like to all the Kharalchas of the universe, simply because we could. With rationalisations—and medals— to come afterward.

I felt sick at heart at the whole thing. But I couldn’t show it. I was back in the machine, a moving part that had its role to play and could do nothing else. Except take my own life, I suppose, and I didn’t want to do that. Certainly I couldn’t see any way of escaping, of leaving the Empire. There was no escape from the Imperial Mind, nor from all my fellow Princes.