The V'Dan (56 page)

“For your people’s sake, Regent, I hope Her Eternal Majesty recovers swiftly and recovers well. When she does, or should anyone
else
take up the Eternal Throne and its responsibilities, we will consider dealing with them
if
they approach us in person to apologize and agree to our demand regarding the mind-blocks. But we will not deal with
you
. You, Vi’alla, have lost all respect in the eyes of my people. A very heavy price to pay, compared to the very tiny one of losing the ability to see a bunch of childish
blotches
on someone’s skin.”

She held the stunned regent’s gaze a few seconds more, then swung around and started toward the door and hallway she remembered would take her back to the North Embassy Wing.

“What about Imperial Prince Kah’raman?” Vi’alla called out. “I guess your claims of the two of you being a holy pairing are a
lie
if you can so
easily abandon him
!”

Jackie stopped and turned once again. She faced Vi’alla, Li’eth, and the others. Clees, the only Terran still present, had risen and followed her. The others had fled to the bunkers, which meant the only ones left were the V’Dan psis who had helped them, who had been ordered to stay in place by the Elite for the time being. They looked like they either wanted to beg her to change her mind or wanted to be anywhere else. Every V’Dan but her Gestalt partner and the regent looked like they would rather have been anywhere else, right then.

Her mental walls were tissue-thin, since most of her strength was going into the physical effort of standing and moving, but she felt Li’eth restraining himself behind his own barriers so as not to influence her. For that much, he had her gratitude, for making this moment easier on her. For his sake—for both their sakes—she gave the truth.

“Imperial Prince Kah’raman Li’eth is free to stay if he wishes. He is also free to accompany us back to Earth if he wishes. But I
will not
remain.” She saw his gray-and-burgundy gaze soften in relief that she would not deny him the right to accompany her—only his own kinswoman could
attempt
to do that—but did not respond to it. Shifting her gaze to his eldest sister, she stated, “It is crystal clear to me that
you
, Vi’alla, do not understand the responsibilities and prices a
true
leader must pay. In your case, you should have set aside your pride and your arrogance long enough to consider the long-term consequences of your overly proud insistence that you are automatically superior to us.

“In my case, the pain, suffering, and eventual decline and death each of us will undergo if he chooses to remain behind—or is
forced
to remain—will be nothing compared to the ongoing suffering my entire
nation
would have had to endure at your people’s prejudiced hands, without the threat of a mind-block to get them to look beyond mere skin color. I will
not
trade your arrogant disrespecting of billions of people for my own life and happiness . . . and my people sent me here knowing I will
always
choose the welfare and best interests of the Terran Empire over
anything
Li’eth could offer me in return. Gestalt bond or otherwise.”

Facing away from the throne once more, Jackie resumed her slow, determined walk.

“You will not leave this hall! I command you to return!” The tone Vi’alla used was a double-edged sword, filled with both rising desperation and ongoing anger. “I will have you arrested!”

“Your threats are empty and hollow, Regent . . . because
my
people do not bow to the rantings of petty tyrants,” Jackie dismissed coldly, stopping briefly, but without turning around this time. She spoke loudly, letting her words echo off the walls around them. “We are polite, and we are honorable, and
we are stronger than the hardest of stones, the hottest of stars. My people will sacrifice me, and
every
member of our embassy, rather than cave in to your demands . . . and I knew this
before
I agreed to this post. So long as you are either regent
or
an Heir of the V’Dan Empire,
my
people will not have
anything
to do with you.

“Imperial Prince Kah’raman . . . you have until the last Terran ship leaves V’Dan to make up your mind. You may stay, or you may go with us. In the meantime, please convey my apologies to everyone in the Alliance with any sense of humility and compassion left in their heads. The rest of your people, including your eldest sibling, can rot in a Salik holding cell,” she told the gaping staff, the Elite Guards, the exhausted psis, and the no-doubt-furious Regent Princess, given the insults Jackie was spouting. She wanted to say something about Vi’alla’s giving the Salik as much indigestion as the Regent Princess had given her . . . but she could feel Li’eth’s memory-seared pain at the mere mention of one of their holding cells. (
I’m sorry. That wasn’t right of me. I should not have said that.
)

(
Thank you.
) He said nothing more, keeping his thoughts locked away from hers.

“You cannot go! You cannot take your communications gear from us!” Vi’alla demanded. “We
need
it!”

Jacaranda MacKenzie did not turn around. She forced herself to start moving again, and let the last of her hard-shouted words echo off the aging stone walls of the Inner Court, before she and the silent, grim-faced Heracles vanished into the hallway beyond.

“The Terran Embassy to V’Dan is now officially
closed
!”

READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEXT BOOK IN JEAN JOHNSON’S FIRST SALIK WAR SERIES

THE BLOCKADE

AVAILABLE IN JULY 2016 FROM ACE
BOOKS!

AUGUST 10, 2287 C.E. (COMMON ERA, TERRAN)

AVRA 3, 9508 V.D.S. (V’DAN STANDARD)

WINTER PALACE, WINTER CITY

V’DAN HOMEWORLD, V’DAN SYSTEM

“The Terran Embassy to V’Dan is now officially
closed
!”

Ambassador MacKenzie’s final words echoed down the hall, stifling the right of anyone to make a sound in the wake of her departure. Seated on the top step of the highest dais of his mother’s court, Li’eth felt that silence pressing down on him, squeezing his skin like some sort of congealing plastic film, for all he sat clad in comfortable silk and ballistics cloth.

His military uniform no longer fit him. It was still tailored perfectly to his figure, every crimson seam straight, every golden line neat . . . but the loyalty and pride with which Imperial Prince Kah’raman once wore it no longer fit the man whom Li’eth had become.

Li’eth loved his home nation. He loved his people. He loved his family. Mostly. Most of the time.

Right now . . . he wanted to smack his eldest sister repeatedly about the head and shoulders with the hardest, heaviest pillow he could find. Or something that would solidly bruise some sense back into her without actually killing or crippling her. Except the absurd idea of him smacking his sister—the Imperial Regent Princess Vi’alla V’Daania—about the head and shoulders with a pillow like some common Fifth Tier sibling did not cheer him out of his . . . grief? Regret? Ire? Despair? Desolation.

He had thought he knew Jacaranda MacKenzie, Grand High Ambassador of the Terran United Planets. No, he
did
know her. He had
known
Jackie would choose to serve and protect the
needs and rights of her people over any personal inconvenience, pain, or peril. And she had chosen it, just now. They were bound in a holy pairing, a Gestalt of his and her psychically gifted minds entangled on a quantum level—the will of the Saints, pure random chance, or fate, he did not know. They were bound, and he could feel her subthoughts of pain and determination and anger just beyond his innermost walls.

She lived within his outermost mental shields, the very same shields she had taught him how to construct, support, and stabilize strong enough to keep her
out
of his head, even though he didn’t want to do that. He did it right now, though, because Jackie was strong enough to do what was right for others, not what was best for herself. Li’eth—Imperial Prince Kah’raman, who had been raised from birth to heed his duty to the Eternal Throne—respected and honored that level of dedication.

Ambassador MacKenzie had chosen to refuse to allow his people to continue to insult hers over and over and over again, all due to a simple yet pervasive cultural difference that was literally just skin-deep. Their embassy was closed. His people had just lost their access to the only form of breathtakingly swift interstellar communication the entire Alliance knew, and he was going to lose personally one way or another,
because
the embassy was closed, his Gestalt partner was headed home . . . and either he would have to stay here and suffer without her, or abandon his people and go with her.

He didn’t know what to do.

“. . . An Imperial Prince does not sit on the steps of the Inner Court like a common Fifth Tier in a marketplace.”

He twisted, looking up at his sister. Vi’alla’s face looked tight with returning anger. The same anger that had caused her to refuse to even consider the Terrans’ demands that they be either be treated with respect, or those who disrespected them be treated so that they could no longer see the cause of that disrespect via siomething called a mind-block. Her aura had broken into confusion when their Ambassador had closed the embassy, and panic when she discovered Jackie had ordered the nearest Terran hyperrelay unit destroyed. But now, that look on her face was the look of someone furious, hurt, and looking for a target.

She wanted one? He would give her one. Herself. Li’eth pinned his sister with a hard look. “An Imperial Regent does not treat her desperately needed allies like
u’v’shakk
.”

Vi’alla stiffened, her gray eyes widening. “You dare talk to
me
that way?”

“You dared talk to
them
that way. Imperial Regent,” Li’eth stated formally, pushing to his feet to face down his eldest sister. “Our people
need
what the Terrans can provide.”

“Then they need to provide it!” Vi’alla snapped, frowning at him. “Instead of yanking it away like a child!”

“You don’t even see it, do you?” Li’eth asked softly, more to himself than to her.
She
was trying to yank it away like a child. A child being deprived of a toy.

“See
what
?” his sister snapped.

Li’eth wracked his brain for a parable that could get her to understand. “. . . Do you remember the story of Saint Ba’nai?”

“A
story
?” she scorned.

“For once in your mind, will you
clear
it?” Li’eth demanded, gesturing at his head. “A
good
Empress listens to the counsel of her people! The story of Saint Ba’nai is about how she tried to get the people of a village she was visiting to listen to her warnings that they were going to be caught in a great fire because of a terrible drought that had plagued the land that year. They were stubborn and set in their ways, proud of their skill in cutting wood, trimming and shaping it, and sending it downriver. The river kept getting lower and lower until they could no longer pole their barges downstream to the cities that needed it, but the villagers kept cutti—”

“—The villagers kept cutting wood until a stray spark set fire to the forest, and only a third of the people managed to escape by heeding Ba’nai’s warnings to go deep into the abandoned mines in the mountain while the firestorm raged through,
yes
,
yes
, I
know
the legend!” Vi’alla overrode him. “I’ve studied the
Book of Saints
far more often than you!”

“Did Nanny Ai-sha ever tell you
how
she got a third of the village to listen to her?” Li’eth asked her. “Because Nanny El’cor told
me
how she did it when I asked him.” He waited to see if she would dismiss him. When his sister gave him an impatient look, but a silent, listening one, Li’eth said, “El’cor taught me that Ba’nai was of the Fifth Tier, the daughter of a
herdsman. A pig herder. She had no training in eloquence, no ability to make fancy speeches, and no real grasp of etiquette, but she was smart, and she occasionally had dreams of the future, what the Terrans call precognition. Those dreams led her to that village.

“That village was filled with skilled laborers, lumberjacks and carpenters, Fourth and Third Tier, higher socially than her place in the Fifth. She was so worried about the firestorms in her dreams, she spoke bluntly, told everyone they had to stop working the lumber, stop leaving sawdust everywhere, stop piling up the bark against their wooden houses and the uncut trees. She demanded that they stop their livelihood, demanded that they leave the area to save their lives. She thought she was doing the right thing, trying to save lives, but
how
she went about it was wrong.

“El’cor taught me that because she was rude, because she did not
show
her respect, Ba’nai could not sway the hearts of the people—she tried urgency, she tried to describe the violence and horror of her visions, but they saw only someone being hysterical over nothing. Finally, one of the village elders spoke to her and reminded her that her words were like too much spice and soured wine in a dish. If she tried speaking sweetly, with respect, speaking of positive things—of gains instead of losses—the people would be more likely to listen to her. And so she went back to the people, and spoke gently, apologizing for her coarse ways, letting them know she understood how valuable their work was, how important their continued livehoods.

“Saint Ba’nai pointed out how dry everything was, how many piles of dried limbs and sawdust there were, the layers of bark that had been stacked to provide them with fuel for winter fires, the cane poles stacked in bundles and set aside to dry out so they could be light enough to ship downriver when the water rose again and turned into pulp for paper . . . and how much hotter the days were growing. She asked them where they thought would be the safest place in the region to outwait a massive firestorm . . . and some finally listened. Some of the villagers, swayed by her politeness, her logic, told her that there was that abandoned mine in the river ravine.

“She asked them if they would be willing to help her store
water and a bit of food deep in those caves, some old rags and other supplies. Some of them actually helped her . . . and when the terrible fire started, she was able to get those people deep into those caves, cover their faces with wet cloths, and stay there while the world far above burned so hot and hard, they could not go near the entrance for three full days. Those whom she had turned into her friends with kind words were willing to cooperate, willing to go with her, and willing to understand that she meant the best for them. They grieved for those who felt too badly disrespected and who had perished, but rejoiced that she had managed to save at least
some
of their lives.”

Vi’alla eyed him, her mouth tight, then lifted her chin toward the hall the Ambassador had taken. “Then
she
should have spoken sweetly to
me
, instead of with soured wine and too much spice!”

Li’eth felt his shoulders start to slump. She hadn’t seen the analogy correctly. “Wrong person, Vi’alla. Ba’nai needed to be kind and respectful to those who had what she wanted, because she needed their cooperation. She was willing to come help save them, and she was willing to warn them of all the dangers, and she was willing to help them make a plan to survive . . . but she needed
their
cooperation.
Their
knowledge of the terrain.
Their
help in stockpiling resources.

“
We
need the
Terrans’
technology. Yet all we have done as a nation is be rude to them, like how Ba’nai treated those Third and Fourth Tiers like Fifth Tiers—we have been treating Terran
First
Tiers like Fifth Tiers,” he emphasized, pointing at that hallway, where Jackie had vanished. “
All
non-V’Dan are to be treated like respected members of the Third Tier, as they are all
experts
in the knowledge of their ways and their people. More than that, their leadership is to be treated as equals of the First
and Imperial
Tiers. Yet
we
—the V’Dan Empire—consistently have treated them like
less
than Fifth Tiers.

“The irony in this, sister, is that without them,
we
are the villagers being burned alive by the Salik and their war,” he told her, pointing upward. “The whole Empire is at stake! You don’t get people willing to listen to your needs by being disrespectful to them. You don’t encourage people to share what
they have by demanding and grabbing and then
insulting
their hospitality and their generosity. You don’t
close your ears
to their legitimate complaints about being disrespected, insulted, and treated as infants instead of as adult allies, and then
expect
them to still like you enough to
want
to stay and help you.

“And you, Imperial
Regent
,” he emphasized, pointing at her, “have forgotten that it
is
my job as a member of the Imperial Tier to warn you when
you
are on a path that will destroy the Empire.
Which
is more important to you, Regent? Your personal pride? Or the survival of the Empire?”

“You
dare
ask me that?” Vi’alla demanded through clenched teeth, her hands tightening into fists at her sides.

“I am obliged to point out that your
pride
is busy making
enemies
of the
allies we need
,” he reminded her fiercely. “You were free to be angry at them as a mere princess, yes, but you are now the Regent, and the needs of your people
must
come before everything else! Including your own feelings and opinions.”

“If they weren’t so stubborn—”

“That’s the
jumax’a
flower calling the sky blue!” he retorted. “You have exactly two ways to get your hands on Terran technology, Vi’alla: You can
attempt
to steal it from them, turning them into our enemies . . . and they have
tens of thousands
of highly trained holy ones they can unleash upon us, never mind their ship hulls that cannot be deeply damaged by our energy weapons, and that can travel from system to system in mere moments.

“Or, you can swallow your pride, seek them out instead of demand they come to you,
apologize sincerely
, and try to make amends, to make
friends
of them.” He stared at her, hoping she would understand. “Because the
third
option is to continue to abandon your duty to your people, and
prove
yourself unfit for the throne. Which is it, Vi’alla? Think
carefully
.”

She glared back at him in anger, not saying a word. Li’eth knew he had backed his sister into a corner, though. Backing up a step, he bowed, then moved around her.

“I’m going to go check on Mother and Father. With luck, she will pull through and you won’t have to choose between debasing yourself to do the right thing, or condemning the Empire to die out of pride. At the hands of one enemy
or
another.”

It took her a few moments to find her voice. Just before he
reached the side exit on the uppermost dais, she asked, “You honestly think the Terrans can take on the might of the
Empire
? They don’t even have any colonies outside their own star system!”

Swinging around to face her, Li’eth pointed at his sister. “Your arrogance and your pride are blinding you to reality, sister. If you do not reconsider your actions, your words, your beliefs, and your
responses
to all these events, then I am going to have to make a formal recommendation to the Imperial Cabinet that you be
reconsidered
as Regent. The War Crown is best worn by the most
competent
member of the Imperial Blood.
Not
necessarily the eldest-born . . . and your actions so far today are
not
that competent.”