Yuri flushed at his cousin's curt tone of voice, but he nodded his head obediently. 'But Ilya, who will Tess ride with?'
Something smug in Bakhtiian's expression made Tess instantly suspicious. 'She will ride with me.'
'But you always ride rear scout. Tess can't keep up with-' Yuri faltered, blushed from his chin to the tips of his ears, and with a despairing glance at Tess, reined his horse abruptly away from them and rode off. Bakhtiian watched him depart without any expression at all.
Tess drew in a deep breath. Can't keep up with you, he had been about to say. Suddenly she knew what Bakhtiian was about.
'We are not so far from camp yet,' said Bakhtiian, 'that I cannot have one of my riders escort you back to the tribe, if you wish.'
Tess met his gaze squarely and had the satisfaction of seeing him look away. 'You won't be rid of me so easily,' she replied. Her mare took a rough patch of ground, hard, and Tess clutched at the high front of the saddle to keep her seat.
Bakhtiian did not exactly smile, but he looked satisfied. 'Follow me.' He reined his horse toward the back of the group. Tess followed awkwardly, and she felt rather than saw that many in the group watched her go, though whether with sympathy or malice she could not be sure. Cha Ishii's white face flashed past, and she had the momentary pleasure of seeing that the Chapalii's seat was no steadier than her own. Then, as they separated from the last wings of the V, she had no luxury for any thought but staying on her horse.
Bakhtiian did not wait for her. The entire day blurred before her as she tried to catch up with him. He always rode just ahead, changing direction and speed capriciously, stopping abruptly to stare at the ground or at the horizon, but always, before she reached him, riding on.
By the time they reunited with the main group at dusk, she hurt everywhere. Everywhere, intensely, and her inner thighs and knees felt rubbed raw. She was too exhausted to dismount, so she simply remained slumped in the saddle.
She wanted nothing more than to cry, but she was damned if she would.
Bakhtiian had already dismounted. He paused beside her as he led his horse toward the others. 'She needs to be unsaddled and brushed down.' Then he was gone.
Beyond, in the inconstant glare of the fire, she saw the four conical tents of the Chapalii, already set up, but no other tents. Dark figures stood in clusters around the fire, warming themselves. She sat alone beyond its warmth. At least the mare was content to stand for now.
'Tess.' Out of the darkness Yuri appeared. 'Here is food. Something to drink.'
'I'm not hungry,' she said, and was surprised to hear how dry and cracked her voice sounded.
'No, Tess. You must eat. I'll take care of your horse.' He set down his bundle and reached up to pull her off. She could not resist him, but God, it hurt to move. He gave her a hunk of flat bread and a pouch of yoghurt, and she drank from her own waterskin. He led the mare away.
Tess collapsed. She almost cried out as her muscles cramped agonizingly. In the distance, angry words were exchanged, but they faded away. After a time Yuri returned with her bedroll and half carried her out where she could have some privacy, and left her. She rolled up in her blanket and slept.
Very few people knew it, but Charles Soerensen spent most of his time in the spartan office that looked out over the mud flats of Odys Massif. To the right, concealed behind the flat-screen wall that projected two-deep on its surface or holos out into the room, lay a small bedroom and washroom, equally spartan. In the central tower of the great palace lay the official ducal state suite: sleeping chamber, efficiency, sitting room, receiving room, and the border room whose high, rib-vaulted aisles gave onto the arcade that led to the female tower, untenanted and unused. If a visitor of sufficient importance came to Odys, Charles used the state suite. Otherwise, he lived in his office.
Marco found Charles sitting at his desk. Its lights were up, projecting first flat text, then numbers, then graphs, then virtual representations in three dimensions over the smooth surface of the desk. Charles sat straight in his chair. Now and then he keyed in commands on his keypad. Now and then he spoke a word or two and the holo changed or dissipated to flat text and numbers again.
Marco stood by the door and watched. It was the same program. It was always the same program.
The fledgling League, composed of the planets colonized by the human populations of Earth and their human cousins of Ophiuchi-Sei-ah-nai, explores slowly outward and meets the alien Chapalii. The benign but powerful Chapalii gift this young race with many technological presents: increased youth and vigor to the full span of 120 human years; their own, impossible brand of interstellar spaceflight; other trivial or incredible miracles. But soon enough, Chapalii gifts turn to outright co-option, and the Chapaliian Empire absorbs the entire League into its massive bureaucracy. What choice does the League have but to accept absorption and the rule of the emperor? The Empire outweighs them in size (vastly), in technological expertise (vastly), and in sheer, inhuman patience and attention to detail.
Their grip is soft. But it chafes. A young man named Charles Soerensen, only child of a lab technician and a teacher, studies revolution. He puts a revolt together, slowly, secretly, and when the time is right, humanity rises up to cast off the yoke of the oppressor.
The rebellion fails. Very few humans are punished: only those who broke Chapalii laws and taboos already in place. The Chapalii do not seem overly concerned; they seem more paternalistic, as if at an adolescent's wild behavior before she grows older and returns to the fold. For the ringleader: well, Earth mourns, Ophiuchi-Sei-ah-nai mourns, the colonized worlds mourn, expecting his execution.
But the Chapalii do not think as humans think. They are alien, and because their form is humanlike, though their skin changes color, it is easy to forget that. They ennoble Charles Soerensen. They raise him to their highest noble class, short of their princes and emperor. They make him Tai-en, a duke, and grant him a fief: two systems, the one known to humans as Tau Ceti, which has long since been colonized and is a rich source of mineral wealth, and Delta Pavonis, only recently 'discovered,' mapped, and marked by the League's Exploratory Survey. Dao Cee, the Chapalii call this fief, for Chapalii reasons, inexplicable to humans.
Marco walked farther into the room. He had the skill of entering and exiting silently, a skill honed in travels on the surface of Rhui, visiting queendoms and kingdoms and other more primitive lands where a false step meant death in a barbaric and doubtlessly excruciatingly painful manner. On Odys, where he knew quite well where he stood, he was bored and restless.
'What did I do wrong?' Charles asked the air, not of Marco so much as of the demon that drove him. 'What weakness didn't we exploit? The entire rebellion was planned, timed, and executed perfectly. What have they hidden from us?''
'Everything?' Marco sat on one corner of the desk, one booted leg dangling down, one braced on the floor, as he studied the graph floating in the air at his eye level. 'We don't even know how long this empire of theirs has been around. Five hundred years? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? Nothing in their language reveals it, or at least, nothing in their language that / can comprehend. We haven't any access to their histories, if they even write histories.'
'Is an empire capable of being stable for so long?'
Marco laughed. 'A human empire? I don't think so. But after forty years under their rule, I'd believe anything about them. They value stability and order over everything else. That's my observation, for what it's worth. You did well against them.''
'Not well enough.' Soerensen tapped another command into the keypad, and the graph twisted and melted and reformed as a miniature star chart. Blue pinpricks of light marked the systems known by the League to be colonized, exploited, or ruled by the Chapalii Empire. It was a considerable expanse, enhanced by the newly won human systems. One light blinked red, out past Sirius, a system mapped and marked by the League Exploratory Survey but not yet reported to the Chapalii. A little victory, worth not more than the knowledge that for a short time humanity could conceal information from its masters.
'We need more knowledge. Once Tess is done with her thesis, I'll send her to Chapal. They'll have to let her go there. Only the emperor could forbid it. With her linguistic skills, she should be able to gain solid data that we haven't had access to before.'
'But she's female.'
'She's my heir. Legitimized by the emperor. He probably thought it was an amusingly eccentric quirk in his token human duke. So they can't sequester her.'
