that Nau was even crazier than Brughel. Nau studied in order to someday rule.
Be careful.The places he really wanted to look must be fully covered by the needs of his report writing. On top of it all, he must keep up a random pattern of truly irrelevant references. Let the snoops try to find his intent in those!
He needed a list: Qeng Ho males, alive at the beginning of the modern Qeng Ho, who were not known to be dead at the time Captain Park’s expedition left Triland. The list shrank substantially when he also eliminated those known to be far from this corner of Human Space. It shrank again when he required that they be present at Brisgo Gap. The conjunction of five booleans, the work of a spoken command or a column of keystrokes—but Ezr could not afford such simplicity. Each boolean was part of other searches, in support of things he really needed for the report. The results were scattered across pages of analysis, a name here, a name there. The orrery floating by the ceiling showed less than 15Ksec remaining before the walls of his quarters would begin to glow dawnlight… but he had his list. Did it mean anything? A handful of names, some pale and improbable. The booleans themselves were very hazy. The Qeng Ho interstellar net was an enormous thing, in a sense the largest structure in the histories of Humankind. But it was all out of date, by years or centuries. And even the Qeng Ho sometimes lied among themselves, especially where the distances were short and confusion could give commercial advantage. A handful of names. How many and who? Even scanning the list was painstakingly slow, else the hidden watchers would surely notice. Some names he recognized: Tran Vinh.21, that was Sura Vinh’s g’grandson and the male-side founder of Ezr’s own branch of the Vinh Family; King Xen.03, Sura’s chief armsman at Brisgo Gap. Xen could not have been Trinli. He was just over 120 centimeters tall, and nearly as wide. Other names belonged to people who had never been famous. Jung, Trap, Park… Park?
Vinh couldn’t help the surprise. If Brughel’s zipheads reviewed the records, they would surely notice. The damn localizers could probably pick up on pulse, maybe even blood pressure.If they can see the surprise, make it a
Vinh followed a couple of obvious leads on Park—then gave up, the way you might when you learned something surprising but not universe-breaking. The other names on the list… it took him another Ksec to get through them, and none looked familiar. His mind kept returning to S. J. Park, and he almost panicked.How well can the enemy read me? He looked at some pictures of Trixia, surrendered to the familiar pain; he did that often enough just before finally going to bed. Behind his tears, his mind raced. If Ezr was right about Park, he went way,way back. No wonder his parents had treated Park as more than a young contract captain. Lord, he could have been on Pham Nuwen’s voyage to the far side. After Brisgo Gap, when Nuwen was about as rich as he’d ever been, he’d departed with a grand fleet, heading for the far side of Human Space. That was typical of Nuwen’s gestures. The far side was at least four hundred light-years away. The merchanting details of its environment were ancient history by the time they arrived on this side. And his proposed path would take him through some of the oldest regions of Human Space. For centuries after the departure, the Qeng Ho Net continued to report the progress of the Prince of Canberra, of his fleets growing and sometimes shrinking. Then the stories faltered, often lacked valid authentication. Nuwen probably never got more than partway to his goal. As a child, Ezr and his friends had often played at being the Lost Prince. There were so many ways it might have ended, some adventurous and gruesome, some—the most likely—involving old age and a string of business failures, ships lost to bankruptcy across dozens of light-years. And so the fleet had never returned.
But parts of it might have.A person here or there, perhaps losing heart with a voyage that would take them forever far from their own time. Who knew just which individuals returned? Very likely, S. J. Park had known. Very likely S. J. Park had known precisely who Pham Trinli was—and had worked to protect that identity. Who from the era of Brisgo Gap could be so important, so well known…? S. J. Park had been loyal to someone from that era. Who?
And then Ezr remembered hearing that Captain Park had personally chosen the name of his flagship. The
Pham Trinli. Pham Nuwen. The Lost Prince of Canberra.
And I have finally gone totally crazy. There were library checks that would shoot down this conclusion in a second. Yes, and that would disprove nothing; if he were right, the library itself would be a subtle lie.Yeah, sure. This was the sort of desperate hallucination he must guard against. If you raise your desires high enough, certainty can grow out of the background noise. But at least it got me off the rotisserie!
It was awfully late. He stared at the pictures of Trixia for a while longer, lost in sad memories. Inside, he calmed down. There would be other false alarms, but he had years ahead of him, a lifetime of patient looking. He would find a crack in the dungeon somewhere, and when it happened he wouldn’t have to wonder if it was a trick of his imagination.
Sleep came, and dreams filled with all the usual distress and the new shame, and now mixed with his latest insanity. Eventually there was something like peace, floating in the dark of his cabin. Mindless.
And then another dream, so real that he didn’t doubt it until it was over. Little lights were shining in his eyes, but only when he kept his eyes closed. Awake and sitting, the room was dark as ever. Lying down, eyes asleep, then the sparkles started again.
The lights were talking to him, a game of blinkertalk. When he was very young he had played a lot of that, flitting from rock to rock across the out-of-doors. Tonight, a single pattern repeated and repeated, and in Vinh’s dream state the meaning formed almost effortlessly:
“NOD UR HEAD IF U UNDRSTND ME…. NOD—”
Vinh made a wordless groan of surprise—and the pattern changed:
“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP…” for a long time. And then it changed again. “NOD UR HEAD IF U UNDRSTND ME….”
That was easy too. Vinh moved his head a fraction of a centimeter.
“OK. PRETEND TO BE ASLEEP. CLOSE UR HAND. BLINK ON PALM.”
After all the years, conspiracy was suddenly so easy. Just pretend your palm was a keyboard and type at your fellow-conspirators. Of course! His hands were under the covers, so no one else could see! He would have laughed out loud at the cleverness, except that would be out of character. It was so obvious now who had come to save them. He closed his right hand and tapped: “HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?”
For a long time there were no more little flashes. Ezr’s mind drifted slowly toward deeper sleep.
Then: “U NU BFR TNITE? DAM ME.” Another long pause. “I VRY SORRY. I THOT U BROKN.”
Vinh nodded to himself, a little proud. And maybe someday Qiwi would forgive him, and Trixia would return to life, and…
“OK,” Ezr tapped at the Prince. “HOW MNY PEOPLE WE GOT?”
“SECRET. ONLY I KNO. EACH CAN TALK BUT NO ONE KNOS ANYONE ELSE.” Pause. “TILL U TONITE.”
Aha. Almost the perfect conspiracy. The members could cooperate, but no one but the Prince could betray anyone else. Things would be so much easier now.
“WELL IM VRY TIRED NOW. WANNA SLEEP. WE CAN TALK MORE LATR.”
Pause. Was his request so strange? Nights are for sleeping. “OK. LATR.”
As consciousness drifted finally away, Vinh shrugged deeper into his hammock and smiled to himself. He was not alone. And all along, the secret had been as close as his hand. Amazing!
The next morning, Vinh woke up rested and strangely happy. Huh. What had he done to deserve this?
He floated into the shower bag and sudsed up. Yesterday had been so dark, so shameful. Bitter reality seeped back into him, but strangely slow…. Yeah, there had been a dream.That was not unusual, but most of his dreams hurt so much to remember. Vinh turned the shower to dry and hung for a moment in the swirling jets of air. What had it been about this one?
Yes! It was another of those miracle escape dreams, but this time things hadn’t turned bad at the end. Nau
