Ecolitan Prime (Ecolitan Matter) (4 page)

He wandered through the rooms, apparently just taking it all in, looking at this and that, occasionally picking up an old-fashioned book, a miniature fire-fountain, touching a cushion, his fingers straying to his old style wide belt from time to time.

The multitector in the belt registered four snoops, but from the energy level and the pattern, all but one were audio. The one in the living room was video as well.

Probably more sophisticated equipment on the way, not ready because I arrived early, he mused. Or snoops good enough that I can’t detect them.

Nathaniel put the datacases in the study, lugged the field pack into the bedroom and began to unpack. Some of the diplomatic blacks he’d never even worn, except when they’d been fitted at the Institute. Several of the outfits were special, but not in any way an Imperial would suspect from either a visual inspection or an energy scan.

In theory, all he had to do was present some terms of trade, bargain a bit, and see what developed, while staying alive and in one piece. That was theory. Practice usually required a great deal more effort.

T
HE SCREEN BUZZED
twice.

“Corwin-Smathers,” answered the Staff Director, as she tapped the acceptance.

The faxscreen remained blank, but the green signal panel lit. The dull gray of the screen indicated either a blank screen call or the caller’s inoperative screen.

“You alone?” The mechanical tone signalled that the caller was using a voice screen.

“Yes.”

“The Senator should take an interest in the Accord affair. External Affairs is outgunned, by those who control the guns especially.”

“The Accord affair?”

Too late, the director realized that the connection had already been broken.

Why Accord? Why a blind call?

Virtually anyone could make such a vidfax call. More interesting was the fact that it had come in on her private line, unlisted and unregistered either in the official listings or the office’s confidential listings.

The I.I.S.? Or could it be a double blind, with someone trying to set up the Senator? Or discredit Courtney herself?

She frowned, then tapped a call panel.

The portal at the far end of the office irised open and shut behind the woman who entered. “Yes, Courtney?”

“Would you please dig up anything that’s pending with regard to Accord, probably something to do with Commerce or Defense, I would guess.”

“The Senator’s off on another crusade?”

“No…trying to figure out whether he should be.”

The dark-haired woman turned to go.

“Sylvia,” added the director, “you might ask some of your former colleagues if they’ve heard anything. Nothing classified, you understand, just rumors, odd information.”

“I’ll do that. How soon?”

“Yesterday, if you can.”

The portal closed behind the staffer, and Courtney Corwin-Smathers leaned back in the swivel, ignoring the softly blinking lights on the console that had automatically prioritized the pending messages.

She wondered who Sylvia really worked for. Certainly it wasn’t just for the Senator, for all the salary she drew. Still for the I.I.S.? Halston. The old devil Admiral?

She tapped her fingers on the genuine gorhide antique blotter.

Should she key in Du-Plessis?

Shaking her head in response to her own question, she touched the top console stud to call up the messages awaiting her.

S
TANDING IN FRONT
of the hygienarium mirror, Nathaniel straightened the collars of his formal dress blacks. The uniform displayed no ornamentation. Buttons, belt, and boots were all black. The square belt buckle bore a green triangle, and his formal gloves were a paler shade of green.

He half wished that he had some sort of insignia to put on his collars, as so many of the military and diplomatic personnel from other systems seemed to have.

The irony of it struck him even as he thought of it, and he grinned at himself in the mirror. Not in New Augusta an eight-day and wanting some tinsel to dress himself up.

With a last look at his wide-angle, full-length reflection, he turned and waved off the lights.

Once out of his private quarters and into his office, he palm-locked the quarters’ portal, then walked across the dark green carpet to the console. The message light was unlit.

Outside, through the window, he could see dark and swirling clouds, scarcely much above him, and some of the towers’ tops were lost in the mist. Hoping that the rain wasn’t an omen of the day to come, he marched through the portal into the staff office.

“Good morning, Lord Whaler.” Mydra greeted him as the portal whispered open.

“A good day also to you,” he replied, trying to remember to keep his syntax suitably tangled.

“The honor guard should be here shortly.”

“An honor guard for me? Unbelievable that seems, for a poor fumbler of figures such as me.”

“A matter of protocol.”

“I know, but for a professor unbelievable it seems.”

At the far side of the office sat Hillary West-Coven before her console, industriously plugging figures in. Nathaniel hadn’t figured out what she did, unless it was some sort of backup for Mydra.

Waiting in the silence that had followed his last remarks, Nathaniel looked over the staff office again. Three consoles: one which was vacant, one for Mydra, and the last for Hillary. All the consoles were pale green, which toned in with the institutional tan fabric covering the walls and with the deeper green of the carpet. The office retained a faint scent of pine, or a similar conifer, though no greenery was in sight.

No pictures hung on the walls, unlike the other staff offices in the Legation.

He shifted his weight, looked down at Mydra, and asked, “What did you before I arrived on New Augusta?”

“I’m in charge of Legate Witherspoon’s office normally, but we didn’t see any sense in doubling up on personnel, since he will be absent for some time, or so I was told”—she paused—“and since you will be assuming some of his duties.”

Nathaniel nodded, his eyes lifting as Heather stepped through the portal from the corridor leading back to the receiving room.

“Mydra…oh, Lord Whaler.” With a flip of her long red hair back over her shoulder, she finished, “Your escort has arrived.”

“Thank you.”

Nathaniel swung the genuine black gorhide folder containing his official credentials under his arm and marched across the staff office to follow Heather, bunching the pale green gloves in his left hand to give the impression he was clutching them tightly.

He reached the reception area right behind Heather.

“Tenhutt!” snapped the squad leader. Four Imperial Marines in their formal red tunics and gold trousers stiffened even straighter.

“Lord Whaler, sir?” questioned the leader, who couldn’t have been as old as most of the first year Ecolitans Nathaniel had been training less than two standard months earlier.

“The very same I am.”

“Yes, sir. Would you please, sir, please allow us to escort you to your audience with the Emperor?”

“Honored I would be.”

From that, Nathaniel decided he was the one to lead the parade and marched out.

The Imperial Marines, caught by his sudden departure, slipped into quick-step and fell in behind him before he was ten meters down the corridor to the drop shaft.

Not too bad, he decided. But he wondered how they would have held up in the outback of Trezenia.

Nathaniel marched right into the high speed drop lane without hesitation. The four Marines angled themselves into a hollow square above him, allowing each to cover a quarter of the shaft.

They carried stunners, and each wore a belt commpak.

Two electrocougars waited in the private concourse. The first was crimson and displayed the Accord flag on a staff over the left front wheel panel. The second car was, surprisingly, a dull brown.

One of the escorts held the rear door of the crimson vehicle open for the Ecolitan. After seeing him seated and closing the door, the Marine eased into the front seat across from the driver, a woman Marine. Belatedly, on noting the driver, Nathaniel realized that at least one of his escorts had been female.

The squad leader and the other two escorts used the brown car to follow his into the tunnel.

“How often this do you do?”

“About eighty systems with Legations here, I’m told,” answered the nondriving Marine. “I’m new, three weeks here. This is my second assignment for escort duty. Some of the other teams have had five or six in the past month.”

“Just for diplomats seeing the Emperor?”

“No, sir. All sorts of functions—parties, reviews. You name it, and we’re on call.”

The driver glanced at the escort Marine. The young man stopped talking.

“Many functions and reviews there are then?”

“I really don’t know about that, sir.”

“What after this duty will you do?”

“That’s up to the assignment branch, sir.”

“No desire for other duty have you?”

“Whatever the Service needs, sir, that’s where I’ll be.”

Nathaniel leaned back into the cushions. Information wasn’t likely to be any more forthcoming.

He recalled the map he’d called up on his console. The Imperial Court had been placed on the high plain east of the main part of the underground city and towers, while the Port of Entry was to the south.

Had he been the Emperor who’d set it up, Nathaniel would have put the court and palace in the hills to the west.

As the tunnel car swept up from the depths into the concourse of the Imperial Palace, Nathaniel leaned forward to get a better look.

Fully fifteen different tunnels merged into the entry area, though he could see only two other limousines.

When the electrocougar glided to a stop, the escort snapped out of the front seat and had the rear door open for Nathaniel instantly. The other three squad members were formed up and waiting before Nathaniel’s black-booted foot touched the golden tiles.

A red-coated woman, a striking figure with black hair, black eyes, and a deeply tanned face, stood at the head of the ramp from the concourse.

“Lord Whaler?”

“The very same.”

“I’m Cynda Ger-Lorthian, the Emperor’s Receiving Auditor. Would you be so kind as to accompany me to the receiving and waiting room?”

“That is where the Emperor receives?”

“Oh, no. That’s where you will wait until the Emperor is ready to receive you and where you will be briefed on how the presentation of your credentials will be conducted.”

“Sounds like this is done most regularly,” the Ecolitan observed as he fell in behind the Receiving Auditor.

“Really quite simple, but we do like to make sure there are no misunderstandings and that everything goes according to plan.”

The receiving room, about the size of his office at the Legation, featured a semicircular table surrounded on one side by comfortable padded swivels. The table and chairs faced a blank wall.

“If you would sit there, Lord Whaler, we’ll go through the procedures.”

Nathaniel’s fingers flicked to his belt. The chair was snooped to the hilt, with virtually every kind of gimmickry that could be crammed into it. He turned toward the chair beside the one he’d been offered. It was rigged the same way.

Nathaniel kept the smile from his face. One purpose of the room wasn’t exactly to impart information. He eased himself into the larger chair.

Cynda Ger-Lorthian sat next to him and pulled a small panel from the drawer of the table. She pressed a stud.

The mist of a holoscreen appeared on the other side of the table.

“Here’s the way the receiving hall looks from the portal.”

Nathaniel watched the view, as if he were looking into the enormous room, a gold-tan carpet leading from his feet out toward the throne of the Emperor.

“This is the actual floor plan,” continued the Receiving Auditor as the holo display changed. “You can see you have almost fifty meters to walk before you reach the bottom step of the throne.

“You’re scheduled for a ten minute presentation. That’s longer than average, which means that the Emperor will have something more than the formalities.”

“When starts all this?”

“At the time the previous appointment is complete, I’ll give you a signal. You walk in the portal and stand. After you are announced, the Emperor will recognize you, and you walk to the throne. Stop at the bottom and make some acknowledgment to the Emperor, a bow, head inclined, whatever is customary for you, which the Emperor will return. You climb to the fourth step, and the Emperor will come down to meet you.”

“Here’s the way it will look. He is addressed as ‘Sovereign of Light.’”

The holo projection showed a still version of the Emperor greeting someone on the wide steps below the throne.

“Do you have any questions?” she finished up with the rush of someone who has repeated the same words time after time.

“When is the audience completed?”

“The words used to signify closure will be something like ‘May you enjoy the peace of the Empire.’ It is never quite the same. The Emperor enjoys minor deviations from the protocol.”

Ger-Lorthian checked her timestrap and stood up.

Nathaniel followed her example, and the two of them were rejoined outside the briefing room by his escort of four Imperial Marines.

The portal to the receiving hall extended high enough to admit a full-sized combat skitter, and the closed, gold-plated portal was obviously backed with endurasteel. With the depth of the casements, Nathaniel doubted whether that Imperial combat skitter could have dented the surface of the portal.

“When the chime sounds, Lord Whaler, the portal will open. Please step through and wait.”

A deep bell echoed from the top of the portal casement. The doors recessed into the massive casements without so much as a whisper.

Nathaniel stepped through and placed himself squarely in the middle of the ribbon of carpeting that ran toward the throne block.

Five portals studded the immense circular hall of equidistant intervals, and a similar carpet ran from each toward the circular stepped structure on which rested the Throne of Light.

In all probability, the throne rotated to face whatever portal the Emperor wished or protocol demanded.

Empires need Emperors, and the bigger the Empire, the more impressive the Emperor should be. As a practical matter, reflected the Trade Envoy for the Coordinate of Accord, Emperors only came in one size—human. At least, human emperors did. His Royal and Imperial Highness Jostan Lerann McDade N’troya, while white-haired and close to 196 centimeters, was only human.

The Emperor of the Terran Empire, the Hegemony of Light, the Path of Progress, compensated for his mere humanity by wearing an unadorned and brilliant white uniform that cloaked him in light, making him the focus of the receiving hall in which a full-sized Imperial corvette could have been hangared.

A crowd, gathered around and on the lower steps of the throne pedestal and large enough to comprise several subotta teams, was lost under the sweeping lightstone buttresses, and the height of the ceiling swallowed the pulsing beams emanating from the Throne of Light.

Nathaniel waited on the tan carpet, as he’d been briefed by the majordomo, Receiving Auditor, whatever she was called.

Several of the group gathered below the throne, a good stone’s throw away, glanced at him and pointedly turned their heads.

The Imperial hangers-on all affected light-colored clothing. Only the Emperor wore out-and-out white, and no one wore a predominantly dark outfit.

Nathaniel wore Accord’s diplomatic blacks. If he had worn the greens of the Ecolitan Institute, the effect and impact would have been the same. In the bright universe of the Imperial court, two colors were absent. Solid green and solid black—the colors of Accord, the colors associated with the Ecologic Secession.

“The Lord Nathaniel Firstborne Whaler, Trade Envoy from the Coordinate of Accord. Presenting his official credentials to His Imperial Highness, Provider of Prosperity and Sovereign of Light.”

The announcement stilled the hall for less than an instant.

“We await your arrival.” The Emperor’s voice filled the hall, overtoned and benevolent.

Nathaniel marched up the tan carpet, which gradually lightened into gold as it neared the Throne of Light. The throne itself stood higher than he’d realized from the holo projection.

Stopping before the bottom step, the Ecolitan bowed once.

“Lord Whaler, the Empire is pleased at your presence.”

Nathaniel climbed four steps. The Emperor stood and descended.

From the corner of his eye, the Ecolitan could see that the Empress, who had remained in her seat below and to the left of the Emperor’s, was not in the slightest interested in Accord or in credentials. She continued her conversation with a blond man dressed in a peacock blue tunic belted in scarlet.

“Lord Whaler.” The Emperor addressed the Envoy.

“Your Highness.”

A minor murmur circled the crowd on the throne pedestal. Protocol required the more formal “Sovereign of Light.”

But, thought Nathaniel, we provincials can’t be expected to know everything about the delicacies of court etiquette.

Nathaniel handed him the credentials case.

“My credentials, my writ to the Empire. May we all live in peace and prosperity.”

“On behalf of the Empire and its peoples, I accept your credentials and your wishes for peace and prosperity.”

The smile the Emperor N’troya gave the Ecolitan was genuine enough, and so were the tiredness and the thin lines radiating from the corners of his dark eyes.