Read Online The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld - Free Book Online
Authors: Scott Westerfeld
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commission.
"Not the better to command my ship, of course. A ship is men and women, after all; AIs have done the math for millennia. But I needed to understand physics, if for no other reason, then to understand fully that one Imperial gesture."
Zai looked into his commanding officer's eyes. He wondered for a moment if the man, as usual, were being cynical. But the buoyant memory of riding in the craft convinced him that even Masrui might be sentimental about those minutes of flight.
They walked up the broad stairs together. The sounds of the party flowed out between columns and heroic statues.
"Strange, sir, to have looked down on worlds, and still be amazed by a ... mere flying machine."
"It makes you realize, Zai, that you've never properly flown. We've been in aircraft and dropships, free fall and lifter belts, but the body always fights it at some level. Even the excitement comes from adrenaline, from some animal panic that things aren't right."
"But it's right in that car, sir. Isn't it?" Zai said.
"Yes. Flight as effortless and natural as a bird's. Or a god's. Did we join the Navy for service and immortality, I wonder? Or for something more akin to that."
The captain trailed off. A group of officers was approaching. Zai felt the subject disappear between him and his old friend, the words pulled back from the air and hidden somewhere like the conspiracies of mutineers.
"The hero!" one of the officers said too loudly. She was Captain Rencer Fowler IX, whom Zai, if the rumors were true, would soon displace as the youngest starship commander in the fleet. Zai saw Fowler's eyes sweep across his medaled chest, and felt briefly naked again in the covering of clever ants. The others looked comfortable in their dress uniforms, the particulate nature of the garments completely disguised. Zai knew his ants were no more obvious than theirs. He determined not to think of the uniform again.
"Only a humble servant of Empire," Masrui answered for him.
Zai and Masrui shook hands with the men among the officers, and touched closed fists with the women. Zai's head began to spin a bit with the surfeit of ritual greetings and realized how convenient the usual salute was. But this was a dress occasion, forms had to be followed, and the pattern of bare wrists as gloved hands flexed and touched seemed to hold meaning, like animals flashing signals of bare-toothed dominance at each other. The glint of Zai's metal wrist caught starlight.
They went into the palace hall together, and a crescendo of voices echoing from stone rose up around them like a sudden rain.
Faces turned toward Zai as the group moved across the great black floor. The hero of Dhantu, or as the gutter media called him: the Broken Man. He realized that the group of officers, arrayed casually around him, had done him a kindness, forming a shield between him and the stares of the crowd. He wondered if Masrui had planned their meeting on the steps. They moved slowly, to nowhere in particular, his entourage hailing familiar faces and pulling them into the group, or fending off interlopers with a deflecting touch of greeting. One of them cadged a tray full of drinks and passed it round the group.
Zai drifted along like a child in his parents' tow. The great hall was crowded. The lucent dress uniforms of Navy personnel were mixed with the absolute black of the Political Apparatus. There were civilians dressed in formal bloodred or the white of the Senate, guildfolk in colored patterns he couldn't begin to read. The high, fluted columns that climbed to the vaulted ceiling channeled this mass of people into swirling eddies. After a few minutes of this promenade, Zai realized what would have been instantly obvious to an observer in the upper reaches of the hall: everyone was walking in circles.
Fowler's voice came from his side.
"How's immortality, Lieutenant-Commander?"
Fowler, despite her meteoric early career, had not been elevated yet.
"I hear it's not much
"Not the better to command my ship, of course. A ship is men and women, after all; AIs have done the math for millennia. But I needed to understand physics, if for no other reason, then to understand fully that one Imperial gesture."
Zai looked into his commanding officer's eyes. He wondered for a moment if the man, as usual, were being cynical. But the buoyant memory of riding in the craft convinced him that even Masrui might be sentimental about those minutes of flight.
They walked up the broad stairs together. The sounds of the party flowed out between columns and heroic statues.
"Strange, sir, to have looked down on worlds, and still be amazed by a ... mere flying machine."
"It makes you realize, Zai, that you've never properly flown. We've been in aircraft and dropships, free fall and lifter belts, but the body always fights it at some level. Even the excitement comes from adrenaline, from some animal panic that things aren't right."
"But it's right in that car, sir. Isn't it?" Zai said.
"Yes. Flight as effortless and natural as a bird's. Or a god's. Did we join the Navy for service and immortality, I wonder? Or for something more akin to that."
The captain trailed off. A group of officers was approaching. Zai felt the subject disappear between him and his old friend, the words pulled back from the air and hidden somewhere like the conspiracies of mutineers.
"The hero!" one of the officers said too loudly. She was Captain Rencer Fowler IX, whom Zai, if the rumors were true, would soon displace as the youngest starship commander in the fleet. Zai saw Fowler's eyes sweep across his medaled chest, and felt briefly naked again in the covering of clever ants. The others looked comfortable in their dress uniforms, the particulate nature of the garments completely disguised. Zai knew his ants were no more obvious than theirs. He determined not to think of the uniform again.
"Only a humble servant of Empire," Masrui answered for him.
Zai and Masrui shook hands with the men among the officers, and touched closed fists with the women. Zai's head began to spin a bit with the surfeit of ritual greetings and realized how convenient the usual salute was. But this was a dress occasion, forms had to be followed, and the pattern of bare wrists as gloved hands flexed and touched seemed to hold meaning, like animals flashing signals of bare-toothed dominance at each other. The glint of Zai's metal wrist caught starlight.
They went into the palace hall together, and a crescendo of voices echoing from stone rose up around them like a sudden rain.
Faces turned toward Zai as the group moved across the great black floor. The hero of Dhantu, or as the gutter media called him: the Broken Man. He realized that the group of officers, arrayed casually around him, had done him a kindness, forming a shield between him and the stares of the crowd. He wondered if Masrui had planned their meeting on the steps. They moved slowly, to nowhere in particular, his entourage hailing familiar faces and pulling them into the group, or fending off interlopers with a deflecting touch of greeting. One of them cadged a tray full of drinks and passed it round the group.
Zai drifted along like a child in his parents' tow. The great hall was crowded. The lucent dress uniforms of Navy personnel were mixed with the absolute black of the Political Apparatus. There were civilians dressed in formal bloodred or the white of the Senate, guildfolk in colored patterns he couldn't begin to read. The high, fluted columns that climbed to the vaulted ceiling channeled this mass of people into swirling eddies. After a few minutes of this promenade, Zai realized what would have been instantly obvious to an observer in the upper reaches of the hall: everyone was walking in circles.
Fowler's voice came from his side.
"How's immortality, Lieutenant-Commander?"
Fowler, despite her meteoric early career, had not been elevated yet.
"I hear it's not much
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