A Confusion of Princes

  I resolved that now that I also had medals, I would follow Kothrez’s example rather than Huzand’s and make as little show of them as possible. I also thought I’d like to get the same kind of wrist-mounted energy lances, and learn how to use them properly.

  Kothrez wasn’t friendly like the Vice Admiral, but she wasn’t unfriendly like Huzand, either. She was just all business. She congratulated me on my award, asked me a few details about the Sad-Eye incursion, looked into my teacup to see if it was empty, and promptly sent me on my way.

  ‘Back to duty, Cadet Khemri. You’ve done well. But don’t let the excitement distract you. Your job is to study hard and equip yourself to serve the Empire. Dismissed.’

  I put the cup down very carefully, stepped back to salute, spun on my heel, and left. Back to my duty barracks, that hellhole from which I had had only the briefest escape, and most of that time I’d been dead. Or wherever it is Princes are before they are reborn.

  I didn’t have high expectations of my classmates, so I entered the barracks very carefully, looking out for traps or tricks, with my connection to the Imperial Mind up and witnessing.

  A few steps inside the barracks, I stopped. Not because of a sudden trap or attack, but because apart from Tyrtho, Aliadh, and Calzik, I didn’t recognise any of the other Princes. For a moment I thought I’d wandered into the barracks of another class group that Tyrtho and the others were coincidentally visiting. But that wasn’t possible. This was the right room. There was my bed and locker.

  ‘All hail the conquering hero,’ said Tyrtho with a cheery wave. ‘Welcome back.’

  The others all saluted in welcome. Or saluted my medal, or maybe even the wound badge.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Uh, what happened to Charoz and his mighty legions?’

  ‘Reassigned,’ said Tyrtho. ‘All the class groups have been split up and changed. Let me introduce you.’

  I checked them out with the Imperial Mind as they came over. None were from House Jerrazis.

  Even our cadet officer was different. Instead of the surly Jesmur, we had the very tall and very composed Prince Hocozhem, who came in to gravely congratulate me on holding up the honour of Class 2645 and to let us know that we had seventeen minutes to don flight-rigged shipsuits for our next lesson, a practical session flying some of the Academy’s antiquated singleships that had been reconfigured as trainers with two pilot seats.

  Later, as we lined up to be assigned to individual craft and our instructor copilots, I asked Tyrtho what had happened while I was dead.

  ‘Not a lot,’ she answered. ‘No lessons. We were on cleanup duty mostly, tidying up after the Sad-Eyes trashed the place. Make and mend. Just to keep us out of the way and busy, I guess, while heads rolled in the background.’

  ‘Heads rolled?’ I asked casually. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on! The Academy attacked out of the blue by a Sad-Eye raid, with almost every cadet officer off duty, the long-range sensors unmonitored, no patrols up, and the autoweapons down for maintenance? No wonder Huzand got himself killed without the option of rebirth.’

  ‘What?’

  Tyrtho gave me a considering look. Some of the other cadets were listening, so she either took pity on me and played along or she really thought I didn’t know.

  ‘Yeah, Huzand got it in the raid and was “out of communication with the Mind”. No loss to the Navy. Liked duelling but not much good at anything else. I don’t know how he got the commandant job here. Jerrazis looking after its own, I guess.’

  Several cadets looked murderously at her for that, but far fewer than would have been the case a few weeks before. I wondered how many cadets had switched allegiance from Jerrazis as soon as they caught the shift in the wind. It was possible to do this at least once, though of course changing Houses earned you the instant enmity of everyone you left behind.

  ‘Khemri!’ called out a lieutenant, Prince Loghrezk, who had been my instructor pilot before, on my very first practical launch. Like the other instructors, he was detached to the Academy from the system defence flotilla. He hadn’t been at all friendly in the past, but as I marched up this time and saluted, he actually gave me a very smart salute back.

  ‘Good to see you again, Cadet Khemri. Let’s see if you can do as well in this exercise as you did against those Sad-Eyes on the ground.’

  I actually enjoyed my next six months at the Academy. While there were occasional moments of trouble from some of the diehard Jerrazis and one notable full-on brawl with Charoz that got us both half a dozen demerits, it was nothing like my earlier experience. I got on pretty well with my new classmates and became as much a friend of Tyrtho as it is possible for Princes to be friends, outside of being allies within a House.

  My interactions with officialdom also improved, though I still copped extra drills and lessons here and there. I suppose I’d got into the habit of being a bit late, a bit outspoken, and a bit too smart for my own good. I got some leeway in the first few weeks back, because of my medal and the Sad-Eye battle, but only so much. As soon as I overreached this latitude, the Commandant came down hard, so my zero-demerit score didn’t last long. But I never came close to building up dozens, either, so I usually got back to my off-duty quarters at least once every two or three weeks.

  Then, much to everyone’s surprise, we all found ourselves in the last month of our initial year, faced with having to decide whether to come back or not. After the first year at the Academy, a cadet could go and join a ship for on-the-job experience and further training; or stay on for an additional two years to do the advanced courses, which were necessary for higher rank; or just leave with the reserve rank of ensign (essentially meaningless unless the Empire engaged in a major war and recalled you to the Navy) and do something else entirely different.

  I, of course, was still waiting to find out what the special service was that I was supposed to do for the Empire. But I’d had no communication from Arch-Priest Morojal, so I had to start thinking about the alternatives.

  Surprisingly, staying on at the Academy was not totally out of the question. I liked some parts of Naval work. I enjoyed piloting singleships, the heavy intrasystem fighters that were ferried through wormholes on various types of much bigger starships. Even the 120-year-old Jerragor-class singleships we learned on were still very capable craft, though they were Mektek-heavy compared to more recent Imperial craft, which had a more finely tuned balance among the three teks.

  I was also very interested in Imperial Survey and their pathfinder vessels. Princes of the Imperial Survey took their multifunctional craft through newly discovered wormholes and, if they survived whatever they encountered at the other end, found a route back. This was the problem with wormholes—they were all one-way, so the trip home could be very long indeed. However, if there was a wormhole in, there was always at least one wormhole out, a fact that lent credence to the theory that the wormholes were actually constructs of some long-vanished galactic civilisation.

  It also made interstellar strategy fascinating, another subject I enjoyed. Systems with multiple useful wormhole entrances and exits were of supreme importance in galactic warfare. Or at least of the same importance as the rapid transfer of information. This was one of the Empire’s great advantages. The Imperial Mind, and the Psitek network of communication, meant that as long as there were priests somewhere in range, Imperial forces would be in communication with each other and with headquarters.

  Only the Sad-Eyes had a similar form of interstellar communication, and fortunately for us, they didn’t seem to use it in as organised a fashion. In fact, they rarely organised themselves into groupings larger than two or three hundred Sad-Eyes in hosts, with fifteen or sixteen thousand puppets. Raids and surprise attacks were the Sad-Eyes' modus operandi, not the massive fleet battles that were standard against the suicidal Deaders or to a lesser extent against the Naknuk rebels and their Bitek hordes.

  But I didn’t think I’d stay on at the Academy. I still wanted to stri
ke out on my own. Head out to the fringes of the Empire, commandeer a ship, and go and seek my fortune.

  But I kept this to myself. Particularly keeping it from the senior Princes who came to talk to me in the final few days before our graduation, when we cadets had to choose our future paths.

  There were more visitors than I expected, starting with the Marine garrison commander, Prince Glemri. She dropped in while I was hanging out with the mekbi trooper door guard at station seven, punishment for what would probably be my last fling at tardiness.

  ‘Cadet Khemri, I’m glad to find you here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said stiffly, standing at attention in line with the motionless troopers.

  ‘Stand easy,’ she said. ‘This is just a chat. I wanted to talk to you about possibly signing up for Marine training. What are your plans?’

  I had got smarter over the course of my year, so I didn’t spit on the ground and declare I’d never be a Marine or anything dumb like that. Instead I wrinkled my forehead thoughtfully before answering.

  ‘I’m not sure, sir. I’m evaluating all possibilities.’

  ‘You did well against the Sad-Eyes. And I know you can understand trooper talk.’

  ‘Uh, yes sir, I can,’ I replied.

  ‘That’s not all that common—maybe only one Prince in ten gets it,’ said Glemri. ‘And it is a prerequisite for the Marines. With that, and your early start in combat, I bet you’d be a full colonel inside ten years. Have a regiment of your own.’

  ‘I’ll seriously think about it, sir,’ I replied.

  I would think about it, but I really doubted that I’d take up the offer. I liked the mekbi troopers; they were straightforward and kind of soothing to be around. But Glemri and the few other Marine officers I’d met were a bit too deadly serious. They seemed to come from the end of the Princely spectrum that lived for their profession and rated nothing else as important. I didn’t want to become a useless kind of do-nothing Prince that came at the opposite end of the spectrum, but I wasn’t ready for the kind of dedication the Marines had either.

  I also wasn’t all that keen about ground combat. I still woke at night sometimes with a sudden phantom sensation in my elbow, and images stuck in my head of that bloody fight in the corridor.

  No. I would fight where necessary, of course, but I wasn’t going to join up with the Imperial service that did the most of that kind of fighting, and to no small degree actually went looking for it.

  Commandant Kothrez didn’t come and see me, but she did order me into her office for a discussion about my career. She thought I had a good future in the Navy and encouraged me to stay on for the advanced courses. A pair of cadet officer’s bronze epaulettes lay on the table in front of her, mine for the taking if I accepted.

  Once again, I had learned a little tact. I expressed interest and reserved my decision to the last possible moment, which would be the evening after our graduation parade.

  The morning before that parade, we all sat on our beds in our ceremonial uniforms, minus boots and fur hats, and discussed the choices we had decided to make. Unspoken, but present in all our thoughts, was the knowledge that once we left here, we would be rejoining the survival-of-the-fittest world of Imperial Princes. Even those Princes returning to the Academy or joining a ship would be eligible for duels and liable to assassination, at least for the three months or so till their active service resumed. It was even possible that some of the Princes I was listening to in my barracks already had plans to eliminate me or other classmates. Haddad had told me that it was not unusual for dozens of duels and assassination attempts to take place on the first shuttle from Kwanantil Nine to Kwanantil Four.

  Tyrtho, not unexpectedly, obviously knew this. I was intrigued to discover that she had not only already signed up for the advanced course and would be continuing at the Academy, but that she had somehow wangled a job for the three-month vacation period. She would be assisting a lieutenant commander who was redesigning the base defence systems, and so wouldn’t be leaving the Academy and wouldn’t be at risk from duels or assassination.

  I didn’t bother asking how she’d managed it. Like Tyrtho, the lieutenant commander in question was House Tivand, and so was the Commandant. But I was impressed with the forward thinking. I might have tried to do something similar, only my desire to get out into the greater galaxy was rather stronger than my fear of assassination or duelling.

  Possibly because I was, once again, overconfident. I’d already been killed once and come back to life, and it hadn’t been so bad. . .

  Aliadh and Calzik had volunteered for ship duty, asking for the same ship. They’d left House Jerrazis, and Aliadh had told me they would start their own House when they were senior enough. They were very unusual among Princes, totally devoted to each other from the very beginning, though of course there was no sexual component to their relationship. Princes are not only forbidden sexual liaisons among ourselves but programmed not to be able to indulge. We have our mind-programmed courtesans or other normal humans to take care of that.

  Back then, I do not think I ever considered that what Aliadh and Calzik had might be love. I had no experience of what normal humans called love. I had never seen it or been taught anything about the concept by the priests in my childhood temple. There was sex, of course, which was done with inferiors for the fun of it. There were mutual assistance pacts, as between Princes of the same House. There were ties of obligation and service, such as a Master of Assassins owed to his or her Prince and to some lesser degree in return. There was loyalty, as given to the Empire, because anything else was unthinkable.

  But love?

  I did not know what love was then, but I think perhaps Aliadh and Calzik had something like it, some deep feeling that made them place each other’s concerns even above their own. Somehow a small, remnant piece of basic humanity had lasted all through their candidacy: they had an instinctive ability to love, so that when they encountered each other, they fitted together in a way that made the two of them more than each could ever be on their own.

  Back then, everyone thought they were weird. Some of the others even thought it was a kind of psychological game they were playing just to freak out everyone else and consequently give them an edge.

  ‘So what are you going to do, Khemri?’ asked Tyrtho. ‘You can’t put off making a decision much longer.’

  I didn’t answer. Instead I sent yet another message to the Imperial Mind.

  :When am I going to get a special mission?:

  I had expected to get back a typical ‘study hard and shut your face’ message. But I got something else entirely different this time.

  :Prince Khemri > promoted lieutenant Imperial Navy effective immediate on graduation.

  Transfer immediate Imperial Supply Station Arokh-Pipadh > appointed aide Commodore Prince Elzweko III > board INS Zwaktuzh Dawn > inbound Kwanantil Nine ETA 2315 CT ETD 0415 >:

  I had a moment of total shock. My special mission was to become a secretary to a supply clerk?

  The shock was quickly followed by an urgent inquiry to the Mind, which revealed that Commodore Elzweko was nearly two hundred years old, had been reborn only twice, had no significant decorations, and hadn’t been promoted in sixty-eight years. Supply Station Arokh-Pipadh was in a very peaceful, very boring quadrant that had very few combat elements in it and so very little supplying to do.

  Following lines of information, I was not greatly surprised to see that the newly appointed admiral commanding Rozaxra Domain, in which Arokh-Pipadh was one of the most minor outposts, was none other than Prince Jerrazis himself, very recently promoted to full admiral.

  Further millisecond inquiry showed that Jerrazis had actually put in a request for my services to join him at his headquarters, and that normally I could have just refused and gone on my merry way. But then the Grand Admiral of the Imperial Fleet herse
lf had promoted me and the Imperial Mind had confirmed the promotion, instantly signing me on for another year, whether I liked it or not. But the Mind had also changed the orders so that instead of going to Rozaxra Domain Headquarters, I was being sent to this supply outpost that, while in Rozaxra, wasn’t directly under Admiral Jerrazis’s command but instead came under the Supply Directorate on the Imperial Core.

  I had no idea what this meant. All I knew was that I couldn’t refuse. I’d just been suckered into another year in the Navy. Transferred to a supply station on an asteroid in the middle of nowhere, the move at least in part initiated by someone who had good reason to be my enemy.

  ‘So what are you going to choose, Khemri?’ repeated Tyrtho.

  I picked up my fur hat and stuck it on my head, then reached for my boots before I answered.

  ‘Yeah, what?’ asked Aliadh.

  ‘It seems,’ I replied as I stood up and brushed a nonexistent fleck off the ribbon of my Hero of the Empire medal, ‘that my services are so important to the Emperor that I have been promoted to lieutenant immediately.’

  I felt the sudden flurry of queries to the Imperial Mind, followed immediately by several looks of disbelief, one smile (from Tyrtho), and a sneer.

  ‘So from this afternoon you can all call me sir,’ I said.

  Before I collected more sneers, or perhaps a bunch of busbies thrown at my head, I added, ‘And just to temper the blow of injustice for those of you who quite rightfully think that I shouldn’t have been promoted ahead of your good selves, I’m being sent straightaway, without graduation leave or any time off, to be the jumped-up secretary of a passed-over commodore in charge of a supply station in the middle of nowhere.’