Vernor Vinge - The Witling

At last old Shozheru found his voice, though it quavered with pain and anger. “ Why, Pelio? You could have been king of All Summer … at least in name. I had managed that.” His voice croaked away into silence, then began again. “All, all you had to do was to keep some shred of dignity about you, to pretend that my dynasty could continue through you. Instead, you surround yourself with de—degenerates.” He pointed spastically at the tall strangers standing behind Pelio. “If I let you succeed me, your ‘court’ would be the laughingstock of All Summer. What vassal could even pretend loyalty to you? The empire would fall in a year—though it has stood five centuries.” And now the pain seemed much stronger than the rage. “What choice have I, Pelio? By law you must succeed me, or you must die. After this”—again he gestured at Ionina and Adgao—“you can never succeed me.”

A soft yet defiant voice spoke from behind Pelio. “There is other choice.” Ionina’s interruption stopped Shozheru cold. No nobleman had ever addressed him so abruptly, much less a commoner, much less a witling. Pelio turned to look at the girl. Ionina was not cringing. She looked levelly at Shozheru, and her strange beauty held him motionless. But when she spoke again, her words broke the spell—in fact, provoked quickly suppressed laughter through the crowd:

“Pelio will travel across the Great Ocean soon, and you will have rid of him.”

The king-imperial’s body straightened as he gathered his powers. “Do not mock me!” His voice was shrill and womanish but there was death in his face, and at that moment Ionina should have fallen dead, the interior of her brain or heart jumbled into a nonfunctioning mess. Instead, Samadhom gave a pained yelp and rushed clumsily to her side.

The girl continued, her voice tense and argumentative. Didn’t she know how close she’d come to death? “I do not mock you. I speak truth.”

Shozheru came down from his rage, his body bending back into its usual infirm posture. For the first time he seemed aware of the onlookers. He glared weakly at the three witlings and said, “We will discuss this in private. Now.”

The crowd parted silenty before them as they walked to the transit pool.

Shozheru’s study was in the western foothills of the palace mountains. Beyond the open windows, brightly lit greenery stretched half a mile to where the land dropped away to the depths of the equatorial rain forest. Inside, the room was plain, its only ornamentation a collection of small paintings—portraits of Shozheru’s forty-seven predecessors. Even the table at the center of the room was devoid of the carven gargoyles so popular nowadays. Except for the addition of four portraits, the room had remained unchanged for nearly a century, since the Teratseru period—when simplicity had been thought elegant.

The study was very crowded at first, before the king ordered his advisers and all the guards to leave. In another time, Pelio would have been greatly amused at those advisers’ consternation; they came close to angry argument with their king. But finally they left. Only five people were left then: Aleru and the king on one side of the room, and the three witlings on the other.

Shozheru set his palms on the deeply varnished surface of his desk and stared at his son for a long moment. The king seemed more rational, more resolved than before. “She says I have a third choice, Pelio.” He didn’t look at Ionina as he spoke. “She says you are going to ‘travel across the ocean,’ and leave the way to succession open to Aleru.”

Pelio looked down the table at Ionina and Adgao. The girl looked back at him with that dark, mysterious gaze of hers, and Pelio knew she hadn’t been mocking anyone: her witling kingdom must lie across the sea and she must know a way to get there.

“Yes, Sir, that is true,” he said.

“How?” The single word was loaded with infinite sarcasm; there were lands beyond the oceans, but no one—not even Guildsmen—could safely go there. Pelio opened his mouth, but no words came to mind.

“I will tell you how.” The girl’s voice was so soft, yet as decisive as before. Shozheru’s eyes swung unwillingly toward her, but this time he listened.

And Ionina told them. In some detail. A chill crept up from the pit of his stomach as she spoke. The scheme was insane; how could even magic make it work? Shozheru and Aleru listened expressionlessly but from their brief questions Pelio could tell they also thought the plan was a shortcut to a particularly unpleasant death.

When Ionina finished, Shozheru turned back to Pelio. “It would be suicide, son,” he said quietly. “Is this what you three really plan to do?”

What is the alternative? thought Pelio. He knew that Shozheru was convinced now that Pelio couldn’t rule Summer even as a figurehead king. That meant that Pelio must be removed; Pelio must die. Exile was not sufficient—so unbreakable custom dictated—for princes can always come out of exile with insurrectionist armies…

Yet no man had ever returned from across the sea, no man had ever survived a jump even one-tenth so far; the king could probably persuade his advisers to let Pelio undertake that journey, rather than have him executed.

“Yes, Father,” replied Pelio; but he doubted that—even with the faith he had in Ionina and Adgao—he could ever have accepted their scheme, if the alternative were not an imperial death warrant.

Shozheru looked down at the table. Behind him, Aleru stared through his father into the distance. It was obvious they understood the situation. This way, at least, the king would not have to be his own son’s murderer. “Very well,” Shozheru said at last. “I grant you three all the freedom the girl has asked for, all the materials, and all the labor.” He looked up at them, and Pelio realized that his father was making an expensive gesture in granting Pelio’s “wish.” The Summer court was already the butt of ridicule for the way it pampered the witling prince. “You have nine days.”

The king walked across the room and slipped into the transit pool without a word of farewell.

“I will send for your servants,” said Aleru as he too started for the transit pool. He hesitated by the water and turned to face the witlings. His head was silhouetted against the bright greenery beyond the windows, so Pelio couldn’t see his features. Was there a tinge of mockery in the words he spoke? “However this turns out, the dynasty will be saved, brother. But I hope that… somehow … you will succeed.”

They began their journey the morning of the seventh day after the Summer Festival. The sky was inauspiciously overcast and a warm drizzle slid down the sides of Pelio’s yacht as it floated in the North Wing’s transit lake. Yoninne Leg-Wot looked across the puckering water at the gray beaches and rain-slicked vegetation. There was no one to see them off. All that morning, as they finished their departure preparations, she hadn’t seen a single servant or nobleman except those assigned to Pelio’s project, and even they seemed sullen. This didn’t bother her, but Pelio took it all kind of hard. Since their confrontation with the king, many people weren’t even pretending respect for the prince. Pelio’s disgrace went so deep that he was almost like an “unperson” in some totalitarian state. And if they couldn’t accomplish Ajão’s plan in the nine days Shozheru had given them, Yoninne had the feeling they would all be dead unpersons, to boot.

Nine days. When Bjault and the Guildsman had first described the plan, that had seemed an awfully long time. She had soon found out how wrong she was. With all necessary equipment and technical support things would have been easy, since basically Ajão’s scheme was very simple. But in many ways the Azhiri technology was stuck in the iron age; even the simplest gadgets had to be made from scratch. The ballast for instance: on that item alone Yoninne had wasted three days testing various approaches.