Timothy Zahn - Star Song and Other Stories

"Something's wrong here, Jake," she said slowly, her voice barely audible.

"Something having to do with Jimmy."

I felt my heart seize up. Jimmy was our musicmaster, a vital ingredient for getting the Sergei Rock back home. "You think he's in danger?"

"I don't know," she said, her eyes focused on infinity. "It's something that's been nagging at me ever since last night."

I looked over at the guards flanking the doorway. The way their uniforms were cut, I couldn't tell whether they were armed or not. "What time last night?

After we got to the city?"

"No, before that," Rhonda said, her forehead creasing a little harder. "It was on the flight over here; but it started before that..."

Abruptly, she looked up at me. "It was when we first met Suzenne," she hissed.

"When you introduced Jimmy as our musicmaster. She never asked what a musicmaster was."

I played the whole scene back in my mind. Rhonda was right. "Could she have asked someone during the flight?"

"No," Rhonda said, shaking her head microscopically. "I was sitting next to her, remember? Jake, they didn't have musicmasters until fifty years ago."

"I know," I said, a sudden tightness in my stomach. "I think I even mentioned to Suzenne that it was hard to explain."

"So why didn't she ask about it?" Rhonda persisted. "Either she's not very curious... or else she already knew."

I looked over at Suzenne, still on the phone. "But that's impossible," I murmured. "If someone else had found the Freedom's Peace, we'd have heard about it."

Rhonda shivered. "Only," she said, "if they made it home again."

I swallowed hard. "That new species of flapblacks Bilko spotted hanging around the asteroid. The InReds." "I was just wondering that," Rhonda murmured. "Suzenne and the others might not even realize the previous transport or transports hadn't made it back alive."

"Maybe it's time for a few direct questions," I suggested.

"You sure you want to hear the answers?"

"No," I admitted. "But I'd better ask them anyway." Squaring my shoulders, I took a step toward Suzenne—

And at that moment, the two guards suddenly came to life. Stepping to the center of the double doors, they each took one of the handles and pulled.

Suzenne was beside us before the doors even started to open. "All right, here we go," she said. "Remember, don't be nervous. Ah—Scholar. Good; you made it."

I turned my head to see Kulasawa step into line between Suzenne and Rhonda.

Her outfit was a surprise: a flowing-line jacket-blouse of a rich-looking brocade over a contrasting flare skirt. It made our transport-crew uniforms look positively shabby, I thought with vague resentment, and I wondered briefly why in the worlds a scholar would bring such an outfit on a trip between Angorki and Parex. But then, unlike the rest of us, she'd known what the Sergei Rock's true destination was. "Where are the others?" she muttered to Suzenne.

"Not here," Suzenne said. "Don't worry about it. Everyone; here we go."

We walked forward in unison, crossing the rest of the foyer and stepping between the open doors.

My first impression of the room was that its tone fit the outer building much more than it did the ornate doorway leading into it. More like an expansive office than the way I would have envisioned a throne room, it was dominated by a

large desk near the back wall. A few meters to our right, a semicircular couch that could comfortably seat eight people was positioned around a low circular table on which was a carafe and several glasses. Scattered around the room were a few free-standing lamps and sculptures on pedestals; on the walls were some paintings and textureds, tastefully arranged and spaced. Off to the left, almost looking like an afterthought, was a high-backed throne that had apparently been carved out of a single block of pale, blue-green stone.

And seated there waiting for us was King Peter.

He was a bit older than I'd expected—somewhere in his eighties, I guessed—clean shaven instead of with the bushy beard I'd sort of expected every self-respecting monarch automatically came equipped with. His clothing was also something of a disappointment: no crown and royal robes, but merely a subdued white suit with gold buttons and trim. Kulasawa's outfit, I thought uneasily, was going to make him look a little shabby, too.

"Welcome to the Freedom's Peace," he said, rising to his feet as we turned to face him. "I'm King Peter, titular ruler of this world. I trust you've been properly looked after?"

"Yes, sir, we have," I said, suddenly realizing to my chagrin that Suzenne hadn't given us any pointers in protocol. "I mean, Your Highness—"

" 'Sir' will suffice, Captain Smith," he assured me, stepping up and offering me his hand. "I'm pleased to meet you." "Thank you, sir," I managed, shaking his hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, too."

He smiled. "Actually, a simple 'Peter' will do, if you're so inclined," he said in a conspiratorial tone. "The citizens here like the idea of having a monarch, but we all have too much common sense to take the idea too seriously."

He took a step to the side and offered his hand to Rhonda. "Engineer Blankenship," he nodded, shaking her hand. "Welcome."

"Thank you sir," she said. "You have a beautiful world."

"We like it," he said, moving to Kulasawa. "And Scholar Kulasawa. What do you think of the Freedom's Peace, Scholar?"

"It's more than merely beautiful," she said. "I'm looking forward to examining it in much more detail."

"You'll be given that chance," Peter promised gravely, waving toward the wraparound couch. "But please; let's be comfortable."

We crossed to the couch and sat down, Peter and Suzenne taking one end as the rest of us spread out around the curve, Kulasawa taking the far end. "I'm sure you have many questions about our world," Peter said as Suzenne began pouring drinks from the carafe. "If there's anything you'd like to know right now, I'll do my best to answer."

I took a deep breath. So he wanted questions. So OK, here it came. "I have one,"

I said. "Are we the first visitors you've had in the past fifty years?"

Peter and Suzenne exchanged glances. "An interesting question," Peter murmured.

"A very interesting question, indeed."

"I thought so," I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. Whatever was going on here, that single glance had been all I needed to know I'd hit the target dead center. Whatever the hell the target was. "I'd like an answer, if I may."

A muscle in Peter's jaw tightened briefly. "As it happens, you're the fourth Expansion transport to find us," he said.

I felt Rhonda stir beside me. "And what happened to the other three?" I asked carefully.

"The crews are still here," Peter said, his gaze steady on me. "Most of them.

There were two... fatalities."

"What kind of fatalities?" Kulasawa asked.

"They were killed trying to escape," Suzenne said. "I'm sorry."

"What do you mean, escape?" I asked.

"What she means is that you can't leave, my friends," Peter said quietly.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to stay with us for the rest of your lives." A lot of different thoughts go shooting through your mind when you hear something like that. My first thought was that this was some kind of strange joke Peter and Suzenne liked to play on visitors, that any second now they would smile and say, no, they were just kidding. My second thought was that the TransShipMint Corporation was going to be seriously unhappy if I disappeared without paying back their two hundred thousand. My third was that I wasn't going to be very happy either if I wasn't allowed to make that debt right.

And the fourth, which overrode them all, was that I was damned if I would walk meekly into this cage they were casually telling me to step into.