Joan Vinge - The Summer Queen

“This is the woman with whom Gundhalinu is accused of committing treason?” Pernatte asked, as if he still found it hard to believe.

Vhanu nodded. “She is more than she seems. I consider it imperative that she be removed from Tiamat as quickly as possible, and never allowed to return. She should be taken to Kharemough, where she can be intensively questioned and investigated. Not only did she cause Gundhalinu to forsake his background and commit miscegenation, she led him to pervert Hegemonic policy to suit her own superstitious, primitive beliefs—”

Moon stiffened, taking a step forward; the guards forced her back, as Pernatte said, “Yes, yes, all that was in the report. But she is the sovereign ruler of an independent government, and however repugnant we may find her actions to be, making her our hostage is hardly justified by—”

“That isn’t all,” Vhanu said, with a sharpness that made heads turn. “This woman controls—powers, some hidden energy source we don’t know about, that enables her to do things that should be impossible.”

Pernatte looked mildly incredulous. “Such as—?”

“She controls Carbuncle’s power supply at will. She controls storms. She has taken control of our own orbital weapons systems, so that I didn’t dare to use them—”

“What?” Pematte’s disbelief was plain now.

“The city is in … disarray,” Vhanu said, his voice catching. “I have not been able to obtain the quotas of the water of life that I promised to deliver, even though—and here again, she lied—the seas are teeming with mers. She seduced Gundhalinu to make him stop the mer hunts; and when I took control from him she turned her people against us. And when even that wasn’t enough, she shut down the city’s power, so that it was all we could do to maintain order. After I forced her to restore the power, she called up a storm at sea that destroyed virtually every vessel in the city’s harbor. When I threatened to turn our weapons on Carbuncle unless she stopped the storm, she said that they would not function, that we would strike our own starport instead—” He broke off, as Pematte’s expression, and the rising murmurs of the people behind him, began to register. “I know, this seems absurd to thee, I know it sounds impossible; but it happened!”

Pernatte took a deep breath, as if someone had been holding his head under water. “This is … quite unexpected, Vhanu-sadhu.” He glanced away from Vhanu, at the tense, tentative faces of the other officials behind him. “Do you all share this interpretation of events—?”

“We did not actually witness all the incidents that Commander Vhanu related to thee, uncle,” Tilhonne said cautiously. “But what we do know about the Queen proves unquestionably that she is to blame for our difficulties in obtaining the water of life, and that Gundhalinu was involved in a liaison with her that compromised his judgment as Chief Justice, especially regarding the mers.”

“I see.” Pernatte pursed his lips. He turned slowly, as if his body were resisting the motion, until he faced Moon again. Meeting her eyes directly this time, he asked, “And what is your response to these questions? Do you have one—?”

“—Lady,” she finished for him, in Sandhi, seeing that he did not have the faintest idea even of how to address her. “I have many responses, Citizen Pernatte,” she said; addressing him as foreigners on his homeworld were expected to do. “Where shall I begin?” She felt the blood rise into her face as her existence suddenly became real to the others who surrounded her. Her gaze glanced off Vhanu’s frozen hatred, back to Pernatte’s reluctant attention, as Pernatte said, “I have always been told that Carbuncle’s power supply was completely self-contained. Do you actually have a secret way of controlling it?”

“No,” she said.

“Then how do you explain a blackout that lasted for three full days?” Tilhonne demanded. “There is no record of such a thing ever happening before.”

“Once in every High Year, Carbuncle shuts down,” she said carefully, “because it has to renew its systems. That only happens during High Summer; the Hegemony has never been on Tiamat during High Summer before.”

“Then how do you know about it,” Pernatte said, “if it only happens once in two hundred and fifty years?”

“The traditions of my people tell of it, going back for centuries.”

“I saw you restore power to the city with my own eyes!” Vhanu said.

She did not take her eyes off Pernatte. “I knew that it was due to happen. It would have happened anyway. I pretended to do it myself. It was an act.”

“And there was a storm that struck the city?” Pernatte said.

She nodded. “But that was the will of the Sea Mother … an act of the gods, you would say.”

His frown came back. “And do you actually have some means of controlling our orbital weapons system?”

She smiled, as she looked toward Vhanu at last; it was not a smile she remembered ever touching her face before. “That was a lie.”

“What—?” Vhanu started forward, stopped himself. “No! She said—n

“Did you actually test the system, Vhanu?” Pernatte asked.

“No, I was afraid to. I—”

“You believed what you wanted to believe, Commander,” Moon said, letting the disgust she felt for him fill her words. “You wanted to believe that I was—what was it, a witch? That the only way that BZ Gundhalinu could have fallen in love with me was because I had somehow … magicked him into a sexual obsession. That the only reason he could possibly have for resisting the slaughter of the mere was that I had him in my thrall. That the only motive I could have for protecting them was superstition … that the only reason I could have for taking him into my bed was to use and control him. Nothing—” She broke off, taking a deep breath. She looked back at Pernatte. “Nothing,” she said softly, “could be further from the truth.”

Pernatte stared at her for a long moment, and she found no understanding in his eyes. But, to her surprise, she found belief. “So you are saying, then, that everything you did, and Gundhalinu did, was for the purpose of protecting the mers, which you claimed were an intelligent alien race, and not merely animals?”

“Yes,” she said.

He looked down, away, restlessly. “Frankly,” he said at last, “I have found the idea that the mers could be intelligent almost impossible to accept.”

Moon opened her mouth.

“But—” Pernatte held up his hand. “I have been forced to accept it … we all have.” He indicated the tribunal members around him.

She did not know whether the disbelief on Vhanu’s face or her own was more complete. “What are you saying?” Vhanu demanded. “That you accept what this foreign woman has told you, over my own testimony—?”

“No.” Pernatte looked at him with troubled eyes. “I am saying that we have been—made aware of certain relevant new data, new discoveries , by sources which are above question.” He emphasized the words carefully. “This has resulted in a change in Hegemonic policy. The Central Coordinating Committee has reversed its position on the status of the mers. It has declared them to be a separate intelligent race. They will no longer be hunted and killed; there will be no more water of life.” His eyes turned bleak as he spoke the final words.

“What?” Vhanu said. “That’s impossible! Father of all my grandfathers, I don’t believe this!”

Pematte’s dour expression deepened into disapproval. “I know this comes as a blow to thee, as it does to all of us. Thou may verify it, if thou wish—we have a sibyl here.” He gestured at the tribunal member who wore a trefoil.