She consulted individuals, often summoning them from other universes, and she had at her disposal all the news from everywhere, organized in a system that had been developed over centuries. It was through this system that she decided what problems to consider. One chronic complaint was that the Imperium ignored "vital questions"—and so it did. Her Wisdom passed judgment only on problems she selected; the bedrock of the system was that most problems solved themselves.
We often went to social events; we both enjoyed parties and, for Her Wisdom and Consort, there was endless choice. There was one negative protococlass="underline" Star neither accepted nor regretted invitations, showed up when she pleased and refused to be fussed over. This was a drastic change for capital society as her predecessor had imposed protocol more formal than that of the Vatican.
One hostess complained to me about how dull society had become under the new rules—maybe I could do something?
I did. I looked up Star and told her the remark whereupon we left and joined a drunken artists' ball—a luau!
Center is such a hash of cultures, races, customs, and styles that it has few rules. The one invariant custom was: Don't impose your customs on me. People wore what they did at home, or experimented with other styles; any social affair looked like a free-choice costume ball. A guest could show up at a swank party stark naked without causing talk—and some did, a small minority. I don't mean non-humans or hirsute humans; clothes are not for them. I mean humans who would look at home in New York in American clothes—and others who would attract notice even in l'Ile du Levant because they have no hair at all, not even eyebrows. This is a source of pride to them; it shows their "superiority" to us hairy apes, they are as proud as a Georgia cracker is of his deficiency in melanin. So they go naked oftener than other human races. I found their appearance startling but one gets used to it.
Star wore clothes outside our home, so I did. Star would never miss a chance to dress up, an endearing weakness that made it possible to forget, at times, her Imperial status. She never dressed twice alike and was ever trying something new—and disappointed if I didn't notice. Some of her choices would cause heart failure even on a Riviera beach. She believed that a woman's costume was a failure unless it made men want to tear it off.
One of Star's most effective outfits was the simplest. Rufo happened to be with us and she got a sudden notion to dress as we had on the Quest of the Egg—and biff, bang, costumes were available, or manufactured to order, as may be; Nevian clothes are most uncommon in Center.
Bows, arrows, and quivers were produced with the same speed and Merry Men were we. It made me feel good to buckle on the Lady Vivamus; she had been hanging untouched on a wall of my study ever since the great black Tower.
Star stood, feet planted wide, fists on hips, head thrown back, eyes bright, and cheeks flushed. "Oh, this is fun! I feel good, I feel young! Darling, promise me, promise me truly, that someday we will again go on an adventure! I get so damn sick of being sensible."
She spoke English, as the language of Center is ill suited to such ideas. It's a pidgin language with thousands of years of imports and changes and is uninflected, positional, and flat.
"Suits," I agreed. "How about it, Rufo? Want to walk that Glory Road?"
"After they pave it."
"Guff. You'll come, I know you. Where and when, Star? Never mind ‘where'—just ‘when.' Skip the party and start right now!"
Suddenly she was not merry. "Darling, you know I can't. I'm less than a third of the way through my training."
"I should have busted that Egg when I found it."
"Don't be cross, darling. Let's go to the party and have fun."
We did. Travel on Center is by apports, artificial "Gates" that require no "magic" (or perhaps still more); one sets destination like punching buttons in an elevator, so there is no traffic problem in cities—nor a thousand other unpleasant things; they don't let the bones show in their cities. Tonight Star chose to get off short of destination, swagger through a park, and make an entrance. She knows how well tights suit her long legs and solid buttocks; she rolled her hips like a Hindu woman.
Folks, we were a sensation! Swords aren't worn in Center, save possibly by visitors. Bows and arrows are hen's teeth, too. We were as conspicuous as a knight in armor on Fifth Avenue.
Star was as happy as a kid playing trick-or-treat. So was I. I felt two axe handles across the shoulders and wanted to hunt dragons.
It was a ball not unlike one on Earth. (According to Rufo, all our races everywhere have the same basic entertainment: get together in mobs to dance, drink, and gossip. He claimed that the stag affair and the hen party are symptoms of a sick culture. I won't argue.) We swaggered down a grand staircase, music stopped, people stared and gasped—and Star enjoyed being noticed. Musicians got raggedly back to work and guests went back to the negative politeness the Empress usually demanded. But we still got attention. I had thought that the story of the Quest of the Egg was a state secret as I had never heard it mentioned. But, even if known, I still would have expected the details to be known only to us three.
Not so. Everyone knew what those costumes meant, and more. I was at the buffet, sopping up brandy and a Dagwood of my own invention, when I was cornered by Schherazade's sister, the pretty one. She was of one of the human-but-not-like-us races. She was dressed in rubies the size of your thumb and reasonably opaque cloth. She stood about five-five, barefooted, weighed maybe one twenty and her waist couldn't have been over fifteen inches, which exaggerated two other measurements that did not need it. She was brunette, with the slantiest eyes I've ever seen. She looked like a beautiful cat and looked at me the way a cat looks at a bird.
"Self," she announced.
"Speak."
"Sverlani. World—" (Name and code—I had never heard of it.) "Student food designer, mathematicosybaritic."
"Oscar Gordon. Earth. Soldier." I omitted the I.D. for Earth; she knew who I was.
"Questions?"
"Ask."
"Is sword?"
"Is."
She looked at it and her pupils dilated, "Is-was sword destroy construct guard Egg?" ("Is this sword now present the direct successor in space-time sequential change, aside from theoretical anomalies involved in between-universe transitions, of the sword used to loll the Never-Born?" The double tense of the verb, present-past, stipulates and brushes aside the concept that identity is a meaningless abstraction—is this the sword you actually used, in the everyday meaning, and don't kid me, soldier. I'm no child.)
"Was-is," I agreed. ("I was there and I guarantee that I followed it all the way here, so it still is.")
She gave a little gasp and her nipples stood up. Around each was painted, or perhaps tattooed, the multi-universal design we call "Wall of Troy"—and so strong was her reaction that Ileum's ramparts crumbled again.
"Touch?" she said pleadingly.
"Touch."
"Touch twice?" ("Please, may I handle it enough to get the feel of it? Pretty please, with sugar on it! I ask too much and it is your right to refuse, but I guarantee not to hurt it"—they get mileage out of words, but the flavor is in the manner.)
I didn't want to, not the Lady Vivamus. But I'm a sucker for pretty girls. "Touch...twice," I grudged. I drew it and handed it to her guard foremost, alert to grab it before she put somebody's eye out or stabbed herself in the foot.