From his voyeur’s viewpoint, Eron had fallen dizzily in love with the elegant Melinesa. She had once kissed him on the forehead during one of their rare meetings in the flesh (a state occasion), smiling into his eyes without even knowing that he knew. From such infatuation it was only a small step to forging his father’s “unforgeable” electro-signature to a youth’s heartfelt blathering—thus earning for his father an undeserved night of reconciled passion. It was the duty of a son to see that his father conformed to the highest standards of behavior with women. Eron believed in poetic exculpation for churlishness; honor be damned.
Still, it astonished Eron—shook him even—to discover from these mere Hasani that ins father was taking bribes. A Ganderian taking bribes from the Empire! It was unthinkable. Osa Junior bowed his excuses to the moneysmiths, exited through the slit in the drapes, and allowed himself to wander aimlessly through the maze of the Alcazar’s curtained corridors, dancing from slither belt to slither belt, careful to stay four paces behind any other traveler so as not to offend them.
The long walk gave him time to think—with his fam set at accelerated assimilation. He was faced with a complicated matter of family honor. A full watch passed before he could decide upon his stem moral duty. Then it was another stint out on the Field of the Athletes, marching up and down the field to his inner drums to find the courage to do it. Back inside the Alcazar he touched his personal “kick” in its hidden holster-—the sidearm his father had trained him to use as a five-year-old. No male of Agander felt dressed without his sidearm and his underwear, neither of which it was polite to expose in company. When he was alone in a corridor, he checked the charge because it was unmannerly to check one’s charge in public. Eron was now set to face down his father with the truth.
A swift bit of sidestepping took him off the belts and to his final destination, a huge bootharium where the Alcazar’s staff sustained ultrawave communication with the stars. A steward led him to a tier of small alcoves, then waited politely as he chose one. It did not matter that Eron was the Adjudicator’s son, he was never allowed to wander around the critical core of the palace without an escort; such were the subtle protocols of Agander, masked as the privilege of honors.
The alcove was decorated by a flying flight of frothy-headed messenger birds, a furred avian imported by Agander’s original settlers. A replica of the messenger bird stood at the center of the alcove on one long chromium leg, ready to lay a gleaming Personal Capsule. But it was not interstellar distances Eron had to span—he only wanted access to his father in the tower-office above the bootharium. At a gesture the replica shifted weight to its other leg, revealing a visi-plate. “My dad,” he stated in answer to the implied question. The visiplate needed no further codes or information. It had recognized him and was able to deduce his purpose.
The elder Osa showed displeasure at the disturbance. “Eron, Eron... I told you we will have an answer by tomorrow. The school will reply and they will accept you—your tutor, bless him, has seen to that. And why aren’t you with him now?”
“I’m on assignment.”
“And playing hooky, as usual?”
Tm finished. I have to see you now.”
“Eron, I'm preparing for a very important meeting. No.” Eron paused, assessing his father’s many vulnerabilities. Which one could he activate that was good enough to get him admitted to his father’s office? “Sir, I’ve been investigating Vanhosen. It’s not a good school. I don’t like it. I want something better. I won’t go!”
His father froze. “You will! That’s nonsense. You and your school games! You get up here this inaminl I haven’t got time for this!”
The steward who had escorted him into the vast bootharium was already receiving his new instructions when Eron emerged from the alcove; Osa’s disobedient son now had no choice about where he was to go next—exactly where he had intended to go. Smiling, Eron followed his “custodian” to the levitation stage, preparing his confrontational speech while the verticule floated them gently up into the tower.
He had no intention to discuss his schooling. Immediately upon facing his father he proposed to catch his pater-felon unaware by directly launching into higher matters of honesty and bribery! His tutor had trained him to a keen edge. He was only twelve but he felt well prepared to outfox his father in any philosophical contest—especially when his father was positioned on such morally weak ground. A son had to let it be known that he was disgraced to have such a parent!
The senior Osa swiveled as they arrived. He had been pacing beside his desk. Before he finished his turn he was already moving forward, his glare dismissing the steward. He did not speak. His commanding authority demanded that no one speak until he, Adjudicator Osa, spoke first. Only then did he fire off his tirade about education and the necessity of attending a good school. It was futile to interrupt him. He did not spare in his description of the toothed demons who awaited little boys who neglected their studies. “It’s Vanhosen! It’s been arranged! I could send you here to school on Agander And how would you like that?
The elder Osa had guessed right; Eron shuddered at the threat even while he stood against his father’s blast* He opened his mouth to reply...
But the father got there first. Tm sending you to the best school on Mowist! Mowist is the central power of the Ul-mat, the hub that joins us with Empire. Great Space, .child, the mistakes you make now will be exacting payment from your hide for the rest of your life! Mistakes can kill or cripple you! If you don’t get your education while you are still a suckling youth, you’ll be wandering around like a famless beggar by the time you are manhighi”
Eron was humiliated now, mainly angry because he had been unable to launch a thrust powerful enough to redirect his father’s surprise attack. This man was so frustrating! “Vanhosen is a pimple on the Galaxy!” he half threatened, half whined. “If I go there I will have to pay! It’ll give me hide-pimples for the rest of my life.” He glared back into the blazing eyes of a daddy. How could he get off this subject and launch his attack?
But his silly pout had set his father to ranting and raving again. Eron ranted back, trying to hold his own but aware that he was losing every exchange. The ancient Imperial weaponry decorating the walls mocked him, for these were the weapons that had once vanquished Agander. He could still deliver his low blow—the details of the bribes his father had taken—but it began to seem less tactically wise to escalate this row about the mere details of a schooling into a war over treason. Something choked the words in his mouth—r-fear.
He intensified the contretemps in a safer way, mocking Vanhosen by comparing it to Kerkorian. His sudden left hook was a hit. Ah! Instantly he took advantage of his father’s stagger by lauding Kerkorian’s rival, Splendid Wisdom’s Lyceum. A right hook. Another hit. That excited Eron into a rally of blows; he called upon his fam to supply the qualifications for a long list of schools far superior to the best that Mowist could offer, something Eron had researched assiduously. In a Galaxy of thirty million settled solar systems, that was easy. He was able to denigrate Vanhosen until it began to sound like a prefam nursery.