But now therewere no surviving Shaa to assure that the evidence was destroyed. This was a perfect opportunity for a postmortem if not an actual dissection. If Martinez had been in charge of arrangements, the funeral and its solemn procession would have been postponed for days if not months, while expert pathologists sought out every last secret of Shaa physiology, and the best cyberneticians examined the machines to determine if they were, in fact, repositories of Shaa memory.
But Martinez was not in charge, and the secrets of the Shaa would die with the last of their kind.
Following Anticipation of Victory and its machines came the senior mourners, all in their reversed mourning uniforms: the white and deep red of the lords convocate, the white and brown of the Civil Service, the white and green of the Fleet, each service organized by species, in order of the seniority of conquest. The Naxids were first, their long bodies curving right and left in order to maintain the slow pace, followed by the Terrans, the Torminel, and so on. The only species missing were the Yormaks, who centuries ago had received special dispensation never to leave their home world.
Lord Pierre Ngeni was somewhere among the lords convocate, but Martinez didn’t see him. Amid the white uniforms of the Fleet, he saw Senior Fleet Commander Jarlath, the new commander of the Home Fleet. He was a Torminel, his large nocturnal eyes covered by shaded spectacles even on this gray day, his plump, furry body swathed to the chin in mourning white. The combination of fur and an elaborate uniform could result in deadly overheating in his species—in less formal circumstances, Torminel officers usually wore only vests and short pants—but Martinez suspected that there were refrigeration units in his uniform to keep his body cooled to a reasonable temperature. Many Torminel in official posts would bleach their gray and black fur white for the duration of the mourning period rather than to risk heat stroke every day.
Martinez knew nothing of Fleet Commander Jarlath, and wished to know less. For Jarlath had replaced Fleet Commander Enderby, and after today Martinez would have to remove from his collar the red staff tabs that marked him as an officer of distinction.
Following the mourners of the Fleet came the white and blue of the Exploration Service, then the black and gold of the Legion of Diligence. The Legion alone had no mourning dress, which symbolized the fact that even mourning could not interrupt their incessant search for the foes of the Praxis.
After these came the bodies of those who had decided to follow the Great Master in death, first among them the Lady Senior of the Convocation, the highest-ranking individual in the empire not to have been born a Shaa. She moved past slowly on her catafalque, the wind whipping the scant feathery hair atop her hollow-boned body. Following the Lady Senior and other convocates came the biers of high-ranking civil servants. Each had taken massive doses of poison, and presumably died with their loyal family members worshipfully clustered about them—possibly to make certain they went through with it, or to pour the poison down their throats if they balked.
For the first time in his life Martinez felt grateful that the Martinez clan wasn’t of the first rank. If his family were expected to offer up one of their own, he couldn’t help but wonder whether they wouldn’t have handed the cup to him. His brother Roland was the presumed heir to Laredo and too important to die, and his sisters were—for the most part, anyway—a united front against all adversity. Perhaps a family council would have decided that the unfortunate Gareth, employed uselessly with the Fleet and with few prospects for aiding the others in their projects, would have been the most expendable.
Martinez was saved from further morbid thoughts by the sight of someone he knew—PJ Ngeni, dressed all in white, walking slowly in the procession with an unusually solemn look on his insipid face. He marched with other Ngenis behind the bier of one of their clan members, an elderly man with a distinguished white mustache who wore the uniform of a retired senior civil servant. Strange to think that the Ngenis would spare this one sooner than PJ.
PJ’s sojourn in the Shelley Palace garden with Sempronia had proved successful—certainly more successful than his own boat ride with Sula—and now that he and Sempronia had paid their obligatory visit to the Peers’ Gene Bank, Martinez was now obliged to treat PJ as a future brother-in-law. Had he not known that the whole thing was a sham, he would have been deeply offended, but as it was, he found himself almost genial around PJ.
Which was more than could be said for Sempronia, who was clearly keeping her fiancé at arm’s length. What PJ thought about being engaged to a girl who was doing her best to avoid his presence had not, so far, come to Martinez’s ears.
After the civil servants came the biers of the Fleet. Fleet Commander Enderby, without the fierce rigidity that animated him in life, looked shrunken and mournful in death. Martinez felt a surge of sadness at the sight.
He should have followed my advice, Martinez thought.
Enderby’s daughter, looking trim in the white and brown of the Civil Service, stepped from her place near Martinez and walked to the tail of her father’s bier. She held her own daughter, a child of nine or ten, by the hand.
The famous wife was nowhere in evidence.
“Party—forward!” called the senior captain on Martinez’s right, and he stepped out with the others of Enderby’s family and staff. The small formation, Enderby’s official family, performed a left wheel and placed themselves into the procession behind Enderby’s daughter and granddaughter, his chief mourners.
Other formations placed themselves in the procession. Among them, Martinez saw Cadet Foote. Apparently the Footes had sacrificed one of their own to the glory of their clan, though the solemnity of the occasion had done nothing to tame Foote’s cowlick.
Martinez was pleased to be moving, even if it was at this glacial pace. The solemnity of the death march meant that each foot had to hang in the air for a beat or two before it could be placed on the ground. The polished jackboots looked dashing and romantic, but were very heavy when suspended that way. The rest of the uniform had its disadvantages as welclass="underline" when the procession moved into gaps between the palaces that lined the road, the wind caught at his tall hat and whipped the cape of the next in line into his face.
He blinked and adjusted his hat, which earned a frown from the captain on his right.
The procession crept on. The scabbard of the curved knife banged against his right thigh with every step. Formations of cadets lined the road to keep order, and Martinez found himself searching for the bright hair and brilliant eyes of Cadet Sula. He failed to find her, and then reprimanded himself for looking for her in the first place.
He had been angry enough when she bolted and left him standing foolishly in the excursion boat. His temper hadn’t improved when he returned to his apartment and found the cold supper that Alikhan had left for two, and which Martinez unceremoniously shoved into the fridge on his way to bed.
His anger had faded to annoyance by morning, and faded yet again when he received a message from Sula. It was written on her datapad in a precise, uniform hand, and sent without being recorded on video. Perhaps she was embarrassed to be seen by him, even on a screen.
It’s entirely my fault, she’d written.Since I’m not fit company for man nor beast, I’m going to spend the rest of my furlough away from the capital, studying for my exams.
It had been a few hours before his ire faded to the point where he returned her message, scrawling her a note—this handwriting was contagious—to the effect that he’d be happy to speak with her whenever she felt like talking.
Apparently, she didn’t feel much like conversation, because he hadn’t heard from her again. He’d managed to console himself somewhat with Amanda Taen, who by this point he was finding refreshingly uncomplicated.