–

– 5 –

Soleil could now bundle cords, the process of tying separate streams together along their lengths to create a new trunk.  A bound set of cords proceeded differently.  The conversations illuminated each other.  Once she could tell them apart, she learned how to put them together.  To do this, she used a viewport or a streamviewer.  Though it meant she was parked in one spot more often, this was her greatest degree of self- agency aboard their ship.

Soleil understood this to be a living network, which continually amazed her.  People felt this as they breathed and walked, like a part of their biology.  The streams were always responding.  The ways they were created, combined, and recombined blew her mind.

They were so much like humans.  How long have they been Vedani?  Where did they come from?

–

– 6 –

The Royal Court of Alisandre was as old as it gets, and as new as they could make it, byzantine to its own youth.  According to Draig’s memory, the Princess had never been lost, though he often kept her company by encouragement, a sense of duty, and sheer curiosity.  No one ever stopped them, and he understood without being told that no one was to stop her.  Besides, why would he?  The kind of trouble she got into was no bigger than him.

This time, they’d found a seam, where well-kept ancient building met gleaming expansion.  Soleil peered through a waist-high portico on the old side.  “There are stairs!”  She boosted herself to hang through it.  “Small, not grand.”  The Princess wiggled over the lip and stood again to face him from the other side, now taller.  “They go up,” she said, pointing, and disappeared as she beckoned him up behind her.

They climbed together around a bend in the stair, losing the new wall behind them.  Above and ahead was a similarly sized opening, blocked with a piece of fitted and barred wood.  Fists at her waist, she inspected it.  “You can reach that, can’t you?”

Draig raised his arms to grip the wooden bar.  “I can get a good hold.”

Looking from him to the barricade, her smile grew.  “Will you help me open it?”  Catching the smile, he nodded.  It was blocked, neither sealed nor locked; he didn’t think there’d be a skeleton or a beast behind it.  She held up the barricade while he removed the bar, and together they cajoled the piece of wood from its dusty seat.

They squinted their eyes against the sudden breeze that blew across their faces.  The Princess peeked out.  “It’s a walkway.”  She boosted herself over and through like last time.  Draig felt his heart pound.  Soleil’s head poked above the sill – she was sitting.  “It’s high down this side,” she said tersely.  Her dark hair picked up in the wind.  He went to follow her out, but she said, “You’d better not.”  All he could see from his view was part of her and a section of stone beyond.

“I’m just going to…”  With a hand inside the opening, she stood.  The breeze couldn’t be that strong, could it?  She was standing differently, eyes blinking, face serious.  Then, she just climbed back in.  They left things the way they found them.

–

– 7 –

She could bundle; she could trunk; but, could she connect? Somehow Soleil could tell she was communicating with youth.

Soleil was carefully given, by request as if she were stupid, instructions on how to complete a hand-to-hand connection. The Vedani started as simple as it gets. “Make your hand into a fist, back facing up, knuckles pointing forward. When I say go, move it forward slowly and evenly. As though it’s going to hit something. Don’t be too surprised.” But she was utterly surprised when it did. She instantly looked down at her hand. “Did you feel me? You did it, look.”

The trunk she’d been working on was now made of double the cords, as though they had all formed together. Hers were yellow, theirs were blue, things were starting to look green. “Yeah, I felt that.” Afterward, Soleil practiced with them in earnest.

“Angle your chop hand at minus thirty-five and slash it backward like you’re cleaning your sword.”

“Make your fist explode when it connects, keeping your fingers straight forward as you draw your hand back toward you.”

“Bunch the fingertips of one hand together into a little point. See the bird head? Okay, peck. But pointier, and harder.”

“Knock on the door three times with your rapping knuckles.”

“Point your index finger in front of you, and slowly poke.”

Soleil learned names for the motions, getting faster via shorthand. The first time she correctly hit a series of eleven in a row, she felt great about the results. “Did someone order more fries?”

“Yes we did, and you delivered.”

“Piping hot.”

“Krinkle Kut.”

–

– 8 –

Her first time to the Great Library, she went with her grandmother. Soleil was old enough to navigate the directories at will. Celeste watched with a benign smile. The Princess created a tableful of stacks according to her whim – pretty, neat sounding, nice seeming, interesting, linked. She discovered at least five books which were listed, but not available.

There was one she could recall, of which she had still not seen the inside. She wondered about it. The title included the word, ‘movements.’ She’d been sure it was beyond her reading level at the time, but that was how she challenged herself. She picked up subjects that lay beyond her realm of understanding. It meant she might gain something, that she would grow up a little. With certainty, that was something she wanted to do.

The Vedani didn’t have books. They had cords, trunks, and netbranches bearing a never-ceasing flow of words, voices, concepts, and ideas that one could arrange with focus. Soleil missed the feel of a tome, but maybe that meant no book was ever closed, or missing.

–

– 9 –

Stubborn determination taught her how to throw.  Throwing wasn’t a skill she’d especially cared to acquire.  A swing, however…

Soleil wanted a swing.  She was told by her father that she must learn how to hang it herself.  She knew where she wanted it.  Probably the most difficult tree in the whole court, for its picturesque qualities.  The branch called to her, saying, swing from me.

She actually looked at physics diagrams, and laid out five means before her, all frustrating.  Frustrating because she kept missing.  Close enough was not the correct spot if it was going to stay in place.  She watched people throw, eyes narrowed.  They made it look easy.  She continued to hurl her means at the beckoning branch, wondering if this was taking too long.

Then it was like an eye opened, a suddenly bright point in space.  When she saw it, her muscles spasmed, and the line sailed straight through.  She stood there shocked, watching the line laying in the right spot.  She would do it a second time.

–

–

– 10TH SEQUENCE –

–

– 1 –

When the scion Princess experienced entity contact by induced dreaming sleep, they had clamored, hissed, accused. She understood that they were different from the peoples she knew, which was less prominent in the exchange than the fact that they were people. A layer of mystery protected them from presupposition. They delivered key knowledge. It wasn’t a declaration (we’re going to do these things), or an ultimatum (we’ll do these things unless), but like a tsunami warning. These things are now to occur. It’s war, unlike any the Pan-Galactic Imperium has seen.

She knew nothing else would come to her directly in this conflict. Her likely appointed role would have been understanding, relating, and managing the moods of the Pan-Galactic peoples. Like any citizen, she would hear about it, and respond with thinking or feeling. It was a figurehead position that could be done by someone considerate, and gracefully dressed. Margeaux was good enough at it, and Mireille was better. Princess Soleil wasn’t a military tech pilot like her mother had been by a year past her age. She wouldn’t be leading any rash or symbolic salvos with her loyal team of ships. Soleil had pursued diplomacy. The people she met on her official travels sometimes said she made a better connection with them than any royal visitors in folk memory. So, she was good at meeting strangers.

No one else could step into the opportunity offered by the contact, like a ticket to a different future. She accepted their gambit; it was the last, best chance to learn and know them before being caught in the divide. Soleil calculated quickly that it was worth her life to do, that this was no scripted role of imparted procedure.

She’d figured it out – first, she had to do that. Using her knowledge mechanic, she uncovered theirs with the signs she’d been given. Now I see you, now you see me. You have a vehicle. I have your address. Would they have brought her through if she hadn’t shown them that she could understand? If she could put that much together, maybe she could accomplish more. Or maybe she’d be another fallen scion.

Ready, always ready. She held herself ready, to act, to perceive, to realize. Years of learning readiness meant that she didn’t overlook or turn away from the obvious door when it opened. Her path went straight through it, and she knew how to proceed along her path.

–

– 2 –

In this new place, these folk extended a cordial welcome, as Soleil had noted in her particular introduction to them in dream state. It was possible to doubt something no one else had seen, until she found herself undeniably surrounded. Despite this besieged captivity, it was a sudden relief to be out from under a different weight of watchfulness. These people were strangers or enemies, which was easier to understand than the mixed motives of those she trusted.

They who called themselves Vedani taught her some rudimentary basics. How to read a map and transport herself around this dwelling vessel, the shape of it, and where to get food. They had food she could eat, similar enough to be from home, and called by similar names. They ate it too, though not very much, almost recreationally. She wondered how many humans they had dined with already besides the one she was sure that they knew, who was now missing an arm, awaiting the verdict they would deliver to a long-hated enemy of state. It seemed no one was interested in taking care of her, nor were they trying to hurt her, though everyone knew who she was.

A few knew her language. She imparted hers and gained some of theirs, unusual though it was to speak. She could learn no more if she didn’t start with this much. By the way they smirked she knew she was missing some common critical element, but they responded to her efforts with comprehension, even adjusting her human approximations. The skill came more easily under urgency. Soleil was pleased to be allowed a child’s grasp of their means.

–

– 3 –

First, she had to learn how to listen. Humans could do it, they insisted, and Soleil didn’t hide the fact that she found the notion daunting enough to show serious doubt. The Vedani communication networks were complex, built to be instinctual, and seemed to require long division. They brought her to a viewport, an empty frame with oddly attached peripherals. When she grasped the cords they offered, the cacophony she heard approached static saturation. The image she could now see was a terrible mess. Her first reaction was a helpless, blank look – not one she was used to wearing.

It was solid hours of listening before she learned how to color their voices, then how to judge their distance and the ring of relevance with only perhaps a symbolic coordinate. Soleil wondered how much space was really represented by this interface.

They showed her a terrain uniquely theirs. Soleil had figured after first meeting them that she must meet them fully, and now was glad she’d committed to the notion.

–

– 4 –

Sometimes, she called the race. Other times, he did. She knew the Imperial hallways better, from the four years since she learned how to walk in them. When the Princess called an unexpected snap, Draig knew it would be a good one.

Straightaways were fair, and fun, since their races weren’t necessarily clean. Almost as a rule, they included shoving, windmilling, and weird stepping. Maximum impediment without sending each other to the floor. Sometimes, his six-year advantage was no advantage at all, her light feet seeming not to touch the ground, gaining over his awkwardly growing stride. A straight hallway meant they could see when there was no traffic ahead. They were like puppies crossing a kitchen floor, puppies that got faster and faster.

–