Star of Gypsies
- Автор: Силверберг Роберт
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Star of Gypsies». Краткое содержание книги:
"Help you?" I said, trying to sound innocently perplexed. "How can I possibly help you, Sunteil?"
"You say you are the king. I suspect that you are. The Rom everywhere obey you. No starship in the galaxy will go forth if the Rom baro gives the word. Flights everywhere will halt. Stop everything dead and Naria will fall."
"Perhaps."' "No perhaps about it. Do I need to tell you that the Rom hold the Imperium by the throat? Without interstellar commerce there is no Imperium. Without the Rom there is no interstellar commerce. You send out the word, Yakoub: There is to be no star travel until the legitimate emperor has taken the throne. In six weeks commerce will choke. You have the power."
His eyes were blazing. I had never seen Sunteil like this before. He was saying the unsayable, openly acknowledging the reality that everyone pretended did not exist. One didn't have to be as astute as Sunteil to see the stranglehold in which the Rom held the Imperium. But it was a power we had never chosen to invoke. We didn't dare. We could shut down the galaxy, yes. But we are very few and they are many. In time the Gaje could learn how to pilot their starships for themselves. If the Rom walked off the job there would be an ugly and chaotic period of transition in the Imperium, and then everything would be for the Gaje as it had been before. And then they would kill us all.
I was silent for a time.
Then I answered, "Possibly what you say is true, Sunteil. Possibly with my help you could force the Imperium to accept you as emperor. And possibly not. What if Naria survives the breakdown of commerce and keeps his throne? What will happen to me, then? What will happen to my people?"
"Naria will fall within weeks. Within days." "And if he doesn't?"
"You know that these are idle questions, Yakoub."
"I'm not so sure. Tell me this, Sunteiclass="underline" What do I have to gain by meddling in your civil war? If I back the wrong side, I destroy myself and-perhaps the whole Rom kingdom. If I do nothing, you and Naria fight it out and the winner will have to recognize me as king anyway."
Out of Sunteil's grotesque skull of a face came the brilliant flashing Sunteil smile again.
"If I win without your help, Yakoub, what makes you think I'll necessarily recognize you as king?"
I heard Chorian smother a gasp of shock. I had wanted him beside me here to learn the craft of statesmanship; but this was a post-graduate course.
Carefully I said, "Surely you imply no threat, Lord Sunteil." "Do you infer one?"
"I am the legitimate king of the Rom, chosen by the great kris and ratified by the Fifteenth Emperor. The Sixteenth, whoever he may be, has no way of undoing that ratification."
"It was my understanding that you abdicated, Yakoub, and that your son Shandor was chosen in your place by the great kris. And that no less a personage than Lord Naria, acting as deputy for the Fifteenth, laid the wand of recognition upon your son Shandor. All I would need to do is ratify Naria's action once I became emperor."
"Shandor is dead," I reminded him.
"Then the Rom throne would be vacant. I would nominate a successor."
"A blatant attempt to interfere in Rom sovereignty?"
"Don't try to be naive, Yakoub. It's never very convincing when you do. When Periandros pulled you out of Shandor's prison and set you up as king again, what was that if not interfering with Rom sovereignty? I concede that you Rom have a certain power over us, but we're not without power of our own. You know that the Rom king serves at the sufferance of the emperor."
"And apparently the emperor serves at the sufferance of the king, also."
"Exactly," Sunteil said. His smile returned, bizarrely benign this time. "Therefore why are we speaking of threats? I have no desire whatever to interfere in Rom sovereignty, to meddle with your right to the throne, or anything else of the sort. I simply want to be emperor. And I want you to help me."
"I told you. There are risks for me in it. And I see no reward, except to be allowed to keep what is already mine by absolute right."
"Oh, there would be a reward, Yakoub." "I suggest you name it."
"Romany Star," Sunteil said. "What do you say? Give me your support and you can have Romany Star."
I HAD TO LOOK AWAY, SO THAT SUNTEIL WOULD NOT SEE how stunned I was. Romany Star? How did he know that name? How was it that a lord of the Imperium was speaking of Romany Star?
I felt a moment of terrible vertigo. My face grew hot and my knees went weak and sudden bewildering terror stabbed my heart. For one flailing instant I thought I was going to fall. It was a bad moment, a dropping-through-the-hidden-trapdoor sort of moment. Then I managed to get the upper hand over my glands and transformed my fear into rage, which was no more useful but less debilitating. In God's name, who had told Sunteil about Romany Star? Who had revealed our most precious secret to this slippery Gajo? I would throttle the traitor with my own hands. Who could he be? I glared across the room. Chorian! Chorian! Of course. Sunteil's own little personal Rom, his Gypsy aide-de-camp -currying favor with the Gajo lord by letting him in on the deepest mysteries of our peopleI gave Chorian a look that I wished could blast his soul. He turned scarlet. And into his eyes came a piteous expression of-what? Anguish? Bewilderment? A yearning for the forgiveness that he knew could never come?
When I was a little more calm I turned back to Sunteil and said in a tight voice, "What do you know of Romany Star?"
"That isn't important. What is important is that I guarantee it will be yours, Yakoub, when I take the throne."
"You've already said that. But what do you think you're talking about? What do you mean when you say 'Romany Star'?"
Sunteil seemed very uneasy.
"A red star, it is. With a single planet circling it, that is also known as Romany Star."
"Go on."
"A place that for some reason is holy to the Rom people."
"For some reason, Sunteil? What reason?" "I don't know."
"You don't?"
"How would I? It's some private Rom thing. All I know is that you want this Romany Star terribly, but you don't dare go there and claim it, either because it currently belongs to someone else or because you think we'll want it for ourselves if we find out that you're after it. I don't know and I don't care. I don't even know where it is. What I'm telling you, Yakoub, is that Romany Star will be yours if you help me become emperor. Isn't that enough for you? My solemn promise."
A Gajo's promise, I thought bitterly. A Fenixi's promise.
"You have no idea where it is or what it is, but you'll let me have it?"
With some exasperation he replied, "I'd take your word for it. You say, 'This place is Romany Star, Sunteil,' and I'll say, 'All right, it's yours.' Wherever it may be. No matter who claims it at the moment. All I know is that it means a great deal to you, the possession of this Romany Star. All right. It means a great deal to me, becoming emperor. You can give me that. And then I'll give you Romany Star. What do you say, Yakoub?"
I studied him. It began to seem to me as though he genuinely did not know anything more of Romany Star than what he had told me. Making allowances for the fact that he was Sunteil, that he was a man of Fenix, that he was famed for his deviousness and his deceitfulness. Nevertheless he had sounded uncharacteristically muddled and irritated as he responded to my questions about Romany Star. My instincts told me that this once, at least, he was being sincere when he said that that was really all he knew. Which was too much for any Gajo to know; but it was not in fact very much.
"I need time to think about this," I said. "How much do you need?"
"I have advisors to consult. Options to weigh." "Are you in touch with Naria?"
"I don't see why I need to tell you that. But in fact I haven't heard a word from Naria since all this began. Only Periandros. Who is still begging me to ally myself with him."