They all laughed, and Trud Silipan seemed to think his lecture had somehow cheered Trinli. Pham finished his little story without further interruption. Talk drifted on to speculation about Arachna's spider creatures. Ordinarily, Pham would soak up these stories with well-concealed enthusiasm. Today, his lack of attention was not an act. His gaze drifted back to the parlor's bar table. Benny and Qiwi were half out of sight now, arguing about some deal. Mixed in with all the Emergent insanity, Trud Silipan did have a few things right. Over the last couple of years, an underground had bloomed here. It wasn't the violent subversion of Jimmy Diem's conspiracy. In the minds of the Qeng Ho participants it wasn't a conspiracy at all, merely getting on with business. Benny and his father and dozens of others were routinely bending and even violating Podmaster dicta. So far Nau hadn't retaliated; so far, the Qeng Ho underground had improved the situation for almost everyone. Pham had seen this sort of thing happen once or twice before—when Qeng Ho couldn't trade as free human beings, and couldn't run, and couldn't fight.
Little Qiwi Lin Lisolet was at the center of it all. Pham's gaze rested on her wonderingly. For a moment, he forgot to glower. Qiwi had lost so much. By some standards of honor, she had sold out. Yet here she was, awake Watch on Watch, in a position to do deals in all directions. Pham bit back the fond smile he felt growing on his lips, and frowned at her. If Trud Silipan or Jau Xin ever knew how he really felt about Qiwi Lisolet, they would think him stark raving mad. If someone as clever as Tomas Nau ever understood, he might put two and two together—and that would be the end of Pham Trinli.
When Pham looked at Qiwi Lin Lisolet, he saw—more than he ever had before in his life—himself.True, Qiwi was female, and sexism was one of Trinli's peculiarities that was not an act. But the similarities between them went deeper than gender. Qiwi had been—what, eight years old?—when she had started on this voyage. She had lived almost half her childhood in the dark between the stars, alone but for the fleet's maintenance Watches. And now she was plunged into a totally different culture. And still she survived, and faced up to every new challenge. And she was winning.
Pham's mind turned inward. He wasn't listening to his drinking buddies anymore. He wasn't even watching Qiwi Lin Lisolet. He was remembering a time more than three thousand years ago, across three centuries of his own lifetime.
Canberra. Pham had been thirteen, the youngest son of Tran Nuwen, King and Lord of all the Northland. Pham had grown up with swords and poison and intrigue, living in stone castles by a cold, cold sea. No doubt he would have ended up murdered—or king of all—if life had continued in the medieval way. But when he was thirteen everything changed. A world that had only legends of aircraft and radio was confronted by interstellar traders, the Qeng Ho. Pham still remembered the scorch their pinnaces had made of the Great Swamp south of the castle. In a single year, Canberra's feudal politics was turned on its head.
The Qeng Ho had invested three ships in the expedition to Canberra. They had seriously miscalculated, thinking the locals would be at a much higher level of technology by the time of their arrival. But even Tran Nuwen's realm couldn't resupply them. Two of the ships stayed behind. Young Pham left with the third—a crazy hostage deal his father thought he was putting over on the star folk.
Pham's last day on Canberra was cold and foggy. The trip from the castle walls down to the fen took most of the morning. It was the first time he had been allowed to see the visitors' great ships close up, and little Pham Nuwen was on a crest of joy. There might never be a moment in Pham's life when he had so many things wrong and backwards: The starships that loomed out of the mists were simply landing pinnaces. The tall, strange captain who greeted Pham's father was in fact a second officer. Three subordinate steps behind him walked a young woman, her face twisted with barely concealed discomfort—a concubine? a handmaiden? The real captain, it turned out.
Pham's father the King gave a hand signal. The boy's tutor and his dour servants marched him across the mud, toward the star folk. The hands on his shoulders were holding tight, but Pham didn't notice. He looked up, wondering, his eyes devouring the "starships," trying to follow the sweeping curves of glistening maybe-metal. In a painting or a small piece of jewelry he had seen such perfection—but this was dream incarnate.
