The View from the Imperium Read Online Free PDF

and sub-races, sir,” Parsons said impatiently. “Loneliness would seem to be the least of your worries.”
    “I know,” I tried to explain, searching for words to describe my feelings of puzzlement and loneliness, “but it’s not the same. I mean, those people at the Academy were my peers. Nobility. The upper crust. The noted, even the notorious. Except for traveling, going shopping or to parties, or speaking to the staff in the Imperial Compound, I hardly ever really cross paths with anyone to whom I’m not distantly related at the very least.”
    “Think of it as a new experience, sir.” The door slid open, and my ADC urged me away from the mirror by getting in the way of my view. I attempted, without success, to see over his shoulder. It was no use. He used his superior height and maneuverability to thwart me no matter which way I shifted. With a snort of annoyance I finally gave up and tried to stare him down. Parsons’s long face wore no expression. I, as usual, blinked first. “Shall we go?” he asked.
    “Wait a millisecond,” I said urgently, though I knew I was delaying the evil moment just a little longer. “I want to take a picture of us on my first day of active service.” I reached into a hidden pocket I had had the Imperial tailoring service sew into my tunic seam and let go of a little gold globe, which floated out in front of Parsons’s impassive face. The Baltion Clic 4.0 was one of many cameras I had with me, part of my newfound passion for photography and image capture. I threw an arm around the adjutant’s shoulder and grinned at the ball. It twirled, blinking faster and faster. “Here it goes! Say ‘cheese’!”
    “Yes, sir,” Parsons said, with the same expression he had worn all along, as red-tinged light bloomed out of the globe in a blinding flare. The muscles in my eyes contracted painfully to protect my retinas, but I had recorded the glorious event. While I blinked away the glare Parsons put a firm hand in my back and urged me towards the door. “The admiral is waiting.”
    I snatched the ball out of the air just before the doors closed behind us.
    * * *
    “Are you certain that I shouldn’t make a grand entrance?” I asked, as we strode the grand corridor that led to the officers’ wardroom, knowing that my voice hovered near a whine. I could not help feeling petulant.
    “Absolutely not, sir,” Parsons stated firmly, not slowing up at all. I had to increase my pace to keep from being outdistanced by the man. “It would give the wrong impression. You must by all means hold to the structure of ship’s command. To do otherwise is to undermine the authority of her rightful commander.”
    “But it’s me, ” I stressed. “They don’t often get someone from the loftiest social circles, do they?”
    Parsons was unmoved. “Naval protocol does not permit exceptions, my lord. Even the Emperor himself would wait to be piped aboard.”
    Privately, I doubted it. I had lived in the Imperial Compound near the palace and played in it since I was a child, and I couldn’t recall a single instance when I didn’t look up and suddenly see my elevated cousin looking down over my shoulder with the greatest expression of disapproval, and not a knock or a genteel clearing of the throat to have been heard at any time preceding the discovery. Shojan had a positive knack for appearing where he was less than expected. In fact, the Imperial staff kept alarm beepers—discreet, of course; some as small as a millimeter across—to avoid having one’s regal master turn up when one was indisposed or slacking off one’s duties. Such things, sadly, were not available to mere relatives without a worthwhile profession to use as an excuse. He had once caught me and several of my close cousins when we were in the room next to the private wine cellars . . . but I digress.
    The memory of that setting threw my current location into a comparison less favorable than perhaps it deserved. After all, it