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The Birth of the Super-Saiyan
Chapter 2
Zarbon left the Minister of Finance's quarters with his ears ringing. Unlike the Minister of Personnel, who was a high-born but low-powered noble, the Minister of Finance was a warrior of first class formerly in the Domestic Guards. He had the sort of colorful vocabulary that often went with military service although, Zarbon thought dryly, the off-world troops were far more--expressive. The Minister stopped short of saying anything directly about Bulma, but there were a slew of unflattering comments directed at Zarbon that the warrior knew were meant for all aliens.
The Queen was in the outer chambers of the royal quarters, an area generally acknowledged to be more-or-less 'public' for the aides, staff, guards and courtiers. She looked up from comm monitor when the door swished back to let Zarbon in, gave him a wan smile, and said to the image on the screen, "Make sure Chi-chi gets that message, okay? I really need to talk to her."
"Well, it's the end of the school year for Gohan, dear, and you know how that completely consumes her."
"Just do your best. I've got to go, Mom. Zarbon's here."
"Do tell Radditz I said 'hi.'"
A wry twist rested for a second against Bulma's mouth. "Radditz is training like crazy; I hardly see him. I'll have Zarbon pass the message on."
"I hardly see him, either," Zarbon pointed out after she signed off. "His schedule is very tight right now; I've only seen him a couple of times in the last week."
Bulma pushed back from the monitor, smiling. She had tired eyes, Zarbon thought. The initial shock of finding out the 'employees' Vegeta provided for her were slaves had faded, but it resulted in a great deal of stress for the new Queen. It was not a deliberate deception; it simply did not occur to anyone on Vejiitasei that she could possibly object, let alone object vehemently. Zarbon himself had a certain furtive sympathy for the harem slaves, knowing only the luck of temporal placement saved him from such a fate, but his sympathy did not extend to all slaves. Demanding wholesale emancipation of the palace staff would never have occurred to him. Vegeta had given in to Bulma on the Engineering section--it, after all, consisted of new slaves obtained solely for the Queen's entertainment--but Bulma was finding her demand for complete independence falling on unsympathetic ears. The Engineering slaves were Bulma's, to free or destroy as she wished, stated Vegeta; hands off the rest of them. "It's all taken care of," he told her.
"I bet you got an earful."
"Some," Zarbon granted. "But everything's ready for your seal." He set the screen down in front of her, hoping the translation was accurate. He considered asking Radditz for help transcribing the Saiyan symbols to Earthling ones, but opted not to interrupt his friend right now. Radditz was training as if his life depended on it--and, even with all of his combat experience, the Saiyan was a lower level Elite, so it perhaps did.
The Queen read the text over, made a small moue, and carefully tapped in her code. She removed the data crystal and handed it to Zarbon. "I'd really appreciate it if you could expedite this," she said. "Some of the engineers have families they need to be getting back to. I've taken up enough of their time all ready."
So she did realize she was likely to be left with a fraction of her staff... "Are you going to be able to run the department, or should we see about getting more--?"
"No!" the Queen snapped with sudden heat. "No more slaves in my name, Zarbon."
"I was going to ask," said Zarbon after a moment, "if we needed to hire more staff for you."
The Queen grimaced slightly. "No. I expect we'll actually get a lot more done with the remaining workers now that they know they don't have to blindly agree with everything I say. It is understood, isn't it, that there are to be no slaves in the Capsule Corporation's factories when they go on line?"
"That's not a government operation, my Queen. What you do there is your concern."
After a moment, "I don't care what the rationale is," said the Queen, wearily. "I just want there to be no misunderstanding on this."
"I'll have the Minister of Personnel draw up a memo."
"Thank you," the new Queen said, still wearily. Zarbon lingered for a moment, loathe to leave her alone when she was in such a strange mood, but after a moment she raised her brows at him inquisitively and he remembered that she was in a hurry to get this done. And, in truth, the sooner it was done, the sooner the entire unpleasant episode could be put behind all of them. Bowing slightly, Zarbon went to finish his task.
One thing about doors on Earth, thought Bulma crossly, was that a lot of them could be slammed, and slammed really, really hard. The doors in the old stonework palace were annoyingly modern, tripped by DNA signals to selectively let one in (or not); there wasn't even a button that could be forcefully jabbed.
There had been some problems with her access codes the first week there. Despite orders to fix the fault fast, there continued to be doors, even in her own chambers, that refused to open for Bulma. Vegeta marched off one morning muttering that he had to do everything around here. And, whatever it was that he'd done, everything started working obediently for her within the hour. Bulma hoped he hadn't killed anyone; she was afraid enough that he had that she didn't ask. There were a lot of things she wasn't asking... Sighing, she went to stand just inside the open doors to the balcony--she couldn't actually step onto the balcony without putting on her harness first--and contemplated the two months spent in her new home.
She had known, intellectually, how isolated she was going to be. Between being the first Queen in a millennium, and an alien on top of it, even those who were willing to give her a chance weren't sure how they should act around her. The result was a sort of zone of inhibition around her, where everyone was carefully polite and kept their physical and emotional distance.
Except for Vegeta.
Bulma could hardly claim Vegeta was ignoring her. Far from it. Although he wouldn't actually let her say anything, he insisted that she sit in on some of the meetings with the Ministers and with foreign dignitaries, saying that if he had to be bored out of his skull then it was only fair that she share in the boredom. No official palace ceremony, however trivial, took place without the Queen at the King's side. And, just like on her home planet, she would be working away over the computer or be in Engineering going over diagrams with some of her engineers (her soon-to-be-freed engineers), feel the hairs on the back of her neck raise and turn around to find him in some part of the room, staring at her. Only now, he didn't drop his eyes; he would smirk, saunter over, and make some petty, snide remark. The engineers turned into gibbering, terrified idiots whenever he popped into the department--and little wonder, considering that all she would need to do was hint that she was unhappy with one of them and Vegeta would disintegrate the entire department and buy her a new one. Vegeta was so used to his right to terminate underlings he wouldn't even remember having done it half-an-hour later. When she realized that her own guards would also kill without question anyone she expressed displeasure with, Bulma began to govern even passing comments very carefully.
She governed her actions as well, something that was certainly a struggle for her. Although he had calmed down considerably, Vegeta displayed a very proprietary attitude towards his 'mate' during the first few days. Bulma's first indication that she would have to exercise care came after her visit to one of the "Halls" (as Saiyans termed their museums) that Vegeta thought would particularly appeal to her, the Hall of Machines. Walking back to the palace with her guards, she mentioned an especially complex contraption, secretly wishing Zarbon was there to at least feign interest. To her surprise, one of the guards, Chishan, responded with an enthusiasm that made the others break their usual wooden expressions to roll their eyes in a long-suffering manner. He had a collection of some of the ancient contraptions, he told her, relics from the days before everyone on the planet had enough ki to fly under their own power. He actually had gotten a few of them to put-put around, although most used a fuel source long since obsolete. Surprised that a Saiyan collected anything, let alone machines that he tried to fix, Bulma started asking specific questions about mechanics.
The two were talking animatedly when they re-entered the palace, near the public chambers where Vegeta was holding audience that day. Her guard cut off in mid-word suddenly, eyes wide and staring. Turning her head, Bulma saw Vegeta, talking to a dignitary but looking narrowed-eyed at her guard. It was Vegeta like she had never seen him before, all--puffy, his upswept hair in clumps of distinct spikes, his tail down and fluffed. Bulma wondered at first if he were standing too close to an electrical conduit, but Chishan suddenly stepped well away from her, attempting to merge with the again-wooden-faced guards around her. Vegeta's hair and fur smoothed. Blinking, Bulma realized she had just seen an aspect of her husband's rarely-witnessed animal side, an actual, perhaps even instinctive, threat display. Hoping to distract Vegeta from the hapless Chishan, Bulma trotted over to her husband, grinned at the dignitary and latched on to Vegeta's arm. The Saiyan King promptly begin to growl at her for acting like a damned Earthling, although (she noticed) he didn't actually shake her off, just scowled and hunched his shoulders and muttered about asinine alien customs.
The good news was that nothing negative had come of it, that Chishan had not either disappeared nor been reassigned, and that, although he conducted himself with excruciating care around her, there was at least one guard Bulma could talk to about something other than what her schedule was that day. It was a tiny thing, but it went a long way toward giving her a sense of normalcy in a world that she found increasingly surreal.
Her early attempts to go into the city also proved problematic, although for different reasons. She spent so much time peering between the shoulders of her guards she felt like she hadn't seen anything. Vegeta was completely paranoid about her safety during the first weeks after her arrival, insisting she needed the wall of guards to protect her from vague threats that she was sure existed solely in his imagination, leading to her dry comment that the only real threat she faced here would be a short in her harness. That remark was a mistake; Bulma spent the next week under virtual house arrest after Vegeta decided he wasn't going to trust his wife's life to some damn fool experimental alien technology. While she was coming to realize that a protective cocoon was the only way Vegeta knew to express his concern for her--and it was nice, she supposed, that he expressed it in some fashion--it put a real damper on her efforts to discover what Vejiitasei was really all about. As time passed, however, without either overt threats to her safety or any malfunctions in the gravity equipment, Vegeta began to calm down. She was finally able to leave the guards behind when she went to Engineering, and to have far fewer of them when she went about on the grounds. By the time of her coronation, the end of her first full month in Vejiitasei, Vegeta was less inclined to see threats lurking in every shadow and had even relaxed to the point of actually allowing media (although not the public) into the event.
Before her coronation, while Vegeta still wrestled with his fears, Bulma settled for short excursions around the Imperial grounds, which proved to be more far-reaching than the incorporated city itself. There was the ancient palace, a more-or-less cathedral-like, circular structure rumored built by the first Vegeta three millennia earlier. Wings had been added onto it by architectural-challenged descendants, then more additions were built onto the wings, until the entire structure, viewed from the air, resembled an early attempt at a spoked wheel diagram gone horribly awry. The original structure housed public offices and was open to all citizens at all hours. One of the Queen's first edicts was issued after she wandered into the public section out of the attached Imperial wing looking for Engineering, and found what seemed like a few thousand people suddenly flinging themselves to their knees in front of her. Bulma made it known that bowing was appropriate where she was concerned. The Imperial grounds also held the sprawling military compound that housed most of the several thousand off-world troops between missions, the headquarters of the planet-wide forces of the Domestic Guards, and various semi-public Halls of This or That.
Those early tours about the King's Grounds were informative. Although 'terrifying' was a more appropriate appellation to be applied to the military compound. Zarbon warned her to expect to spend the entire day in the huge complex; grumbling about the time she was going to miss with her engineers, Bulma complied. The tour was just what she expected; a bunch of Saiyans in spit-polished armor standing at attention, not sure what to do with her. Nappa introduced her to many Squad Commanders and Legion Commanders and she-forgot-what-else Commanders as he guided her through the massive dining halls and impressive training rooms. She was beginning to hope she was done when he said, "And this is the nursery." Expecting something like a day care center (and a little surprised Saiyans had day care centers), she walked unsuspectingly into a large, brightly lit, cavernous chamber with cylindrical tubes of all sizes, liquid seething and bubbling within. It all looked rather...industrial. "Where are the children?" she asked, innocently.
And Nappa proudly showed her.
Bulma gazed at the fetuses and near-term babies in their various forms of development as Nappa explained this was the primary depository for Saiyan offspring on the planet, feeling a squeamishness that had nothing to do with what she was looking at. Apparently, Saiyan women 'deposited' their children almost as soon as they realized they had conceived. There were advantages Bulma could appreciate to gestating a child outside the body (although the psychological effects of doing so, she thought, went a long way toward explaining the inherent coldness of Saiyan family life), but what truly disturbed her were that the babies' incubation chambers were in the sprawling military compound that took up more room than the archaic stone palace itself. It appalled her that the babies were housed with the warriors; but then, the babies were warriors, as far as the Saiyans were concerned.
She vowed then that any baby of hers was staying securely inside her body until it was ready to be born.
Sighing again, Bulma crossed her arms over her ribcage. Actually, she was glad her husband was calming down a bit. Things were about to change even more dramatically, and he would soon have to share her with someone else.
She hoped her mother remembered to get that message to Chi-chi. Fast.
It had been a long week, thought Zarbon wearily as he finally made it back to his quarters. Vegeta had him dashing about like crazy within moments of the Queen's unfortunate discovery about her 'workers;' finally, however, seals were set on everything, various Ministers had been soothed with reminders that the King would be very pleased with anyone who helped in this little matter with the Queen, and he might actually get some time to himself. He had precious little of that since Vegeta became King. Before the Bulma incident there had been the -- unfortunate -- incineration of the Arlian ambassador. It had taken quite a bit of smooth talking (and a veiled reminder that Vegeta could do the same to all of Arlia if he were annoyed enough) to smooth that snafu over. The new ambassador, at least, knew that the King had no sense of humor where his wife was concerned. It was clear Vegeta's court was going to be far less lively than that of the late King -- although some might consider the occasional exploding dignitary to be a break from courtly tedium,.
Hopefully Bulma would never hear about the late Arlian ambassador. In fact, there was a growing list of things Zarbon hoped Bulma never heard about. There had been some delicate moments during the ceremony when Vegeta lit the holograph of his father in the Hall of Rulers. The Queen remarked to one of her guards that it was good for Vegeta to remember his father like this, when he was healthy, before his long illness. The guard looked somewhat taken aback, since the image was an official one from the day of the King's death commemorating the holiday. Zarbon leaped from his post at the back to distract Bulma, frowning warningly at the guard. Nothing had come of it, but Bulma was always full of questions about Saiyan customs that he was having a hard time answering honestly. It was a good thing evasiveness came naturally to changelings, Zarbon thought dryly.
He looked at the comm station in the corner, wondering absently if he should call Radditz and see what he was doing, then smiled slightly and shook his head. Best to leave Radditz alone; the tournament started the next day, and although Radditz had drawn a late match that likely-as-not would put his first bout in another day or two, he was probably preparing and would not welcome an interruption. And at least it would include, finally, mental preparation; something a lower-level Elite would need when all the qualifying fighters were his power level or higher.
A few days after their argument Radditz came to him, grumpily, and asked for a refresher course on some of Zarbon's meditation techniques. Zarbon had been astonished but complied. It gave them something impersonal to discuss, and by the end of the session Zarbon felt, rather to his relief, that they were once again on even ground and that whole strange, painful scene could be safely ascribed to his own over-emotional state after the break-up with Sashoki. What was he thinking, leaning all over the poor guy when he knew Radditz had a thing for his kind? No wonder Radditz got the wrong idea. That Radditz was attractive in a sort of big, brawny, half-feral mammalian sort of way, that he was Radditz, after all, who had always been able to get to him in a way no other Saiyan could, were facts just better not contemplated. You're still off balance from all that weirdness with Sashoki, anyway. And you don't do fetish, remember? It's just hormones with him. It would end up costing you the one good friend you have on Vejiitasei--
Zarbon was prepared to muse on the cost of friendship for a few minutes, but the comm station suddenly beeped, a pattern that indicated a personal call. Zarbon's thin brows arched. Maybe Radditz needs some company after all. Or Freeza's checking in on me; I haven't heard from him in a couple of weeks. Settling into the chair, he put on a bright face, tapped the connect button and said, "Yes?"
Then stared.
But then, it had been a long time since Zarbon had been face-to-face, even via transmission beams, with a male of his own species.
"Baata, darling," Zarbon drawled after taking a moment to regain his equilibrium. He made himself comfortable, sitting back in the curved chair and drawing one knee up, eyeing the big reptilian warily. "Don't hear from you much these days."
Baata's response was an assessing stare. He was, thought Zarbon, an absolutely stunning specimen: beautiful smooth coloration, wide solid pupils, very nice prominent cephalic ridges. He found himself repressing a sudden grin, remember what they said about males with prominent cephalic ridges...
"What about you?" Baata's rumbling voice held a sarcastic edge. "You never write; you never call..."
"I'm very busy, baka," said Zarbon, then wish he could take the Saiyan slur back when he saw the ridges over the deep-set eyes raise.
"Quite the little mammal these days, aren't you?"
Zarbon sighed. Baata disapproved of the various forms those of Zarbon's gender could maintain. "Don't be petty. Just because you can't transform--"
"Or maybe that should be, quite the little Saiyan."
His slight feelings of nostalgia abruptly quenched. "Is this a pleasure call, Baata? Because so far I'm not enjoying myself."
After a pause, "I've been asked by the Council to pass a message to you," responded Baata.
Zarbon raised one of the hands wrapped around his knee, holding it palm out. "I'm not returning," he said, flatly.
"Zarbon, you're very valuable to our people."
A peeved note crept into Zarbon's voice. "And just a little while ago I was critiquing the way Saiyans pick partners. I perceive I should have been less harsh. My return would be pointless right now. I went through a cycle a couple of years ago; it'll be years before I'm receptive again."
"But that will give you time to form a breeding coterie and make nesting plans--"
"Baata, I can't leave Vejiitasei. I gave an oath of fealty to Vegeta; I can't break that. I'm not even sure he could release me from it if he wanted to. In any case, even if he said I could go home to breed, he would need me to return fairly quickly. I can't imagine raising a clutch on this gods-forsaken planet."
"You could," said Baata, "ask Freeza for sanctuary."
"Baata, please get this through your armor-plated head. I do not need to ask Freeza for sanctuary. I have no interest in breeding at this point in my life. And I do not want to come home. This is home now."
"Zarbon, you have a duty to our people," replied Baata, sternly. "You are rarest of our kind, the life-giver. Your loss would be incalculable. You have nearly sacrificed your life a dozen times in the service of the Saiyans, and a dozen times more when you worked for Freeza. You should never have become a warrior."
Zarbon raised his eyes -- males! They are always so overprotective! -- and said in barely-contained irritation, "I'm not the only one of my gender to be a warrior, and there are enough of my kind to ensure the race continues. One more antiquated comment about my 'duty' is going to get you permanently excluded from any breeding coterie I do form, Baata."
After a moment, "That's a firm 'no,' then," said Baata, sardonic.
Zarbon regarded Baata, simultaneously vexed and amused. He was a handsome devil; he would contribute to very attractive offspring. Although the Elders on the Council were not especially interested in breeding for appearance... Placating, "Baata, don't be cross," said Zarbon. "I know what the Council wants. I'm the strongest of my kind, and you are the strongest of all our race, ever. It's all just so -- cold, having the Council meddle in my personal decisions. Not to mention what a waste of my gifts breeding would be..."
"Your perverse loyalty to the Saiyan monstrosities is the waste, Zarbon," snapped Baata. "At least Freeza only required a warrior's oath from you; he knew you had to return to breed eventually. But to demand the oath of fealty --!"
"Stop right there." Zarbon's voice was suddenly soft and deadly. "Do not speak against my lord and master, Baata. I serve Vegeta willingly and freely. I am no slave to be freed. Do not suggest to anyone that I am."
A soft hissing noise escaped from Baata. "I will convey your answer to the Council," he said, his tone hard and formal.
Signing off, Zarbon grimaced at the blank screen. Great. The Elders are going to get an earful; and Lord Freeza too, most likely. He reminded himself that he was no longer Freeza's vassal; and, in any case, if Freeza wanted to get his side of it, all he had to do was call. His former master called often when Zarbon was on Vejiitasei, complaining that there was no one on his little, dark planet that could carry on a decent conversation.
He glanced at the chronometer and sighed. He had to get to sleep. In a few hours he would be at the tournament, where he would have to stand in the back of the Royal Box (with Nappa; there was no justice in the Universe) and listen to crowd noises in order to have a clue as to what was happening in the arena. Both Radditz and Vegeta warned him that he couldn't interfere in his friend's bouts. Zarbon wondered where he got this reputation for impetuousness, that Saiyans were constantly reminding him to calm down. Probably from the whole harem incident, when I met Sashoki, he acknowledged, wryly.
He wondered if the tournament for the King's Guards was negatively impacting Sash's plans by distracting eligible Elites from her tournament, then pushed the thought away. He was trying, usually successfully, not to think of Sash's decision to find a Saiyan husband (or, rather, to present herself as a prime breeding animal to what-ever dominant male came out on top). But he couldn't simply release his concern for her that easily.
He did understand the drive to reproduce, however. Sashoki was right; it tugged at him, occasionally. There were a few bad moments during his last cycle when he suddenly realized he might not have too many chances left. He managed, eventually, to push it aside, but the older he got, the stronger the nurturing urge seemed to get as well. He didn't think it was why he latched onto Vegeta; rather, Zarbon decided, something in training Vegeta brought out latent emotions that, with Vegeta grown and married, were seeking another outlet. In other words, Zarbon mocked himself, you're on the rebound…and not just from Sashoki! Best not to make any decisions soon; they're all likely to be stupid ones. Sighing, he went into his sleep chamber.
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